D&D 5E Berserker - How does it really compare to Totem Warrior?

AaronOfBarbaria said:

Intentionally making a 20th level berserker immune to the exhaustion of Frenzy, or had the number of rages per long rest going from 6 to unlimited at that level slip your mind? Not a judgement, just a curiousity.

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Nope, I am perfectly okay with a Barbarian having the ability to Frenzy as many times as he likes at level 20.

Thanks for all the responses.

I'm not here to tell anyone that they are wrong to enjoy the Berserker as-is. I'm not a super-power-optimizer either. But I like to understand my game balance, and I like to make sure my fixes are rare, simple, and do what I intend them to do.

First, I should say that I'm not convinced that immunity to charmed and frightened is as impressive as some opinions are saying. I've classified them into the "rest of the sub-class" that appears to be balanced with Berserker, as mentioned in my earlier post. Also, it seems to me that something is definitely broken if you take a sub-class and don't use its primary defining feature.

So I did some math. I compared the Frenzy feature to the Polearm Master feat. (I assumed the Polearm Master would get to use their reaction for an attack one in every five rounds. It is likely to be more often than that.) It is a good feat, but it can't be called broken without other shenanigans. I took it at 4th level, because I am not assuming a variant human. I assumed the barbarian begins with a Strength 16 and maxes it as soon as possible. I assumed the Berserker is wielding a greatsword and the Polearm Master wields a glaive. I compared the damage increase over a standard greatsword-wielding barbarian with neither Frenzy nor Polearm Master, presenting results as a percentage increase over the baseline. I figured this out for 8 different adventuring day configurations, and using Frenzy either 1, 2, or 3 times. This is what it looks like.



When Frenzy leaves the character more than a point or two behind Polearm Master in daily damage percentage increase I indicate it in red. When the opposite is true, I indicate it in blue. If they are very close, I leave it in black. This is an average over levels 3-20. (I checked to see if the values remained the same if 20th-level were removed from the equation. There were some minor changes in favor of Frenzy, but nothing sufficient to change the colors.)

I did not take into account the reduced combat effectiveness of the Berserker after the first Frenzy due to reduced initiative and speed, but this would drag their numbers down by a little bit more (turning most or all of those blacks red).

What I see here is that the only place the Berserker's Frenzy shines is if they have a very short adventuring day and Frenzy on just about every fight.

Only Frenzying once per day will leave them in the dust compared to a barbarian with the Polearm Master feat, and will have a pretty pathetic overall damage increase in general. It would make this feature utterly insignificant compared to other subclass options.

I submit that this is likely not what the designers intended, and that it is sufficiently imbalanced compared to the alternative as to be a legitimate objective problem.

In the final column, I've provided a comparison of how much damage is increased if the Berserker can Frenzy on every rage without suffering any Exhaustion. They have great nova potential in a short adventuring day, but classes are balanced around a longer day (just ask Mr. Warlock about his rests). It looks like they are in the range of 10% higher than Polearm Master for adventuring days of 6 encounters, and then start dropping down after that. So the question is, is the benefit in the final column too good balance-wise, or is it about right?

You can't compare a class ability to a feat. The whole point of feats is that they're added on top of everything else; a character with a combat-related feat should do more damage than a character without one. I mean, the frenzying barbarian could also be using Polearm Master. It's like comparing a naked character to one with magic weapons. You need to compare class ability to class ability (and even then, most of them aren't 1:1 comparisons.)

Ahglock said:

Exhaustion should just be easier to reduce whether or not the berserker exists. You can be beaten down to the edge of death and through natural healing be right as rain in the morning. Grater restoration can return you from being turned to stone but it can only cure one level of exhaustion. Spending a hit die at a rest should cure a level of exhaustion, lesser restoration should cure one level, greater restoration all levels.

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I was about to suggest that instead of Frenzy giving the Barb one level of exhaustion it should cost a hit die.

However, if anyone could reduce their level of exhaustion by one step on a short rest by expending a hit die for that purpose, then job done.

As is, the exhaustion cost is far, far too high.

I let my Berserker recover a level of exhaustion 3/day with a Short Rest. Seems to work.

Edit: Actually thinking about it, I've not been tracking his exhaustion & last session he raged 3 times w/out a rest... I'm pretty sure there were at least 2 Berserks in there.

I think especially in a game that uses Feats, which give plenty of other ways to get a Bonus attack, it works fine just to eliminate the Exhaustion entirely. Because going into Rage is a Bonus action the Berserker only
gets his bonus attack on round 2+. With fights typically going about 3 rounds, that's a major
limiter straight off.

I don't agree. One of the big issues with the frenzy attack is it's a bonus attack easily replicated by a feat. The frenzy barbarian can take pole arm master they gain no benefit from the d4 when using your main ability. Yeah a 3rd Collumn would be nice frenzy barbarian with pole arm master but showing that your big bonus is easily replaced by something similar is a valid method of evaluating a class feature. And if this is your sub class defining feature it being trumped by a feat seems kind of weird. Martial adept is a weaker version of a battle masters ability not better.

knew I should of got quote. Directed at 3 posts up.

Mouseferatu said:

You can't compare a class ability to a feat. The whole point of feats is that they're added on top of everything else; a character with a combat-related feat should do more damage than a character without one. I mean, the frenzying barbarian could also be using Polearm Master.

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Since the primary benefit of both is to get a Bonus Attack, that'd be a bit pointless.

S'mon said:

Since the primary benefit of both is to get a Bonus Attack, that'd be a bit pointless.

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Okay, that particular combo may be pointless, I agree. My point, though, was that the two comparisons aren't apples to apples.

Mouseferatu said:

Okay, that particular combo may be pointless, I agree. My point, though, was that the two comparisons aren't apples to apples.

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I don't think it was meant to be. I think it was just showing easily replaced sub class defining features probably are not working as intended.

But pole arm master in a frenzy barbarian isn't pointless as his damage won't drop off when he has more encounters than frenzies.

AaronOfBarbaria said:

I think their ability to use their rage as immunity to the charmed and frightened conditions is potent enough to remove any need for something they don't already have.

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please don't understand me wrong. I think the berserker is fine. The issue I see is that he gets an ability that looks like it should be used more often, but is actually about 1/day at most. That is more or less a perception problem. I thought you could prevent that misconception by adding an always on feature. Lowering exhaustion maybe a DC 20 constitution check at the end of a short rest may be an idea. But maybe that would worsen the problem, because now you frenzy and hope for a good roll.
Maybe just ignoring exhaustion during a rage or frenzy would be better. So you can rage and rage again, but you will pay the price afterward. Or something not related to exhaustion. I don't know. A ribbon feature like the speak with animals from the totem barbarian would be ok. It is just having your only feature sitting around the whole day doing nothing is a bit disappointing.