Dwarven Battlerager - Hows it gonna play out?

[JiffyPopTart]

I am not sure just how quickly the 10 THP guy was gonna go down.

He had the Distortion Cloak to eliminate a lot of ranged attacks hitting him.

He ended up with 17 healing surges at 22 points apiece.

He had every fighter power I could take that had some sort of healing or regen or damage reducing ability.

On top of that he had dwarven chain and lots of healing potions.

The new 4 THP guy should be kinda fun. He isn't necessarily set to do tons of damage. Instead I took the -2 to saves with your hammer feat (sorry, I forget the name of everything) and took all the powers I could find to do status effects to folks in combat. I added on a Resounding Maul to get an extra daze in a day, which IMHO is the worst status you can put on someone...except maybe dead.

DS

 

[BobTheNob]

Dwarven Battlerager (hehehe). Im sure it will be a completely unstoppable character. Absolutely, practically unkillable....

If you are new to the forums just search a bit, you will find thread after thread after thread on the BR as it is probably the single most controversial things in the entire game, a fighter build that makes all other fighter builds (/tanks, /melee options) look pitiful by comparison.

Myself, and many many other DM's have taken the simple stance that BR's are far too OP and removed from the game. Others disagree, thats their perogative, but given the amount of bru-har this build raises I have to say "Where there is smoke there is fire"

Its entirely up to your group how you approach this, but I can say that by removing the BR our game is not neccesarily better off...but it certainly isnt worse off

 

[JiffyPopTart]

In our group we self-censor our characters. If a particular feat/item/skill/whatever ends up being poorly thought out we just pick something else or try to rebalance the item in question until it fits in with everything else. If someone hates their character they are encouraged to change it to have more fun, or swap out with something else if that works too.

We also avoid trying to "beat the system" by finding loopholes in the rules and exploiting them. Its supposed to be a fun time for everyone, including the GM. When you only have small amounts of time to play each week why fill it with annoyance?

That's what I love about playing with mature adults who are friends first and DnD players second.

Specifically I asked about how it would play out because I wanted someone who had actually tried one to let me know how it was going to work, not just to hear that it had been banned before even seeing the light of day.

Remember the Maine Mystic Theurge!

DS

 

[chaotix42]

Specifically I asked about how it would play out because I wanted someone who had actually tried one to let me know how it was going to work, not just to hear that it had been banned before even seeing the light of day.

I didn't try one myself, but one of my player's did - dwarven battlerager with the stoneblood feat. He was set up as a 1-hand weapon talent fighter with a shield, and just switched his class feature and took the feat at the same time. He used it for only a few sessions before I decided it was too much for our game.

The fighter really wasn't threatened unless artillery/controller monsters focused on him, and it took the efforts of practically every melee monster to make him sweat at all if there weren't the earlier types present in the encounter. In either case it took an inordinate amount of attention from too many monsters to even scratch the fighter's paint. If I wanted to to threaten him, the other players went through the encounter largely unscathed. If I went for the other players, the fighter was barely hurt at all facing down 1 or 2 foes at a time.

I would suggest you try it out for yourselves. Artillery and controllers will hassle any fighter well, and interesting terrain will hinder a battlerager like any other fighter. Maybe you guys can get it to work - for my game it felt way overpowered.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I will keep you guys posted on how a 4THP battlerager works when I get a chance to slot him in the game. This week we are taking a week off actual gaming and having a brainstorm session to address a few things...

1. Who is playing what new characters (since 2 of us were captured by the BBEG last week and another person is sick of their character and nobody wanted to ransom our characters out).

2. Figure out whats up with our loot wackyness in the party. The rogue only has 6k of equipment for an 8th level character.

DS

 

[BobTheNob]

In our group we self-censor our characters. If a particular feat/item/skill/whatever ends up being poorly thought out we just pick something else or try to rebalance the item in question until it fits in with everything else. If someone hates their character they are encouraged to change it to have more fun, or swap out with something else if that works too.

We also avoid trying to "beat the system" by finding loopholes in the rules and exploiting them. Its supposed to be a fun time for everyone, including the GM. When you only have small amounts of time to play each week why fill it with annoyance?

That's what I love about playing with mature adults who are friends first and DnD players second.

Specifically I asked about how it would play out because I wanted someone who had actually tried one to let me know how it was going to work, not just to hear that it had been banned before even seeing the light of day.

Remember the Maine Mystic Theurge!

DS

Well respecting your position. Our group is exactly the same: All mature players that are friends first with little time to play per week. (the kids are taking up the rest of the time)

Best of luck coming to a decision on the BR that works for your group

 

[SteveC]

For what it's worth, I found the battlerager to be the only class option in 4E that I won't be allowing in my upcoming D&D game. I am currently running Thunderspire Labyrinth after Keep on the Shadowfell, and I did it in a "everything is in" sort of way. The dwarven battlerager is far too effective for what he gives up (he loses 1 attack point). It's actually not too bad in my estimation that there's only one class that I feel that way about in the current edition, but it's definitely a no-go.

I think you'll enjoy the character, but I've found it can generate far too many temporary HP by simply standing in and taking hits. Unless the GM metagames it and hits the character disproportionally with ranged attacks, it's far too effective in my opinion.

--Steve

 

[evilgenius8000]

If you're at all worried about not doing enough damage, stack Potent Challenge on top of your Dwarven Weapon Training. Then, with your Execution Axe, you'll be adding your Str Mod + Con Mod + 2 (DWT) + 2 (Battlerager) on all attacks against foes you've marked. Add that to powers like Brash Strike (which incidentally gives a +2 to the attack roll...) that already get bonus damage equal to your Con, you'll be doing some respectable damage.

Like someone said before, I wouldn't go Con over Str, mainly due to the fact that if you're not hitting anything they won't be hitting you back to keep your temp HP (and, by extension, your damage bonus) up, and also due to the fact that, honestly, you're a pretty good damage dealer.

 

[J. R. Scherer]

The main reason I don't like the battlerager option and why we needed to rebuild one of the new PC fighters was that it just a serious pain for the battlerager's player to keep track of the temporary hit points all the time.

 

[darkwing]

I don't think a BRV build's main problem is that it's "overpowered" in the traditional sense. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But either way, that's not why it's a bad idea. I like to think of it as "differently powered." It lacks a certain stickiness and trades offense for defense. The problem with this is it's boring.

From my own personal experience playing one, I was somewhat disappointed. Not really with the battlerager power itself, I never really had a problem keeping track of THPs and our DM can make life painful if he chooses to do so. But I was disappointed with the inability to hit things consistently with anything other than brash strike. Can other powers still hit? Of course they can. But their inconsistency really limits the usefulness of powers like tide-of-iron. "I really want to knock this guy into the pit... but I've got less than 50/50 chance of hitting him and he gets a save vs. falling anyway... brash strike." Also, getting ignored sucks as a fighter. I felt the "only" stickiness I had was the mark. Our DM is good about monsters attacking the character that marked them, but 1 enemy out of X total enemies doesn't seem to matter much (other than in single enemy encoutners). OAs barely seemed to matter at all.

To summarize, the BRV build should be avoided not because it's OP, but because it's boring. I'm going to give mine one or two more nights then decide if I should ask the DM for a new character.