Dwarven Battlerager - Hows it gonna play out?

[Iron Sky]

Our first level Dwarven BRV with a 16 CON soaked up 88 temporary hit points in the BBEG fight last night. About 18 of that was invigorating.

So, ~70 points of damage from BRV.

That's the equivalent of giving the hit points of a 13th level Fighter to a 1st level PC. That's the equivalent of 5 Healing Words (from an 18 Wis Cleric) without using up a single Healing Surge or a single minor action.

Toughness gives 5 hit points. If Toughness gave even half of this many hit points (35) at first level, people would be screaming about lack of balance and how every PC would take Toughness.

And this is with a 16 CON. An 18 CON Dwarf would have stopped more.

Any idea how many temp hp it would have been if my "fix" was applied (only get BRV temps from marked enemies)?

 

[KarinsDad]

Any idea how many temp hp it would have been if my "fix" was applied (only get BRV temps from marked enemies)?

It was one BBEG and eventually two smaller summoned creatures (one of which did not show up until mid-combat). So, maybe 75% of the temp hit points or about 50 hit points were from the BBEG which the Fighter had marked almost the entire time.

 

[Trebor62]

I have treated the Temp hit points as coming from two sources, being hit and hitting with an Invigorating attack. I also apply the same bonuses dont stack rule. Thus for a CON 16 rager the most temp hit points would be six at any one time. Three for rager and three for invigorating. Additional temp point from rager or invigorating would not stack with themselves which limits the total THP to a maximum of 6 at anyone time.

Keeping track is also simplified as your THP hit point states tend to be zero, three, and six; frequently only three and six in melee.

The fact that the Invigorating point can only be gained once a turn weither you hit multitimes with the power or us multiple powers says to me that the Invigorating point cannot stack with themselves within a turn and I for myself have extended that to no stacking across truns. Thus the limit of 6 THP for a con 16 rager.

I have found this to work quite well.

 

[franzel]

I have treated the Temp hit points as coming from two sources, being hit and hitting with an Invigorating attack. I also apply the same bonuses dont stack rule. Thus for a CON 16 rager the most temp hit points would be six at any one time. Three for rager and three for invigorating. Additional temp point from rager or invigorating would not stack with themselves which limits the total THP to a maximum of 6 at anyone time.

I don't understand the problem you're trying to solve. THPs never stack unless you use an invigorating power, in which case those stack when they are added. After they are added, you still only have the one pool of THP (there are never separate pools). If you are hit, then the damage is deducted from your pool and you might regain THP if the attack was a melee or close attack AND the amount to be gained is more than your current THP pool. Rinse and repeat.

And as to your limits, the problem isn't the base CON of 16 granting 3 THP from a hit or 3 from an invigorating power, the problem is that you can modify the amount with two feats at heroic levels, Improved Vigor and Dwarf Stoneblood. At 8th level (assuming you're increasing CON and now have an 18), you gain 7 from being hit and 5 from an invigorating power.

 

[kreat]

So I'm playing a Dwarf Battlerager, level one with KarinsDad there

So just to clarify I did take 88 damage in the fight, I did take my second wind and got at least one heal - I think I got 2. I was bloodied several times in the fight and on 3 occasions was down to 2 hp before healing. So about a third of that was healing. I still have my sheet at home and can tell you how much was straight temp HP and how much healing I got - some of that number may have been the previous encounter too. I just added up how much damage I had taken on my sheet.

I'm honestly on the fence on if it is too much or not. Currently I only gain 3 temp hp. Most of the time I only had 3, a few times I had 6, twice in 4 or 5 encounters I got up to 9. One encounter I went down, and on many occasions I've been down to 2 or 3 HP before a heal. I almost always have to use my second wind and need healing to stay alive. For me the question is - if it stays that way as I level up then its balanced, if my temp hp outpace the damage dealt then it isn't.

So - on paper I think it looks very powerful to rack up temp hp, in practice I've soaked up the parties healing to keep me alive and defending. In a way that sounds balanced to me. I have an 18st/16con so I hit more and gain less temp HP.

Admittadly with a craghammer and the warlord in the party I was dishing out some pretty good damage actually, I've gotten into the 20s without a crit on a 1W power and into the 30s a couple of times as well with my encounter/dailies.

 

[kreat]

So just to throw our some real numbers.


I'm a 18str/16con fighter, 21 hp, 18ac

During our last fight with the BBEG I took a total of 88 HP in damage

I recieved a total of 33 HP in temporary hit points
I recieved 33 hp in healing and a second wind

I ended with 9 hp

I was down to 2 or 3 hp twice in the fight

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm a 18str/16con fighter, 21 hp, 18ac

I'm a 18str/16con fighter, 31 hp, 18ac

Fixed that for you.

And yes, when I asked you how many temp hit points you took, you must have thought I asked hit points and told me 88. That was a miscommunication on our part, it was 88 damage total.


So the bottom line is that you took 55 of real damage and 33 of temp hit point damage. As if your normal hit points had doubled, similar to the hit points of a 7th level Fighter for a 1st level PC.


Note: Fighting minions (which almost always do 4 points of damage at low level) instead of a BBEG (with no healing and no Second Wind, or it gets much worse) could theoretically result in 28 hits doing 31 real damage and 84 temporary hit points of damage until the PC goes to 0 hit points. As if your normal hit points had almost quadrupled, similar to the hit points of a 17th level Fighter for a 1st level PC. Granted, this would not occur in the game, but minions are not really even a minor threat to a BRV Fighter.

When it comes to minions, I'm really not on the fence here. Minions were never considered by the designer of the BRV rules. He dropped the ball completely there and did not consider all of the game rules.


Either way, Toughness is still 5 hit points.

BRV is easily dozens of hit points in real game practice (33 in this example).

 

[kreat]

The 33 was from BRV and Invigorating and in that fight only once did I have more than 3 total temp HP

 

[Trebor62]

I don't understand the problem you're trying to solve. THPs never stack unless you use an invigorating power, in which case those stack when they are added. After they are added, you still only have the one pool of THP (there are never separate pools). If you are hit, then the damage is deducted from your pool and you might regain THP if the attack was a melee or close attack AND the amount to be gained is more than your current THP pool. Rinse and repeat.

And as to your limits, the problem isn't the base CON of 16 granting 3 THP from a hit or 3 from an invigorating power, the problem is that you can modify the amount with two feats at heroic levels, Improved Vigor and Dwarf Stoneblood. At 8th level (assuming you're increasing CON and now have an 18), you gain 7 from being hit and 5 from an invigorating power.

I wasn't trying to solve any problem. I was simply stating how I handle THP's and Invigorating. I guess my example was not clear enough but I do agree there is ultimately only one pool of hit points.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Second experience tonight...after I was unstoned.

We found a "Fight your way through a giant courtyard full of minions" battle. It took a long time for us to make it to the edge of the board, but I arrived in almost full health (minus the original 6HP the first minion did when it hit). I don't know exactly how many times I was hit by minions but I always had plenty of THP to soak up the attacks. At one point I was up to 18 THP getting 4 per attack stacking on my stack.

It was the ideal situation for the low-THP battlerager.

DS