The Frenzied Berserker: I'm Just Curious

[PallidPatience]

How is having to neutralize one of your own after every combat good role-playing?

 

[Hathur]

I dm'd a game with FB player in it..

Frankly, I was pleased with how my other CHARACTERS handled the discovery that the barbarian was a berserker...

You see, in their first battle where the FB frenzied and then turned on them, the party paladin pummeled him unconscious and turned him in to the local constabulary for attempted murder on the party.

The player was screaming mad, but the paladin player and others role played it out

"This lunatic suddenly turned on us, tried to kill Gorbine and nearly took the man's arm... he's clearly a troubled man and needs to be locked up."

Now that was REAL roleplaying... who in their right mind would travel with someone who might suddenly turn on you and kill you? A neutral/evil party would kill the FB in his sleep after discovering what he was (and who could blame them? A FB is a madman).. a Good party (like mine was) would turn him in to police for attempted murder.

 

[VirgilCaine]

"This lunatic suddenly turned on us, tried to kill Gorbine and nearly took the man's arm... he's clearly a troubled man and needs to be locked up."

Sounds a lot like Rambo: First Blood.

If D&D were a point buy system all the characters totals would go down by ten.

That guy's lucky. A less forgiving party might put him down like the animal he had become.

 

[Hathur]

Sounds a lot like Rambo: First Blood.

If D&D were a point buy system all the characters totals would go down by ten.

That guy's lucky. A less forgiving party might put him down like the animal he had become.

The party didn't kill him on the spot only because they had adventured a lot before hand, and the barbarian wasnt a FB then... so they had a good rapport with the character... but when he suddenly turned on the party with no evidence of magical or supernatural influence and tried to kill them, they wanted to subdue him if possible... the paladin didn't see it as just to kill him, seeing as how the barbarian had done a great deal of good before the incident... however, despite their friendship, attempted murder could be no tolerated by the paladin (nor the other mostly Lawful characters), so they did what they felt was right and turned him in.

A neutral party would have just (rightfully) killed the FB on the spot.

As a DM, I can't see how any character could travel with a FB... the players are no longer role playing and are clearly using game knowledge to take advantage of the situation. "It's ok, we know he'll go nuts but we;ll use magic to try to stop him until he calms down... he makes a good tank." .... in reality, no party would accept this - they'd ditch the lunatic on the spot, kill him or tie him up and leave him on the side of the road.

Would you, personally, ever knowingly travel with someone that you knew would slit your throat if you said something to upset him?

An evil party might use the FB as a puppet, a tool... but otherwise, most other adventurers would never risk their lives to traveling with a FB -- they have enough trouble to worry about without having to constantly look over their shoulders because the FB stubbed his toe on a rock and entered a murderous frenzy.

 

[airwalkrr]

I dm'd a game with FB player in it..

Frankly, I was pleased with how my other CHARACTERS handled the discovery that the barbarian was a berserker...

You see, in their first battle where the FB frenzied and then turned on them, the party paladin pummeled him unconscious and turned him in to the local constabulary for attempted murder on the party.

The player was screaming mad, but the paladin player and others role played it out

"This lunatic suddenly turned on us, tried to kill Gorbine and nearly took the man's arm... he's clearly a troubled man and needs to be locked up."

Now that was REAL roleplaying... who in their right mind would travel with someone who might suddenly turn on you and kill you? A neutral/evil party would kill the FB in his sleep after discovering what he was (and who could blame them? A FB is a madman).. a Good party (like mine was) would turn him in to police for attempted murder.

I really like this way of handling it. Good show.

 

[GwydapLlew]

*shrug* As always, I'm going to come down on the side of "What's the beef about the Frenzied Berserker?"

There are plenty of people who say, "No one would ever travel with this person!" I disagree, and in my opinion making the broad assumption that anyone who would do otherwise is choosing to ignore reality and instead allow metagame aspects (it's a PC, etc.) to factor into the game.

Horse hockey.

I've been running a high-level FR game for the last several years, and the leader of the party is a Frenzied Berserker. She's also a raving lunatic, and was one before she took any levels in the PrC. Why do the other PCs put up with it?

- One PC genuinely cares for her character, and is trying to help her fulfill her quest in the hopes that she will heal over time.
- One PC worships Jergal, and finds her ability to generate as many corpses as he needs quite useful.

They don't do it 'just because she's a PC' - the PCs have come to blows over the awesome differences in ideology and religion in the game - but they do it because the PCs have all found a reason to work with one another.

 

[Sarellion]

There are a few special cases that were already mentioned, like loved ones etc. but most groups in general would probably ditch a Frenzied Berserker.

Most of the replies about ditching a FB as good roleplay were after Razz made his broad sweeping comments that can be summarized into: Learn to roleplay noobs, put up with a frenzied Berserker, if you don´t like that he tries to kill you in his berserk rage, you are only able to enjoy hack and slash.

So it´s just people exchanging broadsides of broad general comments.

 

[chaos2600]

We're four sessions into a short campaign, 15th level, intending to run about ten sessions or so. Backstory is the group of heroes parted ways years ago and have to get back together to take out the Big Bad. With the other player's approval I'm running an FB and it's been a contributing factor to some of the most intense roleplaying our group's done in the ten years we've been gaming together. Good stuff.

I think the main trick was making sure everyone was cool with the characters drawbacks and the affect it would have on the party and tone of game play. We talked about it before the campaign and again after an NPC was "accidentally" chopped in half last session. Everyone's into it and the class fits the backstory and campaign very nicely...much better than a straight-ahead barbarian.

 

[lukelightning]

Speaking of roleplaying, what's wrong with just playing a barbarian and roleplaying that when the character is raging he needs some "talking down" from the other characters to get him out of his rage?

Honesly, I think that Frenzied Berzerker players just want an excuse to do some PvP without being held accountable. "Sorry about killing your character, but it wasn't me, it was my class feature!"

 

[airwalkrr]

Honesly, I think that Frenzied Berzerker players just want an excuse to do some PvP without being held accountable. "Sorry about killing your character, but it wasn't me, it was my class feature!"

I agree. It seems to me like the players who want to try this class are always the ones who are most likely to instigate pvp in the first place.