WotC advice: Disallow the Frenzied Berserker Prestige Class?

[Agent Oracle]

How to nerf frenzied berserker:

Add prerequisite: Wildshape, sneak attack 3d6, and ability to cast 3rd level spells.

There, we just burned off 14 levels of player advancement.

 

[Fat Daddy]

WotC is actually not composed of formians or any other hive-minded creature. Maybe the folks who edited the Complete Warrior think it's fine while this article's author thinks it's problematic.

More to the point, the advice isn't that the FB should be utterly banned, but rather than some PrC's are inappropriate for some campaigns. Prestige classes were never portrayed as something a player is entitled to.

This is not WotC saying anything. This is Jason Nelson-Brown writing an article to help DMs with out of control PCs and using the Frenzied Berserker as an example in passing. No responsibility to errata the class is implied. If the article wasn't posted on the WotC site, would this even be an issue?

While I do understand and appreciate that WotC is not some sort of hive-mind, I do think that when an article is posted on the company's official site, it becomes more than a single author's opinion, it becomes company opinion.
Also I did say

Personally, I disallow a lot of classes if I think they will disrupt party balance

So the easy fix is for the DM to take the class out of the mix.

 

[S'mon]

Well, IMO the class was a bad mistake and it's good that WoTC recognises that. You could write an article nerfing it into balance (a la "The Corrected Cavalier" in Dragon long ago), but that was outside the scope of that article.

 

[Jarrod]

Ask yourself:

As an adventurer, do I really want to be running around with some guy who can stub his toe, freak out, and kill me?

The answer (for me, at least) is HECK NO. That's the thing - FB doesn't make a good PC class because the other PCs should be scattering to the four winds as soon as one shows up. As an enemy they can be fine.

 

[wayne62682]

I find the article funny because my group had a new player join and that's just what he made.. a Frenzied Berzerker, despite my pointing out that it's a psychopath and WILL kill the rest of the party at some point. Yet I'm the only person who seems to care that he's going to (not if, WHEN) go ballistic and kill all of us. Hell, the party wizard isn't concerned because she's always a good distance away from the rest of us.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Just another example of an "issue" that people are getting all worked up over for nothing.

 

[Knight Otu]

I would too, if that's what the article actually said. However, what the writer actually said was that if a given PrC is giving you problems, in the same way that a spell or a magic item or a feat might give you problems, you as the DM should disallow it in your game. In other words, it's simply reaffirming the standard line that a DM is the final authority for what should and should not be allowed in a game.

He could very easily have picked a different PrC, but, let's face it, Fren Bezerker tends to get a lot of airplay because it is pretty high on the power band.

I'm with Hussar. The Frenzied Berserker was just an example to illustrate and remind that the DM can and should disallow things that he thinks are disruptive to the game flow, whether by being broken, team-disruptive, or whatever.

(And the FB is very team-disruptive, IMNSHO)

 

[FireLance]

I don't allow the Frenzied Berserker in my games because I don't like the idea of a PC being a potential danger to the rest of the party (more so than normal, anyway). I've heard that some other DMs find that it works fine in theirs, though.

Then again, I allow plenty of stuff that others have found to be overpowered or broken, or which they simply don't like, such as the Knight, the Warblade, the Duskblade, the Warlock, and stuff from the Book of Exalted Deeds, the Book of Nine Swords, Magic of Incarnum, etc.

It's just a question of gaming and DMing styles. What works fine in one group may not work well in another, even if it is run by the same DM for the same players.

 

[Cadfan]

For crying out loud.

Hasn't everyone figured out yet that WOTC encourages very free form, customized games?

Every other article of this sort they publish has a paragraph or so of house rules. Are we supposed to flip out every time that happens because we interpret it to mean that "wotc" thinks that the game needs house ruled? Or could we perhaps just interpret it to mean that wotc thinks individualized games with individually allowed or disallowed material is the best way to go?

I think that's why they don't errata much. They expect that DMs will be customizing and picking and choosing already, and don't need the interference.

 

[James Jacobs]

I think that's why they don't errata much. They expect that DMs will be customizing and picking and choosing already, and don't need the interference.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. What's good for one game isn't necessarilly good for all. And if you disallow the frenzied berserker, it's not like there's not a billion other prestige classes to still choose from. Ceratinly, the more books you allow in your game, the more broken cross-book combos become. But I kind of agree with Jason; the frenzied berserker's a bit too much.

I can't help but wonder if Jason (who is a player in my Saturday game) was influenced by the frenzied berserker barbarian formorian giant that I threw at the party last year. That menace got down to -300 hit points and had half the party on the ground dead or close to dying before they took him down...