If your problem with Frenzy is that it doesn't fit the concept of the berserker (an argument I find much more compelling than the balance claims), why not keep the fix simple? Frenzy is usable once per day, end of story. You don't suffer the exhaustion penalty afterward, but you also don't have the option to use it multiple times, and everyone understands that a "once per day" resource is meant to be conserved for big fights.
D&D 5E Berserker - How does it really compare to Totem Warrior?
happyhermit
Adventurer
1.5 allies seems conservative to you? Not just in melee, but attacking a creature adjacent to you, correct? With all the talk of the dominance of ranged attacks and all the casters with decent damage cantrips, I am surprised to hear that so many characters would be in such close quarters melee. I wonder you are running more dungeon crawls or urban games.
My experience 5e is mostly TOTM, outdoors or in large caverns or ruins, and with 5 players or less. I prefer sandboxy games, so enemies range from tons of easy to defeat, to ones so large that they cannot be killed conventionally, and the enemies don't follow any rules of "Mook Chivalry" or similar. Very few enemies will group up, many more will disperse and try to circle around to the ranged attackers (and casters). IME, a lot of players really dig the hit and run, ambushes, and alternative tactics that have been easier and more fun in this system. The few players who play melee characters are much more likely to spread out to protect the ranged ones, or for the rogues and monks; jump all over the map. The barbarian is very likely to charge into melee, often to attack the back ranks, but he isn't likely to wait for the slower fighter. Maybe the fighter will catch up, and he will have 1 ally in melee with an adjacent enemy, but not for most of the fight, and 2 would be exceedingly rare.
I honestly don't think I have seen an average of 1 ally in melee adjacent for the barbarian. Now, I have no idea how uncommon this is in the general community, it is just what I have seen.
This varies greatly for me. My AL group has a melee rogue, a great weapon Paladin and a Moon Druid. I almost rolled a wolf Barbarian, but decided to go with Shield Master Battle Master Fighter (it fit my character concept better and basically fills the same role). But the group that I GM for has only 1 melee character, the Berserker Barbarian.
This is what I have done in the past before. I used it to test out my Halfling Rogue build back in 4e. For me its good fun
CapnZapp
Legend
Luckily you can and should consider that to be just another straw man.
The problem with Berserker isn't it's lack of offense. In fact, that's an absurdly easy straw man to topple.
So as long as you're not falling for the temptation to dismiss the real grievances against the subclass by pointing towards this easily dismissed "white room theory" (and, in fact, the cheap shot to call ANY optimization problem a "white room theory"), feel free to carry on.
CapnZapp
Legend
An excellent post, clearly outlining exactly what is not-good-enough with the subclass.
As for the last bit (the only bit I quoted), don't forget how the cost of Exhaustion drops of sharply at this level (or so).
Not only will the spellcasters be much more likely to have a 5th level slot "over" after the day (still nothing to count on, though) but in any game where it's possible to get spell scrolls, the Berserker can start to convert his (by now, considerable) loot into Greater Restoration scrolls for his buddies to cast.
Removing Exhaustion and instead giving the subclass Frenzy 3/day seems to be a well-considered suggestion.
Not to inflame the short-long rest war, but I can't help myself from noting you'll get very good results from saying "Frenzy recharges on a rest".
One plus one per short rest equals three, if the assumption "two short rests a day" holds.
Cheers
Arial Black
Adventurer
I don't think that's how it works.
No matter how many advantages you have, a single disadvantage negates them all.
ChrisCarlson
First Post
Not being susceptible to disadvantage is different from gaining advantage to negate potential disadvantage.
So when Eagle Sight allows you to ignore disadvantage for dim light, any potential source of advantage would remain. Even in dim light.
So when Eagle Sight allows you to ignore disadvantage for dim light, any potential source of advantage would remain. Even in dim light.
Very good point. However, this is only helpful for Perception checks, since AFAIK nothing else gets disadvantage from dim light to begin with.
It's not direct but if you can't see something even if you guess its location correctly you are at disadvantage to attack. It's surprising the range of creatures that can hide from you when your passive perception is dropped by 5.
I suspect a DM might tack on disadvantage on quite a few tests if you fail a perception test.
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