Battlerager: Experiences?

[Dr_Sage]

You sure? Lets have you roll a statisticly significant number of times, and see what your average is.....

Hehehehehehe trust me... it´s not the character fault in this case.

The aftermentioned dragon had around AC 18 and I had Bless (+1) and flanked the beast most of the time (+2), meaning I should hit aproximately on a roll of 09, so I should hit around half my attacks..... actually I missed 9 attacks and hit 2. I tried my Comeback Strike twice before hitting in the 3th attepmt (thanks God its a reliable power.)

Defintely I suck with dice.

My ranger teamate had the same "to hit" and no flanking bonus and she did a LOT of damage, including 2 criticals. I will switch fro axe to hammer for flavor and to see if the dice agree with the change.

 

[keterys]

You can certainly do a battlerager build which doesn't downrank its armor, sacrifice something for Con, uses a sword, etc... in which case the benefits are far less drastic than what people say, so it's good to keep that in consideration.

So, DR 2 equivalent vs -1 attack, say.

 

[Nail]

Yeah, the whole -3 to attacks with the BR just isn't true.

I disagree.

-1 because no WT.

-1 because low prof weapon. Yes, you get a higher damage that compensates...but only over the long haul of averages. The trick here is that hitting does - in fact - matter to the Ftr for many of the nifty abilities. Example? Oh, I dunno,.... Crushing Surge comes to mind. <chuckle>

-1 because you might have chosen a high Con race or build over a high Str race or build. I don't play in games that allow the MM NPC races, so no warforged. (Again note: those races in the back of the MM are NPC races.) If you go with Dwarf - the best race for all those tasty THP - you've lost a +2 racial Str bonus, and thus have -1 to hit over a human or dragonborn.

Etc.

Bottom line: the BRV Ftr hits much less often than a WT Ftr => a 27% decrease (assuming a 55% hit rate with a WT Ftr).

 

[Stalker0]

I disagree.

-1 because no WT.

-1 because low prof weapon. Yes, you get a higher damage that compensates...but only over the long haul of averages. The trick here is that hitting does - in fact - matter to the Ftr for many of the nifty abilities. Example? Oh, I dunno,.... Crushing Surge comes to mind. <chuckle>

-1 because you might have chosen a high Con race or build over a high Str race or build. I don't play in games that allow the MM NPC races, so no warforged. (Again note: those races in the back of the MM are NPC races.) If you go with Dwarf - the best race for all those tasty THP - you've lost a +2 racial Str bonus, and thus have -1 to hit over a human or dragonborn.

But those are conscious choices you are making, the battlerager build in no way forces you to make these choices.

Now if people want to say you can use the battlerager build and make an indestructable tank that can't hit anything....alright I'll buy that.

But we don't need to take battlerager all the way down to see its power. You simply take your normal fighter, give him a -1 to attack, and the battlerager temp hp ability.

That's what I did for my dragonborn fighter. He had a 20 strength, and 16 con. I kept my scale, didn't change any weapons, just tried out the build. My durability went through the roof, and I felt very little loss from the +1 to attack rolls.

 

[Mengu]

I don't play in games that allow the MM NPC races, so no warforged. (Again note: those races in the back of the MM are NPC races.)

I don't allow them in my games either, but Warforged has a full write up, feats and everything in Dragon Magazine. Also there will likely be at least one race in PHB2 with +2 Str/Con. It is bad design to create powers/features whose balance depend on the lack of a certain combination of stats.

And even excluding +2 Str/Con races, an 18 Strength and 16 Constitution is not out of the realm of possibility for Humans, Dragonborn, Dwarves, and Half-elves, that's 4 races out of 8 from PHB. With simply training in endurance, they will all have access to Improved Vigor. Again, very little sacrifice (weapon talent), for a load of temp HP's.

 

[Spatula]

Warforged and Minotaurs are both +2 Str/Con races with full PC writeups in Dragon. I'm sure the Goliath and Half-orc from PHB2 are going to have bonuses to one or both of those abilities, as well...

 

[Klaus]

I game with Dr Sage, and his dice-rolling is almost that bad in nearly every session. But on the Temp HP, the dwarf was built to last, with high Con, Toughness and stuff. And most of us (now 4th level) don't even have a magic weapon yet (not sure about the Paladin).

 

[Moon-Lancer]

ask your players if they would be comfortable if some monsters hit dropped by one and in return received battlerager traits. I wonder if they would then think it was balanced?

possibly give these new monsters the temp hit points at will attack (whatever its called)

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I think that at this point, its not unreasonable to compare the 'Cannonical Dwarven BattleRager' of 4th edition to the 3rd Edition Spiked Chain.

The Spiked chain was a basically ok weapon that because of its built in ability to threaten every square within 2 of the player, suggested certain exploits which could be devastating in the right combat encounters. If you had High Str, great cleave, and a spiked chain, you could one shot every low hp creature within reach on a single AoO. Or you could build it out so that you could use Combat Reflexes, Spring Attack, and Improved Trip to make it nearly impossible for a single opponent to close into melee range unless he could reliably defeat your opposed trip rolls.

Of course, if your DM used enemies that were not vulnerable to a 1 shot from your character, or used archers, or just used Disarm / Sunder on you, he could defeat the tactic fairly trivially. It was only a problem if it broke the sense of immersion at the game table, or if your DM was particularly attached to the kinds of opponents that the build ruled ineffective.

Now you have the 4th Edition Dwarven Battle Rager build. You can set yourself up to become essentially an indestructible brick vs every minion your likely to face. Sure, your going to have a lower AC, but the minions cannot overcome the temp HP your character can generate. You might miss more often, but you WILL outlast your opponents.

Of course, this tactic is really only effective against melee minions that fulfill the Brute / Soldier role. It does not prevent the minions from protecting whatever other monsters there are within the encounter, nor does it prevent the heavy hitters from trying to unload on the Battle Rager.

I suspect that the Rager may indeed have a serious flaw, but I am not in a position to comment usefully on it since I have not seen it in play.

Even if it is more broken in practice than the 3rd Edition spiked chain, it does seem to have that same quality of 'most likley to be disallowed' about it.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Dr_Sage]

Welcome

I game with Dr Sage, and his dice-rolling is almost that bad in nearly every session. But on the Temp HP, the dwarf was built to last, with high Con, Toughness and stuff. And most of us (now 4th level) don't even have a magic weapon yet (not sure about the Paladin).

Welcome aboard Claudio.

PS: No offense meant fellows, but I thought we were here to discuss actual battlerager experiences, and not keep imagining what would or would not be ok for our gamming tables.

PPS: Ha! Now I hame a craghammer! Too bad It´s "brutal" proprety does not work for the d20 attack roll...