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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 6643131" data-attributes="member: 20564">I believe you may have overlooked something in assumption.  Average damage taken per attack is (Chance to hit) * (Average damage inflicted)*.  Barbarians take half damage when raging, but also often have about twice the chance to be hit thanks to lower AC plus reckless attack.  So the average damage stays the same.  It varies some with very easy or very hard to hit due to the math behind advantage but it's close enough.I'll give the simplest possible example.  Say we have a barbarian that a foe needs an 11 or better (50% chance) to hit.  The fighter with heavy armor and shield (or perhaps heavy armor and Defense style) and has an AC 3 better so the foe has a 35% chance to hit.  Foe has an average damage of 10 HPs.Attacking the fighter, it's 35% * 10 = 3.5 HP of expected damage.Attacking the barbarian, it's a 75% chance to hit due to advantage, so it's 75% * 10 / 2 = 3.25 HP of expected damage.That's pretty close.  Now, this example picked the 50% chance to hit because it made advantage easy.  Easier to hit and the barbarian gets a bit of a bonus, harder to hit and the fighter gets the bonus, because of the math behind advantage.If the chance to be hit increases the expected damage to offset the damage reduction from raging, it's a wash and doesn't need a change.* This is a simplification that ignores crits.  It's really (chance to hit - chance to crit) * (average damage) + (chance to crit) * (average crit damage).</blockquote>

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