Barbarian Rage and Fatigue

[billd91]

Still seems lame to me.... if a day just has one fight that lasts 20 rounds, then even if a barbarian can rage twice per day, according to the rules-as-written they can only rage once for the 20-round fight!!!

Time to whip out some house rules and say that barbarian rage dispels barbarian fatigue, I guess....

It's all because the standard D&D assumption is that you'll get in multiple fights per day, instead of one big fight, which is how my adventures normally seem to end up...

Personally, I think it would seem lame if the barbarian could rage more than once in an encounter, even if that encounter is 20 rounds or more long (note: this is still only 2 minutes of game time). Rage is a tiring ability that has certain penalties involved for injudicious use of it. Rage too soon and you're fatigued for the rest of the encounter.
Having things tend toward only one fighting encounter in a day, to me, seems irrelevant. That barbarian shouldn't be able to tap those energy resources too hard too often without paying the price.

If you did allow them to rage more than once per encounter, I would certainly still impose the fatigue penalties from the first rage, and then I would impose exhaustion at the end of it. Seems a fair compromise for tapping already tired reserves in short order.