Barbarian Rage Die

[Gradine]

Pretty much going to copy this from my post in the 5e forum.

It's been mentioned in other threads that it looks like the Barbarian is... lagging in the damage department. The preview confirms, if nothing else, that the bonus Rage Damage hasn't changed at all since the Forbidden Tome, and it's... it's not exactly inspiring of terror. And I had actually had an idea for a simple change that, while not radically altering the class, would help the Barb dish out a little more damage.

Replace the flat bonus to damage with a bonus damage die.

+2 becomes 1d4, +3 to 1d6, and +4 to 1d8.

This would have a few effects. First, the Barbarian's damage will raging becomes more swingy and less precise, which is exactly what one should hope to expect from a raging Barbarian. And while the average damage boost is only 0.5 per attack, the potential damage is quite a bit higher, which should help. The biggest difference is that as a damage die, it gets doubled on a crit (while the flat Rage Damage bonus doesn't), which synergizes well with Brutal Critical.

I'm curious what people think, wonder if it adds a little too much damage for the Barbarian or not.

 

[Paraxis]

I like it a lot.

It will depend on the final version of the barbarian in the PHB, they may not fall behind the other classes like the fighter and ranger with it being a flat bonus, but it looks like they will. So this seems like a great fix.

I like how it is like sneak attack but not, with the die type increase not just getting more d6's. To be honest it would make more sense if rogue's had a fixed sneak attack damage value and barbarians use this alternative, but I guess rogues getting extra d6's is now set since it was in 3e and 4e.

I like the idea of giving a rogue a flat +4 per die of sneak attack, boosts the average but isn't doubled on crits.

Anyway, I will probably play RAW for the first campaign and start to house rule in the second but this barbarian rage damage die is getting bookmarked for later use.