Barbarian Rage Question

[wolfshogun88]

Because -10 (or is it -Con?) is dead. Comparatively, a fighter fights until unconsciousness at -1 HP then drops. A barbarian fights until unconsciousness at -1 HP, then automatically drops rage, then immediately loses 10 or 20 HP on top of that, shooting him straight over the cliff to insta-death. Game over.

Whats the fun if there is no risk of death? Its not like the death would be a surprise. A barb should know how much health they can lose before risking death. Once you drop past your normal hit points you're living on borrowed time, and you should know it. I'd be wondering where my healer is long before i was reduced to unconsciousness.

Besides, there are plenty of death effects that will kill a barbarian while they're still awake. And like others have mentioned, there are feats around it.

As i said before, you cant be angry while you're asleep. Its not like rage is a spell. Its a mental dependent state. God forbid we have a sense of realism in our games.

 

[Systole]

Balancing barbarians for combat assumes they have the extra HP. While there are certainly insta-kills out there, the fact that a barbarian's own class feature could insta-kill him is silly. Really, if a barbarian drops unconscious due to damage, it should limit the damage.

It wouldn't be hard to rule. "If a barbarian leaves rage (voluntarily or involuntarily), and the loss of rage hit points would cause him to die, the barbarian drops to -9 HP and gains a +4 on his next stabilization check."

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Whats the fun if there is no risk of death?

There are all kinds of ways to have fun even when character death is off the table.

EDIT:

And I can't XP Systole, unfortunately.

DOPPLEDIT!:

It's also silly because this is the way 3.0 worked. And then the designers realized it was a bad idea to put a death sentence over the head of your characters, and changed it in 3.5. Then Paizo changed it back for PF, and then patched in an "Ooops!" feat in the APG.

 

[Dingo333]

No other class gets damage reduction for free

No other class (besides a couple prestige classes) gets a d12 for HP

These 2 items I feel mitigates it. Besides, Diehard, core feat and is a viable option.

Not to mention the Con boost alone adds a huge amount of HP so, if you were gonna get knocked out anyway, chances are you were not gonna live till the next day anyway

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Diehard is a bad, bad, bad feat.

 

[Systole]

No other class gets damage reduction for free

No other class (besides a couple prestige classes) gets a d12 for HP

Because barbarians are front line fighters who have minimal armor. Not to mention that their armor is further reduced by a class feature that they are certainly going to use in any fight where death is a possibility. Barbarians are designed around the fact that they're going to be standing in the same place that the tank stands but that they're going to take more hits.

Even if that weren't the case, that still doesn't justify a class feature that kills them.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Fighters get DR 5 / -- for no good reason at level 19 all of a sudden.