D&D 5E Barbarians: Why Rage per Day?

[Marandahir]

If you look at it this literally, your statement makes sense. Unfortunately your statement applies to a huge number of things in D&D like who can fire four arrows from a longbow accurately in six seconds. Who could swing accurately three times with a great axe in six seconds. Who could fire a heavy crossbow accurately multiple times in six seconds. Then there is spells. So kind of pointless to apply that kind of logic to raging.

Rounds are more flexible than per day. I could see someone raging for a round. Ever a watch a strong man competition? Some of those Scandinavian folk "rage" or get jacked up to lift something for a few seconds. What's the difference between that a guy getting jacked up to swing his sword hard for a few blows, then go back to normal? Absolutely nothing.

A fighter can only swing an axe three times within six seconds at high levels – it's quite easy to swing an axe once in that time period, or even fire off two arrows within that time. When a fighter or other warrior class gets a second attack, it's a super power.

Rage is also a super-power, but you're talking about being able to constantly switch in and out of emotions. With a character that is about uncontrollable emotion. That doesn't make sense, at least not at low levels. Maybe as a high level feature (like how a Wizard can turn spells into cantrips).

 

[Duan'duliir]

You are forgetting that fighters have the ability to get a second action in a turn (Action Surge), bringing that up to 6 swings of the axe, or shots of the bow.

On topic, I like rage the way it is, but if I were to make a change, I would make Path of the Berserker barbarians have a chance to be forced into a rage when they get hit (a la Wild Magic sorcerer's wild surge when they cast a spell) that they have to attack the closest possible target (though that would probably cause a bit of trouble, both with the player having less control, and potentially becoming a threat to his party).

 

[Ryuujin]

I feel like no one is looking at the fact that the Barbarian Rage is completely and utterly inferior to the Druid's Wild Shape. Admittedly Rage does give Resistance to three types of damage, which Wild Shape doesn't get until 10th level, and admittedly ... uh I forgot what my second point in favor of Rage was. And once you get to 10th level Wild Shape is not only vastly superior in general but can also get the same resistance that Rage has.

Seriously Rage lasts at most 1 minute, and that is only if you are constantly attacking or getting damaged, and you only get so many per day. While Wild Shape lasts half an hour per Druid level, doesn't have any special requirements so long as you still have form hp left, and you start with 2 per short rest. Admittedly most forms have lower AC than the Barbarian is likely to have, but fairly early on Barkskin alleviates that. But most forms have enough hp that they are just as good as a Barbarian with resistance, if not better, and at 10th level Earth Elemental form opens up for a ton of hit points and the same resistance as a Raging Barbarian. The Wild Shape forms also have more utility.

 

[Xeviat]

Saying that it's the player's choice when to rage, not the barbarians, is probably the best argument made here. Now, 5E's barbarian at least has reckless attack all the time, which feels like a mini rage. But, saying that the narrative control of rage is in the players hand, not the characters, feels weird next to spells, which are in the hands of both player and character.

I wasn't talking about balance, either. Obviously, a semi at-will rage would need to be rebalanced.

I do find it interesting that there is no one on my side here. Very informative. Am I to understand then, that the "majority" of players would probably not like a barbarian rage whose mechanic was out of their control (have to take damage first, have to be at half-hp)?

 

[Ryuujin]

I kind of like the idea of gaining in strength as you are attacked/damaged. But, well the problem is that Rage is already pretty weak, so if you have no control over when you Rage it needs to be vastly improved. So even if it was at-will but outside of your control it needs to be beefed up, not weakened.

 

[Celtavian]

A fighter can only swing an axe three times within six seconds at high levels – it's quite easy to swing an axe once in that time period, or even fire off two arrows within that time. When a fighter or other warrior class gets a second attack, it's a super power.

Rage is also a super-power, but you're talking about being able to constantly switch in and out of emotions. With a character that is about uncontrollable emotion. That doesn't make sense, at least not at low levels. Maybe as a high level feature (like how a Wizard can turn spells into cantrips).

It makes complete sense about as much as anything in D&D makes sense.

If you're attempting to look at real world comparisons, you are very wrong. The closest thing we have to rage in the real world is adrenaline surges. You very much can turn them off quickly. If you weight lift, you would know it is extremely possible. Weight lifters jack themselves up for a single lift, then turn it off after so as not to waste energy. It's exactly like I imagine raging to be. You get yourself jacked up for a surge of strength, you do the move, then you're done. You tone it down and quickly.

Barbarians are able to do this for longer periods than a regular person. There's no reason to think they can't turn it off and on fairly quickly. It's very much controllable. Even if you're doing times per day, a barbarian could rage one round, stop, one use, then start again next round, two uses. There's no penalty for stopping rage in 5E. Breaking it into rounds would have made it for more flexible. That's it. I like player flexibility.

All the talk of super-power and other rubbish having to make sense has nothing to do with D&D. None of it operates in any realistic matter. Rounds versus times per day means absolutely nothing other than to make the ability less flexible.

 

[Duan'duliir]

I do find it interesting that there is no one on my side here. Very informative. Am I to understand then, that the "majority" of players would probably not like a barbarian rage whose mechanic was out of their control (have to take damage first, have to be at half-hp)?

I think that most players would prefer that they had more control over their character, so that is likely why very few are on your side (If you read my earlier post, you will see that I have suggested that your idea be put into the berserker subclass (as they would be going berserk).

 

[Celtavian]

Saying that it's the player's choice when to rage, not the barbarians, is probably the best argument made here. Now, 5E's barbarian at least has reckless attack all the time, which feels like a mini rage. But, saying that the narrative control of rage is in the players hand, not the characters, feels weird next to spells, which are in the hands of both player and character.

I wasn't talking about balance, either. Obviously, a semi at-will rage would need to be rebalanced.

I do find it interesting that there is no one on my side here. Very informative. Am I to understand then, that the "majority" of players would probably not like a barbarian rage whose mechanic was out of their control (have to take damage first, have to be at half-hp)?

Player control of powers is very important. If a players power is out of their control, leaves them feeling at the mercy of the DM to activate key powers. Very few players enjoy that type of situation.

 

[krakistophales]

Here's how I feel about it:

1. Raging per round/being able to turn it on or off from round to round feels more like a super saiyan transformation than someone going into a rage, the former being much more controlled and obviously permanent than the latter.

2. I like the way they have it done now for the most part, where you have x amount per long rest, and it lasts as long as it lasts. Just observe how most people get really mad in real life: You operate at an extreme rate of output for a short amount of time, and you come down just as quickly from exhaustion, lack of stimulus, or both.

3. One thing I don't like is the fact that your rage ends if you haven't hit something or moved towards an enemy or whatever the conditions are. That's lame. You should be able to maintain anger while moving towards something and doing nothing else.

 

[Li Shenron]

I prefer rounds per day. It allows the player to expend rage for smaller battles as well as larger ones. It doesn't shoehorn the player into having to determine the perfect time to use rage. Given 5E battles are supposed to average 3 or 4 rounds, seems rages per day with each being a minute leaves a lot of wasted rounds of rage.

Sounds like seeing a half-empty glass there.

I think the idea is rather than each Rage is meant to cover a whole encounter, but to avoid arguments about when really is the 'end' of an encounter (for those rare cases when the next encounter starts almost immediately), they give a 1-minute duration. This covers >90% of the encounters, so the 1-minute duration is a safety blanket to make sure the Rage won't end before the encounter does.

The same thing happens to spells. We could also have spells last a number of rounds but let the casters turn them 'on' and 'off' only when they need them. It will be a lot more complicated however.

The 'perfect time' to Rage is either just before the battle or never.

'Rounds per day' can work fine if the player likes micro-management, but for most players it will be just adding complication to the already existing round-based 'Reckless Attack' option.