Battlerager....Overpowered?

[mlund]

For other fighter builds, it would depend on your con overall, at what point of con bonus does the battlerager ability become better than the +1 to attack rolls....+1, +2, +3?

The Attack Roll really is crucial to the Fighter doing his job as a Defender.

The other Defenders can still stifle their marks even when they can't hit them effectively. The Swordmage can use his Aegis of Shielding to "draw aggro" from his mark, even if he never successfully connects with his attacks. The Paladin still dumps Radiant Damage on a mark who refuses to "stick" to him in combat, even if he never hits with attacks.

The Fighter who can not hit, however, is truly floundering at his role. His class features that make enemies stick to him all rely on him hitting with attacks. Want to stop the enemy from moving to hit your friends? You have to hit him with that OA to make him stop moving. Want to punish that guy for attacking the Rogue you are flanking with? You'd better make sure your Combat Challenge interrupt is a credible threat.

A Paladin or Swordmage can much more easily concede an Attack Bonus and still Defend effectively than a Fighter can.

- Marty Lund

 

[Skallgrim]

But if the BattleRager option is that much better than every other fighter build option, and all that has to be done to get the benefit is to choose BattleRager, than we have a real problem.

So on that note, does anyone here really think that BattleRager fighter is really that much better than any other fighter build option?

END COMMUNICATION

I think that my concern is, given deliberate, even if "non-optimal" choices, the Battlerager build AND the Tempest Fighter build are better choices than the Weapon Talent Fighter (taking the same deliberation in ability scores and feats).

What if Weapon Talent had benefits beyond +1 to hit? Instead of nerfing Battlerager, you could make other builds more attractive but not broken, perhaps?

My initial idea was a revised Weapon Talent. When you select Weapon Talent, you pick one of three options:

Great Weapon: You gain a +1 to hit with Two-handed weapons AND versatile weapons wielded in two hands. You gain a +1 to melee and close damage when wielding a versatile weapon in two hand, or a +2 to melee and close damage when wielding a two-handed weapon. You gain Toughness as a bonus feat.

Single Weapon. You gain a +1 to hit with one handed weapons, and versatile weapons wielded in one hand. You gain a +2 to melee and close damage when wielding a one handed weapon in one hand, or a +1 if wielding a versatile weapon in two hands. You gain Quick Draw as a bonus feat.

Weapon and Shield. You gain a +1 to hit with single handed weapons when wielding a shield in your off hand. You gain a +2 to melee and close damage when wielding a one handed weapon and a shield in your off hand.
You gain Shield Defense as a bonus feat.

Then, in addition, each Weapon Talent would have a feat at the paragon level, just like for Battlerage and Tempest, which would increase the bonus damage by +1 at Paragon and +2 at Epic.

This way, Tempest, Great Weapon, Single Weapon, and Sword&Board fighters would ALL get +1 to hit when using their chosen weapons, and would ALL get +2 to damage when using their chosen weapons, and would ALL get a bonus feat.

Then it makes Battlerager more of a balanced trade-off, since you are losing the +1 to hit and a free feat to get temporary hit points. Now, battlerager gets temporary hit points, conditional damage boosts, and access to feats which boost each of those, just at the cost of a +1 to hit.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The title of the thread asks us to examine whether the Battlerager is "overpowered." To honestly examine that issue you have to at least consider optimal builds. Additional, most of the preceding arguments about the power level of the Battlerager lean heavily on applying optimal stat choices, feat choices, and race choices to produce the most extreme examples possible.

We know that the extremely optimized battlerager is really good. It's almost impossible to tell whether it's "better" than some pseudo-striker, not-really-a-defender build.

I think possibly the best thing to do would be to take a variety of existing builds and swap out their +1 to hit for battlerager. I doubt there are very many fighter builds with a +0 con bonus, and personally I think that for a +1 or more con bonus, battlerager is superior. You trade less than 5% outgoing damage (and 5% success on assorted effects) for -5% incoming damage (IF your foe is averaging 20 damage a hit) and the ability to build up a big wall of temporary hitpoints while you don't get hit.

 

[Danceofmasks]

My op fighter build starts with 10 con.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The Attack Roll really is crucial to the Fighter doing his job as a Defender.

You can mark someone even if you miss them. The Fighter is a better defender on a miss than a rogue/ranger/warlock striker on a miss or a wizard controller on a miss.

That tells me that the fighter is less dependent on the attack roll for performing some degree of his roll than any other class (except possibly the paladin).

He can do it better if he hits, sure - but even the threat of a fighter means that many foes will be less likely to try to move through his OA area or attack someone else if marked by him.

Regards,

 

[Ibixat]

You can mark someone even if you miss them. The Fighter is a better defender on a miss than a rogue/ranger/warlock striker on a miss or a wizard controller on a miss.

That tells me that the fighter is less dependent on the attack roll for performing some degree of his roll than any other class (except possibly the paladin).

He can do it better if he hits, sure - but even the threat of a fighter means that many foes will be less likely to try to move through his OA area or attack someone else if marked by him.

Regards,

Once you wiff your first 6 attacks in a combat the remaining critters aren't really afraid to walk past and trigger OA's usually =)

 

[WalterKovacs]

You can mark someone even if you miss them. The Fighter is a better defender on a miss than a rogue/ranger/warlock striker on a miss or a wizard controller on a miss.

That tells me that the fighter is less dependent on the attack roll for performing some degree of his roll than any other class (except possibly the paladin).

He can do it better if he hits, sure - but even the threat of a fighter means that many foes will be less likely to try to move through his OA area or attack someone else if marked by him.

Regards,

The paladin, and the swordmage with the Aegis of Shielding are able to makr someone and get more than "just" a mark, regardless of how well they can hit. A warlord is able to pick at-will powers that don't require he make the attack roll (commander's strike) or let's him make weapon attacks against non-AC defense. With the bonus to initiative, the benefit from using an action point and the inspiring word, the warlord is able to fill his roll without needing to hit as much as other characters. Clerics similarly can do a lot of powerful healing even if they can't hit well, and have a number of conjurations. Wizards have a number of zone based powers that don't require hitting to make use of (although they are better if they do).

Outside of strikers, most of the other classes can do a passable job without needing to hit a lot. The fighter's mark allows him to mark more people than a paladin or swordmage normally would be able to, but without being able to hit on the attacks granted by the mark, it isn't going to be as good as the "auto damage" from the paladin, or the damage reduction of the swordmage. The fighter's "stickiness" goes away if they can't stop people by hitting with an OA, or discourage them from shifting by using their interupt. The OA power can be made up by having a very good wisdom.

A fighter can live with 16 STR, the fighter weapon talent allows them to have comparable attack modifier to most other weapon based classes with an 18 in their attack stat, and wisdom raises their OA power above that. However if you go with less than 16 to start, and go with battlerager vigor, and you go with a +2 prof weapon, that's a 20% drop against someone with 18 STR, a +3 prof weapon and the fighter weapon talent ... that's a pretty steep drop in the ability to hit, especially since monsters are designed to be challenging even against optomized characters ... so an optimized character may have say ... 60 to 65% hit chance, this fighter would have closer to 40% for their hit chance. When you get soldiers in to the mix, things get worse. There are some creatures with very high defenses, especially AC. One particular character had a 25 AC and was going up against level 6 PCs, meaning that a 20 STR fighter with a +3 weapon they had weapon talent in is looking for a 13 or higher to hit it. The fighter with 16 STR, battlerager and +2 weapon would need a 17 to hit ...

Anything lower than a 16 for a starting attack stat is going to make things significantly difficult for the party.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't see it as overpowered, but it's good for a heavy CON build. CON fighter all ready have poor Ref and Will and the Battlerager will take a AC drop if he goes chain. More so past mid herioc tier. Fighters also make the most attacks after a twf ranger. Missing a few more encounter and combat superiority attcks will hurt too since they are very important past level 5 or so.

I think the battlerager will be a lot more powerful than the talent CON fighter in melee but there is a very noticeable loss if you take it. Moreso if you go wit lighter armor and/or smashy weapons.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Anything lower than a 16 for a starting attack stat is going to make things significantly difficult for the party.

As I mentioned earlier, the fighter in my campaign chose a 13 Str as his starting Str and both he and the rest of the party are delighted with his defendery capabilities. The starting attack stat lower than 16 hasn't made things significantly more difficult for the party.

Cheers

 

[WalterKovacs]

As I mentioned earlier, the fighter in my campaign chose a 13 Str as his starting Str and both he and the rest of the party are delighted with his defendery capabilities. The starting attack stat lower than 16 hasn't made things significantly more difficult for the party.

Cheers

A few questions:

What is his wisdom score?

Do enemies avoid his OAs and interupt attacks even though they are less likely to hit?

Is his AC close enough to the rest of the party that marking makes him easier to hit than anyone else?

How is the rest of the party composed in terms of their optimization level?

Are the encounters catered to the party, or is it a set adventure path?

How does the party do against soldiers or higher level monsters?

Just wondering. It's possible to design around the PCs to make fights they are capable of dealing with, but if it requires a lot of work on the part of the DM to make the player's character "work", that doesn't mean the PC character works in the first place.