Battlerager Vigor limiting it - ideas?

[Elric]

Out of curiosity I was glancing at some stuff from the games I'm running that have a BRV fighter in it - he gets 5 temp each time I hit him. They ran into some Boneshard skeletons recently. They needed a 13 to hit him and effectively dealt 7.5 damage to him instead of 12.5 to his allies. With a hp pool of about 60 that means it takes about 4 hits to bloody him, and 8 hits to take him down - if given a surge and using his warforged resolve, I believe that actually turns into 12 hits to take him down. With a 40% chance to hit, that's edging up towards _30_ attacks needed to take him down, though in truth the 1.5 crits would slice off a few attacks.

In comparison, their strikers are hit on a 6 (8 with mark) and have 38 hp, falling down in just over 3 hits or about 4 attacks, 5 with them given a surge.

Your Strikers must have terrible defenses. The Striker HP indicate that they're level 4. Boneshards have +9 vs. AC, which means that your Strikers would have 15 AC. Clearly you need better defended strikers if this is the case!

In general, a BRV fighter gives up only +1 to hit for his near invulnerability in melee (and it's not like Con-fighters are weak without BRV). Even without BRV, this fighter would still take many, many more attacks to take down than your flimsy strikers.

The often repeated idea that a defender shouldn't be "too tough" is simply wrong. If a defender was offered +3 AC for free, should he turn it down because that would make him "too hard to attack?" Not a chance. What's true is that a defender shouldn't give up too much for the sake of being tough. BRV fighters give up relatively little compared to their massive increase in toughness.

And that's without even considering low damage enemies or invigorating stacking, which the house rules discussed here have been addressing. That's the 'optimal world' in which an enemy hits hard enough that BRV is used up entirely.

Besides Dwarven BRV fighters, the temp HP alone doesn't eliminate all or almost all monster damage past the first few levels. However, "the BRV fighter takes twice as many hits in melee to take down as a non-BRV fighter" isn't a good situation either.

 

[keterys]

38 hitpoints versus 60 ....and he's Warforged....
sigh BRV sounds like it has very little to do with the differences

Heh, it's not the only thing going on, but it did change it from 6 or 7 hits to take him down to 12, so it's more important than any other thing about him. Being a warforged, for instance, only makes a difference of 1 hit. If he were a non-BRV fighter, he'd be a lot less invulnerable.

not when I DM ... that's end of the encounter bub.(the rush ends when the rush ends... no artificial extending it)

Temp hp don't last until the end of the encounter - they last until you take a short or extended rest. I have no idea why they work that way, but there you go. The game I'm talking about is LFR, so I don't have the luxury of changing rules.

5th level - I believe the sorcerer is wearing cloth, hence the lousy defense. They haven't gotten an armor option yet that was viable - I believe they just got enough money to consider buying some shimmering robes or somesuch, but that'd only be another +1 AC. The dwarf shaman in the party has a similarly awful defense and the barbarian's not much better, let's see...

Looks like warforged fighter upped his AC to 23 and does have 60 hp. The rest of the characters:
Barbarian - AC 17, hp 58
Shaman - AC 14 (!!), hp 46
Ranger - AC 18, hp 48
Warden - AC 21, hp 52 (only level 4)
Sorcerer - AC 15, hp 43

So I was remembering the level 4 hp on the Sorc - the Sorc didn't make it last session but the warforged did.

I wasn't all that far off, though.

 

[Garthanos]

Besides Dwarven BRV fighters, the temp HP alone doesn't eliminate all or almost all monster damage past the first few levels. However, "the BRV fighter takes twice as many hits in melee to take down as a non-BRV fighter" isn't a good situation either.

I did say I was tempted by your constant damage resistance idea didnt I... if we had a solid rule that ate thp without discarding the fun of all the powers using them I would be on board.... but full game rewrites I find problematic .

 

[Garthanos]

I wasn't all that far off, though.

The issue with Damage Resistance rules like BRV gained THP
Is that hitpoints mean a lot more at low levels and with lower damaging creatures (even in quantity) than they do at high levels.

Keterys example is still very much a low level one.

Around 5th and 6th level hitpoints are half as meaningful from what they mean at first where as At 23rd level what does the picture look like, I suspect brv damage resistance is not even a big deal and that is the scaling issue.

 

[keterys]

I'd suspect that for at least 75% of game sessions, and probably closer to 90%, it doesn't matter at all what it's like at 23rd level. That's only 1/4 of your campaign and not every campaign makes it that far, after all.

I've run for a 1st through 5th battlerager. I've played alongside a 9th level one who gets 8 back from vigor (though I think only 5 or 6 or so on an invigorating hit, dwarf stoneblood) and it still seems pretty important at that level.

In a theoretical extension, this warforged at level 23 will have another 113 hp, to a total of 173, and will get 9 temp back per hit at that time... so instead of 5 of 60 (1/12th) he'll get 9 of 173 (1/19th).

Comparing to a Blood Fiend instead of a Boneshard, it deals 19 average which he'll reduce to 10 (instead of the Bone Shard's 12.5 to 7.5), so instead of taking (with 1 surge and resolve for a total hp pool of 226) 12 hits it'll instead take 23.

Still seems like it's a pretty big deal at that level.

 

[Psikus]

I'm not even close to an Epic campaign yet, but it seems that optimized Battleragers at those levels are as good, if not better, as their heroic counterparts. They just get damage resistance, either from masterwork plate (up to resist 5 all) or the Adamantine Soldier Epic Destiny (resist=Con, at 24th level). Adding DR and BRV Temp. HP, you can almost negate average attacks.

I don't have hard numbers, this is just what I remember from CharOp discussions. But it doesn't seem too far off. That said, 23rd level may be the weakest point in a Battlerager's career - one more level, and Adamantine Soldier kicks in, a couple more, and Tarrasque Plate becomes available, if he has other Epic Destinies.

 

[Elric]

5th level - I believe the sorcerer is wearing cloth, hence the lousy defense. They haven't gotten an armor option yet that was viable - I believe they just got enough money to consider buying some shimmering robes or somesuch, but that'd only be another +1 AC. The dwarf shaman in the party has a similarly awful defense and the barbarian's not much better, let's see...

Looks like warforged fighter upped his AC to 23 and does have 60 hp. The rest of the characters:
Barbarian - AC 17, hp 58
Shaman - AC 14 (!!), hp 46
Ranger - AC 18, hp 48
Warden - AC 21, hp 52 (only level 4)
Sorcerer - AC 15, hp 43

That's pretty bad. It seems like almost none of them have magic armor. They should just go buy +1 Armor for the AC boost. It's well known that the Con Shaman's AC is badly messed up; you need to get 13 Strength and pick up Chainmail Proficiency to avoid having terrible AC even at low levels (and the problem only gets worse at higher levels).

I did say I was tempted by your constant damage resistance idea didnt I... if we had a solid rule that ate thp without discarding the fun of all the powers using them I would be on board.... but full game rewrites I find problematic .

I didn't actually propose BRV as Resistance, though I do think that implementing BRV as Resistance would have been superior to the temp HP option in Martial Power (simpler and less open to abuse because as it stands you can stack BRV with abilities that provide resistance).

What I proposed was just reducing the number of temp HP BRV gives you.

How about just reducing the number of hit points BRV gives you:
Battlerager Vigor (Fighter Class Feature): Battlerager Vigor supplies (Con mod + 1) / 2, minimum 1, temporary hit points.

Dwarven Stoneblood: This feat becomes a Paragon-tier feat. Note that the with the above rule in place, doing the calculation out shows that a character with Dwarven Stoneblood gets temporary HP from Battlerager Vigor equal to his Constitution modifier.

Quick and dirty take on BRV implemented as resistance (note that I'd remove the temp HP stacking entirely):

Battlerager Vigor: You gain Resistance (1+ Con mod) / 2, minimum 1, to close attacks and melee attacks.

When wearing no armor, light armor, or chainmail, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee and close weapon attacks. This bonus increases to +2 if you’re wielding an axe, a hammer, a mace, or a pick.

Feats:
Improved Vigor: Change the sentence on Battlerager Vigor to “If you have the Battlerager Vigor class feature, increase the resistance it grants by 1 (2 at 11th level, 3 at 21st level).”

Dwarven Stoneblood: Change to a Paragon feat: “Add one half your Constitution modifier to the Resistance granted by your Battlerager Vigor.” Note that doing the calculation out shows that a character with Dwarven Stoneblood gets Resistance from Battlerager Vigor equal to his Constitution modifier.

Compared to RAW, BRV would be much easier to run. It would be less subject to abuse both at low levels (where the temp HP can get too high, especially with Dwarven Stoneblood) and at high levels (where abilities that grant Resistance can make you nearly indestructible). Two problems that I see with this approach are that the ease of getting Resistance at high levels (Tarrasque Plate, for example, is really powerful) might make BRV a little weak in Epic games where characters take advantage of those abilities, and BRV Resistance overlaps with other thematic BRV abilities like a Goliath’s racial power or the Dreadnought Paragon Path.

 

[Kzach]

It just occurred to me that one of the biggest problems I'm seeing with the battlerager in this discussion is the linking of the ability to Constitution.

What if it was linked to armour rather than Con? The less armour you wear, the more benefit you get from your BRV. That fits the concept in terms of getting an adrenaline rush from combat and is far more manageable from a balance perspective and keeps things nice and simple.

 

[Kzach]

I also like the idea of making it DR instead of THP.

The following table could be utilised as either DR or THP, keeping the numbers the same.

With DR, Invigorating powers would probably work best if they just remain as THP. I still think THP stacking at all is overpowered but I'll leave that for now. If using THP, I guess Invigorating powers have to stack with them.

Plate = 0 DR/THP.
Scale = 1 DR/THP.
Chain = 2 DR/THP.
Hide = 3 DR/THP.
Leather = 4 DR/THP.
Cloth = 5 DR/THP.

Magical bonuses increase these amounts on a one-for-one basis. Masterwork armours would then increase the amounts again, probably by just one point each armour type.

 

[Garthanos]

I didn't actually propose BRV as Resistance, though I do think that implementing BRV as Resistance would have been superior to the temp HP option in Martial Power (simpler and less open to abuse because as it stands you can stack BRV with abilities that provide resistance).
What I proposed was just reducing the number of temp HP BRV gives you.

For some reason my brain just appended the concept to your idea sorry for the miss-attribution your idea apparently made me think of the simpler method ie using damage resistance.

Quick and dirty take on BRV implemented as resistance (note that I'd remove the temp HP stacking entirely):

Battlerager Vigor: You gain Resistance (1+ Con mod) / 2, minimum 1, to close attacks and melee attacks.

When wearing no armor, light armor, or chainmail, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee and close weapon attacks. This bonus increases to +2 if you’re wielding an axe, a hammer, a mace, or a pick.

Feats:
Improved Vigor: Change the sentence on Battlerager Vigor to “If you have the Battlerager Vigor class feature, increase the resistance it grants by 1 (2 at 11th level, 3 at 21st level).”

Dwarven Stoneblood: Change to a Paragon feat: “Add one half your Constitution modifier to the Resistance granted by your Battlerager Vigor.” Note that doing the calculation out shows that a character with Dwarven Stoneblood gets Resistance from Battlerager Vigor equal to his Constitution modifier.

Compared to RAW, BRV would be much easier to run. It would be less subject to abuse both at low levels (where the temp HP can get too high, especially with Dwarven Stoneblood) and at high levels (where abilities that grant Resistance can make you nearly indestructible).

The consistancy of not worrying if the damage is ranged or not is good to my thinking as well... and a perk for the DM and character alike.