Battlerager Vigor limiting it - ideas?

[Eric Finley]

Oh!

Thanks for pointing out the errata, Keterys. I like their solution, honestly. And I just had an idea for how to handle the THP fast-and-easy for my BRV player, too... since she doesn't have (or want) Improved Vigor, nor is she a dwarf, it's just a question of one or two increments of Con modifier (+4 in this case) THP. So I'll just give her beads or poker chips or whatever, worth 4THP each. On those occasions when she gets hit by smaller increments of damage we'll use normal THP tracking until she fixes it.

I do like her getting an incentive to use Invigorating again - the redundancy thing I mentioned above wasn't meant to be read as a feature, just an effect of eliminating stacking. Getting the THP on a miss is definitely an incentive to go that way.

 

[Elric]

The errata is very close to my suggestion - invigorating on the miss instead of double is probably a smarter idea, and I still am not a fan of all this advocating hammers and axes things as part of the class, but eh.

So, yeah, problem solved. Go home?

Link here: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateJuly2009.pdf. This is completely different from the initial version of BRV- I wouldn't have suggested a house rule that changed RAW this much, but WotC did it anyway.

Goes to show that BRV was probably playtested about 0 times, but hey, they fixed it!

Edit: Thinking about it a little more, though, this will have a huge impact on some existing BRV builds. If your build doesn't use Invigorating powers, you just got a lot weaker than if you're already using Invigorating powers.

For example, consider a Tide of Iron based Iron Vanguard Dwarf BRV fighter with Improved Vigor and Dwarven Stoneblood who doesn't currently have any Invigorating powers. He just had two feats rendered useless for him and his class feature now requires the invigorating powers that he hasn't taken in order to be especially useful. Plus, under the retraining rules, he can't even switch back to Weapon Talent (obviously, GMs can and should be very generous about this, but I wonder what LFR players will do). This is an inevitable result of large changes to the rules like this one.

 

[Garthanos]

One quick note - I'm not hugely concerned about the exact value of a resistance. But I'm not clear on why you'd have to gimp it, for one reason and one reason alone... it allows you to completely dispense with the concept of stacking THPs. Ever. That sentence is simply omitted from my version of the feature (and, if I'm reading him right, from Elric's as well).

Well damage resistance prevents loss of even temporary hit points for one thing... and we were talking about not having BRV being immune to minions
A character could start with 5 or 6 DR which... well

 

[Garthanos]

Link here: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateJuly2009.pdf. This is completely different from the initial version of BRV- I wouldn't have suggested a house rule that changed RAW this much, but WotC did it anyway.

Goes to show that BRV was probably playtested about 0 times, but hey, they fixed it!

Edit: Thinking about it a little more, though, this will have a huge impact on some existing BRV builds. If your build doesn't use Invigorating powers, you just got a lot weaker than if you're already using Invigorating powers.

For example, consider a Tide of Iron based Iron Vanguard Dwarf BRV fighter with Improved Vigor and Dwarven Stoneblood who doesn't currently have any Invigorating powers. He just had two feats rendered useless for him and his class feature now requires the invigorating powers that he hasn't taken in order to be especially useful. Plus, under the retraining rules, he can't even switch back to Weapon Talent (obviously, GMs can and should be very generous about this, but I wonder what LFR players will do). This is an inevitable result of large changes to the rules like this one.

WOW and yes it really could have dramatic impact on those who weren't after the stacking thp just the core style it affects me beacause a defensive trigger makes more sense... so you absolutely have to be using invigorating powers to get any real benefit

 

[Garthanos]

WOW and yes it really could have dramatic impact on those who weren't after the stacking thp just the core style it affects me beacause a defensive trigger makes more sense... so you absolutely have to be using invigorating powers to get any real benefit

Now if he is captured.. no more acting pain resistant cause unless he is punching back he isn't in the slightest... cosmetic I know.

 

[Pyrex]

Link to Errata.

Relevant bit:

Whenever you hit an enemy with a melee or a close attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier, plus any temporary hit points normally granted by the power.

If you use an invigorating fighter attack power and miss every target with it, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier.

No more stacking. No more multiple-bursts of THP when you get hit. Pretty serious nerf.

 

[Elric]

WOW and yes it really could have dramatic impact on those who weren't after the stacking thp just the core style it affects me beacause a defensive trigger makes more sense... so you absolutely have to be using invigorating powers to get any real benefit

It's not going to be useless because the fighter still gets temp HP whenever he hits with an attack. In fact, it's a lot of temp HP so he won't be badly off from that change alone. However, Improved Vigor and Dwarven Stoneblood are going to be useless to him and abilities relying on his general invulnerability (e.g., really pumping his combat challenge/mark because he's so hard to hurt) are going to change in value as well.

Edit: Apparently LFR lets you retrain a class feature once and retrain two feats when you do so. As long as you didn't switch into BRV from Weapon Talent, LFR characters will be fine (once you level up and get a chance to retrain).

 

[Garthanos]

It's not going to be useless because the fighter still gets temp HP whenever he hits with an attack.

OK then the build you are talking about is much narrower ... basically for most intents and purposes BRV is now the ultra invigorating action man... he attacks he scores he energizer bunnies... sorry but my enthusiasm wains.... and I like crushing surge.

 

[Kzach]

Ever get the feeling there's a team of wizard's folk who scan this forum and steal ideas?

 

[keterys]

Good!