D&D 5E Berserker Barbarian Fix?

[Mephista]

Page 84 DMG: "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters they can handle fewer."

This is the source of the 6-8 encounters idea. It's in the section on XP budgets for combat encounters!

And it still says encounters, not combat encounters. You can have easy/hard/etc encounters without combat in them - three pages earlier, the beginning of the designing encounters section that you pulled that from, lists enounters, such as sneaking, that don't include fights.

I'm standing by my original statement - I don't think that 6 to 8 encounters means 6 to 8 fights. I think that insisting that it means combat is a misreading of the intent of that section.

 

[S'mon]

And it still says encounters, not combat encounters. You can have easy/hard/etc encounters without combat in them - three pages earlier, the beginning of the designing encounters section that you pulled that from, lists enounters, such as sneaking, that don't include fights.

I'm standing by my original statement - I don't think that 6 to 8 encounters means 6 to 8 fights. I think that insisting that it means combat is a misreading of the intent of that section.

It would presumably cover non-combat encounters that drain resources similar to combat. Without resource drain it's a meaningless statement - PCs can face an unlimited number of non-draining encounters.

Edit: The biggest misreading IMO is thinking it's a design metric at all. It's a statement about resource attrition.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Without resource draining or at least the danger of resource draining it is no encounter that you call easy or medium or hard.
A single kobold may however still be a meaningfull encounter, because it can spoil your chance of sneaking up to the dragon lair and maybe a long range magic missile or a longstrider spell to catch up may be in order.

 

[Mephista]

The thing is that pretty much anything can drain resources. Social situation? Bards are going to be pulling out their Inspiration dice, casters their Charm spells, etc. Utility spells are useful for various kind of sneaky situation. A barbarian might use one of his daily rages in order to make a jump while carrying someone on their back, or to force a stubborn door open/shut, etc.

So, what this means is that, for the Barbarian Berzerker, its not actually appropriate to assume that we're talking about 5-7 fights a day without using Frenzy. More like 2 or 3 if we limit ourselves to once a day.

 

[hejtmane]

While the group I do they get a good 6-10 monster fights a session but hey they only get to meet every couple months and we do 8-12 hour sessions with breaks of course

 

[Gabriel Pendragon]

fortinately the effect can be easily calculated and the -5/+10 wins out in the vast majority if cases. Unless your to hit is below <=50%

Which I mentioned that the low end AC for encounters in LFR games tends to be 17 for 4th level adventures, which is what all the low levels tend to run at in the groupds i've been with. 2nd level only changes the number of monsters not the stats of them, so 17 is still pretty common, with needing 20 isn't all that uncommon. If given easy to hit enemies sure GWM might start being usable, given the usual monster's in organized games the -5/+10 is bad unless you plan on critting things all day. There is also a big difference between calculating number probability vs rolling the dice. As with dice it is possible to roll the same number every time you toss the dice, as the outcome is based on physics not random numbers. Dice are not random at all. They are implied to be random since people tend to not pay attention to how they pick up the dice or how they throw them, but that set of input will always net the exact same roll.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

It does not say anything about official game balance requiring 6-8 encounters in a day.

The game is flexible in balance. You don't have to have any sort of precise "must do" requirements or the game falls apart. Still, when designing they had to make some assumptions because classes have different rations of at-will, short rest refresh, and long rest refresh powers. They have stated (and this is also in the books) that the baseline assumption is that 2 short rests in a day is typical. DM Basic Rules p.56-57 is the source for all of this, where encounter difficulty (easy, medium, etc) is explicitly described and defined based on the adjusted XP value of the monsters faced. Now, certainly you can have non-combat encounters that are challenges or drain resources! But this section that gives the metrics we are referring to doesn't happen to include them, so they should not be assumed as part of the 6-8 encounters. They may or may not be there, but the metrics remain even if they aren't.

The designers are going to judge class balance around their assumptions. Some players consider champions and warlocks weak because they aren't using those assumptions, when both (sub)classes are fine if those assumptions are taken into account.

Unrelated to the above...

One comment I'd make is that exhaustion really is a pain. First off, you gain disadvantage on ability checks. This means your big burly barbarian is now no longer able to perform your party's out of combat acts of Strength, and it also means you are going to be easier to grapple and shove around in combat. That really makes you feel like a wimp. Secondly, taking more than one level of exhaustion in a day is just a generally unacceptable thing that shouldn't be assumed--just like any other effect that will carry over into the next day. You can't assume greater exhaustion either--you may not have it, and it has an expensive consumed component. So as an assumption you really only get one Frenzy per day, and then become a wimp that other people can push around.

So, here are my current thoughts on how to improve Frenzy.

1) I think the subclass should grant a free melee weapon attack immediately after entering a rage--regardless of whether or not you frenzy. This addresses (what I consider to be) the serious problem that Totem Barbarians all get their extra rage feature every time they rage, while Berserkers only get one if they Frenzy.

2) It still feels weak to me. I'm thinking of a few possibilities.
a) You gain no exhaustion, but can only Frenzy 1/short rest. This would allow it to scale with the length of the adventuring day, exactly like the other barbarians.
b) Same as above, but if you Frenzy more than 1/short rest you gain exhaustion. This might be too powerful.
c) You gain one free Frenzy per long rest, and exhaustion for additional Frenzies. Seems a tad weak, but might be better than I'm thinking.
d) You eliminate the last level of exhaustion you gained with this feature when you take a short rest. This is almost identical to b), except that you are suffering the exhaustion penalty until you take the short rest. Balance-wise, I like this one the best. The problem with it is that it uses a new and messy mechanic. I hate those. I like my house rules to make the smallest tweaks possible and look like something that could have been in the book all along.

 

[Mirtek]

Which I mentioned that the low end AC for encounters in LFR games tends to be 17 for 4th level adventures, which is what all the low levels tend to run at in the groupds i've been with. 2nd level only changes the number of monsters not the stats of them, so 17 is still pretty common, with needing 20 isn't all that uncommon. If given easy to hit enemies sure GWM might start being usable, given the usual monster's in organized games the -5/+10 is bad unless you plan on critting things all day.

Have to disagree here. Even against a AC 17 GWM wins out assuming a +3/+4 ability mod and a +3/+4 proficiency bonus for the first two tiers.

And 17+ is already on the high end, reserved for heavily armored foes. ACs of 15 or lower are much more common in the first two tiers of AL, going as deep as AC11. Just yesteday I played an AL T2 adventure for average party level 8 who consisted almost completely of fighting AC 11-13 opponents, there was one monster who had an AC 16 and two with an AC 18 in the entire combats.

Having played almost all T2 mods and most of T1 mods from S1&S2, the AC18+ opponent with plate (or chain & shield) or even plate and shield is thankfully not the common foe (although there is one where you primarily fight city guards who have those armor classes, this module thends to have the fights drag a little)

Anyway, +2 to hit from archery style makes sharpshooter even worse than GWM, except for barbarians attacking simply at advantage every time they don't explicitly have disadvantage (rage or not) makes it outdamage every barbarian build who does not have it (and AL's 4h adventures rarely make a level 6+ barbarian not having a rage for every fight.)

Dice are not random at all. They are implied to be random since people tend to not pay attention to how they pick up the dice or how they throw them, but that set of input will always net the exact same roll.

Theoretically yes, but even with dice rolling machines it's next to impossible to always replicate exact the same roles, there are just to many minor aspects of the input you can't controll, even if you get the force and angle of the throw mechanically right every time.

 

[Gabriel Pendragon]

In every game with my fighter needing to hit a 17 or better on most enemies is normal. I play in the organized Living forgotten realms story ark. Mulmaster is a crazy town to base out of for adventuring, but I digress.
AC 17 makes sub 5th fighters need a 12 to hit normally, taking -5 makes that a 17, and they crit on 19's at second level i think, maybe third. The only things I've seen with sub 17 ac are trash mods or casters, and the casters tend to have mage armor and shields to shove them over 20 AC rather often. One game was bad enough we started shoving them off of platforms and killing them with fall damage as most the party couldn't hit them at all.
Most attacks in the games i've played would have missed given a -5 to hit, making the +10 to damage useless. Against the enemies with low enough AC to think of using power attack, the HP is low enough that +10 damage is meaningless anyways. There is little difference between putting an enemy to 0 vs -10 or more. Rarely does my fighter hit for less than 9 per hit as rolling a one or two twice on 2d6 is rare, 12-15 per hit is common. Often I hit the weak enemy with my action, kill it and turn around and hit the strong enemy with my bonus, making sure to manuever as best I can to keep this up as much as possible. Any enemy i've ran into that doing more damage would be nice, the -5 would cause all but my crits to miss and is thus useless.

After 5 levels of adventures, I have not once been in a place where I thought it was worth it to have the +10 damage. The once or twice an encounter that I could have used it and still hit the target doesn't make up for the extra damage i'm throwing out every round. Were I doing the same thing on a barbarian with the option to almost always be able to use the bonus action to hit things with the feat would be useless to me more often than not. As a fighter it's only useful due to the extra attack on kill or crit. I might consider -5/+10 with an archer as I still have a +2 on my roll to hit and at best have 1d10, but with 2d6 it's better to hit more often than it is to occasionally hit more. Every game I play continues to confirm this stance.
I also hate gambling.

If they need fixing, the only thing that might be nice is letting them extra attack on the same turn they frenzy.

 

[Mirtek]

In every game with my fighter needing to hit a 17 or better on most enemies is normal.

So your fighter has an attack bonus of -6?

I play in the organized Living forgotten realms story ark.

LFR has ended with 4e, the current organized play is AL

AC 17 makes sub 5th fighters need a 12 to hit normally

Assuming Str 16 they'd only need a 11, exactly 50% hit chance.

taking -5 makes that a 17

16 actually, unless you really have only 14 Str. However the AC 17 target is one of the really high AC enemies and far from being the norm

The only things I've seen with sub 17 ac are trash mods or casters, and the casters tend to have mage armor and shields to shove them over 20 AC rather often. One game was bad enough we started shoving them off of platforms and killing them with fall damage as most the party couldn't hit them at all.

Maybe you should talk with your DM, he might be upping the challenge for you, but that's not the mods as written. And I happen to have played all Mulmaster mods except the level 1-2 only intro adventure.


Even assuming the 1st level fighter with +6 to hit vs. AC 17:

Normal: 50% chance for 2d6+3 = 5 damage
GWM: 25% for 2d6+13 = 5 damage

So even against this high AC enemy it just so ties off, for anything below AC 17 GWM cleary wins (vs. AC 16 you already do 9% more damage than without GWM, vs AC 15 you're already at +17%)

And AC <=15 is much more common than AC >=16