Durable or Improved Rageblood Vigor

[lonebrendan]

So I've been playing a rageblood barbarian in my current campaign. Using the "Born Under a Bad Sign" background and having a 20 starting strength. I've got a lot of hit points(the background benefit allows you to use your highest ability score when determining HP). Although it seemed like a good idea at the time I neglected Con with an 11. Giving me only 8 surges per day.

We are currently leveling up to 4 and I am deciding between Durable and Improved Rageblood Vigor.

Here is some background:

I've been there for 3 out of the four sessions. The first, at which I wasn't present, turned into a TPK. The second was uneventful. In the third session one of our PCs decided he would run away into the next room where he knew a demon waited. At the time we were still struggling through the previous room, already out of heals. This resulted in 2 out of our 5 PCs dying. (disclaimer the encounters up to this point were scaled up to handle a bigger PC party, seven, but never scaled down.)

This latest dungeon is Siege. We also only had 4 of the 5 recommended players, all level 3. A rageblood, bard, druid, and a Runepriest who tanks. With this party set up I suppose he had to, but he stubbornly plays all characters this same way.

We couldn't make it through the monastery in one go. After the third encounter the rageblood was completely out of surges and had 3/4 hp. Everyone else was at about two or so, and only the bard has his daily. The brilliant consensus was to press on without rest. The battle on the stairs was handled well tactically without much bloodshed. Now the rageblood is down to bloodied and everyone else at one or two surges.

Obviously we cant make it through this next one. NAY we press on, out-voted unanimously. Blah blah blah two turns into the last battle everyone but the bard is out of surges, and three of us are tossing death saving throws. With some Deus Ex Machina we manage to retreat.

There you have it. For this party's endurance I'm thinking of taking Improved Rageblood Vigor for a total of +5 temp on a kill, or durable. I'm not sure which of the two is most beneficial to keep us going for longer. Maybe there is something else for a feat which is better. How are you even supposed to extended rest in a place like that anyway? If you leave it's re-set up but if you barricade a door random encounters disrupt your rest. If you press on, you will die.

What do you guys think about the feat? Any other advice would be nice too.

 

[darkadelphia]

Wow. It sounds to me like your character's next feat is the least of your worries with a DM who won't scale encounters to party size and PCs who intentionally play out of role.

Durable will get you two surges, which might get you an extra encounter or two on some days. It won't help if someone else is out of surges first or you have no way to activate those surges.

Improved rageblood on the other hand yields 0 thp in a solo encounter, ~10 thp in a standard encounter, and ~25 thp in a minion heavy encounter. Depends on your DM or the module.

Personally, I prefer improved rageblood as it gives you more hp tactically within the encounter. Only go with durable if you are consistently running out of surges first, and your runepriest consistently has ways of letting you use those extra surges.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

And this is why you should not make 20 strenghth with rageblood, whose secondary is con.
And it is why you should not allow backgrounds which are that stupid. Basing Hp on a stat different than con, without getting surges will, as you noticed, make for a very short adventuring day.

 

[lonebrendan]

darkadelphia,
I'm definitely in agreement with your thoughts. I have heard the next areas in Siege are even longer without rest too. The DM is pretty new maybe he will learn his lesson for scaling encounters, or maybe he's just used to playing Descent: Journeys in the Dark, and has a sadistic PC killing mentality.


UngeheuerLich
I made the secondary for the barbarian dex. This way he can stay in hide armor and still have a decent AC. At fourth level this will be at 19 (no magic armor just yet). It really seems like, unlike 3.5 where everyone needed as much con as possible, 4e made it way less important; only starting HP and surges. With this brokensauce background why spend precious points in the point buy to get yourself a 14 Con, and two more surges. Feats are numerous and cheap, like durable.

 

[keterys]

Honestly, I think you'll get more mileage from Toughness, effectively giving you the 5 temp from improved rageblood right away and adding 1 or 2 to your surge value, netting you an extra surge or so a day.

Oh, and your group is nuts

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes, durable mends a bit of those things. And yes, dex secondary is a good idea for a barbarian... but don´t your abilities also key off constitution if you are rageblood? Why not make it whirling then?

Why not have a more balanced build, like 18 Strenght, 15 dex and 14 Con... I guess you want second skin or hide armor specialization at least or some charisma. I just don´t believe, even with your broken sauce background, that 20 Strength serves you that well. You can take durable AND 14 con to make your adventure day longer. Toughness is a good choice and you just have more temp hp, when you have a bit mre con. +1 to hit and damage is not especially weak... it is just the question what you have to pay for it. (17/14/14 is a further alternative)

 

[Mengu]

Yes, durable mends a bit of those things. And yes, dex secondary is a good idea for a barbarian... but don´t your abilities also key off constitution if you are rageblood? Why not make it whirling then?

The Con riders make very little difference to the rageblood barbarian. Ignoring them is a viable choice.

However depending on the game and group, surges can be a problem. So in a normal game, I wouldn't use a 20 starting strength (but in our games, we don't allow Scales of War backgrounds either). Having said that, in an LFR game, Str 20, Con 11 with Born Under a Bad Sign background would I think be perfectly playable.

For the OP's game and barbarian, I would recommend Toughness. The problem seems to be the difficulty of encounters, not the length of the adventuring day.

 

[lonebrendan]

I played a Rageblood in a campaign before who had a, 18 str & 16 Con and no background. The few thps he got when dropping enemies to zero didn't seem to make a huge difference. As for rageblood encounter powers couple extra damage from con is less than the cumulative extra damage each hit from a 20 str.

My feeling was that 4e had a to-hit problem. At low level hitting 50% of the time is terrible and no fun. Hitting more often and as hard as possible is this barbarians goal. A Charging Howling Strike with a Vanguard Fullblade is his attack of choice. At second level with Weapon Expertise this is a +12 to-hit, with 1d12+1d8+1d6+6 dmg. He uses a Badge of the Berserker to prevent OAs when charging as well. The main motivation behind choosing Rageblood over the others was the Swift Charge Power. The more often you hit the faster enemies drop and the less attacks you will take from them.

Though I do admit buying an 18 str before racial mods was expensive leaving me with a 14 for dex and 11 for con. Half-Orc boosts these scores for a 20 str and 16 dex. The Half-Orc was built for charging, and for a striker, starts with a respectable AC of 17.

The 17/14/14 is a decent option but would leave me feeling under potentialized for levels 1-3, 8-10 etc.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Both feats are good choices -- could you retrain something to allow both?

You didn't mention the race -- I'm guessing Half-Orc? I like Thirst For Battle -- one surge and +3 to Initiative.

Dumping Con all the way down to 11 is kind of extreme, though I understand the desire for a good Dex. I started a Half-Orc Barbarian at level 6 and went with 20-14-16-8-12-10 starting. (12 Wis to support Battle Awareness at paragon.) So long as you take Weapon Expertise and take care with positioning, you still hit often enough.

 

[keterys]

You didn't mention the race -- I'm guessing Half-Orc?

*scrolls his eyes up four lines* "Half-Orc boosts these scores for a 20 str and 16 dex. The Half-Orc was built for charging,"

Hmm.

At any rate, I still think the real step is to talk to your group and find out why they're so devoted to continuing on when they have no surges? I mean, I get going on when one person is low on surges, but the whole group?