Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 5418306" data-attributes="member: 35909">Stepping aside from the argument a moment, I did recently notice one cool shtick a high level (more specifically, level 17+) Barbarian has at his disposal to justify sticking with the class for the long haul.  Possibly their best "capstone" ability that they get.  I'd like to dub the practice, "Rage Hopping."One change PF made that was awesome and overdue from 3E was to change Rage such that it specifically allowed a Barbarian to enter new rages in the same encounter, as long as he isn't fatigued or such.  Because at level 17, you get Tireless Rage.  In 3E, even at 17, in a very long "single encounter" like a war battle, even a level 17 Barbarian was so out of luck once his rage ran out.  He was barred from entering a new one by RAW, no matter how much time elapsed or how silly it got.  With PF, that is no longer an issue.  Now, as for this "trick," note that entering a rage and leaving one are both free actions.  Logically, your rage has to last at least one round, so you couldn't hop in and out infinitely many times but merely once per round.  Which is good, I hate infinite loops.  Anyway...this means that a whole slew of once/rage rage powers that were formerly very poor -- mediocre in usefulness (none surpass mediocre, IMHO) become at least one step better and either reach the vaunted status of "useful" or jump to "powerful."  I review the options below:[sblock]Clear Mind: I'd be hesitant to take this in a pre-17 game, it's somewhat situational.  With Rage Hops, though, a save reroll once/round is pretty good!  Well worth it for a high level game.Mighty Swing: Decent in its normal use, with Rage Hopping the Barb is now auto-confirming once/round if he can roll high enough to threaten.  Still seems underwhelming compared to Fighter 20's Weapon Mastery, but...3 levels earlier counts for something, right?No Escape: Extremely situational, and IME enemy withdraw actions are so rare that using it once/round will seldom make a difference.  It's sort of ok for use as a normal rage power, but hopping doesn't really bolster it any.Powerful Blow: Even if I were starting at 17 and right from the 1st session could use this ability once/round, I still wouldn't pick it.  Awful.Strength Surge: Heavily benefits from rage hopping.  A high combat maneuver check once/combat is fairly underwhelming, once per round is made of awesome and win!Surprise Accuracy: See Powerful Blow, this one's very faintly better, but still not enough to actually learn.Unexpected Strike: Once a foe realizes you can't be flanked, I don't see this triggering very much.  Further, once you use this the first time, he's unlikely to fall for it again.  So this is subpar normally and I don't think hopping improves it at all.  Has some potential with reach weapon shenanigans possibly.  Specifically, if you have a weapon to attack adjacent (like a rage power for natural weapons), could be useful with superior reach to keep stepping backwards each turn and forcing the foe to give you a free whack.APG powers:Lesser Elemental Rage: This power uber sucks normally, basically a tax to get Elemental Rage.  Hopping makes it feel like less of a waste, but there are better uses of your swift/immediate by level 17.Energy Eruption: WAAAAY too costly in pre-reqs to consider normally.  But with hopping and a friendly arcanist, this could be a really sweet dual tech!Flesh Wound: Pretty decent choice normally.  With hopping, it becomes like supplemental DR and over the course of a long day could probably prevent hundreds of points of damage.  Best rage hop combo, IMO.Ground Breaker: I personally like it, but it's of questionable use.  That it precludes attacking for the round (standard action) means having it every round per day isn't necessarily an improvement.Knockdown: Knockback is once/round, strangely this was a crappy once/rage.  Oh well, rage hop makes it quite usable.  Great combo with strength surge.Smasher: In combat, you're destroying treasure.  It's a decent out of combat ability to break things in your way, but rage hopping adds nothing since out of combat you can just spend 3 rounds (one raging, two fatigued) retrying without being pressed for time generally.[/sblock]</blockquote>

Verification