Frenzied Bezerker – Oh How I Hate Thee!

[Olaf the Stout]

Frenzied Bezerker – Oh How I Hate Thee!

I just had a reminder at my game session last night of why I really don’t like the Frenzied Bezerker prestige class. My group is currently going through the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure. We’re about to clear out the last temple (the Air Temple), before moving on to the Outer Fane.

Approaching the Air Temple, we were attacked by 3 Destrachan. Our 9th level party of 5 PCs made short work of them. As the party Wizard, my PC didn’t even cast a single spell (I was hanging on to them for the other Air Temple encounters). So we smashed the Destrachan and moved on.

Or we would have, if it wasn’t for the fact that the Barbarian/Frenzied Bezerker in the party was still in his frenzy. One failed Will save later and he was making short work of the party Rogue, killing him with one full attack action. The Druid then had to blind the Barbarian, while the Cleric used Revivify to save the Rogue from death. I then used Ghost Sound to distract the Barbarian away. After a couple of rounds, the Barbarian/Frenzied Bezerker’s frenzy finally ends and we move on.

Or we would have, if it wasn’t for the fact that the pissed off and dead (but he got better!) Rogue decided to give the Barbarian a stab in return, putting him back into another Frenzy!

In the end I was forced to cast Evard’s Black Tentacles on my own party in order to keep them apart from each other until the second Frenzy wore off and we could finally move on (for real this time!).

The Frenzy cost us a 5th level spell (Revivify), a 4th level spell (EBT) and a heap of extra healing. The Barbarian/Frenzied Bezerker did more damage to his own party than the monsters did.

The thing I found most annoying about it all from a player perspective was that the fight took an extra 45 minutes of game time to finish. The actual fight with the Destrachan lasted less than 30 minutes. When you only play for about 4 hours a fortnight, it seems such a waste to spend 45 minutes dealing with a stupid class ability.

Now I have no issue with any of the players in my group. We’ve played together as a group for several years now without any major problems and the actions taken by everyone were all completely in character. Plus there wasn’t any bad blood or ill feelings from a player to player perspective as a result of what happened. The player of the Rogue didn’t attack the Barbarian to get back at the Barbarian’s player. It was a completely in-game thing, and both players knew that was the case.

Still, I can’t help but be annoyed that we have to basically come up with a standard operating procedure to deal with an ability of a particular class. I’m definitely glad that I banned the prestige class from all games I run.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Grease is your friend when dealing with a frenzied beserker. Drop it under his feet and the rest of the party can grab a drink while the barbarian thrashes about on the floor.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Grease is your friend when dealing with a frenzied beserker. Drop it under his feet and the rest of the party can grab a drink while the barbarian thrashes about on the floor.

Let the Bard add some tunes, and then it will be like...

YEAH, BOYEEEEEE!!!
[video=youtube;PIqgNK6Pjjw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIqgNK6Pjjw&sns=em[/video]

(...while the Monk studying capoiera learns a few new moves...)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Why hasn't the DM banned that incredibly broken PrC yet?

 

[Celebrim]

Well, IMO all PrC's should be banned on principle.

But the Frenzied Berserker is a couple notches above the usual in terms of general offensiveness.

 

[n00bdragon]

The Frenzied Berserker is merely a high tier 4. He's not even as useful as a rogue and shouldn't even be in a party with a wizard, cleric, or druid that is being played to its full extent. To be totally fair OP the Frenzied Berserker didn't even cause half the problems for your group. The rogue did by stupid stabbing him.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Why hasn't the DM banned that incredibly broken PrC yet?

When I DM, the Frenzied Bezerker is banned. However, I'm only playing at the moment and the current DM allowed it.

To be honest, we're a pretty laid back group. No-one tries to “win” the game or hog all the screen time. We just have fun playing our characters and following the story.

The player of the Barbarian just wanted to play a crazy Barbarian and thought the Frenzied Bezerker prestige class fit well with his concept.

There is 1 powergamer in the group, but he likes to powergame from a perspective of coming up with a concept and then mechanically creating the most effective character possible that matches that concept. For example, he played a Wizard that was all about battlefield control, that did very little in the way of direct damage. So he’s not the type of powergamer that wants to be better than the rest of the group. He’s playing a Cleric at the moment, which works well for the group.

The Frenzied Berserker is merely a high tier 4. He's not even as useful as a rogue and shouldn't even be in a party with a wizard, cleric, or druid that is being played to its full extent. To be totally fair OP the Frenzied Berserker didn't even cause half the problems for your group. The rogue did by stupid stabbing him.

The frenzied Barbarian killed the Rogue in 1 round due to his Frenzy! That action was what instigated the rest of what happened. I’d say the Rogue’s actions were pretty damn justified from an in character perspective. He stabbed the Barbarian once and told him that if that it would be worse if it happened again.

From an out-of-character perspective, there was no bad blood between anyone. It was just us having a bit of in-character intra-party interaction.

I did have a bit of fun with the after effects of this incident. My Gnome Wizard is normally a mild-mannered polite and apologetic person. After the frenzy was finished he brought down his EBT spell and then went off at the Barbarian and Rogue for wasting party resources and time (my Wizard’s brother is currently captured and being tortured by the cult we’re attacking, so he’s a little on edge). He then took lead, rushing ahead in a completely irrational and hot-headed manner, completely opposite to what he’s like normally. It was good fun.

 

[Grogg of the North]

The Frenzied Berserker is merely a high tier 4. He's not even as useful as a rogue and shouldn't even be in a party with a wizard, cleric, or druid that is being played to its full extent. To be totally fair OP the Frenzied Berserker didn't even cause half the problems for your group. The rogue did by stupid stabbing him.

The problem isn't so much a tier issue. It's that no one likes it when the FB kills his entire party. Or falls down a pit and wastes a rage/frenzy because he took falling damage. Or you need a cleric/wizard to prepare spells purposefully to deal with the FB. You could hope to use marbles. Assuming they don't scatter when the FB falls. Or that you can find a level surface to arrange your marbles on given the technology level of the world.

Yea, you can cheese your way around it by going exalted with Righteous Wrath or by picking up Thayan Knight. But, yea, FB is one of those things I feel is written more for the GM than the PCs.

 

[Dandu]

The player of the Barbarian just wanted to play a crazy Barbarian and thought the Frenzied Bezerker prestige class fit well with his concept.

Alternative suggestion: Roleplay a crazy barbarian and skip over problematic prestige classes.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

The problem isn't so much a tier issue. It's that no one likes it when the FB kills his entire party. Or falls down a pit and wastes a rage/frenzy because he took falling damage. Or you need a cleric/wizard to prepare spells purposefully to deal with the FB. You could hope to use marbles. Assuming they don't scatter when the FB falls. Or that you can find a level surface to arrange your marbles on given the technology level of the world.

Yea, you can cheese your way around it by going exalted with Righteous Wrath or by picking up Thayan Knight. But, yea, FB is one of those things I feel is written more for the GM than the PCs.

Yeah, that's my issue with it. So much time, effort and resources wasted in dealing with a class feature! We shouldn't have to come up with a Standard Operating Procedure to deal with a class feature!

Alternative suggestion: Roleplay a crazy barbarian and skip over problematic prestige classes.

Probably a very good suggestion, but what's done is done now.