How would you keep a Frenzied Beserker from killing the whole party?

[reapersaurus]

Listening to Disturbed's "Down With the Sickness", I thought of an idea for a Frenzied Berserker that would be fun to play:

Systematically abused by his race (mom, pa, society), has good intentions but pent-up frustration and rage releases in Hulk-like doses.
Like the Hulk, is pretty mild-mannered and friendly and helpful when out of combat - THAT'S why the party likes to keep him around.

The Defenders (super-hero team) lived with The Hulk's rages - granted, he never killed a teammate, but i think they spent quite a few party "resources" calming him down and dodging his rage...

His Rage is a "Sickness" that goes over his eyes like a trip-hammer.
If he goes over, best be out of his way.

 

[Corwin the Confused]

Some of the posts I have seen in this thread really make me glad that I play with the people I play with.

-- Aravis

I am glad that my party and DM are open minded enough to let me go for the PrC of FB.

 

[Limper]

Re: attack randomly

If a FB runs out of enemies to attack he attacks the nearest creature without regard to friendship, innocence or health. If multiple creatures are all the same distance away he attacks one of them randomly.

So if your party has dtermined that sometimes their battlerager just can't stop maybe it would be a good idea for one of the other fighter types to step up so that everyone else can get away.
Just hit to do subdual damage and knock the FB out. It won't kill him and you sure as heck aren't going to miss him considering he has a -6 to his AC due to the frenzy.

You wont be hitting for subdual damage why should anyone else?

 

[durath]

cause this is your friend??

IF you happened to get attacked by the FB you could strike for subdual because this guy is your friend maybe?

In real life if you had a friend of say 20 years or so, say a war veteran, freaks out and starts hitting to kill and comes at you full steam. Would you try and subdue him or would you just grab a gun and kill him?

IN any case I don't think good aligned PC's would just try and kill their friend. I think they would try and subdue. Evil PC's would go for the kill.

Are you seeing the role playing possibilites here yet? Trust me Limpy we are gonna have some memorable moments with this class.

 

[Limper]

Oh yeah.... just not good one's.

Maybe I should bring back Taraagh. I'll just have to picture you as Antares....


Really though you are trying to KILL me... If I fought every day for a living I dont know if I would or be able to pull the punches.

 

[nick]

I am playing a 3rd level FB character, and so far, I haven't turned on my fellow partymembers. I have a vest of resistance +5, which helps a lot. The greatest worry occurs when my character is dominated/charm personed, which can happen to any character. If anything, my character being a FB has added a greater humor factor to the game, and has not caused any turbulence thus far.
I liked the suggestions about using a wand of levitation, or having a spellcaster who is still considered an ally to cast calm emotions.
On a side note, there are few good prestige classes for barbarians, and I would not like to have to abandon the character that I have played for so long simply because there is no greater power for him to attain. A pure barbarian is no match for a barbarian/FB of equal level. With a few precautions, the character can be a deadly warrior, with minimal risk to the party.
I also suppose it depends on how vengeful the other party members are if attacked, or whether they realize that it is a potential problem that can be worked around.

 

[Corwin the Confused]

Here is an update for the camp that said that their characters would never adventure with a Frenzied Beserker:

My character is now FB 8 / Barb 3 / Fighter 10. He has yet to kill any character in his party, although he ALMOST killed the monk of the group when I had a full round of attacks and had two crits. But then he ran away crying like a girl (just kidding). Another time which the characters do not know but the players do know (meta-gaming). Paladin got his head cut off by a big mean monster with a vorpal sword. However, my FB saved the life of our Paladin due to the massive damage from an attack that we missed for my FB. Other times when I failed my save the Polymorphed wizard with a huge AC has let me beat on him until my FB saves or the wizard has thrown things out of his bag of tricks to occupy my FB. My FB now has a Will Save of 18, so he only fails to come out of a frenzy on a 1. My FB auto-saves when he is raging.

I am very glad that I play with such a tolerant group.


P.S. The monk refuses to flank with me now unless it is a very large creature. <grin>

 

[Jeremy]

Good for you! I'm glad you got to go a long with it and it worked out.

I trust the extra attack and 36 or so strength has come in handy enough to make up for the one monk beating you've delivered?

 

[Crothian]

Just more evidence of people speaking out of turn without really knowing how things will play out in actually game sessions. Glad to see it work for you.

 

[Xarlen]

Glad to see you and your party's havin' fun.

How'd you save the paladin if his head was chopped off?