D&D 5E It is OK for a class to be the worst

For this discussion, I would like to point out that going into a Frenzy rage is optional and does not affect the other features of the subclass (heck, for Retaliation, you don't even need to be raging).

Also, I'd just add that for a Frenzy barb, when you take a Long Rest, you can remove 2 levels of Exhaustion instead of just one. Won't completely fix the subclass, but I think it'll make it good enough for the people who care too much about that sort of thing.
 

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For this discussion, I would like to point out that going into a Frenzy rage is optional and does not affect the other features of the subclass (heck, for Retaliation, you don't even need to be raging).

Also, I'd just add that for a Frenzy barb, when you take a Long Rest, you can remove 2 levels of Exhaustion instead of just one. Won't completely fix the subclass, but I think it'll make it good enough for the people who care too much about that sort of thing.

Presumably you mean the latter as a house rule? Or is it a rule we've all somehow been missing?
 

Presumably you mean the latter as a house rule? Or is it a rule we've all somehow been missing?
As a house rule, yes. Sorry if that distinction wasn't clear.

Although I did just think of another idea, Maybe on a long rest you lose Exhaustion levels based on the amount of Rage uses you have left on a long rest? I dunno, I'm just throwing out ideas here.
 

As a house rule, yes. Sorry if that distinction wasn't clear.

Although I did just think of another idea, Maybe on a long rest you lose Exhaustion levels based on the amount of Rage uses you have left on a long rest? I dunno, I'm just throwing out ideas here.

I mean I think the current rules are balanced in terms of cost, I don't really think making it easier to use Frenzy more would be a goal I'd have. Personally, if I were house-ruling it, I'd remove the Exhaustion entirely and make it one use per Long Rest at L3, 2 uses at L10, and 3 at L14, or something like that. That way you have good usage levels but don't make the party less effective by using it (which is my major concern - I can't even think of a single ability of another class that does that).

But if I was house-ruling I'd probably move Frenzy to 10, Retaliation to 3 (but make it initially limited to Proficiency bonus times/short rest, with that limit removed at L10), and completely re-write the L10 ability (which would be now at L14) into a more "fire and forget"-type Frighten, which hit multiple enemies and could last multiple rounds (save each round) but was 1/short rest or something.
 

I feel like your examples here were so incredibly simplistic that it's not worth arguing with. I dunno what you're playing, but in my experience most adventures don't last exactly one adventuring day and have a clear last fight in the way you're describing, so being really sneer-y about this and calling people "braindead" just seems out-of-touch.
That really depends on the adventure. Flipping through a few issues of Dungeon magazine supports the idea that climax encountrrs are rather obvious and I can easily see places where a Barbarian could frenzy twice an adventure, or other characters could semi-nova. Lets face it, many encounters aren't worth more than cantrip damage anyway.
 

I mean I think the current rules are balanced in terms of cost, I don't really think making it easier to use Frenzy more would be a goal I'd have. Personally, if I were house-ruling it, I'd remove the Exhaustion entirely and make it one use per Long Rest at L3, 2 uses at L10, and 3 at L14, or something like that. That way you have good usage levels but don't make the party less effective by using it (which is my major concern - I can't even think of a single ability of another class that does that).

But if I was house-ruling I'd probably move Frenzy to 10, Retaliation to 3 (but make it initially limited to Proficiency bonus times/short rest, with that limit removed at L10), and completely re-write the L10 ability (which would be now at L14) into a more "fire and forget"-type Frighten, which hit multiple enemies and could last multiple rounds (save each round) but was 1/short rest or something.

Yeah, intimidating presence, is like Frenzy, a theoretically awesome ability that falls short in execution. The ability to frighten a target at range - awesome. The fact that it's keyed off charisma (which, at best, is likely 4th on the list and as often as not actually imposes a minus) makes it near useless. Compare to zealous presence, which is awesome, and amazingly useful.

edit: as a quick and easy fix for intimidating presence - I allow it to be based on strength, which works much better.
 

That really depends on the adventure. Flipping through a few issues of Dungeon magazine supports the idea that climax encountrrs are rather obvious and I can easily see places where a Barbarian could frenzy twice an adventure, or other characters could semi-nova. Lets face it, many encounters aren't worth more than cantrip damage anyway.

Absolutely. It does depend. Dungeon is full of short adventures with pretty obvious climaxes. A number of 1E adventures I have in collections are similar. But my AP-type ones, whether they're Dragon Mountain in 2E, or the scary worm one (forget name) in 3E/PF, or stuff like the Dragonlords in 5E? Those don't have that, not as obviously and not as reliably daily in shape. And homebrew stuff, which apparently is 60% of people who are playing? That's even less fitted to that model.

There will definitely be some adventures where it works out perfectly. But I think whether they're common or uncommon, or downright rare in your campaign will vary so hugely you can't call people "braindead" as a general principle for finding it trickier.
 

I'd argue that there isn't that much consensus over what an animal companion ranger ought to look like, at least within this thread, though I haven't reviewed the survey response breakdown of what WotC found players wanted out of revisions for the Ranger's animal companion.
I can only speak for myself, but I would probably have preferred if the ranger's animal companion and a druid's wild shape were largely about animal archetypes (e.g., guardian, hunter, vermin, etc.) that would then scale to level (as per 4e). IME, a lot of players who play both druids and BM hunters also have an image in mind about their preferred form/companion. And they generally don't like it (again, IME) when they have to switch to a more optimal animal shape or pet.
 

I can only speak for myself, but I would probably have preferred if the ranger's animal companion and a druid's wild shape were largely about animal archetypes (e.g., guardian, hunter, vermin, etc.) that would then scale to level (as per 4e). IME, a lot of players who play both druids and BM hunters also have an image in mind about their preferred form/companion. And they generally don't like it (again, IME) when they have to switch to a more optimal animal shape or pet.

Agreed. I really liked the 10/2015 UA idea of rewriting the Ranger so that each subclass had a different spirit animal archetype (more akin to the 4e Shaman, than anything), and the 11/2019 UA on Variant Class Features took this idea a little bit further to fit within the context of the existing class and subclass structure of the Ranger - Beast of the Air vs Beast of the Land, each withh a standard but evolving stat block and an appearance of the player's choice. I think there's room for more types of companion Beast choices, though - I really, really, really want to see a Beast of the Saddle (large) version, and I think Beast of the Land and Beast of the Sea could be separate.
 

I feel like your examples here were so incredibly simplistic that it's not worth arguing with. I dunno what you're playing, but in my experience most adventures don't last exactly one adventuring day and have a clear last fight in the way you're describing, so being really sneer-y about this and calling people "braindead" just seems out-of-touch.
Y'know what? I'm going to call it out. Not only are my games that I play friendly to the Barbarian's Frenzy mechanic, I bet your games are also friendly to the barbarian encounter. Um, general "you" that applies to the majority of people on this thread but possible including Ruin Explorer

Well, a typical adventuring day is 6-8 encounters. If you're like me that attempts to run this, your encounters will run up to around medium or hard. It's obvious that the party will probably blow past the first and second encounter, after the third, players will start attempting short rests. At the fourth and fifth encounter, your party is struggling and they're running out of resources, so you rage on one of those encounters. On the sixth, seventh, and eighth encounters, your party is significantly spent from attrition, medium encounters suddenly feel threatening and hard encounters might knock a few PC's out. You'd have probably raged once more before and when your team desperately needs the damage, you can frenzy. If another unexpected encounter happens, use your best judgement but you have another frenzy opportunity.

But I doubt most games here are like that. There's probably 2 hard and 2 deadly encounters in an adventuring day at the most. Of course, it kinda wonks with the balance of spellcasters and martials but with less encounters and they're more swingy, Frenzying once becomes even better in this style. You get to be frenzied without much concern 1/4 of the combat encounters rather than 1/8. Plus, players will quickly try to long rest before the third or fourth fight anyways because it was an incredible and quick tax on their resources and they're fearful of an even stronger encounter.

But let's talk about afterwards: most games have moved from exp to milestone for some reason or other. This means that combats aren't worth much but an HP drain in the player's minds. This also means they're going to want to finish the quest as quickly as possible since there's no incentive to stay longer than they have to. Most adventures in homebrew games are probably 2 or 3 days consecutively.

Probably less, since there's usually the walking montage in-between so that the actual adventure takes place in a dungeon, which is usually cleared in a couple in-game hours. This means that most campaigns are structured: hook, travel (1-6 days), dungeon, travel back, completion. You get plenty of resting opportunities in the games.

In modules, it's even better since random encounters are usually just once a long rest anyways.
 

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