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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7987444" data-attributes="member: 97077">Agreed. Every person who has played a berserker in my game was happy for it and thought it strange the internet seems to hate the class. In particular, they feel lucky when the Mindless Rage feature has a payoff because a charmed barbarian is a big problem for the rest of the party (depending on the nature of the charm).Exhaustion is also something I find most players are terrified of accruing, even if it's not all that bad in context. It can be bad, but not all the time. A player should be trying to avoid making ability checks anyway, if possible, by working to remove the uncertainty of the outcome and/or the meaningful consequence for failure. This reduces the number of ability checks the player has to make for the character which mitigates the disadvantage on the roll from one level of exhaustion. Plus there is Working Together or the Help action to offset disadvantage on ability checks, and also Inspiration and guidance, if available and appropriate. Halving one's speed isn't great, but Fast Movement helps with this and, depending on where the fight is taking place (e.g. a dungeon with smaller chambers), the barbarian might not need to move very far to engage anyway.Mostly I see the fear of exhaustion come up with forced marching and the encumbrance rules. Players will try to avoid this like it's the Worst Thing Ever when, really, it only starts to get bad at three levels of exhaustion (depending). That gives a berserker some leeway to Frenzy, depending on what's going on in the adventure.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7987444, member: 97077"] Agreed. Every person who has played a berserker in my game was happy for it and thought it strange the internet seems to hate the class. In particular, they feel lucky when the Mindless Rage feature has a payoff because a charmed barbarian is a big problem for the rest of the party (depending on the nature of the charm). Exhaustion is also something I find most players are terrified of accruing, even if it's not all that bad in context. It [I]can [/I]be bad, but not all the time. A player should be trying to avoid making ability checks anyway, if possible, by working to remove the uncertainty of the outcome and/or the meaningful consequence for failure. This reduces the number of ability checks the player has to make for the character which mitigates the disadvantage on the roll from one level of exhaustion. Plus there is Working Together or the Help action to offset disadvantage on ability checks, and also Inspiration and guidance, if available and appropriate. Halving one's speed isn't great, but Fast Movement helps with this and, depending on where the fight is taking place (e.g. a dungeon with smaller chambers), the barbarian might not need to move very far to engage anyway. Mostly I see the fear of exhaustion come up with forced marching and the encumbrance rules. Players will try to avoid this like it's the Worst Thing Ever when, really, it only starts to get bad at three levels of exhaustion (depending). That gives a berserker some leeway to Frenzy, depending on what's going on in the adventure. [/QUOTE]

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