Pathfinder 1E So what do you think is wrong with Pathfinder? Post your problems and we will fix it.

[pemerton]

It means, that against all odds, you've made an on-topic post. Barbarian rage powers are probably one of the most tangible and fixable problems with PF, for precisely this reason (i.e. that they don't belong in the PF world), as several posters noted in the early pages of this thread.

Your objection seems to be that they are X uses per day. Suppose instead that Regenerative Vigour was triggered on a fatigue-point system - that would still have the "play feel" issue that you identify, but if we put to that one side would it be magical or not?

And if non-magical, then why do you take the view that healing surges in 4e must be magical?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Your objection seems to be that they are X uses per day. Suppose instead that Regenerative Vigour was triggered on a fatigue-point system - that would still have the "play feel" issue that you identify, but if we put to that one side would it be magical or not?

I would say that any healing that doesn't take place over days of rest (and possibly some that does) is magical, including the rare cases in various 3e and PF sources where it is presented as alchemical or extraordinary.

Given some kind of alternate health system that separates things that are wounds from things that are not, healing the non-wounds instantaneously then becomes the stuff of not magic, though I still wouldn't disseminate it as a rage power.

Oddly, rage powers include several with a Su designation, but I find most of them objectionable in some way or other regardless of what the text says.

 

[billd91]

Rage, while no longer uses per day, is still time per day, rather than something fatigue-based. Rage powers, beyond the rather ominous name, also house some dubious content (not just that regeneration thing) and are needlessly complicated.

To me, playing a barbarian should feel like you're playing a barbarian. No menus of powers to select from, no resource management. Just say what you want to do and do it. Which to me, means that rage should be limited by fatigue and that the bonuses should be static and broad.

I guess the question is - how do you limit by fatigue? Even games like Champions track "fatigue" by the expenditure of resources - in that case, Endurance. The PF rage rounds give the barbarian a set number of rounds per day to burn before he exhausts them and they're recovered by rest, so that's in fatigue's general ballpark. He burns through his energy, get's a night's sleep, and he's up to snuff again.

Are you looking at a quicker recharge rate than overnight? Or a rage ability that can be called upon any number of times, as needed, as long as the barbarian isn't still under fatigue from the last one?

 

[Wicht]

A 6th level barbarian can have this ability. When a 6th level barbarian is fast healing 1 after having healed 1d8+ CON from Renewed Vigour, what is happening in the fiction? Are you telling me that it looks like Wolverine in the X-Man movies?

Probably not quite as fast as Wolverine, but sure, if that's how the player envisions it, it works for me...

Biological fast healing is a cool visual image which serves to make the story more fantastical and emotionally engaging for the players, as they live vicariously through their character.

Now to Ahnehnois' complaint about the powers,... I think, and I could be wrong, that Paizo (ie Jason) was trying with many of the Barbarian powers to create the possibility of a nature warrior - powered by the totem spirits of the tribe. That's how many of the powers feel to me. Others of them have a more primal sort of feel, where the barbarian is imitating wild-life, almost as a super-power.

And I suspect that is where the disconnect comes from, and I find myself in somewhat of the same boat story-wise, because that's not traditionally how I envision the barbarian. Mechanically, if I analyze my conception of a barbarian, I find that one of the other classes (fighter, rogue, ranger) works best, or a multiclass character of the same.

I can understand the dislike of a class where you have to keep track of uses per day if thats not what you want to play, but I also understood why Jason did it, and frankly, there is quite a bit of appeal in classes where you have a menu of customability. In fact, I have tried to keep such options in mind when creating my own classes and it does work to make more innovative, broadly appealing, multi-purpose classes. The only solutions, if you don't like the options, is to either remove the options or rework the options. You might see what kind of "Barbarian" you can build using the fighter class as the base and see if that does not have more appeal to you.

 

[billd91]

Now to Ahnehnois' complaint about the powers,... I think, and I could be wrong, that Paizo (ie Jason) was trying with many of the Barbarian powers to create the possibility of a nature warrior - powered by the totem spirits of the tribe. That's how many of the powers feel to me. Others of them have a more primal sort of feel, where the barbarian is imitating wild-life, almost as a super-power.

And I suspect that is where the disconnect comes from, and I find myself in somewhat of the same boat story-wise, because that's not traditionally how I envision the barbarian. Mechanically, if I analyze my conception of a barbarian, I find that one of the other classes (fighter, rogue, ranger) works best, or a multiclass character of the same.

I can understand the dislike of a class where you have to keep track of uses per day if thats not what you want to play, but I also understood why Jason did it, and frankly, there is quite a bit of appeal in classes where you have a menu of customability. In fact, I have tried to keep such options in mind when creating my own classes and it does work to make more innovative, broadly appealing, multi-purpose classes. The only solutions, if you don't like the options, is to either remove the options or rework the options. You might see what kind of "Barbarian" you can build using the fighter class as the base and see if that does not have more appeal to you.

I personally don't have a problem with most PF rage powers. There are too many examples in historical legends of heroes who undergo transformations and other effects via a rage-like state - whether it's transforming into a bear like bear-sarkers or Slaine-esque warp frenzies. The ability to select the ones you want gives the barbarian player a lot of options to create the berserk effect they want.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I guess the question is - how do you limit by fatigue?

PF still has the fatigued condition. If you rage. You're fatigued. You remove the fatigue penalties by resting like everyone else. If you do it again while still fatigued, you're exhausted. If you do it again, you pass out. Simple.

Now to Ahnehnois' complaint about the powers,... I think, and I could be wrong, that Paizo (ie Jason) was trying with many of the Barbarian powers to create the possibility of a nature warrior - powered by the totem spirits of the tribe. That's how many of the powers feel to me. Others of them have a more primal sort of feel, where the barbarian is imitating wild-life, almost as a super-power.

And I suspect that is where the disconnect comes from, and I find myself in somewhat of the same boat story-wise, because that's not traditionally how I envision the barbarian.

I don't see it that either. If I wanted something powered by nature spirits, I'd work with the ranger. I don't see the barbarian as having superpowers.

Rage always had the odd daily aspect, but to be fair, 3e also has a small number of abilities (such as feats that essentially gave you an elemental subtype while raging) that went in this "spirit" direction. I've never been a fan.

Note that when it comes to the PF barbarian rage powers, I like neither the content nor the method by which it is disseminated. I'd throw it all out and start over again.

 

[Wicht]

I personally don't have a problem with most PF rage powers. There are too many examples in historical legends of heroes who undergo transformations and other effects via a rage-like state - whether it's transforming into a bear like bear-sarkers or Slaine-esque warp frenzies. The ability to select the ones you want gives the barbarian player a lot of options to create the berserk effect they want.

When I says there is a disconnect with me, story-wise, I am not indicating that there is a problem with the powers as is, I am merely saying its not my own interpretation of the "Barbarian" per se.

But that doesn't bother me, because some time back, I decided to divest myself of the need to identify the occupation or presentation of a character with the Class they actually possess and it makes creating characters for adventures and settings much easier. So for instance, if I want a "ninja" character, I feel no need to constrain myself mechanically to the Ninja class. I have several classes I can choose from, including one of my own design. Likewise, a samurai (I pick ninja and samurai because so much of my writing the last couple years has focused on these) may be trained with rogue skills, fighter skills, ranger skills, or even, upon occassion, samurai class skills. The Class becomes a tool by which I balance out the desired traits of a character rather than a constraint pigeonholing characters into a certain role. So if I want to build the traditonal Conan, I'm going to use Ranger, Fighter, or Rogue. I'm not going to use the Barbarian class.

 

[billd91]

PF still has the fatigued condition. If you rage. You're fatigued. You remove the fatigue penalties by resting like everyone else. If you do it again while still fatigued, you're exhausted. If you do it again, you pass out. Simple.

Which gets to the other part of my post... You're envisioning a barbarian able to rage whenever he wants as long as he's not exhausted even if it means 10-20 rage fights a day (as long as they're separated by a few minutes)? Or would the fatigued condition the barbarian is under not be recovered as quickly as it is now - which would effectively limit the barbarian to 2 rages a day?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Which gets to the other part of my post... You're envisioning a barbarian able to rage whenever he wants as long as he's not exhausted even if it means 10-20 rage fights a day (as long as they're separated by a few minutes)? Or would the fatigued condition the barbarian is under not be recovered as quickly as it is now - which would effectively limit the barbarian to 2 rages a day?

Fatigue requires 8 hours of rest to recover from; I would remove the barbarian exception to this rule. With the existing rules, that would indicate that you have from one to four rages within a realistic day of adventuring, depending on how fatigued you're willing to get.

I would then make barbarian advancement include a check to negate the fatigue, and probably leave Tireless Rage as it is, indicating that barbarian rage becomes an at-will ability for a powerful barbarian.

The point is that there would be no resource management, other than the fatigue, which every character is subject to. The rage rounds/day is a (shudder) dissociative element; it takes the player into a different game than the one everyone else is playing. It's also pointless and serves no real purpose. In practical terms, how different is the fatigue-based solution I just presented? Not very. But I've removed quite a bit of stuff from the class to do it.

 

[Wicht]

Which gets to the other part of my post... You're envisioning a barbarian able to rage whenever he wants as long as he's not exhausted even if it means 10-20 rage fights a day (as long as they're separated by a few minutes)? Or would the fatigued condition the barbarian is under not be recovered as quickly as it is now - which would effectively limit the barbarian to 2 rages a day?

Also, how would it balance with clerics able to automatically remove the fatigued condition with a touch?