The Frenzied Berserker: I'm Just Curious

[Victim]

We faced two FBs as villains. The first occasion, the FB smoked our normal fighter/barbarian on his first full attack, but was unable to come to grips with anyone else - the opposing party made sure everyone had fly stuff except the beserker to minimize the chance of a party battle.

On the second occasion, the FB was hit by a buffed up smite charge from our paladin before he could go and thus died (a number of other villains were similarly oneshotted). The plan was for him to use Inspire Frenzy on his giant minions to make the fight even nastier.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Is there another option?

I think the FB is problematic simply because it presents two potentially undesirable outcomes: either 1) the FB has a crappy Will save and therefore attacks party members with alacrity; or 2) as IMX, the FB's Will save is set high enough to basically obviate the drawbacks of frenzy. Getting a Will save bonus of +19* isn't that hard, and once you have that, your chances of actually getting in more than a single round of attacks against a friendly before recovering are virtually nil. A smart FB player will negate frenzy the moment that combat is swinging strongly in favor of his side, and thus get at least one free Will save before combat ends.

*+3 level +2 Wisdom +2 Iron Will +2 raging +5 item gets you close even in core. Heroism improves this to +16; the latter spell also dramatically boosts the FB's combat effectiveness. Non-core allows much easier ways to get the high Will save, including the +6 from Cumbrous Will (SS).

 

[Ourph]

I have both played with a fellow FB PC and GMed for an FB. In both instances the party got tired of wasting resources trying to make up for the drawbacks of a single PC's prestige class and taking a backseat to the FB's damage dealing potential in almost every combat. In both cases the rest of the party voted the FB off the island and the FB's player rolled up a new character.

I have never used an FB NPC when GMing, mostly because (as was mentioned above) a smart party can arrange things so that they turn on and kill their own allies.

 

[sirwmholder]

I DM'd a game with one...

Parts I liked: a lot of inspired roleplay.

Parts I didn't like: a lot of would be major battles became anti-climatic.

I personally don't like the class and the player was a min/maxer... with a beefed up Will save. Honestly a power attacking, Frenzied Breserker is terribly broken... and I would not want to DM another one.

 

[molonel]

Yes. I've played one. They tend to be very short-lived, in my limited experience. Every story involving a FB as a PC usually ends with how he died.

 

[Arkhandus]

Why does RP always get in the way of gaming? It was the same thing with the Forsaker prestige class. So many whined and moaned about how hard it was to play in a group with a Forsaker in it. Deal with it! Stop being a ROLL PLAYER and be a ROLE PLAYER for once.

What a contradictory statement.

Of course, in-character, NO ONE would continue traveling and fighting besides a psychopath that would murder them all at some point if they ever allowed anything to make him angry and succumb to his murderous rage. They'd kill him in his sleep or they'd abandon him to avoid being murdered by their freakin' comrade at some random unfortunate point in the near future.

In the game I was in, the FB was really, literally, only kept in the party because he was a PC, and nobody but me was really willing to ask him to leave or at least make a different character that could not TPK the entire party himself.

If the Frenzied Berserker is the brother or something of a fellow party member, that's probably the only way anyone in the group (let alone a cleric) could conceivably forgive him for attacking them in every battle, but they'd still probably take away his weapons forcibly so he couldn't 'accidentally' kill them all at some point. And nobody's gonna forgive him once he accidentally murders the brother or the cleric. Really, most people wouldn't forgive him after the first or second time he beat them within an inch of their life.

 

[Corsair]

our party had a FB once with no problem. He was so massively multiclassed and has a poor wisdom, so when raging his will save was +3 or so. The DC for a Hideous Laughter from my 10th level Grey Elf wizard was 21 (10 + 8 from int, + 2 SL, + 1 spell focus). And that was just one of my lower level ways of dealing with him. Glitterdust made it nearly impossible for him to find us after fights, solid fog and web prevented him from getting to us.

Generally as a fight was getting wrapped up, I would start reading actions waiting for him to turn on us, and then just pop him.

 

[Beckett]

I went with the first answer, but it was not satisfying. My character dropped just before the berserker, but survived the encounter, and I don't think anyone else was seriously hurt.

I was not at the time well versed on the berserker, and looking back the DM might have made some mistakes with the class. I do remember getting upset over the deathless frenzy ability; I know I drove him into the negatives before he took me down, but no matter how much I hurt him, he wasn't going to stop. I could accept this to a point, ie survives to negative his Con score or something, but if I had kept piling on the damage (and a dual wielding dervish with scimitars and improved critical can pile on a lot of damage) he still wouldn't have stopped. Even though after a point, there shouldn't have been anything left of him, by the rules he'd keep fighting.

 

[Razz]

What a contradictory statement.

Of course, in-character, NO ONE would continue traveling and fighting besides a psychopath that would murder them all at some point if they ever allowed anything to make him angry and succumb to his murderous rage. They'd kill him in his sleep or they'd abandon him to avoid being murdered by their freakin' comrade at some random unfortunate point in the near future.

In the game I was in, the FB was really, literally, only kept in the party because he was a PC, and nobody but me was really willing to ask him to leave or at least make a different character that could not TPK the entire party himself.

If the Frenzied Berserker is the brother or something of a fellow party member, that's probably the only way anyone in the group (let alone a cleric) could conceivably forgive him for attacking them in every battle, but they'd still probably take away his weapons forcibly so he couldn't 'accidentally' kill them all at some point. And nobody's gonna forgive him once he accidentally murders the brother or the cleric. Really, most people wouldn't forgive him after the first or second time he beat them within an inch of their life.

Strange...the party in Lodoss War managed to keep such a berserker around...and he proved quite helpful than harmful. The quest didn't cut short nor did they boot him. I guess you play a in group that likes hack and slash because my players had no problem with the FB in their group. They found it fun, suspenseful and realistic. Our blood rushes whenever that frenzy comes out, not groans and sighs. It depends on a gaming group's style, and so far, the only gripers are the ones that don't enjoy an immense RP session.

Besides, like a previous poster said, get your Will save high enough just like Truenamers have to get their Truespeak skill as high as possible or spellcasters need their Spellcraft up there. And with almost everything in the game that grants bonuses to saves, it shouldn't be too hard. Cloak of Resistances +5 are cheap, for one.

 

[Falkus]

Strange...the party in Lodoss War managed to keep such a berserker around

You are aware of the fact that in roleplaying, characters are generally not supposed to have identical personalities?

Besides, like a previous poster said, get your Will save high enough just like Truenamers have to get their Truespeak skill as high as possible or spellcasters need their Spellcraft up there. And with almost everything in the game that grants bonuses to saves, it shouldn't be too hard. Cloak of Resistances +5 are cheap, for one.

What is it you were saying about role playing over roll playing?