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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Weathercock" data-source="post: 6744355" data-attributes="member: 6802523">At this point, it's pretty commonly accepted that the Barbarian's Berserker archetype is horribly underpowered, and often even considered a trap. The biggest part of this comes from a general lack of features in addition to Frenzy being entirely unusable.Looking harder at it, it appears to me that all of this comes from the fact that the Berserker's levelling progression is completely and utterly screwed. Getting a bonus action attack at level 3 (especially with GWM) is insanely powerful, and pushes the Berserker's low level damage cap to ludicrous levels. Of course, with a feature so powerful at that level, it was restricted by applying the exhaustion effect to discourage its use outside of all but the most crucial of situations. However, this doesn't scale so well, and once other front line characters gain access to feats and their extra attacks, Frenzy's value, even if you were to remove its nasty side effect starts to decline incredibly sharply, leaving it almost unusable as it is. It doesn't help that most of the archetype's offensive value can be replicated with the Polearm Mastery feat. And with the Totem Warrior's new totemic attunements in SCAG coming up to steal even more of the Berserker's thunder, it seems like it can't get a break.So I opted to come up with something a little more reasonable. The Better Berserker.UPDATE 15/11/05: Bloodlust altered to no longer use a bonus action (requires commitment to Reckless Attack instead)UPDATE 15/11/08: Frenzy altered to require commitment to Reckless Attack to activate bonus action attackBloodlustStarting when you choose this path at 3rd level, your rage drives you to draw your enemies’ blood, no matter the cost. When you miss with a melee weapon attack on your turn while using Reckless Attack feature, you may make an additional melee weapon as part of your attack action. You may only use this feature once per turn.Intimidating PresenceAt 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill. If you already have proficiency in Intimidation, then your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check that uses Intimidation.Mindless RageBeginning at 6th level, you can’t be charmed or frightened while raging. If you are charmed or frightened when you enter your rage, the effect is suspended for the duration of the rage.RetaliationStarting at 10th level, when you take damage from a creature that is within 5 feat of you, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against that creature.FrenzyStarting at 14th level, your rage drives you into a bloodthirsty frenzy. When you are raging and using the Reckless Attack feature, you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action. The main problem with Frenzy at level 3 is that it raises the Berserker's damage cap to ludicrous levels. By replacing the old Frenzy with Bloodlust, we get a powerful archetype feature that still manages to keep the Berserker's potential damage output at reasonable levels. And without the need for exhaustion to keep the ability in check at lower levels, it now scales far better, allowing it to compete with Polearm Mastery in value.Intimidating Presence, as it was, was an utterly terrible, unusable ability that served no purpose but to fill the gap in the barren wasteland that was the old Berserker's level progression. By turning it into a non-combat skill, the Berserker now gains some utility outside of just bashing things on the head, encouraging more flavourful play off the battlefield.Mindless Rage as it was was always solid.Moving Retaliation to 10th level, instead of 14th manages to serve two functions. First, it helps to keep the Berserker's average damage rate competitive moving into tier 3 of gameplay, but secondly, it also keeps that damage ceiling in check by maximizing action economy that was already there, rather than increasing damage output overall. Feats like Sentinal and Polearm Mastery still offer stiff competition to Retaliation, but moving it to a lower level helps to keep it competitive now.Lastly, we finally increase the damage cap with the new and improved Frenzy, now with no more silly Exhaustion mechanic. Essentially functioning as an enhanced Bloodlust at this point, all the pieces finally come together, and Berserker retains its moderate potential/high consistent damage rate without having to deal with the baggage of the old Frenzy's poor scaling.So... any thoughts? I wanted to rebalance the Berserker in order to make it worth considering as a choice against Totem Warrior, especially since not all of us want our Barbarians to be flower-children-druid-baby-tryhards (and not all of us are fans of the stunties either). And while this variant might still possibly need a thing to push it over the top, I think that it at least turns the Berserker from something that was almost unusable into something that's at the very least viable.</blockquote>

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