In the Beta, it states that barbarians cannot enter rage while fatigued.

Ray of Exhaustion causes fatigue even if you pass the save.

Could any of the writers provide me with a bit of guidance on what happens to a raging barbarian when they are hit by a ray of exhaustion? Does the rage stop? Are the effects of fatigue (or exhaustion) applied but the rage continues?

A barbarian cannot rage whilst fatigued, so to me, it would surgest that a barbarian could not maintain a rage whislt fatgiued either. I'd say that the barbarians rage should end.

The rules say that you can't [b]enter[b] a rage while fatigued. I'd be willing to allow a barbarian to maintain an existing rage if he became fatigued/exhausted while raging.

If you don't do this, than any fatigue inducing effect is extremely powerful against barbarians. Normally for introducing fatigue, you get these effects:

• Cannot run or charge
  
• -2 to Strength and Dex
  

If inducing fatigue instead ends the rage, then you get exhaustion (since you have an existing fatigue effect and ending the rage also produces fatigue), so you instead have:

• Move at half speed
  
• -6 to Strength and Dex
  
• -4 to Strength and Con (from rage ending)
  

In total, -10 Strength, -6 Dex and -4 Con (plus better speed debuffing) where you normally get just -2 Strength and -2 Dex. That seems overly powerful. That's also assuming a basic rage. If you had greater rage or other rage powers working, it'd be even worse.

In the Beta, it states that barbarians cannot enter rage while fatigued.

Ray of Exhaustion causes fatigue even if you pass the save.

Could any of the writers provide me with a bit of guidance on what happens to a raging barbarian when they are hit by a ray of exhaustion? Does the rage stop? Are the effects of fatigue (or exhaustion) applied but the rage continues?

What you're looking for is Calm Emotions a very good spell for shutting down Barbarians. It doesn't drop them out of rage, but it does force them to expend rage points without getting the benefit.

According to the Beta, a barbarian is not pulled from their rage by becoming fatigued from a Ray of Exhaustion.

A barbarian that is fatigued from said Ray while in a rage would also, assuming the ray's status is still in effect, become exhausted after the rage is over instead of fatigued (becoming fatigued while already fatigued equals exhausted).

It is arguable whether or not a barbarian, if fatigued before their rage, should be prevented from entering the rage. Literally speaking, this seems to be the case. However, I could see a fair house rule that a barbarian should only be prevented from raging by fatigue that is caused from ending their own rage, and not other sources.

Your God of Knowledge,
Nethys

Yeah; once a barbarian's raging, if he becomes fatigued from other sources, he doesn't stop raging. He DOES take the extra penalties for being fatigued, so his rage isn't as effective while he's raging in this case, but he does get to keep raging.

Yeah; once a barbarian's raging, if he becomes fatigued from other sources, he doesn't stop raging. He DOES take the extra penalties for being fatigued, so his rage isn't as effective while he's raging in this case, but he does get to keep raging.

Does paralysis or hold person or any other effect like that stop the raging?

James Jacobs wrote:

Yeah; once a barbarian's raging, if he becomes fatigued from other sources, he doesn't stop raging. He DOES take the extra penalties for being fatigued, so his rage isn't as effective while he's raging in this case, but he does get to keep raging.

Does paralysis or hold person or any other effect like that stop the raging?

I can't see why they should. There is nothing in the Rage description that says being unable to move ends the rage.

In fact, I think if you're raging, wanting to bit off your enemy's head in a frothing fury, having to stand there and helplessly watch that enemy doing whatever they want while you're stuck, unmoving, in the grop of some spell that HE put on you - I think you might end up raging more and more as each round goes by.

Too bad for the barbarian that they don't get cumulative incremental increases the longer they rage...

(but good thing for their enemies, I guess)

SuperSheep wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Yeah; once a barbarian's raging, if he becomes fatigued from other sources, he doesn't stop raging. He DOES take the extra penalties for being fatigued, so his rage isn't as effective while he's raging in this case, but he does get to keep raging.

Does paralysis or hold person or any other effect like that stop the raging?

I can't see why they should. There is nothing in the Rage description that says being unable to move ends the rage.

In fact, I think if you're raging, wanting to bit off your enemy's head in a frothing fury, having to stand there and helplessly watch that enemy doing whatever they want while you're stuck, unmoving, in the grop of some spell that HE put on you - I think you might end up raging more and more as each round goes by.

Too bad for the barbarian that they don't get cumulative incremental increases the longer they rage...

(but good thing for their enemies, I guess)

However I would rule that you have to continue to spend rage points while in the hold person, hideous laughter or other effect to maintain the rage when you get out of it.

OF COURSE if you don't spend a Rage Point each round, you drop Rage and are exhausted...

What would ANY spell have to do with that, unless it specifically interferes with your ability to BE Enraged/spend Rage Points (affecting a RELEVANT mechanic)?

I'd guess that only death, ending the rage voluntarily, and running out of rounds of rage will be the only things to end a rage.

--King of Vrock!

Calm Emotions

I think I might rule that unconscious or sleep ends a rage... but there might be exceptions.

In 3.5 I think many people house-ruled wierd things like "Still Raging while Unconscious" because the way Rage Temp HP's worked was basically "dead-meat" lethal if you dropped Rage when you were actually using those bonus HPs to keep standing (once your Rage Bonus HPs > 10 and it would drop you past the point of Cure healing).

This issue was brought up during the Barbarian playtest, and from Jason's posts, we should expect the "Rage HPs" either to be treated as standard Temporary Hitpoints, or such that Rage HPs *do* absorb damage, tending to leave the Barbarian at zero HPs when they disappear after dropping Rage, rather than -LOTS when they are SUBTRACTED from the current HPs total (as per 3.5).

I don't know if this was the type of scenario people were thinking of when they brought up sleep and Rage...

In 3.5 I think many people house-ruled wierd things like "Still Raging while Unconscious" because the way Rage Temp HP's worked was basically "dead-meat" lethal if you dropped Rage when you were actually using those bonus HPs to keep standing (once your Rage Bonus HPs > 10 and it would drop you past the point of Cure healing).

This issue was brought up during the Barbarian playtest, and from Jason's posts, we should expect the "Rage HPs" either to be treated as standard Temporary Hitpoints, or such that Rage HPs *do* absorb damage, tending to leave the Barbarian at zero HPs when they disappear after dropping Rage, rather than -LOTS when they are SUBTRACTED from the current HPs total (as per 3.5).

I don't know if this was the type of scenario people were thinking of when they brought up sleep and Rage...

It wasn't a house rule. I don't believe this changes much with the new PFRPG rules either. I would expect a barbarian to keep the rage up while unconscious until they ran out of rounds.

Does a raging barbarian lose the effects of his rage (including the extra hit points from his increased Constitution) when he falls unconscious?

No. Nothing in the rage class feature indicates that the effect ends if the barbarian is rendered unconscious. The Sage shudders to think how many more dead barbarians would be lying around the battlefield if being reduced to –1 hp meant that the barbarian instantly lost additional hp equal to twice his HD!

As a general rule, activated effects remain active even if the activating character is rendered incapable of acting (paralyzed, unconscious, dead, and so on) unless the effect stipulates otherwise.

I wasn't aware there was an "official Sage ruling" on the topic (I've just used RAW with minimal house rules: looking up 'official interpretations' on-line wasn't obvious to me), but of course the difference was in 3.5 it was a per/encounter ability that effectively needed active intervention by the Barbarian (or Calm Emotions effect) to end, while PRPG requires constant "feeding" of Rage Points to maintain. Without the motivation to not let your own Class Ability kill you, nobody would WANT to Rage during Unconsciousness for the most part, since it's depleting their Rage Points (as well as disturbing their dreams ;-))

In any case, Jason's *own post* on this topic seemed to all but confirm that how Rage HPs are treated WILL BE CHANGED, though he hadn't settled on the exact option at the time of the Barbarian playtest.
This will almost certainly be included in the Barbarian preview :-)

So the FAQ says barbarians who die raging are still raging?

I can see the coroner's autopsy report.

"Subject appears to have died from multiple sharp force trauma. He is also seemed to suffer from perimortem grinding of the molars. Oddly, he also seems to be suffering from post-mortem frothing at the mouth; we had to gag the corpse with a sponge...

I wonder if they can give it a rest, you know, whenever their soul reaches Pharasma's boneyard? :-)

So the FAQ says barbarians who die raging are still raging?

I can see the coroner's autopsy report.

"Subject appears to have died from multiple sharp force trauma. He is also seemed to suffer from perimortem grinding of the molars. Oddly, he also seems to be suffering from post-mortem frothing at the mouth; we had to gag the corpse with a sponge...

It says those who fall unconscious (-1 to -9 in 3.5) stay raging. They die, they're dead, and I assume stop raging at that point.

The FAQ ruling was just to prevent the 'many deaths' that could occur from hitting -1 while raging. They can stay raging until they run out of rounds, but after that, still die.