While in rage, a barbarian gains a +4 morale bonus to her Strength and Constitution...
...any morale bonus the wielder gains from any other source is increased by half the weapon's enhancement bonus (minimum 1).
When the wielder is raging or under the effect of a rage spell, the weapon's enhancement bonus is +2 better than normal.
So. Let's say our barbarian has an 18 strength when he's not raging, and his weapon of choice is a +2 Courageous Furious greatsword. What does his strength score becomes when he rages?
As far as I interpret the way these abilities work together, it's pretty scary. While raging the barbarian's weapon would count as +4 from the furious enchantment. Then the courageous enchantment augments the barbarian's rage, increasing his morale bonus to strength and con by a further +2 (to a total of +6). Am I interpreting this correctly?
Well, I suppose that clears that right up! I did think the combination of those abilities was rather powerful. Thanks!
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It was quite powerful, and very useful, until it was nerfed into uselessness.
I find myself saying this all too often lately.
Well a lot of us players are a little too smart for our own good. It's not powergaming or anything, but damn if we aren't using 110% of our available resources to be as effective as possible.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Well, I suppose that clears that right up! I did think the combination of those abilities was rather powerful. Thanks!
It had been noticed and discussed nearly every week since that property was printed. It had also been known by developer comments that it never worked and the bonus was restricted to saves. That never stopped anyone from continuing to assert it gave a bonus to STR/CON, well at least until the most recent debate got FAQ treatment and a better wording to minimize the chance to interpret the rule incorrectly. Effectively errata.
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That point would be valid, maybe, if they were also re-balancing the extraordinarily weak option to be on par with what they want as average as well.
But it's not.
Some were. That's not a valid point. Not every change was a nerf
Like what?
I don't remember much of anything being specifically buffed. Plenty of things were nerfed. Off the top of my head:
Verminous Hunters, Sacred Fist Warpriests, Daring Champion Cavaliers, Divine Protection, Animal Soul, Merciless Butchery (I'm STILL salty about this one that was aaaagh), Pummeling Style, and others I'm sure people with characters who used said options could name.
I can't think of a single buff besides Steadfast Personality, and that still doesn't cover even a hundredth of a percent of the simply ATROCIOUS options published in every book ever released, including just the ACG.
Which, regardless, misses the point entirely...errata are not supposed to be for completely changing how options were and drastically buffing or nerfing them. They're supposed to be for fixing mistakes.
A lot of which were completely ignored when making this Blizzard-esque balance patch. There's still a lot of confusing wording and typos and all that, on top of a bunch of unnecessary nerfs (WHO HAD A PROBLEM WITH MERCILESS BUTCHERY?).
And again, regardless of all that, saying that just because an option is GOOD and people might want to change it it needs to be nerfed is..quite silly.
Likewise, saying that just because someone spends time making an optimization guide and pointing out which options are good means they are "belittling options" completely misses the point of such things.
Optimization guides aren't for flavor purposes any more than a technical guide telling you how to assemble your washing machine is meant to suggest what color would look best in your living room. A guide telling you what option you might LIKE to take is impossible, because it varies from person to person.
Meanwhile a guide that tells you which options are good for most characters of that class is very possible. It's an objective evaluation of available options meant to be as broadly applicable as possible.
There will always be a "best" option no matter what, that's just how games work.
There will always be terrible garbage options that set your player back too.
Guides that tell you to avoid traps shouldn't be blamed for good options being destroyed. That attitude is wrong.
Basically, yeah.
It's not like these are exploits and glitches as in a video game. Pointing them out as options that are good should not mean they are changed. That's just makes the devs look petty for changing everything anyone wants to use.
trying to help out other players should not be something you regret because later it's decided that your advice was good...and that means the option needs to be changed.
That logic only lines up if you assume that the opinion of the people who make this game is always correct.
I can honestly count the number of useful weapon enchantments on one hand now. I'm just waiting for Dueling to get nerfed into uselessness so I can stop bothering to enchant weapons all together.
Yes. That would be the sum of it. I have my choice of games and I like this one so I abide the rules given.
But there's other systems and I abide their rules too.
So you think every decision the devs make is the correct one.
Honestly speaking, that just tells me there's no point in talking to you. There's nothing to discuss. Whatever the decision, it is the correct one to you.
I'll save my time for someone less fanatical.
If you mean to say something, actually say it.
I made a statement, and you answered "Yes. That would be the sum of it." agreeing with it.
There's no ambiguity in your answer there. What did you think I was going to take away from it?
I can honestly count the number of useful weapon enchantments on one hand now. I'm just waiting for Dueling to get nerfed into uselessness so I can stop bothering to enchant weapons all together.
Holy, Seeking, Furious, Inspired, Merciful, Keen, Agile, Ghost Touch, Adaptive...you must have a big hand.
I can honestly count the number of useful weapon enchantments on one hand now. I'm just waiting for Dueling to get nerfed into uselessness so I can stop bothering to enchant weapons all together.Holy, Seeking, Furious, Inspired, Merciful, Keen, Agile, Ghost Touch, Adaptive...you must have a big hand.
Holy? Merciful? Really? And I'm saddened by the lack of Cyclonic.
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On the point of "if the feature is insanely great, it should be nerfed"
Let's look at another game. Magic the Gathering.
They ban cards when those cards are critical to particular sets of cards (decks) that dominate tournaments. If 50% of the player base is playing one deck, you know for certain critical parts of that deck will get banned.
Look at Pathfinder now. If every build of a Barbarian uses (or should use) a feature, it should be altered unless it is expected everyone should be using that feature.
Cloaks of Resistances
Rings of Protection
These are expected.
Courageous weapons were not.
On the point of "if the feature is insanely great, it should be nerfed"
Let's look at another game. Magic the Gathering.
They ban cards when those cards are critical to particular sets of cards (decks) that dominate tournaments. If 50% of the player base is playing one deck, you know for certain critical parts of that deck will get banned.
Look at Pathfinder now. If every build of a Barbarian uses (or should use) a feature, it should be altered unless it is expected everyone should be using that feature.
Cloaks of Resistances
Rings of Protection
These are expected.Courageous weapons were not.
MTG bans cards when they are a key part of a dominating archetype or when the card warps the format around itself. It doesn't ban them when they are a very popular choice of card for a common archetype. Courageous was not making barbarians off the wall broken, nor was it changing the optimal builds of a large segment of character concepts by it's very existence("most barbarians" is not a large segment). MTG is a bad example, because if the Design team used their metrics Courageous wouldn't have been touched.
This FAQ is one I don't even bother bringing up with my groups. I just ignore it for being dumb.
if all what they do is ok why we have erratas?Yes. That would be the sum of it. I have my choice of games and I like this one so I abide the rules given.
But there's other systems and I abide their rules too.
Sometimes I wish we didn't. Most stuff that gets an errata or FAQ is just worse/less balanced afterwards.
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It doesn't ban them when they are a very popular choice of card for a common archetype. Courageous was not making barbarians off the wall broken, nor was it changing the optimal builds of a large segment of character concepts ... if the Design team used their metrics Courageous wouldn't have been touched.
They banned Ponder, Preordain, Dig Throught Time just because they were popular choices for any deck that run Blue.
Death rite Shaman was in every black or green deck (even though you couldn't use all of its abilities if not both colors.)
Let me rephrase what I'm saying:
How Courageous was being interpreted was known to be different than how they wrote it and how they believed it would be interpreted.
They issued Errata to make it work how they intended.
A few others like Animal Soul, they modified to be more like what they wanted but less of the "unintended" uses.
Like Magic banned cards they whole Errata things to prevent their use. Things like Scarred Witch Doctor, Divine Intervention and Bard Weird Words, they simply didn't understand just how fundamentally broken to the Core they wrote them. In a yearly GenCon PVP event these kept coming up every year. Weird Words at GenCon 2014 hit 190 minimum damage at 12th. SKR post proposed Errata 9 months before GenCon 14 and he left shortly after. Within 4 months of the build being post the current dev team issued Errata.
