Battlerager build

[P.H. Dungeon]

One of my players just picked up martial power. He's been playing a fighter, but wants to swap out his fighter weapon talent class feature and get the battlerager vigor.

It is as follows:

Battle rager vigor

Each time an enemy hits you with a melee or a close
attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your
Constitution modifier (after the attack is resolved).
When you gain temporary hit points by hitting
with an attack that has the invigorating keyword,
those temporary hit points stack with any other tem-
porary hit points you already have.
When wearing light armor or chainmail, you gain
a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee and close
weapon attacks whenever you have temporary hit
points. This bonus increases to +2 if you’re wielding
an axe, a hammer, a mace, or a pick.

To me this power seems a little too powerful as a trade off for the weapon talent, and being a dm who is ever on the look out for broken rules and power creep, I've said no to this for now. What do others think about this ability?

[Arcesilaus]

P.H. Dungeon wrote:

One of my players just picked up martial power. He's been playing a fighter, but wants to swap out his fighter weapon talent class feature and get the battlerager vigor.

It is as follows:

Battle rager vigor

Each time an enemy hits you with a melee or a close
attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your
Constitution modifier (after the attack is resolved).

This part isn't bad, since the temp hps don't stack (normally). Thus a heroic-tier character is likely to have a maximum of 3-6 temp hps at any one time.

P.H. wrote:

When you gain temporary hit points by hitting

with an attack that has the invigorating keyword,
those temporary hit points stack with any other tem-
porary hit points you already have.

This seems a little strong, but I guess it depends on how many powers the character has that are 'invigorating.' If it's more than a couple, or any at-wills, I might shy away.

P.H. wrote:

When wearing light armor or chainmail, you gain

a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee and close
weapon attacks whenever you have temporary hit
points. This bonus increases to +2 if you’re wielding
an axe, a hammer, a mace, or a pick.

This doesn't seem bad given the trade-off for a constant +1 to hit and the limitation on armor types. Overall, I guess it depends on how many powers the character has with the 'invigorating' keyword. If it's only 1 or 2, this isn't broken, I don't think.

O

[David Marks]

In fights with plenty of melee attackers (and especially so if they're minions) a Battlerager rocks. Against archers and spellcasters, boy they miss those temp HP. Just make sure he's doing it right and it isn't so bad. Have them track them incorrectly and it gets nasty fast.

[Matthew Koelbl]

In general, I think Battlerager gains a bit more than they lose, but not so much as to be gamebreaking. A player in my game recently got my ok to swap it in for his original +1 to hit. Since then, he has been much more durable... but the reduction in offense power has also been felt.

From seeing it in effect, the one change I would make would be to replace "Each time an enemy hits you with a melee or a close attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier (after the attack is resolved)" with "The first time each round that an enemy hits you with a melee or a close attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier (after the attack is resolved)."

They still get plenty of virtual hp, but they aren't able to become simply immune to minions, and means enough concentrated fire can still bring them down.

I haven't actually tested it though, but that would be my recommendation for balancing it for any who think it looks like a bit too much on initial view.

[P.H. Dungeon]

Getting an extra 4-6 hp a round is still pretty good, but not as good as what essentially amounts to DR 4-6/-

[Logos]

The Battlerager also begins to suffer from mad. Either they take a hit in Ac, or they switch to light armour and gain a new stat (Dex or Int )to worry about.

Logos

[Matthew Koelbl]

P.H. Dungeon wrote:

Getting an extra 4-6 hp a round is still pretty good, but not as good as what essentially amounts to DR 4-6/-

Yeah, exactly. You are still looking at the equivalent of an extra 2-4 free healing surges a fight (or more, when using Invigorating Powers effectively), but you don't get the virtual DR that makes you simply immune to many enemies.

I ran a White Dragon encounter against my party at our last session. The biggest fight thus far, and one that left 4 out of 5 PCs on the ground dying at some point during the fight. The one who was never dropped - and, I think, never even bloodied - was the Battlerager Genasi. He had Cold Resist 5, and virtual DR 4, which meant the dragon's damage against him was reduced in half, or less. Landing two claw attacks and a bite on another PC did an average 34 damage - to him, it did half that.

It was still an intense battle, but only because the dragon simply ignored him and accepted the -2 penalty on all attacks and the retributive damage from his Combat Challenge. I was half-expected the Dragon to kill all the other PCs... and then finally be forced to go toe to toe with him, at which point he might well have soloed it on his own.

I don't think Battlerager is game-breaking, since the DM can choose to ignore the PC (and Battleragers lose enough accuracy to often make it easier to do so.) But it definitely seems too powerful for what it does - the equivalent of constant DR against Close and Melee attacks, available at level 1, does seem a bit out of balance.

[David Marks]

Matthew Koelbl wrote:

P.H. Dungeon wrote:

Getting an extra 4-6 hp a round is still pretty good, but not as good as what essentially amounts to DR 4-6/-

Yeah, exactly. You are still looking at the equivalent of an extra 2-4 free healing surges a fight (or more, when using Invigorating Powers effectively), but you don't get the virtual DR that makes you simply immune to many enemies.

I ran a White Dragon encounter against my party at our last session. The biggest fight thus far, and one that left 4 out of 5 PCs on the ground dying at some point during the fight. The one who was never dropped - and, I think, never even bloodied - was the Battlerager Genasi. He had Cold Resist 5, and virtual DR 4, which meant the dragon's damage against him was reduced in half, or less. Landing two claw attacks and a bite on another PC did an average 34 damage - to him, it did half that.

It was still an intense battle, but only because the dragon simply ignored him and accepted the -2 penalty on all attacks and the retributive damage from his Combat Challenge. I was half-expected the Dragon to kill all the other PCs... and then finally be forced to go toe to toe with him, at which point he might well have soloed it on his own.

I don't think Battlerager is game-breaking, since the DM can choose to ignore the PC (and Battleragers lose enough accuracy to often make it easier to do so.) But it definitely seems too powerful for what it does - the equivalent of constant DR against Close and Melee attacks, available at level 1, does seem a bit out of balance.

And therein lies the Battleragers other key weakness. It makes them somewhat worse at being a Defender, because a smart monster, realizing he can't harm the Rager, will ignore him, focusing on his squishier targets.

[P.H. Dungeon]

I did allow my player to take comeback strike as an at will power, but so far I've resisted allowing the Battlerager vigor. I haven't seen it an action, but I know my player is very good at finding ways to synergize his powers effectively, so I think that without making alterations to the power like either putting a cap of 1-2 temporary hp or allowing it be used only once per round it is much too useful.