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I would like to see a Rage Power that mimics the Diehard feat. Something like "Overkill", that is like the Frenzied Berserker PrC where the Barbarian can spend rage points to stay alive when they should die, or even temporarily shrug off debilitating magical effects.
I was running an NPC Half-Ogre Barbarian, and I found that despite his huge hit points, he could have stayed in the fight longer if he had been able to spend rage points in this manner.
However, assuming that the barbarian has a Con score of about 14, they can only rage for 6 rounds a day at 1st level. This is similar to how long it could be in v3.5... with the exception being that barbarians are now more dependent than ever upon their rage ability.
I'm not sure where you're coming from here... How are Barbarians more dependent on Rage than they were before...? A 1st level Barbarian doesn't even have any Rage powers to complicate the picture...? And the Rage Points converting into discrete ROUNDS of Rage actually gives low level Barbarians much better usage, since many encounters can last only a few rounds: they can get 2 encounters of Rage @ 1st level.
I don't necessarily think all the Rage Powers you mentioned are necessarily overpowered/need to be reduced, since they're generally limited to one/round and mostly take a Swift Action to activate.
Here's my take on Animal Fury specifically:
Perhaps it should be so you aren't penalized if you're acting after your opponent in initiative order...? I see this wording issue come up with other abilities. Unless that's the intent, giving them all the wording wouldn't unnecessarily penalise losing initiative (and repeating the same wording would re-inforce how the Round/Initiative Order works)
Here's Animal Fury compared with Unexpected Strike.
Either Animal Fury is really cheap or Unexpected Strike is really pricey:
Unexpected Strike requires full-attack/ Animal Fury does not.
Unexpected Strike doesn't stack with haste/ Animal Fury does.
Unexpected Strike has level 8 requirement/ Animal fury has no requirement.
Unexpected Strike has no side benefits/ Animal Fury gives +2 to grapples for you & your allies.
Unexpected Strike applies weapon damage/ Animal Fury applies 1d6 Bite damage (Medium size)
Unexpected Strike costs 8 rage points/ Animal Fury costs 2 rage points.
the only advantage for Unexpected Strike is that it's using your main weapon, which probably has a better attack bonus, base damage, and better crit, but all STR and general DMG bonuses apply to the Bite, so the difference isn't THAT large (the crit range/multiplier is the biggest difference except vs. opponents with DR types). The cost diffence seems a bit askew given the above, even with the crit/DR advantage weapons (could) have.
One way to justify the cost difference would be to REQUIRE a Grapple attack if you use Animal Fury, so you can't just add it onto full attacks with your weapon.
I wish I had more specifics, but the main barbarian experience that my campaign had with the class was in my Featherdale campaign, where the goliath was a rogue/barbarian.
According to my player at that time, the most valuable thing he took with the few barbarian levels he took was the swift foot ability. Basically he used the ability to scoot across the battlefield and run down anyone that might have tried to run from a fight or back away to regroup.
The goliath didn't often start out raging, and he usually only did it so he could access the extra speed, although he then used his boost to beat the crap out of whomever he had used the ability to run down in the first place.
This was, however, with only taking two levels of barbarian and three levels of rogue.
Anyhow, I also had issue with a basic part of Rage, which hasn't changed from 3.5 at all, but I find troublesome:
the Bonus Rage HPs.
As is, I'm rather inclined to play Whirling Frenzy Barbarians, because once the Bonus Rage HPs become large enough to become significant, their main effect is just ensuring a dramatic death for the Barbarian, whereas most characters who drop under zero HPs during Combat are healable if a party member with Magical Healing survives the battle. A Class Feature should not just ensure Player Kill.
I actually had an idea involving accounting for the Bonus HPs as a separate pool (which isn't PRECLUDED by the current RAW), but the only problem with that is that the current rules are basically treating the Rage HPs just like HPs gained from Magical CON increases. As I was posting this, I thought of another approach: NOT treating the "Rage HPs" like magical CON bonus HPs (which just delay damage until the bonus HPs disappear)
Instead of "bonus" HPs from Rage, the Barbarian doesn't gain any HPs at all (they would still gain all the other benefits of CON increase). Instead, they gain an enhanced "Diehard"-type ability, allowing them to fight at negative HPs. Instead of gaining bonus HPs, this also would INCREASE THEIR DEATH THRESHOLD: for every Barbarian level, instead of dealing with (+CON bonus) Rage HPs, the point of death, normally @ negative(CON score), is instead determined by the Barbarian's CON bonus x Level - At low levels, the NORMAL point of Death (CON score) is higher, so this wouldn't effect that yet, but just allow a Diehard effect within limits: until negative(CON bonus X Level).
This achieves the effect of my "separate pool" interpretation: not out-right killing the Barbarian when they drop Rage (beyond the point of Positive Energy Healing), but they will still PASS OUT once they drop Rage, AND will need to be HEALED an amount equivalent to all the "bonus Rage HPs" just to regain consciousness again @ 0 hp.
Anyhow, here's my previous "separate pool" idea if you're interested,
though I now feel the above is much more viable to be adopted:
The rules say that bonus HPs "disappear" when the rage ends, but how that's actually implemented isn't explained. Below I quote a PbP thread from the boards here, where the players' basic interpretation is that they should ADD the bonus HPs to the player's current HPs when entering Rage, and SUBTRACT them, when they leave Rage:
I worked it out, that last hit knocked him to –3.
Problem is, if being knocked unconscious ends barbarian rage, he’s actually at –11 and dead.
Common sense would suggest it does (end the rage), but the RAW doesn’t mention it (that I can see).
If he’s still alive, yeah, LB will get him.
Yeah, he's alive - the "stop aging and die" thing has always struck as stupid, and has led to daft Sage rulings like "you are still raging while unconscious" get get around it. Treat those hp as temporary, which got knocked off a while ago.
The thing is, what if you never COMBINED bonus Rage HPs with normal HPs in the same 'pool', but tallied them as SEPARATE pools? In other words, once damage reduces your standard HPs to 0, further damage is applied to the Rage HP pool, which keeps you conscious/fighting until that too is exhausted. Using this method means the Rage HPs still "disappear" when you stop raging (they no longer help the Barbarian stay alive/conscious), but because they were never ADDED to the HP pool, they also don't need to be SUBTRACTED (which usually killed people when the rule was applied as interpreted in above example)
This 'reading' of the rules could be clearly explained thru an explicit instruction to use a 'Rage HP' pool, and a concrete example of it's application in practice, ie: show how one large hit is spread over both pools if the 'standard' HPs weren't sufficient, and how damage beyond the Rage HPs is applied to the negative range of the 'standard' HPs (dying/ unconscious)
If someone with 5 standard HPs takes 10 damage, they would be taken to 0 (standard) HPs, and 5 more damage would be taken from their Rage HP pool. So say someone with 20 bonus Rage HPs takes 15 points of damage past the point where they have 0 standard HPs. If they drop Rage, they should still be at 0 HPs, not -15 (so they're unconscious with alot of damage, instead of dead/un-healable). If they took 25 points of damage after the point of needing bonus Rage HPs, they would drop from Rage because their Rage HPs are depleted, but instead of being at -25 hps, they would merely be at -5 standard HPs (0 minus the 5 damage that exceeded their Rage bonus HPs), which means they're just unconscious and with a chance to stabilize, instead of dead meat (-25).
Even though this comes from the current rules (the rules don't PRECLUDE this reading), it seems like most players don't use this interpretation. If the rules were clarified this way (and a separate Rage HP pool is the clearest way to understand Rage AND keep track in-game), the Barbarian still keeps on fighting, even though he will EVENTUALLY pass out (@ 0 hp barring damage in excess of Rage HPs) - The difference is that his Rage HPs SERVE THE FUNCTION OF HITPOINTS: ABSORBING DAMAGE, not DELAYING damage/death like the PbP players believed ("delay" is nowhere in the rules, only that bonus Rage HPs "disappear" (NOT 'subtracted') when Rage ends).
Only large hits which cause 10+(or CON) damage beyond (Rage HPs=0) should directly kill the Raging Barbarian. This reading has the major benefit that utilization of a class feature is not inherently lethal in and of itself. Note unless the Barbarian has allies able to rescue/heal him, passing out in reach of enemies will shortly be lethal anyways.
Just so it doesn't get lost, here's some feed back on ANIMAL FURY Rage Power, specifically:
Perhaps it should be "until the beginning of your next turn" so you aren't penalized if you're acting after your opponent in initiative order...? I see this wording issue come up with other abilities. Unless that's the intent, giving them all the "until the beginning of your next turn" wording wouldn't unnecessarily penalise losing initiative (and repeating the same wording would re-inforce how the Round/Initiative Order works)
Here's Animal Fury compared with Unexpected Strike.
Either Animal Fury is really cheap or Unexpected Strike is really pricey:
Unexpected Strike requires full-attack/ Animal Fury does not.
Unexpected Strike doesn't stack with haste/ Animal Fury does.
Unexpected Strike has level 8 requirement/ Animal fury has no requirement.
Unexpected Strike has no side benefits/ Animal Fury gives +2 to grapples for you & your allies.
Unexpected Strike applies weapon damage/ Animal Fury applies 1d6 Bite damage (Medium size)
Unexpected Strike costs 8 rage points/ Animal Fury costs 2 rage points.
the only advantage for Unexpected Strike is that it's using your main weapon, which probably has a better attack bonus, base damage, and better crit, but all STR and general DMG bonuses apply to the Bite, so the difference isn't THAT large (the crit range/multiplier is the biggest difference except vs. opponents with DR types). The cost diffence seems a bit askew given the above, even with the crit/DR advantage weapons (could) have.
One way to justify the cost difference would be to REQUIRE a Grapple attack if you use Animal Fury, so you can't just add it onto full attacks with your weapon. (Once you have enough attacks, you could Bite, Grapple, AND weapon attack, but once in grapple, you can only use light/natural wpns, OR: weapon-weapon-Bite-Grapple, but that doesn't pin them down like multiple grapples (and uses your weakest attack for the Grapple), so the Grapple can be against you easily.)
Rage Points/ Powers (General):
From discussion on the boards, I think it'd be helpful to suggest the use of 'Rage Tokens' to track Rage Points...
Physical objects seem less abstract to use than numbers, particularly for Barbarians. :-)
After a battle, just count all your 'spent' Rage Points, and find out how long you're Fatigued.
As well, perhaps a sidebar in the Barbarian section (ala Feats) with brief descriptions of the Rage Powers, their cost, level requirement, and HOW THEY ARE ACTIVATED (Swift, Free , Immediate/Reactive: This could be more prominently listed in each Feat description as well)
Rage Point Wording:
As written, the first round of standard Rage you spend TWO points, one for entering Rage and one for that Round.
I think that's not the intention though...???
If the "entering rage" part was just left out, it could just say:
"you spend one Rage Point each round spent in Rage
(including when entering Rage as a Free Action before your Initiative, which counts as an entire Round)"
... if that's the intent.
Jason, I've noticed much drama on the Fighter, and I'm expecting most of people's issues to be addressed later in the Feats Chapter.
I'd be interested to hear more about your views/intentions with the Barbarian and Ranger classes. I've seen interesting feedback in this thread and others, but dont' have a clear idea on what types of things you are inclined to change.
I've seen various concerns with overall Power cost, and with the effectiveness of specific Powers, but I don't know how much things like Bonus Rage HPs are open to discussion (one change I suggested here).
Any thoughts on these classes?
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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A couple of notes:
1. Although I realize you can use "swift foot" to increase your Acrobatics check when jumping, I'd actually like to see something like a "monstrous leap" rage power that granted a +10 bonus to jump checks per 2 rage points spent (or even more) for Incredible Hulk-type jumps.
2. As for the "increased DR" rage power, I would actually suggest making it an automatic effect of the barbarian's rage and DR ability, that it is always doubled while you are in a rage. If you are 7th level with DR 1/-, it goes to 2- when raging. If you're a 19th level barbarian with DR 5/-, then while you are raging it is boosted to 10/-, period, no questions asked, no need to spend rage points.
3. I wonder if the "renewed vigor" ability would work better, rather than being a cure light wounds level effect, if instead it gave you fast healing (= to 1/2 barbarian level, or perhaps = CON bonus) for the duration of your current rage.
4. The elemental rage seems a little weak for the cost. If a barbarian were built as a TWF fighter, it would be a little better, but most barbarians I've seen go for the biggest two-handed weapon they can find. At 12th+ level, most opponents will have energy resistance, though the fact that the barbarian can change the type of energy each time is nice (since most monsters don't have energy resistance to everything). Maybe if it gave the "elemental burst" quality I'd like it a little better, with more chance to overcome energy res.
5. There is a part of me that would like to cut all the costs for the rage powers in half, but I really want to test out the barbarian and see how fast they REALLY burn through those rage points.
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I'm playing a multiclassed Barbarian at low levels and had some thoughts/suggestions. Mostly that I thought that Toughness was much improved and a good template for other feats which are *Extra Something*.
Barbarian/Rage related Feats
Rage Power (GENERAL)
Requirement: Rage class Feature
Benefit: You can gain a Rage Power from the Barbarian list, as if your Barbarian level was equal to your total Hit Dice.
Growing Rage (General)
Requirement: Rage class Feature
Benefit: You gain your Constitution Modifier in Rage Points plus +1 Rage point per hit die. Every time you gain a level or gain hit die you gain +1 Rage point.
I'd also be interested in a Rage Power which allows you to use your extra hit points first instead of last. Or maybe to heal that many points when rage begins instead.
A modification to the Rage Spell, so that it can be used to replenish rage points magically. Also give it to the Druid.