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But one doesn't have to presume that the player making a Wild Rager is deliberately being a jerk. That, in fact, is irrelevant. -- The class archetype itself is irresponsible as-written. They're Lenny in Of Mice and Men sputtering "I didn't mean it..." while standing over the broken body of a little girl.Cute comparison. But since I am currently running a game for a wild rager, I know how wrong that assessment is. He is 8th level, running fine and over the course of three sessions has successfully managed not to attack a single party member a single time.
(They're living on borrowed-time.)
You're comparing a home game with a stable group of players who know what they're dealing with to PFS settings where many players don't know each other or their characters (and this is certainly the case at MeetUps and conventions). So, no sale.
I find your comparisions and accusations that you level at his character to be inaccurate and represent the lack of quality of your argument in general.
<Best Taldorian goad-sneer>
"Oh, no! I've wounded a Wild Rager's pride. He must be a little slow on the up-take given me starting this thread a few days ago, but then he is a barbarian! I shall sniff my pomander and run now...."
- - - - - -
I see clueless, irresponsible nonsense every week: Paladin in plate armor with DEX 7 who slips and falls when told there's a banana-peel in the next town; and somebody else bringing in a new tank with a WIS 7 (playing at the next table, fortunately). None of these characters are viable, and will all likely be dead or put out to pasture before they're more than 4th or 5th -- but at the very least I don't need to worry about them auto-cooking-off when they're successful for a change, and then smashing my Tier 3-4 character into greasy paste when he's still well short of sufficient Fame or cash for Raise Dead.
If (a Wild Rager) act(s) responsibly (he) can mitigate this to a very manageable level.
I wish I had a pony.
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I see clueless, irresponsible nonsense every week: Paladin in plate armor with DEX 7 who slips and falls when told there's a banana-peel in the next town; and somebody else bringing in a new tank with a WIS 7 (playing at the next table, fortunately). None of these characters are viable, and will all likely be dead or put out to pasture before they're more than 4th or 5th -- but at the very least I don't need to worry about them auto-cooking-off when they're successful for a change, and then smashing my Tier 3-4 character into greasy paste when he's still well short of sufficient Fame or cash for Raise Dead.
Gee, playing with you in one party must be a terrific experience. :)
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I have never forced a player to forgo a valid action that would benefit the party simply because a player character may also be adversely effected. Yes, usually there is a discussion of 'are you okay being in the radius of this spell?' or 'can your character take this?', and when the players come to an agreement, the judge doesn't then impose some self-created sense of what the rules of the game are in order to foster cooperation and fairness.
And I do the same thing, but if any of the other players object to the action, would you allow it anyway? The cooperation aspect of the game is paramount and the GM would have to intervene if one player's actions would damage/kill another player's character anf they object to it. I was not saying to adhere the RAW regardless, just that the players must agree.
In the case of a Wild Rager, when the save is failed and the barb HAS to attack a fellow PC, there is no consideration for the target's acceptance of the action. They are screwed. Granted, they may try to withdraw, but the environment may not facilitate that action.
As I said, the language as written does not seem to limit collateral damage unless it would cause as character fatality, although, that is not the way I see it implemented. Something to consider.
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Venture-Captain, Arizona—Tucson
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Sure you can. You can reasonably build a wild rager that fails that save only on a natural 1, gets a reroll once per day (say starting at 5th level), makes sure to have already taken his 5' step away from allies before full attacking, brings in an animal that stays near him to further decrease the chance of attacking a fellow PC, hands a scroll of calm emotions to each party member that can cast it, etc.
Our local rager does exactly that. He needs to roll a 3 to save and gets a reroll if he fails, is careful to surround himself with foes when raging, and makes sure that calm emotions is available. The minute risk that he will attack another PC is more than outweighed by his overall effectiveness in combat.
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Sure you can. You can reasonably build a wild rager that fails that save only on a natural 1, gets a reroll once per day (say starting at 5th level), makes sure to have already taken his 5' step away from allies before full attacking, brings in an animal that stays near him to further decrease the chance of attacking a fellow PC, hands a scroll of calm emotions to each party member that can cast it, etc.Our local rager does exactly that. He needs to roll a 3 to save and gets a reroll if he fails, is careful to surround himself with does when raging, and makes sure that calm emotions is available. The minute risk that he will attack another PC is more than outweighed by his overall effectiveness in combat.
The problem, as I see it, isn't the thoughtful, well prepared player who tries to limit the risk. Its of a player building a rager with a terrible wisdom score and a crazy charisma, who hits an enemy while standing next to a pc, and then points at the rules and says "oops, I guess I kill you now". No other class has a mechanism that thwarts the no pvp rule without a players permission.
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The problem, as I see it, isn't the thoughtful, well prepared player who tries to limit the risk. Its of a player building a rager with a terrible wisdom score and a crazy charisma, who hits an enemy while standing next to a pc, and then points at the rules and says "oops, I guess I kill you now". No other class has a mechanism that thwarts the no pvp rule without a players permission.Then in all honesty the problem is not with the archetype but with your players.
-James
The point is, such a player couldn't weasel their way out of no pvp before. Now they can.
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Then in all honesty the problem is not with the archetype but with your players.
We're talking about PFS.
There is no peer pressure or mechanism to prevent a player from showing up with a wild rager and killing half the party who is powerless to stop him due to the no PVP rules.
We can't even get players who enjoy the murder and torture of innocents out of the game, so I'm not optimistic about getting the powers that be to crack down on jerks who get their kicks from ruining the adventure for everyone else.
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Then in all honesty the problem is not with the archetype but with your players.
.
The conundrum here is that you cannot pre-emptively ban players. Until someone actually flagrantly abuses this to kill PCs for fun (which is hard to prove, given they can declare they are following RAW), they cannot be removed from PFS or otherwise restrained.
You can, however, disallow an archetype in the campaign that is highly problematic and/or ripe for abuse. It wouldn't be the first time.
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I can see a certain segment of the PFS community using this class specifically to inflict PVP upon other players. However, I can also see a fair segment of the PFS society designing their WIld Rager to reduce the likelihood of PVP situations.
I can also see GMs mediating a proper solution for when the PVP situation does happen (PVP rule overrides, can't just ignore the penalty as it makes the class over powered- Barbarian passes out instead).
I think that until the situation actually happens it would be premature and reactionary to ban the class. The problem ultimately is the player and not the class. There is a way to play the class maturely. The fact is, that an immature player who wants to design a PVP monster is going to no matter what.
So I would say the Venture Captains, Convention Coordinators and GMs should keep a wary eye on the archetype, but until some event actually happens banning is a bad idea.
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Second, what are you talking about 'withdraw'? Confused creatures don't threaten squares and are only locked on fighting a given target if that target attacks them.
James, only going to address this statement.
Note that a confused character will not make attacks
of opportunity against any creature that it is not already devoted to
attacking (either because of its most recent action or because it has
just been attacked).
So, Wild Rager drops an enemy, fails his Will save, does nto get a re-roll, and has another attack, and the closest living creature is a 5' step, which he takes, and attacks the Rogue he was flanking with.
Whether he hits or misses the Rogue, the Rogue will be subject to the Wild Rager's AoO if he does anything to provoke.
So, that is where withdraw came from, since a 5' step wouldn't move the Rogue out of the danger zone.
As to your other build points, can you show how to get a Will save and save DC that such a Wild Rager would only fail on a 1? Curious minds want to know.
and honestly if it's not then you really need to find a better group of players to be around.
Difficult to do in OP, really. You frequently wind up playing with who you get.
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Then in all honesty the problem is not with the archetype but with your players.We're talking about PFS.
There is no peer pressure or mechanism to prevent a player from showing up with a wild rager and killing half the party who is powerless to stop him due to the no PVP rules.
We can't even get players who enjoy the murder and torture of innocents out of the game, so I'm not optimistic about getting the powers that be to crack down on jerks who get their kicks from ruining the adventure for everyone else.
Yes there is.
A player shows up with a Wild Rager. The party doesn't like it. The WIld Rager player sits down to play insisting on using that character. The rest of the party gets up and goes to another table. Problem solved.
I do not HAVE to play with someone or some class I do not like. No one forces me to play with them. If other players feel the same way, no problem, we don't play with that class or player.
If you have a problem with players who love murder and torture, then don't play with them. Get up and walk out. I bet other players would follow you in a heart beat. Then you simply just play without the offending player.
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As to your other build points, can you show how to get a Will save and save DC that such a Wild Rager would only fail on a 1? Curious minds want to know.
I did it by making a Dwarf Wild Rager. 20 point buy gets you:
Str 18
Dex 10
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 16
Cha 5
Feat: Iron Will
Trait: Indomitable Faith
That's +6, before you consider the +2 moral bonus to Will saves for raging, so total +8 when raging.
DC at 1st level is 10 + 1 (level) - 3 (Cha) = 8.
It goes up from there, but so do saving throws, only more slowly. Assuming a Cloak +1 at 5th level and a Cloak +2 at 10th level, at each level you fail on:
1: 1
2: 1
3: 1
4: 2
5: 3
6: 3
7: 4
8: 5
9: 5
10: 5
11: 5
12: 5
You can tweak that out further if you can get any other bonuses to Will saves that'll stack with the extant (Trait, Resistance, Morale) ones. This guy's pretty safe to have around until at least 7th level, IMO.
Granted, I've min/maxed the heck out of his Will save and the DC both -- but it *is* doable. After all, most Barbarians don't need Charisma for anything anyway.
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Venture-Captain, Arizona—Tucson
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I have never had to tell a PFS player that they weren't welcome at a table, but I reserve the right to do so. Over the years, I have advised several players that their behavior was causing problems within the game and requested that they address the issue. I have helped draft notices reminding people to maintain appropriate behavior within a store or other public venue. I have politely escorted offensive people from game store or convention center premises when they caused problems.
If someone deliberately or heedlessly messes with other people's characters, they will be firmly directed to change their behavior. If they don't, they will be told to find some other place to game.
They can snivel all they want about "that's my build" and "the rules say I have to go berserk", but I can tell a jerk player when I encounter one.
I have never had to tell a PFS player that they weren't welcome at a table, but I reserve the right to do so. Over the years, I have advised several players that their behavior was causing problems within the game and requested that they address the issue. I have helped draft notices reminding people to maintain appropriate behavior within a store or other public venue. I have politely escorted offensive people from game store or convention center premises when they caused problems.
If someone deliberately or heedlessly messes with other people's characters, they will be firmly directed to change their behavior. If they don't, they will be told to find some other place to game.
They can snivel all they want about "that's my build" and "the rules say I have to go berserk", but I can tell a jerk player when I encounter one.
Yep. If you are GM, you can boot a problem player from your table. Totally within your rights.
Extreme forms of dysfunctional play
will not be tolerated.
...Playing your character is not an
excuse for childish behavior.
...Extreme or repetitive cases should be resolved
by asking the offender to leave the table.
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Cha 5
One issue that I have with the wild rager mechanic is that the Confusion DC doesn't seem logical. I brought it up in the errata thread, but there has not been a dev response. Sincce the archetype wasn't playtested, there is no feedback on what was intended.
There may be a justification, but the idea that a barbarian goes into a killing rage and has more difficulty in coming out of his confusion with a higher Charisma makes no sense to me. I would expect the opposite, the stronger the sense of self of the barbarian, the easier it would be to regain control.
I also think the Will save to come out of the confusion should be mandatory, not optional.
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Sure you can. You can reasonably build a wild rager that fails that save only on a natural 1, gets a reroll once per day (say starting at 5th level), makes sure to have already taken his 5' step away from allies before full attacking, brings in an animal that stays near him to further decrease the chance of attacking a fellow PC, hands a scroll of calm emotions to each party member that can cast it, etc.Our local rager does exactly that. He needs to roll a 3 to save and gets a reroll if he fails, is careful to surround himself with foes when raging, and makes sure that calm emotions is available. The minute risk that he will attack another PC is more than outweighed by his overall effectiveness in combat.
You can share the relevant point of his builds? In particular how "costly" in term of efficiency it was to get that result? How many feats, how many GP spent in items to mitigate the risk and so on?
To me it seem that a Wild rager doing that has to pay a heavy cost in feat and money, to the point that he will be well behind a comparable character of the same level, especially in in Society play where your resources are limited.
Edit:
seen the examples above, so the minimum cost is 2 feats and 1 trait.
Granted they are useful to resist other attacks against your will.
But Improved iron will is usable once/day, so if you use it to resist a charm person, dominate, whatever it is not available to resist the confusion effect and vice versa.
So the first save is 1 chance in 20 with the possibility of a reroll once day, not an automatic 1/400.
Then you are paying it with sub par constitution (for your race) an a forced choice of race.
So what if someone want to do a wild rager human or half orc?
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Sure you can. You can reasonably build a wild rager that fails that save only on a natural 1, gets a reroll once per day (say starting at 5th level), makes sure to have already taken his 5' step away from allies before full attacking, brings in an animal that stays near him to further decrease the chance of attacking a fellow PC, hands a scroll of calm emotions to each party member that can cast it, etc.Our local rager does exactly that. He needs to roll a 3 to save and gets a reroll if he fails, is careful to surround himself with foes when raging, and makes sure that calm emotions is available. The minute risk that he will attack another PC is more than outweighed by his overall effectiveness in combat.You can share the relevant point of his builds? In particular how "costly" in term of efficiency it was to get that result? How many feats, how many GP spent in items to mitigate the risk and so on?
To me it seem that a Wild rager doing that has to pay a heavy cost in feat and money, to the point that he will be well behind a comparable character of the same level, especially in in Society play where your resources are limited.
That is the side effect of playing such a class responsibly. He spends resources so that he does not go nova on the party. Is that not his choice? Does it matter how much of his resources he has to devote to maintaining control, as long as he does? You can argue that it is not optimal to choose an archetype that requires so much maintainance to be played resonsibly, but don't act like he's somehow failed to build a proper barbarian because he's had to build it that way.
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In the case of a Wild Rager, when the save is failed and the barb HAS to attack a fellow PC, there is no consideration for the target's acceptance of the action. They are screwed. Granted, they may try to withdraw, but the environment may not facilitate that action.I'm not following this in a few things.
First, if done thoughtfully how often is this going to occur? The Rager has to be raging,...
Let's just cut straight to the chase and assign a percentage chance, per entire scenario, that a Wild Rager is going to kill a PC ally either directly (attack & kill, or attack and damage contributes to ally's death by enemy hands) or indirectly (ally dies because Wild Rager is confused and not "pulling his weight").
2%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 34 scenarios.
3%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 23 scenarios.
4%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 17 scenarios.
5%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 14 scenarios.
6%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 11 scenarios.
7%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 10 scenarios.
8%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 9 scenarios.
9%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 8 scenarios.
10%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 7 scenarios.
...
25%: 56% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally every two scenarios.
One issue that I have with the wild rager mechanic is that the Confusion DC doesn't seem logical. I brought it up in the errata thread, but there has not been a dev response. Since the archetype wasn't playtested, there is no feedback on what was intended.
There may be a justification, but the idea that a barbarian goes into a killing rage and has more difficulty in coming out of his confusion with a higher Charisma makes no sense to me. I would expect the opposite, the stronger the sense of self of the barbarian, the easier it would be to regain control.
IMO the archetype's designer was attempting "damage control" by making it slightly harder for a pure min/max slaughter-machine to butcher the party.
In the case of a Wild Rager, when the save is failed and the barb HAS to attack a fellow PC, there is no consideration for the target's acceptance of the action. They are screwed. Granted, they may try to withdraw, but the environment may not facilitate that action.I'm not following this in a few things.
First, if done thoughtfully how often is this going to occur? The Rager has to be raging,...
Let's just cut straight to the chase and assign a percentage chance, per entire scenario, that a Wild Rager is going to kill a PC ally either directly (attack & kill, or attack and damage contributes to ally's death by enemy hands) or indirectly (ally dies because Wild Rager is confused and not "pulling his weight").
2%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 34 scenarios.
3%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 23 scenarios.
4%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 17 scenarios.
5%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 14 scenarios.
6%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 11 scenarios.
7%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 10 scenarios.
8%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 9 scenarios.
9%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 8 scenarios.
10%: 50% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally in 7 scenarios....
25%: 56% chance a Wild Rager will kill an ally every two scenarios.
IMO the...One issue that I have with the wild rager mechanic is that the Confusion DC doesn't seem logical. I brought it up in the errata thread, but there has not been a dev response. Since the archetype wasn't playtested, there is no feedback on what was intended.
There may be a justification, but the idea that a barbarian goes into a killing rage and has more difficulty in coming out of his confusion with a higher Charisma makes no sense to me. I would expect the opposite, the stronger the sense of self of the barbarian, the easier it would be to regain control.
Could you show how you arrived at these conclusions.
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That is the side effect of playing such a class responsibly. He spends resources so that he does not go nova on the party. Is that not his choice? Does it matter how much of his resources he has to devote to maintaining control, as long as he does? You can argue that it is not optimal to choose an archetype that requires so much maintainance to be played resonsibly, but don't act like he's somehow failed to build a proper barbarian because he's had to build it that way.
That build has great role-playing potentials.
"XX has killed his brother/father/shieldmate during one of his rages and so has been banned from his clan. To clear the shame of his action he has dedicated his life to control them."No problem at all in a house game.
In Society play you are supposed to share the burden of the mission with your group. That character would be weaker than another barbarian archetype of the same level and practically useless in most non combat situations (2 skill point/level and cha 5).
While I have no right to impose to someone how he should make his character I would prefer someone capable to support more the group.
All said and done those builds have show that a responsible player can heavily mitigate the risk of a wild rager.
Now the problem is getting only responsible players to use them.
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Let's just cut straight to the chase and assign a percentage chance, per entire scenario, that a Wild Rager is going to kill a PC ally either directly (attack & kill, or attack and damage contributes to ally's death by enemy hands) or indirectly (ally dies because Wild Rager is confused and not "pulling his weight").Could you show how you arrived at these conclusions.
Assuming a Wild Rager devotes more than average attention to his Will Save, he might be able to keep his chances of deadly mayhem under 5% per scenario. He still fails his saves on 1s; and allies are likely to be nearer than additional nearby foes in most crowded-corridor module fights -- these odds are off-set by chances of him delivering no killing blows, but exacerbated by multiple encounters per scenario--the more, the worse.
Note that any damage he deals to an ally has "cost" repercussions which can linger to cause a death which isn't immediately traceable. Example: the party cleric converts a Bull's Strength to a Cure Moderate Wounds to alleviate damage....and the Bull Strength is no longer available to buff a PC who subsequently fails an attack or damage roll by a few points to drop a monster (which then kills a PC) -- that example is fairly easy to trace (cleric leaning over corpse of fallen comrade scowls at barbarian and accuses, "You are responsible for this!"). Less obvious example: the Wild Rager player is conscientious and spends more than average amounts of money of Wands of Cure Lights wounds, various scrolls of "mitigate loose-cannon barbarian", WIS-enhancing items and the like -- and delays upgrading his offensive items by a commensurate amount, with that aspect coming to bear in an encounter in which he is unable to drop a monster before it kills an ally (he is thus beset with a double irony: first, that of contributing to the death of an ally without cooking-off due to equipment priorities and not pulling his weight, and secondly, if he had killed the monster and then failed a will-save due to lack of mitigation, the ally may have been the next closest creature and subsequently died anyway). IOW that particular ally of the Wild Rager is simultaneously damned-if-he-do and damned-if-he-don't.
Math: there are as many variables as there are players and module-writers; but if there's any constant, low-grade, enduring chance, it will steady accumulate as the Wild Rager continues to play.
A 5% chance to contribute to an ally's death is a 95% chance he won't....
.95^8 = .6634 ...i.e., a 1/3rd chance he's caused an ally death by 4th level.
.95^14 = .4876 ...i.e., better than even he's caused an ally by 6th level.
Imagine it went like this: End of scenario, and as he's about to hand out the certs, the DM asks the Wild Rager player to roll a single d20. If it's a 1, then the DM rolls a d(n=players), points to a hapless victim (which might even be the Wild Rager himself) and solemnly intones, "You're dead!". Then, if a death occurs, and because he's evil-aligned, the DM informs that a death increases chances of further deaths, and order the d20 be rolled again with double the chance (and snowballing potentially to TPK).
If it were explained in those terms in advance while you were about to sit down -- would you get seated, or try to find another table without a Wild Rager, or elect to play a tertiary character you care less about (with this having not-pull-weight implications for the rest of the party)?
- - - - -
But this is really all beside the point, isn't it? -- In PFS, you cannot attack another PC unless by their permission or under enemy control.
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I'm sorry, trying to assign a linear percentage is not possible here.The odds will be variable depending upon the mods and party composition, but over time it's a wash. E.g., consider four mods with a linear 2% in all of them, or three with only a 1% followed by one with a 5%. Linear: (.98)^4 = 92.22% of no fatalities. Variable: (.95)(.99)^3 = 92.17% of no fatalities.
Let's compare this against a rogue that can evade....Actually; let's compare it to what's really important (which is why I bolded it to get the argument back on-track):
But this is really all beside the point, isn't it? -- In PFS, you cannot attack another PC unless by their permission or under enemy control.
-- While the conversations regarding all the tangentials are diverting, in the end they don't matter because they are irrelevant. The Wild Rager, per the explicit text of its own archetype abilities, is unsuited for PFS.
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Venture-Captain, Arizona—Tucson
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You can share the relevant point of his builds? In particular how "costly" in term of efficiency it was to get that result? How many feats, how many GP spent in items to mitigate the risk and so on?
To me it seem that a Wild rager doing that has to pay a heavy cost in feat and money, to the point that he will be well behind a comparable character of the same level, especially in in Society play where your resources are limited.
I does require some investment of resources, but those resources aren't thrown away. Giving a barbarian the ability to reliably save vs. his class' traditional weak points pays off repeatedly as frustrated enemy casters and monsters with spell-like effects waste their efforts against him. My LG barb was built for a freakishly strong Will save and drove enemy casters nuts! While he might lag marginally behind more focused characters, he's eliminating one of their main "Achilles' heel" issues.
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My LG barb was built for a freakishly strong Will save and drove enemy casters nuts!
My 3rd-level PFS barbarian character is a WIS:14 dwarf with Steel Soul and a Cloak of Resistance +1. As a multiclass barb1/figh1/cler1, while raging his will save vs. magic is +11.
I'm guessing the human typical barbarian built by a younger player fascinated with max strength (and DPR threads on the internet) has a raging will save of around +2 to +4 at best.
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How about dominated by a vampire, charmed by a succubus, or confused by a sorcerer?
Why are these being posed as if they were relevant analogs? -- They require specifically tangling with dangerous opponents with appropriate head-screwing abilities (and the Confusion sorcerer isn't in the vampire league because his spell only has a 25% of yielding party-lethal results) and an utter lack of basic buffs (i.e., Protection from Evil).
The only action required of the enemy before a Wild Rager is that it take enough damage to drop -- and the more inept the foe, the worse it is for the party. Every single fight he gets in, he chances blowing up. Compare that to how many times you'll face a vampire.
At low levels (before BAB6), a strength-purposed Wild Rager with a two-hander being run through PFS modules is going to "one-shot" most non-boss opponents, and thus be making will saves almost every encounter in which he has the opportunity to swing his weapon. Given the min/max build I would expect of a hackmaster-minded player eager to deploy this archetype, he's going to be Confused constantly. At BAB6 it becomes increasingly likely that the Wild Fighting Wild Rager will have additional attacks left (out of three, or four with Boots of Speed) after blowing his saves. (He almost certainly has a Furious weapon and a Belt of Giant Strength at this point, and will easily drop deep neg any ally already wounded during the encounter, or one-shot-from-full-up if having two+ attacks.)
What is a PFS judge to do when a Wild Rager at his table cooks off? Permit him to slaughter other PCs, even though a primary appeal of the campaign to many players is the promise of no PvP? Within this context, how does the player introduce his character? ("Hi; I'm going to try to kill you all each and every time I fail a will save after dropping a goblin!"?) What does the judge do if the player does not announce the capabilities of his character before the first encounter in which he begins Wild Fighting, then fails a will-save?
If the judge permits the Wild Rager to attack, but not "kill" other PCs, it leads to goofy metagame adjudication of damage after the dice are rolled (i.e., "Mike? He hits you; and you drop to -13 and auto-stabilize!" Me: "Wah?").
If the judge prohibits the Wild Rager from attacking his allies, then the biggest piece of melee combat cheese (Wild Fighting) of all the archetypes in the game is permitted, and the Wild Rager subsequently makes other fighter types feel ineffective and useless (and so their players, if of the hackmaster min/max mentality, make new Wild Rager characters, and pretty soon the campaign is overrun with them).
-- It is for these reasons that Living Greyhawk banned Frenzied Berserkers. The opened can-of-worms they represented to a campaign with no-PvP policies was obvious and unpleasant.
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James,
You seem to be missing a couple of points, and calling things that are not comparable comparable.
1) How often do you see vampires in PFS scenarios? In my experience, I have never seen one, much less one able to get his Dominate effect off safely. YMMV, I have not seen or played in every PFS module, as of yet.
2) How often do you see a succubus in PFS scenarios? Again, in my experience, they are extremely rare. I have not seen one yet in PFS.
3) Sorcerors casting Confusion, even Lesser Confusion? Okay, those will exist, but, again, unless they are not the only creature in an encounter, they are unlikely to be able to get it off reliably. And, if they are already the closest creature to their target, they probably won't do it, since they have a 50% chance of being the attack target anyhow, so they would cast something else, if they don't just flat-out withdraw.
4) How often does a raging barbarian drop an enemy? Probably fairly often. There is a chance of it during every combat encounter, unless the barbarian never rages, or deliberately does only non-lethal attacks.
PFS scenarios tend to have 3-5 combat encounters, and, unless you build & play your barbarian strangely, the barbarian is probably going to rage in at least one of those encounters. So, one encounter, good chance the barbarian will drop an enemy during it. Make a Will save. Minimum (that is a minimum) 5% chance of not making the save. And that is with your "responsible" Wild Rager barbarian build.
And, again, your approve requires a significant number of things that are not going to be a constant in an Organized Play environment:
1) The party knows flat-out what can happen.
Heh. Even the GM probably won't have this mess memorized, much less a randomly rostered party at a convention.
2) The barbarian player always takes his 5'' step before he starts his attack sequence.
Adjacent to an enemy, flanking said enemy, 5' stepping moves you out of flank, and adjacent to another melee party member. If you are going to be playing non-optimally, why go Wild Rager to begin with?
3) Have an expendable combat animal.
With the current training rules for ACs, don't expect the Druid or Ranger to volunteer theirs, and an affordable animal, of which the Wild Rager can only have one active during a module, is going to be a one-hit wonder for the Wild Rager, much less the enemy it has to be near to provide the Wild Rager with a "safe" target.
4) You are making an assumption that the player is building his Wild Rager to minimize the chance of getting the "benefit" of extra rounds of rage.
How likely is that?
My concern is that you will wind up with a barbarian who never rages, which is a bit strange, although one of my players has built one just for the bigger hit die and the faster speed (but, since he is never likely to have his barbarian go into rage, he is also unlikely to have taken this archetype, anyhow); or a barbarian not designed to be able to come out of the Wild Rage easily, and therefore either contributes to party damage, using up, at a minimum, party resources (consumables and/or spell slots) to heal the non-lethal damage he has caused to the party. or can cause outright fatalities, costing serious party fundage loss (Raise Dead and the two Restorations needed afterwards,m still the "cheapest" way, runs something like 8,000 gp +. Per party member killed.).
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To be honest, I am afraid we are going to be seeing the same thing that happens way too often with Halfling Rogues, where they wind up not participating in combat until the 5th round, because they have to sneak into position to get their one sneak attack off.
Where, if they had just joined in on the first round, they might not have gotten a sneak attack off, but they would have probably helped end the combat earlier, with less damage to their own party.
Not fun, really, for the other players, since they are working in what amounts to a smaller party than they would have expected. In a 4 player game, you wind up without the combat power the scenario is built around. Potentially ugly.
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...yes a raging wild rager will and should 5' step before they full attack IF after dropping their current target that a PC would be the nearest enemy to them. That's not hard tactics to handle. It's up there with not being in fireball formation, etc.. It's no harder to figure out than to not hit fellow PCs with area effect spells.That's nice to reflect upon when you're slumping over in the saddle because the bard thought targeting Sleep right on you was the best way of including the most targets in the burst. (This happened at the same table mentioned at end below.)
Fourth, you bring up a nice bit there. Get the big barbarian a merciful weapon.The player attracted to this archetype isn't going to be spending his +3 weapon upgrade (after +1/Furious) on Merciful. So, yeah; that's going to happen.
This just goes to demonstrate that there are a lot of ways for this to never be an issue.
If it were never going to be an issue, they wouldn't have bothered to write the archetype that way.
Obviously it will be an issue, because players make all sorts of, shall we say, unfortunate decisions.
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At a low-level table today, I encountered a new 1st-level barbarian with a WIS score of 8. (Given the lack of a 7 in that stat, I suppose I should have congratulated the player for avoiding the temptation to ultra min/max.)