Is that balanced enough to allow a character to stack their rage over and over, or is it still too powerful?
Personally I consider Weapon Focus a reference feat: For paying a feat you get +1 attack bonus, working most of the time (not getting disarmed etc.).
Now let's compare this to Rising Rage: No effect during round 1, +2 AB during round 2, +4 AB during round 3. Three rounds is probably a realistic average duration of rage in combat. So, in average over these rounds, Rising Rage adds 2 AB (0 + 2 + 4, divided by 3). That's twice Weapon Focus, hence unbalanced.
And rage does more than adding AB. A stacking AC penalty does hurt, sure, but is more than compensated by rage bonuses and the option to patch low AC with a high miss chance.
Any time the character has a couple rounds to prebuff this would be overwhelming. If any player came to my table asking to use this feat I would give a hard "no" with no second thoughts.
Yeah this sounds rediculously overpowered.
Round 1, normal Rage (+2 to hit / +3 damage, 1 Rage spent)
Round 2, double Rage (+4/+6, 4 Spent this round, 5 total)
Round 3, triple Rage (+6/+9, 6 this round, 11 total)
Round 4, quad Rage (+8/+12, 8 this round, 19 total)
My 9th level Half-Orc Bloodrager has 32 rounds of Rage per day, meaning he has more than enough to spare a few rounds to buff himself in tough fights. He could only Quad Rage once per day, but if he took a single instance of Extra Rage he could potentially do it twice. More importantly he could Double Rage virtually every round all day if he needed to, and I can't see any reason not to.
If you want to do something like this I'd limit it to a single +2 STR for double cost (2/round). Once you hit Greater Rage (or equivalent) you can take this again, and can maintain another +2 STR for triple cost (3/round), and must build up to it in the same way. At Mighty Rage you can maintain another +2 STR, this time at quad cost (4/round) ... also maybe make it a Rage Power.
Since that wasn't super clear:
Ferocious Rage (Rage Power)
Prerequisites: Rage class feature.
After Raging for 1 round you can increase your STR/CON by 2 for as long as you maintain your Rage, but you take an aditional -2 to your AC. This costs you 2 rounds of Rage per round while you maintain this, and you are fatigued for twice as long as usual when the Rage ends.
Greater Ferocious Rage (Rage Power)
Prerequisites: Greater Rage class feature.
After Ferocious Raging for 1 round you can increase your STR/CON by an aditional 2 for as long as you maintain your Rage, but you take an aditional -2 to your AC. These benefits and penalties stack with those of Ferocious Rage. This costs you 4 rounds of Rage per round while you maintain this, and you are fatigued for three times as long as usual when the Rage ends.
Mighty Ferocious Rage (Rage Power)
Prerequisites: Mighty Rage class feature.
After Greater Ferocious Raging for 1 round you can increase your STR/CON by an aditional 2 for as long as you maintain your Rage, but you take an aditional -2 to your AC. These benefits and penalties stack with those of Ferocious Rage and Greater Ferocious Rage. This costs you 6 rounds of Rage per round while you maintain this, and you are fatigued for four times as long as usual when the Rage ends.
So round 1, normal rage, cost 1/round.
Round 2, Ferocious Rage, cost 2/round.
Round 3, Greater Ferocious Rage, cost 4/round.
Round 4, Mighty Ferocious Rage, cost 6/round.
How does that sound to people? (Not 100% sure on the costs, but it's a starting point)
how about only a +1 increase every round?
or to maybe better emulate the hulk rage; increase bonuses by +2 (decrease AC by -1) each time you suffer your Con score in damage from a single attack (factoring in the increase from Rage), if using unchained then use Con Score + bonus hit points. Don't increase the cost of uses per round.
You asked if people thought it was balanced or too strong. Several people responded that they believed it was too strong.
But, so what? Are any of the posters here your GM or a player at your table? If you are ceertain that your idea is fine then ignore this board and roll with it.
As you can see, that is a significantly large amount of rounds for increasing the Rising Rage. Even if you stick to only 2 rages, that is 4 rounds of Rage used up every round, except the first when you can’t use the feat.
And on top of this, you can’t rage cycle Rage Powers, because if you drop the Rage to reactivate a once per rage Rage Power, you can’t activate Rage again for some rounds. In the 5 rages example, you wouldn’t be able to activate Rage again for a whole minute.
Yeah, but that's cost to be paid later, the barbarian will still be overpowered during the encounter. And both restrictions can often be bypassed by resting in a safe place.
The rage power come and get me is an example how intensified combat can work for a barbarian: They get an AOO for each attack against them, but the attackers also gain +4 on AB and damage. Here the costs are paid immediately.
Y’all are acting like it gets the bonuses for free. It costs twice as much rounds of rage as you have active to use it.
I feel responses like this sort of indicate that you don't actually want feedback. Which is fine; I'm all for following your instincts for your own games. But it seems like the purpose of this thread was confused or ill-defined from the start.
Rounds of rage are one of those resources that you never seem to run out of (for full barbarians, anyway). Maybe that means the additional cost is just too easy to pay. Or maybe it means this resource suddenly becomes actually valuable.
Mr. Charisma's take is by and large the best on here so far, in my opinion.
Okay, some actual feedback/suggestions: a major avenue to abuse I see is the ability to 'hulk out' for a few rounds prior to a combat the barbarian knows is coming and just be a monster from round 1. So some rule that prevents this would be essential in my mind. Maybe the barb must full attack or charge or something every round this is in use?
Consider adding a seperate bonus from stacking "levels' of rage, like just a +1 hit and dmg morale bonus, or +1 str and con or the like.
As others have pointed out, rounds of rage don't seem to run out for most barbs in most campaigns. But if the increased cost here is enough to be a problem you'll want to see if it just encourages novas with 15 minute adventuring days.
Edit: I cannot spell/type today.
Y’all are acting like it gets the bonuses for free. It costs twice as much rounds of rage as you have active to use it.
This is a significant cost in early levels, but the problem is that by level 10 os so this is an irrelevant cost.
If you were to max out and spend 10 times the usual Rage rounds or whatever then you would absolutely be paying a cost ... but you don't have to do that. You can stick to 1 bonus Rage for +2 to hit and +3 damage and still have enough Rage rounds to get through the day. This means you've paid 1 feat for a bonus that's worth more than Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization.
The penalty to AC is also fairly irrelevant for most Barbarians. If you took "Come And Get Me" and "Reckless Abandon" you'd end up taking -10 to your AC by level 12 every time you Rage, and you'd be fine with it. More penalties don't matter.
Increasing the Rage cost and/or limiting your bonuses are a way to make this less overpowered.
(Sorry out of time i'll gove some more thoughts later)
So the other thing to consider is how Rage is balanced.
Rage: at level 1 you get +4 to STR and CON, +2 Will Saves and -2 AC.
The STR bonus is effectively +2 to hit and +3 damage for most Barbs, and +4 CON is +2hp/level (~20% bonus hp as a rough estimate).
Greater Rage (level 11) effectively increases all these bonuses by 1 (~1.5 for damage), and Mighty Rage (level 20) increases them by another 1 (~1.5 for damage). Greater Rage is considered good, Mighty Rage is somewhat lacking as a capstone.
RAGING VITALITY increases your HP by another 1/level (another ~10%) and stops you from instantly dying when unconscious. The ability to stay alive while unconscious makes this feat so good it's considered mandatory by most.
RAGING BRUTALITY (level 13) increases your damage by your CON score, and IS modified by wielding a weapon in 2 hands (1.5× bonus). This usually equates to ~+15 damage per hit for the round (does not include AoOs). This feat also takes 3 additional rounds of Rage per round of combat (so 4 per round), and it's considered an amazing god-tier feat.
RECKLESS ABANDON gives you a penalty to AC and a bonus to hit, usually exacy matching the penalty to hit from Power Attack. This makes you more vulnerable but more dangerous. It combines well with ...
COME AND GET ME (level 12) gives you free attacks when enemies attack you. This is a huge power spike and is another ability considered god-tier.
BLOOD RAGE is a 3rd level spell (for most) that gives similar bonuses and penalties to your idea, up to +10 STR and -5AC. Notably the STR bonus don't stack with Rage, while the penalties do ... (it's possible this would be completely incompatible with Rage, check out THIS THREAD for the current discussion if interested). It is also not on the Bloodrager spell list so it wouldn't be available to them, though it is on the Skald list (2nd level spell) so maybe there's a way to use that?
These are all other feats/abilities/etc that interact with Rage that you'd want to look at for balance. I'll put my thoughts on them together later when I have time (sorry busy day).
If this works for every rage & ragealike there are also the weird ones to consider. Savage tech barbarian gets +4 Str +4 Dex +2 Will and no stat penalty. Urban barb/bloodrager gets +4 to one physical stat, no stat penalty and can concentrate; generally the bonus gets added to dex, but adding to con and then doubling or tripling the bonus could be interesting with item mastery feats.
I guess since this is for your game and not for everyone's, one question might be how often the PCs get to set things up so that there's only one serious battle in a day? If the answer is often then the whole concept is wrong. If the answer is never, 4 significant battles/day is a minimum then I can see the cost mattering more than it would in my games.
+1 everything avr said.
The other thing to consider is how it stacks with everything else.
The most obvious is Greater Rage - When you get Greater Rage (level 11) does your Rising Rage now add +6 STR/CON and +3 Will per instance? Even at 1/4 of your level you're looking at +12 STR (+12 to hit, +18 damage), +12 CON (+66hp, +6 Fort Save) and +9 Will save, all for the low cost of 1 feat, -6AC and a few extra rounds of Rage.
How does it stack with Raging Brutality (level 13). By this point at 1/4 level you can add 3 Rising Rages, so (assuming it multiplies Greater Rage, as above) you can get +18 STR (+18 to hit, +27 damage), +18 CON (+113hp, +27 damage from Raging Brutality, +9 Fort Aaves) and +12 to Will Saves. Again all for 1 feat (and some AC). That's a total of +18 to hit and +54 damage from one feat. Sure you can only do this for 1 or 2 rounds a day, but that's all you need.
Now this is all assuming things stack, and that you're using the highest instance of Rising Rage available, but even if it doesn't stack with Greater Rage as above once you get Raging Brutality you're looking at +2 to hit and +6 damage from a single instance of Rising Rage (which would cost 7 Rage per round including Raging Brutality).
The question always asked when making feats is: "Would anyone NOT take this feat?" If the answer is "No" then it's too powerful.
one question might be how often the PCs get to set things up so that there's only one serious battle in a day? If the answer is often then the whole concept is wrong. If the answer is never, 4 significant battles/day is a minimum then I can see the cost mattering more than it would in my games.
Emphasis on "significant". If you have multiple combats per day but most of them aren't tough (which is what the game is balanced around!), the feat is still overpowered. It's the same reason why having a class feature with limited daily uses is stronger than an always-on class feature (a +2 in tough fights and +0 in easy fights is better than a +1 in all fights). The ability to nova is a huge power boost!
In order for this feat to be balanced, there needs to be a reason not to take it on (pretty much) every Barbarian. I not sure that can be done with just rage round cost, unless you make the feat weak enough that almost no one would take it.
god-tier
Top tier. God tier would be Sacred Geometry and Leadership...
god-tierTop tier. God tier would be Sacred Geometry and Leadership...
As in any in "Why the gods names would anyone allow them?"
What you could do instead is just have the NPC under a sort-of permanent BLOOD RAGE spell.
Maybe rather than stepping up the effects every 5hp you could step it up every 15% of the NPC's total health instead.
After taking 15% damage it gets +2 STR and -1AC
After taking 45% damage it's at +6 STR and -3AC
After taking 75% damage it maxes out at +10 STR and -5AC.
If you wanted to make it tougher instead of more fragile as the fight goes on you could have a DEADLY JUGGERNAUT effect instead, but with the same triggers.
After taking 15% damage you get +1 to hit and damage and DR:2.
After taking 45% damage you get +3 to hit and damage and DR:6.
After taking 75% damage you get +5 to hit and damage and DR:10.
If you really wanted to make it tough you could do both, but be aware that +10 STR and +5 to hit/damage is a huge buff as the fight goes on . If you do go withh both I'd make this enemy a really tough enemy (max HP, maybe double that) but with fairly low attack and damage numbers - given that it'll end up with +10 to hit and damage.
*These effects also have a trigger at 30% and 60%, I just skipped them to save a little time.