In a recent session I had gotten a CON buff from our Skald, and in the meantime, gone under and failed a couple of saves. It just so happened that our Skald also went under in the same fight, which "hurt" me for the 5 hit points I got from being level 5 and getting a +2 to CON. This was exactly enough "loss of hit points" to kill me, since by losing those hit points I fell down to a negative health equal to my total CON score. Is this intended? If you 've taken damage equal to (or over) what you got from the CON buff, do you lose even more current health when the buff runs out? Even to the point of death?
This is what normal barbarians had to deal with from at least 2000 to 2014 with Unchained. And yes, it was intended as people in real life do "finally die" once their adrenaline wears off or runs out, even though it creates a weird scenario where you can't drop rage until a cleric or something else has healed you. Realistically, and especially because they released Unchained *right after* hybrid classes, they should have made a modification to Skald and Bloodrager's rage so that it also at least used the temporary HP change instead of a normal con increase.
AwesomenessDog is correct. Temporary boosts to Constitution, and then the loss thereof, have this effect. However, when you went unconscious, you should have lost the bonuses from the Skald rage right then, not only after the Skald went down.
Whether or not that is a 'good' or 'bad' thing is a matter of opinion. I have not yet, nor do I plan on, using the Unchained Barbarian or taking advantage of the Temp HP option for Rage. I am one of those contrary people that don't think every semi-risky option needs to have guardrails or safety harnesses built in.
If a raging song affects allies, when the skald begins a raging song and at the start of each ally’s turn in which they can hear the raging song, the skald’s allies must decide whether to accept or refuse its effects. This is not an action. Unconscious allies automatically accept the song. If accepted, the raging song’s effects last for that ally’s turn or until the song ends, whichever comes first.
So, it effects unconscious allies just fine, but oddly, all allies seem to lose the buff every round at the end of their own turn until the next round when they can choose to accept it again.
I'm not sure if a yo-yo of gaining and losing a con bonus every round is intended or not.
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This is what normal barbarians had to deal with from at least 2000 to 2014 with Unchained. And yes, it was intended as people in real life do "finally die" once their adrenaline wears off or runs out, even though it creates a weird scenario where you can't drop rage until a cleric or something else has healed you. Realistically, and especially because they released Unchained *right after* hybrid classes, they should have made a modification to Skald and Bloodrager's rage so that it also at least used the temporary HP change instead of a normal con increase.
Unchained offers alternate rules. The hybrid classes use the standard rules.
If you play with Unchained you can modify how the Skald and Bloodrager work, but not all people use Unchained.
So, it effects unconscious allies just fine, but oddly, all allies seem to lose the buff every round at the end of their own turn until the next round when they can choose to accept it again.
Hmm, that seems ... odd to me. Well, no matter. Either way, end of your turn (conscious or not) you'd have lost the bonuses anyway.
This is what normal barbarians had to deal with from at least 2000 to 2014 with Unchained. And yes, it was intended as people in real life do "finally die" once their adrenaline wears off or runs out, even though it creates a weird scenario where you can't drop rage until a cleric or something else has healed you. Realistically, and especially because they released Unchained *right after* hybrid classes, they should have made a modification to Skald and Bloodrager's rage so that it also at least used the temporary HP change instead of a normal con increase.Unchained offers alternate rules. The hybrid classes use the standard rules.
If you play with Unchained you can modify how the Skald and Bloodrager work, but not all people use Unchained.
Sure but there is still no provision in Unchained (for those who use it) that says it is intended to change how rage works for anyone *except* regular barbarian.
Skald is affected by lingering performance, which actually saved my arse when I got instagibbed by a Crit from a Large vicious Orc Butchering Axe, but had the inspired performance for 2 more turns despite the Skald being out.
Right, that would do it but I'm not sure we are aware of contributing factors like Lingering Performance. If that had been in play, Llaren Aldrano's character might have survived long enough to get assistance.
buffs in games generally aren't meant to be actively harmful to you.
Not only are rages deliberately both helpful and harmful (you do get an AC penalty, remember?), the Con thing isn't actually a downside - without the Con boost, you would've died even sooner.*
*) To quote from another thread: Let's assume a 8th level Barb with 14 Con using PFS's HD rule. A non-raging Barb dies after taking 92 damage (unconscious after 79 damage). A raging cBarb dies after taking 95 damage.
oddly, all allies seem to lose the buff every round at the end of their own turn until the next round when they can choose to accept it again.
I don't think a single person on this planet plays it like that, because that would also mean the Skald's allies don't suffer the AC penalty (except against AoOs during their own turn).
I'm also rather doubtful the intention was for the effects to fall off at the end of the ally's turn. This means you don't have the constitution bonus long enough for it to matter. And it means the Wisdom bonus and AC penalty are largely irrelevant, since those only rarely apply during your own turn.
It'd really be worth an FAQ, if Pathfinder ever got any support anymore.
buffs in games generally aren't meant to be actively harmful to you.Not only are rages deliberately both helpful and harmful (you do get an AC penalty, remember?), the Con thing isn't actually a downside - without the Con boost, you would've died even sooner.*
*) To quote from another thread: Let's assume a 8th level Barb with 14 Con using PFS's HD rule. A non-raging Barb dies after taking 92 damage (unconscious after 79 damage). A raging cBarb dies after taking 95 damage.
oddly, all allies seem to lose the buff every round at the end of their own turn until the next round when they can choose to accept it again.I don't think a single person on this planet plays it like that, because that would also mean the Skald's allies don't suffer the AC penalty (except against AoOs during their own turn).
There is the difference of "I might have gone unconscious from an earlier hit as a different class and not died due to exactly where my hp landed vs now I am always guaranteed dead when I go unconscious." There is also the factor of "33 hp is a really wide margin (by level 11) of HP that you can win the fight and be even still conscious at the end of it and now suddenly dropping out of the rage can just kill me despite all threats being gone" that the OP is complaining about. Even further, assuming you have no way to heal up (say the cleric is out of spells or you don't have a cleric or healing class in the first place), then those extra hp might as well not actually exist because they only exist on a round by round basis. It is even more ridiculous at level 20 when you have an 80hp buffer.
Also note you still go unconscious as a cBarb when your raging hp reaches zero, so said 8th level barb goes unconscious at 90 (+1 to actually be at -1 hp) damage and then instantly loses 16 more hp, which is of course more than his nonraging con. Inspired rage is different because you aren't maintaining your own rage, but obviously if the skald was the one who went unconscious, the skald would also lose the con and hp as well.
And again, aside from guaranteeing that any barbarian *above* a certain level who goes unconscious is guaranteed dead, the only thing this system really does is make the barbarian scream (in a rage) for healing at the end of every major fight and burn a couple extra rage rounds until they can get it.
My experience playing (and GMing for) barbarians is that they rarely get into situations where their CON boosted HP from rage puts them in the danger zone from dying if they drop out of a rage. It has happened to me once (where ending the rage would have outright killed the character) and that was during a rough boss fight, but even then the party still had enough resources to take care of the issue before things got really bad.
I'm not trying to discount anyone else's experiences, but I'd surely like to know exactly what kind of CR equivalent monsters they were fighting as well as the power level of the adventure in question.
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My Viking after the end of a PFS1 combat:
“I pull out a wand of cure light wounds hold it out and angrily say ‘Someone please use this on me’.”
- Time passes (about a round or so)
“I continue to hold out the wand and say ‘seriously, my good friends, please use this on me right now’ in a very furious voice.”
- Rest of party: “OK, we’ll get there.”
“Now that you are looking you notice that I am still raging.”
- “…Oh, someone heal him quick!”
Eh, PFS1 gameplay? Different kind of environment than I am accustomed to. Heard lots of horror stories, though. Could never bring myself to trust just any random group of players to actually be team players, so I never let myself be reliant on any of them. PFS1 just seemed to attract the kind of players I'd rather avoid.
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Yep you have encountered a variant of SBDS: Sudden Barbarian Death Syndrome.
The 'bonus' hit points you get for a temporary Constitution boost are actually 'borrowed' from your unconscious HP margin, greatly limiting the appeal of the buff (if the 'bonus' HP actually come into play, you're probably really close to death).
This is one of the reasons I like the 'Urban' Barbarian/Bloodrager archetypes: You only get half (or less) of the rage buff, but the Con portion just isn't really that helpful anyway.
It's the same thing, it creates a really odd and potentially repetitive mood break from a really odd mechanic that otherwise doesn't add any more depth to the combat that is of course over.
My experience playing (and GMing for) barbarians is that they rarely get into situations where their CON boosted HP from rage puts them in the danger zone from dying if they drop out of a rage.
Really? You've never had your barbarians get low on HP, as a class known for getting hit very often because of their built in AC debuff and HP soaking design? I mean I'll take your word for it, maybe you/those you play with build really strong barbarians and the GM doesn't scale challenges up, or maybe you have healers really on top of their job, or maybe you haven't played them that often and just got lucky. The problem also gets bigger if you get to level 11, when you now have triple your HD as a buffer from your unraging negative con to a positive number that if you stop raging below it, you just immediately die.
And sure this may not be the biggest flaw of PF or other d20 barbarians even, but it was obviously a glaringly quirky one that was resolved well, and in a way that changed only having a bigger buffer of hp in certain fights (but no extra hp overall as you still have to heal the same amount back up) to having an occasionally refreshing bonus hp pool so that you *are* now actually getting more HP as part of rage.
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It is the same thing that happens to any other character that gets an increase in Constitution.
Bear endurance ends? You could die.
Your belt of mighty constitution is dispelled? You can die.
Your Plant shape spell end or is dispelled? You may die.
Increases in constitution that have a duration are dangerous and you need to manage them.
The people in Rage get a combat HP buffer that works as intended: they get enough extra HP to have a chance to end the battle victoriously, at the cost of losing them at the wrong moment.
But if they die for the loss it meant that they would have already died without them.
So the "problem" is that the characters have decided to disregard that risk, not that the mechanic is wrong.
I find it distasteful that people are lamenting that as a big problem but don't want to take the steps to manage it while playing.
It is the character and the party (yes, your friends should help) problem keeping how that stuff works in mind and managing the drawback, not the game system job.
Really? You've never had your barbarians get low on HP, as a class known for getting hit very often because of their built in AC debuff and HP soaking design? I mean I'll take your word for it, maybe you/those you play with build really strong barbarians and the GM doesn't scale challenges up, or maybe you have healers really on top of their job, or maybe you haven't played them that often and just got lucky. The problem also gets bigger if you get to level 11, when you now have triple your HD as a buffer from your unraging negative con to a positive number that if you stop raging below it, you just immediately die.
Did I say never? Well, no, I didn't. I clearly said it happened once, but the healers were on top of it. I've been playing and GMing for nearly two decades now. Perhaps my experience is not reflective of the community as a whole, but it is what it is.
As for playing strong builds or the GM not scaling things up, you might be closer to the mark than you think. We don't SCALE THINGS UP because we play characters that don't abuse the CR system and do not regularly fight things in the CR+3 or CR+4 level. Our barbarians don't actually get hit as often as you seem to imply, since we take care of their AC needs or buff them accordingly when the need arises. If the raging barbarian seems to have been bloodied in the middle of the fight, we heal them before it gets worse.
And sure this may not be the biggest flaw of PF or other d20 barbarians even, but it was obviously a glaringly quirky one that was resolved well, and in a way that changed only having a bigger buffer of hp in certain fights (but no extra hp overall as you still have to heal the same amount back up) to having an occasionally refreshing bonus hp pool so that you *are* now actually getting more HP as part of rage.
Rage is a powerful ability. It has downsides. Most people I know that play a class with downsides is that they take measures to account for that, even at the cost of their overall combat performance.
It is the same thing that happens to any other character that gets an increase in Constitution.
Bear endurance ends? You could die.
Your belt of mighty constitution is dispelled? You can die.
Your Plant shape spell end or is dispelled? You may die.Increases in constitution that have a duration are dangerous and you need to manage them.
The people in Rage get a combat HP buffer that works as intended: they get enough extra HP to have a chance to end the battle victoriously, at the cost of losing them at the wrong moment.
But if they die for the loss it meant that they would have already died without them.
So the "problem" is that the characters have decided to disregard that risk, not that the mechanic is wrong.
I find it distasteful that people are lamenting that as a big problem but don't want to take the steps to manage it while playing.
It is the character and the party (yes, your friends should help) problem keeping how that stuff works in mind and managing the drawback, not the game system job.
To be fair, there is a difference of it happening between 0 and a couple of times during an entire campaign (I've never seen a magic belt dispelled) vs nearly every single fight you engage in you take on that risk. It can be managed, but in the former its not something you really ever plan for, in the latter, you have to plan for that contigency every single significant fight.
But if they die for the loss it meant that they would have already died without them.
This is the important part. Without the Skald in their party, the OP's charater character would have died, too, and sooner at that.
The reason the SBDS exists is because people think that when rage adds 20 HP, they can also take 20 more damage, and thus their start worrying about their HP 20 points later. Just don't do that and you're fine. Check damage against your normal HP, and act as if the bonus wasn't there at all.
then those extra hp might as well not actually exist
Exactly! Act as if they don't exist, and you don't die from losing them (barring situations where your character doesn't have a chance to survive, anyway).
Also note you still go unconscious as a cBarb when your raging hp reaches zero
Er, yes, which is why there is no damage number to fall unconscious for the raging Barb, as it's identical to the 'damage until death' number. But that number is still higher than without Rage, which means that Rage does not makes you die faster or anything.
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To be fair, there is a difference of it happening between 0 and a couple of times during an entire campaign (I've never seen a magic belt dispelled) vs nearly every single fight you engage in you take on that risk. It can be managed, but in the former its not something you really ever plan for, in the latter, you have to plan for that contigency every single significant fight.It is the same thing that happens to any other character that gets an increase in Constitution.
Bear endurance ends? You could die.
Your belt of mighty constitution is dispelled? You can die.
Your Plant shape spell end or is dispelled? You may die.Increases in constitution that have a duration are dangerous and you need to manage them.
The people in Rage get a combat HP buffer that works as intended: they get enough extra HP to have a chance to end the battle victoriously, at the cost of losing them at the wrong moment.
But if they die for the loss it meant that they would have already died without them.
So the "problem" is that the characters have decided to disregard that risk, not that the mechanic is wrong.
I find it distasteful that people are lamenting that as a big problem but don't want to take the steps to manage it while playing.
It is the character and the party (yes, your friends should help) problem keeping how that stuff works in mind and managing the drawback, not the game system job.
How often do you use Bear endurance spells or potions?
In my experience, almost never, exactly for the same problem.Yes, the Barbarian (or a group with a Skald) needs to keep that in mind it in almost every battle. But, at the same time, the same people benefit from the buffer in almost every battle.
My point is that it is something with vantages and drawbacks. You use the advantages and keep in mind the drawbacks and manage them.
Some of the posts, to me, seem in line with the saying "But if I become large I lose from my AC and attack, it is unfair!".
Sure, the Unchain Barbarian for most points of view gets a better deal with the temporary hit points. Easiest to manage and, in a way, a form of "almost healing", or better, a form of damage mitigation.
But the point is that the UBarbarian gets a better deal, not that the mechanic is broken.
The Skald song has even a curious advantage: it works for unconscious characters, so a spellcaster that refused the song can be affected by it when it goes under 0 hp and revives, sometimes returning to a positive value and becoming capable to drink a potion to heal.
You still don't lose the spell effect every fight. You might lose it at the end of the dungeon or halfway through even, but you still probably healed up in between at least one of those fights if there was any risk in them. It also doesn't end "immediately as soon as the fight is over because you only have so many bear's endurance rounds per day and need to conserve them."
Also again, the "you would have died already" argument doesn't actually hold up. You might have been dropped in an earlier damage application without the con/hp increase, gone down but not died, and not been further targeted because you're no longer a threat. The core barbarian will always die when they go down from hp loss (while raging) and will sometimes have to keep raging until healed even after the fight is over. I don't know about you, but it should be more valuable to "not die" than to stay in one fight a single/couple extra hits and then die because of a quirky class feature.
Also again, the "you would have died already" argument doesn't actually hold up. You might have been dropped in an earlier damage application without the con/hp increase, gone down but not died, and not been further targeted because you're no longer a threat. The core barbarian will always die when they go down from hp loss (while raging) and will sometimes have to keep raging until healed even after the fight is over. I don't know about you, but it should be more valuable to "not die" than to stay in one fight a single/couple extra hits and then die because of a quirky class feature.
It actually does hold up though…
So let’s say a 20CON level 8 barbarian with 105HP suffers 120 damage… they are dropped to -15HP but still alive…
Now let’s say the same barbarian was raging… with +16 HP from their con buff they survived at 1 HP. If they take 2 more damage (since you only go unconscious when reduced below 0, you are only disabled at 0) they would lose their rage and drop to -17 HP… still alive… but 3 more damage will kill them.
In this scenario the barbarian would have already been down as soon as they reached 15HP in their rage. Dead at -4 or lower, or in otherwords they both die after suffering 125 damage without being healed.
Think of rage HP as an alternative form of Ferocity…
At higher levels the barbarian can actually still be alive after suffering much higher amounts of damage while their rage is active, but after they suffer their normal amount of damage they are effectively dead if they do not get healed. If you have +60 HP from rage, you have probably “died” by the time you hit 40HP left but you kept on fighting up till you got as low as -60HP (actual health without con buff) before your body finally gave out if you never got healed.
Basically once your CON buff + your level gets high enough you can “live” well past your damage threshold for death normally. It is a double edged sword though… since being able to keep fighting when by all accounts you should be dead already will inevitably kill you if you arn’t healed enough score time runs out.
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What Chell Raighn said.
The barbarian gets the time to try to heal the damage, what he needs to use depends on his level (a potion of CLw can be enough at low levels, an infusion of Heal would be needed at very high levels) but he has the time.
If you choose to continue to fight it is your choice, not something forced on you.
If your companions choose to do other things and not try to heal you it is their choice, not something that the game forced on them.
If losing the temporary Con boost is so much of a problem, don't enter into a Rage.
It is relatively pricey, but for high-level characters that routinely take a lot of damage from a single attack a Ring of resumption can be a worthwhile expense.
Yes you're alive while the rage persists, but it has instead guaranteed your death (short of healing). That same barbarian in the first case is out of the fight, and can likely survive the four rounds for someone to heal them to at least stable. In the rage, aside from the fact that they are dead if they cancel the rage, the next hit from a competent/melee CR 8-11 threat will most assuredly deal more than the minimum 5 damage (2 to knock unconscious then 3 more to make -17 -20 to outright die at -Con) it would take by the next round because the barbarian is in melee and a very obvious, easy to hit threat. That is where the thing breaks down, in that you become more likely to die because of the way rage works than without it, because if you aren't overkilled anyway, then you go from barely surviving to killed the next round anyway. And player death is obviously a worse outcome even in a done and won fight than your main damage dealer being dropped but still alive and healable for the next fight.
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Don’t think of this as accidently dying after rage ends. Think of it as the ability to fight on after a anyone else would have been knocked out or killed. The idea of give me victory or give me death is seen in almost all parts of the word. The Greeks saying of come back with your shield or on it is a perfect example of the idea.
You might have been dropped in an earlier damage application without the con/hp increase, gone down but not died, and not been further targeted because you're no longer a threat.
- Might have. It's purely hypothetical. What also might be is that the extra damage you put out when you'd have otherwise been unconscious prevents a TPK.
And that's presuming you actually die, and not use the extra turn(s) to either kill your enemy, or run away - either one saves your life more reliably than dropping from the 'threat table' by falling unconscious does. It's also assuming that being unconscious makes you safe from further harm, which is not guaranteed (e.g. because of continuous damage like from bleeding, or AoE used by the enemies).
Except that might is between both raging and unraging are still alive anyway and both unraging and raging are dead. You push back the disability level at the cost of guaranteed death should rage drop before you can get healed. After every hit, you either are dead in both worlds, alive and able to continue fighting in both worlds, or down and "safe" in the nonraging world but within any reasonable single hit of guaranteed death in the raging world. At higher levels, that middle point gets pushed out to the point that you are totally alive and fine to take another hit in both worlds, but then go to immediately dead without dropping unconscious first if you lose rage for any reason.
I said above it's not that big of a deal, but you aren't actually "getting extra hp", when it goes away on a fight by fight basis, and it has a quirky but lethal side effect for new players that can be very unfun to stumble into (as the op points out).
Except that might is between both raging and unraging are still alive anyway and both unraging and raging are dead. You push back the disability level at the cost of guaranteed death should rage drop before you can get healed. After every hit, you either are dead in both worlds, alive and able to continue fighting in both worlds, or down and "safe" in the nonraging world but within any reasonable single hit of guaranteed death in the raging world. At higher levels, that middle point gets pushed out to the point that you are totally alive and fine to take another hit in both worlds, but then go to immediately dead without dropping unconscious first if you lose rage for any reason.
I said above it's not that big of a deal, but you aren't actually "getting extra hp", when it goes away on a fight by fight basis, and it has a quirky but lethal side effect for new players that can be very unfun to stumble into (as the op points out).
This is why I said to think of the bonus HP from rage as an alternative form of Ferocity... because Ferocity in effect does the same thing. Instead of going down at -1HP, a creature with Ferocity keeps fighting, pushing back the point that they drop unconscious to non-existent. Standing and fighting one moment to flat out dead the next with no in between.
Is it ideal? No, but it is a balanced tradeoff.
Temporary Hitpoints create the same sort of balanced tradeoff through a different approach. With Ferocity & Bonus HP from CON buffs, a character gains additional hit points worth of damage that they can suffer before death and can stay standing to keep fighting with, and those hitpoints can be healed. Ferocity gives them their negative hitpoints treated as normal hitpoints but they suffer -1HP per round once it triggers. Bonus HP increase their maximum HP and create the risk of skipping their negative HP entirely but with the added benefit of it being possible to have more Bonus HP than they have negative HP. Temporary HP on the otherhand give a pool of non-healable HP that is reduced before normal HP. The fact that Temporary HP is non-healable is what balances it out, just like the balance aspect for Ferocity & Bonus HP from CON buffs is balanced by losing your unconscious "safe" state. Which, BTW, if you are seen as a big enough threat nothing is stopping any enemies from just finishing you off once you are downed... they don't even need to coup'de'grace if you are unconcious because of -HP to kill you... one successful hit is usually more than enough by the time SBDS comes in to play.
Those temporary hit points do heal over time, in fact they heal on their own if you just don't rage for 1min. The normal raging hp still has to be healed in entirety as it adds from the bottom not the top. There is no downside to the temp hp method, because if you're constantly dropping in and out of rage with no break as a cBarb, then you might as well not have the bonus hp unless you're taking the time heal *all* the damage you took up, but that same amount of time will make the ucBarb just get the temp hp back for free.
Would the enemies see you unconscious as such a big threat if there were other even almost as deadly enemies that were still conscious? Enough that they would spend a standard action or some of your swings in a full attack action hit you instead of the remaining enemies? There might be an aoe caster, those always are a hard counter to unconscious allies (especially if they don't care about hitting their own unconscious allies).
Those temporary hit points do heal over time, in fact they heal on their own if you just don't rage for 1min.
Wrong. They are not healed. They are replenished after an Unchained Barbarian has been out of a rage for 1min. They are NEVER restored during a rage, and if you rage cycle they are not restored by starting a new rage. They DO NOT heal. There is a difference between being Healed and Replenished.
Normal HP can be healed. You take damage to your normal HP, you can receive a healing spell to restore it and can take that damage again.
Temporary HP cannot be healed. You take damage to your temporary HP, the Temp HP is gone, being healed does not restore any Temp HP, you cannot suffer the same hit to your Temp HP again in the same way. You can only replace temp HP.
An unchained barbarians temp HP is "replenished" because it happens at a specified time interval. Any attempt to replace it with more rage temp HP without waiting out that interval fails. Ending a rage while missing some temp HP preserves your remaining temp HP until you start your rage again if you do so before the 1 minute replenishment period passes.
AN unchained barbarian can still replace temp HP by other means, but doing so does not restore any temp HP they have lost from their rage temp hp pool (unless the source specifically says it does, such as from the Eater of Magic or Energy Absorption rage powers)
You all are aware that for the past dozen or so posts you've been saying the same thing with different shadings?
All of you are playing the game the same way, you're just looking at it from different perspectives. No one is going to "win the argument" since no one is wrong.
To be fair, I've been saying it was a very minor issue, as have they, it's mostly a matter of how minor.
@Chell, Most of the time, and especially at the level 8 scenario before spells like heal come online, you won't be healed all the way to 100% mid fight. And while it's technically not "healing", the temp hitpoints from ucBarb do come back for free, which might as well be healing for the next rage. Note that if you've been raging for at least 5 rounds (before level 17) when you drop rage, you are guaranteed to get back your hp by the next time you are able to rage.
@Diego, Sure, but it seems an odd thing to me for the class that is supposed to rush in with reckless abandon to have to also start counting arbitrary damage points to determine how safe they are. Are there people who might want to make a mathbarian, nerd-rager character? Sure, but that isn't the majority of all barbarian characters nor is it the implied baseline. So it will still come off as I said, "quirky".
The easy way to deal with the problem is to take the feat Raging Vitality. The extra +2 CON when raging is nice. But the real benefit is that your rage does not end when you become unconscious. This will usually be enough to keep a barbarian or other character with rage alive long enough to be healed.
The easy way to deal with the problem is to take the feat Raging Vitality. The extra +2 CON when raging is nice. But the real benefit is that your rage does not end when you become unconscious. This will usually be enough to keep a barbarian or other character with rage alive long enough to be healed.
Raging Vitality is a bit of a double edged sword when used to combat SBDS… the extra +2 Con on rage means they have to end their rage with even more minimum HP to not die… and while it does keep them from instantly dying when they go unconscious, the extra HP they need to be healed can make it harder to bring them up to a safe HP value before they run out of rage rounds.
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You all are aware that for the past dozen or so posts you've been saying the same thing with different shadings?
All of you are playing the game the same way, you're just looking at it from different perspectives. No one is going to "win the argument" since no one is wrong.
Yes, I am. But it is not acknowledged or rebuffed in a meaningful way, so I tend to repeat it as I am replying to the same argument.
@Diego, Sure, but it seems an odd thing to me for the class that is supposed to rush in with reckless abandon to have to also start counting arbitrary damage points to determine how safe they are. Are there people who might want to make a mathbarian, nerd-rager character? Sure, but that isn't the majority of all barbarian characters nor is it the implied baseline. So it will still come off as I said, "quirky".
The Viking berserker (at least in legends) did fight until they were dead and continued to even after that point, dropping dead after the fight ended. That is what the barbarian depicts.
Some people seem to want to play a "class that is supposed to rush in with reckless abandon" while standing safe from the consequences of doing that.If that is what they want they need to become a "mathbarbarian, nerd-rager character". It is the consequence of their choice.
Tring to play "a perfectly safe character that rushes in with reckless abandon" requires playing in a quirky way. It is the player's choice.
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Raging gives you the option to keep fighting until you are dead. When you are raging you know that you have taken damage you just decide that you are not going to let you that stop you from doing what you want. From a role-playing standpoint ending rage early is when your CHARACTER decides that this fight is not worth dying for. The player may be using game mechanics to make the decision, but that does not mean the character does not have a reason.
A lot of people seem to think that using game mechanics to decide your characters action is somehow not role playing. Too me this is silly because the game mechanics are the only real way to define what is happening in the story. We are playing a game with other people. The game mechanics give us a common framework to define what are characters are doing and to interact with the world the GM created and the characters of the other players. Without that common framework there is no game.
The Viking berserker (at least in legends) did fight until they were dead and continued to even after that point, dropping dead after the fight ended. That is what the barbarian depicts.
Some people seem to want to play a "class that is supposed to rush in with reckless abandon" while standing safe from the consequences of doing that.
If that is what they want they need to become a "mathbarbarian, nerd-rager character". It is the consequence of their choice.
Tring to play "a perfectly safe character that rushes in with reckless abandon" requires playing in a quirky way. It is the player's choice.
Sure, people can play that way (or any way as long as they aren't hamstringing themselves with the mechanics), but I think it's something that plays out way different than it comes off. We only have to look at the OP to see that it's the case, even though it wasn't him that actually made the raging character as it was a skald. Even though cBarb explicitly says you lose those hitpoints at the end of a rage, you either have to do the math to determine if you die so you can spend the rounds to keep yourself alive until healed or just accept that you are making a new character (or also now have to get raise'd). To speak to Mysterious Stranger as well, it's not that these choices aren't "roleplaying", it's just that neutrally fun at best, and unfun to the point of causing accidental character death at worst, again as evidenced by the OP's reaction.