# Battlerager....Overpowered?



## Stalker0 (Nov 23, 2008)

There's enough talk about this on the boards now its time to get it out in the open!

Fighters have a new battlerager option at the cost of their +1 to attack rolls. Overall, is it overpowered?

For a con heavy fighter, I think it is definitely the stronger option. Even with a 16 con, you are getting virtual DR 3 (that stacks with DR) on every attack. While it doesn't stack with most temp hp (except for invigorating) in general I think this gives the fighter a huge increase in staying power, especially when combined with powers that provide regen.

However, I don't know if its necessarily the most fun option. +1 to attack rolls means more attacks land, more conditions applied, and damage is always fun. No one likes missing with their attacks. In that regard, its a question of how much enjoyment a player gets from the heavier defense over offense.

But mechanically....I think it is the optimized way to go for a con fighter.


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 23, 2008)

The "your invigorating powers stack with all temp hitpoints" is almost worth it on it's own. Getting free temp hitpoints every time you're attacked as well is crazily good. I think it's the way to go for any fighter, regardless of his con.

Which makes it overpowered in my book.


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## Orcus Porkus (Nov 23, 2008)

Keeping track of Temp HP is already a challenge with my Barbarian.
I can't imagine to have to seperate Temp HP's that stack or don't stack on top of it. You can as well not track HP at all and just don't die ever.


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## James McMurray (Nov 24, 2008)

You don't track temp hp seperately. When you gain temp hp, if you already have some and the new ones aren't invigorating, use the highest number. If the new ones are invigorating, add them together.


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 24, 2008)

If I allow this at all, I'm certainly going to start from the point of "no temp hit points ever stack. Ever".

It just seems the only sane starting point when dealing with temp hit points anyway, and without that proviso I could see invigorating battleragers (or whatever comes next) just running into stupid hp-land - much as infernal warlocks were when the players didn't read their temp hp carefully enough.

Cheers


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## Piratecat (Nov 24, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> If I allow this at all, I'm certainly going to start from the point of "no temp hit points ever stack. Ever".
> 
> It just seems the only sane starting point when dealing with temp hit points anyway, and without that proviso I could see invigorating battleragers (or whatever comes next) just running into stupid hp-land - much as infernal warlocks were when the players didn't read their temp hp carefully enough.
> 
> Cheers



Next time you visit, I'll make you play one and we'll see.


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## James McMurray (Nov 24, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> It just seems the only sane starting point when dealing with temp hit points anyway, and without that proviso I could see invigorating battleragers (or whatever comes next) just running into stupid hp-land -




How so? Is there a power combination you see that causes this, or just a feeling? The invigorating tag itself only applies once per turn, and the hit points they get for being attacked don't stack with anything else. There are no invigorating powers that grant temporary hit points beyond the base amount, so you're at most getting your Con per round, plus a little more if you don't have any after someone's attack.

With feats you could get Con + 5 with your invigorating powers, but that doesn't seem like "stupid hp-land." Is there a combo I'm missing?


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## Solodan (Nov 24, 2008)

Its only stupid HP land if we're at low levels being swarmed by minions.  Otherwise, I'd say a shielding swordmage is better than battlerager about half the time.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Nov 24, 2008)

First of all, figters get hit.  A lot.  Marking monsters to encourage them to target you does that.  So you don't get to stack those HP all that often since every round you get hit resets the counter to zero.  A non-battlerager fighter who uses invigorating powers will get about 80% as much out of them as a battlerager.  The only way you can stack crazy HP is if you aren't getting hit for several consecutive round, keep using Invigorating Powers even when better options are available and hit most of the time.  But if you aren't getting hit, what do you need the HP for?   

Note that using a chainmail and losing the +1 to hit tend to make the HP stacking harder in the first place since you'll get hit more and hit less.

Secondly, invigorating powers aren't always the best option, even if you factor in the temp HP.  What fighter faced by two monsters, including one minion, would rather use Crushing Surge than Cleave?  And are you seriously going to select only dailies and encounter powers with the Invogorating power?  'Cause many of them aren't very good.  I'm never selecting Pinning Smash over ain of Steel, for example.  So even a battle rager won't use invigorating powers every round.

Also, most invigorating powers are better with axes and hammers.  If you take those, you are 2 points behind my bastard sword fighter.  But if you don't, many of these invigorating powers are seriously subpar...


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## Rechan (Nov 24, 2008)

1) You go through temp hp fast.

2) Battlerager gives con mod temp HP. Being a fighter, he's going to have his highest stat in Str. Even if he's a Dwarf, he's only getting 3-4 temp HP back. And these temp HP don't stack.

3) Just like #2, the Invigorating keyword only gives Con Mod HP. Not only that, but it's only going to give temp HP once a round. So at most, he will have 10-12 temp HP a round. Considering the damage monsters should be doing when he has 10-12 hp around (around Paragon tier), it should be less of an issue.

4) The Battlerager is going to have light armor or chainmail in order to benefit from the +1 to attacks. Thus, he's going to get hit much more frequently. This in turn goes back to #1.

Ultimately, the Battlerager has the same problem as the Barbarian: he's going to make himself enough of a target that he's going to get pounded on, and with the limited AC, the enemies attacks are going to chew through his temp HP. Granted, he has more than the barbarian.


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## Lord Zardoz (Nov 24, 2008)

The Invigorating keyword definition in Martial Power has one very important sentence in in it.

*No invigorating power grants temporary hit points more than once per turn, even if you hit more than once with the power or use more than one power with the invigorating keyword in a round.*

It can only function as defacto damage reduction if your up against a single opponent.  If your swarmed and hit more than once, you will still end up losing hp.  You will end up much more durable than you otherwise might, but it is still going to suck to get hit a whole lot.

Still, this will make you much hardier in general, and more durable against minions in particular.

END COMMUNICATION


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## Stalker0 (Nov 24, 2008)

From my end, I don't even care about the fact it stacks with invigorating, or the +X damage in certain armors.

Let's look at a standard scale armored fighter with no invigorating powers. Even then, the amount of temp hp you get is a very powerful ability.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Nov 24, 2008)

Stalker0 said:


> From my end, I don't even care about the fact it stacks with invigorating, or the +X damage in certain armors.
> 
> Let's look at a standard scale armored fighter *with no invigorating powers*. Even then, the amount of temp hp you get is a very powerful ability.




I don't get your point.  

What amount of temp hp are you getting if you are a fighter with no invigorating powers?  The same as anybody else?



			
				Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> It can only function as defacto damage reduction if your up against a single opponent. If your swarmed and hit more than once, you will still end up losing hp. You will end up much more durable than you otherwise might, but it is still going to suck to get hit a whole lot.




It never functions as defacto damage reduction, even against a single enemy.  You won't hit every round and you won't use invigorating powers every round either.  In your example of being swarmed by minions, for example, you would use cleave or some effect that target many opponents, not an invigorating attack (they all target only one opponent, at least for the 10 first level)


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## steussyd (Nov 24, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> First of all, figters get hit.  A lot.  Marking monsters to encourage them to target you does that.  So you don't get to stack those HP all that often since every round you get hit resets the counter to zero.  A non-battlerager fighter who uses invigorating powers will get about 80% as much out of them as a battlerager.  The only way you can stack crazy HP is if you aren't getting hit for several consecutive round, keep using Invigorating Powers even when better options are available and hit most of the time.  But if you aren't getting hit, what do you need the HP for?
> 
> Note that using a chainmail and losing the +1 to hit tend to make the HP stacking harder in the first place since you'll get hit more and hit less.
> 
> ...




Just because they have bonuses with chainmail doesn't make it the best option. Take your bastard sword fighter and just replace weapon talent with Battlerager Vigor. Even without a single invigorating power, you've got the same AC, and are getting 2+ (with a measly con of 14) temp HP every time you are hit. Sure they go fast, but given that the weapon talent fighter is taking exactly the same damage without that buffer (which adds up VERY quickly)

How many times is your fighter hit in an average combat by close or melee attacks? 3? 4? 5? Even with a con of only 14 that gives you 8-10 extra HP, about the same as your surge value at low level. You just got a second wind's amount of extra durability without spending an action or a healing surge... every single combat.  For a fighter that is about anything other than trying to maximize their own damage output, it feels like you'd be stupid NOT to go battlerager.  Con higher than 14? It gets even worse, *fast*.


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## Baumi (Nov 24, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> I don't get your point.
> What amount of temp hp are you getting if you are a fighter with no invigorating powers?  The same as anybody else?




The Battleragers get his CON as temp Hitpoints after getting hit.

I know that if I would create my Dragonborn Sword'n Boarder again, I would definitively use the Battlerager over the Weapon Talent, even though I would use Scale and therefore not gain the offensive advantages. Ignoring damage per attack (after the first) is awesome for any defender.


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## Bagpuss (Nov 24, 2008)

Am I correct in thinking the Battlerager gets his temp hit points after getting hit but before damage is applied, so that it is effectively DR = Con mod against each melee or close attack that hits? Or does "attack resolved" mean both attack and damage part?

If he manages to hit some one with his Crushing Surge, prior to them attacking his temp hit points would be DR = Con x2. Then reduced by whatever damaged they caused.

What happens if he manages to smack three opponents with his Crushing Surge, before being hit himself. His Temp hit points would be Con mod x 3 correct?


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## Baumi (Nov 24, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> Am I correct in thinking the Battlerager gets his temp hit points after getting hit but before damage is applied, so that it is effectively DR = Con mod against each melee or close attack that hits? Or does "attack resolved" mean both attack and damage part?




The attack resolved includes the damage. So the first hit gets through but build up some rage against upcoming attacks ("smelling blood").



Bagpuss said:


> If he manages to hit some one with his Crushing Surge, prior to them attacking his temp hit points would be DR = Con x2. Then reduced by whatever damaged they caused.




I don't understand the question. If he get's damaged than it is subtracted form the TempHP first. If he managed to hit with Crushing Surge first and got hit once to activate the Battlerager HP's then his TempHP would be CONx2.



Bagpuss said:


> What happens if he manages to smack three opponents with his Crushing Surge, before being hit himself. His Temp hit points would be Con mod x 3 correct?




I would have said no, but after reading it again he would certainly stack those of his Crushing Surge attack to all TempHP he already has, regardless where he got it. But you are still limited to one Invigoration Power per Round.


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## Bagpuss (Nov 24, 2008)

Baumi said:


> I would have said no, but after reading it again he would certainly stack those of his Crushing Surge attack to all TempHP he already has, regardless where he got it. But you are still limited to one Invigoration Power per Round.




Right so *theoretically *if he doesn't get hit himself, and each round hits with an Invigorating power, there is no upper limit to the amount of Temp Hit Points he can have.


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## Baumi (Nov 24, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> Right so *theoretically *if he doesn't get hit himself, and each round hits with an Invigorating power, there is no upper limit to the amount of Temp Hit Points he can have.




Yes, but I don't think that's a problem since this will never happen and if he was really missed (or not attacked) the whole combat then his tempHP are useless anyway 

The bigger problem is his automatical tempHP when he got hit. One of my (lvl5 fighter) most powerful Exploit is Boundless Endurance that lets me once per day regenerate 2+Con each round when I am bloodied. While the tempHP he would get is 2 lower, it has no limitation: it works in every combat, all the time (bloodied or not) and unlimited times per round...


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 24, 2008)

I am still wondering about this. I don't have the MP yet myself, but I saw a Dwarven Battlerager in action last friday. Together with my Fighter/Wizard, we ruled the battlefield. 

And we barely needed any healing, especially not the Battlerager.

We were playing 15th level character, and the Battlerager apparently got 11 temporary hit points per hit, at least according to the players description. (Part of it thanks to some feats he took?)

The problem is - I don't know the mechanics behind it, and I keep wondering if he or we did something wrong (that player is particularly prone to mis-reading the fine print of mechanics, sometimes to his benefit, sometimes to his drawback.). 

So, tell me, can you get 11 temporary hit points per enemy attack at 15th level? Wouldn't this fully negate Minions? Where we missing something? Is the power just overpowered?


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## Ibixat (Nov 24, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> Right so *theoretically *if he doesn't get hit himself, and each round hits with an Invigorating power, there is no upper limit to the amount of Temp Hit Points he can have.




Yes, if the defender is fighting people with his melee range invigorating powers and never being hit in return, yes, he can have unlimited temps, and the DM is eligible for a brain transplant for never attacking the fighter or putting them up against critters that can't hit him at all.


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 24, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> How so? Is there a power combination you see that causes this, or just a feeling?
> ...
> 
> With feats you could get Con + 5 with your invigorating powers, but that doesn't seem like "stupid hp-land." Is there a combo I'm missing?




I like simple. I think that temp hp work best if they never stack (rather than having some stack and some don't). If some of them stack you leave a door open for the law on unintended consequences.

Since the battlerager gets temp hp on a regular basis (similarly invigorating powers) having them not stack means that it is like having a small amount of DR most of the time. When the possibility for stacking exists, it raises the possibility of getting large amounts of temp hp stacking up and ending up invulnerable to one or two attacks.

That's my reasoning. I've not read all through martial power yet to see whether there are any directly abusive combinations in this respect. But I like less confusion in the implementation of benefits like temp hp (and a fully-nonstacking approach hasn't made it any less useful for the infernal warlock in my campaign, who derives great benefit from his temp hp powers and curse benefit).

Cheers


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 24, 2008)

Piratecat said:


> Next time you visit, I'll make you play one and we'll see.




But I wanna be a rogue! Or a ranger!


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## Ibixat (Nov 24, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> I like simple. I think that temp hp work best if they never stack (rather than having some stack and some don't). If some of them stack you leave a door open for the law on unintended consequences.
> 
> Since the battlerager gets temp hp on a regular basis (similarly invigorating powers) having them not stack means that it is like having a small amount of DR most of the time. When the possibility for stacking exists, it raises the possibility of getting large amounts of temp hp stacking up and ending up invulnerable to one or two attacks.
> 
> ...




At the end of a fighters first turn of combat the maximum number of temp hp he could have stacked would be 2xcon mod, through a feat you can boost it to by +1 per con at heroic to +3 per con at epic, and dragonborn can boost it by +2 if bloodied per con.  Assuming they are not hit for more than whatever they gained from the invigorating power con, or con+1 or maybe con+3 they could hit again with an invigorating power and start to raise the total, but most hits you take will be greater than that amount of damage and ding into real hp.  And the HP from being hit do not stack only the ones from hitting with an invigorating power add on.. Artificers giving you those 20 temps from that one skill would be able to be stacked onto though.

I think the reparation aparatus breaks the way they work though.  Given that your powers would grant you con+2d6....  That may need to be errata'd =)


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## Mengu (Nov 24, 2008)

Battlerager is a bit overpowered I think in combination with some races that are already on the upper end of the power spectrum.

A Dragonborn Fighter already gains some serious bonuses from having a high constitution. A dragonborn who can generate temporary hitpoints can stay bloodied most of a combat and feel relatively safe from being taken down thanks to the constant influx of temporary hitpoints. Combine this with the higher healing surge values and a Belt of Vigor, and you have an extremely durable character.

A Warforged Battlerager with 18 Strength and Constitution is again going to be at the high end of the power curve. With a selection of powers like Comeback Strike, Boundless Endurance, and Victorious Surge, feats like Improved Warforged Resolve, Toughness and Durable, and a Paragon path like Iron Vanguard, the durability resources will be extremely abundant.


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## Bagpuss (Nov 24, 2008)

Other things to consider is not only is the Fighter losing the +1 to attack from the change in class feature, most (all?) *invigorating *powers benefit from using a axe, mace or hammer, which is only +2 proficiency bonus, so a Battlerager is going to be much less effective at attacking.


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## James McMurray (Nov 24, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> So, tell me, can you get 11 temporary hit points per enemy attack at 15th level? Wouldn't this fully negate Minions? Where we missing something? Is the power just overpowered?




The base ability gives you your con mod in temp hp. There is a dwarf-only feat that adds 1/2 your con mod to that. There is a paragon feat that adds 2 more to that. So if he has a 22 con he'll get 6 (base) + 3 (1/2 con) + 2 (feat).

It doesn't negate minions, it just assures that they'll go after juicier targets, making the defender's job harder. A defender that can't be hurt is a defender who gets ignored, and hence not a defender at all.


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## Nail (Nov 24, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> A defender that can't be hurt is a defender who gets ignored, and hence not a defender at all.



Yup.

...and it's a difficult concept to really embrace as a front-line fighter.  "Wait...I want *lower* defences than my comrades?"


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## Kraydak (Nov 24, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> It doesn't negate minions, it just assures that they'll go after juicier targets, making the defender's job harder. A defender that can't be hurt is a defender who gets ignored, and hence not a defender at all.




It doesn't work that way.  Keeping all else constant, boosting the defender's defenses makes attacking the non-defenders more attractive in a relative sense, but it does not make it more attractive in an absolute sense.

The goal, all else constant, is to get the defender's defenses high enough that attacking the defender and attacking other people is equally attractive.  Boosting the defender's defenses higher that that changes nothing: the opponents just attack the non-defenders at the same return/action as before.  Dropping the defender's defenses below that point just means that the defender gets attacked, at a better return/action for the opponent.

In most RPGs, you have to trade off other abilities to boost your defenses, so the situation is a little different in practice (and the break-even point will be lower, defense-wise), but worrying that increasing your defenses (again, all else kept equal) will decrease your utility as a defender is absurd.  In this case, high-con hammer wielders already were top-line damage dealers (thank you, Hammer Rhythm), so there isn't much of a trade-off...


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 24, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> Other things to consider is not only is the Fighter losing the +1 to attack from the change in class feature, most (all?) *invigorating *powers benefit from using a axe, mace or hammer, which is only +2 proficiency bonus, so a Battlerager is going to be much less effective at attacking.




The human fighter in my campaign uses 2H Maul with his 13 Str and 19 Con. He would probably be delighted with any of these new powers.


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## Blizzardb (Nov 24, 2008)

Just a clarification - battlerager's temporary HP are gained every time he is hit by an enemy with a melee or close attack, after the attack resolves. So he will not gain temporary HP if he is hit with a ranged or area attack (and yes, along with the other benefits the ability does seem very powerful to me).


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## mlund (Nov 24, 2008)

A Fighter who can't hit his opponents is a lousy Defender. At that point all he's doing is wasting his Standard Action to give an enemy -2 to hit his allies - and any other character could pretty much generate the same effect with Aid Another. If you can't hit reliably your OA and Immediate Interrupt Fu is worthless. You're not going to stop anyone from closing in on and attacking the other characters in your party that are actual threats.

Giving up the ability to hit for the added potential of "not dying" requires a very steep ratio in favor of "not dying." I haven't come up with any Fighter powers where CON helps you hit, only capitalize on hits with more damage. Yes, you could min/max a fighter who accumulates large amounts of Temp HP to act as continual Damage Reduction. However, if he's sacrificed his threat value by 3 or 4 points on his attack roles he won't provide the Defender's proper incentive to monsters to draw their fire in the first place.

Consider if you will what a Battlerager who isn't throwing away his good armor is going to give up:
+1 to hit from the standard Fighter Bonus
+1 to hit from Strength each extra +1 Con Modifier for Temp HP (roughly)
+1 to hit from using a +3 proficiency weapon for a +2 proficiency weapon that adds Con to Damage

Trying to maximize your use of Constitution as a Rager leads the Fighter away from being a Defender and towards becoming a "Brute" monster, IMO.

Just taking the -1 to hit and otherwise employing the Battlerager without any real modifications seems pretty decent - something like DR2 or 3 in exchange for hitting about 10% less of the time vs. Monsters you'd otherwise hit on 11s. That's probably worthwhile, but not game-breaking. Yeah, it scales up with leveling and feats nicely, but I figure that's necessary in the first place. As powers start to do more damage temp HP need to scale to keep relevant.

Frankly, the Dwarf Fighter needed a little extra love, and the Battlerager gives it to him. The Dragonborn fighter might get more love than is good for him, but he was wasting one of his Stat bumps in the class to begin with (CHA). The Warforged is probably the most troublesome example, but we don't play Ebberon locally or use too many MM races anyway. We understand those races may not make ideally-balanced PCs every time.

- Marty Lund


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## Kraydak (Nov 24, 2008)

mlund said:


> A Fighter who can't hit his opponents is a lousy Defender. At that point all he's doing is wasting his Standard Action to give an enemy -2 to hit his allies - and any other character could pretty much generate the same effect with Aid Another. If you can't hit reliably your OA and Immediate Interrupt Fu is worthless. You're not going to stop anyone from closing in on and attacking the other characters in your party that are actual threats.
> 
> Giving up the ability to hit for the added potential of "not dying" requires a very steep ratio in favor of "not dying." I haven't come up with any Fighter powers where CON helps you hit, only capitalize on hits with more damage. Yes, you could min/max a fighter who accumulates large amounts of Temp HP to act as continual Damage Reduction. However, if he's sacrificed his threat value by 3 or 4 points on his attack roles he won't provide the Defender's proper incentive to monsters to draw their fire in the first place.
> 
> ...




Hammer Rhythm.  Hammer Rhythm.  Hammer Rhythm.

In the Heroic Tier, the damage dice multiples are small enough that +2 damage is roughly equal to +1 to hit, which is the trade off in question.

Past the Heroic Tier, Hammer Rhythm makes hammers+con *always* a good idea in terms of inflicting damage.

Add in the fighter's suite of auto-damage stances, and you aren't giving up any offense for your massively boosted defense.


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## James McMurray (Nov 24, 2008)

Kraydak said:


> Past the Heroic Tier, Hammer Rhythm makes hammers+con *always* a good idea in terms of inflicting damage.




Personally, I prefer swords and strength. A hit practically always deals more damage than a miss, unless it's a power with a good effect on a hit, in which case you still don't want to miss.

Hammer Rhythm is nice insurance, but a lousy strategy.


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## Kraydak (Nov 24, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> Personally, I prefer swords and strength. A hit practically always deals more damage than a miss, unless it's a power with a good effect on a hit, in which case you still don't want to miss.
> 
> Hammer Rhythm is nice insurance, but a lousy strategy.




Early paragon tier, longsword vs hammer, +5 con modifier.
Say the hammer battle-rager needs a 13 to hit, while sword-boy w/weapon talent and an additional point of Str needs a 10.

Over 20 attack rolls, the hammer guy gets +(12*5 from misses)+(8*2 from battlerager)=76 extra damage from sources the sword guy doesn't get (+1 str cancels hammer's higher base damage).
Over those same 20 attack rolls, the sword-guy gets 3 bonus hits.
So if the sword-guy's hits do more than 26 damage, he pulls ahead (+1 str has already been counted, so needs to be discounted here).  At +10 to damage (+5 str, +3 weapon, +2 feat), he needs 16 on the dice.  The breakeven point is between 3 and 4 W.  Good luck on that, and you aren't getting the defensive benefits.

But wait, it gets better for hammer-boy: his numbers get better as the opponent's AC gets worse.  He pulls through in a pinch, while the sword guy does better in cases where victory is already assured.  Further, hammer-guy gets noticeably more benefit out of the various auto-damage stances.

The better ability to land the debuffs with swords is nice, but don't pretend the battle-rager is giving up much offense.  He is of course, especially compared to a weapon-talent+hammer rhythm build, but it isn't debilitating.  In not-that-special circumstances, he'll actually do more damage (those pesky stances, again, where the +2 to damage applies but the +1 to hit is irrelevant)!

(N.B. I do not own MP.  I could easily be getting details, like +2 damage on the stances, wrong)


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## nerdytenor (Nov 24, 2008)

Something to consider: it seems to me that battlerager gets less powerful over time, as the amount of tmp hps granted by the feature gradually shrinks as a percentage of total hps. 

I'm not yet convinced it is overpowered - some of the analysis I've seen seems to forget that, yes, the players occasionally MISS, and aren't actually granted the tmp hps.  Also, as a melee combatant, you are likely upping str, and if you up con with str, you are likely giving up a lot in terms of REF and WILL defense.

fwiw,
- nt


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## James McMurray (Nov 24, 2008)

Are we comparing hits vs. misses, or exact builds? If we're looking at builds I guarantee we can one-up each other for a long time. If we're looking at specific instance, then 1[W] (or more) + Strength mod is going to be higher than Con Mod fairly consistently. Hammer Rhythm + Battlerager may eek out a ffew more points of damage over the course of 20 attack rolls, but when you're in an actual fight, if it takes you 5 misses to kill someone that others are killing in two hits, you're going to get laughed at.


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## Mengu (Nov 24, 2008)

nerdytenor said:


> Something to consider: it seems to me that battlerager gets less powerful over time, as the amount of tmp hps granted by the feature gradually shrinks as a percentage of total hps.




Not quite what we want to hear in 4e. Generally, well designed class features are equally useful throughout a character's career. If battlerager temporary hit points don't fit this design, there would be something wrong with them. But I don't think temporary hitpoints lose their value at higher levels.

I agree at low levels it seems the temporary hit points are more powerful, but you have to realize it doesn't take that many actual hits to take down a fighter, 4 or 5 solid hits will typically do the job. Temporary hit points can extend that to 6 or 7 hits. At high levels it takes a lot more than 4 hits to take down a fighter, so the temporary hit point buffer will essentially keep playing its same role of extending the fighter's durability by 1 or 2 hits.



nerdytenor said:


> I'm not yet convinced it is overpowered - some of the analysis I've seen seems to forget that, yes, the players occasionally MISS, and aren't actually granted the tmp hps.




Maybe you are misreading the power? It triggers when you are hit, not when you hit.


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## Kraydak (Nov 24, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> Are we comparing hits vs. misses, or exact builds? If we're looking at builds I guarantee we can one-up each other for a long time. If we're looking at specific instance, then 1[W] (or more) + Strength mod is going to be higher than Con Mod fairly consistently. Hammer Rhythm + Battlerager may eek out a ffew more points of damage over the course of 20 attack rolls, but when you're in an actual fight, if it takes you 5 misses to kill someone that others are killing in two hits, you're going to get laughed at.




16 str/18 con vs 18 str/16 con (or whatever) starting stats, warhammer vs. longsword (same enchantment level), weapon focus (or equivalent).

Average damage calculations will almost invariably come out in favor of the hammer guy (weapon talent OR battle-rager), and so the hammer guy will kill his foes faster.  On the same sequence of attack rolls, the sword guy benefits if they fall in the narrow (3 number) range where he hits and the battle-rager hammer guy misses.  Otherwise, the hammerer does better.  The sword-guy's extra hits do hit harder, but they still have a hard (read: impossible) time making up for the 17 numbers on the d20 where the battle-rager hammer guy does better (+2 damage when both hit, +con modifier when they both miss).


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## Kraydak (Nov 24, 2008)

nerdytenor said:


> Something to consider: it seems to me that battlerager gets less powerful over time, as the amount of tmp hps granted by the feature gradually shrinks as a percentage of total hps.
> ...
> fwiw,
> - nt




The basic +con after getting hit does get a bit weaker over time, but it starts at absurd and merely drops to "way, way better than 1 point of AC against anything you have any business fighting (or chance at beating)."

You can match it up against the damage/level tables in the DMG if you like.  They aren't perfectly matched by the MM, but it comes close enough to get the scaling.

That doesn't count the improved value of invigorating powers, either.


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## James McMurray (Nov 24, 2008)

Kraydak said:


> 16 str/18 con vs 18 str/16 con (or whatever) starting stats, warhammer vs. longsword (same enchantment level), weapon focus (or equivalent).
> 
> Average damage calculations will almost invariably come out in favor of the hammer guy (weapon talent OR battle-rager), and so the hammer guy will kill his foes faster.  On the same sequence of attack rolls, the sword guy benefits if they fall in the narrow (3 number) range where he hits and the battle-rager hammer guy misses.  Otherwise, the hammerer does better.  The sword-guy's extra hits do hit harder, but they still have a hard (read: impossible) time making up for the 17 numbers on the d20 where the battle-rager hammer guy does better (+2 damage when both hit, +con modifier when they both miss).




We'll just have to agree to disagree. I'd rather not have a character whose goal it is to shout "yay! I missed again!"


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## nerdytenor (Nov 24, 2008)

Mengu said:


> Maybe you are misreading the power? It triggers when you are hit, not when you hit.




No, I just had a brain fart is all.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Nov 24, 2008)

I missed the very first line of the Battlerager class feature.  

Getting temp HP after getting hit is pretty powerful.  Personnally I wouldn't mind it if it came with the obligation to wear chainmail or lighter and to forego shields. 

Otherwise, I suspect we'll see a lot of tank fighter who have very little battlerager in them but still take that class feature.


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## Sir Brennen (Nov 24, 2008)

I personally don't see the imbalance. Tho one solution might be to cap the Temp HP at Level + Con Mod/score or something similar.

My question is this: if our +11 Con Mod Battlerager Dwarf is currently at 10 HP and gets smacked down for 20 points of damage, what happens? Do TmpHP affect someone who's below zero? Is he at -10 or +1 Hp?


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## James McMurray (Nov 24, 2008)

Sir Brennen said:


> I personally don't see the imbalance. Tho one solution might be to cap the Temp HP at Level + Con Mod/score or something similar.
> 
> My question is this: if our +11 Con Mod Battlerager Dwarf is currently at 10 HP and gets smacked down for 20 points of damage, what happens? Do TmpHP affect someone who's below zero? Is he at -10 or +1 Hp?




He's at -10 with 11 temporary hit points and unconscious. phb 293


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## Larrin (Nov 24, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> Otherwise, I suspect we'll see a lot of tank fighter who have very little battlerager in them but still take that class feature.





This is one reason i feel a little worried about the battlerager.

Trading a +1 to hit for even just 3 temp hit points is a pretty solid upgrade.  You'll miss every once in a while because of it (but honestly how often do you miss by only one point, it could easily not come up in a combat), but you'll be benefitting every single battle from you vigor, multiple times.  Its not world ending, but it does push it into the ' a little too good' category in my mind.  

Honestly, how do you compare +1 to hit with battle vigor temp hp....its apples to oranges...and at times it can be like comparing 3 medium sized apples to 7 smallish oranges.

In the end the build feels like its leaning over the edge of game balance as far as it can while standing on one foot.  It could go over with just a little carelessness.  Its relying really hard on "hits less often/lower ac" to make up for a really souped up survivability....and the extent to which it hits less often and has lower AC are VERY variable.   

 I'm betting this build will be very variable...fluctuating from 'its a darn good build, but didn't overshadow the rest' to 'I took 2 real damage and ended with double my hitpoint max in temp hp AND killed everything'.

I hope i'm wrong, but it makes me nervous.


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## Vendark (Nov 24, 2008)

Kraydak said:


> 16 str/18 con vs 18 str/16 con (or whatever) starting stats, warhammer vs. longsword (same enchantment level), weapon focus (or equivalent).
> 
> Average damage calculations will almost invariably come out in favor of the hammer guy (weapon talent OR battle-rager), and so the hammer guy will kill his foes faster. On the same sequence of attack rolls, the sword guy benefits if they fall in the narrow (3 number) range where he hits and the battle-rager hammer guy misses. Otherwise, the hammerer does better. The sword-guy's extra hits do hit harder, but they still have a hard (read: impossible) time making up for the 17 numbers on the d20 where the battle-rager hammer guy does better (+2 damage when both hit, +con modifier when they both miss).




The problem with this comparison is that it assumes the longsword guy wants to go Str/Con. Chances are good that he's going to go Str/Wis instead, and take the Marked Scourge feat at paragon. That lets him add his Wis modifier to damage every time he hits a marked opponent (in other words, almost every time he hits), and that puts him well ahead of the hammer guy when both hit.


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 24, 2008)

Vendark said:


> The problem with this comparison is that it assumes the longsword guy wants to go Str/Con. Chances are good that he's going to go Str/Wis instead, and take the Marked Scourge feat at paragon. That lets him add his Wis modifier to damage every time he hits a marked opponent (in other words, almost every time he hits), and that puts him well ahead of the hammer guy when both hit.




And if the build is that much better, then unless it's got a con mod of +0, then it could probably be better still by taking vigor.


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## Kraydak (Nov 24, 2008)

Vendark said:


> The problem with this comparison is that it assumes the longsword guy wants to go Str/Con. Chances are good that he's going to go Str/Wis instead, and take the Marked Scourge feat at paragon. That lets him add his Wis modifier to damage every time he hits a marked opponent (in other words, almost every time he hits), and that puts him well ahead of the hammer guy when both hit.




Assuming you always get Marked Scourge, take a 18/18 str/wis build (shifter) vs an 18/18/12 str/con/wis build (warforged).
Then at 30, with a 2W power, and the sword guy hitting 50% of the time (which is good at 30) we have:
Sword:
+7(sword wis-hammer wis)*9(times both hit)+(9 (2d8)+9(str)+9(wis)+3(weapon focus)+6(magic))*1(extra hit)=101 damage that the hammer doesn't get over 20 attacks
Hammer:
+9(con)*11(hammer's misses)+2 (2d10-2d8)*7(both hit, non-crit)+4 (20-16, crit damage)*2 (both crit)=121 damage the sword guy doesn't see that the hammerer does over 20 attacks.

Marked scourge, if almost always up, does allow a Str/Wis sword build to compete on a basically even footing with a hammer rhythm build.  Without it, there is no comparison.

In short, the battle-rager getting channeled towards hammers (and other things, I guess) isn't a weakness.  In the above case, making the hammerer a battle-rager, we get
Sword:+137, Hammer:+144.
Indeed, at high levels +to hit become more valuable in general.  Hammerer still wins.  I'm too lazy to do battle-rager-hammer-rhythm-marked-scourge dwarf (16/18/14 str/con/wis) vs other PHB race marked-scourge-swordguys (20/14 str/wis human or dragonborn optimal).

(Note: beware math errors, I'm in Europe, it's late for me)


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 24, 2008)

mlund said:


> A Fighter who can't hit his opponents is a lousy Defender.




You may think he is a lousy defender, but actually in practice he is a fine defender - plus the player is having fun with him, and the other players are grateful for his defenderiness (and miss him terribly on the occasions he can't be there).

Talking about 'optimum builds' might be fun for character optimisation boards, but in the context of having a fun game (which is what D&D is about, right?) it is largely irrelevant. Although you've not said it here, the implication is that unless the PC has an 18 or 20 in his prime stat he is in some way unplayable in his defined role. (I've seen this mentioned in several other threads in the past by others).

Maybe in your games everyone likes to play super-optimised characters. In my games people don't. They often end up with odd combinations of things.

We still have fun, which is the main thing, eh?

Cheers


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## tanj (Nov 25, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> Maybe in your games everyone likes to play super-optimised characters. In my games people don't. They often end up with odd combinations of things.



When speaking on a theoretical basis it is useful to think of the extremes.


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 25, 2008)

tanj said:


> When speaking on a theoretical basis it is useful to think of the extremes.




This is true, but it is also important to consider the middle range too; I was speaking up for the forgotten non-extremes 

Cheers


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## WalterKovacs (Nov 25, 2008)

On the Dwarf getting 11 temp HP at 15th level:

Assuming 22 Con [meaning he started at 18 probably]

He gets 6 for battlerager vigor. With Dwarf Stoneblood he gets to add an extra half his con modifier, making it 9. Improved Vigor would add another 2 at paragon tier, so that makes it 11 temp HP each time you get hit. An invigorating keyword power would only give you 8 temp HP each time.

On temp HP never stacking: The idea of allowing temp HP from the keyworded powers to stack is because if you constantly have temp HP from the normal ability, there would be no incentive if taking invigarating powers which give the same ammount and thus would rarely stack over the temp hp from battlerager vigor. There is only one way to _make_ something invigorating, and that is an epic tier feat that applies to a single encounter attack power ... of which none give a fighter temporary hit points.

Other note: There is another feat at paragon tier, but this one applies to the damage bonus from battlerager vigor, not temp hp.


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## two (Nov 25, 2008)

*DFF Rate*



James McMurray said:


> We'll just have to agree to disagree. I'd rather not have a character whose goal it is to shout "yay! I missed again!"




Well that's not really the case.  Everyone is glad when they hit.  Just the hammer guys don't might AS MUCH when they miss.

Also, this is a very complicated question, because "in real life" there is the tricky business of "overkill."

Yea the sword does more damage, but how much of the time is it wasted, i.e. it kills the bad guy but a miss by the hammer guy (while doing less damage) also is enough to kill it?  Or simply a hit by the hammer guy was enough too?  In which case doing more damage like the sword can is "overkill" i.e. not needed, useless.

The time that more damage really matters in a fight is when it ends the fight sooner, i.e. you get a kill faster than the slightly-lower-damage guy.

So you need to look for times when the sword hit did enough damage (in aggregate including previous higher-damage hits) to drop the foe faster than the hammer guy would.


This is really hard to say and the only way to get a clear answer I think would be to run a simulation, like 10,000 fights vs. various enemies, and see which one really did better in the "drop foe faster" category.

You don't really care about damage after all, you care about dropping the enemy faster.  They are related, but not in a straight-forward way (if you do 2x as much damage as another guy, I suspect your DFF rate will be more than 2x as much as the lower damage guy, probably sometimes like 3 or 3.5).  When the damage output is very close (difference of +1 to +4)... I wonder.

My gut tells me that if you run a simulation vs. various types of opponents (high ac, moderate, low, lots of HP, few, etc.) there won't be a significant difference in "DFF" rate, i.e. "drop foe faster" rate.

But I can't say. My Excel-fu is, like, weak dude.


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## James McMurray (Nov 25, 2008)

We'll just have to agree to disagree.


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## mlund (Nov 25, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> Talking about 'optimum builds' might be fun for character optimisation boards, but in the context of having a fun game (which is what D&D is about, right?) it is largely irrelevant.




The title of the thread asks us to examine whether the Battlerager is "overpowered." To honestly examine that issue you have to at least *consider* optimal builds. Additional, most of the preceding arguments about the power level of the Battlerager lean heavily on applying optimal stat choices, feat choices, and race choices to produce the most extreme examples possible.



> Maybe in your games everyone likes to play super-optimised characters. In my games people don't. They often end up with odd combinations of things.




Which has *what* relevance to the discussion as to whether or not the Battlerager is overpowered?

- Marty Lund


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## two (Nov 25, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> We'll just have to agree to disagree.




I don't disagree or agree with you really.  I was saying that I really don't know and don't have the programming chops to find out.

I'm ignorant.


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## Lord Zardoz (Nov 25, 2008)

mlund said:


> The title of the thread asks us to examine whether the Battlerager is "overpowered." To honestly examine that issue you have to at least *consider* optimal builds. Additional, most of the preceding arguments about the power level of the Battlerager lean heavily on applying optimal stat choices, feat choices, and race choices to produce the most extreme examples possible.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




The relevance is subtle, but there.  Basically, it is possible for something to be overpowered, but to not be a substantial problem in practice.

As an example, the 3.0 Haste spell and 3.0 Harm spell were overpowered (well, ok, outright broken).  To have a significant and detrimental effect, all that had to happen was for them to show up in play on a regular basis.  A more relevant example would be the 3.0 / 3.5 Cleric.  There were a number of ways to optimize that class to make it the most combat effective build, and they did not take a whole lot of effort.  Just cast a handfull of Buff spells and you could outfight the fighter.

Back to the topic at hand, its one thing if you can prove to an acceptable degree that the Battle Rager is broken when you assume the use of the Temp HP with the most optimal choice of both Feats and Powers combined with the optimal allocation of stats and using a particular weapon.  It may be overpowered and better enough than the rest of the options to be a real problem when it shows up.  But in practice, it probably will not hit that many games.

But if the BattleRager option is that much better than every other fighter build option, and all that has to be done to get the benefit is to choose BattleRager, than we have a real problem.

So on that note, does anyone here really think that BattleRager fighter is really that much better than any other fighter build option?

END COMMUNICATION


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## Nail (Nov 25, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> Maybe in your games everyone likes to play super-optimised characters. In my games people don't. They often end up with odd combinations of things.






mlund said:


> Which has *what* relevance to the discussion as to whether or not the Battlerager is overpowered?



<Tangent Alert!>
In the games I play in, "optimization" is often talked about, but infrequently practiced.  I think that's mostly because "optimization" takes a level of PC focus that most people find un-fun to play.  That is, an optimized PC choice - discussed on the boards - is too narrow to play in a Real Game(tm).  _(Pssst: Don't tell my DM I said that!)_

...so when talking about "_Is this Overpowered?_", it might be quite appropriate to consider "_Will the optimized choices that lead this to be overpowered ever be used by a PC in my game?_"

It's a legitimate tact, though only on a game-by-game basis.


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## Stalker0 (Nov 25, 2008)

Lord Zardoz said:


> So on that note, does anyone here really think that BattleRager fighter is really that much better than any other fighter build option?
> 
> END COMMUNICATION




I think for a con heavy fighter (your typical hammer fighter), its definately the best option.

For other fighter builds, it would depend on your con overall, at what point of con bonus does the battlerager ability become better than the +1 to attack rolls....+1, +2, +3?


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## mlund (Nov 25, 2008)

Stalker0 said:


> For other fighter builds, it would depend on your con overall, at what point of con bonus does the battlerager ability become better than the +1 to attack rolls....+1, +2, +3?




The Attack Roll really is crucial to the Fighter doing his job as a Defender.

The other Defenders can still stifle their marks even when they can't hit them effectively. The Swordmage can use his Aegis of Shielding to "draw aggro" from his mark, even if he never successfully connects with his attacks. The Paladin still dumps Radiant Damage on a mark who refuses to "stick" to him in combat, even if he never hits with attacks. 

The Fighter who can not hit, however, is truly floundering at his role. His class features that make enemies stick to him all rely on him *hitting* with attacks. Want to stop the enemy from moving to hit your friends? You have to hit him with that OA to make him stop moving. Want to punish that guy for attacking the Rogue you are flanking with? You'd better make sure your Combat Challenge interrupt is a credible threat.

A Paladin or Swordmage can much more easily concede an Attack Bonus and still Defend effectively than a Fighter can.

- Marty Lund


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## Skallgrim (Nov 25, 2008)

Lord Zardoz said:


> But if the BattleRager option is that much better than every other fighter build option, and all that has to be done to get the benefit is to choose BattleRager, than we have a real problem.
> 
> So on that note, does anyone here really think that BattleRager fighter is really that much better than any other fighter build option?
> 
> END COMMUNICATION





I think that my concern is, given deliberate, even if "non-optimal" choices, the Battlerager build AND the Tempest Fighter build are better choices than the Weapon Talent Fighter (taking the same deliberation in ability scores and feats).

What if Weapon Talent had benefits beyond +1 to hit?  Instead of nerfing Battlerager, you could make other builds more attractive but not broken, perhaps?

My initial idea was a revised Weapon Talent.  When you select Weapon Talent, you pick one of three options:

Great Weapon:  You gain a +1 to hit with Two-handed weapons AND versatile weapons wielded in two hands.  You gain a +1 to melee and close damage when wielding a versatile weapon in two hand, or a +2 to melee and close damage when wielding a two-handed weapon. You gain Toughness as a bonus feat.

Single Weapon.  You gain a +1 to hit with one handed weapons, and versatile weapons wielded in one hand.  You gain a +2 to melee and close damage when wielding a one handed weapon in one hand, or a +1 if wielding a versatile weapon in two hands.  You gain Quick Draw as a bonus feat.

Weapon and Shield.  You gain a +1 to hit with single handed weapons when wielding a shield in your off hand.  You gain a +2 to melee and close damage when wielding a one handed weapon and a shield in your off hand.
You gain Shield Defense as a bonus feat.

Then, in addition, each Weapon Talent would have a feat at the paragon level, just like for Battlerage and Tempest, which would increase the bonus damage by +1 at Paragon and +2 at Epic.

This way, Tempest, Great Weapon, Single Weapon, and Sword&Board fighters would ALL get +1 to hit when using their chosen weapons, and would ALL get +2 to damage when using their chosen weapons, and would ALL get a bonus feat.

Then it makes Battlerager more of a balanced trade-off, since you are losing the +1 to hit and a free feat to get temporary hit points.  Now, battlerager gets temporary hit points, conditional damage boosts, and access to feats which boost each of those, just at the cost of a +1 to hit.


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 25, 2008)

mlund said:


> The title of the thread asks us to examine whether the Battlerager is "overpowered." To honestly examine that issue you have to at least *consider* optimal builds. Additional, most of the preceding arguments about the power level of the Battlerager lean heavily on applying optimal stat choices, feat choices, and race choices to produce the most extreme examples possible.




We know that the extremely optimized battlerager is really good. It's almost impossible to tell whether it's "better" than some pseudo-striker, not-really-a-defender build.

I think possibly the best thing to do would be to take a variety of existing builds and swap out their +1 to hit for battlerager. I doubt there are very many fighter builds with a +0 con bonus, and personally I think that for a +1 or more con bonus, battlerager is superior. You trade less than 5% outgoing damage (and 5% success on assorted effects) for -5% incoming damage (IF your foe is averaging 20 damage a hit) and the ability to build up a big wall of temporary hitpoints while you don't get hit.


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## Danceofmasks (Nov 25, 2008)

My op fighter build starts with 10 con.


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 26, 2008)

mlund said:


> The Attack Roll really is crucial to the Fighter doing his job as a Defender.




You can mark someone even if you miss them. The Fighter is a better defender on a miss than a rogue/ranger/warlock striker on a miss or a wizard controller on a miss.

That tells me that the fighter is less dependent on the attack roll for performing some degree of his roll than any other class (except possibly the paladin).

He can do it better if he hits, sure - but even the threat of a fighter means that many foes will be less likely to try to move through his OA area or attack someone else if marked by him.

Regards,


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## Ibixat (Nov 26, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> You can mark someone even if you miss them. The Fighter is a better defender on a miss than a rogue/ranger/warlock striker on a miss or a wizard controller on a miss.
> 
> That tells me that the fighter is less dependent on the attack roll for performing some degree of his roll than any other class (except possibly the paladin).
> 
> ...




Once you wiff your first 6 attacks in a combat the remaining critters aren't really afraid to walk past and trigger OA's usually =)


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## WalterKovacs (Nov 26, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> You can mark someone even if you miss them. The Fighter is a better defender on a miss than a rogue/ranger/warlock striker on a miss or a wizard controller on a miss.
> 
> That tells me that the fighter is less dependent on the attack roll for performing some degree of his roll than any other class (except possibly the paladin).
> 
> ...




The paladin, and the swordmage with the Aegis of Shielding are able to makr someone and get more than "just" a mark, regardless of how well they can hit. A warlord is able to pick at-will powers that don't require he make the attack roll (commander's strike) or let's him make weapon attacks against non-AC defense. With the bonus to initiative, the benefit from using an action point and the inspiring word, the warlord is able to fill his roll without needing to hit as much as other characters. Clerics similarly can do a lot of powerful healing even if they can't hit well, and have a number of conjurations. Wizards have a number of zone based powers that don't require hitting to make use of (although they are better if they do). 

Outside of strikers, most of the other classes can do a passable job without needing to hit a lot. The fighter's mark allows him to mark more people than a paladin or swordmage normally would be able to, but without being able to hit on the attacks granted by the mark, it isn't going to be as good as the "auto damage" from the paladin, or the damage reduction of the swordmage. The fighter's "stickiness" goes away if they can't stop people by hitting with an OA, or discourage them from shifting by using their interupt. The OA power can be made up by having a very good wisdom.

A fighter can live with 16 STR, the fighter weapon talent allows them to have comparable attack modifier to most other weapon based classes with an 18 in their attack stat, and wisdom raises their OA power above that. However if you go with less than 16 to start, and go with battlerager vigor, and you go with a +2 prof weapon, that's a 20% drop against someone with 18 STR, a +3 prof weapon and the fighter weapon talent ... that's a pretty steep drop in the ability to hit, especially since monsters are designed to be challenging even against optomized characters ... so an optimized character may have say ... 60 to 65% hit chance, this fighter would have closer to 40% for their hit chance. When you get soldiers in to the mix, things get worse. There are some creatures with very high defenses, especially AC. One particular character had a 25 AC and was going up against level 6 PCs, meaning that a 20 STR fighter with a +3 weapon they had weapon talent in is looking for a 13 or higher to hit it. The fighter with 16 STR, battlerager and +2 weapon would need a 17 to hit ... 

Anything lower than a 16 for a starting attack stat is going to make things significantly difficult for the party.


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## Minigiant (Nov 26, 2008)

I don't see it as overpowered, but it's good for a heavy CON build. CON fighter all ready have poor Ref and Will and the Battlerager will take a AC drop if he goes chain. More so past mid herioc tier. Fighters also make the most attacks after a twf ranger. Missing a few more encounter and combat superiority attcks will hurt too since they are very important past level 5 or so.

I think the battlerager will be a lot more powerful than the talent CON fighter in melee but there is a very noticeable loss if you take it. Moreso if you go wit lighter armor and/or smashy weapons.


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 26, 2008)

WalterKovacs said:


> Anything lower than a 16 for a starting attack stat is going to make things significantly difficult for the party.




As I mentioned earlier, the fighter in my campaign chose a 13 Str as his starting Str and both he and the rest of the party are delighted with his defendery capabilities. The starting attack stat lower than 16 hasn't made things significantly more difficult for the party.

Cheers


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## WalterKovacs (Nov 26, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> As I mentioned earlier, the fighter in my campaign chose a 13 Str as his starting Str and both he and the rest of the party are delighted with his defendery capabilities. The starting attack stat lower than 16 hasn't made things significantly more difficult for the party.
> 
> Cheers




A few questions:

What is his wisdom score?

Do enemies avoid his OAs and interupt attacks even though they are less likely to hit?

Is his AC close enough to the rest of the party that marking makes him easier to hit than anyone else?

How is the rest of the party composed in terms of their optimization level?

Are the encounters catered to the party, or is it a set adventure path?

How does the party do against soldiers or higher level monsters?

Just wondering. It's possible to design around the PCs to make fights they are capable of dealing with, but if it requires a lot of work on the part of the DM to make the player's character "work", that doesn't mean the PC character works in the first place.


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## Danceofmasks (Nov 26, 2008)

The table is having fun, and that's fine.

However, I'm an old skool hardcore wargamer, and frankly ... if a party is suboptimal, then they should die.
Repeatedly.

Because attrition determines the nature of reality, competence overcomes danger, and therefore only op characters should ever get to paragon tier.


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## Obryn (Nov 26, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> As I mentioned earlier, the fighter in my campaign chose a 13 Str as his starting Str and both he and the rest of the party are delighted with his defendery capabilities. The starting attack stat lower than 16 hasn't made things significantly more difficult for the party.
> 
> Cheers



I think that's awesome. 

It gives me more faith in a system I'm already enjoying.

-O


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## Larrin (Nov 26, 2008)

Ibixat said:


> Once you wiff your first 6 attacks in a combat the remaining critters aren't really afraid to walk past and trigger OA's usually =)



But you didn't wiff 6 times in a row by only 1 point of attack bonus...seriously, how often do you miss by 1 point per battle. Once? Twice? Once in two battles? How often do you get hit by a melee attack in a battle? 5? 10? With a reasonable con score, this can quickly become attactive. You save ~10-30 hit points per battle for a cost of maybe not hitting once (with a con of 14-16). 

Losing that +1 has an effect, but is that effect really that big? Espeacially when compared staying alive for 1-4 more hits? 

Over your carreer, Yeah that +1 to hit is big, but the hp saved will be freaking huge!

In the end, I really think that a standard non-battlerager build with a con of 14+ really gains alot by taking battlerager vigor, and looses only a small bit of effeciency, Certainly not enough to make monsters no longer fear him.


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## James McMurray (Nov 26, 2008)

Larrin said:


> In the end, I really think that a standard non-battlerager build with a con of 14+ really gains alot by taking battlerager vigor, and looses only a small bit of effeciency, Certainly not enough to make monsters no longer fear him.




Definitely. It's only if you want to actually be a battle rager instead of just strapping on his numbers to your character that you'll start to see a major difference in hit ratios. 

My guess is that nobody playtested it as a replacement option, and they focused only on seeing what two full blown builds looked like side by side. If you ignore the case where someone just drops +1 to hit for some temp hp the two builds start looking closer to one another. 

Lower AC means those temp hps are burned through faster, and lower to hit means your OAs and Challenges aren't as sticky. Also, the invigorating powers tend to do less damage or have no secondary effects compared to the other powers, so you're trading survivability for damage and/or battlefield control.

Has anyone had a chance to play with a normal battle rager and/or a pseudo-rager who's just in it for the free temp hp? Or better yet, one of each in the same party?


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## mlund (Nov 26, 2008)

Larrin said:


> In the end, I really think that a standard non-battlerager build with a con of 14+ really gains alot by taking battlerager vigor, and looses only a small bit of effeciency, Certainly not enough to make monsters no longer fear him.




A "standard non-battlerager build with con 14+" is going to either be an 18 STR fighter with 14 CON or a 16 STR, 16 CON Dwarf with a decent Wisdom. Starting out he's going to generate an extra 2-3 Temp HPs when he gets hit by an enemy and he's going to miss 10% more frequently against enemies that a fighter would normally need an 11 to hit. If he goes Hammer over Sword too he's going to miss 20% more frequently. As he levels up and takes feats his quantity of Temp HPs is going to scale up, but he's also going to be relying on more Encounter Powers and Daily Powers in fights - and that 10 or 20% reduction in hitting is going to hurt a lot. It'll be even worse against higher AC monsters, though less noticable against easy targets.

He actually exchanges a significant amount of efficiency in exchange for a significant amount of damage reduction. It may not be a bad deal, but it doesn't appear to be broken.


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## Wish (Nov 26, 2008)

Played with a sword + shield, plate armor wearing battle rager last weekend.  At least at low level, it seemed perfectly viable, and probably better than a weapon talent fighter wit the same stats and build.  I pretty much immediately wanted to rebuild my fighter to take advantage of the new rules.


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## Kraydak (Nov 26, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> Definitely. It's only if you want to actually be a battle rager instead of just strapping on his numbers to your character that you'll start to see a major difference in hit ratios.




In heroic, +1 to hit exchanged to +2 to damage is a pretty good deal for the battle-rager.  In epic, it might be a poor exchange (the 1[W] auto-damage stances can swap it around to an advantage in some circumstances).  The offensive gain/loss is, however, never significant.



> Lower AC means those temp hps are burned through faster, and lower to hit means your OAs and Challenges aren't as sticky. Also, the invigorating powers tend to do less damage or have no secondary effects compared to the other powers, so you're trading survivability for damage and/or battlefield control.




Yeah.  That 1 point of AC off a standard fighter build (2 if the other guy went for plate) is sooo important compared to shaving well over a third of the incoming damage off.  Battle-ragers, even considering chain-v-plate, have absurdly more survivability than a weapon-talent-fighter.

The invigorating powers tend to blow, tis true.  Crushing Surge is good (read, amazing) for long, drawn out encounters where the healers have run out of healing-surge-triggerers.  In Epic, slap Invigorating Exploit on your AoE encounter power of choice and contemplate the hilarity of Force the Battle+Crushing Surge.  Otherwise, yes, the invigorating powers are largely irrelevant.


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## Mengu (Nov 26, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> Has anyone had a chance to play with a normal battle rager and/or a pseudo-rager who's just in it for the free temp hp? Or better yet, one of each in the same party?




I'll try it with the following:

Dragonborn Pseudo-Rager
Str 18
Con 14
Dex 13
Int 8
Wis 14
Cha 12
Wearing Scale, using long sword and shield. Feat Toughness. (basically the fighter in my group with Battlerage Vigor instead of Weapon Talent).
Tide of Iron
Cleave

Dwarf Rager
Str 16
Con 18
Dex 12
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 8
Wearing chain, wielding Maul. Feat Dwarven weapon training.
Brash Strike
Crushing Surge

The dwarf will basically have 2 points less attack bonus, 3 points less AC, 2 points less reflex, but will have many more temp hit points, and will do more damage.

I'm not sure if it will be worthwhile for the standard dragonborn to lose the attack bonus for 2 temp hp's. If I was building from scratch, I'd give the pseudo battle-rager dragonborn a 16 con.


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## Larrin (Nov 26, 2008)

mlund said:


> He actually exchanges a significant amount of efficiency in exchange for a significant amount of damage reduction. It may not be a bad deal, but it doesn't appear to be broken.




I would disagree. Since he's a standard build in everyway except for the weapon talent he's only ever 1 attack bonus behind. Being 1 attack bonus behind is only a 10% decrease in hitting if there was a 50% chance he'd hit in the first place (50% to 45% is a 10% decrease). If he has a 60% chance to hit, then its an 8.3% decrease in hitting (if its a 40% chance to hit to begin with its a12.5% decrease, but you're already in trouble anyway at that point), Thus if you have any situational bonuses (righteous brand, flanking, etc) the penalty is further mitigated away from the fearsom 10% less likely to hit. 

Still, its a good enough estimate. So if you hit 10% less, that means if you were going to hit 10 times in one fight you will now only hit 9. In any given battle thats going to be difficult to detect how much of a difference it made, or even if it statistically happened, espeacially if you attack less that 20 or so times (assuming the ~50% to hit).

Even at higher levels this won't change much, you'll still have just 1 or two hits per battle that didn't connect because it was one point too low, and it will be have less of an impact on the battle then the fact that you've taken 30+ less damage. You'll stay alive longer, which means more you're in the fight longer, defendering people longer, keeping marks in place and possibly doing fun things like the auto 1W damage stances or something and not using up the healers resources on your poor damaged frame. Its not going to break the game that you took 30+ less damage, but it will have more of a beneficial impact than having a +1 to hit, or so it seems to me.

The accuracy doesn't seem like as significant a loss to an otherwise standard build, not in comparison to what they gain.


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## Pickles JG (Nov 26, 2008)

I am pretty sure that it is as busted as a very broken thing

My LFR character is this:-

Level 6 Dwarf Tanker
Str 17
Con 17
Dex 13
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 10
Tide of Iron
Cleave
Wearing +1 dwarven plate & shield, wielding +2 vicious craghammer.
Feats:
Dwarven weapon training.
Plate Proficiency
Shield Push
Devoted Challenge

I did have toughness but never really needed it so I have trained it out. 
I hit reasonably often & with +3 on OA & challenge attacks for substantial damage. With +2 damage from bracers of mighty striking, the challenge attacks are actually +14 to hit for d10 + 12 rerolling 1 or 2s. I feel robust & dangerous to ignore.

I am very unsure whether the +1 to hit is as good as the temporary hp I would get from battlerager vigour. At 8th with 18 con & the dwarf booster feat I am sure it would not be.  6 hp of every melee attack after the first is too good. This is with a character that is totally unoptimised for the role. Brash strike is disgusting - the CA is offset by Uncanny dodge at paragon - not something I have seen mentioned before. & anything that has bonuses with CA is usually pretty good at getting it for itself so no great loss. I would haave to lose Cleave to get it - minions do not scare me & rain of steel or my lightning throwing hammer are good against them if they harrass others.

So all in all the benefits you get just for the +1 to hit are too much - the otehr stuff pushes it deep into the abyss.


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## WalterKovacs (Nov 26, 2008)

Wisdom bonus applies to OAs, but not the challenge interupt attacks. That's important to keep in mind.


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## Mengu (Nov 26, 2008)

WalterKovacs said:


> Wisdom bonus applies to OAs, but not the challenge interupt attacks. That's important to keep in mind.




Unless you are a dwarf with Devoted Challenge 

Another point I meant to mention earlier is Brash Strike gives back the +2 that you lose from choosing Battlerage Vigor over Weapon Talent, and from using a hammer/axe over sword.


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## James McMurray (Nov 26, 2008)

Kraydak said:


> In heroic, +1 to hit exchanged to +2 to damage is a pretty good deal for the battle-rager.  In epic, it might be a poor exchange (the 1[W] auto-damage stances can swap it around to an advantage in some circumstances).  The offensive gain/loss is, however, never significant.
> 
> Yeah.  That 1 point of AC off a standard fighter build (2 if the other guy went for plate) is sooo important compared to shaving well over a third of the incoming damage off.  Battle-ragers, even considering chain-v-plate, have absurdly more survivability than a weapon-talent-fighter.




So what you're saying is that you haven't played one?


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## Bagpuss (Nov 27, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> So what you're saying is that you haven't played one?




In a stand-up melee fight a Dwarven Battlerager with Dwavern Stoneblood, can pretty much ignore melee attacks at low level. I've not tested higher levels yet (but I suspect it isn't so much of a problem as CON mod does climb as fast as damage).

So much so he can use Brash Strike, meaning his attack chance is the same as a Weapon Talent fighter using anything other than Brash Strike, and his damage is more because his lower Strength is covered by his higher con mod, so he just gets the +2 for having temp hit points.

So he hits as often, does more damage and can effectively ignore the majority of melee attacks (that's from actual play testing).

I'm not entirely sure the whole concept is broken (needs more testing with some other builds), but the Dwavern Stoneblood feat should definitely be moved to Paragon or even Epic teir.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 27, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> In a stand-up melee fight a Dwarven Battlerager with Dwavern Stoneblood, can pretty much ignore melee attacks at low level. I've not tested higher levels yet (but I suspect it isn't so much of a problem as CON mod does climb as fast as damage).
> 
> So much so he can use Brash Strike, meaning his attack chance is the same as a Weapon Talent fighter using anything other than Brash Strike, and his damage is more because his lower Strength is covered by his higher con mod, so he just gets the +2 for having temp hit points.
> 
> ...



After the limited experience I had so far and the details in this thread, I think at least all the feats that improve the hit poings gained are breaking the Battlerager. It doesn't matter which tier you hand them out.

Maybe a fix would be to make the Battlerager feat work only once per round. That's still pretty cool, and since you typically take only one attack per round, it also measures fine against the loss of the +1 bonus to attack.


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## Bagpuss (Nov 27, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Maybe a fix would be to make the Battlerager feat work only once per round. That's still pretty cool, and since you typically take only one attack per round, it also measures fine against the loss of the +1 bonus to attack.




I agree once a round, especially when you consider they can gain additional ones through Invigorating powers, which probably should not stack.


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## Stalker0 (Nov 27, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> especially when you consider they can gain additional ones through Invigorating powers, which probably should not stack.




I don't think they shoudl stack either. I think WOTC put that clause in so the two new things could work with each other, but overall I think its bad for balance.

If your a battlerager you don't take invigorating powers, its built in. A regular fighter could take those powers to be a bit more like a battlerager, but I don't think the two options should stack.

I also agree that dwarven stoneblood is really nasty at lower levels, its probably still too strong at higher levels. So far I'm noticing that while general feats have a very low power rating, the racial feats seem to be getting stronger and stronger.


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## Minigiant (Nov 27, 2008)

I think the only real problem is the feat. The class feature only negates about a 1/3 of the enemies damage past level 5 or so. If the invigorating powers are any sort of balanced, they don't slow, immobilize, knock prone, stun, or push often. But from the paragon tier and up, enemies melee and close at-wills average damage is about equal to their level. So the feat would temporarily heal half the damage they cause from a melee at will againt an equal level dwarven battlerager.


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## James McMurray (Nov 27, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> In a stand-up melee fight a Dwarven Battlerager with Dwavern Stoneblood, can pretty much ignore melee attacks at low level. I've not tested higher levels yet (but I suspect it isn't so much of a problem as CON mod does climb as fast as damage).
> 
> So much so he can use Brash Strike, meaning his attack chance is the same as a Weapon Talent fighter using anything other than Brash Strike, and his damage is more because his lower Strength is covered by his higher con mod, so he just gets the +2 for having temp hit points.
> 
> ...




Did the player get bored using the same power over and over, or frustrated at missing with daily and encounter powers more often?


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## MadLordOfMilk (Nov 27, 2008)

mlund said:


> Which has *what* relevance to the discussion as to whether or not the Battlerager is overpowered?
> 
> - Marty Lund



Balance at the top end is important, but it's also important in the mid-range.


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## Bagpuss (Nov 27, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> Did the player get bored using the same power over and over, or frustrated at missing with daily and encounter powers more often?




Also how effective is a Defender that can't hit with is basic attack, which he is forced to use with Combat Challenge and OA. Is it creating a Defender that can't defend. If the class doesn't fill the role that's another different problem with it.


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## Kraydak (Nov 27, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> Also how effective is a Defender that can't hit with is basic attack, which he is forced to use with Combat Challenge and OA. Is it creating a Defender that can't defend. If the class doesn't fill the role that's another different problem with it.




Seriously, where is this "oh noes, a battle-rager will never hit!!1!1" coming from?  A bog-standard 16 str dwarven battle-rager, when compared to an 18 str non-dwarven weapon talent, sword user, is at a grand total of -3 to hit.  That isn't negligible by any means, no, but said bog-standard dwarf will also be hitting like a truck when he does connect, which will still be a whole lot of the time.  

In fact, due to the superiority of hammers, barring Marked Scourge (i.e. when compared to pre-MP sword fighters), he will doing more damage than the sword-wielder.

If the fighter is trying to keep someone off me through the threat of damage (i.e. is being a fighter), I would prefer the higher average DPS guy.  It's maybe just be, but he is the higher threat... and therefore the better defender.

(Yes, a non-battle-rager does provide more threat.  A battle-rager hammerer however provides more threat than a pre-MP swordguy.  If a pre-MP swordguy is a valid defender, then so is a battlerager.)


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## Stalker0 (Nov 28, 2008)

Kraydak said:


> Seriously, where is this "oh noes, a battle-rager will never hit!!1!1" coming from?  A bog-standard 16 str dwarven battle-rager, when compared to an 18 str non-dwarven weapon talent, sword user, is at a grand total of -3 to hit.




To me the comparison isn't even that far apart in attack. Its not like the battlerager suddenly made hammers useful. If I was a hammer weilding character before, and now I'm a battlerager, I'm only losing 1 attack bonus.


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 28, 2008)

Stalker0 said:


> To me the comparison isn't even that far apart in attack. Its not like the battlerager suddenly made hammers useful. If I was a hammer weilding character before, and now I'm a battlerager, I'm only losing 1 attack bonus.




I think everyone's caught Dave Noonan's bug, where hitting becomes all powerful and the actual average damage of a given attack is thrown out the window.

That might be semi-valid when we're talking about fighter AoOs if you want a foe to stop moving, but I'd bet that none of these people are, for instance, picking up careful attack.


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## Danceofmasks (Nov 28, 2008)

Yeah, but careful attack is worthless (except possibly vs. minions) ...
While Sweeping Blow and Masterstroke are godly.


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 28, 2008)

Danceofmasks said:


> Yeah, but careful attack is worthless (except possibly vs. minions) ...
> While Sweeping Blow and Masterstroke are godly.




No, careful attack is good when, for some reason, you really must hit. It's great if you're using an AoO and your goal is to stop the target's movement for instance.

But it's bad to use in general. I think we all agree on that.

So why is losing +1 to hit such a huge loss when we gain battlerager in place of it?


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## Danceofmasks (Nov 28, 2008)

Battlerager isn't bad.
However, it's not overpowered ... since in my reckoning, con fighters were suboptimal to begin with ... and hitroll is otherwise king.

[personal opinion]

I've played games with a lot of different builds as party members ... from what I've seen, mainstat 20 and mainstat 18 is a significant difference ...
So much so that I'd say the extra other stat points are usually not even worth a consideration.

The +1 to hit isn't just a 5% swing ... it's a cumulative trigger.
If that one extra righteous brand lands, then that subsequent daily is used earlier ... and possibly an action pointed attack, too.
Optimised offensive parties will end combats between 10% and 30% faster (in # of rounds), and that equates to a lot less damage taken.
As well as much fewer instances of possibly fatal conditions being inflicted.

Now, that's not to say I wouldn't play a battlerager.
I'd play one in a heartbeat _if the rest of the party_ aren't kitted out to wipe the board clean in a minimum of rounds ...
It is a great deal tankier, and tanky = awesome for a defender.

But defense is _by definition_ suboptimal.

[/personal opinion]


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## Blizzardb (Nov 28, 2008)

Saeviomagy said:


> No, careful attack is good when, for some reason, you really must hit. It's great if you're using an AoO and your goal is to stop the target's movement for instance.
> 
> But it's bad to use in general. I think we all agree on that.
> 
> So why is losing +1 to hit such a huge loss when we gain battlerager in place of it?




You usually can't use attack powers as opportunity attacks, unless for some reason they count as basic attacks.

I recently played a fighter and I used careful attack (sure strike) quite often. Usually to hit a minion or creature that is very low on HP.

On topic: I think that the problem with the battlerager is that his benefits not only are very strong, but also sound cooler for a defender - "Temporary HP when I get hit? Bring them on!" When I play a defender I don't want 5% chance to hit as much as I want staying power.


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## FireLance (Nov 28, 2008)

Blizzardb said:


> On topic: I think that the problem with the battlerager is that his benefits not only are very strong, but also sound cooler for a defender - "Temporary HP when I get hit? Bring them on!" When I play a defender I don't want 5% chance to hit as much as I want staying power.



While I do agree that a battlerager benefits look good on paper, and perhaps more importantly, make the player feel good about having them, I really wonder if they are overpowered good.

I think the key questions to ask are:

1. Is the (non-battlerager) fighter usually out of healing surges when the party takes an extended rest? (Alternatively: does the party normally take an extended rest because the (non-battlerager) fighter is out of healing surges?)

2. Does the (non-battlerager) fighter regularly drop to 0 hit points or less during fights?

3. Does the party Leader usually have anything better to do with his minor action if he isn't healing the (non-battlerager) fighter?

If you answered "no" to all of the three questions, then making the non-battlerager fighter into a battlerager fighter probably isn't overpowered in your game.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 28, 2008)

FireLance said:


> While I do agree that a battlerager benefits look good on paper, and perhaps more importantly, make the player feel good about having them, I really wonder if they are overpowered good.
> 
> I think the key questions to ask are:
> 
> ...




Okay, it was just one session. Level 15 characters, Dwarven Battlerager, Tempest Human Fighter/Wizard (Paragon MC), Dwarven Melee Cleric (loaded with healing powers), Tiefling Infernal Warloc.

1. Neither fighter was out of healing surges.
2. He never dropped to 0 hit points, and I think he didn't even go to bloodied.
3. The party leader very rarely used his Healing Word power. In fact, the party used mostly at-will powers the entire evening because no one took enough damage. Only my aforementioned Fighter got dropped to bloodied once per combat to warrant a Healing Word. Most of the Clerics (if not all) provided healing, so were basically wasted on us.


Maybe it's just broken because we had two Defenders that could absorb basically all enemies attacks and still distribute it among each other, but this is certainly a _very_ powerful combination. Maybe if the Battlerager is the only focus of enemy fire, it looks different, but I am absolutely unconvinced at this moment.

PS: I am not sure your questions are phrased correctly so that 3 Nos mean the Battlerager is not overpowered.


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## FireLance (Nov 28, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> PS: I am not sure your questions are phrased correctly so that 3 Nos mean the Battlerager is not overpowered.



Okay, slightly edited for clarity.


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## Bagpuss (Nov 28, 2008)

FireLance said:


> 1. Is the (non-battlerager) fighter usually out of healing surges when the party takes an extended rest? (Alternatively: does the party normally take an extended rest because the (non-battlerager) fighter is out of healing surges?)




No normally because we are all out of daily powers or it's a logical place to take on.



> 2. Does the (non-battlerager) fighter regularly drop to 0 hit points or less during fights?




Yes. Both the fighter and the paladin are up and down like yo-yo, pretty much every fight.



> 3. Does the party Leader usually have anything better to do with his minor action if he isn't healing the (non-battlerager) fighter?




Occasionally I do, but not often. But I routinely use both healing words on the party defenders.


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## Blizzardb (Nov 28, 2008)

In the climactic final fight of the last campaign I played as a player, my (one-handed) fighter was the only one that dropped unconscious (and the only one seriously wounded for that matter). Guess I did my job as a defender 

If he was a battlerager, even with a con modifier +2, he probably would've stayed around his bloodied value (took many hits, but with little damage from each).


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## ThirdWizard (Nov 28, 2008)

Saeviomagy said:


> I think everyone's caught Dave Noonan's bug, where hitting becomes all powerful and the actual average damage of a given attack is thrown out the window.




I keep seeing average damage thrown around in this discussion, and nobody seems to bring up the obvious point that damage is only half the important thing here. What about powers that do things on hit? Even if the hammer fighter deals more damage (which I'm not convinced of), a miss is a miss is a miss.


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## Sir Brennen (Nov 28, 2008)

ThirdWizard said:


> I keep seeing average damage thrown around in this discussion, and nobody seems to bring up the obvious point that damage is only half the important thing here. What about powers that do things on hit? Even if the hammer fighter deals more damage (which I'm not convinced of), a miss is a miss is a miss.



"Average Damage" is not just the average of what you roll for damage, but the average after your frequency to hit is factored in. So if I have an average damage _roll _of 10, and 50% chance to hit a give AC, my overall average damage is 5 (against that target).

For those powers with rider effects, their average damage follows the same rules, while the rider effects (if not causing HP damage) is simply a function of the chance to hit. But as others have pointed out, if you're a hammer wielding weapon specialist who retrains to battlerager, you've only lost +1. So the impact on the frequency of rider effects on a hit coming into play is pretty obvious.

That said, I don't think average damage is half of the important thing, as you say. I think it's more like 4/5 the important thing. Even with all the other things you can pull off - sliding, causing penalties, etc. - the goal is to get the opponent to zero hp, and that's done through damage.


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## Sir Brennen (Nov 28, 2008)

What if the temp HP gained by the Battlerager class feature was only 1/2 Con instead (min 1)?

Or, since people are suggesting that the temp HPs gained act like DR, why not actually make it DR, equal to 1/2 Con Mod (min. 1)? This DR still only functions against melee/close attacks. 

But then a change needs to be made to the lightly armored, weapon damage bonus option (gained whenever you have TmpHP's).  It could be do so it's gained against the opponent that most recently hit you. You can switch the bonus to a new opponent that hits you, or you can maintain the bonus against your current target.

Leave Invigorating as is with this change, including the Battlerager trait of letting Invigorating Tmp HP's stack with any others that you have.


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## James McMurray (Nov 28, 2008)

Sir Brennen said:


> Or, since people are suggesting that the temp HPs gained act like DR, why not actually make it DR, equal to 1/2 Con Mod (min. 1)? This DR still only functions against melee/close attacks.




Using 1/2 con might not be too bad, but this feels like it would be too powerful to me. When it's temporary hit points, your ability basically means you will rarely get targeted with powers that grant temp hp, because you've already got some or you're expecting to get more soon. When it's DR it will start to stack with all temp hp, but not other sources of DR. But those other sources are so few and far between that it isn't really an issue.

Making it DR would definitely cut back on its power level at high levels, when fighters and barbarians get DR stances / rages.


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## Stalker0 (Nov 29, 2008)

Sir Brennen said:


> Or, since people are suggesting that the temp HPs gained act like DR, why not actually make it DR, equal to 1/2 Con Mod (min. 1)?




I think this way is weaker and easier to track than the current option. At best your only getting 2 DR at 1st level (when you could theoretically get up to 5 temp hitpoints per hit with 20 con), for almost all builds you would get 1 DR.

Though the funny thing about doing it this way is that con really doesn't effect the build that much. Anything from an 8 to a 16 con has the same DR, so dex fighters get just as much love.


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 29, 2008)

Blizzardb said:


> I recently played a fighter and I used careful attack (sure strike) quite often. Usually to hit a minion or creature that is very low on HP.



I hope you never used it for either of these when there was a second foe standing. You do have cleave, right? If not, there's the problem: you chose careful attack over cleave.



ThirdWizard said:


> What about powers that do things on hit? Even if the hammer fighter deals more damage (which I'm not convinced of), a miss is a miss is a miss.



He misses 5% more often for not having his weapon talent, and a further 5% for using a hammer instead of a sword. It's very much worth noting that he at no point is forced to use a hammer: it's a good fit and he gets some decent damage out of it, but if he decides he really wants to stick status effects to people, he could easily switch to a sword.


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## Blizzardb (Dec 1, 2008)

I had cleave and also tide of iron (human fighter). Surprisingly, I didn't use them way more often than sure strike.


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## Mengu (Dec 1, 2008)

Dwarf rager in plate with longsword is a pretty broken defender. Tried one out at 5th level. Here is the build (at 5th):

Str 18
Con 18
Dex 10
Int 8
Wis 15
Cha 10

Plate, Toughness, Dwarf Stoneblood
Tide of Iron
Cleave
Shield Bash
Comeback Strike
No Opening
Probing Attack
Crack the Shell

We had a party of only 3, with a human tactical warlord, and a halfling rogue.

Against melee opponents, we had no trouble at all. Against artillery, we did have to go through some healing resources because we could only pin one of them down at a time, and they had no trouble hitting my reflex (that's the only time I wished I had an invigorating power). But we didn't run into a lot of critters with range. I did not miss the +1 weapon talent bonus. 6 temporary hitpoints every time you are hit is huge. Between high AC and temp HP's, not to mention a healthy supply of hitpoints to begin with, I was just too difficult to wear down.

I would probably have built this character a little differently if it wasn't for a one shot adventure, but I can't imagine any other fighter option to be a better defender than this, and I've seen a good few different fighter builds in action.


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## Saeviomagy (Dec 1, 2008)

Blizzardb said:


> I had cleave and also tide of iron (human fighter). Surprisingly, I didn't use them way more often than sure strike.




Then unless you spent most rounds only being able to attack a single, very low hit point target, the statistics say you did yourself an injustice.


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## Pickles JG (Dec 3, 2008)

The other side of the brokenness of this build is in comparison to a Barbarian. Taking a Warforged I was going to try out in LFR (Gondsman that is). the same stats work for a battlrager as for a Barbarian.

Str 18
Con 18
Dex 12
Int 10
Wis 8
Cha 12

Take Chain proficiency & use a Maul.  This does less damage than a Battlerager using Brash strike & is -2 to hit at the cost of combat advantage. The Battlerager can take plate proficiency to compensate - fully vs AC.  Or he can take an offensive feat to get the Battlerager bonus damage while wearing chain.

The Battlerager gets his pool of temp HP & his challenge features. The Barbarian gets his suite of barbarian abilities - Temps on a kill, Free attacks on crits, free charges, generally rages boost damage too.  These will make the barbarian slightly more offensive but are less use defensively than free temp HP.  I think his powers generally do a little bit more damage & have less healing cf the battlerager. 

All in all though the comparison makes the Barbarian pretty sad. I am rather depressed about this power creep in 4e already - double swords, battleragers & tempests (who largely make 2 handers obsolete).  I hope they have the balls to errata some of this stuff.


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## abyssaldeath (Dec 3, 2008)

Pickles JG said:


> The other side of the brokenness of this build is in comparison to a Barbarian. Taking a Warforged I was going to try out in LFR (Gondsman that is). the same stats work for a battlrager as for a Barbarian.
> 
> Str 18
> Con 18
> ...




Don't forget that the Barbarian gets bonus THP from Recuperating Strike while raging. Those encounters you get a ton of THP.


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## Stalker0 (Dec 8, 2008)

Well after a few sessions of trying out my fighter as a battlerager, my DM and I both agreed it was overpowered.

We had a fight tonight that consisted of about half minions and half regular leveled stuff. It was a hard fight, so there was twice the number of guys as normal.

My 16 con fighter just couldn't die. I was surrounded for half the fight, and I could take wave after wave of attacks with no issue, I've had to get healed far less often then before, and...I'm just that much more awesome.

Compared to the +1 attack bonus (which I did track to see how often it came up) there's no comparison.

So I'll be converting my fighter back, but I'll still be trying out some of the new powers in the book.


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## Obryn (Dec 8, 2008)

Stalker0 said:


> We had a fight tonight that consisted of about half minions and half regular leveled stuff. It was a hard fight, so there was twice the number of guys as normal.



Yeah, a fight with a ton of minions makes the Battlerager really, really powerful.

Did anyone concentrate on you with Ranged attacks?

-O


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## eamon (Dec 8, 2008)

Stalker0 said:


> We had a fight tonight that consisted of about half minions and half regular leveled stuff. It was a hard fight, so there was twice the number of guys as normal.
> 
> My 16 con fighter just couldn't die. I was surrounded for half the fight, and I could take wave after wave of attacks with no issue, I've had to get healed far less often then before, and...I'm just that much more awesome.
> 
> Compared to the +1 attack bonus (which I did track to see how often it came up) there's no comparison.




You may have mentioned it before, but what level fighter was this?


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## Mengu (Dec 8, 2008)

eamon said:


> You may have mentioned it before, but what level fighter was this?




I don't know about Stalker0's fighter, but I've had the exact same experience with a 5th level Con 18 Dwarf Fighter.


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## Stalker0 (Dec 8, 2008)

Obryn said:


> Yeah, a fight with a ton of minions makes the Battlerager really, really powerful.
> 
> Did anyone concentrate on you with Ranged attacks?
> 
> -O




Yeah, I had three archers with pack attack shooting at me. They were doing solid damage, but 3 off each hit just adds up so quickly.

My fighter is 7th btw. THF with scale armor, big strength and big con.


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## mach1.9pants (Dec 8, 2008)

Stalker0 said:


> Yeah, I had three archers with pack attack shooting at me. They were doing solid damage, but 3 off each hit just adds up so quickly.
> 
> My fighter is 7th btw. THF with scale armor, big strength and big con.



I don't get ya, how does the 3 off each hit work with a _ranged_ attack?


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## Saeviomagy (Dec 8, 2008)

mach1.9pants said:


> I don't get ya, how does the 3 off each hit work with a _ranged_ attack?




Because you still have your temp hitpoints when the ranged attack hits.

It's the attack _after_ the ranged attack that doesn't suffer.


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## jayphonic (Dec 8, 2008)

Stalker0 said:


> Yeah, I had three archers with pack attack shooting at me. They were doing solid damage, but 3 off each hit just adds up so quickly.




Battlerager Vigor doesn't allow for that.  Maybe he has a magic item, he hasn't told people about?  Ranged and Area attacks don't give the THP.


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## Finley DaDum (Dec 8, 2008)

I would like to add one point to this thread.
If you are using an alternative stat generating method that would give you higher stats than the standard point buy, then the value of Battlerager Vigor seems to go up.  I personally tend to play in campaigns that offer either higher point buy or very favorable rolls.  Under these conditions it seems that Battlerager Vigor is the clear choice over the weapon talent options.


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## Stalker0 (Dec 9, 2008)

jayphonic said:


> Battlerager Vigor doesn't allow for that.  Maybe he has a magic item, he hasn't told people about?  Ranged and Area attacks don't give the THP.




I actually forgot this part, so that would have made a difference. The majority of my damage came from melee, but this definitely would have factored in.

And that's probably the other reason I don't like battlerager, its too hard to track. I have to change temp hp all teh time, it only works against certain attacks, etc. Much easier just to slap on the +1 to attacks and be done with it.


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## eamon (Dec 9, 2008)

Stalker0 said:


> I actually forgot this part, so that would have made a difference. The majority of my damage came from melee, but this definitely would have factored in.
> 
> And that's probably the other reason I don't like battlerager, its too hard to track. I have to change temp hp all teh time, it only works against certain attacks, etc. Much easier just to slap on the +1 to attacks and be done with it.



That's valid, but it's definitely not balance issue.  And of course, you're bound to get used to it if you do it for a while.  In general, you'll often have either your "full" temp hp or no temp hp, but still, it's a lot of bookkeeping.  Perhaps you could use tokens of some kind?


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## Mengu (Dec 9, 2008)

eamon said:


> That's valid, but it's definitely not balance issue. And of course, you're bound to get used to it if you do it for a while. In general, you'll often have either your "full" temp hp or no temp hp, but still, it's a lot of bookkeeping. Perhaps you could use tokens of some kind?




I really didn't have any trouble keeping track. The difference between a melee/close attack and a ranged attack is usually pretty clear. The THP buffer really gets crazy when you have allies who like to give you THP when you don't have any (such as a Paladin or Warlord) so even that first attack against you hits some sort of a buffer. Add some invigorating THP's and a high AC, and the fighter just does not go down except against serious challenges and even then, with a leader in the party, the fighter can stand for a very long lime. Invigorating powers just add insult to injury.

Suffice it to say I've made the decission to not allow any battlerager builds in my game, after test playing one.


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## Bagpuss (Dec 9, 2008)

Mengu said:


> Suffice it to say I've made the decission to not allow any battlerager builds in my game, after test playing one.




You aren't even considering a fix, like the temp hit points once a round?

Although I am starting to think the whole concept is just wrong. I remember in the build up to 4th Edition, one of the things they mentioned was removing Damage Reduction, because of what it did to the maths and the trouble of balancing things, this Class Feature just seems to bring it back, with the problems they mentioned.

Even if you made it once a round, what happens when you meet a solo monster or working with the other defender in the party he makes sure he's only suffering attacks from one opponent most of the time?


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## Mengu (Dec 9, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> You aren't even considering a fix, like the temp hit points once a round?




There are enough other options that I don't feel taking out the battlerager build will be missed, especially once PHB2 is out with the Barbarian which essentially fills a similar role in what I think is a more balanced fashion. However I do hope they fixed some of the "auto-pick" issues with the Barbarian since the playtest version.

Edit: Besides, houserules that are on or off are a lot easier to enforce than rule changes.


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## Obryn (Dec 9, 2008)

I really, really want to see one of these in action, myself, before I pass judgment...  Basically, as I see it now...

(1) Against spellcasters, ranged folks, and so on, the Battlerager will be weaker than a regular fighter.  Likely, their AC and Reflex will be lower, which will also allow more conditions to affect them.

(2) Against regular melee opponents, I expect the Battlerager's usefulness will be inversely proportional to the enemy's average damage.  Generally, the lower the opponent's damage output, the more a combat will favor the Rager.  The higher the opponent's damage output, the more a combat will favor a Shield fighter.  (In other words, if you're fighting an Ogre I'd expect it's better to take 0 damage 15% more often, than it is to take 6 less damage 15% more often.)

(3) Unsupported minions, no matter how many there are, will _never_ kill or significantly hamper a Battlerager except with missile fire or special effects.  Their fixed damage will be lower than the Rager's temporary HPs _every single attack_.  And, in a mixed combat, the more minions there are, the better off the Rager will be.  (This is another one of 4e's special cases where minions are far, far less valuable than 1/4 of a regular creature.)

-O


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## NaturalZero (Dec 9, 2008)

I think its a mistake to assume that the Battlerager isnt going to be wearing scale and using a heavy shield, just like other fighters. Looking at my own game, im just trying to balance a +1 to hit versus temp hp every round in many fights. The scalemail + shield battlerager is just as hard to hit as any other Con-based fighter build.


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## Mengu (Dec 9, 2008)

NaturalZero said:


> I think its a mistake to assume that the Battlerager isnt going to be wearing scale and using a heavy shield, just like other fighters. Looking at my own game, im just trying to balance a +1 to hit versus temp hp every round in many fights. The scalemail + shield battlerager is just as hard to hit as any other Con-based fighter build.




You can even go with plate and shield. Since you qualify for it anyway, why not. That's what I did with the Dwarf I tested out. With Plate, Toughness, and Dwarf Stoneblood, your enemies had better bring ATGM's.


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## Bond James Bond (Dec 9, 2008)

Perhaps the Battlerager is not overpowerd, but I would call him at least "poorly balanced" 

In encounters with lots of melee damage and many low damage attacks he is insane. You don`t have to even take minions. A level 9 maxed battlerager could easily solo a lvl 12 hydra for example (and thats a solo brute, meaining it shoud be a hard encounter for an lvl 9 party of 5 people).

In encounter with mainly ranged damage or burst damage he will be slightly worse than your average standard fighter.

In the end it all depends on your campaign style and your DM. However, creating a character which negates one possible type of encounter almost completly is just an example of poor design, if the character is overpowered or not.


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## abyssaldeath (Dec 9, 2008)

Bond said:


> Perhaps the Battlerager is not overpowerd, but I would call him at least "poorly balanced"
> 
> In encounters with lots of melee damage and many low damage attacks he is insane. You don`t have to even take minions. A level 9 maxed battlerager could easily solo a lvl 12 hydra for example (and thats a solo brute, meaining it shoud be a hard encounter for an lvl 9 party of 5 people).
> 
> ...




Given the amount of HP a Fen Hydra has I really don't think a maxed out level 9 Battlerager can solo one. Even a Dwarven Battlerage will not last against 4 attacks a round from a monster with 620hp. If you think he can please prove me wrong.


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## Ibixat (Dec 9, 2008)

abyssaldeath said:


> Given the amount of HP a Fen Hydra has I really don't think a maxed out level 9 Battlerager can solo one. Even a Dwarven Battlerage will not last against 4 attacks a round from a monster with 620hp. If you think he can please prove me wrong.




The Hydra is a bad example, the hydra is almost a special case monster, 4 attacks for much weaker than average damage for it's level. The most it can even do in a single hit is 13 damage. A dwarven Stoneblood taking, improved vigor having 22 con dwarf will get 10 hp of temps per hit he takes and pull in 7 more every time he hits with invigorating.  

The real question to me is, does the property of the Reparation Apparatus (Property: .... When you use a power to grant temporary hit points to a construct, that creature gains an additional 2d6 temporary hit points.) function with invigorating powers.  The power "grants" the temporary hitpoints, I'd have to rule on the side of sanity that it doesn't.  

Honestly I think that item is the most ridiculous broken item ever listed in dragon since 4e came out.


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## NaturalZero (Dec 9, 2008)

Ibixat said:


> The real question to me is, does the property of the Reparation Apparatus (Property: .... When you use a power to grant temporary hit points to a construct, that creature gains an additional 2d6 temporary hit points.) function with invigorating powers.  The power "grants" the temporary hitpoints, I'd have to rule on the side of sanity that it doesn't.
> 
> Honestly I think that item is the most ridiculous broken item ever listed in dragon since 4e came out.




It surely works with invigorating powers by the RAW. And yes, it is quite broken when combined with battlerager (and to a lesser extent, the barbarian). As far as i can tell both the apparatus and the dragon article warforged are legal in the RPGA, so i can imagine lots of battlerager warforgeds dominating the game.


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## Ibixat (Dec 9, 2008)

NaturalZero said:


> It surely works with invigorating powers by the RAW. And yes, it is quite broken when combined with battlerager (and to a lesser extent, the barbarian). As far as i can tell both the apparatus and the dragon article warforged are legal in the RPGA, so i can imagine lots of battlerager warforgeds dominating the game.




I agree that by RAW it worked, my comment about ruling for sanity was of course well, for sanity purposes =)

Thankfully by raw it's only the invigorating attacks that get the bonus and not the battlerager class feature because that is a feature not a power granting the temp hp.

Though I can easily see a Battlerager Warforged with that item taking a multiclass feat for warlord to get the inspiring word or Multiclass cleric if they have 13 wis for that extra little daily hp pick me up.

That item would be ok if it were high level paragon or low epic level but a level 6 item, it's just absurd.


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## WalterKovacs (Dec 9, 2008)

NaturalZero said:


> It surely works with invigorating powers by the RAW. And yes, it is quite broken when combined with battlerager (and to a lesser extent, the barbarian). As far as i can tell both the apparatus and the dragon article warforged are legal in the RPGA, so i can imagine lots of battlerager warforgeds dominating the game.




The article where the item appeared is the playtest for the artificer, so it may not be legal. On the other hand it's in the character builder, so it's likely a legal choice. Then again, you still have to get the item in an RPGA event, which would likely involve buying it when you get to the right level.


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## Bond James Bond (Dec 9, 2008)

abyssaldeath said:


> Given the amount of HP a Fen Hydra has I really don't think a maxed out level 9 Battlerager can solo one. Even a Dwarven Battlerage will not last against 4 attacks a round from a monster with 620hp. If you think he can please prove me wrong.




As noted above, you a maxed out battlerager can easily get beyond 7 temp Hp per hit. He will get some damage each round from the hydra, but on average not enough to get through his regeneration of 8 hp per round he will have with the boundless endurance stance once he becomes bloodied (which could take a while).

I admit, the hydra is a "special case", but the point  is: Against pure melee mobs the battlerager is insane. Now even if it might balance out with respect to other encounters (I am not saying it does), I think it is horrible game design in any case.


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## WalterKovacs (Dec 9, 2008)

Bond said:


> As noted above, you a maxed out battlerager can easily get beyond 7 temp Hp per hit. He will get some damage each round from the hydra, but on average not enough to get through his regeneration of 8 hp per round he will have with the boundless endurance stance once he becomes bloodied (which could take a while).
> 
> I admit, the hydra is a "special case", but the point is: Against pure melee mobs the battlerager is insane. Now even if it might balance out with respect to other encounters (I am not saying it does), I think it is horrible game design in any case.




Perhaps, but most pure melee mobs will do more damage per hit than the hydra, while they may have less attacks total. An Elite Flesh Golem has half the attacks, but each attack deals an extra d8 of damage. Also, solo'ing against a monster may not actually happen, since the monster may just ignore the tank and go after the rest of the party members. A dedicated and maxed out battlerager is going to have a lower to hit value than a fighter dedicated to being a defender. In general, unless the party is against a solo monster (and most solos are NOT melee only) there are going to be people with ranged attacks. Most of the solos, especially at low level, are dragons. The ones that aren't, and do stick in melee only, can dish out quite a bit of damage. With the hydra though, the damage is split over a number of attacks, and that is when the battlerager really shines.


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## NaturalZero (Dec 9, 2008)

WalterKovacs said:


> The article where the item appeared is the playtest for the artificer, so it may not be legal. On the other hand it's in the character builder, so it's likely a legal choice. Then again, you still have to get the item in an RPGA event, which would likely involve buying it when you get to the right level.




I havent looked at the LFR document in awhile. Does it say that playtest articles are out entirely or just playtest classes?


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## Stalker0 (Dec 10, 2008)

Bagpuss said:


> You aren't even considering a fix, like the temp hit points once a round?




I would consider this a worthy houserule to try. Its still a good amount of extra hp you are likely to have, but no where near as strong as it is now.


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## smitty22 (Dec 10, 2008)

*...*

Assuming a point-buy, it seems that Dwarven Battleragers with hammers could be just as effective at lock-down fighting if they invested in the "Devoted Defender" feat and pumped up their Wisdom to a 12-13 before the racial ability bonuses.  

While they'll still lack the accuracy in normal combat, they'll get a nice bonus for their OA's and Combat Challenge that makes up for both the long sword proficiency and the fighter weapon talent & even a minor strength difference that comes from from putting a few points into different areas later on & won't have the uber-lopsidedness that  comes with buying up to and 18-20.

Add in the stacking ability based damage bonuses for Str/Con that comes with the encounter powers, and you are outputting alot of damage most rounds rounds in addition to the Temp HP.


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## Bagpuss (Dec 11, 2008)

smitty22 said:


> While they'll still lack the accuracy in normal combat




Nope because they will be doing Brash Strike a lot of the time for the +2 bonus to hit, since they can ignore the damage.


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## Bagpuss (Dec 11, 2008)

Stalker0 said:


> I would consider this a worthy houserule to try. Its still a good amount of extra hp you are likely to have, but no where near as strong as it is now.




Right but where it is now it needs radically pulling back.


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## ki11erDM (Dec 11, 2008)

NaturalZero said:


> I think its a mistake to assume that the Battlerager isnt going to be wearing scale and using a heavy shield, just like other fighters. Looking at my own game, im just trying to balance a +1 to hit versus temp hp every round in many fights. The scalemail + shield battlerager is just as hard to hit as any other Con-based fighter build.




This is exactly why I think this path is just to good.  Going to switch my fighter to this build and play test it to see if some of the assumptions we are making are right in my game.


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## eamon (Dec 11, 2008)

ki11erDM said:


> This is exactly why I think this path is just to good.  Going to switch my fighter to this build and play test it to see if some of the assumptions we are making are right in my game.



Note that with crushing surge non-battle ragers can have quite a few temp-hp as well.  And for non-rager's, crushing surge is paradoxically actually even better than for ragers.  Sure, it stacks for ragers, and that's great.  On the other hand, rager's often already have enough temp HP, and crushing surge isn't that useful then.  On the other hand, non-ragers need to spend more effort getting temp-hp.

So a reasonable comparison might be between a battle-rager and another Con-based build.  The con-based build would probably use things like Crushing surge and unyielding avalanche or boundless endurance to maintain hit points, which can work quite well.  A rager is still pretty good, but it's not like a non-rager can't compete at all.


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## WalterKovacs (Dec 11, 2008)

A con-based fighter build is probably best served choosing battlerager. That doesn't mean that battlerager is the best build for fighter, just the best build for con-based fighters. Going con-based has a number of associated costs, it means going with +2 prof weapons, pumping two stats for the save defense, etc. Damage may not matter, but you'll be getting hit by conditions quite a lot. Your AC will probably be no different, and your Fort will be just as good as most other fighters probably, but your Will and Reflex will probably lag a bit behind (at least one will be lower than a dedicated STR/DEX or STR/WIS fighter).


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## Zelc (Dec 11, 2008)

Let's try to quantify this.  Let's suppose a Fighter hits with 2 Invigorating powers per encounter and gets hit 3 times in melee per encounter, for a total of 5x Con temporary HP, and they are fully used up.  I imagine the Fighter might gain more temporary HP than that, but also some of it will be wasted.  In any case, these should be fairly conservative assumptions.

Consider a Level 30 Fighter with 26 Con.  He has 217 HP.  He'll gain 40 temporary HP per encounter, which is 18% of his HP.  He basically gains two extra healing surges every three encounters.

This doesn't seem to change much over the levels.  Consider a Level 10 Fighter with 18 Con.  He has 114 HP.  He'll gain 20 temporary HP per encounter, which is 17.5% of his HP.  Again, two extra healing surges every three encounters.

With the Dwarf Stoneblood and Improved Vigor feats, the temporary HP per encounter figures go up to 67 and 31.  That's 30.9% and 27.2% of their HPs, or more than one extra healing surge per encounter.


Note that the high temporary HPs gained even with a low number of melee hits taken means limiting Battlerager Vigor to once per round might not be very effective.


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## Nail (Dec 11, 2008)

smitty22 said:


> While they'll still lack the accuracy in normal combat, they'll get a nice bonus for their OA's and Combat Challenge ...



Just so we're clear:  The Wisdom adjustment to attacks is only for OAs.  Attacks from Combat Challenge are NOT opportunity attacks.


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## Nail (Dec 11, 2008)

eamon said:


> Note that with crushing surge non-battle ragers can have quite a few temp-hp as well.  And for non-rager's, crushing surge is paradoxically actually even better than for ragers.  Sure, it stacks for ragers, and that's great.



Stacking those THP is key.  Lot's of attacks do lots more than 4 damage, but fewer attacks do (on average) lots more than 8.

...at low levels, anyway.


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## Zelc (Dec 11, 2008)

Perhaps here's another way to think about Battlerager Vigor.  Toughness is widely regarded as one of the best feats.  Battlerager Vigor gives you around three free Toughness feats, and Battlerager Vigor Fighters also get the opportunity to take one or two more Toughness feats (Dwarf Stoneblood and Improved Vigor) than everyone else.

Dwarf Battleragers are 6x Toughness!


(OK fine they don't benefit from a better Healing Surge.  Still  )


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## Nail (Dec 11, 2008)

For anyone concerned about Battlerager:  It's neat (IMO) to compare a WT fighter (with a bastard sword) to a BRV fighter (with a craghammer).  Both are optimized choices...

...and you'll find their damage/round is comparable.  

************************
If you're interested:

Expected damage per attack = (P-0.05)*1/2*(Dmax+Dmin) + (0.05*Dmax)

where:
  P = probability to hit, as a decimal
  Dmax= maximum damage per hit
  Dmin= minimum damage per hit
******************************

So the difference between these builds isn't damage output (with the WT fighter on top by a slight margin), but staying power.  It's clear the lower AC BRV fighter will get hit more often - and be able to take the damage - but what about all of those "(save ends)" effects?  He's stuck with those more than the WT fighter will be, I think. 

Thoughts?


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## James McMurray (Dec 11, 2008)

Nail said:


> Just so we're clear:  The Wisdom adjustment to attacks is only for OAs.  Attacks from Combat Challenge are NOT opportunity attacks.




If you take the Devoted Challenge feat you add Wisdom to hit and damage for combat challenges.


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## WalterKovacs (Dec 11, 2008)

Nail said:


> Just so we're clear: The Wisdom adjustment to attacks is only for OAs. Attacks from Combat Challenge are NOT opportunity attacks.




Martial Power has a feat, specifically for dwarf fighters, that allows them to add wis mod to attack and damage for combat challenge (it's called Devoted Challenge). That was the "devoted defender" feat he was referring to in the post.


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## Nail (Dec 11, 2008)

WalterKovacs said:


> Martial Power has a feat, specifically for dwarf fighters, that allows them to add wis mod to attack and damage for combat challenge (it's called Devoted Challenge). That was the "devoted defender" feat he was referring to in the post.



Ah!

Thanks.

...why do dwarves get all of the cool feats?  Geez.

-Nail (the human fighter)


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## Obryn (Dec 11, 2008)

Nail said:


> Ah!
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> ...



My guess is it's compensation for not having a Strength bonus.  After all, Dwarves are the archetypal D&D fighters, but now all these Dragonborn are stepping on their   (Which still leaves Humans a bit out in the cold, sadly.)

It's kind of like how Tieflings can take a feat which gives them bonuses to Fire spells, completely offsetting their lack of a Con bonus for Infernal Warlocks.

-O


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## Nail (Dec 11, 2008)

Obryn said:


> My guess is it's compensation for not having a Strength bonus.  After all, Dwarves are the archetypal D&D fighters, but now all these Dragonborn are stepping on their   (Which still leaves Humans a bit out in the cold, sadly.)



Although I agree with your analysis of "why" the designers are doing it, it feels bogus to me.

The races should be balanced within their roles *before* feats are applied, not after.  And IMO, dwarves and humans already are balanced with respect to the fighter role.

....but given the new feats (like Stoneblood), it's foolish not to pick dwarf for your BRV fighter's race.  Too bad I created my fighter before MP came out.


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## Ibixat (Dec 12, 2008)

Nail said:


> Although I agree with your analysis of "why" the designers are doing it, it feels bogus to me.
> 
> The races should be balanced within their roles *before* feats are applied, not after.  And IMO, dwarves and humans already are balanced with respect to the fighter role.
> 
> ....but given the new feats (like Stoneblood), it's foolish not to pick dwarf for your BRV fighter's race.  Too bad I created my fighter before MP came out.




Viva La Foolishness!

My Elven Battlerager who uses a glaive salutes you all!


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## LittleFuzzy (Dec 12, 2008)

Nail said:


> For anyone concerned about Battlerager:  It's neat (IMO) to compare a WT fighter (with a bastard sword) to a BRV fighter (with a craghammer).  Both are optimized choices...
> 
> ...and you'll find their damage/round is comparable.
> 
> ...




But you don't have to be a low-AC BRV fighter.  You can instead be a high-AC BRV fighter, ignore a good bit that BRV gives you, and just collect the temp hit-points.  You'll be maybe a feat or two and -1 to hits lower than another warrior, but your staying power will be much larger in most situations.


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## Nail (Dec 12, 2008)

Ibixat said:


> Viva La Foolishness!
> 
> My Elven Battlerager who uses a glaive salutes you all!



<Nail the human BRV fighter tips his helmet to you>


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## Nail (Dec 12, 2008)

LittleFuzzy said:


> But you don't have to be a low-AC BRV fighter.  You can instead be a high-AC BRV fighter, ignore a good bit that BRV gives you, and just collect the temp hit-points.  You'll be maybe a feat or two and -1 to hits lower than another warrior, but your staying power will be much larger in most situations.



FWIW: I looked into that (and "did those numbers").  If a BRV fighter takes heavy armor:
He looses a significant amount of "expected damage per round", and
his AC might actually be _too high, meaning that enemies will chose to ignore the defender, and go after squishier targets._
_

That's not the end of the discussion, however.  If you think those two things are No Big Deal(tm), and that a higher AC is a better fit for your party, go for it.  For my BRV fighter - in a large party with no other defenders - I needed him to do more damage, and be a more tempting target.

Besides, getting hit to get THPs is fun!    <manic smile>_


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## WalterKovacs (Dec 12, 2008)

One point:

A BRV fighter can go with either:

Chainmail and Heavy Shield or Plate Armor. Both are 1 AC behind a Scale + Heavy Shield fighter, but going without a shield allows for a two handed weapon and thus you can up the damage output, while the chain and shield can also get the damage boost or the class. The plate armor is nice since it gives you to option to take Plate Spec at paragon, while your Dex is probably suffering. 2H weapon (or versatile wielded 2handed) vs. 1H weapon will give you basically a +1 bonus to the damage on average, so they are at least a bit comparable.

Ultimately, letting the AC down a bit as the battlerager is probably the way to go, since the goal is to keep the party alive, not just the character. It's ultimately going to come down to party makeup to determine the sweet spot, but the temp hit points makes the enemy want to attack you less. If your AC is the same, they want to attack you less, and you dish out less damage, it adds up to you being ignored more by the monsters. Dropping the defenses a bit, and getting a damage output increase is probably the best way to offset the discouragement of the THP.


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## smitty22 (Dec 14, 2008)

*....*



Nail said:


> Just so we're clear:  The Wisdom adjustment to attacks is only for OAs.  Attacks from Combat Challenge are NOT opportunity attacks.




That's what the "Devoted Challenge" feat* is for - it seems to allow Dwarven BR to be statistically as effective as non-BR fighters at locking-down an opponent.

*(mislabeled "Devoted Defender" in my original post)

Oops, someone else already mentioned this...  And I'm glad that Nail did, because I would have missed that distinction had I not been on the fourms. =p 

 But I still think that a Dwarven BR looks like the most fun fighter-type for my play style.  Now I just need to stop running my games and start playing in them... *sigh*


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## Nail (Dec 14, 2008)

smitty22 said:


> Oops, someone else already mentioned this...  And I'm glad that Nail did, because I would have missed that distinction had I not been on the fourms. =p



Back in July, I was in this same boat.  It's easy to miss that Combat Challenge doesn't give Opportunity Attacks.  Not only is the fighter not able to get any synergy from Wis, but also it means that he can only "lock down" one opponent per turn...since you only get one immediate interupt per round.



smitty22 said:


> But I still think that a Dwarven BR looks like the most fun ...



Agreed.


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## thecasualoblivion (Dec 14, 2008)

Haven't really read this thread, but I'll comment anyway:

I'll admit that Battlerager goes a long way towards making a Fighter unkillable, but to me it is a clear case of overkill. Fighters(and Defenders in general), are pretty durable already. You can max out every power, class feature, feat, and Paragon Path towards dealing more damage and you're still more than tough enough to function as a Defender. I'm not really sure what the extra durability of Battlerager really accomplishes, especially compared to building a better offense. Losing the +1 to attack rolls the other builds get, and being encouraged to use +2 proficiency weapons means a lot. In addition, the most powerful use of the Fighter class I have seen is using Combat Challenge in combination with multiple attacks to lock down groups of enemies. While Battlerager will aid with surviving such behavior, I haven't seen standard Fighters having much difficulty with this. Your Leader role character will be healing you frequently, and this can get ugly if your friends don't follow up and support you, but its a sight to see when it works. In addition, none of the Invigorating powers hit multiple enemies, and unless I am wrong only one of them marks multiple enemies. It would seem that you have the choice either to gain Temporary HP, or to mark multiple enemies, and not both.


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## WalterKovacs (Dec 14, 2008)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Haven't really read this thread, but I'll comment anyway:
> 
> I'll admit that Battlerager goes a long way towards making a Fighter unkillable, but to me it is a clear case of overkill. Fighters(and Defenders in general), are pretty durable already. You can max out every power, class feature, feat, and Paragon Path towards dealing more damage and you're still more than tough enough to function as a Defender. I'm not really sure what the extra durability of Battlerager really accomplishes, especially compared to building a better offense. Losing the +1 to attack rolls the other builds get, and being encouraged to use +2 proficiency weapons means a lot. In addition, the most powerful use of the Fighter class I have seen is using Combat Challenge in combination with multiple attacks to lock down groups of enemies. While Battlerager will aid with surviving such behavior, I haven't seen standard Fighters having much difficulty with this. Your Leader role character will be healing you frequently, and this can get ugly if your friends don't follow up and support you, but its a sight to see when it works. In addition, none of the Invigorating powers hit multiple enemies, and unless I am wrong only one of them marks multiple enemies. It would seem that you have the choice either to gain Temporary HP, or to mark multiple enemies, and not both.




I would think that a battlerager counts mostly on the inherent THP of the battlerager class feature (get hit, get THP), and only takes a couple invigorating powers, if they take any at all really. 

Also, one benefit is that, if the battlerager can take pressure off the leader to keep them alive, it can help a rogue or melee ranger who may end up in danger more often to be kept alive by the leader.


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## Bond James Bond (Dec 15, 2008)

Nail said:


> his AC might actually be _too high, meaning that enemies will chose to ignore the defender, and go after squishier targets.
> _
> _
> _



_

If if get you right you are saying: 

The Batlerager is balanced because his defensive capablilities might be too good, so that he won´t be attacked anyway? 

And:

Intelligent enemies might have the choice to ignore the Battlerager.

But why would enemies with below than average intelligence (i.e. most monsters, undeads and the like) "chose to ignore" the battlerager?

What does a Zombie, a Hydra, a bunch of stupid koblods know about heroic classes an their features, that they chose to ignore a certain character?. What can they learn in the couple of rounds they are going to live to make such a choice with an int score of 3 or 4?

Seriously, if you see D&D as a Tactical Miniature Battle, it might work out. Just bring a few artillery with you and focus on the battlerager and let your mellees ignore him, even though he will mark them. No big deal, the Battlerager is balanced.

But in a ROLEplaying game, I as a DM do not want to have Zombies and the like act this way, just because this is the only way I can put up an exciting encounter. My "low int" monsters will attack anybody who is in front of them, and if somebody marks my monsters, they rarely need more than this for a reason to attack him, unless they are very wise or smart ones (i.e. Dragons, Experienced humanoids)._


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## WalterKovacs (Dec 15, 2008)

Bond said:


> If if get you right you are saying:
> 
> The Batlerager is balanced because his defensive capablilities might be too good, so that he won´t be attacked anyway?




A battlerager that goes too far in making himself a tank (i.e plate armor and a heavy sheild) will also be giving up a lot of damage output as a result, since they don't have the attack bonus of the other class feature, they may have given up on strength, they are wielding a 1H weapon and they aren't getting the built in damage pump from the class feature.

Harder to hit + lower damage output = less of a "threat" to the monsters and thus not as intimidating of a defender. There is a point where the monster/DM is going to see attacking the striker/controller as tempting enough to take the penalty from being marked AND take the combat challenge attack.

This depends on the DM though ... if a DM is one that (almost) always respects the mark, and doesn't provoke OAs, than by all means make a fighter have the highest defensive possible, ignore his wisdom, etc, etc, etc.



> Intelligent enemies might have the choice to ignore the Battlerager.
> 
> But why would enemies with below than average intelligence (i.e. most monsters, undeads and the like) "chose to ignore" the battlerager?




Either they are drawn to his shiney armor, and thus go after him ... or they go after the rogue or wizard with much more exposed flesh.

Considering the monsters have some understanding of what marks are, they have to make a decision based onhow to react to it. The unintelligent creature is just as likely to ignore the mark as it is to respect it. 



> What does a Zombie, a Hydra, a bunch of stupid koblods know about heroic classes an their features, that they chose to ignore a certain character?. What can they learn in the couple of rounds they are going to live to make such a choice with an int score of 3 or 4?




When you see a guy in plate with a shield, it's not a mental leap to think "he is hard to hit". If the fighter hits and the rogue hits for a lot more ... instincts are the go after the guy that hit you harder, although some will just attack whatever is in front of you. 



> Seriously, if you see D&D as a Tactical Miniature Battle, it might work out. Just bring a few artillery with you and focus on the battlerager and let your mellees ignore him, even though he will mark them. No big deal, the Battlerager is balanced.
> 
> But in a ROLEplaying game, I as a DM do not want to have Zombies and the like act this way, just because this is the only way I can put up an exciting encounter. My "low int" monsters will attack anybody who is in front of them, and if somebody marks my monsters, they rarely need more than this for a reason to attack him, unless they are very wise or smart ones (i.e. Dragons, Experienced humanoids).




So, if you DM a specific way, battleragers can be much more powerful. Of course by having the dumb monsters ALWAYS respect the mark ... you make it so that any powers related to "improving" the mark and related powers, wasted feat. Much like a DM that will rarely provoke OAs unless the players force him into it makes heavy blade opportunity and related feats wasted.

Also, monsters that change their mind as to who they want to attack, based on the threats of another creature ... seems like something that requires intelligence. It can easy to be justify monster behaviour either way in terms of the mark. Either the fighter "gets it's attention" and it's so easily distracted that it ignores the rogue, or it's so mindless that it ignores the mark and keeps going after the rogue that hit him (especially if they fighter's attack missed). A DM can still make a fight challenging and interesting without making the monsters super geniuses. Also, if the groups are constantly against "all brute/soldier" type fights, then of COURSE the battlerager is going to seem broken, if everything is melee and close. If the party went up against nothing but huge masses of minions and swarm monsters, the wizard would be the MVP.


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## Nail (Dec 15, 2008)

Nail said:


> If a BRV fighter takes heavy armor:
> He looses a significant amount of "expected damage per round", and
> his AC might actually be _too high_, meaning that enemies will chose to ignore the defender, and go after squishier targets.
> 
> That's not the end of the discussion, however.  If you think those two things are No Big Deal(tm), and that a higher AC is a better fit for your party, go for it.  For my BRV fighter - in a large party with no other defenders - I needed him to do more damage, and be a more tempting target.






Bond said:


> If if get you right you are saying:
> 
> The Batlerager is balanced because his defensive capablilities might be too good, so that he won´t be attacked anyway?
> 
> ...



A good question (despite the attempt to denigrate my role-playing ability).  *WalterKovacs* lays out the answer pretty well.  Let me try too:

Let's say yer a dumb hydra.  Hunger pangs and simple meaness induce you to attack a party of humanoids that crosses your line-o-sight.  *Who to eat first?*
There's this shiny, metal-plate-covered humanoid thing, hiding behind another plate of metal, waving a sharp-looking small metal tooth-pick,
There's a morsel in much less metal, who's just shot two sharp wooden slivers in you with a bow, and
There's an un-armored meat snack waving his arms around in back.

Which would you pick to eat first?  Which would you chose to ignore until they really started hurting you?

Etc.

Next time you wonder about fighter options, just ask: _"What Would a Hydra Eat?"_


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## DrSpunj (Dec 15, 2008)

I'm throwing my vote behind *WalterKovacs* and *Nail*, FWIW.

Generally speaking, if a monster has low Intelligence _and_ low Wisdom they tend to focus on the closest foe and/or pay attention to who's marked them.

With average or better Intelligence or Wisdom I have them try to be a bit more discerning in their choice of targets and respect the mark at least once, but if the Defender's AC is much more than 2 higher than the AC of their allies then the monster might just chance getting hit with a melee basic attack (Fighter/Swordmage) or radiant dmg (Paladin) to attack a target that's possibly easier to hit based on what's already been listed in the last couple posts.

A Defender's goal is not really to avoid getting hit, it's to avoid getting hit _too much_ while saving his squishier allies from those hits. There's a fine line with AC there, IMO.


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## Bond James Bond (Dec 16, 2008)

@ Walter Kovacs, Nail:

I am seeing your points. But, on the other hand, if you really go along that way, wizards/warlocks should be always attacked first by dumb monsters, as they are (usually) not encased in metal and might look easier to hit then the rest (at first glance)... 

Well, apart from those (debatable) role playing issues - I strongly disagree with the notion that the Battlerager is balanced because he can be ignored. 

Sure, a Battlerager in a group won`t prevent a TPK and can´t help the others with his temporary hp. But a lot of enemies which are challenging to the rest of the group are trivial for the Battlerager, because they, even in large numbers, can`t do significant damage to him. 

In other words: I think he is unbalanced because he is stealing the spotlight too often. And all he has to give up for his "mellee-awesomeness" is one point of attack bonus. If he at least would be required to wear chain or light armor...


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## Dr_Sage (Dec 24, 2008)

With all due respect, the "treat" comments are not exactly accurate. 

Lets do an experiment: 

Lets enter a Hungry Lion´s cage with this party configuration:

- A heavy armored guy going on front and challenging the lion.
- A light armored sneaky guy walking behind the cage´s corners approaching the lion step by step.
- A guy (probably me) with an assaut rifle (I can´t imagine a bigger treat than that) ready to shoot, but from a safe distance.

Wanna bet the "plate guy" will die first?

This would work the same with aligators, Big snakes... Certaly would work for a bull... same for a Shark...

So lets be a bit "realistic", for low-inteligent AND for low experienced creatures: the primary target will be aways the guy in the front. 

*****************************

Back to the topic: so far my DM have approved my Dwarf Fighter BR. I took some notes last session and I realised that I would have fallen if I was not for BRV, but noone considered that unbalancing. 

The key point so far is: although BRV is the best "tank option", we have to remmember that every fighter can use some invigorating powers too.

*****************************

EDIT: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!


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## chaotix42 (Dec 25, 2008)

Nail said:


> *Who to eat first?*




Whoever is closest! Or, whoever just stabbed me. I hate being stabbed. 

- Hydra

As an aside, a friend of mine is playing a dwarf fighter and he switched to Battlerager w/Dwarven Stoneblood. The only fights he's been in since the change have largely been melee battles - one vs. displacer beasts and harpys and another vs. a gang of various gnolls. He was bloodied a few times but never really in danger of dropping. In a brawl or facing down a breath weapon he's one tough mother, but when fireballs and other evil ranged attacks start raining down on his Ref he'll feel the same pain as before. He's kind of pondering switching up from the axe & shield to go with a two-hander, just to provoke more attacks from opponents who might assume him to be softer than he really is.

It's a powerful option to be sure, but so far I haven't found it disruptive. Strictly better than +1 to hit? Perhaps. If you don't get hit that much then you might want the +1 to hit though. I'll be sure to report back after a few more encounters, and I'll specifically try to "test" the fighter while still challenging the rest of the party. 

Rest assured that he will be suffering plenty of ongoing damage.


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## Victim (Dec 25, 2008)

Someone in my group replaced his old fighter with a shiny, new Battlerager.  The battlerager seems to require far less healing and seems to use significantly fewer surges overall.  Average damage actually seems higher thanks to a Brutal 2 weapon and extra damage bonuses both from powers and the battlerager bonus even with the lower to hit bonus.


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