Frenzied Berserker at Level 5 Cap

[Mikayla]

The idea behind Extend/Extra rage as a substitute was as a "similar" replacement for Frenzy. I suppose you could just grant like Bulls Strength 1x a day or something too. Frankly, I think FB should only be available as a PrC if you have a minimum of 3 levels in Barb. In fact, I would love to see a min 3 levels in each class rule for any multiclassed PC.

isnt alfas goal to be close to pnp rules, not to make arbitrary new ones?

This! I am in favor of getting rid of the mandatory-party-killing-frenzy thing because it seems pretty broken to me and its not the way PnP works, but I am definitely opposed (for what little that is worth) to adding additional requirements above and beyond the PnP requirements.

[Brokenbone]

Google "Complete Warrior pdf" and you will quickly find the full Frenzied Berserker description, page 34.

I see where NWN took a couple of short cuts which hey, maybe ALFA doesn't need to take, this is even before the level 5 business, stuff like deathless frenzy PnP vs. NWN is a big difference too.

I guess the Inspire Frenzy business in PnP is gated by "it only affects willing partymates" which I guess isn't something we'd be getting into attempted changes on. Free use of perhaps the "Rage" spell 1/d on your party? It hasn't got the hit point draining drawbacks of Frenzy and is pretty close. Doesn't even have fatigue at end, not seeing particular drawbacks, may even be OP compared to Frenzy in some ways. Would probably need an awfully short duration though rather than what I figure would be a minimum 5 rounds for innately level 3 spells, haven't looked at what level Rage is set at in the toolset.

[Zelknolf]

The big difference between just slapping an existing ability onto the class and adding a new one is that someone would have to make the new ability-- generally, a PrC change gets called a top-priority effort is when making the change takes less time than talking about it, on account of how few users it touches (that is, something that's a big deal for the one possible frenzied berzerker player is minor compared to a convenience change that touches the other 80 players).

Unless we've got someone who's really eager to see more-sophisticated solutions to FB, I'd suggest that the most-plausibly-implemented solution would be to agree to punt an existing feat at FB6, and remain open to redesigns if we get someone with the time, knowledge, and interest to do these broader redesigns.

[SwordSaintMusashi]

The idea behind Extend/Extra rage as a substitute was as a "similar" replacement for Frenzy. I suppose you could just grant like Bulls Strength 1x a day or something too. Frankly, I think FB should only be available as a PrC if you have a minimum of 3 levels in Barb. In fact, I would love to see a min 3 levels in each class rule for any multiclassed PC.

isnt alfas goal to be close to pnp rules, not to make arbitrary new ones?

This! I am in favor of getting rid of the mandatory-party-killing-frenzy thing because it seems pretty broken to me and its not the way PnP works, but I am definitely opposed (for what little that is worth) to adding additional requirements above and beyond the PnP requirements.

By PnP, Frenzied Beserker requires two Rage feats (I cannot remember their names, but I know one lets you ignore hardness on objects when you rage), and both of those feats require "Rage class feature".

Leave it at Rage and keep power attack and cleave as requirements.

[oldgrayrogue]

The idea behind Extend/Extra rage as a substitute was as a "similar" replacement for Frenzy. I suppose you could just grant like Bulls Strength 1x a day or something too. Frankly, I think FB should only be available as a PrC if you have a minimum of 3 levels in Barb. In fact, I would love to see a min 3 levels in each class rule for any multiclassed PC.

isnt alfas goal to be close to pnp rules, not to make arbitrary new ones?

Yes, but we really don't play PnP in a PW and some PnP rules don't translate well. Requiring minimum class levels for multiclassing prevents single dipping for optimized builds. So a derail yes, but not really arbitrary. I have seen other PWs with this type of multiclassing rule.

[chalksoul]

but not all character with multiclass is a perfect blend of two things, some are majorly one thing with just a touch of things from somewhere else.

[Ithildur]

Good grief, why do we want a silly rule that servers like the Frontier adopted? Minimum 3 lvl multiclass doesn't work as intended in practice; it nerfs a lot of legit multiclass concepts extremely heavy handedly while allowing certain combinations (like rog4/ranger3+, fighter4/clericx, etc) to laugh all the way to the bank. And of course it doesn't bother pureclass clerics and druids at all, who become correspondingly even more powerful as more folks are forced to fall further behind.

Anyway, getting sidetracked.... I believe the concern was FB/Barb's wearing heavy armor and not losing much in NWN2, whereas they would have their speed reduced by HALF in pnp... the problem isn't multiclassing; it's the screwy movement rates of NWN2 (where a halfling in full plate is only slightly slower than a human barb in leather, in pnp the barb moves nearly 4x as fast as the halfling...) which we apparently decided a while ago we want to keep screwy.

My main concern for the FB is that we try and retain the flavor of the canon version... one of the distictives is this dynamic of 'this guy shreds everything in sight and is incredibly deadly... but you'd better have a way to deal with him because he just might TPK his own party!'... removing this outright seems like cutting out a major (and well known) trademark of the FB.

[t-ice]

Like Ith said, we will not be able to do the PnP intended "Loses control when hit and charges in at all enemies all the time until enemies or the FB dies", which is THE central feature to canon Frenzied Berserker. Also the FB keeps on whacking friendlies if they run out of enemies before they run out of wind. Building a feature that removes control of a PC from the player and hands it to the AI is a non-starter. Let alone the amount of friendly fire we'd desire forced on the ad hoc mixed level parties on our PW.

A player can of course choose to RP charging in, but playing even semi-smart on NWN2 puts the NWN2 FB to the tactical glass cannon role on the second line. Let the tanks go in first and gather aggro, then charge in with the FB and do the supa-hack. When playing with a party on our PW, choosing to RP combat so that your PC becomes a liability to your party can be fun when all players are aboard... But it can also be very frustrating and not-fun to your party mates who one way or another have to suck up your choices and foot the bill of your "great RP of my character".

Question is what DO we want, then, if we can't make something that plays even close to the canon FB. We are looking at a PrC that is a melee-hitting glass cannon. In roleplay it's predisposed to barbarians, but actually probably mechanically works better for fighters, and actually it's easier to reach the requierements as is with a fighter.

My suggestion would be to deal with the FB as a more generic melee glass cannon. Strip the requiements to basics (cleave feat, BAB +6, rage). Either cap at level 5 or give some small candy instead of inspire frenzy. Those who want to RP the FB as reckless as in canon can, but the same mechanics can still work for more tactical heavy-hitters. Also make clear that it's not IC for our Berserkers to attack allies in a frenzy. Or at the very least it is ICly random (In reality depending on cvc concent from other players in party).

Ref. Multiclassing restrictions: I don't think we need restrictions on taking base classes. But a PrC should be something more, something that defines the character more clearly. So I think there should be a rule against dipping into PrCs (Included into the PrC extraordinary approval, perhaps, so if you take just one level you'd need to justify that based on RP). Something like, after being approved for PrC you must take at least every other level in the PrC. So no fighters dipping one or two levels into FB (frenzy when facing wizard!) or rogues taking one shadowdancer (hips!). That should also help keep the purpose of PrCs more RP and less build optimization.

[SwordSaintMusashi]

Ref. Multiclassing restrictions: I don't think we need restrictions on taking base classes. But a PrC should be something more, something that defines the character more clearly. So I think there should be a rule against dipping into PrCs (Included into the PrC extraordinary approval, perhaps, so if you take just one level you'd need to justify that based on RP). Something like, after being approved for PrC you must take at least every other level in the PrC. So no fighters dipping one or two levels into FB (frenzy when facing wizard!) or rogues taking one shadowdancer (hips!). That should also help keep the purpose of PrCs more RP and less build optimization.

This would be a topic for a completely separate thread.

But as a note: Do we even have problems with this as it stands? I don't think anyone "dips" into their PrC. If its not broken, let's leave it alone and work on the topic at hand or things that are broken.