barbarian rage vs badger rage

[CyberThread]

Badger rage s the same as barbarian rage, except no exhaustion, or all the other bad things that come with it.


Is this a oversight, or does a badger not suffer under the barbarian rages various limits and can still use skills/does not get exhausted/can activate items?

[Flickerdart]

They are distinct abilities that make no reference to one another, and are thus not governed by each other's rules.

[Psyren]

The Badger can neither choose to start nor end his voluntarily so there is a big disadvantage there. A Barbarian for instance can choose to rage for the bonus to will saves and damage, but if a dire badger is either left alone or crowd-controlled without being dealt damage he will never get his bonuses. Similarly, the Barbarian can choose to end his early if he needs to.

[CyberThread]

True but you can activate magical items and self induce calm emotion, and be interesting for a gish, you can rage mage without the crappy prc

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Barbarians can (and should) get Whirling Frenzy (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm#rageVariantWhirlingFrenzy ) instead, which is a huge improvement over the standard rage.

[Dapple Birch]

The badger's rage ability is designed to be a simplified version of the barbarian's rage so that druids, rangers, DM's, and anyone summoning a badger does not have to read half a page of the barbarian description to know how to run a CR1/2 creature. Similar to this is how celestial and fiendish creatures receive a simplified version of smite good/evil.

These descriptions were intended to speed up play, not to be hidden easter eggs to exploit. Obviously YMMV.

[CyberThread]

Isn't half the battle of optimization finding Easter eggs?

[eggynack]

The badger's rage ability is designed to be a simplified version of the barbarian's rage so that druids, rangers, DM's, and anyone summoning a badger does not have to read half a page of the barbarian description to know how to run a CR1/2 creature. Similar to this is how celestial and fiendish creatures receive a simplified version of smite good/evil.

It might also be a function of the choice involved in barbarian rage, just from a creature intelligence perspective. I don't know if an animal is capable of saying, "I think that raging is a good idea right now, because this fight is hard," or, "Maybe I should trip this guy, because he's smaller than I am, and I need to control the battlefield." Thus, most combat maneuvers that an animal would use trigger automatically. The big exception I can think of offhand is that sometimes, like in the case of crocodiles, the creature will have to choose between two attack routines. Further supporting my claim is the fact that there are several summonable monsters that have several choices available to them, so ease of play is probably not the only reason for this.

[nedz]

Badger Rage is all or nothing, which means that the badger will pretty soon be dead since it can't disengage. Incidental Blue on Blue could also be embarrassing, even if the damage is trivial.

[CyberThread]

Think we are confusing, rage against EVERYTHING , versus rage on the one thing that hurt me. Meaning mobility is a major value versus just running from point A to point B if something with range hurts you.

[Psyren]

True but you can activate magical items and self induce calm emotion, and be interesting for a gish, you can rage mage without the crappy prc

But your rage never scales either so what's the point? Plus the DM gets to define exactly what "clawing and biting madly" means, which could easily preclude item use or indeed anything that isn't attacking. Plus you don't stop until your opponent is dead, which could mean you can't switch targets either. If you're going to read it vaguely it can be read vaguely in many ways.

[CyberThread]

which leads to the talking to your DM to make sure and the like.

[eggynack]

This doesn't really seem like a crazy optimization thing. You're only getting +4 strength and constitution here, with a -2 AC, and that's not going to be the optimal half of rage+magic. It just seems to be a waste of a, "C'mon DM, be lenient just the one time," conversation. It seems pretty clear that the badger just kinda claws and bites the one opponent until that opponent dies, but it doesn't matter much. How is this being used, anyway? Are you playing as an awakened badger or something? In any case, I'd take regular rage over badger rage any day. Being able to select when you use it, and being able to trade it for whirling frenzy are both pretty great. You also incidentally get pounce and improved trip by dipping barbarian, while taking, I dunno, badger levels? It doesn't give you pounce and improved trip. This honestly doesn't seem like an optimization Easter egg. It seems a lot more like a thing badgers do, and it's just fine that they do that.

[Invader]

The biggest thing I could see being exploited is there's no limit on rages per day and no limit on how longood it lasts.

RAW, if it gets attacked and the attacker say teleports away, the badger stays in a rage indefinitely.

There's def so abuse in there somewhere.

[eggynack]

The biggest thing I could see being exploited is there's no limit on rages per day and no limit on how longood it lasts.

RAW, if it gets attacked and the attacker say teleports away, the badger stays in a rage indefinitely.

There's def so abuse in there somewhere.
That is pretty nifty. It looks a lot like the badger is locked into an infinite search for his disappeared opponent though, forced to claw/claw/bite until it's successful in its search. It's oddly poetic, I think.

[Flickerdart]

That is pretty nifty. It looks a lot like the badger is locked into an infinite search for his disappeared opponent though, forced to claw/claw/bite until it's successful in its search. It's oddly poetic, I think.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=44656&type=card

The more victims he kills, the more likely he is to get the right one.

[Chronos]

My last druid had a dire badger companion. The rage was... nice, but it was really annoying not being able to trigger it at will. And even when it did trigger, the creature that triggered it often ended up dying within a round, sometimes before the badger even had a chance to attack at all, leaving the badger un-enraged again.

I'm sure it could be used to good effect on a PC that somehow gained the ability, though, and built around it.

[Lord Haart]

I'd pick badger rage over barbarian rage (hell, over any alternative barbarian rages too) any time, just for the heck of yelling out loud "I enter badger rage!"

[Fouredged Sword]

I think there would be an abuse system set up by getting the singular enemy ability through cheeze, getting the exalted feat that lets you better control your rage, then injuring yourself to be permanently inraged.

[Flickerdart]

I think there would be an abuse system set up by getting the singular enemy ability through cheeze, getting the exalted feat that lets you better control your rage, then injuring yourself to be permanently inraged.
Righteous Wrath doesn't actually help you because all it says about your behaviour is "You are perfectly able to deal nonlethal damage, stop your attacks to show mercy, and distinguish friend from foe even in the heat of your rage." However, neither the barbarian nor the badger rage has this problem to start with, except perhaps the mercy thing for the badger.

[Dapple Birch]

It might also be a function of the choice involved in barbarian rage, just from a creature intelligence perspective. I don't know if an animal is capable of saying, "I think that raging is a good idea right now, because this fight is hard," or, "Maybe I should trip this guy, because he's smaller than I am, and I need to control the battlefield." Thus, most combat maneuvers that an animal would use trigger automatically. The big exception I can think of offhand is that sometimes, like in the case of crocodiles, the creature will have to choose between two attack routines. Further supporting my claim is the fact that there are several summonable monsters that have several choices available to them, so ease of play is probably not the only reason for this.

My point was to respond to the OP's question of whether the differences between the two rages was an oversight or a deliberate choices to give two options for players to choose from. Specifically I don't think not adding details to a monster power which would only matter if a PC were using said power counts as oversight even though this is likely not an intended use.

Incidentally if you play pathfinder instead of 3.5 alot of these questions are moot as creatures like the noble badger(badger badger, sorry) have a different ability called blood rage http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/universalMonsterRules.html#_blood-rage
that has a 1min duration and appears to offer a choice of whether or not to activate it upon taking damage.