Barbarian Rage

[domrek]

Hi there, long time reader first time poster so incredibly sorry if this is essentially a repost.

so i am playing a barbarian ( 5th level totem ) and i recently got the feeling my DM is feeling that rage is overpowered and was worried he would be sending some anti-rage enemies at me. today he sent a fair few cultists all sporting command and once i eventually failed the save he then gave the command of "calm" which he deemed stopped my rage instantly.

Now this is honestly probably correct but i just feel that its such an easy way to turn off my class power? any advice in any form would be much appreciated

Many thanks

[pwykersotz]

If the DM wants to stop your rage, there's not a lot to do about it. That said, he could have done far more with the command. If he had ordered Flee, for example, he could have stripped you of multiple turns of action by virtue of you needing to run back once you were done. Calming your rage is a fairly innocuous move. Also, given that you can re-establish it as a bonus action and get several per day, it's really a net win for you if he keeps doing this.

But yeah, if you defeat this method, he'll likely come up with another unless you convince him out of game that your rage is not overpowered.

[CrusaderJoe]

Wow, that's a horrible way to deal with this situation. I'm sorry you have to deal with a DM like this.

Just wait until the DM sees what the other classes can do hahaha.

[WickerNipple]

That said, he could have done far more with the command.

I agree. I'd say you got off lucky! :)

Definitely some briar patch time. Oh DM please don't Calm me again!

[Mandragola]

Sure, commanding someone to calm down isn't the worst thing... but he's still sending monsters tailored specifically to undermine your PC's core ability, which is a bit weird and uncool.

[WickerNipple]

Sure, commanding someone to calm down isn't the worst thing... but he's still sending monsters tailored specifically to undermine your PC's core ability, which is a bit weird and uncool.

Not necessarily.... You've never thrown a wizard up against anti-magic? DMs do this stuff all the time.

Whether it's cool or not depends on degree and outcome and intent and story and a whole bunch of other things.

What makes this example funny is the DM is actively helping the party by targeting an imbalance that's entirely in his head. We can't really judge his intent from one voice, but the result is good comedy.

For example: Played right by the DM it could just be the NPCs who're terrified of raging barbarians, and therefore casting command this way is entirely appropriate, even if it is massively suboptimal for the monsters to trade a standard action for a player's bonus.

But I doubt it, you're probably right: It's likely just bad system mastery + vindictiveness, thus I personally recommended the briar patch approach: praising how he sure did show you while you're secretly laughing inside. :smallwink:

[mephnick]

If the enemies have a prior reason to know you're a raging barbarian, prepping a "calm" spell isn't out of line for an intelligent caster.

If it was just some random encounter and *gasp* they've all somehow prepared the perfect spells to nullify your core ability...then your DM is a bad DM.

[CrusaderJoe]

If the enemies have a prior reason to know you're a raging barbarian, prepping a "calm" spell isn't out of line for an intelligent caster.

If it was just some random encounter and *gasp* they've all somehow prepared the perfect spells to nullify your core ability...then your DM is a bad DM.

Well since the DM was all "rage is too strong" and then casters come specialized to shut down rage... I think it is the second option.

[domrek]

Well one of the other players has told me he had a conversation with our DM where the topic of stopping rages came up and i feel this is the result, whilst i do agree that him tunnel visioning on my rages is for the most part a good thing for our party it was fairly irritating to encounter it so early.
due to the damage resist given by rage + totem of the bear he has decided his choice is to end my rage prematurely or to throw mind flayers at us so i guess the command is better :D

also keeping myself stocked on ranged weapons as flying enemies have gotten more prevalent.

so general opinion is to taunt him into it more then? to allow other PC's more reign?

[WickerNipple]

so general opinion is to taunt him into it more then? to allow other PC's more reign?

I doubt it's general opinion, but it's certainly mine. There's very little you can do with DMs like this to talk them out of this type of behavior. The best you can do is work with it.

And again, if he's targeting a conditional effect on you instead of actually targeting you or someone else -> you guys are winning. I'd trade my bonus for his standard any day of the week.

Alternatively you can fight him in game or out of game, but eventually that means you're going to run into Cursed Gauntlets of Tranquility.

-- And finally I really hope there's no Druids or Assassin/Fighter/Rangers or Paladins or Sorcerer/Warlocks in this guy's party. His spectrum of balance is in for a world of hurt if his initial knee-jerk is onto Barbarian.

[domrek]

.

-- And finally I really hope there's no Druids or Assassin/Fighter/Rangers or Paladins or Sorcerer/Warlocks in this guy's party. His spectrum of balance is in for a world of hurt if his initial knee-jerk is onto Barbarian.


Our party is myself, a elemental monk, 2 eldritch fighters and a tempest cleric so none of the above xD

[Felvion]

Well, others said that he didn't neutralised you enough but personally i find it frustrating. I mean, metagaming is bad and it shouldn't happen especially from the dm's part. If he thinks you are getting out of control with power (which i highly doubt, no barbarian is that op), he should have a word with you and try to resolve things out of game.

If my DM came down to me like that, saying "the entire encounter is designed so that you can't use your main class feature cause i find it op" i'd be really offended. Of course, you can taunt him to do it more often but soon he'll figure it out. Or you could just not rage when he expects you to. It'd be funny to check if he has a back up plan!
Your probably build this character so that he can tank and i see no reason this being overpowered unless all of your teamates are too bad..
I personally find rogues (especially assassins), fighters, moon druids or rangers much more "op" in that early levels. They can end encounters or outshine other classes if played right or if they just get lucky. Targeting a bearbarian is irrational.
Anyway, if you can handle things in a calm manner (at leat cooler than me) you should give him a talk. Or if you are ok with it, as others end the encouters easier just let it go. You are still "tanking" actually, you just soak the spells instead of damage.

[WickerNipple]

When he kills you for being a Barbarian, I highly recommend Sorcerer/Warlock. :smallbiggrin:

[domrek]

Well, others said that he didn't neutralised you enough but personally i find it frustrating. I mean, metagaming is bad and it shouldn't happen especially from the dm's part. If he thinks you are getting out of control with power (which i highly doubt, no barbarian is that op), he should have a word with you and try to resolve things out of game.

If my DM came down to me like that, saying "the entire encounter is designed so that you can't use your main class feature cause i find it op" i'd be really offended. Of course, you can taunt him to do it more often but soon he'll figure it out. Or you could just not rage when he expects you to. It'd be funny to check if he has a back up plan!
Your probably build this character so that he can tank and i see no reason this being overpowered unless all of your teamates are too bad..
I personally find rogues (especially assassins), fighters, moon druids or rangers much more "op" in that early levels. They can end encounters or outshine other classes if played right or if they just get lucky. Targeting a bearbarian is irrational.
Anyway, if you can handle things in a calm manner (at leat cooler than me) you should give him a talk. Or if you are ok with it, as others end the encouters easier just let it go. You are still "tanking" actually, you just soak the spells instead of damage.


yeah the build was simply because we didn't have a tank, I'm dealing fair damage currently but i expect that to change as ya know…other classes scale a touch better, i understand his point of view which is why i didn't complain at the table to him but a week before todays session when we were discussing rages i even told him that if it is something that is bothering him as DM id be willing to just play another character, he assured me he wash't going to set fights specifically to remove the rages but yeah so now I'm looking into moon druids :D

[domrek]

When he kills you for being a Barbarian, I highly recommend Sorcerer/Warlock. :smallbiggrin:

fun times to be had?

[Phion]

....Read the barbarians rage description and you will see its not a normal persons kind of rage....and a command tell me to calm down wouldn't work if I was really angry. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work mechanically either need to look at it don't have my stuff on me at the minute. Really though show your DM this thread so he/she can see that they are approaching it wrong and it is not fair on you as a player, for god sake it is a game and should be fun and a dm who tries to "out do the player" is approaching the whole thing wrong.

[domrek]

I think if it becomes a consistent problem I may do, I'm going to wait until the next session to see if we end up in the super calm tranquility cave, if that's the case I'll bring up the issue with him.

[CrusaderJoe]

If your DM puts you in the calm cave... Don't use Rage, use Rogue.

MC with Rogue is a very strong combo.

[MustacheFart]

Or alternatively, multiclass into a spellcaster class. As soon as he ends your rage move on to casting spells. After a certain point he'll prefer you raging.

[CrusaderJoe]

Or alternatively, multiclass into a spellcaster class. As soon as he ends your rage move on to casting spells. After a certain point he'll prefer you raging.

I would suggest Bard, bardbarian works out nicely. Alternately Sorcerer does a fantastic job. Haste on a barbarian? Yeah who needs rage?

[pwykersotz]

Well one of the other players has told me he had a conversation with our DM where the topic of stopping rages came up and i feel this is the result, whilst i do agree that him tunnel visioning on my rages is for the most part a good thing for our party it was fairly irritating to encounter it so early.
due to the damage resist given by rage + totem of the bear he has decided his choice is to end my rage prematurely or to throw mind flayers at us so i guess the command is better :D

also keeping myself stocked on ranged weapons as flying enemies have gotten more prevalent.

so general opinion is to taunt him into it more then? to allow other PC's more reign?

No, you need to have fun too. This will only end when you convince him that continuous selective nerfing of basic class features is not a good option. He needs to build encounters that are tough WITH your strengths, not make you weak all the time just to keep the enemies a challenge.

What I mentioned regarding less than optimal use of Command is just the silver lining. The gray cloud of taking the wind from your sails is still an issue. At least if this becomes a trend. If it was a one-time thing it's no real problem, and he could have done worse. You never lost the capacity to contribute entirely.

[domrek]

so the campaign is only going to approx level 11 so would bard/rogue/sorc be useful in that limited time? I say that as I'm barb 5 currently

[TheDeadlyShoe]

he shut down your rage for a turn? why is this even a big deal? It's not persecution to face enemies you have trouble with, especially over the course of many levels.

shutting down your rage for a turn is like the best possible result when you fail a save.

there are many things that are 10,000 times worse that could have happened

-getting charmed into attacking your allies
-paralysis
-poisoned status
-disintegration
-blindness
-permanent aging

et. al.

[domrek]

he shut down your rage for a turn? why is this even a big deal? It's not persecution to face enemies you have trouble with, especially over the course of many levels.

shutting down your rage for a turn is like the best possible result when you fail a save.

there are many things that are 10,000 times worse that could have happened

-getting charmed into attacking your allies
-paralysis
-poisoned status
-disintegration
-blindness
-permanent aging

et. al.

it's not the shutting down being a big deal, i understand there are enemies that will do that, as you say facing troubling enemies will happen, it was more that based on conversations with other players he's planning on essentially shutting it down with each enemy from now onwards making it fairly redundant to have. the perm ageing and attacking allies have already happened, with hilarious results.

and moreover it was that he completely shut off my rage for the entire boss encounter, it was my last use of it that day so losing it turn one into a boss was a fairly large blow to my tankyness

[TheDeadlyShoe]

well, that sucks, but hey - it was a boss fight against wizzards. Even without Rage barbarians are very tanky and dangerous. You won, didn't you?

Getting aggravated about something that hasn't happened yet and might not happen at all is borrowing trouble. If he really does start shutting down your rage every fight then call him on it. But at least give him an honest chance about it.

[domrek]

well, that sucks, but hey - it was a boss fight against wizzards. Even without Rage barbarians are very tanky and dangerous. You won, didn't you?

Getting aggravated about something that hasn't happened yet and might not happen at all is borrowing trouble. If he really does start shutting down your rage every fight then call him on it. But at least give him an honest chance about it.


Yeah you are right, that's why a few posts ago i said i would give him the benefit of the doubt to see if it became consistent or not, the post was more for general advice about the matter and ways i could move around it as a player but looking back was poorly worded towards that goal so that's a fail on my part.

[Phion]

it's not the shutting down being a big deal, i understand there are enemies that will do that, as you say facing troubling enemies will happen, it was more that based on conversations with other players he's planning on essentially shutting it down with each enemy from now onwards making it fairly redundant to have. the perm ageing and attacking allies have already happened, with hilarious results.

and moreover it was that he completely shut off my rage for the entire boss encounter, it was my last use of it that day so losing it turn one into a boss was a fairly large blow to my tankyness

So lame, really don't get his point of view its not like you have an unlimited amount of it. Normally I would say if the DM feels like he has to base his encounters around one person that person should take it as a compliment but in this case it doesn't sound like you have broke the game in any way. It's pretty childish really, if raging was broke it wouldn't be in the players handbook the mechanic has been played tested to death and what you are using is the finally result of all that balancing.