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TripleD
2016-07-24, 11:50 PM
Path of the Beserker

Frenzy
Starting when you choose this path at level 3, you go into a frenzy when you rage. You gain the following benefits for the duration of your rage:

You may make grapple or shove attacks as a bonus action
The Bonus Rage Damage granted increases by one half, rounded down.
You have advantage on any saving throw to resist being charmed or frightened


Stoke
Beginning at level 3, if you have no rages remaining, you regain a single rage at the end of a short rest

Tough Customer
Starting at level 6, you may expend one rage in order to add your CON modifier to any Intimidation attempt for one minute. Any creature which fails a WIS check (or Insight check, at the DMs discretion) against your Intimidation is now Frightened. This condition ends after one minute, or when the creature can no longer see you, whichever comes first.
Any creature which succeeds on a WIS check is immune to Tough Customer for 24 hours.

Fervor over Flesh
Beginning at level 10, while raging:

Your movement is unaffected by difficult terrain
Spells and other magical effects can neither reduce your speed nor cause you to become paralyzed, restrained.
Being underwater imposes no penalties on your movement or attacks.
Finally, you may enter into a rage while paralyzed. If you do so you may not use your bonus action that turn.

Retaliation
Starting at level 14, when you take damage from a creature, you may use your reaction to make a melee or thrown weapon attack against that creature.

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Explanation

Path of the Beserker is the weaker of the two Barbarian sub-classes. It doesn't have as many options, the few options it has are geared entirely towards combat. But even in combat it feels lackluster. It's signature feature, Frenzy, is painted in the fluff as a frothing-at-the-mouth expression of raw savagery. What it is mechanically is an extra attack, using which consumes your bonus action and leaves you with a level of exhaustion. You will recognize that every single melee character gets the exact same thing at level five (with the Fighter eventually getting more attacks than the Barbarian) yet they retain their bonus action and receive no exhaustion.

The point of this rewrite is to make the Beserker feel like a fountain of rage, while still having interesting things to do outside of combat.

Frenzy
I decided to model Frenzy after the Circle of the Moon Druid. The Moon Druid takes something that all Druids can do, shape shift, and makes it the focus of the class by enhancing its abilities. Frenzy takes each Rage bonus and turns them up a bit.

Rage gives you advantage to grapple or shove attempts. This makes it even easier to incorporate them into your fighting style.
It makes sense that a frenzy should do more damage than a rage. How much was a bit tricky to work out. Originally it was going to be extra-dice, but TWF scaled way too much. A bit of extra bonus damage keeps things sane.
Rather than extending physical resistance (the Bear Totem's schtick) I boosted mental resistance, since this is all about being too mad to see straight. It also helps get back Mindless Rage a bit.


Stoke
It bugged me that Path of the Totem Warrior gets 5 abilities, while Beserker only gets 4. This bumps them up to parity, and ensures that the Beserker will have the means to keep up at least some of their rage throughout the day.

Tough Customer
The Totem Warrior gets an out of combat, "ribbon" ability at level six. Tough Customer follows in that vein, and corrects the fact that your Halfling with a Lute is somehow more intimidating than the Half-Orc with anger issues.
The main use of this ability would be for when you are in town or a social setting where you don't anticipate combat anytime soon and your rages are just sitting there, untouched. This can be used in combat, but the fact that it uses an additional rage is meant to act as a safeguard against being abused (very easy to burn through all your rages this way). Things get a bit goofy at level 20, but in a way it makes sense that, in theory, you could make the entire world permanently afraid of your epic level Beserker.

Fervor Over Flesh
Spirit Walker, the Totem ability, allows you to cast Commune With Nature (5th level spell) as a ritual. It allows you spy, scout ahead, and generally gain knowledge. Given that Beserker is more combat oriented, I gave them a non-magical ability nearly identical to Freedom of Movement (4th level spell), representing the fury-granted vigor that lets you "power through" effects that would normally slow down or Incapacitate an adventurer.

Retaliation
Nearly identical to in-book retaliation. I just took out the distance and melee requirements. Now you can whip an axe at the mage who cast Firebolt at you and hopefully break his concentration on some other spell.

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The only thing I'm not happy with is that rage still doesn't play well with thrown weapons. If you houserule that rage works with thrown weapons, by all means change any instance of "melee weapon attack" to "melee or thrown weapon attack".

Final Hyena
2016-07-25, 02:11 AM
One thing that jumped out at me was that frenzy jumped from 1d6 to 2d6 which you justified because sneak attack scales.
I don't understand that justification. If you were reworking the rogue and replacing sneak attack I could understand, but this is a barbarian.
Unless you believe the barbarian to be a weak class in need of re balancing it would be easier to balance your archetype against other barbarian archetypes.

TripleD
2016-07-25, 10:06 AM
One thing that jumped out at me was that frenzy jumped from 1d6 to 2d6 which you justified because sneak attack scales.
I don't understand that justification. If you were reworking the rogue and replacing sneak attack I could understand, but this is a barbarian.
Unless you believe the barbarian to be a weak class in need of re balancing it would be easier to balance your archetype against other barbarian archetypes.

Good question.

The justification is that, while I don't believe classes have to be perfectly balanced against each other, it is useful to compare similar features to see if they will be relevant, and to make sure that classes aren't stepping on each other's toes.

In the PHB "Frenzy" works basically the same as the Monk's Martial Arts or Two-Weapon Fighting; you sacrifice a bonus action to get another attack. The downside of the Monk is that you may only use it with certain weapons, and the downside of Two-Weapon-Fighting is that, without a fighting style, you don't get a bonus to damage. For Frenzy you may use any weapon, but the downside is that you may on use it one or two fights a day before suffering massive penalties in and out of combat. It doesn't feel like a fair trade.

My first attempt was to just remove the exhaustion penalty. That was simple, and worked, but it felt flavourless. That and it denied you the option of two-weapon fighting, which didn't feel thematically appropriate for a beserker.

I tried adding an "extra attack" that stacked with level 5's "Extra Attack", but that gave you a level 11 Fighter ability at level 3, making the class way to front-loaded and dip-able.

So I looked to extra damage dice as a way to reflect beserker rage. The Paladin and the Rogue both have the means to add extra damage dice to weapon attacks. With the Paladin it is tied to an expendable resource (spell slots) and the Rogue to positioning and opportunity. The Barbarian's Frenzy is tied to an expendable resource (Rage) but lasts for an entire minute and can be activated whenever the player wishes. I wanted the damage dice to be less than the other two sources to reflect the investment vs reward.

As for why the dice increase? Rogues and Palandins get more bonus damage dice over time. This is to both keep the class relevant (monster HP increases) and to reward players who invest in the class. I wanted Frenzy to follow those same principals.

TL;DR

Rogues and Frenzy Barbarians use bonus damage die to their attacks. The Rogue gets more die to keep it relevant against higher HP monsters and reward player investment, so it seemed sensible for the FB to do the same.

Amnoriath
2016-07-25, 11:27 AM
Good question.


So I looked to extra damage dice as a way to reflect beserker rage. The Paladin and the Rogue both have the means to add extra damage dice to weapon attacks. With the Paladin it is tied to an expendable resource (spell slots) and the Rogue to positioning and opportunity. The Barbarian's Frenzy is tied to an expendable resource (Rage) but lasts for an entire minute and can be activated whenever the player wishes. I wanted the damage dice to be less than the other two sources to reflect the investment vs reward.

As for why the dice increase? Rogues and Palandins get more bonus damage dice over time. This is to both keep the class relevant (monster HP increases) and to reward players who invest in the class. I wanted Frenzy to follow those same principals.

TL;DR

Rogues and Frenzy Barbarians use bonus damage die to their attacks. The Rogue gets more die to keep it relevant against higher HP monsters and reward player investment, so it seemed sensible for the FB to do the same.
1. Except that Barbarians also get bonus damage and bonus critical dice. Along with Reckless this stacks way too well and giving three extra features on rage as well as a free rage per short rest makes this the king of damage and among the best tanks.
2. Rogues add it once to an attack. Paladins only add one dice without using spell slots.

TripleD
2016-07-26, 12:24 AM
1. Except that Barbarians also get bonus damage and bonus critical dice.

True. All Barbarians get bonus damage from rage. But much like the Assassin to the Rogue, the idea behind Beserkers is that, since this is their specialty, they get even more damage from Rages in the form of an extra attack using their bonus action.

The problem is that it doesn't scale. With the exhaustion penalty you could only use Frenzy once or twice before you became severely hampered in and out of combat (RAW, if you use Frenzy with each of the six rages you get at level 17, you will die). So most of the time you are just normally raging and get absolutely no bonus damage. Actually it's worse than that. Since the Totem Warrior gets abilities that automatically activate when you Rage, their Rages usually end up with more bells and whistles than the person who chose to invest in a Rage-based subclass.

Like I said in the post, bonus dice seemed like the easiest way to implement this, since we have similar features in other classes to judge it against. That and it frees up your bonus action to use on other fun stuff.



Along with Reckless this stacks way too well and giving three extra features on rage as well as a free rage per short rest makes this the king of damage and among the best tanks.


Thank you?

I actually think the Beserker Barbarian should be among the top damage dealers and tanks in the game. The question is: does it work too well? Is there any reason to still go with Totem Warrior if this is an option.

You say that this stacks way to well with Reckless Attack. Could you elaborate on that please? I tried to keep it balanced, and I'd really like to know what you think makes it overpowered.

As for the "three extra features", like I said, I tried to make them less "new features" and more "powered up versions of what Rage already gives", sort of like how Moon Druid ups the CR of creatures you can turn into.

Strength checks in combat, outside of saving throws, are mostly used for shoving and grappling, so I made it easier to do those.
Dice to boost the bonus damage
The temporary HP as a boost to resistance is one that I'm not so confident about. I thought about giving more resistances, but then it devalues the Bear Totem. Really open to suggestions on this one.


The "short rest for one rage" was just to give the Beserker a way to keep access to it's most prized feature. It's very useful early on, but as you get more and more Rages it gradually gets less and less needed, before becoming completely superfluous at level 20 with unlimited rages.




2. Rogues add it once to an attack. Paladins only add one dice without using spell slots.

Very good point. I tried to make it so that Paladins and Rogues do more damage with single attacks, while Frenzy dice add more consistent damage over the Rage.

I now realize my math was off. At level 11, with two weapon fighting, A Frenzy Barbarian will be doing 6d6+3 damage, as opposed to the 4d8 done by a Paladin's Smite at full blast. This is way too much damage; the Paladin should be getting more for spending a resource.

I've changed the dice. It is now a single d4 at level 3, becoming 2d4 at level five (thanks to extra attack) and finally 2d6 at level 11. Even with twin axes, the most the Barbarian will be doing is 3d6 +3 extra damage.

Kryx
2016-07-26, 06:04 AM
Hey, thanks for sharing!

Frenzy
Damage: I would simply double the rage damage for Frenzy. It's simpler, similar to what you have now, and doesn't have any of the weird interaction with crits or a non-RAI usage of GWF. it scales from +2 to +4 which is within the 1d4 to 1d6 range you have currently. I would change the scale to be 11 to match every other scale in the game though. I can run this through some DPR numbers later.
Grapple/Shove: I would make this for free once per turn as part of an attack and remove the bonus action so it works with all fighting options. Many monsters have their grapple as part of their attack so allowing this once per turn should be ok.
Temp HP: Barbarian level x2 = 40 hp. With 6 rages that's 240 hp. That's insane. I'd make it constitution + proficiency or something similar.

I saw a suggestion elsewhere that all attacks while frenzying are reckless attacks. I think that's great flavor and balanced.

Stoke
Ya, good.

Tough Customer
I much prefer the mindless rage ability. Frenzying Barbarians have a reputation for being able to throw off mental effects and that should remain imo.

Fervor over Flesh
Intimidating Presence is the barbarian's only way to deal with groups. Replacing that with a pseudo Freedom of Movement isn't a great trade imo.

Retaliation
Expanding this to all ranges greatly increase an already very powerful ability. Imo it should be "when you take damage from a creature that is within your reach"


Overall I like your frenzy changes (with some slight modifications) I can run some numbers on it later.
The rest of the archetype doesn't need much fixing imo. It's quite good.

Kryx
2016-07-26, 07:27 AM
I examined the DPR and it's not so great imo. TWF scales too crazy compared to GWM

Compare GWM
http://i.imgur.com/5mi7Myz.png

vs TWF
http://i.imgur.com/2Ksff6W.png

These numbers use my houserules, but could easily be adapted to the left side for RAW. See DPR of Classes (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d-9xDdath8kX_v7Rpts9JFIJwIG3X0-dDUtfax14NT0/edit#gid=1741155585) at line 40 and 83.


Your version had no exhaustion while the normal version did (so it was used much less)

Amnoriath
2016-07-26, 07:38 AM
True. All Barbarians get bonus damage from rage. But much like the Assassin to the Rogue, the idea behind Beserkers is that, since this is their specialty, they get even more damage from Rages in the form of an extra attack using their bonus action.

The problem is that it doesn't scale. With the exhaustion penalty you could only use Frenzy once or twice before you became severely hampered in and out of combat (RAW, if you use Frenzy with each of the six rages you get at level 17, you will die). So most of the time you are just normally raging and get absolutely no bonus damage. Actually it's worse than that. Since the Totem Warrior gets abilities that automatically activate when you Rage, their Rages usually end up with more bells and whistles than the person who chose to invest in a Rage-based subclass.

Like I said in the post, bonus dice seemed like the easiest way to implement this, since we have similar features in other classes to judge it against. That and it frees up your bonus action to use on other fun stuff.



Thank you?

I actually think the Beserker Barbarian should be among the top damage dealers and tanks in the game. The question is: does it work too well? Is there any reason to still go with Totem Warrior if this is an option.

You say that this stacks way to well with Reckless Attack. Could you elaborate on that please? I tried to keep it balanced, and I'd really like to know what you think makes it overpowered.

As for the "three extra features", like I said, I tried to make them less "new features" and more "powered up versions of what Rage already gives", sort of like how Moon Druid ups the CR of creatures you can turn into.

Strength checks in combat, outside of saving throws, are mostly used for shoving and grappling, so I made it easier to do those.
Dice to boost the bonus damage
The temporary HP as a boost to resistance is one that I'm not so confident about. I thought about giving more resistances, but then it devalues the Bear Totem. Really open to suggestions on this one.


The "short rest for one rage" was just to give the Beserker a way to keep access to it's most prized feature. It's very useful early on, but as you get more and more Rages it gradually gets less and less needed, before becoming completely superfluous at level 20 with unlimited rages.




Very good point. I tried to make it so that Paladins and Rogues do more damage with single attacks, while Frenzy dice add more consistent damage over the Rage.

I now realize my math was off. At level 11, with two weapon fighting, A Frenzy Barbarian will be doing 6d6+3 damage, as opposed to the 4d8 done by a Paladin's Smite at full blast. This is way too much damage; the Paladin should be getting more for spending a resource.

I've changed the dice. It is now a single d4 at level 3, becoming 2d4 at level five (thanks to extra attack) and finally 2d6 at level 11. Even with twin axes, the most the Barbarian will be doing is 3d6 +3 extra damage.

1. Yes, I am well aware that exhaustion sucks and made points about that before, but consider you are almost adding another rage set on top of your regular for no extra cost.
2. Using your original numbers the Half-Orc Berserker with a +1 Greataxe is dealing 1d12+2d6+10 per swing without GWM. On a critical this becomes 6d12+4d6+10. A Half-Orc paladin's critical at base is a 3d12+2d8(this is questionable because it is radiant damage and it isn't suppose to stack)+6. In other words a paladin always needs a 3rd level slot to be competitive. Sneak Attack can be denied with many different features, even the broken Swashbuckler can be denied with some rather simple moves or precautions.
3. Just keep the damage how you changed but as I said you are adding all of that for no cost. Also consider while the original's first feature is very problematic as a whole the sub-class has a fuller picture of what this character is. Yours on the other hand is adding a lot of features at a couple of points but has less of picture either because of overlap or something is not worth using.

nolas85
2016-07-26, 05:46 PM
Grapple/Shove: I would make this for free once per turn as part of an attack and remove the bonus action so it works with all fighting options. Many monsters have their grapple as part of their attack so allowing this once per turn should be ok.

I would argue that a free grapple/shove is not really balanced for a PC. I understand that some creatures have that built into them but that's part of what gives them the challenge rating that they have. When you think about what a PC can do with a free shove every round things become insane. For example, I'm a zerker who rages thus giving me advantage on Str checks. I start with a free shove and likely succeed because I'm a zerker and max my str along with likely proficiency in athletics. This gives the rest of my attacks advantage vs that creature negating the need to use reckless attack. But wait, it also gives every other melee character advantage as well until that creature acts and gets up. I think that absolutely free attack actions (of which grapple and shove are) is a bad idea personally.

Kryx
2016-07-26, 06:14 PM
Reckless already gives advantage on attacks. Shove would just be for others.
The problem with a bonus action benefit to a feature is it makes it no longer an option for twf or Pam. GWM less so.

But the math for the idea provided here doesn't check out anyways as twf is helped too much by increasing rage damage.

TripleD
2016-07-27, 12:45 AM
First off: thanks to everyone for your replies and suggestions!



Frenzy
Damage: I would simply double the rage damage for Frenzy. It's simpler, similar to what you have now, and doesn't have any of the weird interaction with crits or a non-RAI usage of GWF. it scales from +2 to +4 which is within the 1d4 to 1d6 range you have currently. I would change the scale to be 11 to match every other scale in the game though. I can run this through some DPR numbers later.


I like that idea a lot. It simplifies things considerably while keeping the bonus more or less the same. However:



I examined the DPR and it's not so great imo. TWF scales too crazy compared to GWM


I've gone over your numbers and what they seem to be saying is (please correct if wrong):

When using TWF the Beserker will normally do 51 DPR. This increases to 76 with my houserule.
With normal rules, a Barbarian using GWF will do 43 DPR. My homebrew deals 63


In the first case it represents 149% increase in damage. For the latter, 146%. They seem to be scaling almost identically. Is there something I missed?

If it really is too much, what about bonus-and-a-half? Caps out at +6 damage (+18 over three attacks) at level 16.



Grapple/Shove: I would make this for free once per turn as part of an attack and remove the bonus action so it works with all fighting options. Many monsters have their grapple as part of their attack so allowing this once per turn should be ok.


I've got to go with Nola on this one. Giving it as a free action is okay for monsters, but I think it's a bit too much for a PC. It's a combat option; players have to weigh the choice. Do I use my rage to knock this guy over, leave him for my friends to mop up, and go wail on that guy over there, or do I just tear into this guy with three attacks (via TWF)?

Also, I feel that by making the Shove a free action, I'm giving them an ability just as good, if not better, than the Wolf Totem capstone. I feel like "Awesome tripping" should be the Wolf's thing, while the Beserker sticks to "Pretty Good" tripping and shoving.



Temp HP: Barbarian level x2 = 40 hp. With 6 rages that's 240 hp. That's insane. I'd make it constitution + proficiency or something similar.


You know what, let's kill two birds with one stone. I removed "Mindless Rage" later on since it was taking up space I needed for "Fervor over Flesh". I was also unsure about whether Temp HP really worked as an "extension" to the resistances Rage granted.

How about adding resistance to Charming and Frightening as the extension of resistance? It fits the flavor of the class, and it is way easier to balance than temporary HP (which leads to Onion Druid level shenanigans at level 20 with unlimited Rage).



I saw a suggestion elsewhere that all attacks while frenzying are reckless attacks. I think that's great flavor and balanced.


I agree it's flavorful, but it doesn't add anything new. RAW and rules in home brew allow you to reckless attack every turn anyway. If you want to reckless attack every turn you can, but I feel like there should be other choices too.



Tough Customer
I much prefer the mindless rage ability. Frenzying Barbarians have a reputation for being able to throw off mental effects and that should remain imo.


That was a tough one to let go. Luckily, thanks to your criticism, I found a way to work it back in, albeit in a slightly less powerful form.

I eventually went with Tough Customer because, as is, Beserkers get nothing for out of combat (well actually, Intimidating Presence can be used out of combat, but the mechanics rely on turns which makes it a bit awkward). Even Champion Fighters get "Remarkable Athlete". I decided to go with this because:

The Totem Warrior gets an out-of-combat ribbon ability at level 6
The image of a savage fighter cowing others into submission with a snarl is also fairly iconic
After getting rid of Intimidating Presence, I wanted to have some sort of "frighten" ability still be part of the class



Fervor over Flesh
Intimidating Presence is the barbarian's only way to deal with groups. Replacing that with a pseudo Freedom of Movement isn't a great trade imo.


I'm a bit confused, how does Intimidating Presence help with groups? The text clearly says it only works on one creature at a time, and it takes your action to maintain it.

One of my early drafts was a "War Cry" that could frighten multiple enemies. But I went against it because:

Lots of enemies are immune to fear
Frightened doesn't strike me as a useful condition for a tank. You want the enemies to get closer to you. The disadvantage on attack rolls is nice, but I'd rather have them rushing in to within smashing distance.


I'd rather replace it with an ability that lets you use your rage to power through anything holding you back. The "Beserker as unstoppable steam train" is also a fun archetype. Not to mention this gives you the ability to use one of your powers to break out of paralysis or stunning to still act on your turn. I don't think any other ability in the game lets you do that.



Retaliation
Expanding this to all ranges greatly increase an already very powerful ability. Imo it should be "when you take damage from a creature that is within your reach"


Wouldn't limiting it to just thrown weapons, as I did, mitigate some of that? Most thrown weapons are at a disadvantage beyond 20 or 30 feet, and Reckless Attack can't be used with a reaction. Not to mention: you need to throw your weapon away to make a ranged attack. If you have two magic handaxes, but only a mundane one or two in reserve, that may not be worth it.



Also consider while the original's first feature is very problematic as a whole the sub-class has a fuller picture of what this character is. Yours on the other hand is adding a lot of features at a couple of points but has less of picture either because of overlap or something is not worth using.


I kind of devoted an entire one sentence paragraph in my first post to saying what the idea behind this re-write is:



The point of this rewrite is to make the Beserker feel like a fountain of rage, while still having interesting things to do outside of combat.


Every feature I have added, with the exception of the capstone, either enhances Rage or uses Rage to power new abilities. Like I said, I based it off the idea of the Moon Druid's taking a feature of the base class and centering the subclass around it. I have to ask: what would you say is the full picture of the Beserker as written in the Players Guide?

Also, what is "overlapping" and "not worth using" in my re-write? I really do want to improve this. Any input you could give on what you feel is lackluster would be greatly appreciated.



1. Yes, I am well aware that exhaustion sucks and made points about that before, but consider you are almost adding another rage set on top of your regular for no extra cost.


There is a cost. The cost is "you don't get to be a Totem Barbarian". The enhanced Rage is what you get for choosing to be a Beserker.

I deliberately tried to make it so that three slight improvements to features Rage already grants you (I now realize the the original temporary HP granted went beyond "slight improvement" and am correcting it) would be more or less equal to the completely new Rage feature granted by Totem Warrior at level 3.



2. Using your original numbers the Half-Orc Berserker with a +1 Greataxe is dealing 1d12+2d6+10 per swing without GWM. On a critical this becomes 6d12+4d6+10. A Half-Orc paladin's critical at base is a 3d12+2d8(this is questionable because it is radiant damage and it isn't suppose to stack)+6. In other words a paladin always needs a 3rd level slot to be competitive. Sneak Attack can be denied with many different features, even the broken Swashbuckler can be denied with some rather simple moves or precautions.


I agree, the original math was way off. I've adjusted it to be lower. Although I would argue that, when analyzing the Rogue class, it's safe to assume that a smart player will be able to pull of a Sneak Attack at least every other round or so.

Amnoriath
2016-07-27, 01:10 AM
I kind of devoted an entire one sentence paragraph in my first post to saying what the idea behind this re-write is:



Every feature I have added, with the exception of the capstone, either enhances Rage or uses Rage to power new abilities. Like I said, I based it off the idea of the Moon Druid's taking a feature of the base class and centering the subclass around it. I have to ask: what would you say is the full picture of the Beserker as written in the Players Guide?

Also, what is "overlapping" and "not worth using" in my re-write? I really do want to improve this. Any input you could give on what you feel is lackluster would be greatly appreciated.



There is a cost. The cost is "you don't get to be a Totem Barbarian". The enhanced Rage is what you get for choosing to be a Beserker.

I deliberately tried to make it so that three slight improvements to features Rage already grants you (I now realize the the original temporary HP granted went beyond "slight improvement" and am correcting it) would be more or less equal to the completely new Rage feature granted by Totem Warrior at level 3.
1. Except all Barbarian sub-classes modify rage. Focusing on rage the mechanic is what makes this fall flat in the first place rather than take into consideration how does Beserker's rage and character is different from a Totem Warrior's.
2. What you have is something that adds lots of things that conceptually are similar but do stack. The original is better at making a fuller character because each one of those things represent a concise theme both in how it changes the character and how each ability represents certain levels of interaction in the game. Tough Customer isn't worth blowing a rage use especially consider how high-powered you made it for this version.
3. That isn't a cost because not only is it suppose to be a different strategy for a different character but you adding 4 things right in on level 3 and adding 3 more at level 10 only goes to show that you are giving them buffs that mixes between multiple totems while adding damage as well as some freedom of movement. A cost is either a resource or a penalty you accept.

TripleD
2016-07-27, 08:31 PM
1. Except all Barbarian sub-classes modify rage. Focusing on rage the mechanic is what makes this fall flat in the first place rather than take into consideration how does Beserker's rage and character is different from a Totem Warrior's.


If each sub-class has modifies rage, how does focusing on rage make it fall flat? The original Beserker had 2 abilities that relied on the rage mechanic, same as the Totem Warrior. Mine has 4.

The Beserker, as a character, is one that uses anger and violence to power their abilities. I can't think of a more direct way to define them. RAW they channel their anger into extra attacks and a mindless beserkergang which lets them shake off mental and physical hardship that would drop a normal person. I tried to keep the spirit of that, while channeling their rage into ways that could be used outside of battle (weirdly enough this is also in line with the old stories; "berserkergang" like "kung fu" could be used to describe the mental state you achieved during hard work)

The Totem Warrior, on the other hand, communes with nature to get caster-like abilities. They channel their rage into things that are flat out impossible for mundane characters to do.



2. What you have is something that adds lots of things that conceptually are similar but do stack.


Isn't that what they should do? If they don't stack with the original then they aren't really a extension, just new abilities.



The original is better at making a fuller character because each one of those things represent a concise theme both in how it changes the character and how each ability represents certain levels of interaction in the game.


I hate to sound like an English teacher, but you need to include some concrete sentences or your advice is useless to me. This is the second post in which you have stated that the Beserker as is represents a theme and has abilities that support that theme. But in neither case have you actually stated what that theme is or how these abilities enhance that theme. I don't know how to respond to your posts because I don't know what your argument is.

I've gone into detail about how I feel each of the new abilities allows the Beserker to interact with the game world, balance against it's fellow subclass, and come together into a greater whole. If you feel that the original parts sum to a greater whole please tell me, because I just don't see it when I read the class as is.



Tough Customer isn't worth blowing a rage use especially consider how high-powered you made it for this version.


It's a ribbon ability. You get it at the same level Bear Totem gets to increase it's carrying capacity, or the Eagle can see things far away.

The idea is that it gives you something to use your Rage on when you are stuck in town, 100 miles away from the nearest dungeon. As of now none of the abilities, with the exception of Intimidating Presence (and even then I find it kind of nebulous) help you in a social situation. This lets you act as backup for those times when your Bard or Sorcerer roll a 1 on their Persuasion check.



3. That isn't a cost because not only is it suppose to be a different strategy for a different character but you adding 4 things right in on level 3 and adding 3 more at level 10 only goes to show that you are giving them buffs that mixes between multiple totems while adding damage as well as some freedom of movement. A cost is either a resource or a penalty you accept.

I want to address the bold part first before going into the rest.

You don't get three things at level 10. You get a slightly-watered down version of Freedom of Movement (3rd level spell) at the same level Totem Barbarians get to cast Commune with Nature (5th level spell). Freedom of Movement just happens to have three bullet points explaining it's effects.

With that out of the way, I agree with your definition that a cost is a resource or penalty that you accept. In this case the resource is the Rages you are given. You have to guess whether you should use the Rage for a class based ability, save them for later, or blow through them quickly and gamble on getting a Short Rest to restore one for later.

I also stand by my assertion earlier that not getting other Class Features does represent a cost. It's a long term as opposed to short term, but it is still a cost-benefit analysis that the player must make. The Bear Totem Barbarian has no downside to gaining resistance to all forms of damage against psychic. The only penalty is that it cannot have any of the other options available to it. I have to ask you point blank: do you think the three small gains granted by my Frenzy re-write sum to be more useful than any one big gain of a 3rd Level Totem? Because if not, I can't see how there is a problem with what it grants.



giving them buffs that mixes between multiple totems


Which totems do you think I am mixing with? I honestly want to know, because one of the goals of this re-write was to give abilities distinct from the Totem Warrior. The only one I can see is that the "Shove on Bonus Action" is similar to the Wolf Totem's capstone, but I deliberately made it weaker (roll vs. auto-success) so that it wouldn't eclipse it.

Amnoriath
2016-07-28, 11:21 AM
If each sub-class has modifies rage, how does focusing on rage make it fall flat? The original Beserker had 2 abilities that relied on the rage mechanic, same as the Totem Warrior. Mine has 4.

The Beserker, as a character, is one that uses anger and violence to power their abilities. I can't think of a more direct way to define them. RAW they channel their anger into extra attacks and a mindless beserkergang which lets them shake off mental and physical hardship that would drop a normal person. I tried to keep the spirit of that, while channeling their rage into ways that could be used outside of battle (weirdly enough this is also in line with the old stories; "berserkergang" like "kung fu" could be used to describe the mental state you achieved during hard work)

The Totem Warrior, on the other hand, communes with nature to get caster-like abilities. They channel their rage into things that are flat out impossible for mundane characters to do.



Isn't that what they should do? If they don't stack with the original then they aren't really a extension, just new abilities.



I hate to sound like an English teacher, but you need to include some concrete sentences or your advice is useless to me. This is the second post in which you have stated that the Beserker as is represents a theme and has abilities that support that theme. But in neither case have you actually stated what that theme is or how these abilities enhance that theme. I don't know how to respond to your posts because I don't know what your argument is.

I've gone into detail about how I feel each of the new abilities allows the Beserker to interact with the game world, balance against it's fellow subclass, and come together into a greater whole. If you feel that the original parts sum to a greater whole please tell me, because I just don't see it when I read the class as is.



It's a ribbon ability. You get it at the same level Bear Totem gets to increase it's carrying capacity, or the Eagle can see things far away.

The idea is that it gives you something to use your Rage on when you are stuck in town, 100 miles away from the nearest dungeon. As of now none of the abilities, with the exception of Intimidating Presence (and even then I find it kind of nebulous) help you in a social situation. This lets you act as backup for those times when your Bard or Sorcerer roll a 1 on their Persuasion check.



I want to address the bold part first before going into the rest.

You don't get three things at level 10. You get a slightly-watered down version of Freedom of Movement (3rd level spell) at the same level Totem Barbarians get to cast Commune with Nature (5th level spell). Freedom of Movement just happens to have three bullet points explaining it's effects.

With that out of the way, I agree with your definition that a cost is a resource or penalty that you accept. In this case the resource is the Rages you are given. You have to guess whether you should use the Rage for a class based ability, save them for later, or blow through them quickly and gamble on getting a Short Rest to restore one for later.

I also stand by my assertion earlier that not getting other Class Features does represent a cost. It's a long term as opposed to short term, but it is still a cost-benefit analysis that the player must make. The Bear Totem Barbarian has no downside to gaining resistance to all forms of damage against psychic. The only penalty is that it cannot have any of the other options available to it. I have to ask you point blank: do you think the three small gains granted by my Frenzy re-write sum to be more useful than any one big gain of a 3rd Level Totem? Because if not, I can't see how there is a problem with what it grants.



Which totems do you think I am mixing with? I honestly want to know, because one of the goals of this re-write was to give abilities distinct from the Totem Warrior. The only one I can see is that the "Shove on Bonus Action" is similar to the Wolf Totem's capstone, but I deliberately made it weaker (roll vs. auto-success) so that it wouldn't eclipse it.
1. Because with this laundry list treatment of enhancing rage and just that it feels like you just want to make rage better. Rage isn't just getting angry, anger is something you RP rage is a certain state of mind or vigor that puts your body into overdrive. As such focusing on rage doesn't necessarily make a character an angry one. The original though touched on different ways someone who would be angry or give into such abandon would change as they gained power.
2. Tough Customer is definitively worse than half of the Expertise feature. Wasting a resource on something you enhance greatly for this when a Bard, Rogue, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Warlock can do it better by wasting nothing is often what defines bad features. At least the original gave one that mechanically did something different that could work in tandem with the others while wasting no resource.
3. Freedom of Movement is a 4th level spell which costs no extra action for you and is actually better than the spell considering this is all wrapped up in rage for battle. You added immunity to the stunned condition to replace its utility which rage helps compensate already. Conversely what the Totem warrior gets is a 5th level ritual which means they need to spend 11 minutes to cast the spell.
4. By that logic than it is cost for being and sticking with a Barbarian in the first place rather than being a Wizard in which then everyone needs to be a different Wizard. Yes, Bear rage is good, but all it does is bring what rage does to most types of damage. Conversely yours increases damage, action economy, shores up key weaknesses, and then it has a better version of freedom movement. Before it was worse, but you still have the same mind set which is the overall problem in this fix.
5. That and you had the speed increase along the freedom of movement rider overlaps about half of what the eagle totem does. Originally with the temporary hit points you incorporated. Please make updates to your changes it is annoying when I had valid points before only for you to change them and act like you don't know what I am talking about.

TripleD
2016-08-01, 01:13 AM
Apologies for lateness. Relatives in town and had no time to work on reply for the last few days.


1. Because with this laundry list treatment of enhancing rage and just that it feels like you just want to make rage better. Rage isn't just getting angry, anger is something you RP rage is a certain state of mind or vigor that puts your body into overdrive. As such focusing on rage doesn't necessarily make a character an angry one.


I do want to make Rage better. I have stated multiple times that this is the point of this rewrite: to improve the benefits of Rage and give ways to use it outside of combat.

As for the part about Rage, that's exactly what I said in my last post. The "beserkergang" is for more than just smashing people. That's why I tried to expand it into new areas, such as intimidating people ("Tough Customer") or allowing you to power through physical restraints ("Fervor over Flesh").

Rage is anger. Not just anger, but that inner fury is the bedrock. That's not even my idea. From the Player's Handbook:

These barbarians, different as they might be, are defined by their rage: unbridled, unquenchable, and unthinking fury [...] For every barbarian, rage is a power that fuels not just a battle frenzy but also uncanny reflexes, resilience, and feats of strength.
Rage is a mechanical expression of the PC's anger. I want to give them new ways to use it.



The original though touched on different ways someone who would be angry or give into such abandon would change as they gained power.


I'm not going to apologize for sounding like a broken record, but HOW? Your statement tells me nothing concrete. There are four abilities granted by Beserker as written:

Frenzy
Mindless Rage
Intimidating Presence
Retaliation

How do these touch on the way someone would change as they gained power?

Frenzy and Mindless Rage are only active during a Rage, and Retaliation is purely combat related. Frenzy was about giving more attacks, which I've expressed by allowing Two-Weapon Fighting and granting more bonus damage. I folded the old Mindless Attack into Frenzy (albeit in a slightly weaker form). Retaliation was actually beefed up in my re-write to allow you to whip weapons at enemies.

The only ability that truly sticks out as offering something different is Intimidating Presence, but I'll talk about that in #2.



2. Tough Customer is definitively worse than half of the Expertise feature. Wasting a resource on something you enhance greatly for this when a Bard, Rogue, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Warlock can do it better by wasting nothing is often what defines bad features. At least the original gave one that mechanically did something different that could work in tandem with the others while wasting no resource.


You're not wasting a resource. You are spending a resource to get a benefit, in this case a chance to boost your Intimidation to a level where it might actually be useful. I don't think it should boost social skills to be stronger than the those who invested a ton of time and class options into it. I think of it as more like Mage Armor vs. Plate Armor; Mage Armor will not grant you as high an AC as Plate Armor, and it costs you a spell slot, but it gives you numbers in the ballpark as a Fighter who dropped 1500gp on his metal pajamas.

For this homebrew, compare a Bard and Barbarian who have both taken Intimidation. The Bard has Expertise, and the Barbarian is using Tough Customer.


Level
Barbarian
Bard


6
+8
+11


10
+9
+13


15
+10
+15


20
+13
+17


The gap definitely gets wider as level progress, but never becomes so large as to be completely useless. Like I said, it's a ribbon ability for times when you're stuck in town or a social setting and your Rages are otherwise just going to sit unused.

Intimidating Presence gives you a different effect, but I couldn't get over the high cost (action to maintain!), easy of break-ability (run more than 60 feet away) and limited focus (one enemy). I thought maybe that I was missing something, so I posted it as an open question to the 5e forum:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?495852-What-is-Intimidating-Presence-used-for

The answers pretty much confirmed what I already had suspected: as written the ability is useless outside of some niche scenarios unless you tweak it. It has unlimited uses, but if no one ever actually uses it, and the effect is underwhelming, what's the point?

Your post did get me thinking though. The ability to impose the frightened condition with no "roll every turn to save" is nice. I'm going to keep Tough Customer as a social skill but work "Frightened" back in as an effect.



3. Freedom of Movement is a 4th level spell which costs no extra action for you and is actually better than the spell considering this is all wrapped up in rage for battle. You added immunity to the stunned condition to replace its utility which rage helps compensate already. Conversely what the Totem warrior gets is a 5th level ritual which means they need to spend 11 minutes to cast the spell.


Thanks for the catch on Freedom of Movement; for some reason I had that written down as 3rd level.

Technically it costs you a Bonus Action, since you need a Bonus Action to enter Rage and you lose your action for that turn if activating while Paralyzed or Stunned. Which leads to my next question: how does wrapping it in Rage make it better than the spell? You can already get someone to cast Freedom of Movement on you before battle, and that version lasts for an hour unconditionally.

I didn't add immunity to Stun to compensate for the removal of the ability to automatically escape bonds. I admit I didn't explain that well in the Explanation section. The idea was to allow you to plow through effects that would normally Incapacitate you (I drew the line at Petrification though). It's in the name. Your "Fervor" lets you overpower the "Flesh" of your body, fury powering your body to keep taking steps even though a paralyzing venom is coursing through your veins.

Tthe Totem Warrior gets a ritual, and the ritual takes 11 minutes. But they could theoretically cast it an unlimited number of times a day and use it to scout each encounter. Conversely, if you assume a normal working day as defined in the DMG, at level 10 you are going to max out at 5 or so uses of Freedom of Movement, none of which last for more than a minute (as opposed to the hour the normal spell lasts).



4. By that logic than it is cost for being and sticking with a Barbarian in the first place rather than being a Wizard in which then everyone needs to be a different Wizard. Yes, Bear rage is good, but all it does is bring what rage does to most types of damage. Conversely yours increases damage, action economy, shores up key weaknesses, and then it has a better version of freedom movement.

"everyone needs to be a different Wizard" doesn't follow the logic at all. What follows is "by choosing not to be a Wizard, I should get something that is just as fun, but still powerful yet relevant in a different way". You weigh the costs and benefits of each class when you choose them. Same for subclasses. You shouldn't get abilities that achieve exactly the same effects, but you should get something that doesn't make you feel like you are getting shortchanged.

It feels unfair to compare what Bear Rage gives you at level 3 to what my homebrew gives you across the entire subclass. At level three the comparison is:



Beserker
Bear Totem





1.5x bonus damage (works out to 1-3) per attack


Advantage on rolls to resist being charmed or frightened


Shove or grapple as bonus action.



Resistance to any type of damage except psychic.



One rage per short rest if you have no rages left


Cast Beast Sense and Speak With Animals as rituals




The amount of abilities is not as important as what they give you. That's they idea behind Feats: many small abilities can be the equivalent of one big one. Point blank: do you think the two columns are grossly unbalanced and, if so, what would you recommend I remove or alter from the left hand side to balance them?



Before it was worse, but you still have the same mind set which is the overall problem in this fix.


I'm confused. I got the impression from your last post that I was missing the overarching idea of the Beserker, but here you are saying that the problem is that I am staying too close to the original class? Unless by "same mind set" you mean the original way that I wrote the homebrew?



5. That and you had the speed increase along the freedom of movement rider overlaps about half of what the eagle totem does. Originally with the temporary hit points you incorporated.

What speed increase? Freedom over movement (and by extension, Fervor Over Flesh) just lets you ignore some penalties. As for the Eagle Totem, what you get is:

Dash as bonus action
Disadvantage from opportunity attacks
Sight up to one mile
Dim light doesn't impose disadvantage on Perception checks
Fly speed while raging

Maybe you could make an argument for Fervor Over Flesh overlapping with Dash as bonus action, since doubling your speed through difficult terrain is mathematically equivalent to ignoring the penalty, but Dash also has lots of utility outside of difficult terrain and is actively activated, rather than Fervor Over Flesh whose bonus is situational. As for the rest, I'm sorry, but I don't see any overlap with what Fervor over Flesh grants.



Please make updates to your changes it is annoying when I had valid points before only for you to change them and act like you don't know what I am talking about

I am updating my original post. I update after every suggestion that I find to be valid. For example, after this post I am going to add "Frightened" as an option to Tough Customer, and expand on the explanation of Fervor Over Flesh.

I'm not "acting" anything. I legitimately don't know what you are referring to a lot of the time. The biggest problem is that you quote each post as a single large blob and then post numbered responses at the bottom. This would be okay, except I don't assign numbers to my points, so it's not always clear what part of the original post you are responding to. It would be much easier to follow if you broke up the quote in the way that Kryx or myself does.

The other problem is that I find you write in a very vague way and often omit specific nouns that would make your point clearer. For example, instead of:



giving them buffs that mixes between multiple totems


it would be much more useful if you wrote



giving Fervor over Flesh a mobility-enhancement that overlaps with the bonus Dash granted by the Eagle Totem


Even if the Original Post does change, the second quote is still understandable.

Amnoriath
2016-08-02, 10:11 AM
Apologies for lateness. Relatives in town and had no time to work on reply for the last few days.



I do want to make Rage better. I have stated multiple times that this is the point of this rewrite: to improve the benefits of Rage and give ways to use it outside of combat.

As for the part about Rage, that's exactly what I said in my last post. The "beserkergang" is for more than just smashing people. That's why I tried to expand it into new areas, such as intimidating people ("Tough Customer") or allowing you to power through physical restraints ("Fervor over Flesh").

Rage is anger. Not just anger, but that inner fury is the bedrock. That's not even my idea. From the Player's Handbook:

Rage is a mechanical expression of the PC's anger. I want to give them new ways to use it.



I'm not going to apologize for sounding like a broken record, but HOW? Your statement tells me nothing concrete. There are four abilities granted by Beserker as written:

Frenzy
Mindless Rage
Intimidating Presence
Retaliation

How do these touch on the way someone would change as they gained power?

Frenzy and Mindless Rage are only active during a Rage, and Retaliation is purely combat related. Frenzy was about giving more attacks, which I've expressed by allowing Two-Weapon Fighting and granting more bonus damage. I folded the old Mindless Attack into Frenzy (albeit in a slightly weaker form). Retaliation was actually beefed up in my re-write to allow you to whip weapons at enemies.

The only ability that truly sticks out as offering something different is Intimidating Presence, but I'll talk about that in #2.



You're not wasting a resource. You are spending a resource to get a benefit, in this case a chance to boost your Intimidation to a level where it might actually be useful. I don't think it should boost social skills to be stronger than the those who invested a ton of time and class options into it. I think of it as more like Mage Armor vs. Plate Armor; Mage Armor will not grant you as high an AC as Plate Armor, and it costs you a spell slot, but it gives you numbers in the ballpark as a Fighter who dropped 1500gp on his metal pajamas.

For this homebrew, compare a Bard and Barbarian who have both taken Intimidation. The Bard has Expertise, and the Barbarian is using Tough Customer.


Level
Barbarian
Bard


6
+8
+11


10
+9
+13


15
+10
+15


20
+13
+17


The gap definitely gets wider as level progress, but never becomes so large as to be completely useless. Like I said, it's a ribbon ability for times when you're stuck in town or a social setting and your Rages are otherwise just going to sit unused.

Intimidating Presence gives you a different effect, but I couldn't get over the high cost (action to maintain!), easy of break-ability (run more than 60 feet away) and limited focus (one enemy). I thought maybe that I was missing something, so I posted it as an open question to the 5e forum:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?495852-What-is-Intimidating-Presence-used-for

The answers pretty much confirmed what I already had suspected: as written the ability is useless outside of some niche scenarios unless you tweak it. It has unlimited uses, but if no one ever actually uses it, and the effect is underwhelming, what's the point?

Your post did get me thinking though. The ability to impose the frightened condition with no "roll every turn to save" is nice. I'm going to keep Tough Customer as a social skill but work "Frightened" back in as an effect.



Thanks for the catch on Freedom of Movement; for some reason I had that written down as 3rd level.

Technically it costs you a Bonus Action, since you need a Bonus Action to enter Rage and you lose your action for that turn if activating while Paralyzed or Stunned. Which leads to my next question: how does wrapping it in Rage make it better than the spell? You can already get someone to cast Freedom of Movement on you before battle, and that version lasts for an hour unconditionally.

I didn't add immunity to Stun to compensate for the removal of the ability to automatically escape bonds. I admit I didn't explain that well in the Explanation section. The idea was to allow you to plow through effects that would normally Incapacitate you (I drew the line at Petrification though). It's in the name. Your "Fervor" lets you overpower the "Flesh" of your body, fury powering your body to keep taking steps even though a paralyzing venom is coursing through your veins.

Tthe Totem Warrior gets a ritual, and the ritual takes 11 minutes. But they could theoretically cast it an unlimited number of times a day and use it to scout each encounter. Conversely, if you assume a normal working day as defined in the DMG, at level 10 you are going to max out at 5 or so uses of Freedom of Movement, none of which last for more than a minute (as opposed to the hour the normal spell lasts).



"everyone needs to be a different Wizard" doesn't follow the logic at all. What follows is "by choosing not to be a Wizard, I should get something that is just as fun, but still powerful yet relevant in a different way". You weigh the costs and benefits of each class when you choose them. Same for subclasses. You shouldn't get abilities that achieve exactly the same effects, but you should get something that doesn't make you feel like you are getting shortchanged.

It feels unfair to compare what Bear Rage gives you at level 3 to what my homebrew gives you across the entire subclass. At level three the comparison is:



Beserker
Bear Totem





1.5x bonus damage (works out to 1-3) per attack


Advantage on rolls to resist being charmed or frightened


Shove or grapple as bonus action.



Resistance to any type of damage except psychic.



One rage per short rest if you have no rages left


Cast Beast Sense and Speak With Animals as rituals




The amount of abilities is not as important as what they give you. That's they idea behind Feats: many small abilities can be the equivalent of one big one. Point blank: do you think the two columns are grossly unbalanced and, if so, what would you recommend I remove or alter from the left hand side to balance them?



I'm confused. I got the impression from your last post that I was missing the overarching idea of the Beserker, but here you are saying that the problem is that I am staying too close to the original class? Unless by "same mind set" you mean the original way that I wrote the homebrew?



What speed increase? Freedom over movement (and by extension, Fervor Over Flesh) just lets you ignore some penalties. As for the Eagle Totem, what you get is:

Dash as bonus action
Disadvantage from opportunity attacks
Sight up to one mile
Dim light doesn't impose disadvantage on Perception checks
Fly speed while raging

Maybe you could make an argument for Fervor Over Flesh overlapping with Dash as bonus action, since doubling your speed through difficult terrain is mathematically equivalent to ignoring the penalty, but Dash also has lots of utility outside of difficult terrain and is actively activated, rather than Fervor Over Flesh whose bonus is situational. As for the rest, I'm sorry, but I don't see any overlap with what Fervor over Flesh grants.



I am updating my original post. I update after every suggestion that I find to be valid. For example, after this post I am going to add "Frightened" as an option to Tough Customer, and expand on the explanation of Fervor Over Flesh.

I'm not "acting" anything. I legitimately don't know what you are referring to a lot of the time. The biggest problem is that you quote each post as a single large blob and then post numbered responses at the bottom. This would be okay, except I don't assign numbers to my points, so it's not always clear what part of the original post you are responding to. It would be much easier to follow if you broke up the quote in the way that Kryx or myself does.

The other problem is that I find you write in a very vague way and often omit specific nouns that would make your point clearer. For example, instead of:



it would be much more useful if you wrote



Even if the Original Post does change, the second quote is still understandable.

1. No it isn't necessarily, "In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action," while anger is the go to explanation this does Tarzan always go into anger? No he does not. You need to consider my other statement supporting that in which you left out " anger is something you RP,". As such you can have angry fighters, paladins, rogues..etc there is something more than just anger going on.
2. But focusing on rage exclusively with while trying to balance multiple bullet points of abilities is what is making it lack precision and not pay attention to any changes in the character as a whole.
3. Each one of those abilities represent a specific change, and having two that don't rely on rage shows the change in the character fundamentally not just that it is modifying rage.

Frenzy shows increased fervor and action in dire situations.
Mindless Rage shows the how your anger can conquer those who wish to control you.
Intimidating Presence shows how your anger has changed you into a specifically frightful person.
Retaliation shows how you have used vengeance to tap into your actions better.


4. But it is useless because many others can do it better always with no caveats. The usual idea of a ribbon is giving a benefit that lifts away normal restrictions or allows non-mechanical avenues in certain situations. What you have is a momentary select bonus that is worse than expertise using your most prized resource.
5. I said, "costs no extra action" and rage already gives you advantage on such checks or saves. The fact is you dumped the least important benefit of the spell for a raging Barbarian and replaced it with a great immunity. This isn't a reasonable trade.
6. Not necessarily, what percentage of encounters have you had where you had 11 minutes to prepare for? Not to mention it doesn't work in urban environments and is very limited in underground environments.
7. Again you are just saying I want a different Wizard, a wizard that is brawny and can smash things readily while being ready for battle more so than being versatile. I am not saying the choice shouldn't offer a different reward the problem is that you are going about this in that I should fork up a laundry list of mechanical benefits for battle. Arguably the 3rd level totem is almost a bit too good but at the very least they balanced it out with interaction based abilities, yours doesn't.
8. But sub-class abilities aren't fashioned off of feats, feats come at a cost of a +2 to ability scores. Also feats often have clear titles and keep with the idea, not just well I like this idea and it could work with what I have in mind. You have had to renegotiate them a few times over. As such using it as a basis in constructing the majority of your class isn't balanced to how other sub-classes were constructed.
9. But you did have more overlap(you originally had a 10 foot speed increase) and still do in mobility while canceling most abilities to shut you down.
10. Your OP has no such updates, nor do you make a post signaling them. Not everyone has the time to sift through all your discussions. While I know you have made them the point being is you are using a feat model for the majority of your class.