Heavy Armor Half-Orc Battlerager, would you allow it?

[PartyChef]

I am a DM for a bunch of fairly new players and they wanted to step up to a more challenging premade so we are running Storm Kings Thunder.

I am pretty lose with allowing UA and as a group we agreed on some house rules but tend not to allow homebrew, or dmguilde.

So, personally I was a little disappointed with the Battlerager archetype for barbarian from SCAG (although not to the extent of many commenters I have read, que the off topic arguement).

When I played it in a different camp my DM let me up the damage from 3 by treating it as a melee 1d6 weapon attack and gave me temp hit points equal to my Con modifier plus an amount equal to my rage damage bonus.

So when my player asked if I would allow him to play the Battlerager as an orc and have heavy spiked armor I thought that was a great idea. His plan is to get heavy armor mastery and become unkillable.

Thus, the question I pose to the forum: is this terribly unbalanced and what cheese might we unintentionally open ourselves to?

Keep in mind I am allowing the revised deep stalker ranger/assassin although the adventure is pretty good about limiting surprise so I don't see it getting to far out of hand.

[djreynolds]

I am a DM for a bunch of fairly new players and they wanted to step up to a more challenging premade so we are running Storm Kings Thunder.

I am pretty lose with allowing UA and as a group we agreed on some house rules but tend not to allow homebrew, or dmguilde.

So, personally I was a little disappointed with the Battlerager archetype for barbarian from SCAG (although not to the extent of many commenters I have read, que the off topic arguement).

When I played it in a different camp my DM let me up the damage from 3 by treating it as a melee 1d6 weapon attack and gave me temp hit points equal to my Con modifier plus an amount equal to my rage damage bonus.

So when my player asked if I would allow him to play the Battlerager as an orc and have heavy spiked armor I thought that was a great idea. His plan is to get heavy armor mastery and become unkillable.

Thus, the question I pose to the forum: is this terribly unbalanced and what cheese might we unintentionally open ourselves to?

Keep in mind I am allowing the revised deep stalker ranger/assassin although the adventure is pretty good about limiting surprise so I don't see it getting to far out of hand.

Well that's the issue, raging and getting the bonus from heavy armor master... so no.

Or just tell him while raging the bonuses from HAM and rage do not stack

[Lollerabe]

That very much depends on how you houserule it, if you allow all barb abilities to work while in heavy armor then it's a pretty big buff with almost 0 downside. If you stick to raw regarding heavy armor and barbs, then he is nerfing himself.

[Mandragola]

No. it's too good. Barbarians are balanced around requiring constitution and dexterity. Now he can dump Dec with no penalty. He ends up with a better AC (throughout the duration of the adventure at least) and probably better other stats too. Rage and damage resistance is too good too.

The barbarian class is already fine. It doesn't need the very substatial buff that this would provide.

Further, all the reasons for this change appear to be mechanical rather than RP. But actually battleragers are fine, half-orc barbarians are great, and you're already handwaving through a half-orc battlerager. That's enough.

[SillyPopeNachos]

Seems fine. Barbarians can be challenged by targeting mental saves, and considering their lack in the social and exploration segments of d&d, upping their combat prowess slightly is hardly a big deal. Also, bear in mind that while stacking heavy armor master with rage means they take very little damage, it's only while they rage, and that's a limited resource. Even further limiting to barbarians is the fact they aren't very good at range.

[PartyChef]

The AC is irrelevant. We are going against giants who hit everything anyways and as the meat shield he wants to get hit. I don't think we will get to level 14 but we do intend to play past 10 going after each giant so he may get The damage on being hit ability.

The ability to dump Dex may be a problem. But by wanting to get hit he would dump it as a dwarf Battlerager anyways.

My houserule ups the temp hp for a battlerager (which he would lose to take this houserule) so I am not sure the 3 DR per hit from heavy armor is that much of an overpowering boon since it does take a feat. I mean it's better since its per hit but it also takes a feat.

Plus with the number of dragonsand spellcasters we will be fighting I think he would be more damage resistant as a bear totem.

That's my counter to the critiques. Anybody have a riposte?

[Shogon]

Bro, you've clearly already made up your mind on this issue. Asking others to critique your reasoning not only once, but twice is a bit much. Any DM who cares about the balance of the game played under RAW would give you the exact advice which has already been given. But your the DM of your world, maybe in your world all wizards can concentrate on two spells and druids can wildshape into hydras. Its your game. Do what is best for your game.

[Zagzax]

So yes, it will be imbalanced. How much so depends on a few decisions. Lets talk about what he gains

First the option to dump DEX. If he's an optimizer and takes an 8 where he would have had a 14 then that's a huge amount of points he gets to throw into other stats. Probably WIS. If he's more of an RPer and uses those points to keep at least a 10 DEX and throws some points at INT or CHA then this is probably less mechanically meaningful. Maybe discuss the stat distribution before hand.

Second the option to take Heavy Armor Master. This is making an already sturdy class more so. There's no way around that. But we can minimize the impact by insisting he applies the DR before the resistance. The axe hits his armor before it hits his skin after all.

Now he also loses something, its a smaller sacrifice but he is giving up the option to be stealthy. With disadvantage and even a moderately dumped dex he's going to be much less competent than your average Barb.

Finally if you're making it heavy armor, then you get to make it from scratch and assign an AC value. If you make it Full plate that's absolutely insane. But if you give it a 16 AC equivalent to chain mail, that's actually below where an optimized bearbarian has the option to be. Doing this could help to mitigate some of the advantages listed above.

In the end it's your campaign and you have to make the decision on balancing it. Is it strong? Yes. But with the above stipulations I wouldn't rate it above some of the other UA stuff like Tunnel Fighting.

Would I allow it like this? Yes i would, I know my players and their level of optimization vs conceptualization. You seem to be leaning toward the decision to allow it so hopefully this gives you a few options to dial the balance up or down to your taste.