Clearing up marbles

[Buufreak]

So, I have often heard that marbles are the instant shut down trick against a barbarian, because they can't use Dex based skills while raging. However, looking into it, I noticed that on the SRD there is a stipulation that this limitation excludes balance, as well as a few others.

Has anyone else noticed this, or is it that commonly overlooked?

[ColorBlindNinja]

To be honest, I've never seen, or heard of, anyone try to trip a raging Barbarian with marbles.

Now, Frenzied Berserkers fail any DEX skill checks they make; so they might be more vulnerable to marbles.

EDIT: When they're in a frenzy, that is.

[Bronk]

So, I have often heard that marbles are the instant shut down trick against a barbarian, because they can't use Dex based skills while raging. However, looking into it, I noticed that on the SRD there is a stipulation that this limitation excludes balance, as well as a few others.

Has anyone else noticed this, or is it that commonly overlooked?

They're used against barbarians in a frenzy, which is different from the base rage ability in the SRD.

[Darrin]

So, I have often heard that marbles are the instant shut down trick against a barbarian, because they can't use Dex based skills while raging.

It's a shutdown tactic for *Frenzied Berzerkers* (Complete Warrior). Big difference, as a FB that fails a Will save (not one of their strong suits) can turn the rest of the PCs into hamburger. While in a Frenzy, the FB auto-fails any skill checks that involve Intelligence, Dexterity, or Charisma (except Intimidate). Moving through or fighting within a square that contains marbles forces a Balance check. Whether or not this actually stops a FB from turning the rest of the party into a TPK-1 depends on how pedantic you want to get about RAW. Some issues with marbles:


When dealing with slippery or uneven surfaces, the Balance rules state that you only make a check when you enter a square, move through a square, or are attacked while standing in a square. There's an argument that if you spread marbles into a square already occupied by the FB, he hasn't entered the square, moved through it, and hasn't been attacked yet, so he's not technically "balancing" on an unstable surface yet.
The description of marbles specifies that fighting inside the square requires a Balance check. While this is all well and good, there's nothing in there about making a Balance check to *leave* the square (and some DM's may parse leaving the square as distinctly different from moving through it). The FB can use a move action to go to another square, take a 5' step to an empty square, Jump check to an empty square, Anklets of Translocation, etc.
The FB only falls prone if he/she fails the Balance check by 5 or more. However, the FB doesn't even get to roll the check to begin with, so there's an argument that they don't actually fall down because they didn't fail by "5 or more".
Even if you assume the result of the FB's balance check is the same as "rolling a 1" or "rolling a 0", a FB with a high enough Str and Balance ranks could still get a high enough result to avoid falling down.
Even if you remove the skill ranks entirely, it's not all that unusual for a FB to have a Str bonus of +11 or higher.
Even if you rule that the FB immediately falls prone... attacking from prone is a thing. Even with a -4 attack penalty, if any of those attacks hit (natural 20 anyone?), it's still possible to drop any unfortunate PCs that weren't quick enough to get out of melee range.
Unless you're using an unseen servant or a summoned monkey or some other disposable minion to deploy the marbles, you have to stand next to the FB to deploy the marbles. This is not a good strategy if you're trying to stay out of melee range of the FB.


If the DM wants to get really persnickety about RAW, marbles may not be the best shutdown method for your particular FB.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It stops charging and frenzied berserkers at low levels but that's about it for bothering PC class characters. When people start flying toward mid-levels they become pretty niche.

[RoboEmperor]

Frenzied Berserkers overcome marbles by taking a fullround action to move through 5ft. It's in the d20srd. AFAIK nothing stops the Frenzied Berserkers from using this to move out of marbles so it's not a shutdown trick except against people who don't know the rules.


Hampered Movement

Difficult terrain, obstacles, or poor visibility can hamper movement. When movement is hampered, each square moved into usually counts as two squares, effectively reducing the distance that a character can cover in a move.

If more than one condition applies, multiply together all additional costs that apply. (This is a specific exception to the normal rule for doubling)

In some situations, your movement may be so hampered that you don’t have sufficient speed even to move 5 feet (1 square). In such a case, you may use a full-round action to move 5 feet (1 square) in any direction, even diagonally. Even though this looks like a 5-foot step, it’s not, and thus it provokes attacks of opportunity normally. (You can’t take advantage of this rule to move through impassable terrain or to move when all movement is prohibited to you.)

[zergling.exe]

Frenzied Berserkers overcome marbles by taking a fullround action to move through 5ft. It's in the d20srd. AFAIK nothing stops the Frenzied Berserkers from using this to move out of marbles so it's not a shutdown trick except against people who don't know the rules.

How exactly does this help them? Their movement isn't reduced to 5 squares at any point, so they can't use that rule. And it specifically says it doesn't allow you to move through impassable terrain or when you aren't allowed to move.

[RoboEmperor]

How exactly does this help them? Their movement isn't reduced to 5 squares at any point, so they can't use that rule. And it specifically says it doesn't allow you to move through impassable terrain or when you aren't allowed to move.

1. A floor of marbles is not impassable terrain. A 100ft wall is an impassable terrain.
2. You aren't allowed to move as in you're chained to a wall, not standing in the middle of nowhere with marbles around you.

The marbles is terrain that is passable, and marbles don't stop you from moving since the FB can take move actions. It seems like these kind of situations is exactly what the rule was made for.

For example, tight rope walking, a character can just spend their round inching across it without making a balance check through this rule. They will be probably prone while doing so though since they'll probably be completely hugging the rope as they inch across.

[Darrin]

The marbles is terrain that is passable, and marbles don't stop you from moving since the FB can take move actions. It seems like these kind of situations is exactly what the rule was made for.

The marbles description *should* specify that the square is now considered "difficult terrain", which incurs certain restrictions with regards to 5-foot steps, entering/moving through it, etc. However, A&EG is an older 3.0 book, and the designers were wildly inconsistent with how they describe what happens with various slippery or uneven surfaces. For example, grease, ice slick, and impeding stones all have wildly different rules on whether they require a Ref save, Balance check, or sometimes both...?

Even if all those different effects were consistent... very few of them apply to *leaving* the square, only entering, moving through, being attacked, or sometimes while fighting in that square. In most cases, if we follow strict RAW, a FB can move out of those squares without triggering a Balance check.

More sensible DMs may want to tweak the Balance rules slightly.

[Vizzerdrix]

See I've always prefered shapesand for doing this sort of thing. Just trap them in a metal box till they calm down.

[Kelb_Panthera]

See I've always prefered shapesand for doing this sort of thing. Just trap them in a metal box till they calm down.

Might work for the standard barb but the FB is compelled to just rip through the wall if he's capable and his class features go a -long- ways in that direction.

[Vizzerdrix]

Might work for the standard barb but the FB is compelled to just rip through the wall if he's capable and his class features go a -long- ways in that direction.

Tight space, adamanine walls that you can rebuild as a standard action. I like my odds.

[DrMotives]

So, what's the consensus? Do I need to to build a barbarian with exotic weapon proficiency (pushbroom) now? On the one hand, low-op. On the other hand, cheesy 80s action movie style one liners pretty much write themselves.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So, what's the consensus? Do I need to to build a barbarian with exotic weapon proficiency (pushbroom) now? On the one hand, low-op. On the other hand, cheesy 80s action movie style one liners pretty much write themselves.

Nah. Just jump over 'em. You can take leap attack or pick up a flight method to bypass them while charging.

[Crake]

Tight space, adamanine walls that you can rebuild as a standard action. I like my odds.

Shapesand is not adamantine....

[Arcanist]

Tight space, adamanine walls that you can rebuild as a standard action. I like my odds.

Shapesand is not adamantine....


Shapesand is a special kind of wasteland soil that is psychoreactive; it can be sculpted into any form according to your will. The new object is made of sand, but serves as a normal item of the same sort. A shapesand hammer functions just like an ordinary hammer, and a shapesand waterskin is just as watertight as an ordinary skin.

Yep. You can make a Shapesand Adamantine jail cell and it will function as a jail cell made of sand. Although, I don't think jail cell is a "normal item" listed in any book I remember besides maybe the Stronghold Builder's guide. At best, Shapesand can be counted as "Sand (magically fused)" (Sandstorm, page 31) which has a hardness of 3, a break dc of 22, and 180 hit points. Frankly, if a FB couldn't reasonable break out of this, I'd highly recommend they reconsider their profession.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yep. You can make a Shapesand Adamantine jail cell and it will function as a jail cell made of sand. Although, I don't think jail cell is a "normal item" listed in any book I remember besides maybe the Stronghold Builder's guide. At best, Shapesand can be counted as "Sand (magically fused)" (Sandstorm, page 31) which has a hardness of 3, a break dc of 22, and 180 hit points. Frankly, if a FB couldn't reasonable break out of this, I'd highly recommend they reconsider their profession.

A&EG page 21: cages.

[Arcanist]

A&EG page 21: cages.

Oh sick, what is the volume of a "jug of shapesand"?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Oh sick, what is the volume of a "jug of shapesand"?

Sandstorm doesn't say, specifically but most sands are between 80 and 100 pounds per cubic foot, according to engineering texts.

Rather than actually try to do the volumetric calculations though, I'd suggest the nature of it would make simply having enough shape sand to match the thing you want by weight would be the way to go. A cage for a medium creature would take 4 jugs.

[Dimers]

Crazy question, is there something wrong with using the Strength skill Jump to avoid difficult patches like strewn marbles? Because, y'know, it's not like a FB would be bad at Jump.

[emeraldstreak]

Crazy question, is there something wrong with using the Strength skill Jump to avoid difficult patches like strewn marbles? Because, y'know, it's not like a FB would be bad at Jump.

Hush! You're divulging top secrets here.

[Bronk]

Crazy question, is there something wrong with using the Strength skill Jump to avoid difficult patches like strewn marbles? Because, y'know, it's not like a FB would be bad at Jump.

Well, the trick is supposed to be used by the FB's teammates to stop his rampage when the action's over, so that they don't turn on their friends. In that scenario they're supposed to want to be tripped. They could try using jump if the marbles were being strewn by the enemy though.

[Sto]

Couldn't you theoretically drop calm emotions on a Frenzied character? I know they get a save, but are they immune to it? I don't have my copy of CW handy to check.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Couldn't you theoretically drop calm emotions on a Frenzied character? I know they get a save, but are they immune to it? I don't have my copy of CW handy to check.

I don't see anything that would prevent that in the frenzy description.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Couldn't you theoretically drop calm emotions on a Frenzied character? I know they get a save, but are they immune to it? I don't have my copy of CW handy to check.

They aren't.

Unless you heighten it, it'll probably fail. It's a -terribly- built FB that's tanked his will so bad he can reliably be stopped by a level 2 enchantment spell. A FB wants as high a will save as he can get without hurting his fighting ability too much since he'll be making more will saves than any other character in the game by a -wide- margin.

[RoboEmperor]

If we're talking about optimization, I believe FBs spend every morning raging at trees or a wall before adventuring because the frenzy is a horribad feature that will result in player deaths when the FB stubs a toe, and you go FB solely for the power attack boost, or something like that.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Unless you heighten it, it'll probably fail. It's a -terribly- built FB that's tanked his will so bad he can reliably be stopped by a level 2 enchantment spell. A FB wants as high a will save as he can get without hurting his fighting ability too much since he'll be making more will saves than any other character in the game by a -wide- margin.

Could the Frenzied Berserker voluntarily give up his save?

EDIT: If his Will save is that good, can't he just make DC 20 to come out of a frenzy on his own?

[RoboEmperor]

Could the Frenzied Berserker voluntarily give up his save?

That is a debate. Some say you can some say you can't.

[ColorBlindNinja]

That is a debate. Some say you can some say you can't.



Voluntarily Giving up a Saving Throw
A creature can voluntarily forego a saving throw and willingly accept a spell’s result. Even a character with a special resistance to magic can suppress this quality.

What's the counter argument?

[RoboEmperor]

What's the counter argument?

A frenzied barbarian is attacking his friends out of rage, so they wouldn't voluntarily lower their save against a spell that stops them from killing their friends while in rage since, you know, they're raging.

[ColorBlindNinja]

A frenzied barbarian is attacking his friends out of rage, so they wouldn't voluntarily lower their save against a spell that stops them from killing their friends while in rage since, you know, they're raging.

But they can stop raging on their own if their Will save is high enough?

[Kelb_Panthera]

But they can stop raging on their own if their Will save is high enough?

Yup. There's two really easy picks for it though.

If you can get along being an exalted character, just pick up righteous wrath and don't worry about it.

The other is the fighter's resolute ACF from CC. You're likely dipping fighter to get into FB on time anyway so picking up a way to immediately boost your will save by half your level is really helpful when it's so important that you make it. If you somehow still fall, it also makes you just a bit less likely to kill anybody on that turn.

[Buufreak]

Sandstorm doesn't say, specifically but most sands are between 80 and 100 pounds per cubic foot, according to engineering texts.


Holy crap! So the thing Garra from Naruto varies around would end being damn near 500 lbs, easily.

Any who, thanks for helping clear it up, I must have missed somewhere along the line that it specifically works on FB only

[SirNibbles]

Why not just Bluff? You autowin against the Sense Motive check, so you can convince the Barbarian to do anything for a short time.