Barbarian Warforged flavour help

[Bjarkmundur]

I'm having trouble on how to flavor/narrate a warforged 'raging'?

Honestly, I've never fully understood the narrative behind raging at all. I've usually just thought of it as bloodlust and adrenaline.
Now, for a living construct, how would you describe the barbarian's rage?

[stoutstien]

Short circuit? Johnny five is @#1$ alive!

[moonfly7]

I had a warforged barbarian in a game I dmed he was named bubba. Bubbas favourite thing to say before he raged was "bubba is mad". Firstly, war forged aren't necessarily emotionless, but here's how he did it.
Bubba didn't really get emotions well, but he did live with orcs for awhile who reactivated him. There Bubba learned about rage and anger. Bubba didn't ever feel these emotions, but he tried to emulate his adopted tribe. So Bubba magically created a "rage" program in his mind so he could help his tribe. Activated by the words "bubba. Is. Angry."
Hope this helps!

[Lunali]

Warforged are essentially the same as any other creature, its just the materials that are different. They have a brain, they have the same potential emotions as any other creature, though they are less prone to actually expressing them.

[Damon_Tor]

Warforged were designed with certain limits, self-preservation behaviors which respond to pain and teach them to avoid it, and others which hold back their full strength to prevent damage to their limbs. "Rage" could be described as a deliberate relaxation of these protocols.

[Rara1212]

Might just be pumping power through the body faster, like overclocking a PC

[Lunali]

One of the random quirks for warforged is an inabilty to control your emotions, they're just as capable as anyone else of being a raging barbarian.

[GlenSmash!]

I've usually just thought of it as bloodlust and adrenaline.


On a Berserker or Battlerager sure, but on a totem warrior rage is more like a primal survival state akin to a wild animal. On an Ancestral Guardian it's a connection to their dead ancestors. On a Zealot the Fury of a Deity. On a Storm Herald, an instinct so primal it's more like a storm.

5e Barbarian rage is an alerted fighting state with many flavors.

So which flavor is your warforged going for?

[Anderlith]

I'm having trouble on how to flavor/narrate a warforged 'raging'?

Honestly, I've never fully understood the narrative behind raging at all. I've usually just thought of it as bloodlust and adrenaline.
Now, for a living construct, how would you describe the barbarian's rage?

Warforged needn’t be limited to “emotional” reasons for rage. Explore odd & flavorful ways of expressing it.


On a Berserker or Battlerager sure, but on a totem warrior rage is more like a primal survival state akin to a wild animal. On an Ancestral Guardian it's a connection to their dead ancestors. On a Zealot the Fury of a Deity. On a Storm Herald, an instinct so primal it's more like a storm.

5e Barbarian rage is an alerted fighting state with many flavors.

So which flavor is your warforged going for?

For example
Bezerker Warforged with faulty “programming” which turns off inhibitors but also screws up friend or foe targeting

Totem Warforged with totemic carvings & perhaps even a rotating chest or head or shoulder that signifies which spirit is being channeled, you could have been forged as a “tribal champion” & instilled with the totem spirits of your tribe as animus.

Ancestral Guardian can do similar to Totem, or/& have bones & such as part of their construction. They could also hold the “souls” of multiple Warforged that died in battle within them, the bodies of fallen Warforged were used as spare parts for your Warforged construction.

Zealot Warforged are perhaps instilled with divine wrath from the gods themselves, covered in scripture & made in the gods own image.

Storm Heard Warforged could house an elemental core.

[Vogie]

Speaking is a free action... so I'd have the character recite the mantra from the NS-5s from the I, Robot movie from 2004
"You have been deemed hazardous. Termination authorized."

[GlenSmash!]

Warforged needn’t be limited to “emotional” reasons for rage. Explore odd & flavorful ways of expressing it.



For example
Bezerker Warforged with faulty “programming” which turns off inhibitors but also screws up friend or foe targeting

Totem Warforged with totemic carvings & perhaps even a rotating chest or head or shoulder that signifies which spirit is being channeled, you could have been forged as a “tribal champion” & instilled with the totem spirits of your tribe as animus.

Ancestral Guardian can do similar to Totem, or/& have bones & such as part of their construction. They could also hold the “souls” of multiple Warforged that died in battle within them, the bodies of fallen Warforged were used as spare parts for your Warforged construction.

Zealot Warforged are perhaps instilled with divine wrath from the gods themselves, covered in scripture & made in the gods own image.

Storm Heard Warforged could house an elemental core.

Nice.

I think all of these sound awesome.

[Sigreid]

I think if the image isn't his boiler going onto overdrive with steam shooting out his ears Nd joints, it's a missed opportunity.

[Finback]

The warforged (if you're playing it very Robot) encounters something that Does Not Compute. This causes a feedback loop, which triggers overheating, and to avoid a system meltdown, the warforged must vent that excess energy in an expeditious manner - what better target than the Source of Does Not Compute?

[Derpldorf]

I had a guild artisan envoy warforged barbarian with the inbuilt brewing supplies, basically his fingers were a bunch of taps (three per finger) that led to a bunch of small tanks, kegs and bottles stored in his chest. Good guy, most of his personal time was filled with either brewing or searching out ways to store more booze, mostly by seeking out ways to magically increase his storage capacity or searching for a particularly good vintage. Eventually culminating in him having what was basically a walking booze warehouse.

He was for the most part a pacifist, he would try to diffuse any situation with free booze, but he had the flaw of "Nobody disrespects my booze, Nobody wastes my booze." If someone had the appallingly bad taste to disrespect or waste a tankard offered in friendship he would engage bouncer mode and grapple them, then proceed to convince them into a calmer more complacent state of mind via the repeated application of a solid steel tankard to the noggin.

[GM_3826]

Late, but there's an article that discusses this exact idea.
http://taking10.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-android-barbarian.html
That said, as others have pointed out, there are plenty of ways to flavor this idea.

[kore]

I am presently playing a Warforged Barbarian. The RP behind Rage is akin to an enhanced combat mode. Visual indicators include a change in eye-color, whirring sounds of spooling internal machinery, and the venting of gases from joints.

Edit:
Also, I'm playing an Ancestral Guardian but all the mechanics are reskinned so Ancestral Protectors is "Protection Array" (a series of devices meant to draw attention to me) and Spirit Shield is "Force Field Emitter".

[Darth_Versity]

In 3.5 I had a Warforged who was a Whirling Frenzy Barbarian. I described it as a special combat subroutine that would use all of his abilities to their absolute limits, but put serious strain on his 'circuitry' thus leading to fatigue that needed repair.

Seemed like the best way to explain a machine 'raging'

[Wilko]

You should probably watch the new version of Robocop, it has something I would call very much like a "Robo Rage" they have Robo in two modes, "Normal" where his brain is in control and he is just a human with robot limbs and "Combat Mode" where the visor comes down and his combat software takes over, shutting down emotions and giving him superhuman reflexes, tactical awareness etc, that could be a good flavor for war-forged.
There is also probably some RP value in him not liking that side of himself, becoming less of a person and more of an unthinking killing machine.
Other examples of the same thing would be something like the Borne movies where as soon as he gets into a fight the bumbling Jason disappears and training takes over, or the early seasons of Arrow where Oliver just goes dead eyed while fighting people not even feeling pain, you just need to play it was a cold rage as opposed to the screaming frothing at the mouth "Hot rage" most people use.