Would it be broken to recover 1rage on a short rest?

[Segev]

To be honest, I typically forget Barbarians don't recover all rages on a short rest. Having barbarians be out of juice all day long after raging 2-4 minutes strikes me as odd. It is a nice buff, but spells tend to be better buffs.

Would it be overpowered to let barbarians recover one or more rage uses at a short rest? Maybe a number equal to the number of hit dice they expend during the short rest, up to their maximum?

[stoutstien]

It would increase the value as a dip and decrease the value of higher investments in the class which is already one of the biggest problems with it. If you were at a short rest recovery for rage it needs to be nestled somewhere in the middle.

[Pooky the Imp]

It would increase the value as a dip and decrease the value of higher investments in the class which is already one of the biggest problems with it. If you were at a short rest recovery for rage it needs to be nestled somewhere in the middle.

What if you made it like Bard Inspiration dice?

So you recover them on a long rest to start with but then from Lv5-6 onwards you start recovering them on a short rest instead.

[Segev]

Rage is often incompatible with other classes' features, though I suppose fighters can use it pretty freely.

Still, how deep would you consider the minimum to bury it? 3rd level? 5th? 6th? 9th?

I ask in no small part because the barbarian in our third level party is at a point where he needs a long rest when everyone else – including the wizard 2/cleric 1 – only needs a short rest. Which strikes me as a problem.

[Catullus64]

As is typically going to be my advice, think about your table rather than a general rule change that has to please everybody's standards of balance in all sorts of conceivable scenarios. Things that would probably affect my decision if I were considering whether or not to use this change:


What levels of play are we looking at? Rage uses tend to be a lot more thin on the ground at lower levels, but it's less of a problem later on.
What encounter structure do you plan on using? How many encounters per day are typical for you?
What kind of encounters? Do you use a lot of fights for which Rage is less effective (highly mobile enemies, non-B/P/S damage types, control and debuff effects with no damage)?
How do you handle resting in general? Are short rests typically easy to get, or do you make frequent use of enemy counter-attacks and random events during short rests?
What is the party composition? Are there other melee characters who are likely to start getting drastically outperformed because of this change?
Is the player in question planning to mostly play a single-classed Barbarian, or is Barbarian just a multi-class dip?


In short, "should I implement x change for y game/player" is always going to be a more productive and answerable question than "should I blanket implement x change to the game."

[PhantomSoul]

Rage is often incompatible with other classes' features, though I suppose fighters can use it pretty freely.

Still, how deep would you consider the minimum to bury it? 3rd level? 5th? 6th? 9th?

I ask in no small part because the barbarian in our third level party is at a point where he needs a long rest when everyone else – including the wizard 2/cleric 1 – only needs a short rest. Which strikes me as a problem.

Out of curiosity, would 2 per Short Rest solve the problem overall?

---

If only for symmetry, I could see it being at level 2 (Arcane Recovery), 3 (Divine Recovery), 5 (Font of Inspiration).

[stoutstien]

I ended up putting a free rage on crits onto brutal critical and it seems to work well. I thi it ties into the concept of the class better than changing the recovery rate.

[Segev]

Out of curiosity, would 2 per Short Rest solve the problem overall?

---

If only for symmetry, I could see it being at level 2 (Arcane Recovery), 3 (Divine Recovery), 5 (Font of Inspiration).

Good thoughts.

I also appreciate the reminder of balancing to the table and specific character.


Making it once per day, after a short rest, at level 2, or something, might work.

[Dr.Samurai]

Yeah, Rage uses at low level are few and far between.

That said, the character is still strong and tough. They can still grab enemies and knock them prone and drag them around the battlefield, or they could strap on a shield and fight more like a normal fighter (a champion, or a battlemaster with no Superiority Dice), or they could still use Reckless Attack if the fights aren't that bad and/or someone is buffing them.

All to say, Rage is amazing, and as a current barbarian not having it sucks. But you can still contribute in fights without it.

My party and I are currently in a ruin and after a fight with a bunch of Vrocks and Bone Whelks, then another fight with a giant Remorhaz (that nearly killed my barbarian), and now a fight with a Death Slaad, the ranger has heard some noise and has looked out to see a warparty arriving at the ruin.

So... thankfully I have 1 Rage left, but hopefully this day doesn't get much longer :smalleek::smallbiggrin:

[strangebloke]

It'd be most useful at low levels, which is when Barbarians are the strongest.

at high levels its very unlikely you'd ever run out of rage anyway.

[diplomancer]

I'd take away 1 rage, and let them recover 1 rage on a short rest. So it's a slight buff if they have 2 or more short rests, and balanced if they have only one.

But the goal would not be to buff Barbarians, but to have more classes recovering resources on Short Rests.

[stoutstien]

It'd be most useful at low levels, which is when Barbarians are the strongest.

at high levels its very unlikely you'd ever run out of rage anyway.
5-6 encounters per long rest isn't exactly a high count. We are talking T3-4 which means the party is facing realm and world changing challenges. It's not even a stretch to expect that many before a SR is available if the party makes a few mistakes.

That's the issue with the barbarian and how much of it is wrapped up in a single resource(rage). Not only does it turn off 90% of the subclass features available to them it also completely changes the value of most of the standard tactics they might implore as a relatively hearty melee PC.
Heck that's discounting if they never lose a rage during an encounter seeing how they don't get much additional protection in that field until lv 6 and that's only for the subclasses that have it. Past that it's lv 15.

[OldTrees1]

If Barbarian had Rage at will it would not break the game. It would be a significant increase in power early game but not an issue late game despite the out of combat utility.

Maybe something like this:
1st 2 Rages/day
3rd 3 Rages/day
6th 2 Rages/short rest
9th 3 Rages/short rest
13th Rage at will
15th Persistent Rage

[Catullus64]

Here's a thought to address Barbarian currency woes in more subtle fashion; what if your Barbarian level didn't give you "uses" of Rage in 1 minute chunks, but instead a total number of rounds for which your Rage can remain active? 20 Rounds at Level 1, 30 Rounds at Level 3, and so on? Call it a Rage Pool if you like, though that's a pretty derpy name. There's some mechanical precedent for this kind of thing in the Boots of Speed.

The upshot of this is that it allows Barbarians to pace themselves, and blow through their Rage only in proportion to the fights at hand; no blowing an entire Rage on fights that prove to be a 2-round cakewalk.

The other side is that with Rage being this flexible is that it cuts down the cost of having your Rage end early, from costing you a huge chunk of your resources, to costing you an extra Bonus Action (hardly a big deal for most Barbarians) and maybe you take some extra damage if you get attacked before being able to activate it again.

If you're of the persuasion that the conditions which end Rage early are finicky and annoying, this is just an extra bonus. If, like me, you like the ending-early conditions, consider adding something like:

"When your Rage ends, you cannot enter another Rage until you take a moment to recover from its exertion. Once you have spent at least 1 turn not moving and taking no actions, you can enter a Rage again."

Tailor it you your subclasses, natch. If you've got a Berserker, you'll need to work something out, but there are a million Berserker-fix threads already.

[loki_ragnarock]

For a quick patch, just make it a magic item reward.

"Flask of the Inebriate Brawler (Uncommon): A character that drinks from this flask during a short rest may spend a d12 hit die to regain one daily use of the Rage class feature as the fluid goes down smooth. If the imbiber does not have the Rage class feature, they instead sputter and cough upon drinking from it; no matter how masculine their image or advanced their alcoholism, they will make a face that betrays how much they dislike it."


Honestly, given how many wizard specific magic items have dropped, it's probably about damn time people started putting together magic item packages to advantage other classes.

[strangebloke]

5-6 encounters per long rest isn't exactly a high count. We are talking T3-4 which means the party is facing realm and world changing challenges. It's not even a stretch to expect that many before a SR is available if the party makes a few mistakes.

That's the issue with the barbarian and how much of it is wrapped up in a single resource(rage). Not only does it turn off 90% of the subclass features available to them it also completely changes the value of most of the standard tactics they might implore as a relatively hearty melee PC.
Heck that's discounting if they never lose a rage during an encounter seeing how they don't get much additional protection in that field until lv 6 and that's only for the subclasses that have it. Past that it's lv 15.

I would generally say that 5-6 encounters per long rest is a pretty high count, and if the party is really fighting 12+ encounters per long rest, these are necessarily not going to be very hard encounters and rage won't need to get used.

At level 15 rage lasts forever anyway because of persistent rage, which underlines my point: its not overpowered or even particularly useful to have rage recharge on a short rest at ultra-high levels. Ultimately, "not enough rage" is far from the barbarian's most pressing problem. At LOW levels, though, cheap rage is really really good. Too good I'd argue, and that's where Barbarian is already really strong.

[stoutstien]

I would generally say that 5-6 encounters per long rest is a pretty high count, and if the party is really fighting 12+ encounters per long rest, these are necessarily not going to be very hard encounters and rage won't need to get used.

At level 15 rage lasts forever anyway because of persistent rage, which underlines my point: its not overpowered or even particularly useful to have rage recharge on a short rest at ultra-high levels. Ultimately, "not enough rage" is far from the barbarian's most pressing problem. At LOW levels, though, cheap rage is really really good. Too good I'd argue, and that's where Barbarian is already really strong.

It's possible though and unlike other classes they don't have much to compensate when they don't want to risk the rage usage or otherwise don't have it available. Doesn't matter if it's 15 super easy encounters because they still aren't effectively adding to the party past being a body which are cheap in comparison of taking up an entire PC slot. Not using rage doesn't just tune down barbarians. It turns them off at best or worse, turns them into resource sinks. which is polar to the concept of the big tough guy who can go endure long bouts of hardship.

[Psyren]

I'm a big fan of "X per Long Rest, recover 1 of them on a SR" design, so I would definitely let the Barbarian get this personally.

[Schwann145]

One of the few areas I think PF2 is definitely better than D&D5 - Barbarian rages.

The Barbarian has a hard time outside of Rage and the number of uses they get it just so small. It would definitely shift the balance of the class to recover 1 on SR but I don't think you'd break anything in the change. Heck, you probably wouldn't break anything just recovering all rage attempts on SR instead of LR.

[Dr.Samurai]

How does Pathfinder 2 treat Barbarian rages?

[Schwann145]

How does Pathfinder 2 treat Barbarian rages?

Rage lasts for a minute. Then you can't rage for another minute. No charges or uses/rest or anything, just the 1 min recovery time. Then at 17 the recovery time reduces to a full round.

[LudicSavant]

To be honest, I typically forget Barbarians don't recover all rages on a short rest. Having barbarians be out of juice all day long after raging 2-4 minutes strikes me as odd. It is a nice buff, but spells tend to be better buffs.

Would it be overpowered to let barbarians recover one or more rage uses at a short rest? Maybe a number equal to the number of hit dice they expend during the short rest, up to their maximum?

Make the recovery ability come online at mid-levels and you're probably good.

They don't really need the help for Tier 1 or dip builds.

[Catullus64]

The more I think on the issue, the more I would like it if Barbarians just had their kit retooled to be less Rage-centric. I don't have all the books to be certain, but I'm pretty sure that every 3rd-level Primal Path feature, the one that is there to help define your gameplay rhythms, is an augmentation to Rage. I'm generally not a fan of any single resource currency being too central to a class, though I don't think Barbarians suffer from this nearly as much as Sorcerers and Monks in terms of how it affects their fun.

The centrality of Rage to the class also hurts it thematically, if you ask me. I feel the designers very quickly ran out of interesting variations of Super Anger Powers. I would appreciate refocusing on the other thematic aspects of the class; raw physicality, speed, endurance, death-defying courage.

Not a fix to the problem pointed to by the thread, but a related issue.

[Psyren]

Make the recovery ability come online at mid-levels and you're probably good.

They don't really need the help for Tier 1 or dip builds.

I can get behind this restriction. It would certainly be a lot more interesting than, say, Brutal Critical.


One of the few areas I think PF2 is definitely better than D&D5 - Barbarian rages.


How does Pathfinder 2 treat Barbarian rages?


Rage lasts for a minute. Then you can't rage for another minute. No charges or uses/rest or anything, just the 1 min recovery time. Then at 17 the recovery time reduces to a full round.

Eh... this effectively makes rage, if not at will, at least guaranteed to be up every combat as long as there is a minute between them (which the vast majority have.) I think there's value in being able to strain this resource a little more than that for most campaigns. Even PF1 made you care about how often you raged more than this.

[Kane0]

I don't even bother tracking Barbarian rage, they're either Raging or not.

If there alternative uses for Rage that they had to expend uses to get then I would keep track of it more closely.

[Segev]

I don't even bother tracking Barbarian rage, they're either Raging or not.

If there alternative uses for Rage that they had to expend uses to get then I would keep track of it more closely.

Is there any reason barbarians under this system would not be raging during combat?

[KorvinStarmast]

What if you made it like Bard Inspiration dice?

So you recover them on a long rest to start with but then from Lv5-6 onwards you start recovering them on a short rest instead. works for me

[Kane0]

Is there any reason barbarians under this system would not be raging during combat?

They want to concentrate on something? But im slowly building in more ways for Barbs to use Rage so yes, there will be a time where it becomes a decision if to rage rather than when.

[sambojin]

Recovering 1 rage on a short rest seems ok at lvl2. Sure, it frontloads them more, but that's not a terrible thing. And it gives one oopsie out for any Barb.

One of the worst things that can happen to a barb is to rage and then get proned or restrained or paralyzed, and all three are pretty common at many levels of play. They're also the exact thing monsters want to do to a frothing loonie wielding a great big sword. And then they move away a bit. (Standing up takes half your movement, so anything that backs off 20-25'' after proning you is often out of reach). Bam, rage expires.

So having a single backup rage per day would be nice, in case you blew one too many early on. You may have felt like you had to, or got it restrained/ proned/ whatever'd out of you, and you hit the big-red-angry button again.

I doubt it would make them OP. It just gives a good safety margin, carries them better through tier2-3, and is a bit irrelevant by tier4. Strong in tier1, but so is all short rest recovery. It's weaker than wildshape or divinities or arcane recovery at least

[Hytheter]

At level 15 rage lasts forever anyway because of persistent rage, which underlines my point: its not overpowered or even particularly useful to have rage recharge on a short rest at ultra-high levels. Ultimately, "not enough rage" is far from the barbarian's most pressing problem. At LOW levels, though, cheap rage is really really good. Too good I'd argue, and that's where Barbarian is already really strong.

Persistent Rage doesn't make Rage last forever. It only prevents rage from ending early, such as when you don't attack anybody, but it still only lasts 1 minute.

[diplomancer]

Recovering 1 rage on a short rest seems ok at lvl2. Sure, it frontloads them more, but that's not a terrible thing. And it gives one oopsie out for any Barb.

One of the worst things that can happen to a barb is to rage and then get proned or restrained or paralyzed, and all three are pretty common at many levels of play. They're also the exact thing monsters want to do to a frothing loonie wielding a great big sword. And then they move away a bit. (Standing up takes half your movement, so anything that backs off 20-25'' after proning you is often out of reach). Bam, rage expires.


Just carry javelins, and problem solved (apart from paralyzed)

[Kane0]

Rage lasts for a minute. Then you can't rage for another minute. No charges or uses/rest or anything, just the 1 min recovery time. Then at 17 the recovery time reduces to a full round.

Thats a neat concept, I like it.

[Demonslayer666]

It depends a lot on how often short rests are available. In our games, short rests are on the easy side for us to take and are not limited to two times a day.

It seems to hurdle the resource management of when to rage and being judicious with them. If this were in my game, I'd rarely run out of rages and would likely rage every combat. Currently, I have to be very cautious with them. So I think it would be crazy good in that case.

If your game only has 2 per day, I think this would be fine.

This could also work as a barbarian ability that once per day you could regain one on a short rest, and that number could increase at higher levels.

[Sindeloke]

It hasn't been for us, for what it's worth, but we're also using a narrative pacing rest variant where a short rest is your 8-hour sleep every day and a long rest is two days in a city, seldom getting more than 1 encounter per day but often getting 4-5 in a week, which does change the balance a little.

If you're hesitant about it, though, Demonslayer's suggestion of making it like a scalable Arcane Recovery (rages are still daily, but 1/day you get 1 back on a short rest, or more times later) is a good way to dip your toes in the water and test it out.

[Segev]

It depends a lot on how often short rests are available. In our games, short rests are on the easy side for us to take and are not limited to two times a day.

It seems to hurdle the resource management of when to rage and being judicious with them. If this were in my game, I'd rarely run out of rages and would likely rage every combat. Currently, I have to be very cautious with them. So I think it would be crazy good in that case.

If your game only has 2 per day, I think this would be fine.

This could also work as a barbarian ability that once per day you could regain one on a short rest, and that number could increase at higher levels.

Maybe something like, "A number of times equal to half your proficiency modifier, when you finish a Short Rest, you may recover 1 rage; you regain all uses of this ability after a Long Rest?"

[stoutstien]

Maybe something like, "A number of times equal to half your proficiency modifier, when you finish a Short Rest, you may recover 1 rage; you regain all uses of this ability after a Long Rest?"

Probably best just to avoid anything that isn't directly tied to barbarian levels to prevent the dip issue.

[Spiritchaser]

Let barbs spend a HD during a SR to get a rage back.

Scales ok with level that way

Max times per day = barb levels

[Kane0]

Sidenote I decided to use this idea of Short Rest rage returns on my

Level 1: Any barbarian can spend a use of their Rage to instead gain the Powerful Build feature for a number of hours equal to their prof bonus
Level 3: Storm barbarians can spend a use if their Rage to instead cast Warding Wind, which specifically ignores the Rage casting/concentrating restriction
Level 6: Storm barbarians regain one rage use on a short rest plus can spend a use of their rage to instead grant damage resistance (cold, fire, thunder or lightning) to a creature they touch for 1 hour or a swim speed and water breathing to a creature they touch for 8 hours

I think if you were going to go down this path further you could redo barbarian rage much like how bardic inspiration works, it starts being Con Mod times per long rest but at level 5 turns into Con Mod times per short or long rest and has more class and subclass features that use up charges rather than rage being the only thing and it being a binary 'I am/am not currently barbarianing'.

[Yakmala]

Were it up to me, Barbarians would either start with or gain the ability to recover rage on a short rest. They would also gain the ability to activate their rage as a Reaction in addition to the normal Bonus Action activation.

[Psyren]

Just carry javelins, and problem solved (apart from paralyzed)

Javs don't help with being charmed, feared, or incapacitated either. Barbarian could use a buff.


Let barbs spend a HD during a SR to get a rage back.

Scales ok with level that way

Max times per day = barb levels

I wouldn't put a separate use limit on this (HD themselves already do that.) I definitely like the idea of HD being usable for something besides HP recovery.

[Amechra]

Arguably, the Barbarian should be raging all the time, with those "rages per day" being brief moments of lucidity.

[Spiritchaser]

I wouldn't put a separate use limit on this (HD themselves already do that.) I definitely like the idea of HD being usable for something besides HP recovery.

You’d probably be ok without it, but the level limit makes straight barbs better at raging multiple times early than multiclass characters are. I think it’s desirable to put a bit of a soft gate here for that reason.

Now: you could argue that problem with barb dips really should to be solved by making later barbarian levels better, and that’s a valid point, but it’s certainly not a straightforward discussion.

[Xetheral]

Just carry javelins, and problem solved (apart from paralyzed)

Javelins aren't always a sufficient solution. For one thing, you can't use extra attack with thrown weapons unless you have Thrown Weapon Fighting. Second, if you're using a shield you have to drop your melee weapon to draw the javelin, and can't pick it back up until your next turn. Third, depending on the geographic scale of the encounter, there may not be a valid target out of full cover within the javelin's 120' maximum range. Fourth, it makes little sense to me to mechanically encourage a Raging Barbarian to stop and thrown a weapon rather than Dash headlong into melee range.

At my table I just give Barbarians Persistent Rage at 1st level. (This houserule also solves the problem of Barbarians who win initiative being unable to maintain Rage past their first turn unless they're able to make an attack that turn, a problem which interacts terribly with their Feral Instincts feature. And it also solves the problem of Barbarians losing Rage if they attack an illusion of a creature.)

Personally, I think single-classed Barbarians would be balanced even if they got to Rage at will. The only real balance concerns I see are for multiclassing, and the proposed solution of recovering 1 rage on a short rest sounds like a great fix. Whether that should be given at 1st level or a later level can be fine-tuned for a particular table's balance preferences and stance on dipping.

[OldTrees1]

Arguably, the Barbarian should be raging all the time, with those "rages per day" being brief moments of lucidity.

... Actually, that is an interesting character concept.

[Demonslayer666]

Maybe something like, "A number of times equal to half your proficiency modifier, when you finish a Short Rest, you may recover 1 rage; you regain all uses of this ability after a Long Rest?"
That seems like it would work quite well.


Probably best just to avoid anything that isn't directly tied to barbarian levels to prevent the dip issue.
I think this is a very good idea. I'm not a fan of class dips.


Javelins aren't always a sufficient solution. ...

At my table I just give Barbarians Persistent Rage at 1st level. ...

Personally, I think single-classed Barbarians would be balanced even if they got to Rage at will. The only real balance concerns I see are for multiclassing, and the proposed solution of recovering 1 rage on a short rest sounds like a great fix. Whether that should be given at 1st level or a later level can be fine-tuned for a particular table's balance preferences and stance on dipping.
Persistent Rage does not seem like a 15th level ability to me either, but never dropping rage unless you want to seems like it should have a drawback, like being tired after raging and not able to rage for a bit.

At will rage would allow for a first round rage and frenzy attack. That would be pretty strong. Certainly not game breaking.

[PhantomSoul]

At will rage would allow for a first round rage and frenzy attack. That would be pretty strong. Certainly not game breaking.

I might have misinterpreted, but I read "at will" as meaning "not a limited resource", so like how Cantrips are at-will spells (but still require their respective action type).

[Demonslayer666]

I might have misinterpreted, but I read "at will" as meaning "not a limited resource", so like how Cantrips are at-will spells (but still require their respective action type).

I think that's the correct interpretation. Somehow that went straight to free action in my head. :smallsmile:

Makes for a very different response. Unlimited rages would be gross.

[Segev]

That seems like it would work quite well.


I think this is a very good idea. I'm not a fan of class dips.

Could use Constitution Score instead of Half Proficiency Modifier. Or could use "rage bonus" as the number of times.