Revised Rage Mechanic

[Sorinth]

I have an idea for making a "complex martial", ie one that has to deal with much more resource management that's partly inspired by the recent martial/caster thread. This would be for the Barbarian and use of revised rage mechanic. Essentially while raging you would be gaining rage points whenever you attack and can then spend those rage points to power features. Subclasses could add unique uses for rage points and possibly even different ways to accumulate rage though not all abilities would need to be linked to rage. Any ideas/thoughts are appreciated.

Revised Rage Feature
While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren't wearing heavy armor.

You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws
When you make a melee or thrown weapon attack you gain 1 rage point. You gain an extra rage point on a critical hits.
You can spend rage points to activate your rage features

Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or choose to end it on your turn as a bonus action. When first entering a rage you start with a number of rage points equal to your proficiency bonus and lose any remaining rage points when your rage ends. At the end of your turn if you haven't attacked or taken damage since your last turn you lose 2 rage points to a minimum of 0 rage.
You can rage a number of times shown in the Rages column of the Barbarian table, you regain your rage uses on a short or long rest.

Then in terms of abilities that use rage points at level 1 you'd get these uses
Primal Toughness. When you take damage you may spend 1 rage to gain resistance to that damage.
Primal Attack. When you hit a creature with an attack you can spend 1 rage and roll an extra weapon damage die


With these changes there would be two other features that need changing, Persistent Rage and Totem Spirit: Bear since these are now part of the standard rage mechanics. Their replacements would be.
Totem Spirit: Bear. After taking damage you gain 1 rage point.
Improved Rage (Replaces Persistent Rage). You gain two new uses for your rage points.

Reckless Abandon. At the start of your turn you may spend 2 rage. If you do until the end of your turn when you make an attack with advantage you can reroll one of the dice once. Additionally you score critical hits on a roll of 19 or 20. When you use this feature you do not gain rage for attacks or critical hits this turn.
Primal Magic Resistance. At the start of your turn you may spend 2 rage to end any spell or magical effect on you.


As a mechanic using rage points to fuel your features will add the complexity since you will need to balance going nova and spending your rage on dealing damage or tanking. The abilities are stronger then their replacements since you now have to pay for them every time you use them and Improved Rage will ideally make sticking with Barbarian a little more interesting instead of multiclassing out. The abilities could still be tweaked in terms of power since I haven't playtested it but a big part of it is that it creates a subsystem that can be easily exapandable with subclasses since they can have features that give you extra rage under specific circumstances like the new Bear totem ability or would provide new ways to spend rage. So as an example to fix the much maligned Berserker you could replace Frenzy with the following.
Frenzied Attack. As a bonus action spend 1 rage to make a melee or thrown weapon attack. You do not gain any rage when making this attack.

[Dienekes]

Conceptually, I kinda maintain if any class should be "the simple one" the class who's primary method of combat is to get really angry and smash things should be that class. It's a pretty simple tactic.

All that said, this is interesting.

It is definitely, as written, a weaker level 1. But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing for Barbarians. But as is, it will stay weaker for a long time.

I do note some oddities, such as how much this favors two-weapon fighting. At level 5 a two-weapon Barbarian can power up a 3 point power in one turn, while others wouldn't be able to do so without feat investment.

Conceptually, I don't think this is a bad starting point. You want the barbarian to be aggressive, reward them mechanically for doing so. Simple, easy to grasp, and efficient use of mechanics. I like that.

But the current crop of powers, mostly seem like simply worse alternatives to what the Barbarian already has. I also kinda think you might want to look at the rate at which rage points are gained and lost. Like, it reads like you need to spend 3 points for each Reckless Attack you make, and will not get Rage Points from those attacks. So if you are trying to do that for two attacks you get around at level 5, that's 6 points of Rage. Which means you won't be able to do that until you the fourth round of combat.

Yes, this doesn't allow the enemy to have Advantage on them, but, that usually got mitigated with the Barbarian's Resistance. And the Resistance got nerfed to requiring a Rage Point per source of damage. Which they now won't have, because they're trying to hoard their points so they can eventually Reckless Attack.

[Sorinth]

Conceptually, I kinda maintain if any class should be "the simple one" the class who's primary method of combat is to get really angry and smash things should be that class. It's a pretty simple tactic.

All that said, this is interesting.

It is definitely, as written, a weaker level 1. But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing for Barbarians. But as is, it will stay weaker for a long time.

I do note some oddities, such as how much this favors two-weapon fighting. At level 5 a two-weapon Barbarian can power up a 3 point power in one turn, while others wouldn't be able to do so without feat investment.

Conceptually, I don't think this is a bad starting point. You want the barbarian to be aggressive, reward them mechanically for doing so. Simple, easy to grasp, and efficient use of mechanics. I like that.

But the current crop of powers, mostly seem like simply worse alternatives to what the Barbarian already has. I also kinda think you might want to look at the rate at which rage points are gained and lost. Like, it reads like you need to spend 3 points for each Reckless Attack you make, and will not get Rage Points from those attacks. So if you are trying to do that for two attacks you get around at level 5, that's 6 points of Rage. Which means you won't be able to do that until you the fourth round of combat.

Yes, this doesn't allow the enemy to have Advantage on them, but, that usually got mitigated with the Barbarian's Resistance. And the Resistance got nerfed to requiring a Rage Point per source of damage. Which they now won't have, because they're trying to hoard their points so they can eventually Reckless Attack.

It's for sure still a work in progress so there will no doubt be tweaking power levels, and that would probably also include adjusting many of the other abilities as well. I'm not sure TWF is actually all that better though, yes you generate an extra rage per round but you have a smaller damage die which with Savage Attacks matters even more then normal. So as a simple example without feats and a +3 Str mod where the barbarian always spends the rage to use Savage Attack, the TWF is attacking twice dealing 2d6+Str and then a BA 2d6 for an average of 27. The GWF is attacking twice doing 2d12+Str which comes out to 32. I'll for sure have to math out things with feats/accuracy/etc... but I'll need to figure out where the rage points will mostly be going to first, if Savage Attack isn't one of the better uses of rage points then it will no doubt benefit the TWF.

For reckless attack it actually wasn't meant to replace the normal RA, it was meant to be a way to boost RA when you want to spend the rage but you would still be able to R normally without spending rage. I'll try to clean up the wording to make that clearer.

For the damage mitigation, yeah it's definitely a downgrade and it's mostly intentional. In principle I want to link the defensive and offensive abilities to the rage points so that you have to balance the trade offs. If you go nova with your rage boosting damage you are left without that defensive layer, but alternatively you could conserve your rage points for the defensive abilities (Which will go beyond the damage mitigation) and be able to tank even more effectively.

Anyways thanks for the input!

[kazaryu]

something else to think about: as written 'ignore the pain' takes what is one of the best parts of totem warrior, and essentially gives it to everyone. might wanna give it a qualifer for bludgeoning/piercing/slashing. then totem warriors can get a feature thats like 'you can use your ignore the pain feature for any damage source (except psychic).

overall it seems like a neat idea.

[CTurbo]

To kind of echo what Dienekes said, it's an interesting idea and a good start to something that could be really cool. I also agree that maybe you should start with maybe Con mod worth of Rage Points when you enter a rage?

I think the 5e Barb is missing something, but if there are 2 features I think they got perfectly, it's Resistance to weapon damage while raging and Reckless Attack. I would keep those features "free' and THEN see about adding some fun options requiring resources.

I'd like to see some offensive boosts, defensive boosts, and most importantly, some utility boosts. Barbs need more utility.

[Dienekes]

To kind of echo what Dienekes said, it's an interesting idea and a good start to something that could be really cool. I also agree that maybe you should start with maybe Con mod worth of Rage Points when you enter a rage?

I think the 5e Barb is missing something, but if there are 2 features I think they got perfectly, it's Resistance to weapon damage while raging and Reckless Attack. I would keep those features "free' and THEN see about adding some fun options requiring resources.

I'd like to see some offensive boosts, defensive boosts, and most importantly, some utility boosts. Barbs need more utility.

Been thinking about it, and I agree creating a small starting pool of RP when you enter Rage is a good idea, let the Barbarian come out of gate swinging. After that I would also fiddle with it a bit. Perhaps instead of per attack make it per Attack Action, provided an attack is actually made against an opponent.

Then chart out options you want available practically always instead work on an “as long as you have one remaining Rage Point.” Those that should be an option you can choose once per turn cost 1. And the power spikes only cost 2 (maybe 3) to get a full benefit.

But then, don’t make more advanced options cost more. Instead maintain that balance of cost spread, and at certain levels (presumably around 5, 11, and 17) buff up the weaker earlier level options so they’re about on par with the new later level ones.

Anyway; that’s where I would start with the concept. But I would be interested to see what Sorinth comes up with if they choose to develop this.

[Sorinth]

something else to think about: as written 'ignore the pain' takes what is one of the best parts of totem warrior, and essentially gives it to everyone. might wanna give it a qualifer for bludgeoning/piercing/slashing. then totem warriors can get a feature thats like 'you can use your ignore the pain feature for any damage source (except psychic).

overall it seems like a neat idea.

Yeah I did that to in part offset the downside of having to pay for an ability that used to be automatic/free. For Bear totem I was making it so the ability to be they gain a rage after taking damage so they should still end up tankier because where other barbarians will only mitigate 1-2 hits the Bear totem will be able to always mitigate them.

In a similar vein I was probably going to increase the number of rages (Possibly even allowing unlimited if not right away much sooner). Basically instead of fully up for a few fights a day, it would be partially up for all fights a day.

[Sorinth]

To kind of echo what Dienekes said, it's an interesting idea and a good start to something that could be really cool. I also agree that maybe you should start with maybe Con mod worth of Rage Points when you enter a rage?

I think the 5e Barb is missing something, but if there are 2 features I think they got perfectly, it's Resistance to weapon damage while raging and Reckless Attack. I would keep those features "free' and THEN see about adding some fun options requiring resources.

I'd like to see some offensive boosts, defensive boosts, and most importantly, some utility boosts. Barbs need more utility.

I had it so that they start with proficiency mod rage points when entering a rage, but Con mod would work too. Prof mod gives you a bit of scaling as you level up which I like but I can easily be convinced to use Con mod.

Reckless Attack is left the same, the new feature is meant as an optional add on. And yeah I'd like to add some utility boosts, I did slightly help with that by making it so rage doesn't end if you don't attack you can at least now get a full 1min of Str Advantage for out of combat uses. But a proper utility boost probably shouldn't be linked to rage anyways.

[Theodoxus]

I'm going in a slightly different direction. I've placed Barbarians, Monks and Rogues in the "Knave" class, gaining precision dice. For Rogues, they're standard sneak dice. For Monks, they're flurry of blows dice. For Barbarians, they're Rage dice. Roll a d6 and that's how many rounds of rage you get. You can end a rage, but it no longer automatically ends if you're not attacked or don't attack. A trade off of getting maybe only 1 round of rage vice up to 10. Since you get 1 die every 2 levels, like rogues, you can keep spending rage dice if you run out of rage rounds. Of course, because you get fewer rages (1 at 1st level, 10 max at 20) they regen on a short rest. I also allow the expenditure of a rage die to nullify the effects of Frenzy exhaustion. (I also incorporate the DC 10 Con save house rule as well).

I haven't tested it yet, but I think it's a little easier to remember for newbie players - at least, fewer rules regarding losing rage...

[Dr.Samurai]

I am a fan of limited resource management (the less the better), so I really appreciate the barbarian's approach of "grant advantage to various things". But generating rage points to spend on stuff seems like an interesting idea.

[Sorinth]

So I'm leaning towards leaving the number of rages the same but having them refresh on short rests. That should give players enough rages so that they can rage every fight and even allow for some out of combat rage uses.


Class design wise I'm thinking of following the Hunter Ranger where at various levels you choose 1 ability out of a small list of options. I'd probably want an Offensive ability group, a Defensive ability group, and an Out of Combat ability group.

Some of the ideas so far for the features would be.
Fearsome Strike. When you hit a creature you may spend 1 rage to attempt to frighten the target. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC equals 8 + Prof mode + Str Mod). On a failed save, it is Frightened of you until the end of your next turn.

Primal Instincts. You can spend one use of your rage to gain advantage on any Animal Handling or Survival checks for the next hour.

Noble Spirit. When you make a Charisma check you may spend one of your uses of rage to gain advantage on that check.

Unstoppable. At the beginning of your turn you may spend 2 rage to end any spell or magical effect on you. You cannot gain rage until the end of your turn.

[Sorinth]

So following the advice of some posters I've done the math for a basic Greataxe wielding Barbarian to see how often they would be able to spend rage to gain resistance while still doing more or less equal damage to the old rage damage boost. The results are:
Level 1-4: 1.36/turn in a 3 round combat and 1.03/turn in a 6 round combat
Level 5-8: 2.38/turn in a 3 round combat and 1.88/turn in a 6 round combat
Level 9-12: 2.41/turn in a 3 round combat and 1.74/turn in a 6 round combat
Level 13-15: 2.74/turn in a 3 round combat and 1.91/turn in a 6 round combat
Level 16: 2.44/turn in a 3 round combat and 1.60/turn in a 6 round combat
Level 17-20: 2.77/turn in a 3 round combat and 1.77/turn in a 6 round combat

Now I'm not sure what the expected number of times a Barbarian will get hit in a round is, as it will obviously vary wildly on playstyles and what the DM likes to throw at you. But it seems like you could still be getting decent usage so long as you avoid getting swarmed after using Reckless Attack. I'll also need to run the numbers for a PAM and or DW setup but I'm not expecting those to be wildly better due to the lower damage die which is more valuable with the new mechanic since it's no longer a flat damage boost from raging.