Can a barbarian rampage after charging?

[Talakeal]

The recent thread about 4E got me musing about my attempts to play the system many years ago.

One ruling that really hurt my enjoyment of the game was the interaction between charge and rampage, as many of the barbarian's powers involved charges or critical hits.

I am many years AFB, but charge states that after completing a charge your turn ends and you can do nothing more. The rampage ability provides a bonus attack upon scoring a critical hit.

The DM ruled that if I got a critical hit on a charge, my turn immediately ended and rampage would not trigger.

Is this correct by RAW? By RAI? How do you play it?

Its mostly academic at this point, but at the time it was really nebulous and one of the big pain points with the rules.

Thanks!

[Waddacku]

The Rampage attack is a free action, and you can still do free actions after a charge. Both are explicitly stated in their respective rules text, so the ruling is in contradiction of both RAW and RAI.

[Vhaidara]

The above is correct, though there are a few things worth noting

1. Rampage only triggers on barbarian powers, so if you were doing a normal charge with a melee basic attack at the end, you could not rampage. This can be easily solved with the numerous barbarian charging powers, primarily Howling Strike, but it does bear mentioning for whirler barbarians in particular

2. Rampage is a free action attack, and you are limited to 1 free action attack per turn. Barbarian in particular runs afoul of this between Rampage, Swift Charge, and rages like Thunder Hawk Rage all giving you free action attacks

3. Because you can take free actions, you can charge and then Action Point to take an additional standard action after charging

[Talakeal]

The Rampage attack is a free action, and you can still do free actions after a charge. Both are explicitly stated in their respective rules text, so the ruling is in contradiction of both RAW and RAI.

Glad to hear it.

I went back and checked though, and the part about free actions is *not* in the printed PHB, so it must have been introduced later through errata or the like.


The above is correct, though there are a few things worth noting

1. Rampage only triggers on barbarian powers, so if you were doing a normal charge with a melee basic attack at the end, you could not rampage. This can be easily solved with the numerous barbarian charging powers, primarily Howling Strike, but it does bear mentioning for whirler barbarians in particular

Yes, I was using the barbarian charge powers. Which is why it felt like such a weird contradiction.

[Beoric]

Glad to hear it.

I went back and checked though, and the part about free actions is *not* in the printed PHB, so it must have been introduced later through errata or the like.


It was in the PHB errata. I don't know exactly when, but at the latest it was by May 2010, so I don't think it was part of the Essentials updates.

[tiornys]

It was part of a big errata package that addressed a lot of the more abusive combos that had been found. Restricting free action attacks to 1 per turn was in response to Kulkor Arms Master shenanigans (KAM got double nerfed as they also changed the offending L16 feature), TWF crit fishing shenanigans, and probably others that I'm not remembering.

[Talakeal]

Thanks for the responses everyone!

That errata cleared it up nicely and unambiguously.

On the off chance I ever play 4E again, I can roll a barbarian without fear!