Barbarians: Interaction between charisma and buffs on rage

[Vlaid]

So until recently I didn't know how barbarian rage worked with charisma modifiers. I thought that 14 charisma was all you needed to get the level 8 version of Barbarian rage, which seemed like a reasonable investment into a rather non-combat attribute to get the most out of your rage. I recently learned that you need 18 charisma, which would not be a problem but for the fact that recently rage stopped taking into account charisma buffs.

This has introduced a few problems for barbarians.

1) An over reliance on charisma to get your perk to function as advertised.
2) Further encouraging players to play barbarians purely on races with charisma bonuses to help alleviate the loss of charisma buffs affecting rage
3) A lot of the races which ordinarily fit the theme of barbarians have now been reduced to a terrible choice for the class due to a loss of charisma that can only be compensated for by investing completely into charisma including level up points. Examples: Shield dwarves, half-orcs, nearly every common monstrous savage race.

If the reason for the nerf was that the uncapped rage of Default was too strong with uncapped rage accounting for buffs to charisma then target that perk instead of a blanket nerf to all barbarian rage. A lot of the perk rages are already pretty weak, when combined with this change it just becomes painful to anyone who wants to play one of the less optimal perks for flavor who have been hit hardest by the change....which is only further amplified if you want to play one of those less optimal perks with a race that also gets a negative to charisma.

I don't think you should have to invest into 18 charisma just to get your rage to function at the general level it is intended to be at for your perk.

A couple alternatives...

1) Cap barbarian rage at something reasonable on the default perk and re-introduce charisma buffs to barbarian rage
2) Increase the benefit given to barbarian rage per modifier so you only need 14 charisma to reach the level 8 benefits of barbarian rage and leave buffs out of affecting charisma. This leaves certain perks open to benefit from charisma above 14 without making it a requirement that all barbarians have 18 charisma to get their perk to work as intended.

[VanillaPudding]

I'm all in favor of this change being reverted. It really doesn't make a lot of sense, promotes stat dumping, and has had kind of made a "core" efu class, at least in the sense of EFU's original changes and design, completely flawed and awkward.

Just some random numbers to back this up :


"Average" stat builds

14 -16 STR, +2 with levels                         14 str, 14 cha, +2 CHA with levels, +2 HP / level
Fighter 1 2-3 AB, bonus feat                         Barbarian 1 2 AB, 4-5 situation rage (some perks, default)
Fighter 6 8-9 AB +4 bonus feats                    Barbarian 6 8 AB, 10-11 situation rage
Fighter 8 11-12 AB +5 bonus feats                     Barbarian 8 10 AB, 13 situation rage

When you take into account the bonus feats the fighter quickly nullifies 50% of the "resilience" benefit from the Barbarian, has greater saves, higher AB, higher damage. When you add in fighter perks (that don't nerf the base class like most barbarian perks) then it escalates even further. Effectively, barbarians are no longer frightening when raging but simply come back up to par when compared to their counterpart.

[Damien]

Nah barbarians are fine really, though they still need a wild magic perk like red star deviant imo.

The only issue I really have with them is one of their biggest class perks is randomised. I'm talking about hp here. I mean it's a bit silly when fighters and rangers can averagely compete with a barn. Change this please.