Frenzied Berserker Question (CW)

[Incarnadine]

It's a Raymond Chandler evening in the Alamo City, and I'm curled up with my chicken pot pie and my Christmas copy of CW, wondering about something I bet somebody here can shed some light on.

On p. 34 when discussing triggering the FB's frenzy, it says, "In addition, if she takes damage from an attack, spell, trap, or any other source, she automatically enters a frenzy at the start of her next action, as long as she still has at least one yadda yadda yadda...." So does that mean if our thief is damaged and I, the tank, am plowing through doors and happen to hit a trapped one that does, oh, let's say 10 points of damage, I would beserk until it was off its hinges if I failed the Will save? (And, well, with how the class works, I guess I'd chop up the enemy, the party, and the welcome mat until the frenzy expired.)

Am I reading that correctly?

[Psifon]

Yes. That is correct. However, having played with a FB in my party once, I found that it was really not much of a limitation. Sure the casters had to bring hold person, and calm emotion spells "just in case," but so long as your will save is BAD enough the party can cope. On the other hand, the trade off for a few spells for the power this class grants definately helped the party overall.

BTW, Frank once pointed out the in the BoED there is a feat which counters the uncontrolled rage of the FB. I assume he was speaking of:

Righteous Wrath (exalted)

Your rage is empowere with devine fury
Prerequisites: Rage class ability
Benefit: Whebn you first deal damage with a melee attack agains an evil foe during your rage, that creature must make a sucessful Will saving throw (DC 10+1/2 your raging class level + your Cha modifier) or be shaken. If you fail to affect a creature the first time you hit it, you cannot affect it in that encounter. The shaken effect remains until you withdraw or are killed or incapacitated.
While raging, you maintain a claritty of mind unusual among barbarians. You are perfectly able to deal nonlethal damage, stop your attacks to show mercy and distinguish friend from foe even in the heat of your rage.

Note that the feat applies to rage and not to frenzy.

Now there are three ways you can interpret this:

1) When a character is raging while frenzied, he maintains his sanity enough to tell freind from foe, because the feat is active while raging.

2) You always could tell friend from foe while raging, so this part is flavor text, Frenzy superceeds this flavor text, and so you go ahead and kill your freinds.

My favorite:

3) If you are frenzied and raging you CAN tell friend from foe. BUT it doesn't stop your frenzy. You kill them, kill them all with the full and horible knowlege of your actions while doing it. The horror... The horror...

[Essence]

You are perfectly able to deal nonlethal damage, stop your attacks to show mercy and distinguish friend from foe even in the heat of your rage.

I'd be inclined to say that your final interpretation is a stretch, as the feat itself specifically states you can stop your attacks "to show mercy". If not killing your friends isn't a show of mercy on your part, what is?

[Psifon]

I know, but a DM can dream can't he?

[Incarnadine]

Aha! Thanks for the insight, Psi.

I didn't have BoED, so I wasn't sure why I'd take Righteous Wrath. Now I know. Man. I'm going to find a slot for that right now.

[Username17]

Yeah, number one is the correct one. Note that Rage and Frenzy are separate - so you would have to activate your Rage (which is voluntary) if you wanted to benefit from the feat. You would still have the option of entering an involuntary frenzy and then not activating your rage - merrily killing friend and foe alike with abandon. There are probably even times you would want to do this - such as when you were completely surrounded by large numbers of non-threatening opponents and wanted to save your Rages for later. And... um... possibly some other reasons although I can't actually think of any right now.

-Username17