Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback What is ONE ROUND? and this and that

As with many things, the 5e ruleset and design philosophy has been a lot more open to player interpretation of how things might be, and avoiding of hard-locked stereotypes. Barbarians aren't just "I are big dumb hulk I smash rargh!" They can be, certainly, but they aren't necessarily that one single dull and over-used trope any more. They can be different. Similarly, your Rage as a barbarian can express itself in many different ways, and take many different forms; not everyone gets angry the same way, and not everyone channels primal forces the same way... and surely enough, not everyone channels primal forces by getting angry in the same way!

If you want to follow the traditional dumb-hammer stereotype, the Berserker primal path (subtype for barbarians) mostly fits to that old ideal, but there are more than half a dozen other primal paths to choose from that all flavour and shape your barbarian and their rage in different ways.

The formal rules for rage, in 5e are simply these:

- You gain its benefits as long as you are not wearing heavy armour (those being, at base, resistance to Bl/Pi/Sl damage, advantage on anything that uses strength, whether check or save, and bonus damage on attacks you make using strength; your subclass as a barbarian will usually add more things to your rage depending on what subclass you take)

- If you otherwise could cast spells, you cannot do so while raging.
- You cannot maintain concentration on any ongoing spells either, and any concentration you are holding immediately ends.

- Your rage ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action.

This means that your soldier-barbarian can furiously spend her turns rescuing her dumb-arse recruits from their own stupidity while shouting at and berating them the whole time, and as long as she's taking damage while doing so, that's enough to keep the exasperated and indignant fury going. It seems strange that you'd suggest that on-going pain isn't enough to infuriate people and keep them mad - because it categorically is ^.^ Quite literally, causing pain to creatures to infuriate them and lose their sense of tactics in favour of raw fury is an exceedingly common tactic, because it's very effective.

A lot of the design philosophy is about giving players more flexibility in the kinds of characters they want to create, without rail-roading them into the more traditional stereotypes of those classes - you can still follow those stereotypes, if that suites the character you want to make, but it's not forced on you.