Barbarian: Path of Stone is Comically Overpowered

This is clearly someone who has never met a twilight domain cleric...

Joking aside, the battlerager has this ability in P&P, and it's considered a seriously underpowered subclass. Simply not dying yourself just isn't that useful in a squad based game.

I just went and read the twililght domain's Twilight Sanctuary.  OMG  - that stupidly broken.

Now I see why so many DM's said they would not allow the Twilight Domain in their game when it first came out (See: Davvy Chappy's youtube channel where he rips it apart and says the Twilight Domain is banned at his table).

So we are comparing it to something that's already stupidly broken in the game. Got it.

I just need a point of clarification though: Is it at the end of EVERY ROUND that you are raging, or only the first one? Big difference.

I'm going off what the wiki says.

, the battlerager has this ability in P&P, and it's considered a seriously underpowered subclass. Simply not dying yourself just isn't that useful in a squad based game.

i had a 6th level battlerager with the right two feats and a certain rare magic item, he was able to absorb over 1000 HP of damage in one combat without any healing 

I just need a point of clarification though: Is it at the end of EVERY ROUND that you are raging, or only the first one? Big difference.

It's every round, but, since temp HP don't stack, it doesn't do anything unless you take damage. Twilight Sanctuary is so much better because everyone gets it, which means the hostiles can't just ignore the character and kill everyone else.

But the actual comparable subclass is Battle Rager (SCAG) - look that one up.

But the actual comparable subclass is Battle Rager (SCAG) - look that one up.

But they are not really comparable, because the Battle Rager's temp hit points trigger off "Reckless Attack" which grants ALL incoming attacks against you advantage.   So there's a balance to it.  You have to willfully take the "Reckless Attack" to get the temp hit points (and only equal to your Con bonus).

Meanwhile with Path of Stone there is no balance. You get them each turn with no penalty, at no cost. AND you get TWICE your prof bonus which is likely much higher than your Con bonus.

So yeah - Path of Stone as written is crazy OP and laughably unbalanced.

It's 8 hp at max. Practically nothing. That is not to say Stone barb is weak, but their powerhouse abilities are their lvl 6 and 10 features. 

But the actual comparable subclass is Battle Rager (SCAG) - look that one up.

But they are not really comparable, because the Battle Rager's temp hit points trigger off "Reckless Attack" which grants ALL incoming attacks against you advantage.   So there's a balance to it.  You have to willfully take the "Reckless Attack" to get the temp hit points (and only equal to your Con bonus).

Meanwhile with Path of Stone there is no balance. You get them each turn with no penalty, at no cost. AND you get TWICE your prof bonus which is likely much higher than your Con bonus.

So yeah - Path of Stone as written is crazy OP and laughably unbalanced.

Why are you not using reckless attack?! If no one hits you those temp hp are worthless!

Part of the point of Reckless Attack is to encourage enemies to attack you instead of the other party members. If the tank is the last man standing they aint doing their job.

to original Q, it depends on what difficulty youre playing at.  At mid-low, sure, its kinda (very?) strong.  But on cataclysm with deadlier/merciless AI, those +4 or whatever HP is like nothing.   The berserker is a better pick imo, its hard to beat the game by out-healing.  Go for the damage. 

to original Q, it depends on what difficulty youre playing at.  At mid-low, sure, its kinda (very?) strong.  But on cataclysm with deadlier/merciless AI, those +4 or whatever HP is like nothing.   The berserker is a better pick imo, its hard to beat the game by out-healing.  Go for the damage. 

At level 9, you get 8 Temp. HP every turn (2HP per Proficiency Bonus). [at the end of our turn: still means every turn]

Therefore, it you take 16 normal damage while you are in Rage, you lose zero HP. 

The wording from the wikia is:

“Stone Resilience ➜ While raging, you gain temporary hit points equal to twice your proficiency bonus at the end of your turn.”

Assuming that is accurate, that‘s going to be 8 HP at the end of your turn at level 9. You only gain those at the end of your turn in the round, not every turn of the round. Is it nice regenerating temporary HP? Yes, yes it is. Is it a crazy amount of temporary HP? No, not really. Is it such a large amount of temporary HP that it needs to be considered too strong and makes the Path of Stone Barbarian a mandatory party pick? Absolutely not. And if the level cap were 20, it’d be 12 temporary HP, so even tabletop in a max level campaign it’s a nice-to-have but not overly strong ability.

As Tom Reneth pointed out, it’s the level 6 and 10 abilities that are the best, and even those aren’t the greatest things ever. Having your character’s own saving throws based on CON is nice, but a Paladin of the same level will be adding their CHA modifier to the entire parties saving throws. The level 10 ability is a welcome bump to AC, but maximizing it requires being surrounded, which often isn‘t great tactically. They are all nice personal survivability abilities, but even altogether they aren’t a “OMG, every group must have this character” kind of thing. It’s a solid tanking option (to the extent that tanking is useful) but “comically overpowered“ is an exaggerated claim.

Assuming that is accurate, that‘s going to be 8 HP at the end of your turn at level 9. You only gain those at the end of your turn in the round, not every turn of the round.

At the end of your turn while raging, in practice, does mean every single turn that you are raging.  The +8 HP at the end of the turn means that the Temp HP is there for an incoming attack from then till the start of your turn.  You are rarely attacked during your turn, so at the end of every turn if quite fine. 

I am not saying it is OP.  It generally soaks a single attack (after the end of your first turn raging :P).  I only contradict those who say it is weak.

For comparisons, I made a party of 1 Paladin and 3 Barbarians (one of each path).  The Paladin survives much more and buffs others!  Then again, comparing any type of "warrior" class to Paladins is maybe not a good reference point.

to original Q, it depends on what difficulty youre playing at.  At mid-low, sure, its kinda (very?) strong.  But on cataclysm with deadlier/merciless AI, those +4 or whatever HP is like nothing.   The berserker is a better pick imo, its hard to beat the game by out-healing.  Go for the damage. 

At level 9, you get 8 Temp. HP every turn (2HP per Proficiency Bonus). [at the end of our turn: still means every turn]

Therefore, it you take 16 normal damage while you are in Rage, you lose zero HP. 

If you take exactly 8 points of damage per round over two rounds, sure.

If you take 16 hp in one round and zero in the other you loose 8 hp.

This is what I found in my P&P game with a twilight cleric - it's awesomely strong at mid levels, but by the time the party reached around level 14 the monsters where hitting so hard that the damage shaved off by the temp hp was trivial.

  You are rarely attacked during your turn,

One trick you can pull if you find you still have your temp hp at the beginning of your turn is deliberately provoke an attack of opportunity, thereby causing an enemy to waste their reaction.

If you take 16 hp in one round and zero in the other you loose 8 hp.

What I meant with an example : 

• A large elemental hits your raging barbarian for 16 Bludgeoning damage : reduced to 8 due to Rage Resistance.
  [ of course, does not apply if was Fire damage for example, unless you have Fire Resistance.]
• You had 8 Temporary HP, therefore lost zero HP.
• If nothing hits you again, your next turn (at the end) will replace 8 Temp. HP.

Pretty sure it is how it works in Solasta now, as my "Stone Barbarians" rarely take any damage.

Right. And no one is saying that the temporary hit point gain is weak, but simply that it isn’t overpowered as written. The original poster‘s assertion is that it is overpowered as written, and now has two different threads claiming it needs to be limited in use, if you make it limited in use, it goes from good-not-great to a-bit-on-the-weak side overall. It’ll be good when you can use it, but you won’t be using it that much with their proposed homebrew. There’s now two long and hard to follow threads where they have continually asserted that path of stone’s level 3 ability is crazy overpowered and should be nerfed, when it isn‘t even strong enough to justify the Paladin (any subclass) opportunity cost in most parties.