I’ve had some conversations about creatures raging and how much concern they have for their personal safety while in a raging state - both monsters and PCs.
I don’t think a creature while raging necessarily needs to be idiotic, mindless and so focused that they’ll willfully do things that do not grant any benefit. They can - but that should be specific to the creature and circumstance that they find them in.
Let’s take a deeper look at rage and what it says for your character’s willingness to get hurt for no reason.
Rage Recap
Rage has a very inclusive list of things that you can not do/use while raging.
- Charisma-based skills (except Intimidate)
- Dexterity-based skills (except Balance, Escape Artist and Ride)
- Intelligence-based skills
- Concentration (as the skill)
- any abilities that require patience or concentration (unfortunately vague)
- cast spells or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll) to function
- use the following feats: Combat Expertise, item creation feats, and metamagic feats
And that’s it. It’s a very short list, although it can encompass a lot.
The big issue here is the “abilities that require patience or concentration” bit. I don’t like vague rules. They lead to ambiguity and confusion.
An Example Of Frustration
Let’s take Whirlwind Attack as an example. Despite losing access to Combat Expertise, you can still use other feats in the feat chain. You didn’t actually lose Combat Expertise as a feat - you just can’t use it. If somehow you lost Combat Expertise completely, then you’d certainly not be able to use Whirlwind Attack because you no longer meet the pre-reqs. This isn’t the case, however.
I can see some people saying that Whirlwind Attack requires concentration because it’s a complex maneuver that allows you to attack up to 8 targets in a single round (assuming you’re a medium creature with normal reach). If you have a reach weapon (let’s assume the Spiked Chain) then you can threaten and attack up to 24 people - and this is just being a medium creature with a 5′ face. If the DM decides this, there’s little you can say about it.
However, I’ve always envisioned Whirlwind Attack to be a very circular motion that simply takes your momentum to give you the chance of hitting everyone you threaten - which would rely considerably less on concentration than the previous description. You can simply “swing really hard and continue to follow-through to the next person down the line”.
Either way, it all boils down to this - few things in the rules state that they “require patience or concentration” but a lot of things could potentially fall into that vague description. Then you have strange exceptions like Ride - which would assume at least some degree of concentration, but the rules say you can use it anyway. Sure you could just “hold on while the horse took you where it wanted to go”, but this doesn’t accurately describe the ride skill itself, since you can make checks to guide the horse. You’re obviously using some of your mental capacities to ride your mount.
So What Does This All Mean?
While looking at the disallowed list, we can draw some conclusions.
First, exceptionally complex tasks are effectively ruled out. This is obviously supported by the lack of magical item activation and the lack of Int-based skill usage (and no Int-based skill exceptions).
However, despite this, you’re still able to use the vast majority of your combat maneuvers and tactics. If combat expertise is the only feat that you can’t use, this still leaves the door open for feats that could be described as “complex” like Two Weapon Fighting, Whirlwind Attack, Snatch Arrows, Weapon Finesse, etc. (I obviously left out some feats that are part of a feat chains that seem equally odd to have access to if you were in a “mindless rage”.)
At the very least, it appears that while you’re without the capability to do various high-concentration, non-combat activities, the vast majority of the combat oriented skills you pick up are totally fair game.
What Were We Talking About Again?
One argument that I heard was that while you or certain creatures were raging that they likely wouldn’t concern themselves with provoking AoOs against opponents with reach in order to attack them or take “smart” 5′ steps. To me, these things seem to be so intrinsic to combat that someone familiar with martial combat wouldn’t be forced to disregard them.
These sorts of actions should be decided per character, per race, per stats. For instance, a troll with class levels and the ability to rage may be played to charge all the way in and attack someone with reach (and thus provoke an AoO in doing so). This doesn’t have as much to do with raging as much to do with the character and their stats. A troll is a likely candidate for wreckless tactics since it likely has a lower regard for damage than a creature that doesn’t have fast healing. While this can be exceptionally detrimental while up against PCs, the majority of the foes a troll faces will be far from a real threat for it.
Wrapping This Up
My whole point is this - a raging character doesn’t need to be stupid. There’s nothing in the description that says you get dumber, make poor combat decisions and enjoy getting hit more often. While many people may play a character like this, it’s far from a requirement.
I encourage everyone to RP their character they way they want to - that’s what makes this game so great. But don’t get hung up on the name of the class ability and think everyone needs to play it that way. We tend to think of someone that’s enraged as being bereft of their senses and flying into a mindless frenzy. While that’s certainly one of the very real possibilities, it’s not exclusive.