Why does D&D have subclasses basically 95% dedicated to combat like most of 5e's barbarian and fighter archetypes and...

You don't play 5e if you want to strictly roleplay. 5e is a combat edition, much like 4e, but is just handled a lot better and is easier for newer players to get into.
You can apply roleplay to any edition, and you can apply roleplay to any character concept regardless of whether it's amazing at combat or not. There is nothing that say you need a negative stat to roleplay.
You can bring roleplay to a combat-focused tabletop and you'll get good results as long as you're not retarded, but you can't bring combat to a roleplay-focused tabletop and guarantee both sides will be catered for efficiently.

Real life Wisdom and Charisma will always matter more than your character's Wisdom and Charisma anyway. If you make a perfect argument that has zero holes, most DMs will never even require you to make a check for it unless the NPC is as stubborn as the DM and absolutely refuses to listen to basic logic. Social encounters are flawed in 5e because 5e is not made to be roleplay-focused. It's made to cater combat and allow roleplay to be applied like a blanket over the top. You work roleplay in to work with the rules, you don't use roleplay as an excuse to change the rules.

Generally roleplaying and noncombat doesn't need set mechanics most of the time.

It's a lot easier to go on a train-of-logic rather than set rules and dice rolls when you're not directly competing against an enemy.

DnD has 3 main spheres of interaction. Combat, exploration, and conversation (some people call that roleplaying but you should be roleplaying in all 3 spheres)

Now, conversation doesn't need the entire party, just the face. Exploration doesn't need the entire party, just the skill monkey or utility caster.

Combat though? Everyone is involved in combat. Combat will make or break a party. Fail a conversation and the worst that happens is you get into combat. Fail exploration and the worst is the skill monkey gets evicerated by a trap or you get into combat (though much older modules aren't afraid to have tpk traps.) Fail a combat and half the party or more is dead.

In addition, combat is more easily imagined in different ways to interact with. This means its easier to make different ways to swing sword or shoot lightning. Add in that of the three spheres, combat has the most base mechanical systems in place. This means that there's more place to pin mechanical widgets like subclasses and feats. After all, talking to someone shouldn't need TOO many mechanics. If it does, players are insentivised to play the mechanics rather than you know... Talk.

More stakes + more opportunity to mechanically interact with the system + greater ease to have all players playing together = more mechanical options dedicated to combat

If only one person is engaged in conversation and exploration the game is garbage.

in my experience a majority of the party always talks to NPCs, it's just sort of bad groups that try to optimise their convesations with the highest number modifiers.

DND is shit, people only play it because normies are stupid and easily influenced and things like Critical Role and Stranger Thing make it look super hp and trendy XD.

Stop playing it, help make the industry a better place today.

Salt the wound! Salt All The Wounds!!!!!!!!!!

>Why does D&D have subclasses basically 95% dedicated to combat like most of 5e's barbarian and fighter archetypes and 4e's Str/Con barbarians and fighters

probably because the designers are fucking retardS who cant think outside of the "OH SHIT NIGGA, THATS SOMETHING ONLY THE WIZARD SHOULD DO" box, this is common knowledge

>and then DMs get surprised and pissy when those players twiddle their thumbs during all non combat encounters?

because DMs who keep buying their products are complicit in and enforce this kind of design, they blame the players because of their cognitive dissonance

>Should these subclasses exist and DMs should just deal with them being raw fighty guys or should all classes and subclasses have lots of stuff for both combat and non combat, not just little ribbons like "bigger carrying capacity in a game with Handy Haversacks" here and there?

In a good system it shouldnt even be possible for a class to be just "raw fighty guys", this happens because D&D is an inherently unbalanced system thats pathologically afraid of letting non-casters do cool stuff without a thousand arbitrary pre-requisites

Bad GM is GMing badly.

Characters can have areas they don't know nothing about and don't participate in, no matter if that "I'll stand aside and let others shine" area is social interaction, combat, crafting, wilderness exploration or running a business. Distribute the spotlight roughly equally, but don't force everyone to be in the spotlight all the time.

I think all classes should have as much able to do out of combat as each other (If not the same things).

4e's ritual casting was a good start but it really needed some tinkering (Broadening the skills so for example, Stealth is used for sneaky rituals or Athletics for high mobility rituals + making less stuff cost actual money), though making sure that each stat has roughly as many useful skills associated with it would also be good.

You know 4e has skill challenges and martial practices, right?
Is this another "I didn't read 4e but I'll just spout memes" thread?

Yeah, I know martial practices existed but they were also a lot, lot less supported (And more limited).

Wait

Wait

People played str/con fighters and barbarians in 4e?

>If you make a perfect argument that has zero holes, most DMs will never even require you to make a check for it unless the NPC is as stubborn as the DM and absolutely refuses to listen to basic logic.

And the 8 Int/Wis/Cha barbarian is coming up with these on a regular basis because...?

4e still has gaping holes in its noncombat mechanics, such as classes with a paltry 3 trained skills (battlemind, barbarian, fighter, fighter [knight], many hybrid builds), and the dearth of skills associated with Strength and Constitution.

A Strength/Constitution-based barbarian, fighter, fighter (knight), barbarian|warden, or what-have-you will absolutely not have a good time using skills outside of combat aside from Athletics and Constitution. They might even suffer a -1 armor check penalty from hide armor, or a -2 penalty from plate armor.

As an unrelated issue that further exacerbates such characters' problems, that character is guaranteed to have dreadful Reflex and Will, a rift in their defenses that will only widen as the levels increase.

Because just because the character is dumb it doesn't mean the player can't be. He could just as easily give the argument to someone with high Charisma to say and there still wouldn't be a roll required.
Even a turboautist Barbarian can say "don't punch people unless you're willing to be punched" and convince someone to back off with basic logic.

The issue extends to less extreme cases in 4e, of course.

A fairly popular optimized hybrid build, particularly at the heroic tier, is the venerable paladin|warlock or paladin (cavalier)|warlock. This type of build is usually Constitution/Charisma-based and immediately springs for Hybrid Talent Proficiency for plate armor and heavy shields.

Such a character will also have a mere three trained skills, and will excel at only Endurance (a rather narrow skill in anything but wilderness survival games), Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Streetwise. Even then, their Endurance might not be especially noteworthy given armor check penalties.

Compare this to, say, a shardmind Intelligence/Wisdom wizard with a +2 racial bonus to Arcana (and, if their DM does not allow Auspicious Birth/Born Under a Bad Sign/Thay, probably another +2 background bonus to Arcana). From level 1 alone, for no investment at all, they get to use Arcana in place of Diplomacy once per encounter, Arcana in place of Intimidate once per encounter, and Arcana in place of Stealth once per encounter, to say nothing of what their Wisdom grants them. They also have rituals.

This could be plausible once in a metaphorical blue moon. Performed consistently, it raises questions on the character's mental ability scores.

Ah, so it's a "4e trolls vs Touhoufag" thread. I'm out.

>Raw strength is used in every day situations.
It is, but D&D is stuck in some weird purgatory where martials are so "realistic," they end up becoming unrealistic due to just how inept they are at relatively mundane shit outside of combat.

>This could be plausible once in a metaphorical blue moon. Performed consistently, it raises questions on the character's mental ability scores.
It is possible to be an unlearned yokel and still have a lick of sense about you, it's just that your wisdom (as in the concept, not the ability score) would be based around one concept; like the Barbarian from the earlier example. By the same token, it is possible to be a genius and still make poor decisions that most people would say are a bad idea, or be charismatic but still say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Which is generally such a separation of competency exists in the first place, because the character's capabilities will always be limited by the capabilities of the person who is playing it.

idk, make a character, role play it...
you do realize you can do things you aren't proficient at, right?
or even related to the game mechanics at all.

Are you the guys who play 8 Int/Wis/Cha fighters and then roleplay your characters as smart and suave badasses and browbeat your DM into going along with your persuasions without dice rolls?

>roleplaying your stats
>in a combat game
In games focused heavily on roleplay, there is literally no reason not to play Hexblade in 5e. You get all the social abilities, and both melee/spellcasting stats in one score. It's inherently flawed.
If you want to play a Monk you literally aren't allowed to be smart. If you want to be a Fighter you can't do anything other than swing your sword or you're suboptimal. Then DMs wonder why you say nothing outside of combat because you're more likely to fuck up a conversation due to retards expecting that 'average intelligence (10) means you can't say something smart relatively often, even if your character is the type who only talks when he knows he won't make a fool of himself'.
Social encounters are flawed in DnD, because if your DM honestly expects you to be restricted from talking just because you're forced to take a shit stat, it's garbage. You're allowed to speak your mind and use logic and social stats are irrelevant if you're smart IRL, or you're forced to say nothing at all and leave the DM wondering.
Playing a martial shouldn't mean that you'll never be allowed to intelligent things for the entire campaign. I don't know about you, but if I'm going to play a campaign for 20 years, I'm not going be prevented from having good ideas just because I picked a role that someone needed to play.

No, we're the guys who realized that 8 INT/WIS/CHA is not the same as being completely inept at basic shit, it's just a -1.

Besides, even if you roll you could still end up as the smart and suave badass if you roll high enough for long enough thanks to how swingy the d20 is by default. So I don't see the difference between playing your character to the best of your abilities and being handed competency hand over fist because your dice liked you.

>
In games focused heavily on roleplay, there is literally no reason not to play Hexblade in 5e. You get all the social abilities, and both melee/spellcasting stats in one score. It's inherently flawed.

>What is a Lore bard?
>What is a Valor bard?
>What is a Divination/Lore Master wizard?
>What is an Avatar mystic?
>What is a revised ranger?

>bad mechanics are an excuse to be a bad roleplayer

If you can't act like you have 8 int when playing a character with 8 int. Then DON'T PLAY A CHARACTER WITH 8 INT. You wanna play a monk? dump strength instead and put a 12 in int, play an old master kinda character. Stats represent your character, if you roleplay like they don't apply, then you're not really roleplaying the same character as you're using in fights

But yeah, hexblades were a terrible addition to the game and their main function is making other options worse because doing the same thing as a hexblade is easier and usually better

what about 18 int?

because thats about as smart as the smartest person in a town, possibly city, depending on particular numbers.

You're still the asshole who keeps on trying to browbeat your GM into letting you woo the princess because obviously you talked so well that you don't need to roll, right?

That is really hard

The easiest solution is, well, be lucky enough to actually just be smarter than your DM. Also, ask for details and always, always think before you speak.

Also, affect what you consider to be a "smart" accent, this has worked surprisingly well for me, I find myself stumbling over words less when I try to talk like my old Renaissance History lecturer

No, we just give an argument that would make sense for our characters to say and either the GM can tell us to roll or they can let us succeed or fail based on the quality of the argument being said.

Again, with the way the system is designed, the metric between novice and master is entirely arbitrary thanks to the fact that your biggest bonus will generally come from the die rather than your bonuses, so I don't understand why there needs to be a distinction between "I made good argument with 8 INT/WIS/CHA" and "I rolled a 19 in spite of having a -1 to my INT/WIS/CHA."

You still have to roll and you'll fail more often than not.

Not really. As most people ITT can attest, there have been many situations where someone managed to roll high enough on a 1 in a million chance and there have been times where you completely eat shit on rolls that you should've been able to pass but didn't. Then you add in opposed rolls and the problem exacerbates by a considerable margin.

The only consistent thing about D&D's rolling system is that it lacks consistency

And there'll be more times when you flub the roll because lol -1 modifier.

God help you if you try it while trying to lie to an NPC or intimidate them.

>And there'll be more times when you flub the roll because lol -1 modifier.
A -1 is honestly a drop of piss in the ocean compared to the bonuses you get for rolling above average on a d20.
>God help you if you try it while trying to lie to an NPC or intimidate them.
Actually, that's fine, because you know what, unless they're a max level character with a +21 to their roll, there's still a chance that they can roll low enough and I can roll high enough on my roll.

Hell, it's why my Rogue, who had -1 to Deception, was able to pull one over on our Ranger, who had a +7 to their insight. He rolled a 10 (3+7) while I managed to roll a 19 (20-1).

Even if you're more than likely to fail the same roll over and over again, you only need to succeed once.

anyone who's played pokemon can tell you how much of a difference a 5% can make to a hit/miss chance

what about 18 str

i mean, youre giving general pointers on how to act smarter, but doesnt being swole af generally come along with certain behavioral differences, if not, is caused by? or is str an exception to this rule because its a physical stat, not a mental one

>anyone who's played pokemon can tell you how much of a difference a 5% can make to a hit/miss chance
Well it's a good thing this isn't fucking pokemon huh?

>Actually, that's fine, because you know what, unless they're a max level character with a +21 to their roll, there's still a chance that they can roll low enough and I can roll high enough on my roll.
Level 11 isn't even near "max level", user. +5 from ability modifier +8 from double proficiency bonus at level 11 (Expertise or the UA feats) + Reliable Talent (Rogue 11, never roll below 10 if you have a proficiency bonus) = I never roll below 23, and that's not including any items that might help me.

There's a certain confidence in motion that comes with high physical stats. It's more subtle than high mental stats, but you should certainly attempt to portray it.

It's all probability functioning on a 5% scale

Never rolling lower than a 10 is not the same as having a +10 bonus to the roll user. Even then, one class ability overwriting a general rule does not mean that the rule becomes less substantial as a result.

Otherwise, we could ignore NAT 1's thanks to halflings existing.

If you fail a Deception or Intimidation roll (and you probably will with an amazing -1 modifier), you're just going to look like an idiot.

You don't know how math works.

well, thats one difference, sure, but are you really assuming its the only difference? fitness generally corresponds to high self esteem, greater energy, etc, so certainly there are other behavioral differences

you can see where im going with this, right? what about wisdom? is a pious man (ie. one which strictly believes in, behaves according to, and preaches his churches doctrine) restricted only to those who are pious irl?

charisma is defined not only as physical attractiveness, but force of character. should weak willed (ie. those unable to exert their will upon others, not referring to willpower) individuals be restricted from having a high charisma?

It's also the difference between (d20+mod.) and the way Pokemon calculates how attack/damage works.

>Never rolling lower than a 10 is not the same as having a +10 bonus to the roll user.
No, it just means that your rolls are always at least 10 + 5 + 8 = 23. Never less than that.

>If you fail a Deception or Intimidation roll (and you probably will with an amazing -1 modifier), you're just going to look like an idiot.
And if I succeed then I'll have succeeded in my action and nobody can say shit to me.
>You don't know how math works.
Oh the irony.

Which is fine, but I'm talking having a +21 to the roll even before you pick up the d20. To the point where even if your opponent rolls a 20 and you roll a 1, the worst that can happen is you tie as opposed to getting shat on because his base roll was bigger than yours.

Granted, it's still a pretty good ability, but at the same time, it's the exception, not the rule.

You can play someone pious without being pious. You can play someone confident without being confident. You don't need to be as good as the character you're playing, you only need to be good enough to get the idea across

>And if I succeed then I'll have succeeded in my action and nobody can say shit to me.

And you'll have a way higher chance of failing than succeeding.

And I'm telling you that all you need is +11 and the Reliable Talent ability (which implies Rogue 11) to ignore anyone who has no bonuses to their roll. Because even if you roll 1, that still counts as a 10 for you and the other guy needs to beat your result of 21.

Your initial statement was that you need to be "max level" to ignore that other guy, and that's simply not even remotely true - even without going into items giving bonuses for ability checks.

A -1 is not that big of a penalty man. At most it means that you can only pass like half the DC's listed in the PHB based on straight rolls.

but behaviour can be deceptive as far as intelligence is concerned. i knew a guy who was doing a double degree in chemistry and law, before he got a heroin habit. if you knew him after that, you sure as shit wouldn't have guessed his intelligence.

this is heroin, not meth, or something that destroys your mind. in the 1950s there is a famous story of a practicing surgeon who was a morphine addicted.

>At most it means that you can only pass like half the DC's listed in the PHB based on straight rolls.

Please remember that DC 10 is easy.

If you have Int/Wis/Cha -1 and no proficiency, you'll succeed on "easy" tasks only half of the time.

Pathetic you.

i should add, that force of character and confident aren't synonymous. you can be confident in your looks without knowing how to impose your will upon others through the right combination of body language, wording, and aesthetics

You're ignoring the fact that outside of this one particular instance, most characters would need a +21 to the roll in order to not be affected by the RNG.

Yes, you could do all that and get to that bonus much sooner, similarly to how a Barbarian with high CON will get over 100 HP much sooner than a Wizard of equal level.

Or how a Paladin with GWM and PAM will generally kill most things in less time than a Sorcerer trying to stab something with a dagger and no DEX.

It exists, it's viable, but it's only relevant to this particular hedge case that most players won't have access to unless they choose this particular option.

All I need to disprove a general statement is to find one particular instance where it isn't true.

>playing D&D
>2018

I think we're all losing the point here

The point is not that you have to act out a a flawless representation of stats, it's that you ignoring your character's stats when it's convenient for you is poor roleplaying form.

If, for example, you're making a monk, and you know that going 8 intelligenc is optimal for a monk, but you don't want to roleplay someone with subpar intelligence, the solution is not to just take 8 int and ignore your stats, it's to either bite the RP bullet or go suboptimal

>If you have Int/Wis/Cha -1 and no proficiency, you'll succeed on "easy" tasks only half of the time.
Okay? That's still pretty negligible considering we're talking about a -1 to the roll and the biggest bonus is still coming from the d20.

i wish you didnt deflect, i was enjoying this argument

I don't understand, why is it are you trying to make it so that unlikely scenarios never occur?

They're unlikely, but still possible, that's what the dice roll is for.

You realize that every action, no matter how improbable it may be, still have one chance where it can happen right?

There are people who have been struck by lightning, run over by trucks, and shot point blank in the face; it doesn't mean that those things won't generally kill you dead just because there were situations where that wasn't the case.

I wasn't, it wasn't even the rgument I was trying to make, I just wanted to point out how this guy is an asshole for essentially trying to mother may I out of actually roleplaying in an RPG

>I don't understand, why is it are you trying to make it so that unlikely scenarios never occur?
Because if I invested time and resources into being good at something, I should be able to look at anyone who isn't on my level and tell them to eat shit unless they come up with something particularly clever that offsets my advantages.

We're talking about game rules here, not the real world. This is the realm of pure mathematics, pure theory.

It essentially means that for "social" NPC opponents to be effective they need to be almost pure rogues with maybe some bard or whatnot thrown in for flavour in 5e, but that's a rant for another day.

no need to get so defensive dude, i just enjoy debating, it wasnt an attack on your character

>needing enumerated rules to play pretend
You're the faggot with the issue here, not any particular edition of DnD.

Sorry, you saw it as a deflect, i saw it as getting back on topic

Why?

Dumb luck is a surprisingly powerful factor. Sure not as powerful as low level 5e makes it out to be due to +2 being a pretty pathetic bonus, but still. Sometimes the guy with no poker face can fool the detective, sometimes the dumbass knows a random remedy that a medic doesn't.

The problem is not the d20, nor the fact that you can fail, it's that the difference in skill is so pathetic at level 1

>We're talking about game rules here, not the real world. This is the realm of pure mathematics, pure theory.
Even still, saying that a general statement is no longer relevant because of one hedge case where it's not is pretty flawed logic, especially using RAW, which is decidedly not operating under any shred of logic beyond the numbers being presented in the book.

Literally every problem you've stated is fixed by 1) not power gaming or 2) accepting that sometimes, people just suck at social situations. Like maybe a barbarian who has spent their life living rough and tumble in the wild or cleaving their way through combat.

Also, the biggest issue here is honestly the players. In 2E, a fighter had extreme charisma simply through their accomplishments; it was assumed that a 10th level fighter was such a goddamned bad ass that s/he just got a following for it. If that doesn't represent power of character, I don't know what does.
Somewhere between 2E and 3.5, everyone went full-blown retard, and your stats came to represent the totality of who your character was instead of instead of being an extrapolation to help you solve dice rolls. So, basically, the idiots took it too seriously, too close to the metal so to speak, and ended up powergaming themselves into stupidity.

tl;dr-stop power gaming and actually learn how to role play

Well yeah

All these problems came from 3.5. More specifically the horrific monstrosity that was the 3.5 skill system

Because that kind of upset is more interesting when it's actually rare instead of happening as often as you see a natural 20.

but... skills don't crit.

If you have a +7, he has a -1, and he rolls a 20, all you need to roll is a 13 to beat him clean, or a 14 to tie him.

>The problem is not the d20, nor the fact that you can fail, it's that the difference in skill is so pathetic at level 1
No, the issue is the d20, mainly because there isn't a strong enough separation between the various tiers of power that the game presents to us as players.

A level 20 badass will always miss on a 1, even if it's against the weakest enemy in the game. A Level 1 scrub will always hit on a 1, even if it's against the strongest enemy in the game. Yet and still, it tries to paint a picture of you ascending to higher echelons of power while still using the d20 to decide your fate when it's going to end up giving you the largest bonus by far unless you're at a level where your bonuses exceed 20.

Now, if the system they set up was one where this kinda stuff happened rarely then sure, I could accept that, but not when I spent weeks/months/years building up a combat monster and some fucking goblin still manages to hit me just because they rolled a NAT 20.

other way around, I am an idiot

Yeah fair enough 3d6 is better

>If you have a +7, he has a -1, and he rolls a 20, all you need to roll is a 13 to beat him clean, or a 14 to tie him.
And as many of us can attest, there are multiple instances where the dice just decide to fuck you over even though you should have a better than average shot of doing a thing.

Hell, we had a situation last night where my character, with a +8 to their WIS save, still failed to get a 15 save DC because the dice decided to roll nothing higher than a 5 for three turns while the guy with shit WIS managed to skate on by because they rolled a 17 on the die for their first roll.

It happens a lot, and it sucks when you're on the wrong end of it.

>A Level 1 scrub will always hit on a 1
Should be "A Level 1 scrub will always hit on a 20"

My bad.

AND?

So fucking what, it's part of the game, if you can ride the high of getting a high streak, you can suffer through getting a low streak.

...

Again, actually rare, not >5% of the time.

People fail to realise that not every damn thing needs to have a stat. You don't need high Charisma to talk like a human being. You don't need high Intelligence to understand instructions. You don't need high Wisdom to cook a decent meal.

Sometimes you can just explain what you are doing and dictate how you plan your roles, and the DM may approve at their discretion.
You want a good contract as a mercenary? Roll Strength to flex those muscles and show you are good for the job. No Persuasion needed. You can even use it to attract people - muscles are sexy to many.
You want to discourage troublemakers from starting a fight? Roll Constitution to puff up and look bigger and more imposing, get them to think twice. No Intimidation needed. Challenge someone to a drinking/eating contest, as well. That is social.

If you need dedicated mechanics just to play out RP semi-competently, the problem isn't the system, it's you for being a lousy DM/Player. Adding mechanics to resolve a social encounter is simple an excuse to let the DM do all the work so you. In which case you shouldn't play a social-oriented game.

Look at Human Revolution, there's no social stat, but it has some of the best social encounters in gaming. Pick the right responses, convince your target. Kd the DM isn't convinced, you are just really bad. And you can stick to regular d20 rolls to tally up how well you are doing and determine degree of success based on that. No stats required.

no mate, what i mean is maybe you shouldnt take everything so literally.

theres a word for that

>You want a good contract as a mercenary? Roll Strength to flex those muscles and show you are good for the job. No Persuasion needed. You can even use it to attract people - muscles are sexy to many.
>You want to discourage troublemakers from starting a fight? Roll Constitution to puff up and look bigger and more imposing, get them to think twice. No Intimidation needed. Challenge someone to a drinking/eating contest, as well. That is social.

If only the game actually worked that way without begging your DM.

>if you can ride the high of getting a high streak, you can suffer through getting a low streak.
Not when it happens often enough to where your modifiers are practically worthless in the grand scheme of the game.

Hell, you shouldn't even have to roll if your modifiers beats the DC by default. There should also be a rule where if someone wants to beat you in an opposed challenge, the person on offense has to roll against a DC of 10+mod. like how it works with passive perception. Why stop there? Make it so you can't EVEN roll lower than your total level whenever you make a roll.

Just something that makes it feel like you're actually improving as a character rather than basing the bulk of your character's ability on pure luck vs. pure luck.

It technically does, it's just that the optional rule where you can substitute one ability score with another is not as prolific as the equally optional rule where you can choose to take a feat instead of an ASI.

>Hell, you shouldn't even have to roll if your modifiers beats the DC by default.
Who the hell does that? If rolling a 1 and adding your modifiers is still beating the DC, there's no point in rolling so we don't roll (unless it's an attack roll, those are the only ones which have special rules for rolling 1 and 20).

Some of us still roll our stats, and those 8s and 9s have to go somewhere.

Because everything past 2e forgot that Fighters are supposed to be knights and mercenary captains which eventually become landed lords with people working under them along with needing some degree of social skills to manage all of that.

Barbarians could take a look back to their source material where their rage was seen as a divine gift, a battle fury akin to Norse berserks, Cú Chulainn's warp-spasm, or just being an angry Pict. In any case but the Picts, the rage was something to be respected, the mark of hero who gifted with a power from above.