Barbarian Class Details
A tall human tribesman strides through a blizzard, draped in fur and hefting his axe. He laughs as he charges toward the frost giant who dared poach his people’s elk herd.
A half-orc snarls at the latest challenger to her authority over their tribe, ready to break his neck with her bare hands as she did to the last six rivals.
Frothing at the mouth, a dwarf slams his helmet into the face of his drow foe, then turns to drive his armored elbow into the gut of another.
These barbarians, different as they might be, are defined by their rage: unbridled, unquenchable, and unthinking fury. More than a mere emotion, their anger is the ferocity of a cornered predator, the unrelenting assault of a storm, the churning turmoil of the sea.
For some, their rage springs from a communion with fierce animal spirits. Others draw from a roiling reservoir of anger at a world full of pain. For every barbarian, rage is a power that fuels not just a battle frenzy but also uncanny reflexes, resilience, and feats of strength.
Primal Instinct
People of towns and cities take pride in their settled ways, as if denying one’s connection to nature were a mark of superiority. To a barbarian, though, a settled life is no virtue, but a sign of weakness. The strong embrace nature—valuing keen instincts, primal physicality, and ferocious rage. Barbarians are uncomfortable when hedged in by walls and crowds. They thrive in the wilds of their homelands: the tundra, jungle, or grasslands where their tribes live and hunt.
Barbarians come alive in the chaos of combat. They can enter a berserk state where rage takes over, giving them superhuman strength and resilience. A barbarian can draw on this reservoir of fury only a few times without resting, but those few rages are usually sufficient to defeat whatever threats arise.
A Life of Danger
A barbarian plays an important role as a protector of their people and a leader in times of war. Life in the wild places of the world is fraught with peril: rival tribes, deadly weather, and terrifying monsters. Barbarians charge headlong into that danger so that their people don’t have to.
Their courage in the face of danger makes barbarians perfectly suited for adventuring. Wandering is often a way of life for their native tribes, and the rootless life of the adventurer is little hardship for a barbarian. Some barbarians miss the close-knit family structures of the tribe, but eventually find them replaced by the bonds formed among the members of their adventuring parties.
Creating a Barbarian
When creating a barbarian character, think about where your character comes from and his or her place in the world. Talk with your DM about an appropriate origin for your barbarian. Did you come from a distant land, making you a stranger in the area of the campaign? Or is the campaign set in a rough-and-tumble frontier where barbarians are common?
What led you to take up the adventuring life? Were you lured to settled lands by the promise of riches? Did you join forces with soldiers of those lands to face a shared threat? Did monsters or an invading horde drive you out of your homeland, making you a rootless refugee? Perhaps you were a prisoner of war, brought in chains to another land and only now able to win your freedom. Or you might have been cast out from your people because of a crime you committed, a taboo you violated, or a coup that removed you from a position of authority.
QUICK BUILD
You can make a barbarian quickly by following these suggestions. First, put your highest ability score in Strength, followed by Constitution. Second, choose the outlander background.
The Barbarian Table
Level |
Proficiency |
Features |
Rages |
Rage |
---|---|---|---|---|
1st |
+2 |
2 |
+2 |
|
2nd |
+2 |
2 |
+2 |
|
3rd |
+2 |
3 |
+2 |
|
4th |
+2 |
3 |
+2 |
|
5th |
+3 |
3 |
+2 |
|
6th |
+3 |
4 |
+2 |
|
7th |
+3 |
4 |
+2 |
|
8th |
+3 |
4 |
+2 |
|
9th |
+4 |
Brutal Critical (1 die) |
4 |
+3 |
10th |
+4 |
4 |
+3 |
|
11th |
+4 |
4 |
+3 |
|
12th |
+4 |
5 |
+3 |
|
13th |
+5 |
Brutal Critical (2 dice) |
5 |
+3 |
14th |
+5 |
5 |
+3 |
|
15th |
+5 |
5 |
+3 |
|
16th |
+5 |
5 |
+4 |
|
17th |
+6 |
Brutal Critical (3 dice) |
6 |
+4 |
18th |
+6 |
6 |
+4 |
|
19th |
+6 |
6 |
+4 |
|
20th |
+6 |
Unlimited |
+4 |
Class Features
As a barbarian, you gain the following class features.
Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d12 per barbarian level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 12 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d12 (or 7) + your Constitution modifier per barbarian level after 1st
Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields
Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons
Tools: None
Saving Throws: Strength, Constitution
Skills: Choose two from Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Survival
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
- (a) a greataxe or (b) any martial melee weapon
- (a) two handaxes or (b) any simple weapon
- An explorer’s pack and four javelins
Rage
In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action.
While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren’t wearing heavy armor:
- You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
- When you make a melee weapon attack using Strength, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table.
- You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
If you are able to cast spells, you can’t cast them or concentrate on them while raging.
Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It 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.
Once you have raged the number of times shown for your barbarian level in the Rages column of the Barbarian table, you must finish a long rest before you can rage again.
Unarmored Defense
While you are not wearing any armor, your Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.
Reckless Attack
Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defense to attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.
Danger Sense
At 2nd level, you gain an uncanny sense of when things nearby aren’t as they should be, giving you an edge when you dodge away from danger.
You have advantage on Dexterity saving throws against effects that you can see, such as traps and spells. To gain this benefit, you can’t be blinded, deafened, or incapacitated.
Primal Path
At 3rd level, you choose a path that shapes the nature of your rage. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 6th, 10th, and 14th levels.
Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.
Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.
Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Fast Movement
Starting at 5th level, your speed increases by 10 feet while you aren’t wearing heavy armor.
Feral Instinct
By 7th level, your instincts are so honed that you have advantage on initiative rolls.
Additionally, if you are surprised at the beginning of combat and aren’t incapacitated, you can act normally on your first turn, but only if you enter your rage before doing anything else on that turn.
Brutal Critical
Beginning at 9th level, you can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee attack.
This increases to two additional dice at 13th level and three additional dice at 17th level.
Relentless Rage
Starting at 11th level, your rage can keep you fighting despite grievous wounds. If you drop to 0 hit points while you’re raging and don’t die outright, you can make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. If you succeed, you drop to 1 hit point instead.
Each time you use this feature after the first, the DC increases by 5. When you finish a short or long rest, the DC resets to 10.
Brutal Critical
At 13th level, you can roll two additional weapon damage dice when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee attack.
This increases to three additional dice at 17th level.
Persistent Rage
Beginning at 15th level, your rage is so fierce that it ends early only if you fall unconscious or if you choose to end it.
Brutal Critical
At 17th level, you can roll three additional weapon damage dice when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee attack.
Indomitable Might
Beginning at 18th level, if your total for a Strength check is less than your Strength score, you can use that score in place of the total.
Primal Champion
At 20th level, you embody the power of the wilds. Your Strength and Constitution scores increase by 4. Your maximum for those scores is now 24.
Primal Paths
Rage burns in every barbarian’s heart, a furnace that drives him or her toward greatness. Different barbarians attribute their rage to different sources, however. For some, it is an internal reservoir where pain, grief, and anger are forged into a fury hard as steel. Others see it as a spiritual blessing, a gift of a totem animal.
Path of the Berserker
For some barbarians, rage is a means to an end—that end being violence. The Path of the Berserker is a path of untrammeled fury, slick with blood. As you enter the berserker’s rage, you thrill in the chaos of battle, heedless of your own health or well-being.
Frenzy
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can go into a frenzy when you rage. If you do so, for the duration of your rage you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of your turns after this one. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion.
Mindless Rage
Beginning at 6th level, you can’t be charmed or frightened while raging. If you are charmed or frightened when you enter your rage, the effect is suspended for the duration of the rage.
Intimidating Presence
Beginning at 10th level, you can use your action to frighten someone with your menacing presence. When you do so, choose one creature that you can see within 30 feet of you. If the creature can see or hear you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn. On subsequent turns, you can use your action to extend the duration of this effect on the frightened creature until the end of your next turn. This effect ends if the creature ends its turn out of line of sight or more than 60 feet away from you.
If the creature succeeds on its saving throw, you can’t use this feature on that creature again for 24 hours.
Retaliation
Starting at 14th level, when you take damage from a creature that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against that creature.
Which book is the Muscle Wizard subclass in?
Bear
i know this doesn't correspond with barbarians, but where do i find a key in a dnd book?
Path of Zealot with unlimited rages at level 20.
My dwarf bear totem barbarian already used this trick with his casters since level 3. If he is raging, he runs into the middle of the fray, grab attention and then the casters throw a Dex save spell onto the group. So often he will get only a few points of damage while the enemies get all of it and are all still threatened by him.
It reminds me a bit of the old fashion Improved Evasion Rogue who you could just throw fireballs on from 3rd/3.5 and it is even more glorious when it is a Barbarian!
Look for pdf online
It is definitely 1d6 only. But it is NOT waste. Statistically, a greatsword STILL does more damage than a greataxe even with brutal Critical accounted for, simply because crits are so rare but normal hits are so common. That extra 0.5 damage of 2d6 vs 1d12 per hit EASILY accounts for the - what? - 3 to 9 extra damage on a crit (6.5 compared to 3.5 per brutal dice). Brutal crit applying to 2d6 would completely and totally invalidate the greataxe.
Further, there are better sword based magic weapons than axe based. Unless your DM homebrews magic weapons, you're Moreno likely of getting a good greatsword than greataxe.
The greataxe gets overlooked by literally everyone else except barbarians because the greatsword is better. Let Barbarians have a slight niche due to brutal crits.
Unfortunately, re-read rage itself. "Your rage lasts for 1 minute." Persistent rage, is exactly as you say, does not end early. IE full 60 seconds. You could spend 9 of your 10 rounds going all out, then down a healing potion on your tenth to bring you back. Or even kill the bbeg within one turn, then spend the next nine running to find someone that can heal you without needing to attack or be attacked to maintain the rage.
Not free:(
It's already added, you have to purchase it
Plz let the path of Storm Herald be added. I can't be bothered to type it out on my own sheet
A reasonable dm wouldn't impose any additional limits because the rage still ends after 1 minute and if you hit level 15 in adventurers league you deserve 10 rounds of immortality per combat.
if your a sismic hybrid you can grapple four different people at the same time, one for each appendage. if you mix that with totem warrior and ask your friendly sorcery to cast fire ball you and since you have resistance to all damage and have advantage on dex saves you would only take a fourth (or half if unlucky) of that damage while almost insuring every one els takes full damage. man this sounds like fun.
Favoring 1d12 weapons is really what was intended, just like the Half-Orc racial feature.
Nobody sane enough will pick a Great-axe because it lacks the consistency that 2d6 Greatsword gives you. These features give you better damage spikes on a critical.
The way to build around this is to grab 3 levels in Fighter for Great Weapon Fighting style (re-roll 1's and 2's on damage rolls, which still favors 2d6) and champion, so you roll crits on 19's and 20's, take into account that you can have advantage whenever you want and you will be having 19% chance to score a crit on every attack you make on your turn. Having 2 attacks would net you about 38% chance a critical hit each turn.
A less elaborate way to mitigate the inconsistency of a great-axe is to grab Savage Attacker, which allows you to re-roll weapons damage dice once per turn.
One thing a lot of people don't realize is that you don't have to take the same totem animal for every feature. You can grab a different option for each one, and have three different totem animals.
I would say grab bear for the first one, and either elk or tiger for the third one. The second one is just utility, so it really depends on the campaign.
I don't know whether to chose a bear or wolf for my totem spirit, what do you think is best for a half-orc barbarian
Persistent Rage says your Rage only ends *early* if you fall unconscious or choose to end it. If it doesn’t end early, it ends after the one-minute duration of the rage passes. Meaning that if a zealot barb with Rage Beyond Death hits 0hp, they have until the end of that minute-long rage to heal or they fall unconscious.
Persistent Rage removes the requirement that you must attack someone or take damage every round To maintain your Rage. It does not say it removes the one-minute cap on Rage duration.
I hear what you're saying.
I am telling you the mechanical reason why you should not give a greatsword both D6 for a brutal critical dice. If you as a DM ignore the RAW and RAI of that rule, you will be giving Greatsword users an overwhelming advantage.
You can flavour whatever you like however you like, but the rules are made to encourage a diverse use of weapons among the party.
Average Damage means little to most players. To me it's more about player agency. If a player sees their barbarian as a great sword or maul wielding fiend and doesn't just want to have an axe to be a top shelf barbarian. Especially when brutal critical hits 2 or 3.
I mean to do the quick math, say you have a 50% chance to hit and a 5% chance to crit. So 45% of the time it's normal damage 5% it's critical, with just one Brutal critical it makes up the difference as the average output of a the Greataxe is 13 on a crit while the great sword is 10. With 2 Great axe is 19.5 while greatsword is 13.5. So it means basically for all intents and purposes a Barbarian picking anything other than the only D12 weapon that doesn't have a caveat (Lance has disadvantage w/in 5 ft)
Plus if you really want to be an amazing barbarian you pick the Pike or Glaive go Polearm Sentinel, really help keep tabs on the battlefield.