Don't know if this was ever asked on here or not, but I'm curious if the Barbarian's subclass Path of the Totem Warrior animal choices stacked at all. For example, you pick a animal at 3rd level and you get to choose again at 6th. But I'm a little confuse as it doesn't clearly say that they stack, like can one pick Bear for the Totem Spirit and say Eagle for Aspect of the Beast.
So the simplest short version of my question, do the chosen animals stacked up or no?
By my understanding, the abilities go like this: say the Barbarian chooses totem of the wolf at level 3, they now have the wolf ability of giving advantage to any ally within 5 ft on attacking an enemy in melee. Then the Barbarian survives to level 6 and decides to take the eagle totem ability. They now have that keen eyesight out to a mile, but they do not retroactively get the level 3 eagle ability. They only have the level 3 wolf totem ability and the level 6 eagle ability. So forth, a totem barbarian can choose more than just their level 3 choice of animal, but they do not get any earlier abilities from future choices of animal. Does that help clear things?
The text for Path Of The Totem Warrior explicitly says you don't have to pick the same animal each time. The different abilities for a given animal aren't linked, they each work independently. So taking Bear at 6th works the same whether you took Bear at 3rd or Wolf, for example. It's no different than a Hunter Ranger who at certain levels picks an ability from a set of three, pure and simple. The abilities at each Totem level share animal names purely for thematic purposes, not mechanical.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Don't know if this was ever asked on here or not, but I'm curious if the Barbarian's subclass Path of the Totem Warrior animal choices stacked at all. For example, you pick a animal at 3rd level and you get to choose again at 6th. But I'm a little confuse as it doesn't clearly say that they stack, like can one pick Bear for the Totem Spirit and say Eagle for Aspect of the Beast.
So the simplest short version of my question, do the chosen animals stacked up or no?
By my understanding, the abilities go like this: say the Barbarian chooses totem of the wolf at level 3, they now have the wolf ability of giving advantage to any ally within 5 ft on attacking an enemy in melee. Then the Barbarian survives to level 6 and decides to take the eagle totem ability. They now have that keen eyesight out to a mile, but they do not retroactively get the level 3 eagle ability. They only have the level 3 wolf totem ability and the level 6 eagle ability. So forth, a totem barbarian can choose more than just their level 3 choice of animal, but they do not get any earlier abilities from future choices of animal. Does that help clear things?
Agreed - selection of the totem animal for each feature is totally independent of the totem animal selected as part of the other features.
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
yes to both, thank you
The text for Path Of The Totem Warrior explicitly says you don't have to pick the same animal each time. The different abilities for a given animal aren't linked, they each work independently. So taking Bear at 6th works the same whether you took Bear at 3rd or Wolf, for example. It's no different than a Hunter Ranger who at certain levels picks an ability from a set of three, pure and simple. The abilities at each Totem level share animal names purely for thematic purposes, not mechanical.