Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you are trained in the art of forging spikes onto armor and using them to tear through your opponents. As part of a long rest, you can apply these armor spikes to one suit of armor with which you are proficient or a shield. While you have this armor donned, the spikes can be used as a simple melee weapon which deals 1d4 piercing damage on a hit. You are considered proficient in using the armor spikes as a weapon and use your Strength modifier for the attack and damage rolls. While you are raging, you can use a bonus action to make an attack with your armor spikes..
Additionally, when you successfully grapple a creature while wearing a suit of armor that has the armor spikes applied, the target takes piercing damage from the spikes equal to your proficiency bonus. Any creature which is grappling you (or is grappled by you) also takes this damage at the start of each of its turns.
Reckless Abandon
Beginning at 6th level, when you use Reckless Attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1).
Spiked Armor Mastery
You channel the spirit of the Kuldjargh, abandoning any sense of self preservation and empowering your drive to destroy your enemies. Beginning at 10th level, you gain the following benefits while your Battlerager’s Armor is donned:
Attacks made using the armor spikes deal 2d4 piercing damage instead of 1d4.
Any piercing damage dealt by the armor spikes count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
If you hit a creature that is grappled by you with an attack made using the armor spikes, the target has disadvantage on the next Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) skill check made to escape the grapple.
Battlerager Charge
Also at 10th level, you can take the Dash action as a bonus action while you are raging.
Spiked Retribution
Starting at 14th level, while you are wearing spiked armor and raging, a creature takes piercing damage from the armor spikes equal to the value shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table whenever it hits you with a melee attack while within 5 feet of you or touches you.
Path of the Battlerager
Known as Kuldjargh (literally "axe idiot") in Dwarvish, battleragers are followers of the gods of war and take the Path of the Battlerager. They specialize in wearing bulky, spiked armor and throwing themselves into combat, striking with their body itself and giving themselves over to the fury of battle.
Battlerager’s Armor
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you are trained in the art of forging spikes onto armor and using them to tear through your opponents. As part of a long rest, you can apply these armor spikes to one suit of armor with which you are proficient or a shield. While you have this armor donned, the spikes can be used as a simple melee weapon which deals 1d4 piercing damage on a hit. You are considered proficient in using the armor spikes as a weapon and use your Strength modifier for the attack and damage rolls. While you are raging, you can use a bonus action to make an attack with your armor spikes.
Additionally, while raging, when you successfully grapple a creature while wearing a suit of armor that has the armor spikes applied, the target takes piercing damage from the spikes equal to your Rage Damage. Any creature which is grappling you (or is grappled by you) also takes this damage at the start of each of its turns, provided you are still raging.
When you reach 10th level in this subclass, the damage dealt by the spikes as simple melee weapons increases from 1d4 to 2d4 piercing damage.
Reckless Abandon
Beginning at 6th level, when you use Reckless Attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1).
Spiked Armor Mastery
You channel the spirit of the Kuldjargh, abandoning any sense of self preservation and empowering your drive to destroy your enemies. Also at 6th level, any piercing damage dealt by the armor spikes count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. If you hit a creature that is grappled by you with an attack made using the armor spikes, the target has disadvantage on the next Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) skill check made to escape the grapple.
Battlerager's Charge
Beginning at 10th level, while raging you can you can move through the spaces of hostile creatures without any reduction to your movement speed, but cannot end your movement in such a space. Whenever you take the Dash action, any creature whose space you move through must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone. The DC for this charge is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier. While your spiked armor is donned, any creature who fails its Dexterity save also takes piercing from the armor spikes equal to 1d4+ your Strength modifier, or half as much damage on a successful save. A creature cannot be affected by this feature more than once per turn.
Spiked Retribution
Starting at 14th level, while you are wearing spiked armor and raging, a creature takes piercing damage from the armor spikes equal to the value shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table whenever it hits you with a melee attack while within 5 feet of you or touches you.
Design Notes
Spiked Armor: Altered the language to allow for a barbarian to apply the spikes to any suit of armor rather than relying on a specific kind. Also allowed for use of shields in case the barbarian wants to rely on their Unarmored Defense instead; however, the grapple bonus only applies to suits of armor. Modified the language so that the armor spikes can be used as part of your Attack action and not limited to the Rage-based bonus action attack. Changed the grapple damage to scale with your proficiency bonus instead of being a flat “3.” This allows the damage to naturally increase as you level up and remain impactful if you choose to multiclass. In this way, the use of PB for damage reflects using your proficiency with the armor as opposed to as a barbarian. Allow the grapple damage to apply while any grapple is maintained and not just when you initiate the grapple, which gives a slight power boost and makes more sense to me thematically.
Reckless Abandon Removed restriction that you had to be raging to generate these Temp HP.
Spiked Armor Mastery An entirely new feature. In order to keep the influence of the spiked armor competitive, I increase the damage dealt by attacks to 2d4 (on average a little better than 1d8) and make all damage from the armor spikes (attacks and passive abilities) magical to overcome resistances. There are also a few bonuses to trying to maintain/escape grapples while you wear the spike armor, which I think makes sense thematically. That being said, it could make this subclass’ grappling potential a little too good (stacking disadvantage on your enemy with your advantage from raging).
Spiked Retribution Changed the ability to scale with Rage Damage instead of being a flat 3 so that it deals a little more damage per hit at levels 16+. Gave the trigger for the damage wording similar to that of the Fire Form feature of Fire Elementals. The goal is to ensure that the extra damage still applies to creatures who attack you with a body party, even if they have the reach to attack you from 10ft+ away.
I like most of the adjustments you've put here, but I would suggest the following changes:
1. Spiked armor mastery should come in at 6th level instead of 10th. Making the spikes magical for overcoming resistance is similar to the monk's 6th level feature which is one reason I think giving this feature earlier is still balanced
2. A new 10th level feature which doubles down on the battleragers being living weapons and complements their dash ability at 10th level:
Overrun. Starting at 10th level when you take the dash action, you may move through the spaces of hostile creatures. The number of creatures you may move through is equal to half your strength modifier rounded up (you cannot move through the same creature multiple times in the same dash). The creatures you attempt to move through must make a dexterity saving throw equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength modifier + your rage damage bonus (if you are raging). On a failed save, the target takes damage from your spiked armor (2d4 + Str bonus + rage damage (if raging)) and is knocked prone. On a successful save, the target takes half damage and is not knocked prone.
I like most of the adjustments you've put here, but I would suggest the following changes:
1. Spiked armor mastery should come in at 6th level instead of 10th. Making the spikes magical for overcoming resistance is similar to the monk's 6th level feature which is one reason I think giving this feature earlier is still balanced
2. A new 10th level feature which doubles down on the battleragers being living weapons and complements their dash ability at 10th level:
Overrun. Starting at 10th level when you take the dash action, you may move through the spaces of hostile creatures. The number of creatures you may move through is equal to half your strength modifier rounded up (you cannot move through the same creature multiple times in the same dash). The creatures you attempt to move through must make a dexterity saving throw equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength modifier + your rage damage bonus (if you are raging). On a failed save, the target takes damage from your spiked armor (2d4 + Str bonus + rage damage (if raging)) and is knocked prone. On a successful save, the target takes half damage and is not knocked prone.
Those are very interesting suggestions. I definitely want to play around with the mechanics of Overrun to replace/compliment Battlerager's Charge. Will make a second version for these changes and keep the original posted one in a spoiler tag.
Edit: For now, I have removed the restriction on number of creatures you can overrun, but reduced the damage (which is now tied to having your armor donned). I also removed the original feature so that this extra damage doesnt couple with Dashing as a bonus action. Trying to balance this against something similar like Ashardalon's Stride but need to account for the power of knocking creature's prone and that the only sacrifice of using the effect is to dedicate your action to Dashing.
If it were me I would tie the grappling damage from the Battlerager’s Armor feature to Rage damage instead of PB (like you did for Spiked Retribution). However, bear in mind that I personally have an antipathy against using PB as a metric for class/subclass features as I feel it makes MC dips too problematic.
I would also add the Battlerager Charge feature back in as I find that the one thing pretty much every Barbarian could always use more of is extra mobility.
I would put a number of limited uses on the Overrunning Charge, because otherwise it becomes a source of automatic, guaranteed damage every turn.
I agree that PB bonuses are prone to multiclass abuse of they come in a low level feature. If a character has to be level 6 or higher in a class to get the feature, then it's not so bad. Fortunately Barbarians do have another scaling bonus built in with the Rage damage. I like how that's being used for Spiked Retribution. You could apply the same principle with the level 3 feature.
Dash as a bonus action is great for a barbarian. If you have that back though, you would have to limit Overrunning some other way, like IamSposta says. Because requiring your Action to dash was it's limiter before. That made it a choice between making attacks and trying to bowl people down. I'm not concerned about guaranteed damage when it is at the expense of attacks.
What you don't want is a situation where a barbarian can run in 90 foot circles, back to his starting point every turn, to try to knock everyone down and damage them, then continue attacking their original target. Even limiting the uses will lead to this kind of silly outcome. So I think taking an Action still might be better. Just make it a special action and you can keep Dash as a bonus action.
What you don't want is a situation where a barbarian can run in 90 foot circles, back to his starting point every turn, to try to knock everyone down and damage them, then continue attacking their original target. Even limiting the uses will lead to this kind of silly outcome. So I think taking an Action still might be better. Just make it a special action and you can keep Dash as a bonus action.
Honestly, I am tempted just to remove the bonus action Dash and limit its uses based on sacrificing the attack action. In this way I will probably also lower the potential damage per target to make up for the larger number of targets
One of the subtle strengths of the Battlerager (even in its original conception) is that the bonus action attack you make with the spiked armor is not dependent on taking the Attack action. This gives the battlerager flexibility with what they use their action for (Dashing, Drinking a Healing Potion, Interacting with the Environment, etc) while still leaving them a way to make an attack and keep their rage persisting.
Although 2d4 is 0.5 better than 1d8 on a normal roll, Barbarian's Brutal Critical means that a single, larger damage die is better than multiple smaller ones. I don't know how the math works out on Brutal Critical, but I think that 1d8 would do more damage in the long run than 2d4.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Although 2d4 is 0.5 better than 1d8 on a normal roll, Barbarian's Brutal Critical means that a single, larger damage die is better than multiple smaller ones. I don't know how the math works out on Brutal Critical, but I think that 1d8 would do more damage in the long run than 2d4.
Thats a fair point. Might change that, but I gotta say im a sucker for the simplicity of 1d4 doubling to 2d4 rather than increasing die size, especially since 2d4 really isnt used for weapon damage rolls ever. Not to mention d4 dice are extra pointy, and play into the spiked armor theme in their own, meta way, like Spike Growth
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Re-imagining unpopular subclasses as part of FIFY WotC. Let us know what you think of our changes!
Sorry I'm six months late to the party and Necro posting here but, I've been trying out a battlerager again. I came across this thread from a new survey on worst barbarian. I had tried some fixes of my own related to allowing this subclass an exemption to heavy armor restrictions in the barbarian class. Did you ever dabble with that approach?
I really like the overrun feature. It is much better than the route I was taking to tweak the charge with a combination of the charger feat.
I'm also curious what your thoughts are on removing the 6th level feature to count as magical for overcoming resistance and adding language in the base 3rd level armor feature. My idea would be add the language that if the armor you add the spikes to is magical, the attacks count as magical.
Sorry I'm six months late to the party and Necro posting here but, I've been trying out a battlerager again. I came across this thread from a new survey on worst barbarian. I had tried some fixes of my own related to allowing this subclass an exemption to heavy armor restrictions in the barbarian class. Did you ever dabble with that approach?
I think I played with it lightly, but ultimately decided it would be better for the spiked armor to present a tradeoff. With Medium armor you likely wont get the same possible max AC as Unarmored Defense, but you do get a free bonus action attack and grapple damage, both of which get better as you level up. Not to mention, with the new version of the ability you can add the spikes to a shield (although you lose out on the grapple benefit), so you can get the best of both worlds. Giving them free use of Heavy armor might tip the scales to it being too powerful and go against some of the original design choices surrounding rage.
I really like the overrun feature. It is much better than the route I was taking to tweak the charge with a combination of the charger feat.
I'm also curious what your thoughts are on removing the 6th level feature to count as magical for overcoming resistance and adding language in the base 3rd level armor feature. My idea would be add the language that if the armor you add the spikes to is magical, the attacks count as magical.
Thats not a bad idea, but by adding it as a standalone ability it means that the player wont be reliant on the DM handing them magic armor to make sure their spikes remain effective. Not to mention the barbarian will probably want a magic weapon as well, so removing a necessity of magic armor (likely requiring attunement) makes it easier to award more varied magic items to the barbarian later on.
That being said, I wouldnt put it against a DM to award magical damage earlier than 6th level if the barb is wearing magical spiked armor, but I dont think it needs to be baked into the rules.
Thanks for the feedback.
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Re-imagining unpopular subclasses as part of FIFY WotC. Let us know what you think of our changes!
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Part of the FIFY Series
Version 1
Battlerager’s Armor
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you are trained in the art of forging spikes onto armor and using them to tear through your opponents. As part of a long rest, you can apply these armor spikes to one suit of armor with which you are proficient or a shield. While you have this armor donned, the spikes can be used as a simple melee weapon which deals 1d4 piercing damage on a hit. You are considered proficient in using the armor spikes as a weapon and use your Strength modifier for the attack and damage rolls. While you are raging, you can use a bonus action to make an attack with your armor spikes..
Additionally, when you successfully grapple a creature while wearing a suit of armor that has the armor spikes applied, the target takes piercing damage from the spikes equal to your proficiency bonus. Any creature which is grappling you (or is grappled by you) also takes this damage at the start of each of its turns.
Reckless Abandon
Beginning at 6th level, when you use Reckless Attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1).
Spiked Armor Mastery
You channel the spirit of the Kuldjargh, abandoning any sense of self preservation and empowering your drive to destroy your enemies. Beginning at 10th level, you gain the following benefits while your Battlerager’s Armor is donned:
Battlerager Charge
Also at 10th level, you can take the Dash action as a bonus action while you are raging.
Spiked Retribution
Starting at 14th level, while you are wearing spiked armor and raging, a creature takes piercing damage from the armor spikes equal to the value shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table whenever it hits you with a melee attack while within 5 feet of you or touches you.
Design Notes
Spiked Armor: Altered the language to allow for a barbarian to apply the spikes to any suit of armor rather than relying on a specific kind. Also allowed for use of shields in case the barbarian wants to rely on their Unarmored Defense instead; however, the grapple bonus only applies to suits of armor. Modified the language so that the armor spikes can be used as part of your Attack action and not limited to the Rage-based bonus action attack. Changed the grapple damage to scale with your proficiency bonus instead of being a flat “3.” This allows the damage to naturally increase as you level up and remain impactful if you choose to multiclass. In this way, the use of PB for damage reflects using your proficiency with the armor as opposed to as a barbarian. Allow the grapple damage to apply while any grapple is maintained and not just when you initiate the grapple, which gives a slight power boost and makes more sense to me thematically.
Reckless Abandon Removed restriction that you had to be raging to generate these Temp HP.
Spiked Armor Mastery An entirely new feature. In order to keep the influence of the spiked armor competitive, I increase the damage dealt by attacks to 2d4 (on average a little better than 1d8) and make all damage from the armor spikes (attacks and passive abilities) magical to overcome resistances. There are also a few bonuses to trying to maintain/escape grapples while you wear the spike armor, which I think makes sense thematically. That being said, it could make this subclass’ grappling potential a little too good (stacking disadvantage on your enemy with your advantage from raging).
Spiked Retribution Changed the ability to scale with Rage Damage instead of being a flat 3 so that it deals a little more damage per hit at levels 16+. Gave the trigger for the damage wording similar to that of the Fire Form feature of Fire Elementals. The goal is to ensure that the extra damage still applies to creatures who attack you with a body party, even if they have the reach to attack you from 10ft+ away.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Re-imagining unpopular subclasses as part of FIFY WotC. Let us know what you think of our changes!
I like most of the adjustments you've put here, but I would suggest the following changes:
1. Spiked armor mastery should come in at 6th level instead of 10th. Making the spikes magical for overcoming resistance is similar to the monk's 6th level feature which is one reason I think giving this feature earlier is still balanced
2. A new 10th level feature which doubles down on the battleragers being living weapons and complements their dash ability at 10th level:
Overrun. Starting at 10th level when you take the dash action, you may move through the spaces of hostile creatures. The number of creatures you may move through is equal to half your strength modifier rounded up (you cannot move through the same creature multiple times in the same dash). The creatures you attempt to move through must make a dexterity saving throw equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength modifier + your rage damage bonus (if you are raging). On a failed save, the target takes damage from your spiked armor (2d4 + Str bonus + rage damage (if raging)) and is knocked prone. On a successful save, the target takes half damage and is not knocked prone.
Those are very interesting suggestions. I definitely want to play around with the mechanics of Overrun to replace/compliment Battlerager's Charge. Will make a second version for these changes and keep the original posted one in a spoiler tag.
Edit: For now, I have removed the restriction on number of creatures you can overrun, but reduced the damage (which is now tied to having your armor donned). I also removed the original feature so that this extra damage doesnt couple with Dashing as a bonus action. Trying to balance this against something similar like Ashardalon's Stride but need to account for the power of knocking creature's prone and that the only sacrifice of using the effect is to dedicate your action to Dashing.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Re-imagining unpopular subclasses as part of FIFY WotC. Let us know what you think of our changes!
If it were me I would tie the grappling damage from the Battlerager’s Armor feature to Rage damage instead of PB (like you did for Spiked Retribution). However, bear in mind that I personally have an antipathy against using PB as a metric for class/subclass features as I feel it makes MC dips too problematic.
I would also add the Battlerager Charge feature back in as I find that the one thing pretty much every Barbarian could always use more of is extra mobility.
I would put a number of limited uses on the Overrunning Charge, because otherwise it becomes a source of automatic, guaranteed damage every turn.
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I agree that PB bonuses are prone to multiclass abuse of they come in a low level feature. If a character has to be level 6 or higher in a class to get the feature, then it's not so bad. Fortunately Barbarians do have another scaling bonus built in with the Rage damage. I like how that's being used for Spiked Retribution. You could apply the same principle with the level 3 feature.
Dash as a bonus action is great for a barbarian. If you have that back though, you would have to limit Overrunning some other way, like IamSposta says. Because requiring your Action to dash was it's limiter before. That made it a choice between making attacks and trying to bowl people down. I'm not concerned about guaranteed damage when it is at the expense of attacks.
What you don't want is a situation where a barbarian can run in 90 foot circles, back to his starting point every turn, to try to knock everyone down and damage them, then continue attacking their original target. Even limiting the uses will lead to this kind of silly outcome. So I think taking an Action still might be better. Just make it a special action and you can keep Dash as a bonus action.
Honestly, I am tempted just to remove the bonus action Dash and limit its uses based on sacrificing the attack action. In this way I will probably also lower the potential damage per target to make up for the larger number of targets
One of the subtle strengths of the Battlerager (even in its original conception) is that the bonus action attack you make with the spiked armor is not dependent on taking the Attack action. This gives the battlerager flexibility with what they use their action for (Dashing, Drinking a Healing Potion, Interacting with the Environment, etc) while still leaving them a way to make an attack and keep their rage persisting.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Re-imagining unpopular subclasses as part of FIFY WotC. Let us know what you think of our changes!
Although 2d4 is 0.5 better than 1d8 on a normal roll, Barbarian's Brutal Critical means that a single, larger damage die is better than multiple smaller ones. I don't know how the math works out on Brutal Critical, but I think that 1d8 would do more damage in the long run than 2d4.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Thats a fair point. Might change that, but I gotta say im a sucker for the simplicity of 1d4 doubling to 2d4 rather than increasing die size, especially since 2d4 really isnt used for weapon damage rolls ever. Not to mention d4 dice are extra pointy, and play into the spiked armor theme in their own, meta way, like Spike Growth
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Re-imagining unpopular subclasses as part of FIFY WotC. Let us know what you think of our changes!
Sorry I'm six months late to the party and Necro posting here but, I've been trying out a battlerager again. I came across this thread from a new survey on worst barbarian. I had tried some fixes of my own related to allowing this subclass an exemption to heavy armor restrictions in the barbarian class. Did you ever dabble with that approach?
I really like the overrun feature. It is much better than the route I was taking to tweak the charge with a combination of the charger feat.
I'm also curious what your thoughts are on removing the 6th level feature to count as magical for overcoming resistance and adding language in the base 3rd level armor feature. My idea would be add the language that if the armor you add the spikes to is magical, the attacks count as magical.
I think I played with it lightly, but ultimately decided it would be better for the spiked armor to present a tradeoff. With Medium armor you likely wont get the same possible max AC as Unarmored Defense, but you do get a free bonus action attack and grapple damage, both of which get better as you level up. Not to mention, with the new version of the ability you can add the spikes to a shield (although you lose out on the grapple benefit), so you can get the best of both worlds. Giving them free use of Heavy armor might tip the scales to it being too powerful and go against some of the original design choices surrounding rage.
Thats not a bad idea, but by adding it as a standalone ability it means that the player wont be reliant on the DM handing them magic armor to make sure their spikes remain effective. Not to mention the barbarian will probably want a magic weapon as well, so removing a necessity of magic armor (likely requiring attunement) makes it easier to award more varied magic items to the barbarian later on.
That being said, I wouldnt put it against a DM to award magical damage earlier than 6th level if the barb is wearing magical spiked armor, but I dont think it needs to be baked into the rules.
Thanks for the feedback.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Re-imagining unpopular subclasses as part of FIFY WotC. Let us know what you think of our changes!