Hey there. I made a homebrew subclass for Barbarian a while back. https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/2218800-path-of-the-dragon

It looks like a few people have added the subclass to their collections, which I assume means they like it and want to use it in their games. However, I haven't really seen any rating changes or comments from other users despite the amount of adds steadily going up. Is that normal or is there something wrong with my account? Not sure what to expect, but I was hoping for more feedback from other players and DMs so I could make improvements and refine the subclass. I know it's not perfect since I'm still new to homebrew creation, so any constructive feedback would be super helpful. 

Hi, your experience is not uncommon. Given the amount of homebrew that is out there, ratings and comments tend to be very infrequent. You may get some more feedback on the forums, but you're unlikely to get a lot in the way of playtesting or direct feedback. As you are new to Homebrewing, I strongly recommend checking out some helpful resources that are in pinned posts, particularly the How-To FAQ by IamSposta and the Tutorial and FAQ by Stormknight. While you have published the Homebrew, you haven't actually implemented most of the features, which will make it hard to use on D&D Beyond compared to regular subclasses or other homebrew.

Here is some helpful pointers on homebrew creation:

• For Spells (particularly the Dragon Magic table, but also in Draconic Bond), there's some formatting and linking you can do with tooltips (by firehawk2324) that will make it look more like a traditional subclass. From what I can see in the html:

• Write [spells][/spells] (2024 version) or [spell][/spell] (2014) around the spells in the table to create a tooltip that links to them.

• Your header "Barbarian Level" and "Spells" should go in <thead></thead> using <th></th> instead of <td></td> to make them headers. Note that this is if you're editing the HTML directly, otherwise you should just be able to copy and paste a working table from another class and edit what already exists to preserve the formatting that formatting.

• Example [spells]Thunderwave[/spells] (2024) and [spell]Thunderwave[/spell]

• The spells that you selected haven't been added to be always prepared as you can only share your subclass with the community linking to spells from three sources: Basic Rules (2014), the D&D Free Rules (2024), and the Elemental Evil Player's Companion, so Steel Wind Strike (PHB 2024) is not a valid choice. You could still include these and have it used in your campaign, but it would not be sharable.
  • The Guides and FAQs I listed above can show you how to add the spells so that they're always prepared and show up on the character sheet.
• Similarly, those guides can show you how to create actions and use modifiers. For example, you'll want to create an action for your "Dragon Rage" feature, so it shows up on the character sheet as an action with rollable damage. Modifiers will let you add Draconic as a language, increase your AC from Dragon Scales, and adjust your unarmed strikes for Dragon Claws.
• You'll want to fill information into the "Snippet" field for all the abilities as that is what will show up when you navigate to "Features & Traits" on the character sheet. Right now, you'll just see the title for the ones you created and then when you click on them, you'll see the full description. There's other more advanced calculations you can do in that field with code snippets (by Stormknight), but the most important thing is to have a brief description in there that you want the player to see during their normal use of the character sheet.
• You mention in a comment that this will still work with the 2014 version of the Barbarian, but players will not be able to use your subclass with the 2014 Barbarian unless you create a separate homebrew and select the 2014 Barbarian as the starting class and publish that one as well.

Here are my thoughts on flavor and mechanics (just my opinions though, I'm by no means an authority on the subject):

• Your description in the core concept may be overly restricting in that it decides a great deal about the Player's Backstory rather than having this power come from dragons and granted to the barbarians who follow this path. Reincarnated dragons and dragons trapped in mortal bodies could be examples of barbarians that follow this path. This little change would open the class up to significantly more characters, which in turn can mean more adoption and testing.
• All of the features feel cohesive around your dragon theme and only one thing  strikes me as overtly overpowered. I've got feedback below on each feature, but overall I think you have a cohesive theme, though there are some areas where I don't feel like the mechanics back up the theme.
• Draconic Magic: The ability to cast spells while raging is extremely powerful, but the biggest problem is the scaling - they learn a 1st- and 2nd-level spell at level 3, 2 3rd-level spells at level 5, 2 4th-level spells at level 7, and 2 5th-level spells at level 9. This scaling is consistent with a full caster like a Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard rather than a half-caster like an Artificer, Paladin, or Ranger or a third-caster (which is typical for classes that obtain magic through a subclass like the Eldritch Knight Fighter or Arcane Trickster Rogue). At level 3, you can cast more 2nd-level spells than a Wizard or Warlock and while you're limited to Enlarge/Reduce, I think that's still overpowered, though it becomes more so as you become a stronger caster than any of the half-casters by level 7 despite the limit in spell choices. I would recommend putting the levels you acquire the spells in line with at least the half-casters (1st-level spells at Level 3, 2nd at 5, 3rd at 9, 4th at 13, and 5th at 17), if not the third-casters (1st-level spells at Level 3, 2nd at 7, 3rd at 13, and 4th at 19). 
  
  • If you go with half-caster, scaling, I'd recommend also switching up the Draconic essence charge use and scaling - you have a number equal to your proficiency bonus and must spend an amount equal to the level of the spell.
  • I recommend removing the recovering 2 when you finish a short rest if you have none. You could add a feature at Level 6 or 10 that says you can regain 2 when you take a short rest once per long rest without the requirement of not having any, but I would be very hesitant to have what are essentially spell slots continuously coming back on a short rest as you'd essentially be granting a martial character one of the Warlock's most powerful features.
  • The Draconic Magic does not specify that you can only cast it on yourself, but based on the theme and your comments, I suspect that is the intention. I would make that explicit as that will rein in the power here a bit.
  • The Draconic Essence does not specify that it cannot be used to cast spells outside of the Dragon Magic Spells and it never specifies that those spells cannot be cast using spell slots. I would be explicit on both accounts as it will significantly reduce balance issues with multiclassing.
  • You don't need to specify the formula for Spell save DC and Spell attack modifier if you state Constitution is your spellcasting ability. This can all be setup in the homebrew, so all of that will be automatically calculated and the terms are well-defined in the rules.
  • You state that "Constitution is your spellcasting ability for your Dragon Magic spells, since the power of your magic comes from your physical might"; however, physical might would typically be the Strength stat where Constitution represents your resilience. I definitely think Constitution should be used over Strength, but you might want to tweak the language a little bit to make it fall more in line.
  • You don't specify an Arcane Focus, which would be important as most of the spells have material components. Here's the language used for the Eldritch Knight: "You can use an Arcane Focus as a Spellcasting Focus for your Wizard spells."
• For Draconic Physique, the fire and cold resistances of Dragon Scales make the [Tooltip Not Found] (which you'll have to remove to publish with the features implemented). I think that Martial Weapons are still going to be more powerful, particularly with Weapon Mastery, so this feature is largely flavor with occasional usage.
• Dragon Rage: The name of this ability implies that it would interact in some way with the Barbarian's rage ability, so the name feels disjointed with a breath weapon. The feature is strong, but not crazy. You're again limiting to fire and cold, though. 
  • The ability to make a Bonus Action attack after using it seems out of place. It's not broken or crazy strong, but without additional flavor description, the reason you can do this doesn't jump out.
• Unbound Movement: You should specify where the creature ends up after landing on another creature (i.e., do they move to an adjacent, unoccupied space or does the creature you land on get pushed?).
• Fang and Claw: I would remove this feature entirely. While your Unbounded Movement feature isn't particularly strong, it's important to remember that you're 3rd and 6th level features are also scaling significantly, so you don't need as much power in the upper levels.
• Devouring Maw: You mention that you can cast [spells]Dispel Magic[/spell] "at no material cost", but that spell does not have any material components, so I think you meant that you can cast it with "no components"? This one could use more flavor to describe why this is particularly draconic. I'd refresh this on a long rest, not a short rest and keep it as an Action to rein in the power. A free casting of a decent third level spell is already quite powerful.
• Draconic Bond: This feature is more flavorful than Devouring Maw, but I'd remove it entirely and just put Summon Dragon on the Draconic Spells table (probably in place of Steel Wind Strike). It's still extremely strong even if you have to maintain concentration and as a Barbarian, there's not a tremendous amount of competition for your concentration.
• I like the inclusion of some flavor text for each description.

Rarely do I see more than 1 rating per 50 adds, and often much less than that. I consider a subclass a success if the ratio of views::adds is 4:1 or less over the long term. Comments you almost never get. I've made homebrew for 5 years and I've gotten maybe 3 comments in all that time. Usually only really bad HB gets comments.

Thanks for the feedback. Some responses/thoughts: 

(1) I'm glad you like the flavor text, it's what I'm most proud of tbh. But by reading it you must understand that having a semi-specific backstory implied by the subclass is important for how it works. You can only do all of this because you ARE a dragon, but you currently have the body of a normal mortal. So while it may be restrictive, I think the implied backstory is important for the subclass. Though I don't think it's THAT restrictive as anyone can fit into this subclass's story by simply saying "in my past life I was a dragon". 

(2) You're right. Spells like Enlarge/Reduce and Fly are only meant to be cast on yourself. Wasn't sure how to word that without inflating the amount of text in the feature description. I also don't intend for any of the spells to require material components other than the Barbarian's own body, but I wasn't sure how that could be implemented into DnD's rules. Also, yes your Dragon spells can only be cast with essence and your essence is only for dragon spells. Again, trying to fit all of this information into 1 feature's description is beyond my level of experience. 

• I like the idea of having the subclass learn higher level spells at the same levels as Paladin or Ranger. It's supposed to be as powerful as those classes, but not as versatile or useful for party support. 

• At Max level you have 6 draconic essence charges. That means this subclass let's you cast a spell like Steel Wind Strike 3 times before needing to finish a short rest to regain 1 use of that spell. That is by no means overpowered, especially when you compare this to the amount of fireballs a Wizard can throw out at the same level, which don't require attack rolls and do half damage on a save. So i have no intention of lowering the power of the subclass beyond changing WHEN that power is granted. 

(3) I wanted to make a Barbarian subclass that didn't entirely rely on Rage like others. So that's why the Dragon Rage feature is disconnected from Rage and the name itself is more just flavor and an attempt to not have it be confused with the Dragon Breath spell. If you have an alternative name lmk. The Fang and Claw feature is my attempt to give the player benefits to using Dragon Rage as their main damage source while they have Rage active, even though Rage is not required to use Dragon Rage.

• I also wanted the player to have the freedom to use one handed or versatile weapons while still having a legitimate reason to focus on unarmed combat if they wanted to. Hence why the Fang and Claw feature is giving you a free unarmed strike, to make striking with your claws (like a dragon) a legitimate thing to do in combat. There's already dozens of Barbarian subclasses that reward the player for being yet another Heavy Two-Handed weapon user, and it's gotten old. 

(4) Both Devouring Maw and Draconic Bond are meant to be very powerful. This is nothing compared to what a 10th or 14th level Wizard, Druid, or Cleric can do. The Current Draconic Sorcerer can summon 5 or more dragons at a time every day. The power difference between Barbarians and full casters is already so insane that I think I could actually BUFF these features and it still wouldn't be overpowered (though I don't intend to). I didn't just want to change how the Barbarian plays (no 2h weapon), I also wanted to increase the power of Barbarian's to compete with other classes better. 

• Devouring Maw is a bonus action here because it's range and number of Average Uses per day have been greatly reduced. The material cost thing is a mistake though, since it's more like "you can cast this with no components or draconic essence charges when using this feature". The range restriction was implemented purely because this is the player literally EATING the magic, a common ability that fantasy dragons have. 

• If I do what you suggest with Draconic Bond then I'd be making the exact kind of feature I hate on other subclasses. The "generally useless" or "always annoying" kind. Why? Well because then the player would need to decide between spells like Fear, Fly, or Enlarge/Reduce. It's the capstone feature of the subclass, so it shouldn't come with the sacrifice of "oh now I can use this but only If i give up something I was already using". 

This was fun. Thank you for the feedback. I'll try to learn more about the homebrew creation system before attempting to make the second version of this subclass with all the features properly implemented. Give the subclass a try in your own game and see how it feels beyond your first impressions, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.