Most do not follow the path of the Caterwauler by choice, but are instead born onto it, able to channel their rage into screams of such extreme fury that few can withstand them. Their voice is a weapon, and their shouts are like thunder.
Primal Scream
3rd-level Path of the Caterwauler feature
While raging your shouts are like an unstoppable force. You have a number of Primal Rage points equal to 2 + half your level in this class (3 at 3rd level, 4 at 4th, 5 at 6th, 6 at 8th etc.), and while Raging you may spend these to use the abilities detailed below. You regain all spent Primal Rage points when you complete a short or long rest.
Some abilities enable you to cast spells even while Raging, in which case the only required component is vocal, and casting the spell is considered an attack for the purposes of maintaining your Rage. If you spend more than the minimum number of Primal Rage points to cast these, then you may increase the casting level of the spell by 1 for each additional point spent. The maximum number of Primal Rage points that you may spend on a spell is equal to 1 + your level in this class divided by 3 (2 at 3rd level, 3 at 6th level, 4 at 9th etc.). If a spell requires concentration then you may concentrate upon it while Raging, but are unable to speak while doing so, and if your Rage ends then so will your concentration.
Primal Scream save DC: 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier.
Level
Ability
Cost
Effect
3
Bawl
1
As a bonus action you may triple the volume of your voice, to gain advantage on Intimidation checks until the end of your next turn. You do not need to be Raging to use this Scream.
Your unarmed strikes deal thunder damage equal to d6 plus your Strength modifier instead of the normal bludgeoning damage. In addition, if you miss with a melee attack while Raging you may use your bonus action to immediately make a Thunder Slap attack with advantage against the same target.
Defensive Shriek
6th-level Path of the Caterwauler feature
When an enemy hits you with a melee attack you may use your reaction to distract them with a shriek, increasing your AC against the attack by an amount equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1), potentially turning the hit into a miss. There is no effect if you cannot speak, or if the enemy cannot hear you.
This ability can be used a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all uses after completing a long rest.
Bellow of the Blessed
10th-level Path of the Caterwauler feature
With great rage, comes EVEN GREATER VOLUME!
While Raging you may use your action to unleash the full fury of your voice in a tremendous bellow, forcing all creatures within a 15 foot cone in front of you to take a Constitution saving throw against your Primal Scream save DC. On a failed save a creature takes 3d10 thunder damage and is stunned until the end of your next turn. On a successful save a creature takes half as much damage and is not stunned. All creatures caught in the cone, whether they passed or failed, may take no reactions until the start of their next turn.
Once you have used this ability you are unable to speak for d4 turns and your concentration is broken. You must complete a long rest before you can use this feature again.
Voice of Unreason
14th-level Path of the Caterwauler feature
Your lung capacity is near infinite, and your voice never gets tired! You can hold your breath for a number of minutes equal to 2 + double your Constitution modifier (minimum of 2 minutes), and your abilities are unaffected by magic that prevents sound such as the Silence spell.
In addition, when you roll for Initiative and have fewer than 2 Primal Rage points remaining, you will instead have 2 points.
Notes
This sub-class has been created at the request of a friend who's recently had an infant son who… well, let's just say there's nothing at all wrong with his lungs. The father is that player in my group who only wants to play a barbarian and wants to play a character inspired by his son, so my brother and I got to thinking about how we could make a Barbarian with Skyrim-esque "shout" abilities.
The end result is kind of a mashup between a Barbarian and a Four Elements Monk, with a limited pool of points to spend on a restricted list of spells (Primal Screams), plus some other (hopefully) fun features.
While it's not especially intended to be serious, I'm keen to get some feedback to discuss balance and if anything is broken, too strong/weak etc. I've tried to run some numbers on it and it seems okay if you consider it in terms that while a maximum of 12 Primal Rage points per short rest gives it good access to a couple of higher level spells or a fair number of lower level ones, an Eldritch Knight's spell slots at level 20 are equivalent to 34 Primal Rage points per long rest, which seems about right (roughly even with two short rests), and on a framework that gets some (hopefully) solid bonuses later as well. It is however quite a MAD sub-class, due to the additional Charisma dependency, much moreso than an EK who gets extra Ability Score increases.
With regards to spell selection; Confront was originally going to be Thunder Step but with that being a Xanathar's Guide spell it's unsuitable for public homebrew (if the sub-class is fun to play I intend to share it) so I went with a budget version instead. It's not as strong, but then a bonus action teleporting Barbarian probably keeps it around the same strength anyway. And yes, Warding Bond is included purely for the "Wording" pun, but it's also quite a good support spell for a damage sponge to have.
Apologies for the table formatting, the forums seem to display it differently to class pages.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
So I decided to try and run some numbers to see how balanced at least the 3rd level features would be, and wanted to share my thinking:
The recommendation for encounters in an adventuring day is something like 6-8 per long rest, or fewer very difficult encounters. Around two short rests seems reasonable within that, especially for a more challenging campaign where your Fighters, Monks etc. are burning short rest resources just to keep the fight from turning.
To compare damage I'm looking at the Zealot, who gets bonus damage once per turn, every single turn that they attack, so is a good baseline for a Barbarian that just does consistent, reliable damage, and for simplicity I'll assume both barbarians take the same main weapon (a greataxe) and sticks with ordinary rolls (no Reckless Attack yet, as it's situational).
On this basis, your baseline damage for both Barbarians assuming the same Strength score of +3 at 3rd level is 11.5 while Raging. For the Zealot this is increased to 16 (+d6+1). If we assume a miss rate of 50% this drops us to 5.75 and 8 average.
Now, assuming we are already Raging the Caterwauler is going to wanr to use Thunder Slap when they miss, which deals an average of 8.5 damage (d6+STR+Rage), with its own 50% chance to hit this brings them up to an average of 10. This puts them ahead of the Zealot at this level, however this is a bonus action attack so can't be used in the same turn that Rage is triggered; in a fight lasting three rounds that means the actual average may be more like 8.58 vs 8, so still slightly ahead, especially with more rounds, but this is assuming the Zealot does nothing with their own bonus action (but Zealots are actually quite good with two-weapon fighting, and brutal with Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master)
If we assume two short rests, then the Caterwauler can also use Catapult or Thunderwave three times in the day. Against a single target Catapult can do 3d8 bludgeoning damage at a decent range, this averages to 13.5 on a hit, so 6.75 if we assume the same 50% chance for the enemy to dodge, so that won't meaningfully increase its damage. Thunderwave does less damage to a single target, but excels if there are three or more, dealing 2d8 to them all for an average of 27, or ~20 assuming 50% save, but it's hard to factor in how situational this is (requires you to get an obliging group within a 15 foot cube). Over multiple rounds however even this big spike averages out to a fair bit less, e.g- if we assume the Caterwauler opens with Rage and a Thunderwave then attacks with axe + Thunder Slap over six rounds (two fights of three rounds) this averages to 11.67 per round in the most favourable conditions, and is ignoring the benefit of criticals on attack rolls (worth an extra 10% or so?).
This gives the Caterwauler a consistent, potentially spiky, lead over the Zealot at 3rd level.
Jumping ahead to 6th level things are a little different; since we're assuming they have the same weapon, let's also assume they both took Great Weapon Master at 4th, and use Reckless Attack as much as possible for maximum damage, changing their hit rate to 75% on their two attacks, so they're both getting average damage from their weapon of 20.62. The Zealot will always take the opportunity to use their bonus action weapon attack on a crit or enemy kill, but for simplicity I'll only factor in crits (as the kill case depends on what you're fighting), the critical chance is roughly 18.5% to get another attack (also at advantage) so an extra 1.7 damage, plus the Zealot's d6+3 bonus for a final average of 28.82 damage.
Increased chance to hit actually means less opportunity to use Thunder Slap on the Caterwauler, and they'll most likely use bonus weapon attacks when they can just as the Zealot would, so they'll only be Thunder Slapping if they miss and also didn't score a crit on another attack, making this way harder than I expected to calculate. I'm going to fudge a bit and assume the chance of a miss and a crit in the same two attacks is small enough to ignore, and end up with a total of ~24 with bonus attacks on criticals and Thunder Slaps on misses, which I'm pretty sure is overly generous. Either way the Zealot is consistently doing more damage on basic attacks, and this trend will continue as the levels increase (as Thunder Slap doesn't get much better).
Primal Screams meanwhile now have 5 points to work with, and can spend up to 3 on a single ability, meaning one 1st level Thunderwave and one 2nd level per short rest if we're going for maximum damage. If we make the same assumption of each encounter opening with Rage + Thunderwave, with three enemies in the area then that's another ~20, and ~27 for the 2nd level with the same 50% save chance. If each encounter is 3 rounds again this means an average of 23.833 for the Caterwauler, so the Zealot actually still has the lead, tipping more in the Zealot's favour over more rounds, or more in the Caterwauler's favour if they can hit more enemies with the Thunderwave.
Now I'll absolutely own the fact that I've massively fudged the numbers, but it seems to me like while the Caterwauler might start with a slight lead in favourable circumstances, the Zealot will pull out a consistent lead over higher levels.
For the sake of completeness, if we assume 20th level, and both have levelled Strength to +7 for a basic hit chance of 60%, but the Caterwauler couldn't scale Charisma faster than enemy saves (still 50% saves) then with Reckless Great Weapon Master we're looking at average weapon damage with bonus attacks of 32.1 damage(-ish). For the Zealot this increases to 45.6, while the Caterwauler's Thunder Slaps give them 34.04, so the Zealot has more than a 10 point lead (actually higher*).
At max. level the Caterwauler actually only really has one more damage option (except for Confront) in the form of Shatter which deals the same damage and scaling as Thunder Wave, but is a lot easier to position thanks to its range, so we're not really changing the math much on this. However they now have 10 Primal Rage points to work with, and if we assume they burn them all in the first encounter, they have 12 due to the extra 2 going into the second encounter per short rest. They can also now spend up to 7 points at most for a massive 6th level upcasting. So let's assume Rage + 6th level shatter round one, then a 4th level round two, and in the second encounter round one Rage + a 2nd level Shatter. This gives us Shatter damage of ~63, ~45 and ~27, and weapon damage for the other three rounds. This gives the Caterwauler an average over the six rounds of 39.52, so trailing the Zealot's 45.6.
*All of this is with no accounting for criticals on weapon attacks, which with Brutal Criticals will favour the Zealot even more since they will be using their weapon attacks every round.
So yeah, I think in terms of damage output the Caterwauler might actually be pretty balanced as it's outpaced by the consistent damage of the Zealot over time (unless I got my math totally wrong). While it can do big damage spikes, and will benefit massively from hitting more targets and/or shorter encounters, a lot of the real benefit will likely come from the utility of the spellcasting, for example Heroism can mitigate a pretty decent amount of part damage taken at a reasonable cost, especially if you can Rage + Heroism immediately before combat (since casting Heroism counts towards maintaining Rage) then that will make for a pretty good boost, Warding Bond can make it possible to still tank when enemies have a choice of targets, Confront can let you close instantly with enemies and deal solid damage (at 20th Thunderclap can do a respectable ~21 damage if we assume 3 adjacent enemies and the same 50% saves) and so-on. I think the 6th and 10th level features are reasonably solid; good but limited defensive reaction, and a potentially clutch but once a day stunning area effect. 14th is maybe a little on the weak side but I like the combination of smaller benefits it gives, and I don't think increasing the points recovery would be right for it (I think the quantity of points is just about right)?
TL;DR
So… maybe balanced(-ish)?
Update: And I also just realised I gave them both Great Weapon Master, had them use Reckless Attack, but didn't assume they were using the -5 to hit for +10 damage trade. Obviously that will mean fewer hits (back to 50% or 60% hit chance) but those hits do even more damage. This gives a very roughly 10% increase in damage to the weapon attacks, which favours the Zealot even more for using them all the time. So yeah, I think the Caterwauler is balanced okay, they'll want to use their spells when they can get maximum benefit from them (or need range that a melee Zealot won't have) but generally it's the utility and flexibility rather than the damage that is important.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
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Most do not follow the path of the Caterwauler by choice, but are instead born onto it, able to channel their rage into screams of such extreme fury that few can withstand them. Their voice is a weapon, and their shouts are like thunder.
Primal Scream
3rd-level Path of the Caterwauler feature
While raging your shouts are like an unstoppable force. You have a number of Primal Rage points equal to 2 + half your level in this class (3 at 3rd level, 4 at 4th, 5 at 6th, 6 at 8th etc.), and while Raging you may spend these to use the abilities detailed below. You regain all spent Primal Rage points when you complete a short or long rest.
Some abilities enable you to cast spells even while Raging, in which case the only required component is vocal, and casting the spell is considered an attack for the purposes of maintaining your Rage. If you spend more than the minimum number of Primal Rage points to cast these, then you may increase the casting level of the spell by 1 for each additional point spent. The maximum number of Primal Rage points that you may spend on a spell is equal to 1 + your level in this class divided by 3 (2 at 3rd level, 3 at 6th level, 4 at 9th etc.). If a spell requires concentration then you may concentrate upon it while Raging, but are unable to speak while doing so, and if your Rage ends then so will your concentration.
Primal Scream save DC: 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier.
Thunder Slap
3rd-level Path of the Caterwauler feature
Your unarmed strikes deal thunder damage equal to d6 plus your Strength modifier instead of the normal bludgeoning damage. In addition, if you miss with a melee attack while Raging you may use your bonus action to immediately make a Thunder Slap attack with advantage against the same target.
Defensive Shriek
6th-level Path of the Caterwauler feature
When an enemy hits you with a melee attack you may use your reaction to distract them with a shriek, increasing your AC against the attack by an amount equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1), potentially turning the hit into a miss. There is no effect if you cannot speak, or if the enemy cannot hear you.
This ability can be used a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all uses after completing a long rest.
Bellow of the Blessed
10th-level Path of the Caterwauler feature
With great rage, comes EVEN GREATER VOLUME!
While Raging you may use your action to unleash the full fury of your voice in a tremendous bellow, forcing all creatures within a 15 foot cone in front of you to take a Constitution saving throw against your Primal Scream save DC. On a failed save a creature takes 3d10 thunder damage and is stunned until the end of your next turn. On a successful save a creature takes half as much damage and is not stunned. All creatures caught in the cone, whether they passed or failed, may take no reactions until the start of their next turn.
Once you have used this ability you are unable to speak for d4 turns and your concentration is broken. You must complete a long rest before you can use this feature again.
Voice of Unreason
14th-level Path of the Caterwauler feature
Your lung capacity is near infinite, and your voice never gets tired! You can hold your breath for a number of minutes equal to 2 + double your Constitution modifier (minimum of 2 minutes), and your abilities are unaffected by magic that prevents sound such as the Silence spell.
In addition, when you roll for Initiative and have fewer than 2 Primal Rage points remaining, you will instead have 2 points.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
So I decided to try and run some numbers to see how balanced at least the 3rd level features would be, and wanted to share my thinking:
The recommendation for encounters in an adventuring day is something like 6-8 per long rest, or fewer very difficult encounters. Around two short rests seems reasonable within that, especially for a more challenging campaign where your Fighters, Monks etc. are burning short rest resources just to keep the fight from turning.
To compare damage I'm looking at the Zealot, who gets bonus damage once per turn, every single turn that they attack, so is a good baseline for a Barbarian that just does consistent, reliable damage, and for simplicity I'll assume both barbarians take the same main weapon (a greataxe) and sticks with ordinary rolls (no Reckless Attack yet, as it's situational).
On this basis, your baseline damage for both Barbarians assuming the same Strength score of +3 at 3rd level is 11.5 while Raging. For the Zealot this is increased to 16 (+d6+1). If we assume a miss rate of 50% this drops us to 5.75 and 8 average.
Now, assuming we are already Raging the Caterwauler is going to wanr to use Thunder Slap when they miss, which deals an average of 8.5 damage (d6+STR+Rage), with its own 50% chance to hit this brings them up to an average of 10. This puts them ahead of the Zealot at this level, however this is a bonus action attack so can't be used in the same turn that Rage is triggered; in a fight lasting three rounds that means the actual average may be more like 8.58 vs 8, so still slightly ahead, especially with more rounds, but this is assuming the Zealot does nothing with their own bonus action (but Zealots are actually quite good with two-weapon fighting, and brutal with Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master)
If we assume two short rests, then the Caterwauler can also use Catapult or Thunderwave three times in the day. Against a single target Catapult can do 3d8 bludgeoning damage at a decent range, this averages to 13.5 on a hit, so 6.75 if we assume the same 50% chance for the enemy to dodge, so that won't meaningfully increase its damage. Thunderwave does less damage to a single target, but excels if there are three or more, dealing 2d8 to them all for an average of 27, or ~20 assuming 50% save, but it's hard to factor in how situational this is (requires you to get an obliging group within a 15 foot cube). Over multiple rounds however even this big spike averages out to a fair bit less, e.g- if we assume the Caterwauler opens with Rage and a Thunderwave then attacks with axe + Thunder Slap over six rounds (two fights of three rounds) this averages to 11.67 per round in the most favourable conditions, and is ignoring the benefit of criticals on attack rolls (worth an extra 10% or so?).
This gives the Caterwauler a consistent, potentially spiky, lead over the Zealot at 3rd level.
Jumping ahead to 6th level things are a little different; since we're assuming they have the same weapon, let's also assume they both took Great Weapon Master at 4th, and use Reckless Attack as much as possible for maximum damage, changing their hit rate to 75% on their two attacks, so they're both getting average damage from their weapon of 20.62. The Zealot will always take the opportunity to use their bonus action weapon attack on a crit or enemy kill, but for simplicity I'll only factor in crits (as the kill case depends on what you're fighting), the critical chance is roughly 18.5% to get another attack (also at advantage) so an extra 1.7 damage, plus the Zealot's d6+3 bonus for a final average of 28.82 damage.
Increased chance to hit actually means less opportunity to use Thunder Slap on the Caterwauler, and they'll most likely use bonus weapon attacks when they can just as the Zealot would, so they'll only be Thunder Slapping if they miss and also didn't score a crit on another attack, making this way harder than I expected to calculate. I'm going to fudge a bit and assume the chance of a miss and a crit in the same two attacks is small enough to ignore, and end up with a total of ~24 with bonus attacks on criticals and Thunder Slaps on misses, which I'm pretty sure is overly generous. Either way the Zealot is consistently doing more damage on basic attacks, and this trend will continue as the levels increase (as Thunder Slap doesn't get much better).
Primal Screams meanwhile now have 5 points to work with, and can spend up to 3 on a single ability, meaning one 1st level Thunderwave and one 2nd level per short rest if we're going for maximum damage. If we make the same assumption of each encounter opening with Rage + Thunderwave, with three enemies in the area then that's another ~20, and ~27 for the 2nd level with the same 50% save chance. If each encounter is 3 rounds again this means an average of 23.833 for the Caterwauler, so the Zealot actually still has the lead, tipping more in the Zealot's favour over more rounds, or more in the Caterwauler's favour if they can hit more enemies with the Thunderwave.
Now I'll absolutely own the fact that I've massively fudged the numbers, but it seems to me like while the Caterwauler might start with a slight lead in favourable circumstances, the Zealot will pull out a consistent lead over higher levels.
For the sake of completeness, if we assume 20th level, and both have levelled Strength to +7 for a basic hit chance of 60%, but the Caterwauler couldn't scale Charisma faster than enemy saves (still 50% saves) then with Reckless Great Weapon Master we're looking at average weapon damage with bonus attacks of 32.1 damage(-ish). For the Zealot this increases to 45.6, while the Caterwauler's Thunder Slaps give them 34.04, so the Zealot has more than a 10 point lead (actually higher*).
At max. level the Caterwauler actually only really has one more damage option (except for Confront) in the form of Shatter which deals the same damage and scaling as Thunder Wave, but is a lot easier to position thanks to its range, so we're not really changing the math much on this. However they now have 10 Primal Rage points to work with, and if we assume they burn them all in the first encounter, they have 12 due to the extra 2 going into the second encounter per short rest. They can also now spend up to 7 points at most for a massive 6th level upcasting. So let's assume Rage + 6th level shatter round one, then a 4th level round two, and in the second encounter round one Rage + a 2nd level Shatter. This gives us Shatter damage of ~63, ~45 and ~27, and weapon damage for the other three rounds. This gives the Caterwauler an average over the six rounds of 39.52, so trailing the Zealot's 45.6.
*All of this is with no accounting for criticals on weapon attacks, which with Brutal Criticals will favour the Zealot even more since they will be using their weapon attacks every round.
So yeah, I think in terms of damage output the Caterwauler might actually be pretty balanced as it's outpaced by the consistent damage of the Zealot over time (unless I got my math totally wrong). While it can do big damage spikes, and will benefit massively from hitting more targets and/or shorter encounters, a lot of the real benefit will likely come from the utility of the spellcasting, for example Heroism can mitigate a pretty decent amount of part damage taken at a reasonable cost, especially if you can Rage + Heroism immediately before combat (since casting Heroism counts towards maintaining Rage) then that will make for a pretty good boost, Warding Bond can make it possible to still tank when enemies have a choice of targets, Confront can let you close instantly with enemies and deal solid damage (at 20th Thunderclap can do a respectable ~21 damage if we assume 3 adjacent enemies and the same 50% saves) and so-on. I think the 6th and 10th level features are reasonably solid; good but limited defensive reaction, and a potentially clutch but once a day stunning area effect. 14th is maybe a little on the weak side but I like the combination of smaller benefits it gives, and I don't think increasing the points recovery would be right for it (I think the quantity of points is just about right)?
TL;DR
So… maybe balanced(-ish)?
Update: And I also just realised I gave them both Great Weapon Master, had them use Reckless Attack, but didn't assume they were using the -5 to hit for +10 damage trade. Obviously that will mean fewer hits (back to 50% or 60% hit chance) but those hits do even more damage. This gives a very roughly 10% increase in damage to the weapon attacks, which favours the Zealot even more for using them all the time. So yeah, I think the Caterwauler is balanced okay, they'll want to use their spells when they can get maximum benefit from them (or need range that a melee Zealot won't have) but generally it's the utility and flexibility rather than the damage that is important.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.