My friend has been playing a barbarian for awhile now and was asking me if i could make him a subclass that us more of an unarmed brawler. After a bit of working with him i finally got down all the class features and abilities. I was wanting some help on making sure it was balanced before i let him start playing with it. Looking to my fellow nerds for help with that.
- The damage progression for unarmed is strictly, and greatly, better than a monk's. I think you should really just refer to the monk's progression, and use the same.
- Two feats for free is way too much, especially considering Tavern Brawler even give a stat increase. Barbarians are also already very tough, and don't need to get the [feat]Tough[/feat] for free, there's nothing in this archetype that makes them more vulnerable than another barbarian.
- Grappling as a reaction is ok.
- Come Get Some is absolutely not ok. First of all, you could cheese the shit out of it: use this, then just run away, the enemies won't be able to catch up with you, and the rest of the party can just dispose of them with no resistance. This should work for a single round, should probably have a short range (10 or 15ft), and some other limitations (1/long rest). Also, the DC needs to be specified, I would put it at 8 + proficiency + Con modifier.
- Grave Maker is also overpowered. You make a single check, and if you succeed and the enemy fails their saving throw, everyone else has advantage and automatic crit against the target. And you can do that every turn. This is also very initiative dependent, and an effect should probably last until the beginning of your next turn instead.
- Bathe in their Blood is either very strong (as intended) or does nothing (as worded). As worded, since it only applies to enemies pinned by you, and an enemy is only pinned until their turn, this triggering condition will never happen. As intended, if the enemy is pinned he's also unconscious, you have advantage on your attack, so having one extra attack should be easy, and two is completely possible. This is basically an extra turn, for free. And again, crit.
My proposed fixes:
- Unarmed damage should scale as per the monk feature.
- No free feats.
- Come get Some should last for a single turn, and should only require the enemy to attack you, without necessarily moving closer (to avoid forcing casters into melee range). No advantage for allies.
- Grave Maker should, at most, restrain the enemy on a successful check and failed saving throws, and should last until the beginning of your next turn to eliminate any initiative variance.
- Bathe in their blood needs to be redesigned, maybe simply allowing to deal an attack with a bonus action against a grappled target. Since your fists aren't light weapon, you can't use Two-Weapon Fighting by default.
- Unarmed Strikes should only become magical at lv6.
- Also at level 6, I would add a feature saying that you count as one size larger when it comes to grappling. Otherwise, this character will feel completely useless when encountering Large creatures. This will also let him grapple some pretty big creatures, which looks cool.
- At level 10, you should get a feature to deal with Gargantuan creatures. You could homebrew something related to the "Climb Onto a Bigger Creature" optional rule from the DMG, and give some benefits for the barbarian climbing onto such a creature.
I realize I may have been a bit too blunt, so I'll say that I really like the idea of an unarmed barbarian, and that I think you found the right approach by making him use the grapple mechanic ! I think this subclass, once finished, should be very fun to play, and give some amazing visuals to your combats.
Also, I'm realizing that a few more things should depend on raging, maybe the size increase for grappling could only happen during a rage, for instance.
I really want to play this subclass. Back in 3e there was a Prestige Class all about grappling larger opponents called the "Reaping Mauler". there might be some ideas there.
Feel free to steal anything you want from my wrestler fighter subclass, though it's designed for grappling rather than unarmed combat. I'm tweaking it a bit as we speak to include options like longer-distance throws and grapple/shove-as-reactions.
So after a conversation with my friend he wanted to make some changes. He wants to keep some of the stuff from the first attempt. I should have a rough draft done by tomorrow.
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My friend has been playing a barbarian for awhile now and was asking me if i could make him a subclass that us more of an unarmed brawler. After a bit of working with him i finally got down all the class features and abilities. I was wanting some help on making sure it was balanced before i let him start playing with it. Looking to my fellow nerds for help with that.
Sure, that sounds like a pretty natural evolution of the Barbarian. Can you share the specifics on the subclass you've already figured out?
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https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/236753-path-of-the-brawler
i know it still needs some polish. Small wording mistakes, plenty of grammar. just trying to make sure i have something worth polishing before i do.
I'll be blunt: this isn't even remotely balanced.
- The damage progression for unarmed is strictly, and greatly, better than a monk's. I think you should really just refer to the monk's progression, and use the same.
- Two feats for free is way too much, especially considering Tavern Brawler even give a stat increase. Barbarians are also already very tough, and don't need to get the [feat]Tough[/feat] for free, there's nothing in this archetype that makes them more vulnerable than another barbarian.
- Grappling as a reaction is ok.
- Come Get Some is absolutely not ok. First of all, you could cheese the shit out of it: use this, then just run away, the enemies won't be able to catch up with you, and the rest of the party can just dispose of them with no resistance. This should work for a single round, should probably have a short range (10 or 15ft), and some other limitations (1/long rest). Also, the DC needs to be specified, I would put it at 8 + proficiency + Con modifier.
- Grave Maker is also overpowered. You make a single check, and if you succeed and the enemy fails their saving throw, everyone else has advantage and automatic crit against the target. And you can do that every turn. This is also very initiative dependent, and an effect should probably last until the beginning of your next turn instead.
- Bathe in their Blood is either very strong (as intended) or does nothing (as worded). As worded, since it only applies to enemies pinned by you, and an enemy is only pinned until their turn, this triggering condition will never happen. As intended, if the enemy is pinned he's also unconscious, you have advantage on your attack, so having one extra attack should be easy, and two is completely possible. This is basically an extra turn, for free. And again, crit.
My proposed fixes:
- Unarmed damage should scale as per the monk feature.
- No free feats.
- Come get Some should last for a single turn, and should only require the enemy to attack you, without necessarily moving closer (to avoid forcing casters into melee range). No advantage for allies.
- Grave Maker should, at most, restrain the enemy on a successful check and failed saving throws, and should last until the beginning of your next turn to eliminate any initiative variance.
- Bathe in their blood needs to be redesigned, maybe simply allowing to deal an attack with a bonus action against a grappled target. Since your fists aren't light weapon, you can't use Two-Weapon Fighting by default.
- Unarmed Strikes should only become magical at lv6.
- Also at level 6, I would add a feature saying that you count as one size larger when it comes to grappling. Otherwise, this character will feel completely useless when encountering Large creatures. This will also let him grapple some pretty big creatures, which looks cool.
- At level 10, you should get a feature to deal with Gargantuan creatures. You could homebrew something related to the "Climb Onto a Bigger Creature" optional rule from the DMG, and give some benefits for the barbarian climbing onto such a creature.
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Those are some good ideas.
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I realize I may have been a bit too blunt, so I'll say that I really like the idea of an unarmed barbarian, and that I think you found the right approach by making him use the grapple mechanic ! I think this subclass, once finished, should be very fun to play, and give some amazing visuals to your combats.
Also, I'm realizing that a few more things should depend on raging, maybe the size increase for grappling could only happen during a rage, for instance.
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I really want to play this subclass. Back in 3e there was a Prestige Class all about grappling larger opponents called the "Reaping Mauler". there might be some ideas there.
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Feel free to steal anything you want from my wrestler fighter subclass, though it's designed for grappling rather than unarmed combat. I'm tweaking it a bit as we speak to include options like longer-distance throws and grapple/shove-as-reactions.
Not blunt at all. This is exactly what I was looking for. I will tweak and adjust and check back here for more input. I greatly appreciate it guys.
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So after a conversation with my friend he wanted to make some changes. He wants to keep some of the stuff from the first attempt. I should have a rough draft done by tomorrow.