Barbarian as a whole ended up in a blah spot. While some things were improved others just got unnecessarily worse.
Base
Mostly slight improvements here. The only loss I see is being able to respond to a surprise attack by raging which was replaced with moving half your movement as part of activating rage. Instinctive pounce will be useful far mor often than the cut part of feral instinct so I'm okay with it. I like that it is much easier to keep your Rage going round to round and you can use it more out of combat as well because of this method. I like the new Brutal Critical as it allows you to not feel bad about your weapon choice.
Berserker
Print it. I’m happy with where this is at.
Wild Heart
Very meh. I’m okay with the change to bear. Elephant just offering expertise in Athletics and not the doubling of your carrying capacity kills a superpowered Goliath I got to play once. It was more of a gag, but it could have been useful. Why not expertise and a feature that does something unique at 6th level.
World Tree
Why? 3rd level feature doesn’t heal you if you are full when you start the rage and you can’t use the Temp HP on yourself. All the other features are okay I guess.
Zealot
Everything was looking like slight improvements until I got to Rage Beyond Death. The old version was far superior and allowed you to literally Rage Beyond Death. The new version does not live up to the name at all.
I think the base Barbarian class is pretty much ready to go, I like where it's ended up. I appreciate having the ability to keep your Rage going just by expending your Bonus Action(to pound your chest and stay psyched up, I presume), but I still don't like that TAKING damage no longer maintains your Rage. I don't know about you, but taking damage would certainly keep ME angry. :)
I agree about the Berserker, I think the UA7 version is ready to use.
I think changing the names of the Wildheart options does help eliminate possible confusion, so I'm fine with that. I think the Level 3 options are fine. The debuff to Bear is probably warranted, and as long as you get to choose the two damage resistances every time you Rage, probably won't feel like much of a nerf. Curious why they chose to except Force as well as Psychic though. Honestly, I think all of the Level 6 options are weak, not just Elephant. You get ONE proficiency, boosted to Expertise if you were already proficient. That not only feels weak, it feels BORING. I've had a lot of fun with the 2014 Aspect Of The Bear. Sure, it's not much help in a fight, but there is some real RP potential in being the guy who can lift Really Heavy Things. I'd like to see a version of the 2014 Aspect options return alongside a bonus skill proficiency, perhaps. The Level 14 features all look fine to me. Just fix Level 6 and the Wildheart should be solid.
The World Tree is an interesting concept for the Barbarian, though as a first public draft it will probably need some tweaking. For the Level 3 option, if you're at full health when you Rage what about if the person you give the Temp HP gets addition up to say half your Barbarian level? I think the 10ft reach extension from Battering Roots might be a bit much, 5ft sounds better. I'd also want some clarity on whether you can activate the Push/Topple in addition to the weapon's existing Mastery property, or if you can still only use one at a time and are just given two extra choices. My gut says it's the second one, but I'd like the wording to be more explicit. "You can activate the Push or Topple property instead of the Mastery property currently available for that weapon", something like that. Other than that, I think this new subclass is pretty awesome.
For the Zealot, I think Divine Fury would be better at a middle ground, choosing the damage type when you Rage, rather than when you gain that level or with every hit. I'd like to see Warrior Of The Gods extended to include features like a Paladin's Lay On Hands, the dice from Celestial Warlocks and Circle Of The Dreams Druids, or other non-spell and non-item healing magic. Those seem like odd exceptions to have as it's written in UA7. I like the update to Zealous Presence, I'm a big fan of offering ways to pay for additional uses of limited-use abilities. Would allowing it one per Rage instead without the option to pay for more be too many free uses? I think I also prefer the original Rage Beyond Death. I think it's much more on brand, "How can he keep fighting, he's dead!" "Yeah, try telling HIM that!" Plus, I like that the old way was a backup in case Relentless Rage failed. This new one is an added benefit to Relentless Rage succeeding. I like it better as a failsafe, not a bonus.
Overall I think the Barbarian is in a very good spot, one of the better results of this playtest process so far.
the world tree subclass bugs me for how over the top fantastical it is. i just imagine a mid level barbarian laying about them with branches, glancing over at the druid through the chaos and gloating a bit. "hey. how do you like that? seems the trees and i just sorta get along. do the trees reach out and fight for you? are your tree friends all busy today? hey, want me to teleport you? with branches?? because a tree is my friend?!"
yes, there's a barbarian just over there who is currently flying like a falcon just on the sheer audacity of rage. but somehow the happy tree friend is the one i find fault with.
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The new Rage Beyond Death seems to be “Don’t worry about me: my ghost will catch up with you”.
If it stated that your actual body just laid there and your ghost started murdering whatever dropped you I might actually like it. Even though it would still be a step down from the 5e version
Treantmonk pointed out a flaw in the capstone: if you can now raise your Ability Scores to a max of 22 at 19th level (and let's assume you do), then the +4 to Str & Con at 20th might only raise one of those by 2, because of the capstone's limit of 24.
Treantmonk pointed out a flaw in the capstone: if you can now raise your Ability Scores to a max of 22 at 19th level (and let's assume you do), then the +4 to Str & Con at 20th might only raise one of those by 2, because of the capstone's limit of 24.
Knowing that why would you? I’m just assuming anyone playing the game at level 19 isn’t a new player.
I still think Barbarian needs a slight damage boost around tier 3, since Barbarian basically gets nothing around level tier 3 for damage, except for Brutal Critical, which is a very small and inconsistent damage increase; noticeable when it kicks in sure but it's not matching fighter getting a 3rd attack or paladin getting radiant strikes.
I think with Relentless Rage, Barbarian should also get Improved Reckless Attack at 13, when using Reckless Attack, the number required to critical is reduced by 1. So Reckless Attack becomes a way to trigger those Brutal Criticals even more often. Maybe past that, just increase Rage Damage to +3 at level 5, +4 at level 11 and +5 at level 17, if a bit more damage is needed.
I still think Barbarian needs a slight damage boost around tier 3, since Barbarian basically gets nothing around level tier 3 for damage, except for Brutal Critical, which is a very small and inconsistent damage increase; noticeable when it kicks in sure but it's not matching fighter getting a 3rd attack or paladin getting radiant strikes.
I think with Relentless Rage, Barbarian should also get Improved Reckless Attack at 13, when using Reckless Attack, the number required to critical is reduced by 1. So Reckless Attack becomes a way to trigger those Brutal Criticals even more often. Maybe past that, just increase Rage Damage to +3 at level 5, +4 at level 11 and +5 at level 17, if a bit more damage is needed.
Ya with polearm master the damage added by brutal critical is around 2 at level 9, 4 at level 13 and 6 at level 17 even with reckless attack.
I did not like when JC made the assumption that DnD players didn't already know that reckless attack increases the chance to crit while we have been asking for this exact thing with increased crit threat range on barbarian.
I still think Barbarian needs a slight damage boost around tier 3, since Barbarian basically gets nothing around level tier 3 for damage, except for Brutal Critical, which is a very small and inconsistent damage increase; noticeable when it kicks in sure but it's not matching fighter getting a 3rd attack or paladin getting radiant strikes.
I've been pondering about a way to fix this. Because Rages can last for 10 minutes and be kept going as a Bonus Action, Barbarians now have Rages to spare. What if Brutal Critical was changed to something like "You may expend a use of Rage to turn each regular hit this turn into a Critical Hit." ? I have not crunched the numbers precisely, but that sounds like it would be comparable to fighter's 3rd attack. It could be tweaked to something like "The next X regular hits are turned into Critical Hits." for easier balancing.
Everything was looking like slight improvements until I got to Rage Beyond Death. The old version was far superior and allowed you to literally Rage Beyond Death. The new version does not live up to the name at all.
Pretty sure toning it down was the point; 5e Rage Beyond Death is problematic because it can either make you invincible against epic level threats like a tarrasque, or it can be entirely pointless if an enemy knows sleep (which can kill you instantly for a single 1st-level spell slot). It's a feature that may or may not come up, and is either far too powerful or entirely worthless.
And really the sub-class doesn't need it in the first place; you can already be raised from the dead much more easily, so that's "raging beyond death" already covered in that sense. I'd rather see something more consistently useful, as well as the sub-class actually gain something that makes them seem more like a zealot than rather than someone that's just weirdly difficult to kill. The sub-class has always felt thematically more like Undying warlock or something to me, rather than a "zealot".
But if people really prefer to keep something like the previous feature, I'd say make it something like this:
Rage Beyond Death
You have advantage on your Relentless Rage saving throws. In addition, when you use Reckless Attack, enemies do not gain advantage on attacks against you if you succeeded on a Relentless Rage saving throw since your previous turn.
So basically makes you more death-defying than a regular barbarian, but not absurdly so (that DC is still going to creep up until you eventually fail) and also eliminates the penalty for your reckless attacks when "raging beyond death", so you get an offensive boost without the defensive weakness. I tied it to reckless attack rather than just being straight advantage because I'm generally in favour of Barbarians gaining improved critical hit chance on Reckless Attack at higher levels.
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.
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Treantmonk pointed out a flaw in the capstone: if you can now raise your Ability Scores to a max of 22 at 19th level (and let's assume you do), then the +4 to Str & Con at 20th might only raise one of those by 2, because of the capstone's limit of 24.
It's not a flaw, it's a choice. No one is forcing a Barbarian to use their Level 19 ASI/Feat slot to raise their Strength and/or Constitution scores to 22.
Treantmonk pointed out a flaw in the capstone: if you can now raise your Ability Scores to a max of 22 at 19th level (and let's assume you do), then the +4 to Str & Con at 20th might only raise one of those by 2, because of the capstone's limit of 24.
It's not a flaw, it's a choice. No one is forcing a Barbarian to use their Level 19 ASI/Feat slot to raise their Strength and/or Constitution scores to 22.
It might not be a flaw but it does make it seem less impressive.
They really need tier 3/4 help. Brutal critical at its peak is like 6DPR. Otherwise I am happy with the options, though I think the fighters brawler sub class is narratively more fitting for the barbarian.
Everything was looking like slight improvements until I got to Rage Beyond Death. The old version was far superior and allowed you to literally Rage Beyond Death. The new version does not live up to the name at all.
Pretty sure toning it down was the point; 5e Rage Beyond Death is problematic because it can either make you invincible against epic level threats like a tarrasque, or it can be entirely pointless if an enemy knows sleep (which can kill you instantly for a single 1st-level spell slot). It's a feature that may or may not come up, and is either far too powerful or entirely worthless.
And really the sub-class doesn't need it in the first place; you can already be raised from the dead much more easily, so that's "raging beyond death" already covered in that sense. I'd rather see something more consistently useful, as well as the sub-class actually gain something that makes them seem more like a zealot than rather than someone that's just weirdly difficult to kill. The sub-class has always felt thematically more like Undying warlock or something to me, rather than a "zealot".
But if people really prefer to keep something like the previous feature, I'd say make it something like this:
Rage Beyond Death
You have advantage on your Relentless Rage saving throws. In addition, when you use Reckless Attack, enemies do not gain advantage on attacks against you if you succeeded on a Relentless Rage saving throw since your previous turn.
So basically makes you more death-defying than a regular barbarian, but not absurdly so (that DC is still going to creep up until you eventually fail) and also eliminates the penalty for your reckless attacks when "raging beyond death", so you get an offensive boost without the defensive weakness. I tied it to reckless attack rather than just being straight advantage because I'm generally in favour of Barbarians gaining improved critical hit chance on Reckless Attack at higher levels.
I would be okay with your version, even though it doesn’t let you Literally Rage Beyond Death so I would like a name change. I’m not okay with UA version at all. The problem I have is since it’s not something that comes up often it needs to be awesome. Just having advantage on the Relentless Rage save might not actually keep you up. Maybe something like:
Rage Against Death
You have advantage on Constitution Saving Throws for Relentless Rage. Additionally once when you fail a the Constitution Saving Throw for Relentless Rage you may choose to succeed it instead. You regain this feature when you complete a short or long rest.
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Barbarian as a whole ended up in a blah spot. While some things were improved others just got unnecessarily worse.
Base
Mostly slight improvements here. The only loss I see is being able to respond to a surprise attack by raging which was replaced with moving half your movement as part of activating rage. Instinctive pounce will be useful far mor often than the cut part of feral instinct so I'm okay with it. I like that it is much easier to keep your Rage going round to round and you can use it more out of combat as well because of this method. I like the new Brutal Critical as it allows you to not feel bad about your weapon choice.
Berserker
Print it. I’m happy with where this is at.
Wild Heart
Very meh. I’m okay with the change to bear. Elephant just offering expertise in Athletics and not the doubling of your carrying capacity kills a superpowered Goliath I got to play once. It was more of a gag, but it could have been useful. Why not expertise and a feature that does something unique at 6th level.
World Tree
Why? 3rd level feature doesn’t heal you if you are full when you start the rage and you can’t use the Temp HP on yourself. All the other features are okay I guess.
Zealot
Everything was looking like slight improvements until I got to Rage Beyond Death. The old version was far superior and allowed you to literally Rage Beyond Death. The new version does not live up to the name at all.
I think the base Barbarian class is pretty much ready to go, I like where it's ended up. I appreciate having the ability to keep your Rage going just by expending your Bonus Action(to pound your chest and stay psyched up, I presume), but I still don't like that TAKING damage no longer maintains your Rage. I don't know about you, but taking damage would certainly keep ME angry. :)
I agree about the Berserker, I think the UA7 version is ready to use.
I think changing the names of the Wildheart options does help eliminate possible confusion, so I'm fine with that. I think the Level 3 options are fine. The debuff to Bear is probably warranted, and as long as you get to choose the two damage resistances every time you Rage, probably won't feel like much of a nerf. Curious why they chose to except Force as well as Psychic though. Honestly, I think all of the Level 6 options are weak, not just Elephant. You get ONE proficiency, boosted to Expertise if you were already proficient. That not only feels weak, it feels BORING. I've had a lot of fun with the 2014 Aspect Of The Bear. Sure, it's not much help in a fight, but there is some real RP potential in being the guy who can lift Really Heavy Things. I'd like to see a version of the 2014 Aspect options return alongside a bonus skill proficiency, perhaps. The Level 14 features all look fine to me. Just fix Level 6 and the Wildheart should be solid.
The World Tree is an interesting concept for the Barbarian, though as a first public draft it will probably need some tweaking. For the Level 3 option, if you're at full health when you Rage what about if the person you give the Temp HP gets addition up to say half your Barbarian level? I think the 10ft reach extension from Battering Roots might be a bit much, 5ft sounds better. I'd also want some clarity on whether you can activate the Push/Topple in addition to the weapon's existing Mastery property, or if you can still only use one at a time and are just given two extra choices. My gut says it's the second one, but I'd like the wording to be more explicit. "You can activate the Push or Topple property instead of the Mastery property currently available for that weapon", something like that. Other than that, I think this new subclass is pretty awesome.
For the Zealot, I think Divine Fury would be better at a middle ground, choosing the damage type when you Rage, rather than when you gain that level or with every hit. I'd like to see Warrior Of The Gods extended to include features like a Paladin's Lay On Hands, the dice from Celestial Warlocks and Circle Of The Dreams Druids, or other non-spell and non-item healing magic. Those seem like odd exceptions to have as it's written in UA7. I like the update to Zealous Presence, I'm a big fan of offering ways to pay for additional uses of limited-use abilities. Would allowing it one per Rage instead without the option to pay for more be too many free uses? I think I also prefer the original Rage Beyond Death. I think it's much more on brand, "How can he keep fighting, he's dead!" "Yeah, try telling HIM that!" Plus, I like that the old way was a backup in case Relentless Rage failed. This new one is an added benefit to Relentless Rage succeeding. I like it better as a failsafe, not a bonus.
Overall I think the Barbarian is in a very good spot, one of the better results of this playtest process so far.
the world tree subclass bugs me for how over the top fantastical it is. i just imagine a mid level barbarian laying about them with branches, glancing over at the druid through the chaos and gloating a bit. "hey. how do you like that? seems the trees and i just sorta get along. do the trees reach out and fight for you? are your tree friends all busy today? hey, want me to teleport you? with branches?? because a tree is my friend?!"
yes, there's a barbarian just over there who is currently flying like a falcon just on the sheer audacity of rage. but somehow the happy tree friend is the one i find fault with.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
The new Rage Beyond Death seems to be “Don’t worry about me: my ghost will catch up with you”.
If it stated that your actual body just laid there and your ghost started murdering whatever dropped you I might actually like it. Even though it would still be a step down from the 5e version
Treantmonk pointed out a flaw in the capstone: if you can now raise your Ability Scores to a max of 22 at 19th level (and let's assume you do), then the +4 to Str & Con at 20th might only raise one of those by 2, because of the capstone's limit of 24.
Knowing that why would you? I’m just assuming anyone playing the game at level 19 isn’t a new player.
I still think Barbarian needs a slight damage boost around tier 3, since Barbarian basically gets nothing around level tier 3 for damage, except for Brutal Critical, which is a very small and inconsistent damage increase; noticeable when it kicks in sure but it's not matching fighter getting a 3rd attack or paladin getting radiant strikes.
I think with Relentless Rage, Barbarian should also get Improved Reckless Attack at 13, when using Reckless Attack, the number required to critical is reduced by 1. So Reckless Attack becomes a way to trigger those Brutal Criticals even more often. Maybe past that, just increase Rage Damage to +3 at level 5, +4 at level 11 and +5 at level 17, if a bit more damage is needed.
Ya with polearm master the damage added by brutal critical is around 2 at level 9, 4 at level 13 and 6 at level 17 even with reckless attack.
I did not like when JC made the assumption that DnD players didn't already know that reckless attack increases the chance to crit while we have been asking for this exact thing with increased crit threat range on barbarian.
I've been pondering about a way to fix this. Because Rages can last for 10 minutes and be kept going as a Bonus Action, Barbarians now have Rages to spare. What if Brutal Critical was changed to something like "You may expend a use of Rage to turn each regular hit this turn into a Critical Hit." ? I have not crunched the numbers precisely, but that sounds like it would be comparable to fighter's 3rd attack. It could be tweaked to something like "The next X regular hits are turned into Critical Hits." for easier balancing.
Pretty sure toning it down was the point; 5e Rage Beyond Death is problematic because it can either make you invincible against epic level threats like a tarrasque, or it can be entirely pointless if an enemy knows sleep (which can kill you instantly for a single 1st-level spell slot). It's a feature that may or may not come up, and is either far too powerful or entirely worthless.
And really the sub-class doesn't need it in the first place; you can already be raised from the dead much more easily, so that's "raging beyond death" already covered in that sense. I'd rather see something more consistently useful, as well as the sub-class actually gain something that makes them seem more like a zealot than rather than someone that's just weirdly difficult to kill. The sub-class has always felt thematically more like Undying warlock or something to me, rather than a "zealot".
But if people really prefer to keep something like the previous feature, I'd say make it something like this:
So basically makes you more death-defying than a regular barbarian, but not absurdly so (that DC is still going to creep up until you eventually fail) and also eliminates the penalty for your reckless attacks when "raging beyond death", so you get an offensive boost without the defensive weakness. I tied it to reckless attack rather than just being straight advantage because I'm generally in favour of Barbarians gaining improved critical hit chance on Reckless Attack at higher levels.
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.
It's not a flaw, it's a choice. No one is forcing a Barbarian to use their Level 19 ASI/Feat slot to raise their Strength and/or Constitution scores to 22.
It might not be a flaw but it does make it seem less impressive.
They really need tier 3/4 help. Brutal critical at its peak is like 6DPR. Otherwise I am happy with the options, though I think the fighters brawler sub class is narratively more fitting for the barbarian.
I would be okay with your version, even though it doesn’t let you Literally Rage Beyond Death so I would like a name change. I’m not okay with UA version at all. The problem I have is since it’s not something that comes up often it needs to be awesome. Just having advantage on the Relentless Rage save might not actually keep you up. Maybe something like:
Rage Against Death
You have advantage on Constitution Saving Throws for Relentless Rage. Additionally once when you fail a the Constitution Saving Throw for Relentless Rage you may choose to succeed it instead. You regain this feature when you complete a short or long rest.