Everyone's favorite tank has been hitting the gym and is even more buff in the 2024 Player's Handbook. You'll find the new Barbarian is harder to take down, has a more persistent Rage, and is more strategic when it comes to trading off defense for offense.
In this article, we'll cover the key changes to the 2024 Barbarian you'll find in the new Player's Handbook. If there's a feature we don't cover, such as Extra Attack, it remains unchanged or only saw minor tweaks.
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Class Feature |
Level |
What's New |
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1 |
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1 |
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2 |
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Reckless Attack |
2 |
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3 |
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3 |
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7 |
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Brutal Strike (replaces Brutal Critical) |
9 |
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11 |
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13 |
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15 |
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17 |
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Indomitable Might |
18 |
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19 |
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Primal Champion |
20 |
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2024 Barbarian Class Features Overview

Rage — Level 1
You can't be the Hulk of your adventuring party without a persistent, nigh uncontrollable Rage. The 2024 Player's Handbook makes it easy to keep your Rage rolling by allowing you to expend a Bonus Action to maintain your Rage. Your Rage is also extended if you force an enemy to make a saving throw.
Previously, you would have to make a weapon attack or take damage to continue raging, but if you're taking your turn to do something mundane, such as climbing a ladder, you don't want to have to expend another usage of Rage once you get to the top.
You now also regain one use of Rage when you finish a Short Rest, making it more likely you'll have this key Barbarian feature available when you roll Initiative.
Weapon Mastery — Level 1
Find more ways to crush, slash, and generally pulverize your enemies with the new Weapon Mastery feature! At level 1, you can choose two Simple or Martial Melee weapons and access their mastery properties. The number of mastery properties you can access at a given time increases as you level up, and they can be swapped out at the end of each Long Rest.
Just because we know how much Barbarians love chopping things up, let's look at the Greataxe and Handaxe mastery properties as examples:
- Greataxe (Cleave): The only thing better than chopping one enemy in half is chopping two enemies in half! With Cleave, whenever you hit a creature, you can make a second attack at another creature within 5 feet of the original target and within your reach. If you hit, you deal your weapon's damage dice but not your ability score modifier unless it's negative (you do add your Rage bonus damage, though!)
- Handaxe (Vex): The Handaxe's mastery property, Vex, makes it easier for you to land a follow up attack. When you hit a creature with a Handaxe, you'll have Advantage on the next attack roll you make against that creature before the end of your next turn.
Danger Sense — Level 2
The Barbarian's Spidey-Sense has been given a buff! Previously, you'd have to be able to hear or see a Fireball streaking toward you in order to get Advantage on your subsequent Dexterity saving throw. Now, you can dodge effectively even when Blinded or Deafened.
Barbarian Subclass — Level 3

Barbarian subclasses in the 2024 Player's Handbook include the Path of the Berserker, Path of the Wild Heart, Path of the World Tree, and Path of the Zealot. The Path of the World Tree is an entirely new subclass, while the rest got updated to improve gameplay.
- Path of the Berserker: The biggest change to the Path of the Berserker is the adjustments to Frenzy. Now, instead of giving you an extra Bonus Action attack, you get additional damage on your first hit each turn when you're using Reckless Attack while your Rage is active. The extra damage is represented by a number of d6s equal to your Rage bonus damage. You also don't gain levels of Exhaustion for using this ability. Other than that, Intimidating Presence and Retaliation have swapped places; Intimidating Presence now takes a Bonus Action, it's limited to once per Long Rest (unless you expend a use of Rage to use it again), it affects multiple creatures, its Frightened condition lasts up to 1 minute without requiring an action to extend the duration, and the DC of the effect is based on your Strength instead of Charisma. Mindless Rage now also ends the Charmed or Frightened condition instead of suspending it.
- Path of the Wild Heart (formerly Path of the Totem Warrior): The Path of the Wild Heart has seen some significant improvements to its flexibility. Now, you can change the animals that you draw primal power from more easily, and they've been balanced to make choosing feel more strategic. Instead of choosing an animal at level 3 and sticking with it through your campaign, you can swap out benefits from your level 3 and 14 abilities each time you Rage. The more passive abilities you gain at level 6 can be changed out whenever you finish a Long Rest.
- Path of the World Tree (New): With this subclass, you can dish out Temporary Hit Points, shift enemies around the battlefield, increase your reach and the versatility of your Weapon Mastery properties, and, as the subclass's capstone, teleport around the battlefield with your allies.
- Path of the Zealot: Originally introduced in Xanathar's Guide to Everything, this radiant subclass has had a glow-up. Its Warrior of the Gods feature now helps you stay alive by giving you a pool of healing dice you can roll as a Bonus Action, rather than making it easier to bring you back from the dead. This is also reflected in the Rage of the Gods feature, which replaces Rage Beyond Death and gives you a Fly Speed, damage resistances, and the ability to expend a use of your Rage to prevent you or one of your comrades from dropping to 0 Hit Points.
Primal Knowledge — Level 3
Make your Barbarian more useful when they're not crushing skulls! Primal Knowledge gives you an extra skill proficiency from the Barbarian's list. Also, while your Rage is active, whenever you make an ability check using one of these skills, you can make it as a Strength check even if it normally uses a different ability: Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth, or Survival.
This means that you can now fly into a Rage and use your fury to sneak into places, perceive things more easily, and do complex calisthenics. Talk about an all-terrain Rage!
Instinctive Pounce — Level 7
When you gain this ability, you can move up to half your Speed as part of the same Bonus Action you take to enter a Rage. This is an excellent way to ensure you're in the front ranks when you clash with enemy forces.
Brutal Strike — Level 9
This ability replaces the 2014 Barbarian's Brutal Critical in favor of a more strategic use of your Barbarian's resources. Using Brutal Strike, you can forgo the Advantage from your Reckless Attack feature on one Strength-based attack per turn to inflict more damage and impose a deleterious effect.
If you gamble correctly and still manage to hit with your attack, you get an extra 1d10 damage and can choose either:
- Forceful Blow: Send your target flying 15 feet away from you, then you can follow up and move half your Speed towards your target without provoking Opportunity Attacks.
- Hamstring Blow: Reduce your target's Speed by 15 feet until the start of your next turn. Despite (usually) having two hamstrings, a creature can only suffer from one Hamstring Blow at a time.
Both options can be incredibly useful in specific situations. Forceful Blow is great for sending enemies off cliffs or into environmental hazards (just maybe don't follow them in afterward). It can also be used to knock an enemy away from one of your less tanky party members.
Hamstring Blow, on the other hand, can be crucial for locking down fast targets and keeping them within reach until you can finish them off.
Who would've thought attacking with reckless abandon could be so strategic?
Relentless Rage — Level 11
We heard you liked tanky builds, so we made your tanky build even more tanky. Previously, when you succeeded in a Constitution saving throw after getting knocked to 0 Hit Points, this ability would bring you back up to 1 Hit Point.
Now, you regain a number of Hit Points equal to twice your Barbarian level. Seeing as you don't lose your Rage until you get Incapacitated, you effectively have twice that many Hit Points (thanks to damage resistances).
Tack on the fact that this continues to happen until you fail your Constitution saving throw after dropping to 0 Hit Points, and this means you could trigger this ability multiple times per Long Rest, resulting in dozens of extra Hit Points.
This will effectively make you the Black Knight from Monty Python, able to shrug off a normally fatal injury with a casual, "Tis but a scratch."
Improved Brutal Strike — Level 13
Get even more recklessly strategic! Now, you can choose from two additional options when you hit a creature using Brutal Strike:
- Staggering Blow: Force your target to have Disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes and it can't make Opportunity Attacks until the start of your next turn. Perfect for diving out of the way and letting your Wizard light them up with a big spell.
- Sundering Blow: If you have a martial buddy fighting alongside you, this is a great way to team up. When you hit a creature with this ability, the next attack made against it by another creature has +5 to hit.
Persistent Rage — Level 15
Previously, this feature made the Barbarian's Rage impossible to end early, short of knocking them Unconscious. In the updated version, you still get these benefits, and your Rage lasts for 10 minutes, without you needing to extend it in any way.
If that wasn't enough, you can now regain all uses of Rage when you roll Initiative. This only triggers once per Long Rest, but a full 50 minutes of Raging should get you to the next time you're able to kick your feet up and relax.
Improved Brutal Strike — Level 17
This improvement to your Brutal Strike doubles the damage dealt from 1d10 to 2d10 and also allows you to inflict two different Brutal Strike effects each time you hit.
This allows you to combo effects, like sending an enemy flying into a Blade Barrier with Disadvantage on their Dexterity saving throw. Or, perhaps you hit a creature with a thrown Handaxe and use Forceful Blow to send them 15 feet away and Hamstring Blow to reduce their Speed by 15 feet. Then, step back a couple of feet and ready your next Handaxe.
Epic Boon — Level 19
Epic Boons are a new type of feat introduced in the revised core ruleset and that are level-locked. At level 19, the Barbarian gets their choice of one of the twelve Epic Boon feats found in the 2024 Player's Handbook.
The following Epic Boon is a recommended option for the Barbarian:
- Boon of Irresistible Offense: This boon of epic proportions starts by allowing you to increase your Strength or Dexterity by 1 up to a maximum of 30. You also get the ability to overcome resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage with your attacks. Finally, when you roll a 20 on the die for an attack roll, you get to deal damage equal to the ability score that you used to make the attack. Which will likely be at least 25 when you gain access to Primal Champion at level 20. Now that's a Critical Hit!
Get Your Rage On
The 2024 Player's Handbook is now available on the D&D Beyond marketplace, which means it's time to set out on new adventures with fresh or familiar characters!
The Barbarian in the new Player's Handbook is even more tanky, Rage-y, and has a lot more strategic choices to make in combat thanks to Weapon Mastery and Brutal Strike. Now, every turn will be a dangerous dance where you'll have to decide what course of action is optimal. Or, you could just Reckless Attack and Cleave through your enemies until you've turned the battlefield into a graveyard.
We’re delighted to share with you the changes to fifth edition D&D that appear in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. Make sure to keep an eye out on D&D Beyond for more useful guides on using the wealth of new options, rules, and mechanics found in the 2024 Player's Handbook!

Mike Bernier (@arcane_eye) is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his partner, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.
This article was updated on August 12, 2024, to issue corrections or expand coverage for the following features and subclasses:
- Rage: Clarified that you can still maintain Rage by making an attack roll against an enemy.
- Weapon Mastery: Clarified that Greataxe and Handaxe aren't suggestions; They are examples. Also added that you don't add your ability score modifier unless it's negative to the Cleave property.
- Reckless Attack: Added that the Advantage granted by Reckless Attack now lasts until the start of your next turn.
- Barbarian Subclass (Path of the Berserker): Expanded coverage on Intimidating Presence and clarified that this subclass' extra damage only triggers when you're using Reckless Attack and your Rage is active.
- Barbarian Subclass (Path of the Zealot): Clarified that the Revivification benefit in Rage of the Gods can only affect one creature at a time.
- Primal Knowledge: Removed unclear wording.
- Feral Instinct: Removed reference to surprise as the rules for Initiative and surprise have changed, obviating the old benefit.
- Brutal Strike: Removed mistake stating you could forgo any Advantage to activate Brutal Strike. Only the Advantage granted by Reckless Attack can be used to activate this feature.
- Relentless Rage: Clarified that you regain Hit Points equal to twice your Barbarian level.
- Persistent Rage: Removed error that stated you could only use this benefit if you have no uses of Rage left. Also made clear that it is optional to activate.
- Improved Brutal Strike: Removed unclear wording.
Why the crap does this article not tell us about the OTHER epic boons? Like, I wanna know! I WANNA KNOW!!
Also, Path of the World Tree seems cracked from the description up there 👆👆👆
WHY? The old barbarian works just fine, I don't see any reason why wotc wants to improve it, which isn't working because the reception from fans is mostly negative right now.
Everyone seems to really like 5e and since it came out DND is at the height of it's popularity (granted stranger things might have something to do with that) but wotc is still intent on making a new edition no one asked for. A lot of people thought 5e was just going to be the last edition and wotc wouldn't make another, but NOPE. And so far to no one's surprise a lot of people are not happy with this. If I've learned anything about the DND community it's that we don't like change, heck I know a lot of people who still only play 1e or 3e. People are usually ok with new source books because they AREN'T major changes to the game, so they get an exception. So I ask you wotc WHY?
Who is Mike Bernier, and can he write every article and the PHB for me please? Love the personality in it.
Booooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why bother make a new edition when 5e was so successful.
YOU ARE SO RIGHT!
Sweet
Ngl I agree with Lorrd Wolf on this one, but I will clarify that I haven't yet run or played a game past lvl10 with a Barbarian.
'1. I think you're assuming that the Barbarian was already a really strong class. At low levels, sure, but at higher levels especially, it couldn't really keep up with Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins in terms of damage output. And that's not even mentioning the spellcasters who can often end a combat encounter in a single round (or at least guarantee the party's victory), even at low levels. Buffing the Barbarian and all of the martial classes (especially the ones without access to spells) was a must for the 2024 rulebooks.'
I don't think Barbarian is a strong class, but I do think that they are stronger than people give them credit for. I'd argue that fighter and paladins are better, but rangers are on par or even below Barbarian's most of the time. I also really disagree with the idea that spellcasters can nullify an encounter in one turn at low levels. I agree Barbarian needs a buff, but I think that this buff is way too strong.
2. ' I think you're forgetting how few uses of rage you have at low levels. If your party was doing a dungeon crawl at 5th level, if the dungeon had seven combat encounters (and that's a legitimate playstyle that people use), you could have to go through four combat encounters without being able to use your class-defining ability. '
To me, personally, rage is something that there should ALWAYS be a risk of running of. Action surge and second winds have 1 use each per short rest, those are class-defining abilites. Lay on hands can only restore 25 hp max at level 5, divene smite uses a spell slot which paladins have 6 of at level 5. Compare that to Barbarian who gets extra damage every hit, advantage on Strength checks and saving throws AND resistant to the 3 most common damage types basically EACH COMBAT ENCOUNTER, and advantage on dex saving throws all the time, that's super strong. I really don't understand this mindset or want for rage to be something that the barbarian should always have access to when the other martial classes have limits. The extended rage time, I do somewhat like, but I see its flaws. If an enemy wants to be tactical, and get away fast from combat via means of a horse or magic, they have get around 9-10 minutes away from the barbarian so they would lose their rage. There's not a lot of abilities that allow someone get that far away, but so far away that the combat encounter ends fully. I also don't see players using rage for ability checks or roleplay. They'll likely just get someone else to do it whose better or take the fall.
'3. Danger Sense seems to have been updated largely to speed up combats and exploration scenarios. 90% of the time or more, Barbarians will still be able to see or hear when they're forced to make a Dexterity saving throw. But before, it still wasn't a guarantee that they'd be able to "see" the effect that triggered Danger Sense, so they would have to ask the DM basically every time a Dexterity saving throw was called for.
- DM: "The wizard casts fireball!"
- Barbarian: "Can I see it?"
- DM: "You fall into a spike trap!"
- Barbarian: "Can I see the spike trap?"
- DM: "The spell knocks you 30 feet back; make a Dexterity saving throw to grab onto the ledge."
- Barbarian: "Since I saw the spell, do I get to apply Danger Sense?"
It makes the feature more efficient, and arguably more friendly to both the DM and the player. DM doesn't have to make a ruling about whether the Barbarian can or can't see an effect every time it comes up, and the Barbarian doesn't have to ask. It also makes the feature fall more in line with its title, "Danger Sense." If the Barbarian's danger sense is just that they can see things, I have that sense too, it's called having eyes. Now, leaning into the themes of primal power, the Barbarian just gets an innate sense of when their life is threatened, which I think was always the intention behind this feature anyway.'
Eh, somewhat agree, it means barbs aren't weak against spell casters with big AOE effects that aren't wisdom.
I agree with point 3, I like forceful blow for the reasons you give and others.
'4. See the aforementioned comment on why drawing out the length of rage was probably a good thing. Also, I suppose I should mention in case it wasn't clear, in the first part of this post where I address rage, I am assuming that, like in the playtest, they have extended the standard duration of rage to 10 minutes. '
To me, this ability is the one that I think is way, way too strong, particularly regain rage on initiative. I understand it's a level 15 feature, which is it's one set back, but i really think this should be around level 18, and you get back 3 or so rages if you have none. To put it this way, this means that per long rest, a 15th level Barbarian can enter rage 10 times. With the extended rage time and the bonus action to continue, this effectively means the only way to stop them from ranging is to use a spell like hold person. They also get a rage back each short rest, so that's probably around 14-16 rages per long rest. One of the big pushbacks against Challenge rating not being accurate by WOTC is that they expect the average party to have 6-8 'encounters' per long rest. Not all combat. So now you've got a MINIMUM of 10 rages per long rest, how on earth (unless by using a spell like Hold person) are you expected to dwindle a barbarian's rages to 0 without throwing 10+ combat only encounters at them, which need to be spaced 10+ minutes apart.
Even at level 15, this is insane. As I said before, like with any class ability, rage should be something where there is a real risk that you could run out of it. At this point, you might as well say 'Whenever you enter combat, you are in rage. Whenever combat ends, your rage ends, unless you're level 15 in which it last for 10+ minutes and if you find someone else to attack it resets'. That's essentially what these changes are imo.
This is just the changes. Fear not! Every class will still get its standard number of ASIs at the appropriate levels.
ASI is now just a feat, so on levels when you could gain an ASI or a feat you can now just pick the ASI feat and the result is the same. It's a formatting change. Epic boon is just in addition to what you could already do.
What are y'all on about? Nothing about this is unclear, this is a very simple and not convoluted example combo with a handaxe. If you hit with a handaxe with your first attack you can then use the extra damage by foregoing advantage gained from Reckless Attack, but gain advantage from Vex....So for that attack you get both advantage and extra damage.
The Brutal Strikes text was clarified in the article that you forego advantage from any source, of which Reckless is one possibility. Check the article now: "... you can forgo Advantage on one of your Strength-based attacks in exchange for more damage and a selection of debuffs you can impose on your enemies. The Advantage could be gained through Reckless Attack, or it could be enabled by attacking a Prone enemy." You have an attack with advantage, then you forego it, so it's now a straight roll.
The advantage of Reckless is converted into Brutal Strike. So instead of advantage you get extra damage and additional effects.
At the beginning of the article.
"In this article, we'll cover the key changes to the 2024 Barbarian you'll find in the new Player's Handbook. If there's a feature we don't cover, such as Extra Attack, it remains unchanged or only saw minor tweaks."
The ASI's aren't mentioned because they didn't change. Well, their changes aren't just for the Barbarian. ASI/Feats still happen at the normal lvls. But there are changes. Everyone gets a lvl 1 feat with their background now. So no more variant human or custom lineage nonsense. And I think you get a feat WITH every ASI now. But feats are separated into groups. So you can't get the best first at early levels. Which creates this Epic Boon Feat. And they are class specific I think. The Epic Boon feats, not all feats.
That's all I can recall right now. Information accuracy not guaranteed. Hope it helps. And I'm sure there's more to learn on the way.
@JeremyCrawford if i use reckless attack while attacking a prone target do i have to sacrifice both advantage to use a brutal strike?
You can not "double down" on advantage. You either have it, or not, regardless of how many sources would give you advantage. Brutal Strikes makes you forgo advantage for the extra effect.
I figured that seeing as your not getting disadvantaged
just an advantage removed, you might still been able to use the other advantage.
That's not how that works. If you have advantage from multiple sources but are foregoing advantage from one of them you still have advantage. Dude you're straight up incorrect
That's very much not what that text is saying. It's saying that you can use Brutal Strike whenever you have advantage, not that you forego advantage from any and all sources. Its just saying that if you have advantage due to another reason SUCH AS an enemy being prone, you do not have to use Reckless Attack in order to benefit from Brutal Strike. So no, it doesn't cancel out all advantage you may have, in fact its clarified to be MORE powerful, as you don't actually have to incur the penalties from Reckless Attack necessarily, it is just a built in way to reliably GAIN the advantage that you need to enable Brutal Strike
The article says: "This ability replaces the 2014 Barbarian's Brutal Critical in favor of a more strategic use of your Barbarian's resources. Using Brutal Strike, you can forgo Advantage on one of your Strength-based attacks in exchange for more damage and a selection of debuffs you can impose on your enemies. The Advanatage could be gained through Reckless Attack, or it could be enabled by attacking a Prone enemy. The only condition is that you can't have Disadvantage on the roll as well. If you gamble correctly and still manage to hit with your attack, you get an extra 1d10 damage and can choose either..."
So if you have Advantage on the attack (however that is achieved), you can forego the advantage to roll normally and use Brutal Strike. No where has it been mentioned foregoing a specific source of advantage, and that's also not how advantage works anywhere else in the game: either you have it or not, and if you do, you can forego it to roll normally and use Brutal Strike. It's unlikely that they'd call it a gamble if you could still get advantage on the attack.
I'd be happy to be wrong. It's possible that it will work differently when we see the actual text, but nothing we've been shown and nothing I've heard from anyone in the know suggests a different reading than the above (and in fact, someone with an advance copy did confirm that this is how it will work). We're just going to have to wait and see the actual text to be sure.
Feels like all these changes to make another PHB is kind of just.... greed.