Barbarian 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Relentless Fury

You are a barbarian, a wrathful warrior that prizes raw strength over all else. Your tempestuous fury sharpens your senses and drives you toward superhuman feats of power. As a mighty warrior, you can unleash your wrath upon your enemies as a powerful offensive combatant, harry your foes as a sturdy defensive warrior, or protect your allies as an unstoppable tank.

Because of their many defensive class features, barbarians are one of the most durable characters in Dungeons & Dragons, while still striking fear into the hearts of their enemies with their incredible offensive power. Your choice of subclass also grants you a wide variety of thematic roleplaying choices. Even if you chose to play a barbarian because you just want to fight and not worry about social interaction, your flavorful class abilities give you some easy ways to slip into character like a master roleplayer.

This guide will give you an overview of the D&D barbarian, how to play a barbarian, and the different features you'll acquire as you level up. We'll be focusing on material from the Basic Rules and Player's Handbook, and only discussing early-level options, as to not overwhelm you with options.

A Note on Terminology

This guide uses "offense," "defense," and "tank" as ways to refer to specific playstyles. No part of the official D&D rules refer to characters in this way, but it’s an easy way to discuss the different roles characters serve in the party.

Building a D&D Barbarian

A barbarian stands in the front of their army with swords drawn

When you're ready, head over to D&D Beyond's character builder. Below, we'll discuss the options you'll be presented during your barbarian's character creation.

Step 1: Choose a Species

While characters of any species can be good barbarians, you may want to choose a species that improves your Constitution or Strength scores.

  • Half-orcs are the quintessential barbarian, and their +2 bonus to Strength and +1 bonus to Constitution play directly to the barbarian’s strengths. Other half-orc traits such as Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks also mesh well with your goals of dealing lots of damage and not dying.
  • Mountain dwarves are excellent barbarians, as they gain an unprecedented +2 bonus to both Strength and Constitution.
  • Humans are also iconic barbarians, cut from the same cloth as Robert E. Howard’s famous Conan the Barbarian. If your DM allows feats in your game, choosing the variant human will allow you to pick up a feat like Great Weapon Master, Shield Master, or Sentinel at 1st level, which will give you a huge boost in power and flexibility.

Step 2: Choose Your Class

Choose barbarian as your class (unless you're not filled with a yearning for rage and bloodlust, then it's best to choose a different class). This will grant you some class features right off the bat. We'll touch on all of these features in the Barbarian Class Features section. For now, let's focus on your two skill proficiencies.

  • Choose skills that fit who you want your character to be. Skills that play to your strengths are useful, like Athletics, but also consider shoring up some of your weaknesses in order to make yourself a more balanced character. Some good choices would be Perception or Survival.

Step 3: Ability Scores

Your ability scores will determine your character's baseline bonuses to all the rolls they'll make in their adventuring career. Think about what role you want to fill in the party—offense, defense, or tank. We'll look at this choice more closely down below, but for now, know that offense focuses on dealing damage, defense focuses on staying alive, and tanking focuses on protecting your allies. We're assuming you're using the Standard Array means of distributing your ability scores for the below example.

  • If you want to play offense, put your highest ability score in Strength, and place your second highest in Constitution. If you want to play defense or tank, consider placing your highest in Constitution and your second highest in Strength instead. Even defense- or tank-minded barbarians can get by with Constitution being their second-highest score.
  • Set your third highest in Dexterity. This is important for your Armor Class (AC), initiative rolls, and Stealth.
  • Then, distribute the rest as you see fit.

Step 4: Description

Select a background that supports your character concept. Your choice of background can help you make strong roleplaying choices; a barbarian that has lived as an Outlander their entire life is a totally different character than one that served for many years as a Soldier, but then defected from their regiment.

Step 5: Equipment

Finally, determine your barbarian's equipment! Choose your equipment by clicking on "Starting Equipment." Then, when prompted to "Choose EQUIPMENT or GOLD," click "EQUIPMENT'" and choose:

How to Play a Barbarian

A barbarian dwarf takes a greataxe to a treasure chest

As a barbarian, you may be expected to take on the role of a ferocious warrior that tears through enemies like paper, but there are more options available to you than sheer offense. Thanks to your massive pool of hit points and easy access to damage resistances, you can be a potent defensive force, weathering any blow while using feats and class features to keep your enemies from reaching your allies, interrupting rituals, or stealing vital magical artifacts. By walking the middle road of offense and defense, you become a dangerous tank—forcing your enemies to fight you instead of your allies by getting in their faces and never relenting in your onslaught.

Your role in your adventuring party probably won’t crystallize until at least 3rd level, when you choose your Primal Path. You may wish to decide which subclass you’ll choose during character creation so that you can plan your character’s theme, aesthetic, or mechanical build in advance.

If you're looking to enhance your barbarian's physical prowess, check out our guide on the best magic items for your barbarian. Once you've found your items of choice, let your DM know! Or, you could always just rip the heads off whatever creature currently has it in their possession.

Barbarian Class Features

For the first three levels of play, your combat style will be roughly the same no matter what kind of role you want to play in the party. While certain choices can change this, playing a barbarian is generally fairly simple at low levels. You'll want to use Rage as much as possible so that you can wade into melee and deal lots of damage. Below, we'll cover your barbarian's class features up to the 5th level, where the introductory adventures Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragons of Stormwreck Isle take you.

1st level

Rage: You will use your barbarian's Rage a lot throughout your adventuring career—it is perhaps your single most important class feature since many of your subclass features will grant you bonus powers while you're raging in addition to its already formidable list of benefits. Don’t forget to add the damage bonus you get from raging to your damage rolls!

Unarmored Defense: This ability allows you to live out the classic fantasy of the bare-chested, Conan-style barbarian, but it essentially boils down to just giving you some free armor. Most of your staying power comes from your incredible hit point pool anyway, so don’t be afraid to forgo this feature in order to wear some snazzy magic armor if you need to. This feature's main benefit is that it allows you to leap into battle without having to spend time donning your armor. Its utility is situational, but it can be very useful if your party is ambushed while sleeping.

2nd Level

Reckless Attack: This is a vital tool for both offense and tank-focused barbarians. Offensive barbarians will gladly accept the drawback of being easier to hit in exchange for advantage on their own attack rolls—but this feature poses a win-win scenario for tanks by letting them deal serious damage and by making them a more attractive target for their enemies.

Danger Sense: This ability is powerful in certain situations, though its power level will vary wildly based on what kind of campaign you’re playing in. A dungeon-crawling campaign with lots of traps or a campaign with lots of mages spamming burning hands and fireball? Splendid. A campaign with lots of poisonous creatures and invisible spirits? Much less powerful. Try not to forget about this niche feature when it actually comes into play.

3rd Level 

Primal Path: You get to choose a Primal Path. You can access the Path of the Berserker at no cost in the Basic Rules, and there is one more available in the Player’s Handbook (Path of the Totem Warrior). These subclasses will dictate which playstyle is most effective for your barbarian, which we'll discuss in more detail in the Barbarian Subclasses section.

4th Level 

Ability Score Improvement (ASI): At 4th level, your barbarian improves their ability scores. You can choose one ability score to increase by 2 or increase two scores by 1. Most barbarians will either want to use both increases to bump their Strength by 2 if they're offensive focused or Constitution by 2 points if they're defensive focused.

You can also forgo this ability score improvement and choose a feat, which is a new permanent ability that can further customize your build. Feats are optional rules not covered within the Basic Rules, so talk to your DM before you choose one. If you're interested in enhancing your barbarian with a feat, see the below options based on your preferred playstyle:

  • Offense. Choose the Great Weapon Master feat. When paired with Reckless Attack, this feat can send your damage output through the roof.
  • Defense. Choose the Shield Master feat. As a defense barbarian, you may wish to use a shield and a one-handed weapon to improve your AC, and Shield Master will help you make the most of that tool.
  • Tank. Choose the Sentinel feat. This feat encourages enemies to attack you by punishing them for trying to move past you or attack your allies.

5th Level 

Extra Attack: You get to attack twice whenever you take the Attack action, effectively doubling your damage output. Hooray!

Fast Movement: You also get to increase your walking speed by 10 feet while you aren’t wearing heavy armor. This feature is less exciting, but a flat increase to your movement speed is almost always useful. It lets you get into fights faster, exit fights faster, and protect your allies more effectively.

Barbarian Subclasses

A minotaur barbarian wields two battleaxes

Choosing your Primal Path will allow you to specialize in either the offense, defense, or tank playstyle. In the below table, we provide a brief description of each of the barbarian subclasses. Beyond that, we go into detail on the Path of the Berserker (found in the Basic Rules) and the Path of the Totem Warrior (found in the Player's Handbook).

Primal Path Description Strengths
Path of the Ancestral Guardian Call ancestral spirits to your aid. Tank
Path of the Battlerager Be a dwarf warrior who dons spiked armor and grapples your foes. Offense
Path of the Beast Transform into a beast with deadly unarmed strikes. Offense
Path of the Berserker Take your rage one step further and enter a destructive fury. Offense
Path of the Storm Herald  Harness the power of the storm to destroy your enemies. Defense
Path of the Totem Warrior Channel different nature spirits to gain the upper hand in battle. Defense
Path of the Zealot Devote your fury to a religious cause. Offense/Tank
Path of Wild Magic Supplement your rage with wild magic. Offense/Tank

Path of the Berserker

This barbarian subclass is all about losing yourself in the bloodlust of battle. Its primary feature revolves around entering a Frenzy during your rage, which allows you to take a bonus action attack each round at the expense of gaining a level of exhaustion after your rage ends.

Playstyle: Berserker barbarians are all about dishing out the most damage possible each round. They get to take a melee weapon attack as a bonus action, which can net tons of extra damage over the course of a combat. However, they need to be careful. Gaining multiple levels of exhaustion can have deadly consequences, especially if you get above two levels. If you have a cleric or a druid that can afford to soothe that exhaustion by casting greater restoration, use Frenzy as often as you want! If you need to wait until a long rest to restore your exhaustion, maybe only use it in the most important fights of the day.

Key Benefits: On top of bonus action—and eventually reaction—attacks, Berserker barbarians become immune to charmed and frightened effects while raging at 6th level. This can be a huge advantage because normally, the big brutish party members are the first to get mind-controlled and turned against the party.

Path of the Totem Warrior

Totem Warrior barbarians are some of the best tanks in the game. They have plenty of options to choose from when selecting their Totem Spirit, but one choice certainly stands out from the rest. 

Playstyle: At 3rd level, Totem Warrior barbarians choose an ability that enhances their rage. There are some options that allow you to move around the battlefield more easily or help your allies gain advantage on attacks, but the best option by far is the Bear totem. This Spirit Totem gives you resistance to every damage type except for psychic, allowing you to stand out in front of the party and soak damage that would normally be directed at your teammates. Eventually, you'll gain the ability to give hostile creatures disadvantage on their attacks if they don't target you, which is an effective method to make sure you're the focus of their attention.

Key Benefits: Beyond their incredible tanking abilities, Totem Warrior barbarians also get access to some fun nature spells, like speak with animals and commune with nature. This subclass also offers a lot of choices so, if you didn't want to go for the Bear Totem Spirit, you can make a unique barbarian with an interesting playstyle. 

Making Your Barbarian Your Own

As usual, this 101 guide focuses primarily on your character’s “build,” stressing mechanical power over roleplaying or characterization. While barbarians are one of the most combat-focused classes in D&D, you should never ignore the other two pillars of the game: exploration and social interaction. If nothing else, having a clear idea of who your character is can help you feel more immersed in the game. Think of Grog Strongjaw, the goliath barbarian of Critical Role. Even though his character had simple motivations—drink ale, carouse, and protect his friends Scanlan and Pike—his antics were always able to make his fellow players laugh. These simple motivations even led to some incredibly emotional moments, though we won’t spoil them here.

Feel empowered to play against type, too. An intelligent, bookish barbarian is a fun twist on the usual dumb brute archetype. Even Conan, the quintessential barbarian, possessed great cleverness and won as many fights through guile as he did through the strength of his arms. Don't worry about having a hard time roleplaying as a barbarian; even the most straightforward of characters can be fun to play.

Now, grab your greataxe and prepare to rage!

Barbarian 201: The Best Magic Items for Barbarians
by Damen Cook
Barbarian 101: Path of the Berserker
by James Haeck
Barbarian 101: Path of the Totem Warrior
by James Haeck

James Haeck (@jamesjhaeck) is the former lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and theCritical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, and is also a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and two wilderness defenders, Mei and Marzipan. 

This article was originally published on May 2, 2018, and was updated on March 9, 2023.

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