Path of the Tactician

Some barbarians learn to use their rage not as blind fury, but as a means of focusing their skills in battle. For these barbarians, rage is a means of obtaining single-minded focus to accomplish a goal. These barbarians are tacticians, warriors who train their eyes to assess weaknesses in their opponents both on and off of the battlefield.

Tactician barbarians are rarely marked by anger. Rather, they enter into deep focus in combat. Indeed many are level-headed individuals who serve as military trainers and commanders.

Focus

In battle, you have learned to harness your rage into an intense focus on the battlefield. The optional Focus trait replaces the Rage feature.

While focused, you gain the following benefits if you aren’t wearing heavy armor:

• You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, as your focus helps you brace for physical contest.
• When you make a melee weapon attack using Dexterity, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table. Your intense focus allows you to strike more vulnerable points.
• You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, as your focus enables you to partially avoid attacks.

If you are able to cast spells, you can’t cast them or concentrate on them while raging.

Your focus lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your focus on your turn as a bonus action.

Once you have focused the number of times shown for your barbarian level in the Rages column of the Barbarian table, you must finish a long rest before you can focus again.

Feint

Starting at 2nd level, you can feint an attack to goad your enemies into exposing their weakness. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to feign a weakness in your defense to goad your opponent. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Dexterity during this turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.

This optional feature replaces the Barbarian's Reckless Attack feature.

Skill Focus

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in one skill from the Rogue class skill list.

Additionally, choose one skill in which you are proficient that is not already benefiting from the expertise feature. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for ability checks using that skill.

Precision Strike

Starting at 3rd level, your rage allows you to focus on your opponent's weaknesses and deal a more deadly strike. The first time on your turn that you hit a creature with a weapon attack while you are raging, the attack deals an extra 1d6 damage of the weapon's damage type.

This damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class: 2d6 at 6th level, 3d6 at 10th level, 4d6 at 14th.

Peripheral Defense

When a creature targets a creature friendly to you with an attack while you are raging, as a reaction, you can move up to half your movement speed towards the attacker and make a melee weapon attack that creature. Regardless of if the attack hits, the creature must target you with its attack.

You cannot use this reaction if the creature is more than half your movement speed away from you.

You can use this ability once per rage.

Sharpen Senses

You know the spell Enhance Ability and can cast it once without expending a spell slot and without using material components. Additionally, entering into a rage does not prevent you from concentrating on this spell.

Once you use this feature you cannot use it again until completing a short or long rest.

Shift the Battlefield

Starting at 14th level, when you are raging, you can use a bonus action to allow on creature within 60 ft of you who you can see and who can hear you to use its reaction to move half its movement speed without provoking opportunity attacks.