Base Class: Barbarian
Some barbarians hail from cultures that revere the raw primordial rage of the elements – the fury of the cyclone, the wrath of the volcano, the crash of the tidal wave, the destruction of the earthquake.
Unarmed Fury
Primal magic empowers your strikes. At 3rd level when you adopt this path, you gain the following benefits while you are raging and unarmed:
- When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike on your turn or when you attempt a shove or grapple, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action.
- You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strikes. This die changes to a d6 at 6th level, and a d8 at 14th level.
Reckless Inferno
At 6th level, your Elemental Rage empowers your reckless strikes.
If an effect require a saving throw, the DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier.
Air
You strike with the fury of the wind. Whenever you’re raging and you make a reckless attack with an unarmed strike, you can make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action.
Earth
Your strikes embody the earthquake. Once per turn whenever you’re raging and you make a reckless attack with an unarmed strike, you can force your opponent to succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone.
Fire
If you’ve made a reckless attack on your turn, fire tendrils erupt around you and lash out at your foes. Until the start of your next turn, if a creature hits you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to force that creature to make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes fire damage equal to half your barbarian level.
Water
Your limbs flow like the river. Whenever you’re raging and make a reckless attack, your unarmed strikes gain a range of 10 feet.
Elemental Rage
At 3rd level, when you adopt this path, you gain the ability to go into an Elemental Rage. You can choose a different element whenever you rage.
At your option, you also gain minor physical attributes that are reminiscent of your elemental spirit.
Air
While raging, ranged weapon attacks have disadvantage against you.
Earth
Whenever you rage, you gain temporary hit points equal to your barbarian level.
Fire
While raging, you gain resistance to fire and radiant damage. You also shed bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light in an additional 30 feet.
Water
While raging, you are immune to being grappled, prone and restrained.
Primordial Guardians
At 10th level, as an action, you can summon elementals while raging, as per the effect of the Conjure Minor Elementals spell. These elementals must be of the same element than your rage, and disappear when your rage ends.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Elemental Attunement
At 14th level, you gain a magical benefit based on your Elemental Rage.
Air
While raging, you have a flying speed equal to your current walking speed. This benefit works only in short bursts; you fall if you end your turn in the air and nothing else is holding you aloft.
Earth
While raging, you can burrow through nonmagical, unworked earth and stone. While doing so, you do not disturb the material you move through.
Fire
While raging, you can use a bonus action during your move to pass through the space of a creature. That creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take fire damage equal to 2d8 + your Constitution modifier.
Water
While raging, you have a swimming speed equal to your current walking speed and you can breathe underwater. In addition, you can move your normal speed while grappling creatures.
This subclass brings some variety into the barbarian and I love it.
The only thing that feels out of place for me is the 10th level feature. Conjuring a creature for the barbarian feels wrong, in the sense that the idea of a barbarian calling upon creature to fight along them isn't fitting in my opinion. Maybe giving an alternative to this would be a good idea ? I don't know, just trying to give a constructive feedback.
Love this subclass and I am gonna try it out in a game. Only feedback is that the Fire Reckless Inferno does seem weaker than the other elements. I would maybe recommend making it either deal more damage or provide a sort of AoE option that barbarians can be lacking often that gives it a use case and an advantage to being used when facing multiple enemies.
Shouldn't elemental rage be before reckless inferno?
I put a basic level 20 of this subclass using air and reckless all the time (While raging of course) into a DPR calculator, and your average DPR is 47.12, which is not overpowered but exceeds target DPR of 33.3, considering you are a tank, this is quite powerful. I would allow this subclass in my games, and it is one of the few actually good unarmed sub classes/classes. Better then monk by a long shot.
Would you consider making a barbarian that has a limited resource pool that is refilled every time you rage? Just an idea I thought was good, but haven't got to yet.
It says every time you rage you pick.
One question, does the elemental type change every rage? Or do you pick one at the 3rd level, and that's what you get? In the first it's more versatile, but maybe a little over powered. In the second the choice defines the character, but weakens it a bit since it's less versatile.
This subclass Is Super cool!! I plan on using it soon but the fire reckless inferno ability str8 up sucks. Why isn't it damage equal to your'e barbarian level + rage damage
Love the theme of this! You need to add in something to make the punches count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance like monk or this build will not be viable.
Thanks for the feedback! Haven't had a chance to play-test, so there is definitely room to improve on the balance side. Hopefully the mechanics feel thematic at least.
This seems pretty awesome, just a few things I'm not sure about (although I don't really know how to balance sub-classes):
COOL!