Base Class: Barbarian
For some barbarians, rage is a means to an end—that end being violence. The Path of the Berserker is a path of untrammeled fury, slick with blood. As you enter the berserker’s rage, you thrill in the chaos of battle, heedless of your own health or well-being.
Frenzy
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can go into a frenzy when you rage. If you do so, for the duration of your rage you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action. While in a frenzy, you do not suffer the effects of exhaustion, and are immune to being frightened. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion.
Reckless Abandon
Beginning at 6th level, when you use Reckless Attack while raging, you also gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1). They vanish if any of them are left when your rage ends.
When you reach 14th level, the temporary hit points you gain increases to twice your Constitution modifier (minimum of 2).
Tireless Warrior
Additionally at 6th level, you learn how to better shrug off the effects of intense combat. Whenever you finish a short rest, your exhaustion level, if any, is decreased by 1.
Intimidating Presence
Beginning at 10th level, your menacing presence can cause your attacks to frighten enemies around you. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, choose one creature that you can see within 30 feet of you. If the creature can see or hear you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier) or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your Strength modifier. You regain all uses when you finish a long rest.
Retaliation
Starting at 14th level, when you take damage from a creature that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against that creature.
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Posted Sep 23, 2021Hi! I found this from the Offbeat Outlaw Discord, and, I have to say, I'm a big fan of this.
I audibly said "oh, that's so clever" when I read the new Frenzy. It still cripples you for the adventuring day by ruining your ability checks, but not in combat, which is really fun. This is the first homebrew subclass feature I've seen in a while that has sold me on a subclass instantly, even if I'm not 100% on board with the other changes. Exhaustion management is a very interesting piece of this subclass that's absent from, well, everywhere else in 5e. If you only Frenzy once, a rest lets you get your skill rolls back up to snuff again (made even more enticing by Tireless Warrior), but, if you do it twice, you need to rest more than once... but, then again, you don't suffer as much of a consequence (when does speed matter when not in the context of a fight? in my experience, not often.) for Frenzies after your first. It's pretty fun!
Tireless Warrior is great, although I might add a clause here saying that long rests cure more than one level of exhaustion. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that 5 hours of 5 short rests cures more than 8 hours of 1 long rest. Great other than that, though.
I don't know if Reckless Abandon is fully necessary, especially considering that the original class' Mindless Rage was, from my experience, one of the more beloved features of the original. Gaining Temporary Hit Points as a free action feels too powerful to me, and sort of muddies the risk/reward nature of Reckless Attack. 14 THP is, potentially, one whole extra attack you can survive per turn. That's pretty wild on a class that regularly gets 250-300 HP and resistance to nonmagical weapon damage. Not to mention, if I'm multiclassing and looking for a source of Extra Attack in a build, getting 5 THP for free whenever I want is a pretty enticing bonus. If this were brought to one of my games, I'd replace this with Mindless Rage without thinking twice.
I really can't decide if Intimidating Presence is over- or under-powered. On one hand, I don't know how I feel about a subclass that can generate infinite Temporary Hit Points getting the ability to inflict disadvantage on up to 3 foes in a round. On the other, you get 7 uses, tops, which isn't enough to just throw around willy-nilly, especially since the feature is totally wasted if the target fails its saving throw. It feels fine, but I feel like it might get frustrating for a player if it fails too often, and frustrating for the DM if it succeeds too often. I might make it so a use is only expended if the player succeeds a saving throw, and just give them less uses. I'm not sure about that, though.
Retaliation is unchanged, so I have no thoughts on it.
Overall, great work! I hope this gets reviewed so very much; the use of exhaustion here makes for some very addicting decision making that I'd love to play in a campaign at some point.