Barbarian: Berserker (revised)

Path of the Berserker

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 Strike

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you are able to sacrifice your own life force to strike your enemies with unreasonable strength. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one of your Hit Die to add it to the attack's damage roll.

Unstoppable Force

Also at 3rd level, when you roll a Hit Die to regain hit points or as part of your Frenzy Strike feature, you can treat any 1 as a 2.

Mindless Rage

Beginning at 6th level, you can't be charmed or frightened while raging. If you are charmed or frightened when you enter your rage, the effect is suspended for the duration of the rage.

Additionally, you can use your reaction to enter your rage when you are charmed or frightened to suspend the effect for the duration of the rage.

Intimidating Presence *

Starting at 10th level, you can use your action to frighten someone with your menacing presence. When you do so, 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 Charisma modifier) or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn. On subsequent turns, you can use your action to extend the duration of this effect on the frightened creature until the end of your next turn. This effect ends if the creature ends its turn out of line of sight or more than 60 feet away from you.

If the creature succeeds on its saving throw, you can't use this feature on that creature again for 24 hours.

Retaliation *

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.

 

 

 

* unchanged

 

Why this revision?

We aimed to address a few shortcomings from the base Berserker subclass, which is widely considered subpar, or, at least, not as good as the other Primal Paths.

• One reason was the use of the exhaustion level mechanic, which is very poorly suited for a subclass feature and very punishing. It's also a mechanic that could get overlooked by most DM when only one player in the party is subjected to it.
• While the original Frenzy was interesting in itself, it also meant using your bonus action to get its benefits, which naturally penalized Two-Weapons Wielding barbarians.