Barbarian - Archetypes

Duncehack Edition

Part 2

Skipping the preamble because this is Part 2 of the Barbarian redesign.

See Part 1 if any of the introductory stuff matters to you.

Obligatory Natural Crit Plug

http://www.naturalcrit.com/

Someone else made a thing that lets me make homebrews without having to post them on pastebin or something. They deserve a lot of credit for that.

Obligatory /tg/ Plug

The feedback I got from various Anons on this helped me build it into something that wasn't bad and stupid.

Totem Warrior

The Path of the Totem Warrior is a spiritual journey, as the barbarian accepts a spirit animal as guide, protector, and inspiration. In battle, your totem spirit fills you with supernatural might, adding magical fuel to your barbarian rage.

Most barbarian tribes consider a totem animal to be kin to a particular clan. In such cases, it is unusual for an individual to have more than one totem animal spirit, though exceptions exist.

Spirit Seeker

You have a kinship with your totem plant or animal. At 3rd level when you adopt this path, you gain advantage to Animal Handling rolls to deal with your Totem Animal(s).

At 6th level, you gain the ability to cast the and speak with animals and at 10th level, you gain the ability to cast beast sense. These spells may only with your Totem Animal(s), and only as rituals.

Totem Spirit

At 3rd level, when you adopt this path, you choose a totem spirit and gain its feature. You must make or acquire a physical totem object—an amulet or similar adornment—that incorporates fur or feathers, claws, teeth, or bones of the totem animal. At your option, you also gain minor physical attributes that are reminiscent of your totem spirit. For example, if you have a bear totem spirit, you might be unusually hairy and thick-skinned, or if your totem is the eagle, your eyes turn bright yellow.

Your totem animal might be an animal related to those listed here but more appropriate to your homeland. For example, you could choose a hawk or vulture in place of an eagle.

• Bear. While raging, you have resistance to all damage except psychic damage. The spirit of the bear makes you tough enough to stand up to any punishment.
• Eagle. While raging, other creatures have disadvantage on opportunity attack rolls against you, and you can use the Dash action as a bonus action on your turn. The spirit of the eagle makes you into a predator who can weave through the fray with ease.
• Elk. While raging, your walking speed increases by 15 feet and you can add 10 feet to your long jump distance and 3 feet to your high jump distance. If mounted, you impart these bonuses to your mount. The spirit of the elk makes you extraordinarily swift.
• Tiger. While raging, you gain advantage on stealth checks and you can take the hide action as a bonus action. You can maintain rage so long as you make a successful hide action during your turn. When you strike a creature for the first time each combat, as long as your were hidden or the creature was surprised, the creature must succeed a strength saving throw (DC = 8 + Your Strength Modifier + Your Proficiency Modifier) or be knocked prone. The spirit of the tiger makes you a silent, patient predator.
• Wolf. While you're raging, your friends have advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature within 5 feet of you that is hostile to you. The spirit of the wolf makes you a leader of hunters.

Aspect of the Beast

At 6th level, you gain a magical benefit based on the totem animal of your choice. You can choose the same animal you selected at 3rd level or a different one.

• Bear. You gain the might of a bear. Your carrying capacity (including maximum load and maximum lift) is doubled, and you have advantage on Strength checks made to push, pull, lift, or break objects.
• Eagle. You gain the eyesight of an eagle. You can see up to 1 mile away with no difficulty, able to discern even fine details as though looking at something no more than 100 feet away from you. Additionally, dim light doesn't impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks.
• Elk. Whether mounted or on foot, your travel pace is doubled, as is the travel pace of up to ten companions while they're within 60 feet of you and you're not incapacitated.
• Tiger. You gain proficiency in two skills from the following list: Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth, and Survival. If you already have them, you may select other skills from the Barbarian skill list.
• Wolf. You gain the hunting sensibilities of a wolf. You can track other creatures while traveling at a fast pace, and you can move stealthily while traveling at a normal pace. While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.

Spirit Walker

At 10th level, you can cast the commune with nature spell, but only as a ritual. When you do so, a spiritual version of one of the animals you chose for Totem Spirit or Aspect of the Beast appears to you to convey the information you seek.

Totemic Attunement

At 14th level, you gain a magical benefit based on a totem animal of your choice. You can choose the same animal you selected previously or a different one.

• Bear. While you're raging, any creature within 5 feet of you that's hostile to you has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you or another character with this feature. An enemy is immune to this effect if it can't see or hear you or if it can't be frightened.
• Eagle. 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.
• Elk. While raging, you can use a bonus action during your move to pass through the space of a Large or smaller creature. That creature must succeed on a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your Strength bonus + your proficiency bonus) or be knocked prone and take bludgeoning damage equal to 1d12 + your Strength modifier. If you are mounted, your mount can use this feature instead.
• Tiger. While you're raging, if you move at least 20 feet in a straight line toward a Large or smaller target right before making a melee weapon attack against it, you can use a bonus action to make an additional melee weapon attack against it. If you were hidden at the beginning of your turn, or if the target is surprised, you do not need to move before gaining this benefit.
• Wolf. While you're raging, you can use a bonus action on your turn to knock a Large or smaller creature prone when you hit it with melee weapon attack.

Berzerker

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.

Menacing

You gain proficiency in Intimidation. If you already have proficiency in that skill, you may pick a different skill from the Barbarian skill list instead.

In addition, you may use your Strength Modifier instead of your Charisma Modifier for Charisma based skill checks. Doing this may cause creatures to react negatively however, as they (rightly) interpret your interactions as carrying an unspoken threat of violence.

Frenzy

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you go into a frenzy when you rage. For the duration of your rage you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of your turns after this one.

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.

Intimidating Presence

Beginning 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 Strength modifier) or be frightened of you for the next minute. It may to repeat the saving throw at the end of every 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

Starting at 14th level, when you take damage from a creature that is within melee range of you. you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against that creature.

Battlerager

Known as Kuldjargh (literally "axe idiot") in Dwarvish, battleragers are dwarf followers of the gods of war and take the Path of the Battlerager. They specialize in wearing bulky, spiked armor and throwing themselves into combat, striking with their body itself and giving themselves over to the fury of battle.

Tools of the Trade

You gain proficiency in Smith's Tools. If you are already proficient in them, you may choose another artisan's tool proficiency of your choice.

Battlerager Armor

When you choose this path at 3rd level, you gain the ability to use spiked armor as a weapon.

You learn how to affix spikes to armour you possess and turn it into spiked armour. Doing so can be done during a short rest. Only Light or Medium armour can be turned into spiked armour this way.

While wearing Light or Medium armour, you can use either your Dexterity Modifier or your Constitution Modifier to increase your armour class (but not both, Medium Armour using Constitution Modifier is still restricted to the same restriction as Dexterity Modifier for additional AC).

Spiked Combatant

At 3rd level, while you are wearing spiked armor and are raging, you can use a bonus action to make one melee weapon attack with your armor spikes at a target within 5 feet of you. If the attack hits, the spikes deal 1d4 piercing damage if the armour is light armour, or 1d6 if the armour is medium armour. You use your Strength modifier for the attack and damage rolls, and for rules purposes they are otherwise treated as unarmed strikes.

Additionally, when you use the Attack action to shove or grapple a creature, the target takes piercing damage equal to your Strength Modifier if your shove or grapple check succeeds.

If the armor has a magical bonus to its AC (i.e. the armour is a +1 or greater item), it also adds this bonus to the spikes as if they were a magical weapon. The shove and grapple damage is similarly increased.

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.

Battlerager Charge

Beginning at 10th level, you can take the Dash action as a bonus action while you are raging.

When you spend your bonus action on this feature, until the end of your turn, hostile creatures who use a reaction of any kind targeting you suffer your spiked armour damage and gain disadvantage on any associated roll.

Spiked Retribution

Starting at 14th level, when a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with a melee attack, the attacker takes your spiked armour damage.

Ancestral Guardian

Some barbarians hail from cultures that revere their ancestors. These tribes teach that the warriors of the past linger in the world as mighty spirits, who can guide and protect the living. When a barbarian who follows this path rages, the barbarian contacts the spirit world and calls on these guardian spirits for aid.

Barbarians who draw on their ancestral guardians can better fight to protect their tribes and their allies. In order to cement ties to their ancestral guardians, barbarians who follow this path cover themselves in elaborate tattoos that celebrate their ancestors' deeds. These tattoos tell sagas of victories against terrible monsters and other fearsome rivals.

Ancestral Wisdom

You may use Wisdom instead of Intelligence for Intelligence based skill checks, but only for skills and topics that would be known to your ancestors.

Ancestral Protectors

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, spectral warriors appear when you enter your rage. While you're raging, the first creature you hit with an attack on your turn becomes the target of the warriors, which hinder its attacks. Until the start of your next turn, that target has disadvantage on any attack roll that isn't against you, and when the target hits a creature other than you with an attack, that creature has resistance to the damage dealt by the attack. The effect on the target ends early if your rage ends.

Spirit Shield

Beginning at 6th level, the guardian spirits that aid you can provide supernatural protection to those you defend. If you are raging and another creature you can see within 30 feet of you takes damage, you can use your reaction to reduce that damage by 2d6 + Your Wisdom Modifier (minimum 0).

When you reach certain levels in this class, you can reduce the damage by more: by 3d6 at 10th level and by 4d6 at 14th level.

Consult the Spirits

At 10th level, you gain the ability to consult with your ancestral spirits. When you do so, you cast the augury or clairvoyance spell, without using a spell slot or material components. Rather than creating a spherical sensor, this use of clairvoyance invisibly summons one of your ancestral spirits to the chosen location. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Each spell cannot be used this way again until you finish a short or long rest.

Vengeful Ancestors

At 14th level, your ancestral spirits grow powerful enough to retaliate. When you use your Spirit Shield to reduce the damage of an attack, the attacker takes an amount of force damage equal to the damage that your Spirit Shield prevents.

Zealot

Some deities inspire their followers to pitch themselves into a ferocious battle fury. These barbarians are zealots—warriors who channel their rage into powerful displays of divine power.

A variety of gods across the worlds of D&D inspire their followers to embrace this path. Tempus from the Forgotten Realms and Hextor and Erythnul of Greyhawk are all prime examples. In general, the gods who inspire zealots are deities of combat, destruction, and violence. Not all are evil, but few are good.

Dogma

You have advantage on Religion skill checks related to your character's religion.

Divine Fury

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can channel divine fury into your weapon strikes. While you're raging, the first creature you hit on each of your turns with a weapon attack takes extra damage equal to 1d6 + half your barbarian level. The extra damage is necrotic or radiant; you choose the type of damage when you gain this feature.

Warrior of the Gods

At 3rd level, your soul is marked for endless battle. If a spell, such as raise dead, has the sole effect of restoring you to life (but not undeath), the caster doesn't need material components to cast the spell on you.

Fanatical Focus

Starting at 6th level, the divine power that fuels your rage can protect you. If you fail a saving throw while you're raging, you can reroll it, and you must use the new roll. You can use this ability only once per rage.

Zealous Presence

At 10th level, you learn to channel divine power to inspire zealotry in others. As a bonus action, you unleash a battle cry infused with divine energy. Up to ten other creatures of your choice within 60 feet of you that can hear you gain advantage on attack rolls and saving throws until the start of your next turn.

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

At 14th level, you regain use of the feature after a short or a long rest.

Rage beyond Death

Beginning at 14th level, the divine power that fuels your rage allows you to shrug off fatal blows.

While you're raging, having 0 hit points doesn't knock you unconscious. You still must make death saving throws, and you suffer the normal effects of taking damage while at 0 hit points. However, if you would die due to failing death saving throws, you don't die until your rage ends, and you die then only if you still have 0 hit points.

Storm Herald

All barbarians harbor a fury within. Their rage grants them superior strength, durability, and speed. Barbarians who follow the Path of the Storm Herald learn to transform that rage into a mantle of primal magic, which swirls around them. When in a fury, a barbarian of this path taps into the forces of nature to create powerful magical effects.

Storm heralds are typically elite champions who train alongside druids, rangers, and others sworn to protect nature. Other storm heralds hone their craft in lodges in regions wracked by storms, in the frozen reaches at the world's end, or deep in the hottest deserts.

Storm's Insight

You gain the gust cantrip. This version may be used while raging, and successfully using this cantrip on a creature allows you to maintain rage even if you do not deal or suffer damage before the beginning of your next turn. Constitution is your spellcasting modifier for the feature.

Storm Aura

Starting at 3rd level, you emanate a stormy, magical aura while you rage. The aura extends 10 feet from you in every direction, but not through total cover.

Your aura has an effect that activates when you enter your rage, and you can activate the effect again on each of your turns as a bonus action. Choose desert, sea, or tundra. Your aura's effect depends on that chosen environment, as detailed below. You can change your environment choice whenever you gain a level in this class.

If your aura's effects require a saving throw, the DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier.

• Desert. When this effect is activated, all other creatures in your aura of your choice take fire damage equal to 3 + your Constitution Modifier.
• Sea. When this effect is activated, you can choose one other creature you can see in your aura. The target must make a Dexterity saving throw. The target takes 1d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. The damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class, 2d6 at 10th level, and 3d6 at 15th level and 4d6 at 20th level. Prone enemies had disadvantage on the saving throw.
• Tundra. When this effect is activated, each creature of your choice in your aura gains temporary hit points equal to your 3 + your Constitution Modifier, as icy spirits inure it to suffering.

Storm Soul

At 6th level, the storm grants you benefits even when your aura isn't active. The benefits are based on the environment you chose for your Storm Aura.

• Desert. You gain resistance to fire damage, and you don't suffer the effects of extreme heat, as described in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Moreover, as an action, you can touch a flammable object that isn't being worn or carried by anyone else and set it on fire.
• Sea. You gain resistance to lightning damage, and you can breathe underwater. You also gain a swimming speed of 30 feet.
• Tundra. You gain resistance to cold damage, and you don't suffer the effects of extreme cold, as described in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Moreover, as an action, you can touch water and turn a 5-foot cube of it into ice, which melts after 1 minute. This action fails if a creature is in the cube.

Shielding Storm

At 10th level, you learn to use your mastery of the storm to protect others. Each creature of your choice has the damage resistance you gained from the Storm Soul feature while the creature is in your Storm Aura.

In addition, your Storm Aura extends to 15 ft.

Raging Storm

At 14th level, the power of the storm you channel grows mightier, lashing out at your foes. The effect is based on the environment you chose for your Storm Aura.

• Desert. Immediately after a creature in your aura hits you with an 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 your barbarian level.
• Sea. When you hit a creature in your aura with an attack, you can use your reaction to force that creature to make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is knocked prone, as if struck by a wave.
• Tundra. Whenever the effect of your Storm Aura is activated, you can choose one creature you can see in the aura. That creature must succeed on a Strength saving throw, or its speed is reduced to 0 until the start of your next turn, as magical frost covers it. Creatures reduced to zero speed this way suffer cold damage equal to half your barbarian level.

Path of the Beast

Barbarians who walk the Path of the Beast draw their rage from a bestial spark burning within their souls. That beast bursts forth in the throes of rage, physically transforming the barbarian.

Such a barbarian might be inhabited by a primal spirit or be descended from shape-shifters. You can choose the origin of your feral might or determine it by rolling on the Origin of the Beast table.

Origin of the Beast

Form of the Beast

At 3rd level, when you enter your rage, you can transform, revealing the bestial power within you. Until the rage ends, you manifest a natural weapon. It counts as a simple melee weapon for you, and you add your Strength modifier to the attack and damage rolls when you attack with it, as normal.

You choose the weapon's form each time you rage:

• Bite. Your mouth transforms into a bestial muzzle or great mandibles (your choice). It deals 2d4 piercing damage on a hit. Once on each of your turns when you damage a creature with this bite, you regain a number of hit points equal to your proficiency bonus, provided you have less than half your hit points when you hit.
• Claws. Each of your hands transforms into a claw, or each of your feet transforms into talons, which you can use as a weapons. The claws are treated as having the finesse and light properties, and they deal 1d6 slashing damage on a hit. Once on each of your turns when you take make a melee weapon attack, you can make one additional claw attack as part of the same action.
• Tail. You grow a lashing, spiny tail, which deals 1d8 piercing damage on a hit and has the reach property. If a creature you can see within 10 feet of you hits you with an attack roll, you can use your reaction to swipe your tail and roll a d8, applying a bonus to your AC equal to the number rolled, potentially causing the attack to miss you.

At 6th level, you can choose up to two forms when you enter Rage, at 10th level you can choose up to three forms when you enter rage.

Bestial Soul

At 6th level, the feral power within you increases, causing the natural weapons of your Form of the Beast to count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

You can also alter your form to help you adapt to your surroundings. When you finish a short or long rest, choose one of the following benefits, which lasts until you finish your next short or long rest:

• You gain a swimming speed equal to your walking speed, and you can breathe underwater.
• You gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed, and you can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
• When you jump, you can make a Strength (Athletics) check and extend your jump by a number of feet equal to the check's total. You can make this special check only once per turn.

Infectious Fury

At 10th level, when you hit a creature with your natural weapons while you are raging, the beast within you can curse your target with rabid fury. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus) or suffer one of the following effects (your choice):

• The target must use its reaction to make a melee attack against another creature of your choice that you can see.
• The target takes 2d12 psychic damage.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Call the Hunt

At 14th level, the beast within you grows so powerful that you can spread its ferocity to others and gain resilience from them joining your hunt. When you enter your rage, you can choose a number of other willing creatures you can see within 30 feet of you equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of one creature).

You gain 5 temporary hit points for each creature that accepts this feature. Until the rage ends, the chosen creatures can each use the following benefit once on each of their turns:

"When the creature hits a target with an attack roll and deals damage to it, the creature can roll a d6 and gain a bonus to the damage equal to the number rolled."

Path of Wild Magic

Many places in the multiverse abound with beauty, intense emotion, and rampant magic; the Feywild, the Upper Planes, and other realms of supernatural power radiate with such forces and can profoundly influence people. As folk of deep feeling, barbarians are especially susceptible to these wild influences, with some barbarians being transformed by the magic. These magic-suffused barbarians walk the Path of Wild Magic. Elf, tiefling, aasimar, and genasi barbarians often seek this path, eager to manifest the otherworldly magic of their ancestors.

Wild Surge

At 3rd level, the magical energy roiling inside you sometimes erupts from you. When you enter your rage, roll on the Wild Magic table to determine the magical effect produced.

If the effect requires a saving throw, the DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier.

Wild Magic

Magic Awareness

At 3rd level, as an action, you can open your awareness to the presence of concentrated magic. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any spell or magic item within 60 feet of you that isn't behind total cover. When you sense a spell, you learn which school of magic it belongs to.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Bolstering Magic

At 6th level, you can harness your wild magic to bolster yourself or a companion. As an action, you can touch one creature (which can be yourself) and confer one of the following benefits of your choice to that creature:

• For 10 minutes, the creature can roll a d4 whenever making an attack roll or an ability check and add the number rolled to the d20 roll.
• Roll a d4. The creature regains one expended spell slot, the level of which equals the number rolled or lower (the creature's choice). Once a creature receives this benefit, that creature can't receive it again until after a long rest.

You can take this action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Unstable Backlash

At 10th level, when you are imperiled during your rage, the magic within you can lash out; immediately after you take damage or fail a saving throw while raging, you can use your reaction to roll on the Wild Magic table and immediately produce the effect rolled. This effect replaces your current Wild Magic effect.

Controlled Surge

At 14th level, whenever you roll on the Wild Magic table, you can roll the die twice and choose which of the two effects to unleash. If you roll the same number on both dice, you can ignore the number and choose any effect on the table.