Hello once again friends! This is Garlic, and as always, welcome back home to Rivervale!
Today, we’ll be looking over the Barbarian, identifying what problems it has in its current design, and fixing them.
Let’s jump right into it!
Rage is the foundational feature of the entire class, and it often works pretty well. It gives us resistance to physical damage, and an extra damage boost.
The issue with Rage, is that while it is exceptionally strong at early levels, it’s damage bonus falls off a bit, later down the line.
Also, the number of Rages per long rest and the Rage Damage Bonus, were given to us at levels that seemed a bit arbitrary. So let’s try to fix this.
This is the new version of Rage, with these being the changes that we made.
You can imbue yourself with a primal power called Rage, a force that grants you extraordinary might and resilience. You can enter it as a Bonus Action if you aren’t wearing Heavy armor.
You can enter your Rage a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain one expended use when you finish a Short Rest, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.
While active, your Rage follows the rules below.
Damage Resistance. You have Resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage.
Rage Damage. When you make an attack using Strength—with either a weapon or an Unarmed Strike—and deal damage to the target, you gain a bonus to the damage equal to your proficiency bonus.
Strength Advantage. You have Advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
No Concentration or Spells. You can’t maintain Concentration, and you can’t cast spells.
Duration. The Rage lasts until the end of your next turn, and it ends early if you don Heavy armor or have the Incapacitated condition. If your Rage is still active on your next turn, you can extend the Rage for another round by doing one of the following:
Each time the Rage is extended, it lasts until the end of your next turn. You can maintain a Rage for up to 10 minutes.
This way, our number of Rages per long rest and our Rage damage bonus, are a bit more streamlined and the scaling is better at higher levels.
Reckless attack is probably the second most important feature for the entire class, right after Rage, of course.
The issue that we find, is that it has an unnecessary restriction, the we can only choose whether to use it on the first attack of our turn, which deprives us of some extra freedom.
Here’s the simple fix.
You can throw aside all concern for defense to attack with increased ferocity. When you make an attack roll on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Doing so gives you Advantage on attack rolls using Strength until the start of your next turn, but attack rolls against you have Advantage during that time.
Brutal Strike was the most problematic feature of the entire class, with a prethora of issues.
So let’s try to fix this.
Once on each of your turns, if you have Advantage on a Strength-based attack, you can turn it into a Brutal Strike. If the attack hits, it deals an extra 1d10 damage of the same type dealt by the weapon or Unarmed Strike, and you can cause one Brutal Strike effect of your choice. You have the following effect options.
Forceful Blow. The target is pushed 15 feet straight away from you. You can then move up to half your Speed straight toward the target without provoking Opportunity Attacks.
Hamstring Blow. The target’s Speed is reduced by 15 feet and it can’t make Opportunity Attacks until the start of your next turn. A target can be affected by only one Hamstring Blow at a time—the most recent one.
This way, we untie Brutal Strike from Reckless Attack. If we have advantage from another source, we can use that Advantage to enable our Brutal STrike. If not, we can of course, always fall back on Reckless Attack.
Also, we no longer have to forgo our advantage, thus making Brutal Strike a feature that is always good, if we have the requiremets for it.
Lastly, we’ve buffed Hamstring Blow by giving it an extra effect (that we’ re also going to be removing from Staggering Blow, see below).
Improved Brutal Strike, gave us more options but the Barbarian also needs a damage boost at this level. Also, Staggering Blow was too strong compared to the other options and Sundering Blow gave a weird +5 floating bonus, which is something that we’re generally trying to avoid in 5e. Here’s the fix.
You have honed new ways to attack furiously. The damage of your Brutal Strike increases to 2d10 and the following effects are now among your Brutal Strike options.
Staggering Blow. The target has Disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes.
Sundering Blow. Before the start of your next turn, the next attack roll made against the target has Advantage.
Now, we’ve gotten an important damage boost, and we can use the Advantage of Sundering Blow ourselves, to maybe set up our next Brutal Strike on the next turn, or to enable our Rogue to do their Sneak Attack,
Other than the name (this was also called Improved Brutal Strike), we’re not changing anything here. We’re only changing the wording to say 3d10, since we already gave the 2d10 damage to Improved Brutal Strike.
The extra damage of your Brutal Strike increases to 3d10.
In addition, you can use two different Brutal Strike effects whenever you use your Brutal Strike feature.
And there you have it! We’ve adressed most of the Barbarian’s biggest problems, and we’re now ready to RAAAAGE.
See you on the next one!