MechaPilot
Explorer
I've created a new barbarian archetype for my home game, and I was curious what the community reaction might be. Any constructive comments, concerns or criticisms are more than welcome.
Edit: looks like this might be the final revision, so I've thrown in some flavor text. Sorry about the formatting. I did the best I could with it.
Jacob and his son Thomas were simple folk. On most days, they could be found on the farm. But, on this day, they stalked the woods looking for the beast that had been raiding their livestock. As they took a not so worn path round a large tree they spotted a cloaked man lying injured upon the ground. Approaching him, they quickly found that he was dead, savaged apparently by the same creature that plagued their farm. Jacob felt his son’s had upon his shoulder and looked up from the dead man. His eyes stopped as the woman came into view.
She wore furs, and very little of them by the village’s standards. Her bare skin was smeared with color, forming bizarre symbols across her body. On her arms she wore bracers adorned with bloody claw-like blades protruding past her hands.
Jacob recognized her kind, slowly rising to his feet and putting himself between Thomas and the wild woman. Keeping his eyes on her but never meeting her gaze, Jacob very slowly backed his son and himself out of her view.
After a few minutes Thomas overflowed with curiosity. “Who was that?”
“Remember that wounded dog you tried to help when you were younger?”
Thomas rubbed the scar on his left hand, “It bit me. . . then it ran away.”
“Some beasts walk like men. They look like us, mostly, but their heart and soul is that of a wild animal.”
Touching the hair that fell over where his left ear should’ve been, Jacob added “When they taste blood, they don’t run.”
Barbarian Archetype: Wild Soul
Some barbarians worship nature spirits, adopting them as totem animals that grant them mystical power. Others, reveling in violence for its own sake. However, you walk the line between man and beast. In your rage you lose the nobler aspirations of the totem warrior, and some of the trappings of man, but you don’t revel in violence. You become like a wounded animal, cornered and with no hope for survival but to summon a fury so fast and terrible that none can stand against it.
Bestial Nature
You find cities and civilization unnatural and uncomfortable, but you’re perfectly at-home living in the wild. You even understand socializing with animals better than you do with other people. You gain proficiency in the Animal Handling and Survival skills, and you can choose one animal language to speak and understand (canine, feline, avian, etc). However, you’re unable to take a long rest while in a city or other urban environment, and you have disadvantage on Charisma checks against those native to an urban environment.
While raging, you have disadvantage on Intelligence and Charisma checks, except for those made to intimidate others. Additionally, your rages overwhelm you to the point you can barely speak, preferring one- or two-syllable words and animalistic grunting and yelling.
War Paint
You can take one hour to ritually apply pigments to your skin, forming various symbols of power that are deeply personal to you and that grant you protection in combat. The pigments must be specially made by you, requiring components with a value of 5 gp. While wearing war paint, your Armor Class is equal to 12 + your proficiency modifier + your dexterity modifier. If you wear armor or use a shield, your lack of faith in the power of the painted-on sigils negates the benefit of the war paint until it’s reapplied. Otherwise, the benefits last for 8 hours.
Momentum
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you learn to harness the relentlessness & brutality of anger and adrenaline. While raging, at the end of your turn, if you made at least one successful melee attack, you gain one momentum die, which is a d4. If you made at least one melee attack that was a critical hit, you gain two momentum dice. If you didn’t attack during your turn, you lose one momentum die. You can have no more than three momentum dice at any one time. If your rage ends, any remaining momentum dice are immediately lost.
Spending momentum dice allows you to perform the following abilities:
Brutality: When you deal damage in melee combat you may spend one or more momentum dice and add the result to your damage roll.
Fearsome: When you kill a foe, as a bonus action you can spend a momentum die to try to intimidate one of that foe’s allies within 30 feet of you. The chosen foe must attempt a Wisdom saving throw. The DC of the Wisdom saving throw is 8 + proficiency modifier + Cha modifier. On a failed saving throw, the foe becomes frightened. At the end of each of its turns, the foe can repeat the saving throw to try to end the effect. On a successful saving throw, the target has disadvantage on its next attack.
You can affect more than one foe by spending one die per foe you want to intimidate. You can’t use this ability on a foe if it didn’t see you kill its ally.
Ferocious Defense: When a creature enters the area you threaten, you can spend two momentum dice and your reaction to make an attack of opportunity against it.
Revenge: When a foe within 5 feet of you makes a melee attack that damages you or any of your allies within 5 feet of you, as a reaction you can spend two momentum dice to make a melee attack against that enemy.
Swift: As a bonus action you may spend one or more momentum dice to increase your base movement speed by 10 feet per die spent. The increased rate of movement lasts until the end of your turn.
Unfettered Aggression: When you move close enough to an enemy to make a melee attack against it, you can spend two momentum dice and your bonus action to make one melee attack against it.
Perpetual Motion
At 6th level, you don’t lose a momentum die if you use your action to dash instead of attack.
Pack Leader
At 6th level, you gain advantage on Charisma checks against beasts.
Improved Momentum Dice
At 10th level, your momentum dice become d6s. At 18th level they become d8s.
Comprehend Beasts
At 10th level, you gain the ability to speak with and understand all beasts.
Crushing Savagery
At 14th level, your savagery and brutality allows you to damage your foes’ bodies, temporarily impairing them. You gain the Debilitating Strike ability, see below. Additionally, you gain one momentum die when you enter a rage.
Debilitating Strike: As an action, you can spend three momentum dice to make a single attack roll. If the attack is a success, you deal damage normally for the attack, and the target must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 8 + your proficiency modifier + your Strength modifier. On a failed saving throw, you inflict an injury on the enemy. The enemy can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, throwing off the effect with a successful saving throw. Choose from the following injuries:
Edit: looks like this might be the final revision, so I've thrown in some flavor text. Sorry about the formatting. I did the best I could with it.
Jacob and his son Thomas were simple folk. On most days, they could be found on the farm. But, on this day, they stalked the woods looking for the beast that had been raiding their livestock. As they took a not so worn path round a large tree they spotted a cloaked man lying injured upon the ground. Approaching him, they quickly found that he was dead, savaged apparently by the same creature that plagued their farm. Jacob felt his son’s had upon his shoulder and looked up from the dead man. His eyes stopped as the woman came into view.
She wore furs, and very little of them by the village’s standards. Her bare skin was smeared with color, forming bizarre symbols across her body. On her arms she wore bracers adorned with bloody claw-like blades protruding past her hands.
Jacob recognized her kind, slowly rising to his feet and putting himself between Thomas and the wild woman. Keeping his eyes on her but never meeting her gaze, Jacob very slowly backed his son and himself out of her view.
After a few minutes Thomas overflowed with curiosity. “Who was that?”
“Remember that wounded dog you tried to help when you were younger?”
Thomas rubbed the scar on his left hand, “It bit me. . . then it ran away.”
“Some beasts walk like men. They look like us, mostly, but their heart and soul is that of a wild animal.”
Touching the hair that fell over where his left ear should’ve been, Jacob added “When they taste blood, they don’t run.”
Barbarian Archetype: Wild Soul
Some barbarians worship nature spirits, adopting them as totem animals that grant them mystical power. Others, reveling in violence for its own sake. However, you walk the line between man and beast. In your rage you lose the nobler aspirations of the totem warrior, and some of the trappings of man, but you don’t revel in violence. You become like a wounded animal, cornered and with no hope for survival but to summon a fury so fast and terrible that none can stand against it.
Bestial Nature
You find cities and civilization unnatural and uncomfortable, but you’re perfectly at-home living in the wild. You even understand socializing with animals better than you do with other people. You gain proficiency in the Animal Handling and Survival skills, and you can choose one animal language to speak and understand (canine, feline, avian, etc). However, you’re unable to take a long rest while in a city or other urban environment, and you have disadvantage on Charisma checks against those native to an urban environment.
While raging, you have disadvantage on Intelligence and Charisma checks, except for those made to intimidate others. Additionally, your rages overwhelm you to the point you can barely speak, preferring one- or two-syllable words and animalistic grunting and yelling.
War Paint
You can take one hour to ritually apply pigments to your skin, forming various symbols of power that are deeply personal to you and that grant you protection in combat. The pigments must be specially made by you, requiring components with a value of 5 gp. While wearing war paint, your Armor Class is equal to 12 + your proficiency modifier + your dexterity modifier. If you wear armor or use a shield, your lack of faith in the power of the painted-on sigils negates the benefit of the war paint until it’s reapplied. Otherwise, the benefits last for 8 hours.
Momentum
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you learn to harness the relentlessness & brutality of anger and adrenaline. While raging, at the end of your turn, if you made at least one successful melee attack, you gain one momentum die, which is a d4. If you made at least one melee attack that was a critical hit, you gain two momentum dice. If you didn’t attack during your turn, you lose one momentum die. You can have no more than three momentum dice at any one time. If your rage ends, any remaining momentum dice are immediately lost.
Spending momentum dice allows you to perform the following abilities:
Brutality: When you deal damage in melee combat you may spend one or more momentum dice and add the result to your damage roll.
Fearsome: When you kill a foe, as a bonus action you can spend a momentum die to try to intimidate one of that foe’s allies within 30 feet of you. The chosen foe must attempt a Wisdom saving throw. The DC of the Wisdom saving throw is 8 + proficiency modifier + Cha modifier. On a failed saving throw, the foe becomes frightened. At the end of each of its turns, the foe can repeat the saving throw to try to end the effect. On a successful saving throw, the target has disadvantage on its next attack.
You can affect more than one foe by spending one die per foe you want to intimidate. You can’t use this ability on a foe if it didn’t see you kill its ally.
Ferocious Defense: When a creature enters the area you threaten, you can spend two momentum dice and your reaction to make an attack of opportunity against it.
Revenge: When a foe within 5 feet of you makes a melee attack that damages you or any of your allies within 5 feet of you, as a reaction you can spend two momentum dice to make a melee attack against that enemy.
Swift: As a bonus action you may spend one or more momentum dice to increase your base movement speed by 10 feet per die spent. The increased rate of movement lasts until the end of your turn.
Unfettered Aggression: When you move close enough to an enemy to make a melee attack against it, you can spend two momentum dice and your bonus action to make one melee attack against it.
Perpetual Motion
At 6th level, you don’t lose a momentum die if you use your action to dash instead of attack.
Pack Leader
At 6th level, you gain advantage on Charisma checks against beasts.
Improved Momentum Dice
At 10th level, your momentum dice become d6s. At 18th level they become d8s.
Comprehend Beasts
At 10th level, you gain the ability to speak with and understand all beasts.
Crushing Savagery
At 14th level, your savagery and brutality allows you to damage your foes’ bodies, temporarily impairing them. You gain the Debilitating Strike ability, see below. Additionally, you gain one momentum die when you enter a rage.
Debilitating Strike: As an action, you can spend three momentum dice to make a single attack roll. If the attack is a success, you deal damage normally for the attack, and the target must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 8 + your proficiency modifier + your Strength modifier. On a failed saving throw, you inflict an injury on the enemy. The enemy can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, throwing off the effect with a successful saving throw. Choose from the following injuries:
- Boxed Ears: The target’s speed is halved, and it’s deafened.
- Head Injury: The target has disadvantage on Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma checks, as well as on all Intelligence saving throws.
- Injured Arm: The target drops whatever it’s holding in the injured arm, and it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks that require it to use the injured arm.
- Injured Leg: The target’s speed is halved, and it has disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws and any ability checks or attack rolls that require it to use the injured leg.
- Injured Ribs: The target has disadvantage Strength and Constitution saving throws, and Strength ability checks.
- Throat Punch: The target can’t speak or breathe.
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