Level Up (A5E) Barbarian: Enhanced Vitality is....pretty bad.

[Stone Dog]

ADVANCED BATTLE DEFENSE By 7th level you have doubled down on your battle defense style.

So, what we want are two options, one that compliments Juggernaut and one that compliments Rugged Defense, right?

JUGGERNAUT- You gain proficiency with heavy armor. In addition, your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor, you can still benefit from raging while wearing heavy armor, and you do not count the weight of any worn armor when determining your carrying capacity.

RUGGED DEFENSE- While you are not wearing any armor, your armor class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.
In addition, your speed increases by 5 feet while you aren’t wearing heavy armor. At 5th level, your speed increases by an additional 5 feet.

At 7th level, we want one thing to help out somebody in armor and one thing to help out somebody without armor.

The old EV is intended to help the Juggernaut reliably get half damage and the new EV is intended to help the Juggernaut shrug off mental damage with the sheer force of their life essence going RAR.

It is PA that is the trick because it is flat out better than both EV options. I get that now, sigh.

One of the jokes about compromise is to make everybody equally unhappy, but at least comfortable with the result. Maybe we can lean into seventh level supporting Combat Traditions instead?


What do you think about this alternative?

ADVANCED BATTLE DEFENSE By 7th level you have doubled down on your battle defense style. If you took Juggernaut at level one, you learn one additional combat maneuver from the Adamant Mountain combat tradition. If you took Rugged Defense at level one, you learn one additional combat maneuver from the Mirror's Glint tradition. This combat maneuver does not count against the number of combat maneuvers that you know and you are considered proficient in that maneuver even if you are not proficient in either Adamant Mountain or Mirror's Glint.

This addition might be a bit much, but just for the thought exercise...

In addition, at 10th level, you may sacrifice Rage Hit Points to activate either maneuver instead of spending Exertion. You must sacrifice (5? 10?) Rage Hit Points for each Exertion point replaced in this way.

 

[Stone Dog]

This addition might be a bit much, but just for the thought exercise...

I realize now that this might encourage berserkers to stay out of combat to preserve their rage hit points for Exertion and I don't want to make berserkers avoid combat.