TheBigHouse
Explorer
Path of the Ancients
Barbarians who follow The Path of the Ancients tap into the savage techniques and strength of the Ancients. In the early days, the Ancients were rivaled only by the gods in their might. These primordial barbarians walked the lands long before the young races, and gave birth to the giants. The Ancients battled colossal beasts, monsters, and each other with their iron-hard fists and brutal wrestling techniques.
Fists of the Earthborn
When you choose this path at 3rd level, you have chosen a path of rage fueled brawling emphasizing furious unarmed strikes. When you aren’t wearing heavy armor, your unarmed strike damage becomes 1d4. This damage increases to 1d6 when you reach 5th level, 1d8 when you reach 11th level, and 1d10 when you reach 17th level in this class. As you use advance in this technique, your hands begin to take on the appearance of stone or iron.
Savage Brawler
Also at 3rd level, when you make an unarmed attack using strength while raging, you add one additional damage die to the roll. For example, your unarmed strike does 2d6 damage at 5th level while you are raging.
Avatar of the Ancients
At level 6, when you enter a rage you may use this feature to gain the effect of the Enlarge portion of the Enlarge/Reduce spell. When you use this feature, your unarmed attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance. You can use this feature a number of times equal half your total number of rages (round down). You regain these uses when you finish a long rest. At level 20 you may use this ability an unlimited number of times.
The Old Ways
At level 10 you can add your rage damage bonus to athletics checks while you are raging.
Hurricane Force Throw
At 14th level, you have mastered the prehistoric fighting style of the ancients. When you succeed on a shove attempt against a creature your size or smaller that you have grappled, you can release your grapple and throw the target.
You throw the creature up to a number of feet equal to your athletics check. If there is another creature in it’s path, make a strength based ranged attack roll against that creature including your proficiency bonus. If you hit, both creatures take damage equal to half your athletics check (round down) and are knocked prone. The creature you threw lands in the closest empty square adjacent to the creature you hit. If you miss the target, the creature you threw continues moving. If the creature you threw contacts a solid object such as a wall, both the creature and the object take damage equal to half your athletics check (round down). The creature continues moving if the object is destroyed, otherwise it stops moving. In any case, the thrown creature lands prone once it stops moving.
You can instead throw the target vertically a number of feet equal to your athletics check plus your height. As usual, the target takes 1d6 fall damage for every 10 feet it falls and lands prone if it takes any fall damage.
Paragon of the Ancients
At level 18, when you use Avatar of the Ancients, you can choose to increase your size by two categories rather than one, thus increasing the bonus damage on attacks to 2d4 and increasing your unarmed strike reach to 10ft. You can use this feature once. You regain this use once you finish a short or long rest.
Commentary:
This path is designed to make grappling and throwing work within the confines of one class. While it is possible to make an effective dedicated grappler, it requires janky multi classes and some rules cheese that I don’t like.
The other goal of this is to make a character that is capable of grappling with the largest creatures in the game at very high level, so that the class does not feel useless when in the most climactic fights.
It is assumed that the player will take tavern brawler at the earliest opportunity.
While the class does have more features than other barbarian archetypes, they are hopefully balanced as follows:
Fists of the Earthborn is really a non-feature or a flavor feature. It will do less damage than a great sword. It is primarily there to allow the remaining features to work and to allow tavern brawler to work without the player having to convince the DM to let him create a magic “improvised weapon”
Savage Brawler is a pretty weak damage feature which adds on to rage damage bonus. Without fighter attack scaling, it should not be problematic. 2d10 damage is only 2 more than a greatsword barbarian’s 2d6. The feature's aim is primarily to encourage the player to used unarmed strikes while raging in order to fit with the flavor of the class.
Avatar of the Ancients is another quality of life ability. The ability to add magic to unarmed attacks is needed since there are no magic items in the DMG to provide this. Additionally, the enlarge feature is required to allow grappling larger enemies. Since Enlarge is only a 2nd level spell, it should not be problematic to give the barbarian this ability, without concentration, a couple times per day.
The Old Ways Fits in nicely with the theme and adds a bit of non-combat utility. It will also synergize with hurricane force throw.
Hurricane Force Throw is the hardest bit to balance. The range of the throw should max out at 20 (d20) + 6 (proficiency) + 7 (24 strength) + 5 (rage damage bonus) = 38ft or 7 squares. This is the maximum, and it will vary wildly since it is based on a d20 roll. The damage maxes out at half of that (19). Even hitting 2 targets this is less damage than the player would likely do with attacks.
The fall damage from the upward throw (assuming a 6 foot tall player) maxes out at only 4d6 = 14
Therefore, the feature is more about the forced movement than the damage. To be honest, the feature may need to be tuned up.
Paragon of the Ancients is added to allow the build to continue to function versus the largest creatures in the game at very high level. It is possible that this feature actually needs to come online earlier.
Barbarians who follow The Path of the Ancients tap into the savage techniques and strength of the Ancients. In the early days, the Ancients were rivaled only by the gods in their might. These primordial barbarians walked the lands long before the young races, and gave birth to the giants. The Ancients battled colossal beasts, monsters, and each other with their iron-hard fists and brutal wrestling techniques.
Fists of the Earthborn
When you choose this path at 3rd level, you have chosen a path of rage fueled brawling emphasizing furious unarmed strikes. When you aren’t wearing heavy armor, your unarmed strike damage becomes 1d4. This damage increases to 1d6 when you reach 5th level, 1d8 when you reach 11th level, and 1d10 when you reach 17th level in this class. As you use advance in this technique, your hands begin to take on the appearance of stone or iron.
Savage Brawler
Also at 3rd level, when you make an unarmed attack using strength while raging, you add one additional damage die to the roll. For example, your unarmed strike does 2d6 damage at 5th level while you are raging.
Avatar of the Ancients
At level 6, when you enter a rage you may use this feature to gain the effect of the Enlarge portion of the Enlarge/Reduce spell. When you use this feature, your unarmed attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance. You can use this feature a number of times equal half your total number of rages (round down). You regain these uses when you finish a long rest. At level 20 you may use this ability an unlimited number of times.
The Old Ways
At level 10 you can add your rage damage bonus to athletics checks while you are raging.
Hurricane Force Throw
At 14th level, you have mastered the prehistoric fighting style of the ancients. When you succeed on a shove attempt against a creature your size or smaller that you have grappled, you can release your grapple and throw the target.
You throw the creature up to a number of feet equal to your athletics check. If there is another creature in it’s path, make a strength based ranged attack roll against that creature including your proficiency bonus. If you hit, both creatures take damage equal to half your athletics check (round down) and are knocked prone. The creature you threw lands in the closest empty square adjacent to the creature you hit. If you miss the target, the creature you threw continues moving. If the creature you threw contacts a solid object such as a wall, both the creature and the object take damage equal to half your athletics check (round down). The creature continues moving if the object is destroyed, otherwise it stops moving. In any case, the thrown creature lands prone once it stops moving.
You can instead throw the target vertically a number of feet equal to your athletics check plus your height. As usual, the target takes 1d6 fall damage for every 10 feet it falls and lands prone if it takes any fall damage.
Paragon of the Ancients
At level 18, when you use Avatar of the Ancients, you can choose to increase your size by two categories rather than one, thus increasing the bonus damage on attacks to 2d4 and increasing your unarmed strike reach to 10ft. You can use this feature once. You regain this use once you finish a short or long rest.
Commentary:
This path is designed to make grappling and throwing work within the confines of one class. While it is possible to make an effective dedicated grappler, it requires janky multi classes and some rules cheese that I don’t like.
The other goal of this is to make a character that is capable of grappling with the largest creatures in the game at very high level, so that the class does not feel useless when in the most climactic fights.
It is assumed that the player will take tavern brawler at the earliest opportunity.
While the class does have more features than other barbarian archetypes, they are hopefully balanced as follows:
Fists of the Earthborn is really a non-feature or a flavor feature. It will do less damage than a great sword. It is primarily there to allow the remaining features to work and to allow tavern brawler to work without the player having to convince the DM to let him create a magic “improvised weapon”
Savage Brawler is a pretty weak damage feature which adds on to rage damage bonus. Without fighter attack scaling, it should not be problematic. 2d10 damage is only 2 more than a greatsword barbarian’s 2d6. The feature's aim is primarily to encourage the player to used unarmed strikes while raging in order to fit with the flavor of the class.
Avatar of the Ancients is another quality of life ability. The ability to add magic to unarmed attacks is needed since there are no magic items in the DMG to provide this. Additionally, the enlarge feature is required to allow grappling larger enemies. Since Enlarge is only a 2nd level spell, it should not be problematic to give the barbarian this ability, without concentration, a couple times per day.
The Old Ways Fits in nicely with the theme and adds a bit of non-combat utility. It will also synergize with hurricane force throw.
Hurricane Force Throw is the hardest bit to balance. The range of the throw should max out at 20 (d20) + 6 (proficiency) + 7 (24 strength) + 5 (rage damage bonus) = 38ft or 7 squares. This is the maximum, and it will vary wildly since it is based on a d20 roll. The damage maxes out at half of that (19). Even hitting 2 targets this is less damage than the player would likely do with attacks.
The fall damage from the upward throw (assuming a 6 foot tall player) maxes out at only 4d6 = 14
Therefore, the feature is more about the forced movement than the damage. To be honest, the feature may need to be tuned up.
Paragon of the Ancients is added to allow the build to continue to function versus the largest creatures in the game at very high level. It is possible that this feature actually needs to come online earlier.
