Barbarian - Path of the Gloambound

[Ganymede81]

Path of the Gloambound

Gloams are ghosts that have lost their moorings to the physical world and have slipped into the Shadowfell. There, they gradually transform into hideous incarnations of their own death: one savaged by wolves might appear as a skinless floating torso with a bull skull for a head, and one assassinated in cold blood might appear as a shriveled cadaver with knife blades protruding from its eyes and mouth. While they lose most of the memories of their former life, they develop a sentience and self-awareness not seen in ordinary ghosts. Gloams generally remain trapped in the Shadowfell, but sometimes the rage of the wild men and women of the physical world will draw one back; they are especially attracted to those that have had brushes with death which mirror their own demise.

Barbarians that walk the path of the Gloambound are those that have attracted the attention of a Gloam and formed a bond with it. You draw supernatural power from being bound to a Gloam, even if it is offered or drawn upon reluctantly. Your Gloam has its own warped personality and might act as a doting relative, a barb-tongued rival, or a goal obsessed zealot. Your rage in combat draws upon the sorrow, fear, or fury felt by your Gloam at the moment of death, and every wound in battle and swing of an axe offers your Gloam a brief taste of the life it once had.

If you like, you may select or randomly determine a personality trait for your Gloam from the table below.

d6	Trait
1	I’ll use this opportunity to experience everything about life I missed the first time.
2	Vigilance is key; I will not die again.
3	I will not rest until my goal is complete, and neither will my Gloambound.
4	Mortals are so… interesting.
5	My Gloambound reminds me of someone, maybe a lover, maybe an enemy.
6	I really, REALLY love apples.

Visions of Another Life

At 3^rd level when you adopt this path, faded memories of your Gloam’s former life fill your mind. That knowledge grants you proficiency in two skills from the following list: Animal Handling, Arcana, Deception, History, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Persuasion, Performance, Religion, and Survival.

Harrowing Strike

At 3^rd level, when you adopt this path, you may cause your Gloam to momentarily materialize in order to menace your foes. While raging, you can use a bonus action immediately after hitting a creature with a melee weapon attack to inflict an additional 1d8 psychic damage with that attack.

This extra damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 6^th level (2d8) and 14^th level (3d8).

Tales of Dead Men
At 6^th Level, you may cast the Speak with Dead spell, but only as a ritual. Your Gloam provides the animating spirit that allows the corpse to speak.

Pierce the Veil

At 10^th level, you may perceive and interact with the spirit world via your Gloam. You can see 60 feet into the Ethereal Plane while on an Inner Plane, and your melee weapon attacks can affect creatures in the Ethereal Plane, even if you are on an Inner Plane.

Additionally, your Gloam's baleful energies allow your attacks to cleave both body and soul. While raging, you can choose to have your melee weapon attacks inflict force damage instead of the bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage it would normally inflict.

Ghostly Apotheosis

At 14^th level, your bond with your Gloam grows to the point where you can become incorporeal. While raging, you can move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. If you end your turn inside an object or a creature, you take 1d10 force damage and are immediately shunted back to the previous location before you entered that object or creature.

 

[Ganymede81]

If it helps paint a better picture, I kinda imagine the Gloams here like the wraith Celebrimbor that bonds with Talion in Shadow of Mordor, or perhaps a Shinigami from the Death Note universe.

What do y'all think?

 

[Ganymede81]

I'ma bump this because I think death ragers with ghost companions are cool.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light!"

 

[Ganymede81]

This'll be my last bump.

I'm feeling hopeful, though; if that thread with the parody barbarian path based on a comic book character can attract comments, I'm sure this one can.

 

[jaelis]

Have to say, to me the flavor just doesn't mesh very well with barbarian. I like the idea of a spirit-bound warrior, but the concept of rage seems like it would require more of an angry or primal spirit. So what if you leaned more toward the gloam being an wrathful spirit? Maybe through in some poltergeist-type effects? I think that would speak more to me.

As for the mechanics as it is, the extra damage is fine I guess but a bit boring. The ethereal stuff is consistent with your picture. I guess the only thing I don't like is the force damage at 10th. Not that it is unbalanced, it just seems unwarranted. Make more sense to me if you got the choice to do psychic damage.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I think there's something to the concept worth mining, although I also somewhat agree with jaelis above. I think I'd tweak the description so that the symbiotic Gloam is as much curse as it is benefit.

As for the powers:
Harrowing Strike is uninteresting mechanically; it doesn't lead to any decision making, it's just extra damage with fluff. Quite a bit of damage.

You could have the Gloam manifest as a shadow warrior while raging, and you can use your bonus action to command it to move & attack. The bonus damage would be mitigated by the need for another attack roll, and you could direct it to attack a different target. That would open up tactical applications.

Tales of Dead Men I like, although for fluff I'd have the Gloam be the intermediary, relaying questions/answers to/from the dead. Would be fun to roleplay out the Gloam's motivations and personality.

Pierce the Veil would have very limited use in many campaigns. It would be powerful in some, and pure ribbon in others. Being able to do Force damage is useful but...what does that have to do with Gloaming? Level 10 needs to be re-thought, imo.

Ghostly Apotheosis is cool flavorfully, but is very situationally dependent, especially for a capstone. If you're going to be semi-corporeal there should be more benefits: immunity (up from resistance) to non-magical P/B/S? Resistance to elemental damage? True seeing? What about just radiating some kind of aura of despair that imposes penalties on enemies within a radius? I dunno, but this one needs some oomph.

 

[Ganymede81]

Harrowing Strike is uninteresting mechanically; it doesn't lead to any decision making, it's just extra damage with fluff. Quite a bit of damage.

You could have the Gloam manifest as a shadow warrior while raging, and you can use your bonus action to command it to move & attack. The bonus damage would be mitigated by the need for another attack roll, and you could direct it to attack a different target. That would open up tactical applications.

I don't think the damage is too much here. It does less damage than the Storm of Fury - Sea power Storm Herald barbarians get at the same level, and that ability does not require a bonus action. That's only a UA Path, but presumably it'll be little changed in Xanathar's Guide.

It is kinda boring, though.

I do like the idea of the Gloam acting independently of the barbarian, though. Perhaps the ability could instead be modeled as an ersatz ranged attack where the Gloam menaces someone within 30 feet?

Tales of Dead Men I like, although for fluff I'd have the Gloam be the intermediary, relaying questions/answers to/from the dead. Would be fun to roleplay out the Gloam's motivations and personality.

Go for it. That sounds fun to me.

Pierce the Veil would have very limited use in many campaigns. It would be powerful in some, and pure ribbon in others. Being able to do Force damage is useful but...what does that have to do with Gloaming? Level 10 needs to be re-thought, imo.

A lot of people mistakenly assume that force damage is some sort of impact damage or concussive damage. It is much more similar to the generic "magic damage" you might see in other games/media; it is pure magic given destructive form.

What I'm doing here is two-fold. For one, force and constructs made of force are the only thing that has any substance to a ghost or other incorporeal baddie. The DMG notes that everything is insubstantial to an ethereal creature, except for "anything made of magical force." Secondly, an incorporal baddie's attack, when focused in the form of a ghostly weapon, inflicts force damage. Note the entry for the Curse of Strahd Phantom Warrior; their spectral longswords inflict force damage. It is both the power of a ghost alongside the power to fight ghosts.

Personally, I imagine that the Gloam's power hardens the barbarian's own soul into a weapon in its own right, and the barbarian's weapon swings are instantly mirrored by the swing of a slightly-displaced soul weapon.

Everything at level 10 is basically just a ribbon, though.

Ghostly Apotheosis is cool flavorfully, but is very situationally dependent, especially for a capstone. If you're going to be semi-corporeal there should be more benefits: immunity (up from resistance) to non-magical P/B/S? Resistance to elemental damage? True seeing? What about just radiating some kind of aura of despair that imposes penalties on enemies within a radius? I dunno, but this one needs some oomph.

I tried to model the ability based on the power level of similar level 14 barbarian abilities. Specifically, I looked at the Eagle Barbarian's ability to fly in short bursts.

I figured that being able to be incorporeal in short bursts during your turn is roughly equivalent to being able to fly in short bursts during your turn. Your thoughts?

 

[Ganymede81]

Here is an alternative take on Harrowing Strike, one that incorporates a more mobile gloam.

Harrowing Strike

At 3rd level, when you adopt this path, you may cause your Gloam to momentarily materialize in order to menace your foes. While raging, you can use a bonus action to target one creature you can see within 30 feet. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier or take 1d8 psychic damage.

This extra damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 6th level (2d8), 10th level (3d8) and 14th level (4d8).

 

[Guest 6801328]

Here is an alternative take on Harrowing Strike, one that incorporates a more mobile gloam.

Harrowing Strike

At 3rd level, when you adopt this path, you may cause your Gloam to momentarily materialize in order to menace your foes. While raging, you can use a bonus action to target one creature you can see within 30 feet. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier or take 1d8 psychic damage.

This extra damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 6th level (2d8), 10th level (3d8) and 14th level (4d8).

Yeah I like that a lot more. The saving throw could alternatively be Cha.

 

[CaddoGSajwod]

Pierce the Veil doing force damage when Harrowing Strike does psychic is a little off-putting, but I like the overall flavor of this Barbarian path. Would any damage be dealt to the creature or object if you end your turn inside it? Something on par with the damage caused by Harrowing Strike at 14th level seems appropriate to me, but it might make the power more powerful than intended and cause some players to try to intentionally end their turn in an occupied space in order to deal the damage.