Unearthed Arcana New Barbarian Primal Paths in November 7th Unearthed Arcana

The new paths are

• Path of the Ancestral Guardian
• Path of the Storm Herald
• Path of the Zealot

 

[thalmin]

New Barbarian Primal Paths are up for testing in the newest Unearthed Arcana - Path of the Ancestral Guardian, Path of the Storm Herald, and Path of the Zealot. As mentioned previously, Unearthed Arcana is going weekly for a while, while Sage Advice is being put on hold.

 

[Salamandyr]

None really grab me off the top of my head. Was hoping for a "civilized barbarian" subclass-essentially something for a Conan pastiche--basically a Champion overlay for barbarian you can do without multiclassing, for those barbarians who come out of the wilderness and actually learn the difference between forte and foible and why the point is superior to the edge.

Ah well...there's always homebrew.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Nice. I think I read that orcs are supposed to be religious fanatics in Volo's (my copy hasn't come yet), so I wonder if the zealot was built with them in mind (possibly an upcoming storyline?).
Storm is a nice parallel to totem. Ancestor has some nice flavor.

 

[dave2008]

Thank you for posting! I like the Zealot & the Rage Beyond Death feature. The zealot is the only one that feels like a barbarian to me.

 

[phantomK9]

These are all really good, I have almost no complaints (which is rare).

Some minor quibbles:

Path of the Ancestral Guardian
Consult the Spirits - Neat ability, but the limitation of three times per long rest seems oddly arbitrary. Why not number of times per long rest equal to Proficiency Bonus or something like that. Also while a cool ability, seems a bit weak, maybe need something more at 10 level....

Path of the Storm Herald
Storm of Fury - Kind of want some more than just Desert, Sea, and Tundra, but after racking my brain I can only come up with Volcano (which would probably work very similar to Desert anyway. Hmmm, maybe at 14th level opponents fall prone instead of get stuck....

Path of the Zealot
At first I thought this would step on Paladin toes, but they did a really nice job of keeping them separate.

Warrior of the Gods - This one seems odd. It is an ability that others take advantage of, not actually you. I mean you would get healed no matter what, and a cleric only needs the holy symbol anyway right? If it is for Resurrection type spells, then it seems kind of out of place for a 3rd level ability. Seems like this really wouldn't come into play much unless your entire group was without their spell components or you needed to be resurrected and your group didn't have the money to pay for it???


....and that's really it. One of the most solid UA that I've seen. Some of this stuff I'm ready to incorporate into my game NOW.

 

[gweinel]

Nice, but why all the barbarians have magical abilities? I mean isn't too much magic already in the classes?
I would prefer to have some more options for non magical abilities especially for the so called martial classes like the barbarian.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

New Barbarian Primal Paths are up for testing in the newest Unearthed Arcana

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/barbarian-primal-paths

Huh. High-level Zealot Barbarians are now like Vampires: they don't go unconscious at 0 HP, and keep fighting at zero HP until killed. (The exact conditions under which a 0 HP vampire can be killed are subject to some dispute; said dispute has been occurring over the last couple of days, which is why I notice the correlation. Odd coincidence that.)

Zealot Barbarians are clearly the best of the new Barbarians from a powergaming standpoint, but it doesn't really matter because they're not good enough to obviate other options. Still, I like the flavor of the Ancestral Guardian and Zealot Barbarians particularly. Reminds me very much of the Ancestor Vessel barbarians from Dominions 4: The Awakening, except obviously Ancestor Vessels would have a fear aura.

Mechanically, the Ancestral Guardian 10th level feature is very flavorful, but interacts poorly with 5E's actual mechanics, in particular the Help action but also the vagueness of the ability check rules. Like many abilities which grant advantage (Keen Smell or whatever it's called), it has the problem that it only lets you succeed at things you could have succeeded at anyway. It doesn't actually grant any new capabilities. I would like it better if it gave some new affordance, even if it's just the ability to cast Augury three times per long rest or whatever. (The unreliability of repeated Auguries just makes the hypothetical ability more entertaining and flavorful.) Advantage on Int/Wis checks is quite bland.

Alternately, you could just give the DM a bit of advice and say, "If you want to make Ancestral Guardian a thing in your campaign, make sure you don't allow players to Help each other on Intelligence or Wisdom checks except under extraordinary circumstances, like if they're both trying to remember the same event that they were both present for."

 

[Salamandyr]

Nice, but why all the barbarians have magical abilities? I mean isn't too much magic already in the classes?
I would prefer to have some more options for non magical abilities especially for the so called martial classes like the barbarian.

I think to an extent it's a failure of imagination. It's easy to come up with a magical sounding argle bargle to explain some interesting mechanical game widget.

In their defense, it's tougher to do that using purely mundane description, and it also runs the risk of needlessly granularizing martial capabilities. Just look at how mixed up their description of unarmed combat is in the errata, in order to niche protect the monk. Or how "hide in shadows" descriptions in early versions of D&D lead people to believe only the thief class could hide. So if they give something some unique mechanical name like "pommel smash" that would otherwise be covered under the generic "attack" action, they make it look like nobody but this particular subclass can hit people in the face with their sword pommels.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Warrior of the Gods - This one seems odd. It is an ability that others take advantage of, not actually you. I mean you would get healed no matter what, and a cleric only needs the holy symbol anyway right? If it is for Resurrection type spells, then it seems kind of out of place for a 3rd level ability. Seems like this really wouldn't come into play much unless your entire group was without their spell components or you needed to be resurrected and your group didn't have the money to pay for it???

It invites interesting combos reminiscent of Odin's halls and Thor's goats. Allows the party to use you as a kind of self-guided self-destructing Barbarian bomb, secure in the knowledge that you can be easily Revivified right after you self-destruct.

I think it's honestly more interesting from a flavor perspective than from a raw powergaming perspective. 5E is so easy that you're unlikely to save more than a couple of thousand gp this way over the course of a whole campaign, even if you deliberately seek out risky situations. But I do like the flavor a lot.

Also, it's fun to think about a whole clan of Zealot Barbarians who literally cut each other to pieces every day for practice and then are healed the next morning. No hard feelings, hey?