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

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Woof.

What does this mean?

Leaving to one side the paternalistic normativism of the talking point that these organizations don't really understand the religion they profess to follow,

I never said that. The leadership clearly knows their theology and are able to justify everything they do with scripture, but we also know that a lot of the fighters barely know the basics.

I don't think D&D is interested in depicting modern terrorist organizations as PC options - and even if they WERE, I'd want to pick up the Religion skill.

Nothing's stopping you. It shouldn't be required for the archetype though.

And if you toss this back to a more period-appropriate version of the trope, you might pick up on the Crusaders as an expression of a similar motif: violent, warlike people claiming to be inspired by a religion they don't seem to truly understand.

But the class to take if you want to be a Crusader is....paladin.

Because the crusaders were Knights and not Barbarians. Unless you count the Norwegian Crusade that is, that was pretty much an old school viking war expedtion in the name of God.

 

[Parmandur]

[MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION] but that's what Backgrounds are for. Heck, I can do a Berserker Acolyte right out of the PHB, who does know about Tempus; and as pointed out by others, historical examples of religious zealots tend towards illiteracy in their own religion. Mechanically, Rage is pretty much the entire package of the Barbarian Class, and storywise you can do multiple things with that mechanical base, limiting Barbarians to just...barbarians...seems rather lacking to me. Tacking on some Rage-Lite to a Paladin Chassis would be weaksauce; though, they might do both, as with Eldritch Knight or Bladesinger.

 

[Marandahir]

I think the Warrior of the Gods feature is quite weak. I would at least give them the religion skill on top of it. How many groups out there have to deal with character death often enough for this feature to be used? I suppose the player will have incentive to get himself killed, if there is a cleric with the correct spells memorized around. This feature needs a bit more for me.

I would agree that they should get Religion skill automatically. If they want to be Acolytes or some similar religious background so as to have Religion during 1st-2nd, that's fine, and I don't think granting that skill proficiency upsets the balance of the subclass. It adds something that should be inherent to all members of the subclass, but if you already have it you already have it.

It could also say "or another knowledge skill if you already are trained in Religion" if they don't want to penalize Acolytes etc but I really don't think it's a big loss for Acolytes. All it does is allow you to have your background represent a different past before you took up the path of the Zealot.

 

[Parmandur]

I would agree that they should get Religion skill automatically. If they want to be Acolytes or some similar religious background so as to have Religion during 1st-2nd, that's fine, and I don't think granting that skill proficiency upsets the balance of the subclass. It adds something that should be inherent to all members of the subclass, but if you already have it you already have it.

It could also say "or another knowledge skill if you already are trained in Religion" if they don't want to penalize Acolytes etc but I really don't think it's a big loss for Acolytes. All it does is allow you to have your background represent a different past before you took up the path of the Zealot.

I can build a Cleric without the Religion skill; "Religion" as a knowledge skill ≠ spirituality, which is pure RP.

 

[hejtmane]

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."

Better than the SCAG where they completely screwed up the BattleRager dropped the ball badly there and the Exhaustion penalty on frenzy makes it so underwhelming

 

[I'm A Banana]

You might. And I'm comfortable with changing either, where appropriate.

But it is far easier to expand/change flavor without damaging playability than mechanics. You're not going to accidentally under/overpower a character, or break the system.

It is not exactly rocket surgery to convert Rage into some other mechanic. Pretty sure I could do it, and I'm just some dork on the internet.

And some concepts truly are better served by stretching one than the other. The zealot? Isn't a cleric or a paladin. It's a barbarian with some divine flavor. It would be less efficient and poorer design to try to twist and turn a cleric into a barbarian than to add a few divine-inspired powers to the barbarian, in such a case. Now, if we had a class that was a cleric with some added rage? Sure, tweak the mechanics on the cleric. But it would be inappropriate to do the latter to accomplish the former.

If that was the case, I think I'd be less vocal about this. But, the zealot's flavor-text doesn't read like a barbarian's. "Some deities inspire their followers to pitch themselves into a ferocious battle fury" has little to do with the motifs of the Barbarian class - the rejection of civilization, thriving in the wilderness, life in wild places, tribes and clans. It's got a HECK of a lot to do with clerics (carrying out the will of the gods, using divine energy) and more than a little to do with paladins (standing against the tide of enemies, called to a life of devotion, fulfilling a higher purpose).

If the zealot is more narrowly conceived of in a way that fits the Barbarian more comfortably, that doesn't come across in the description. Heck, Tempus is a very civilized and honorable deity, with a code and all.

 

[Parmandur]

Glad to see 4E's power sources are alive and well. In case you never played 4E, they were:

Martial, Arcane, Divine, Primal, Psionic, Elemental, and Shadow.

Ya know, that's a point: mixing and matching "power sources " though likely not followed in the formulaic 4E way, might be something we see a lot of in the next few months...

 

[SkidAce]

It's not a problem in the sense that it would be the end of the world or some horrible abomination of game design or anything. It's just a question of using the best tools for the job.

I guess I think that if the only reason you want to use a barbarian to model this archetype is because barbarians have rage and so does this archetype, that's kind of a weak reason.

Ignore the rage mechanic for a second. Pretend the barbarian had no rage. Maybe they're rangers, whatever. If you wanted to make a character that was inspired with a holy lust for violence against the enemies of the faithful, would you still make it a barbarian?

I'd be inclined to go Cleric, or maybe Paladin. Give them a mechanic similar to rage (maybe Channel Divinity! Maybe a holy fury spell! An Oath of Zeal? A Zeal domain?), and you've got what you need.

It's not that using barbarian for this is wrong, it just doesn't fit very well. It's a square peg in the barbarian's round hole. Cram it in and shave the edges down and it'll fit well enough, but the two aren't clearly made for each other.

And yet I took levels of barbarian for my monk adventurer. The rage is flavored so that its like River Tam in serenity when she goes all murderfull, cold and calculating.

For Azure Khan, he has reached a zen like stage of fighting prowess.

But I did this by adding barbarian to a monk. For the concept yall are discussing, adding cleric to a barbarian could show the character growth and insight into the religion the barbarian follows.

Or just play the barbarian zealot as is. You dont need Religion or high wisdom or spellcasting to be touched by the gods with holy wrath.

 

[Marandahir]

Glad to see 4E's power sources are alive and well. In case you never played 4E, they were:

Martial, Arcane, Divine, Primal, Psionic, Elemental, and Shadow.

5e did away with power sources for the most part. We have Arcane and Divine magic, and some aspects of Divine reflect what was called Primal in 4e (Druids, Rangers, Barbarians, Oath of the Ancients Paladins). Elemental and Shadow never worked quite right as specific power sources in 4e, and became tacked on keywords for classes that were otherwise martial, arcane, divine, etc. Psionic is interesting: in 4e, the Ki powers of the Monk were wrapped into Psionic, now Monks are their own thing again, with some thematic overlaps with all three of Psionic, Divine, and Arcane (and with Martial characters, of course). Psionic is now a way of casting spells intuitively by monsters, and all the Psionic classes of 3e and 4e have been wrapped into the Mystic playtest class as various subclasses. This is probably a good thing, though they could create subclasses that use Psionics – for example, a Psionic Magic Sorcerer or a Psychic Warrior Fighter (in the same way as the Eldritch Knight).

Martial is less a power source and more the absence of magic, and something everyone does unless they're a caster-only character like the Wizard (who can barely protect itself with a crossbow, quarterstaff, or dagger lest it train as an Eldritch Knight). Martial has become the term in 4e referred to as Military Weapons (to contrast Simple weapons), and really is best used to refer to characters that have Fighting Styles (Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins in the PHB).

Barbarians aren't really martial characters in the 5e sense as they lack the formal military training that Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers share, though they have access to many martial weapons.

The point is, power source isn't really an important thing in 5e. It's flavor text, and if it helps tell the story you want to tell, then good. But it's not a mechanical part of the balance of the game the same way it was in 4e. Each class should be looked at individually rather than as a piece of a larger chassis of role x power source. Barbarians are powered by their Rage. Clerics are powered by their divine faith. Paladins are powered by their sacred oaths. Fighters are empowered by their martial training. Rogues are powered by their roguish training. Bards are powered by their performances. Monks by their Ki. Mystics by psionic power. These things could be seen as power sources, but they're really class-specific stories.

 

[Parmandur]

Actually, who the Zealot puts me in mind of is Diomedes, from the Illiad: "Then Pallas Athena granted Tydeus’ son Diomedes strength and daring—so the fighter would shine forth and tower over the Argives and win himself great glory..."

I would not say Diomedes was a Paladin, but rather a both literal barbarian (to the Trojans), and a Rage machine filled with Athena's spirit.