D&D 5E Q&A: Basic Subclass, Can Subclasses Change the class, Non-Vancian Subclasses

[Jeff Carlsen]

One thing I will disagree with in your points... the barbarian should be a subclass of fighter. I think rage could be one of the alternative ways to use combat expertise that they talked about. Additionally, I would rename it berserker, and I would make barbarian a background. Barbarian is your trade it is how you survived and made your way in the world. Besides, I think barbarian background druids, rangers, rogues, fighters, heck even cleric, and wizard (warlock) could work with a barbarian background.

In this I tend to agree. Ranger and Paladin, while originally based on the fighter, have developed into their own rather well. Specifically, I can see them both having subclasses of their own. But not so with the Barbarian. Whereas I can definitely see rage as the mechanic of a fighter subclass. And I've long agreed that barbarian makes for a solid background.

 

[Li Shenron]

I disagree, If the subclasses are going to be really fluffy, you may wind up with taking fighter twice because you want to be a samurai/knight or whatever. That has been specifically barred in past editions, but if you have fluffy subclasses where you want to actually multi-class into two subclasses of the same class. This is a problem in my eye.

Uhm... haven't thought of that. Might be a problem with Fighter's subclasses because they are "backgroundish".

For other classes I'm not sure it's a problem, I mean sure you can argue that you want to play an Illusionist/Evoker, and you can't mix the two Traditions... but at some point, the system has to stop bothering with supporting combinations, because if it takes this into account, then next player will ask for Illusionist/Evoker/Necromancer, and the next Illusionist/Evoker/Necromancer/Diviner and so on... At some point the designer should say stop, and from there you work with your DM for a custom class OR you pick one subclass and complement it with other choices (spells, feats, skills etc.). Where do we put the line? YMMV, but I'm fine with putting the line at one subclass only.

 

[Li Shenron]

In this I tend to agree. Ranger and Paladin, while originally based on the fighter, have developed into their own rather well. Specifically, I can see them both having subclasses of their own. But not so with the Barbarian. Whereas I can definitely see rage as the mechanic of a fighter subclass. And I've long agreed that barbarian makes for a solid background.

One thing I will disagree with in your points... the barbarian should be a subclass of fighter. I think rage could be one of the alternative ways to use combat expertise that they talked about. Additionally, I would rename it berserker, and I would make barbarian a background. Barbarian is your trade it is how you survived and made your way in the world. Besides, I think barbarian background druids, rangers, rogues, fighters, heck even cleric, and wizard (warlock) could work with a barbarian background.

If they cannot give the Barbarian class enough breadth to generate subclasses (it's the only class so far that never had any), then bundling Rage into a Fighter subclass may work fine.

As for the destiny of "Barbarian", I think the best in that case would be to give that name to such subclass.

As an alternative I would make it a subrace of Humans, but I understand that other gamers want Barbarian Dwarves, Barbarian Halflings and Barbarian Elves (personally I can stand the Dwarves, but I really don't like the other 2, even tho I actually played some!). That's because IMHO "Barbarian" is a cultural identity, thus it fits quite well as a subrace (note that races and subraces benefits are not always "genetic", they also involve cultural aspects).

I don't instead like the idea of Barbarian as background, because I like backgrounds to maintain their meaning of "your role in society before/outside adventuring (and how you make a living)", and even a Barbarian society has many roles in it (unless you want "Barbarians" to equal pillagers by default, so they all make a living in the same way, which is also an option).

 

[Weather Report]

I have long advocated the Barbarian to be a background (being "barbaric" does make you angry), if they can't fold rage into the Fighter, and desperately need an angst-class, call it Berserker.

 

[Sadrik]

Well literally what is a barbarian someone that lives outside society. Society has the connotation in this case that it is superior than those on the outside. Tribesman, often have different roles however the differentiation is not dramatic enough that it warrants different backgrounds for each separate role in a barbaric culture. So a barbarian Druid might represent a shaman, a barbarian ranger might represent a tracker and a barbarian rogue might represent a scout. Up to the player.

This brings up a broader point that backgrounds should be expansive enough to accommodate pretty much any class. In some combinations it may not be optimal but still possible. I want to play a scholarly fighter, for instance. I may not be able to do the rituals (or maybe you can??) but basically being a knowledgeable fighter is a thing I like to play. Anyway broad backgrounds for any class.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I'll admit, simply slapping the term barbarian on a background is shortsighted. While originally it basically meant anyone from outside your culture, the meaning these days generally refers to someone from a nomadic culture known for occasionally raiding less mobile settlements. For example, the mongols.

It shouldn't be used to reference tribes of hunter-gatherers. That would likely be a tribal background. Barbarians are more likely to be from a herding society.

 

[Sadrik]

Barbarian in the literalistic sense is not a Greek speaker. Plato thought it was a logical absurdity to split the world into Greeks and non-Greeks it told them nothing about what the second group was. The Romans carried on the term and it represented the Germanic peoples (including the vikings), Celts, Persians, Carthaginians, Iberians, and Thracians. So I think that the fantasy Barbarian needs to be defined as a separate entity from the historical one.

It is said that Conan the Barbarian is based on the Celts, who were a tribal culture. Rage was added into D&D I dont know when but I dont see Conan at least being like that. Conan was likely a Fighter/Rogue... Its troubling when your greatest source material does not quite fit...

So Background or Class? I still feel that making it a broad background would be ok. Yes, likely not them most PC, but it has a root in the game.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think all Barbarian options have their reasons: class, subclass, subrace and background.

In my suggestion as subrace rather than background, there was another reason and that was that IMHO skills were not enough to capture the feel of barbarian, for example skills don't affect general physical resiliency and robustness, which is generally expected from barbarian characters to have better, on average. This is why I thought subrace would be also mechanically better, since (sub)races have a free-form and thus can be used as containers for everything: you could easily make a subrace that grants extra HP and bonuses to certain physical ST for example, while having it as a background would have been IMHO too restrictive to capture the feel, it would have easily ended up as just granting obvious skills like Survival, Listen & Spot and maybe Nature Lore. BUT this is now going to change, NOW backgrounds are indeed becoming more free-form and open-ended, so this means they will be much better able to represent barbarians than I once thought.

 

[Sadrik]

In my suggestion as subrace rather than background, there was another reason and that was that IMHO skills were not enough to capture the feel of barbarian, for example skills don't affect general physical resiliency and robustness, which is generally expected from barbarian characters to have better, on average.

If you do it as a subrace then you just give it +1 con. I see that but I actually like the background option better because then you can provide all of the more "savage" weapons like blowguns, and bolas, and whatnot and make sure they have proficiency in them.

 

[Dausuul]

Why make barbarian into a fighter subclass? I think it fits better as a subclass of ranger. They're both "wilderness warrior" types, both lightly armored, tending to avoid the use of shields. One branch (the "traditional ranger") could focus on nature magic, and the other on toughness and ferocity.