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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 7788074" data-attributes="member: 6704184">The bolded text is what I disagree with most strongly, in all of that. We agree about different fuels for creativity. I semi-jokingly took issue with your joking dismissal of other creative fuels than your own prefered one, because it is more often expressed with complete seriousness. But the bolded text is just, IMO, plain wrong. A magic surge barbarian isn't any less a Barbarian than the PHB subclasses. The 5e barbarian doesn't hate magic. Maybe, for you, that means the Barbarian has lost it's identity, or become soemthing it wasn't before, but that doesn't change the fact that the 5e Barbarian isn't contradictory to magic. This barbarian, in particularly, simply has the ability to sense magic around themselves, and their body is infused with planar magical energy. It's not like they gave them Spellcasting. They learned one spell that is there because it would be silly to spell out the same benefits but pretend it's not the same thing, so they just made the feature that is basically detect magic just be detect magic. That's less spellcasting than the totem barbarian. The Storm Herald is infused the power of storms. That's magic as hell. This Barbarian is fueled by deeply experienced emotions and a physical tie to a place they are "touched" by. To me, that's "DnD Barbarian" as it gets. Their rage expresses their emotional and physical bond to the physical place they are touched by into an external effect. That is...I mean it's seriously 100% Barbarian. But even if it weren't, so what? Why would that mean we might as well not be using classes? A subclass that subverts the trope of it's parent class is exactly what you described above as fueling your creativity! Imagine a world wherein all barbarians still hate magic. Ignore how incompatible that is with 5e in general, and any issues of "why do all barbarians feel the same way about something that broad?" Now, there's a subclass for Barbarians that are magic. It's a perfectly cromulent character concept for that base class, made in a way that the player that it appeals to doesn't have to create a wierd mechanical kludge in order to create such a character. That's awesome. That's exactly one of the primary benefits of even having subclasses. Some will reinforce the primary tropes, so will mix them with outside tropes, and some will directly subvert them. All without having to convince a DM to allow multi-classing, and potentially be told, "well, since it's a multi-class build, it can't be a level 1 concept, so you have to jump through these in game hoops in order to take the level of sorcerer", or whatever, and even then it still doesn't actually mesh or accomplish the goal of being a barbarian that is infused with magic, because you can't magically Rage, and the two classes fight eachother in every aspect of the game, instead of coming together to make a character who is a primal warrior fueled by the ability to enter into a frenzied state, who is infused by the natural magic of their weird little mountain valley that is a crossroad into the land of the mercurial and terrifying Fey. It's the same sort of concept as the Storm Warden, but with planar themes instead of storm themes.</blockquote>

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