Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 7871638" data-attributes="member: 72555">Inspired by UA, my go at it.  Design notes in italic.BarbarianThese changes are aimed at two things.The first, and probably most important, is to remove the low-level Barbarians dependency on Great Weapon Master to put out damage.  The synergy with reckless attack is simply so large that it crowds out other options.The second part is to address the 9-19 level problem, where every single feature is so lackluster that advice is generally to stop advancing as a Barbarian at level 8.Reckless Weapon MasterStarting at 3rd level, when raging and making a reckless attack, you can take a -5 penalty to hit in exchange for a +10 bonus to damage on a strength-based melee attack.  You may not also use the Great Weapon Master similar feat feature on the same attack.This opens up small barbarians, two-weapon barbarians and sword-and-board barbarians damage-wise.  GWM grants out-of-rage/reckless damage and the bonus action followup.Reckless Critical (Alternative to Brutal Critical 9, 13 and 17)Starting at 9th level, while Raging and making a Reckless Attack, you score a critical hit on a 19-20 and deal 1 extra die of weapon damage.This increases to 3 extra dice at level 13 and 6 extra dice at level 17.The old Brutal Critical was very weak.  This both gives the Barbarian the much-coveted 19-20 crit range, and grants about 2 DPR per level from 9 to 19 instead of a fraction of a point.With 19-20 crit range, d12 weapon die, and 2.5 attacks/round, each crit die is worth about 3 DPR.  19-20 crit range itself is worth about 1.5 DPR with a d12 weapon and 2.5 attacks/round (but also scales with extra damage dice, like holy weapon/flame tongue/etc, and Great Weapon Master.)So this grants 4.5 DPR at level 9, 6 DPR at level 13 and 9 DPR at level 17, for about +19.5 DPR from level 9 to 17.The old feature granted 1.5 DPR at level 9, 13 and 17 under similar assumptions, which was anemic.This does cost you critical dice while not raging and making a reckless attack.Inner Rage (Improvement to Persistent Rage)Starting at 15th level, you always have advantage on Strength, Charisma(Intimidation) checks, Strength saves, and saves against being Charmed or Frightened.The first half is a half ribbon and half mechanical social/exploration feature.  The second half makes the high level Barbarian a bit less easy to gimped by mental magic.  These are all things that would be reasonable to be good at if you have a reserve pool of rage within you at all times to tap into.Unstoppable (Replacement for Indomitable Might)Starting at level 17, the minimum value you can roll on a d20 when you make a Strength check or save, a Constitution check or save, a Wisdom or Charisma save, or a Charisma(Intimidation) check is the value of the attribute in question, before modifiers.Indomitable Might as a 18th level feature was a bit of a joke.  This is serious -- you are going to be able to say "no" to certain situations, or simply state "yes".  A L 20 barbarian with 24 strength athletics trained barbarian is going to have a check and save of 37 -- this is veto levels of check/save.  And at 17 levels into Barbarian, being able to simply say "no, you aren't going to trap me with something I can muscle through" is a reasonable ability.  Ginormous Abomination of a T-Rex grabs you with their mouth?  You just muscle your way out, automatically.The Barbarian remains vulnerable to intelligence saves, and high wis/cha saves that aren't charm or fear (like banishment); this provides a save floor; without further investment, it doesn't help against "epic" level monster wis or charisma saves.  With investment (14 stat, proficiency gives a min save of 22) it can.</blockquote>

Verification