So, confession time: the Barbarian is the one class in D&D I've actually never played even a little - while I've only played the Warlock, Monk, Sorcerer, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger in any long-running sense (the Warlock, Monk and Sorcerer primarily in Adventurer's League,) and the rest mostly in one-shots or lower-leveled AL stints, I've never actually had a Barbarian character sheet in front of me to play.
So this is all theoretical.
Barbarians' primary purpose in the group is twofold - while they don't get super high armor, the "physical" damage reduction from Raging makes them great at absorbing damage (their d12 hit die also means they tend to have the most health of any characters, even before you get into their generally high Constitution.)
But rage also means that they deal a pretty hefty amount of damage with their attacks - while it only caps out at 4 extra damage at higher levels, this adds up (consider that the bonus on magic weapons is only ever +3.) By level 20, should you get that far and do it all in Barbarian, you will probably have a +7 to Strength, maybe a +3 weapon, and +4 from Rage, meaning every hit deals your weapon die plus 14 (not to mention if you've gone for Great Weapon Master or if you roll a crit!)
So Barbarians deal a lot of damage and they can take a lot of punishment. Let's see how the various subclasses aid you in those roles.
Path of the Berserker:
As is often the case in the PHB, there's a subclass that doesn't so much add to the class as much as it embodies the quintessential version of it. The Berserker is very much that for Barbarians.
At level 3, you get Frenzy. When you go into a Rage, you can make that rage a Frenzied Rage. While frenzied, you can make a single melee attack as a bonus action on each turn. When the rage ends, you suffer a level of exhaustion. One level of exhaustion is not too bad if you're otherwise fine (it means disadvantage on ability checks,) but this can be pretty punishing if you're dealing with other forms of exhaustion. That said, getting an additional attack each round can be really good (and again, recall that you've got that Rage bonus meaning your hits hit hard.)
At level 6, you get Mindless Rage. While raging, you can't be charmed or frightened, and if you enter your rage while under such an effect, it's suspended while you're raging. This is actually fantastic - given that Barbarians need to focus a lot on having high Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity, their mental stats like Wisdom can suffer significantly, making them susceptible to mental effects. Knocking all charm and fear off the table is great - never worry that your Barbarian is going to get dominated and turn on you, or have to run from the dragon that just roared.
At 10, you get Intimidating Presence. You can use an action to force a creature you can see within 30 feet of you (that can see or hear you) to make a Wisdom saving throw on a DC based on your Charisma. On a failure, it'll be frightened of you until the end of your turn. On subsequent turns, you can use your action to extend the duration another turn. The effect ends early if the creature ends its turn out of line of sight of you or more than 60 feet away. If it succeeds on the save, it's immune to this effect for 24 hours. While cool in theory, the fact that your DC is Charisma-based is a bit tough (as we said earlier, you don't have a lot of flexibility to boost mental stats.) Still, in the event that a creature fails its save, you can keep them away pretty effectively - though it takes your action, which again is a downside.
At 14, you get Retaliation. If you take damage from a creature within 5 feet of you, you can use a reaction to make a melee weapon attack against them. This is a great punishing move for what is probably the group tank - between this and frenzy you're effectively doubling your damage output in the right circumstances. Simple but really effective.
The Berserker doesn't really have any giant bells and whistles, but it does do a great job of embodying what you'd want out of a Barbarian.
Path of the Totem Warrior:
A somewhat more spiritual path for the Barbarian, you have a spirit animal as a totemic guide. Now, the term "spirit animal" is one that is a bit fraught with cultural appropriation, though on the other hand, human cultures across the world have affiliated with mythical animal spirits, so I think just try to be thoughtful and respectful in your RP for this kind of subclass.
At level 3, you get Spirit Seeker. You gain the ability to cast beast sense and speak with animals, but only as ritual spells.
Also at 3, you get Totem Spirit. You must make or acquire some kind of amulet or other kind of totem to represent the animal with whom you are communing (you might also take on physical aspects associated with the animal, like thick hair for the bear spirit or golden eyes for the eagle.) The book suggests that you can re-skin these creatures for other similar ones - for example, rather than eagle, you might have a connection to a vulture spirit. The options are:
Bear: While raging, you have resistance to all damage except psychic.
Eagle: While raging and not wearing heavy armor, other creatures have disadvantage on opportunity attacks against you, and you can dash as a bonus action.
Elk: While raging and not wearing heavy armor, your walking speed increases by 15 feet (on top of ordinary Barbarian unarmored movement!)
Tiger: While raging you can add 10 feet to your long jump distance and 3 feet to your high jump.
Wolf: While raging, your friends have advantage on attack rolls against creatures within 5 feet of you that are hostile to you.
Among these, I think Bear and Wolf are clear stand-outs. Bear means you're going to be extremely resilient against even magical foes, and wolf will be a huge buff to your party.
At level 6, you get Aspect of the Beast. You get a new bonus based on an animal spirit, and you can choose the same one or a different one than your level 3 feature.
Bear: Your carrying capacity is doubled, and you have advantage on strength checks to push, pull, lift, or break objects. This will save you from really ever having to rage outside of combat, and if you're also a Goliath, Firbolg, or other race with "powerful build' this means you can carry an enormous amount.
Eagle: You can see up to 1 mile away with no difficulty, and discern fine details even if something is up to 100 feet away from you. Dim light does not impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks. Kind of cool, in the right situation.
Elk: Whether mounted or on foot, your travel pace is doubled, as is the travel pace for up to ten companions within 60 feet of you if you're not incapacitated. This can actually really speed up a Tomb of Annihilation-style wilderness exploration campaign.
Tiger: You gain proficiency in two skills from the following list: Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth, and Survival. Nice to have.
Wolf: You can track other creatures while traveling at a fast pace, and move stealthily while traveling at a normal pace. This really depends on if your campaign is tracking travel that closely.
I'd say these are a bit less obvious in terms of utility. The extra skills from Tiger are pretty great, while the rest are pretty situational.
At 10th level you get Spirit Walker. You can cast Commune with Nature as a ritual, and a spiritual version of your totem animals will appear to convey the information. Pretty cool, and a nice way to give the Barbarian utility beyond "I'm the one who hits things."
Finally, at 14, you get Totemic Attunement, gaining another bonus based on an animal spirit. As with the previous features, you can choose either the same spirit or a different one.
Bear: While raging, any creature within 5 feet of you that is hostile has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets that aren't you or another creature with this feature. A creature is immune to this if they are immune to the frightened condition or can't see or hear you. This is actually a great "tanking" ability to focus enemy attention on you, though you need to be right up close to them.
Eagle: While raging, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed, though if you end your turn in mid-air, you fall if you're not standing on anything or held by anything. Still nice for crossing big gaps or striking at foes. I think technically falling is forced movement, and thus should not provoke opportunity attacks (though depending on the height, you might take a chunk of fall damage. Good thing you're resistant to bludgeoning damage!)
Elk: While raging, you can use a bonus action while moving to pass through the space of a Large or smaller creature. The creature must make a Strength saving throw (with a DC based on your Strength,) getting knocked prone and taking bludgeoning damage equal to 1d12 + your Strength modifier on a failure. It's a pretty cool maneuver to set both yourself and allies up for advantage on melee attacks, not to mention a bit of extra damage.
Tiger: While raging, if you move at least 20 feet in a straight line toward a Large or smaller target right before making a melee weapon attack against it, you can use a bonus action to make an additional melee weapon attack against it. I doubt you'll get more than once per combat, but it could be a way to take out a foe quickly, which is cool.
Wolf: While raging, you can use a bonus action on your turn to knock a Large or smaller creature prone when you hit it with a melee weapon attack. This is similar to the Elk, but a bit different - you don't get the bonus damage and can't set yourself up for advantage on both of your attacks, but on the other hand, there's no save against it, which is pretty sweet.
Honestly, all of these are pretty good.
So, overall, I think the Totem Warrior is actually a very strong choice of subclass, and on top of that, its customizability is really good (I realize I sort of sped past lists of options for subclasses like the Battle Master, Arcane Archer, and Rune Knight earlier - maybe I shouldn't have.
Path of the Battlerager:
This is a really weird one from SCAG. For a class that often goes unarmored, this is built around a special type of nonmagical armor that only exists in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. On top of that, it's the only remaining subclass with a race restriction (Bladesinging was originally an elf-only Wizard subclass, but its reprint and revision in Tasha's removed that restriction.) So get ready for some weird, outdated design!
As I mentioned, this subclass is restricted to Dwarves, though the book does say that at the DM's discretion, this restriction can be lifted, regardless of the setting you're using.
At 3 you get Battlerager Armor, allowing to use Spiked Armor as a weapon. Spiked Armor is statistically identical to Scale Mail, but costs 25 gp more and is covered in spikes (facing out - we're not going all Hellraiser here.) While raging, you can use a bonus action to make a melee weapon attack with your armor spikes against a target within 5 feet of you, using Strength as your ability for the attack. The armor does 1d4 piercing damage (and of course gets your Strength and Rage bonuses on damage.) Also, when you use the attack action to grapple a creature, the target takes 3 piercing damage if your grapple succeeds.
So... weird. Let's read on.
At 6, you get Reckless Abandon. When you use Reckless Attack while raging, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier. These vanish when your rage ends. The weird thing here is that, because the subclass is built around wearing armor, you might not prioritize Con as much as other Barbarians do. Still, up to 5 (or 7 at level 20) tempt hit points each round if you're always attacking recklessly could be good.
At 10, you get Battlerager Charge. You can dash as a bonus action while raging. Certainly not bad, though of course you can't use it on the turn you rage. Actually, let's be fair, that's some good added mobility, which you'll want to make sure you can maintain your rage.
At 14, you get Spiked Retribution. If a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with a melee attack, they take 3 piercing damage if you are raging, aren't incapacitated, and are wearing spiked armor. Should we tell the people who wrote this that 3 damage is not very much damage? It's like how I feel like Heavy Armor Master is probably not worth it. Even if a Marilith hits you with all seven of their melee attacks, that's a grand total of 21 damage - but wait, because your armor isn't doing magical damage (though I wonder if a +1 set of Spiked Armor would make its damage magical...?) that's halved to (rounded down) 1 damage for each, meaning only 7 total damage.
Yeah, this is very, very weird and I think just not good.
So, this is interesting. Some classes (the Warlock, for example,) have mostly underpowered options in the PHB I assume because they needed to get a better sense of what the right power level should be. I think the PHB Barbarian subclasses are actually both pretty good, but the Battlerager is just a total mess (which is not uncommon in SCAG subclasses.)
Next post we'll look at the three subclasses out of Xanathar's, and then finish off (man this seems short compared to the Clerics) the class with Tasha's in the subsequent one.
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