Barbarians appear to be getting a somewhat more subtle set of revisions, but with some quality-of-life changes, and naturally, the massive new Weapon Mastery system, which will give them a lot of new tactical choices.
For these class reviews, I'm going to go through each class feature, though I'll gloss over those which are more or less unchanged (hopefully I will not miss subtler changes).
At 1st level, Barbarians get Rage, Unarmored Defense, and Weapon Mastery.
Rage works similarly to how it previously did, granting the same bonuses and the same proscription on spellcasting or concentration.
The big change is that taking damage no longer extends your rage, but you can now extend it by forcing an enemy to make a saving throw, or simply by using your bonus action.
This will make it far less annoying when, for example, all nearby enemies are dead and you have to dash to get to a new target. Maintaining rage is now fully in the Barbarian's hands, and should reliably last until the end of its full duration.
Oh, and that duration is now 10 minutes, which means that you can use a single rage in multiple fights, or gain the exploration benefits (such as advantage on strength checks) after combat ends.
Unarmored Defense works how it already did.
Weapon Mastery is the new system for Warriors, and is detailed in my previous post. Barbarians begin with two Masteries they can have active at a time, gaining a third at 4th level and a fourth at 10th level. These can be swapped on a long rest, so if you're really into Greataxes but then get an awesome magic Greatsword, you only need to sleep for the night and practice with the sword to be able to use its mastery property.
At 2nd level, you gain Primal Knowledge and Reckless Attack.
Reckless Attack is the same as it always was, except it must be chosen on your first attack (though as DM I'd totally let someone do it later if they chose).
Primal Knowledge gives you proficiency in another Barbarian skill. Additionally, when Raging, you can swap out a skill's normal ability modifier for Strength if that skill is Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth, or Survival. The idea behind this is that the primal power that your Strength represents is coursing through you and enhancing these abilities.
While "Rage Stealthing" is a hilarious idea, I also wonder if they're de-emphasizing the ability for DMs to adjust the abilities for certain skills, such as the classic Strength (Intimidation,) or if this is merely meant as a new avenue for that kind of thing.
At 3rd level, you choose your subclass. We'll cover the sample subclass, the Berserker, after we cover the Barbarian.
At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you get a feat, as usual.
At 5th level, you get Extra Attack, as normal.
Also at 5th, you get Fast Movement, which works the same as it does currently.
At 7th level, you get Feral Instinct, which no longer has the functionality around being surprised, but also folds in Danger Sense, giving advantage on Initiative rolls and Dexterity Saving Throws.
At level 9, you get Indomitable Might, which works the same but is now coming far, far earlier.
At level 11, you get the new Brutal Critical, which now comes as a single feature. Rather than adding dice to the damage, you now instead add damage equal to your Barbarian level.
While this would seem to remove the one eventual benefit from the Greataxe, the new weapon mastery makes that choice far more nuanced. Now, you'll always be able to hit like a truck when you land a crit. I think this will generally amount to more damage than the old version in most cases.
At level 13, you get Persistent Rage, which works more or less the same, allowing you to keep raging regardless of what's going on as long as you aren't incapacitated or wearing heavy armor.
Given the change to allow you to maintain rage with a bonus action, this is far less impactful than it previously was, but it's still a nice little bonus.
At 17th level, you get Rage Resurgence, which causes you to regain an expended Rage when you roll initiative.
That's precisely when you need a Rage, and so this comes close to meaning you can't run out of them. While this is not quite the old level 20 "unlimited rage" thing from the current version, it nearly amounts to the same a few levels earlier.
At level 18, you get Primal Champion, which has been nerfed to only increasing the value and max of your Strength and Constitution by 2, rather than 4, but given the presence of the universal Epic Boon feat, you'll still be able to get one of those stats to 24 if you hit max level.
Notably missing is Relentless Rage, which allowed you to persist through getting knocked to 0 HP with increasing Con save DCs. This feature is crazy powerful, but I think Barbarians are and will continue to be plenty resilient without it. Given the buff of weapon mastery, I think that this change, while I'm sure it will enrage some Barbarian fans, is probably warranted.
Having a Barbarian in my long-running Ravnica campaign, I can tell you that the "maintain rage with a bonus action" change is going to be absolutely world-changing. There was nothing more frustrating for that player than having wasted his rage at the beginning of a fight because all the nearby creatures were gone, and he hated any fight that took place in a large room. This will go a long way to fixing that issue.
Weapon Mastery is going to be a huge change for the game, and I think Barbarians are going to probably feel a lot more compelling when they can throw their weight around the battlefield a bit more.
Now, let's take a look at the Berserker:
At 3rd level, you get Frenzy. This has been radically redesigned. Now, while Raging, if you make a Reckless Attack, you deal extra damage to the first target you hit on your turn, rolling d6s equal to your rage bonus. So, you go from 2d6 to eventually 4d6 additional damage per turn.
No exhaustion. Yeah, no extra attack either, but no exhaustion. There's going to be very little reason not to use this, and encourages the Berserker to fight recklessly, which is very on-brand. I think this also compares similarly with, for example, the Zealot's Divine Fury.
At 6th level you get Mindless Rage, which, as before, grants immunity to the Charmed and Frightened conditions.
It also no longer just suppresses an existing effect, but ends it, which is great and what it should have been all along.
At 10th level, you get Retaliation, which allows you to make an attack as a reaction against any creature within 5 feet of you that deals damage with an attack against you. This has basically been moved to a lower level, and also allows you to use this with Unarmed Strikes.
Simple and good. Not much to say.
At 14th level, you get Intimidating Presence - swapped with Retaliation from the current version. Intimidating Presence. It has also been simplified and improved. As an action, you force all creatures of your choice within 30 feet of you, or 60 feet if you're raging, to make a Wisdom saving throw with a DC based on your Strength (not Charisma, as it currently is) if they aren't behind total cover. On a failure, they're frightened for 1 minute, or until they succeed on a repeated save at the end of their turn. You can do this once per long rest, but you can expend a use of Rage to use it again.
So, a couple things. The first nuance to point out is that, because Rage is maintained if you force a creature to make a saving throw now, this can be used mid-combat without needing to do anything else to keep your rage up. Second, this now hits potentially a lot of targets, and could have great tactical utility. It is more limited in use now - the old version can be used as many times as you want, though creatures who succeded on their saves got a 24-hour immunity, which the new version does not include. So, if you think you can afford to spend rages, you can use this multiple times per fight.
Overall, I think the Berserker is looking a lot better thanks to a bit of shuffling. Getting Retaliation at the end of tier 2 is very nice, and Frenzy is much more usable than it previously was, and less punishing.
I think the Barbarian overall feels more like a tweaked class than a fully redesigned one (meet me in a few posts to talk about the Warlock) but I think the changes here are good. The only really notable loss here is Relentless Rage, but as I said before, I think the class has gained more than it needed to make up for that loss.
Next post, we'll take a look at the Fighter!
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