Barbarian Path (Path of the Beast Man (or Woman)

[RATHSQUATCH]

Been throwing around this idea of having a "caveman" or "cavewoman" type of barbarian. Please let me know what you think.

PATH OF THE BEAST MAN

A barbarian that follows the path of the beast has taken in nature maybe just a little too far. They change physically, becoming more and more beast-like and some (but not all) lose all sense of their intellect in replacement of primal fury.

PRIMEVAL RAGE

At 3rd level when you select this path, you may enter into a animalistic frenzy that might even frighten a berserker while raging. Whenever you enter into a rage, select two of the following benefits below in addition to your normal rage benefits:


Your speed increases by 15 feet.
You have advantage on all Dexterity checks.
You gain Blood Scent, which allows you to pinpoint the location of creatures who are below their maximum hit points within 30 feet.
Your AC equals 10+ your constitution modifier (or your dexterity modifier) + your proficiency bonus as long as you wear no armor or wield a shield.


REGRESSION

At 6th level, you no longer count as a humanoid for the sake of being targeted by spells, you instead count as a beast for target purposes of spells. In addition, you may select one of the following benefits from below:

Your speed increases by 5 feet.
When you land a critical hit you may apply one additional weapon die of damage to the total. Once you have used this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
After seeing the results of a spent hit dice you may re roll. Once you have used this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.
You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.

PRIMEVAL SENSES

At 10th level, you gain proficiency in the Wisdom (Perception) and Strength (Athletics) skills if you are not already. If you already have these skill proficiencies, you have Expertise in that skill instead.

PRIMEVAL TOUGHNESS

At 14th level, you become extreme difficult to kill due to being hardened by nature. While in a rage you can use a bonus action to gain an additional rage benefit. On your next turn and for the duration of your rage, if you have at least 1 hit point, you regain 5 hit points. You can use these feature once, then require a long rest before it can be used again. In addition, when hit with an attack (magical or nonmagical) you can use your reaction to completely ignore the damage dealt. You can use these feature once, then require a long rest before it can be used again.

EDIT: To adjusted based upon feedback below.

[Revlid]

PRIMEVAL RAGE
At 3rd level when you select this path, you enter into a animalistic frenzy that might even frighten a berserker. During a rage, your teeth seem to elongate and your hair stands on end and you slope down to move on all fours when you can.Does this give you a bite attack? Does moving on all fours interfere with carrying a drawn weapon? I notice there are no provisions made for unarmed attacks, here, so I assume you're still meant to be using your greataxe/giant club etc for that caveman flavour.

I'd make adopting this form a choice, because otherwise the exhaustion cost is going to be utterly debilitating. Remember that you die at six levels of exhaustion. That means you can rage up to five times in a day, maximum, before you just fall over dead.



This animalistic mindset makes you hardier against magical attacks. You have advantage on saving throws against spells due to your awe and superstition of magic.I don't like this at all. You're giving up Intelligence, Charisma and Wisdom in exchange for getting a bonus to the only thing most Barbarians end up using these traits for? Setting aside the way this feature just exists to help make you a one-dimensional, boring character with very few applications outside of combat (and remember – most wild animals have pretty good Wisdom, actually), it makes no sense for a stupid character to be better at resisting spells that affect stupid people, because he's stupid.

No comment on the rest.

[RATHSQUATCH]

Does this give you a bite attack? Does moving on all fours interfere with carrying a drawn weapon? I notice there are no provisions made for unarmed attacks, here, so I assume you're still meant to be using your greataxe/giant club etc for that caveman flavour.

I'd make adopting this form a choice, because otherwise the exhaustion cost is going to be utterly debilitating. Remember that you die at six levels of exhaustion. That means you can rage up to five times in a day, maximum, before you just fall over dead.

I don't like this at all. You're giving up Intelligence, Charisma and Wisdom in exchange for getting a bonus to the only thing most Barbarians end up using these traits for? Setting aside the way this feature just exists to help make you a one-dimensional, boring character with very few applications outside of combat (and remember – most wild animals have pretty good Wisdom, actually), it makes no sense for a stupid character to be better at resisting spells that affect stupid people, because he's stupid.

No comment on the rest.

I'll try to answers these one at a time:

I more thought of it as a flavorful description. I couldn't find how it was balanced with Berserk to only have bite attacks and unarmed attacks.

Exhaustion. If you don't use exhaustion, then this would not balance with Berserker.

As far as loosing attribute points, this is to show a feral progression of your character. I could have made it just Intelligence and Charisma (which I thought about), but playing this character would mean that you give up some intellect or presence to increase your physical prowess. I understand though why some wouldn't like the flavor of this.

As far as resisting spells, I was trying to build in something to represent their pure primal spirit. Most barbarians of this ilk probably haven't heard of "the gods" or of "magic" therefore, they would be frightened to see it and stubborn in resisting it. That's all I was trying to portray. Thanks for the feedback.

[Revlid]

Exhaustion. If you don't use exhaustion, then this would not balance with Berserker.

The Berserker gets to choose whether or not they enter Frenzy. They can enter Frenzy once a day, take a long rest with food and water, and be right as rain in the morning. Primeval Rage doesn't let you choose. It triggers every time you rage, which makes it unusable. That's the problem.

[RATHSQUATCH]

The Berserker gets to choose whether or not they enter Frenzy. They can enter Frenzy once a day, take a long rest with food and water, and be right as rain in the morning. Primeval Rage doesn't let you choose. It triggers every time you rage, which makes it unusable. That's the problem.

I see and had misread. Yes, that was my intention to allow you to choose. I will edit that accordingly.

[Final Hyena]

PRIMEVAL RAGE
At 3rd level when you select this path, you may enter into a animalistic frenzy that might even frighten a berserker while raging. If you do so, your teeth seem to elongate and your hair stands on end and you slope down to move on all fours when you can. You gain the following benefits while raging in addition to the normal raging benefits:


Your speed increases by 10 feet.
You have advantage on all Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks.
After using the Dash action, you can make a melee attack as a bonus action.
Opportunity attacks prompted from you moving away from your opponent are at disadvantage.

When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion.
Given the exhaustion this feels based on frenzy, I believe that an extra 50% (or at level 3-4 an extra 100%) damage is a far stronger ability than primeval rage.
I would suggest either giving it a bit more than it has or take away a few features along with the exhaustion.
As is it heavily steps on the toes of eagle barbarian (which is almost as good and has no exhaustion) perhaps something like this might be more unique;
When you enter a rage pick two of the following benefits.

Your speed increases by 15 feet.
You have advantage on all Dexterity (Acrobatics) & Strength (Athletic) checks.
You gain Blood Scent, which allows you to pinpoint the location of creatures who are below their maximum hit points within 30 feet.
Your AC equals 10+ your constitution modifier (or your dexterity modifier) + your proficiency bonus as long as you wear no armour or wield a shield.



REGRESSION
At 6th level, you can choose to give up your intellect in lieu of other abilities. You can choose to reduce your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by 1 point and increase either your Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution by 1 point. You can decrease your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma and gain a point to Strength, Dexterity or Constitution again at 10th level and 14th level.

This animalistic mindset makes you hardier against magical attacks. You have advantage on saving throws against spells due to your awe and superstition of magic.
On such a MAD class that's very strong, and then advantage on the majority of saving throws? That's kind of crazy. Especially as level 6 is usually a less combat enhancing level for barbarians.
Might I suggest;
Pick one of the three primal paths;

Agile

Your Dexterity increases by 1.
Your speed increases by 5 feet.


Mighty

Your Strength increases by 1.
When you land a critical hit you may apply one additional weapon die of damage to the total. Once you have used this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.


Hardy

Your Constitution increases by 1.
After seeing the results of a spent hit dice you may re roll. Once you have used this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.



PRIMEVAL SENSES

At 10th level, you gain proficiency in the Wisdom (Perception) and Strength (Athletics) skills if you are not already. In addition, you use twice your proficiency bonus when you use these skills.

Finally, you can use the Speak with Animals spell as a ritual.
This is very strong 2 skills, 2 expertise and a ritual spell? Also you are punishing people who wanted to pick perception and athletics at character creation, which given the nature of the class and archetype feels pretty unfair.
Also given the wording of doubling their is potential abuse with expertise, depending on how you interpret it.
Might I suggest;
At 10th level, you gain proficiency with Perception and Athletics, if you are already proficient you gain expertise instead.


PRIMEVAL TOUGHNESS

At 14th level, you become extreme difficult to kill due to being hardened by nature. While in a rage, at the beginning of your turn, if you have at least 1 hit point, you regain 5 hit points.

In addition, when hit with an attack (magical or nonmagical) you can use your reaction to completely ignore the damage dealt. You can use this feature once, then require a long rest before it can be used again.
The HP regen is very strong, the only other example I can think of caps it at half hp (because infinite out of combat healing is quite a thing). It also mixes with rages resistances in a very strong manner, more often than not it's like healing yourself for 10hp. How about making the regen a once per long rest feature you can decide to activate when going into a rage?

[Amnoriath]

Aside from all the mechanical criticism here what I don't understand is how this flavor wise isn't identical and out done by Totem Warriors. Such cosmetic features described is used in the Aspect of the Beast except of course they can have specific animals and connections to nature that make it a far more interesting choice.

[RATHSQUATCH]

Aside from all the mechanical criticism here what I don't understand is how this flavor wise isn't identical and out done by Totem Warriors. Such cosmetic features described is used in the Aspect of the Beast except of course they can have specific animals and connections to nature that make it a far more interesting choice.

I just had an idea of a "pure caveman" and thought that this would fit the vision I had for it. I wanted something that was beyond barbaric...that was instead savage, but without purposely being savage...if that makes sense. Basically a wild man, that goes into fits of rage and doesn't have understanding at all of the modern world.

[RATHSQUATCH]

Given the exhaustion this feels based on frenzy, I believe that an extra 50% (or at level 3-4 an extra 100%) damage is a far stronger ability than primeval rage.
I would suggest either giving it a bit more than it has or take away a few features along with the exhaustion.
As is it heavily steps on the toes of eagle barbarian (which is almost as good and has no exhaustion) perhaps something like this might be more unique;
When you enter a rage pick two of the following benefits.

Your speed increases by 15 feet.
You have advantage on all Dexterity (Acrobatics) & Strength (Athletic) checks.
You gain Blood Scent, which allows you to pinpoint the location of creatures who are below their maximum hit points within 30 feet.
Your AC equals 10+ your constitution modifier (or your dexterity modifier) + your proficiency bonus as long as you wear no armour or wield a shield.



On such a MAD class that's very strong, and then advantage on the majority of saving throws? That's kind of crazy. Especially as level 6 is usually a less combat enhancing level for barbarians.
Might I suggest;
Pick one of the three primal paths;

Agile

Your Dexterity increases by 1.
Your speed increases by 5 feet.


Mighty

Your Strength increases by 1.
When you land a critical hit you may apply one additional weapon die of damage to the total. Once you have used this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.


Hardy

Your Constitution increases by 1.
After seeing the results of a spent hit dice you may re roll. Once you have used this feature you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.



This is very strong 2 skills, 2 expertise and a ritual spell? Also you are punishing people who wanted to pick perception and athletics at character creation, which given the nature of the class and archetype feels pretty unfair.
Also given the wording of doubling their is potential abuse with expertise, depending on how you interpret it.
Might I suggest;
At 10th level, you gain proficiency with Perception and Athletics, if you are already proficient you gain expertise instead.


The HP regen is very strong, the only other example I can think of caps it at half hp (because infinite out of combat healing is quite a thing). It also mixes with rages resistances in a very strong manner, more often than not it's like healing yourself for 10hp. How about making the regen a once per long rest feature you can decide to activate when going into a rage?

Great suggestions. I had not compared the Eagle Barbarian side-by-side when I was working this and didn't even realize. As far as Strength checks during a rage, I may be wrong, but I thought they already had Advantage on all Strength checks during a rage.

Completely can change the level 6 ability, I was just trying to find something that made them seem more savage. Do you think it'd balance if I removed the advantage against spells and just kept the ability decrease/increase at 6, 10, and 14th levels?

At 10th level, I pretty much was giving them not only proficiency, but expertise in the skills at that level. I was under the assumption that if you already had those skills that you can pick a different one of your choice.

The Regen is only usable during a rage, but it makes sense to limit this to once a day.

Thanks for the feedback, I await more of it.

[Final Hyena]

As far as Strength checks during a rage, I may be wrong, but I thought they already had Advantage on all Strength checks during a rage.
You are correct, you could change that line to be acrobatics and dex saves.
Edit; which they kind of already have :(
It's still an improvement though, maybe good enough, maybe needs a little more juice.


Completely can change the level 6 ability, I was just trying to find something that made them seem more savage. Do you think it'd balance if I removed the advantage against spells and just kept the ability decrease/increase at 6, 10, and 14th levels?
Advantage on saves would be rather strong for the good levels (3 & 14), so putting it in at 6th which is usually not a huge deal pushes the archetype above others.
It also doesn't overly fit a primal theme. If anything you would expect animals to be more susceptible to magics (baring the ones that have a minimum Int requirement, although I can't think of any of the top of my head so that might be imagination). Something along the lines of you now count as a beast for the purpose of spells and other affects might fit. This means people trying to use "person" spells will fail to their confusion.

I actually think that's a pretty good balance if you took the "you count as a beast type" along with one of the non stat bonus increases (you know +5 speed etc) it would be very comparable to mindless rage.


At 10th level, I pretty much was giving them not only proficiency, but expertise in the skills at that level. I was under the assumption that if you already had those skills that you can pick a different one of your choice.
Giving 2 skills and expertise is rather strong especially for a level 10 barbarian path.
That is true (although there is a matter of interpretation, it could be read given that it's in the background section that it only applies to background skills).
Given that the game has already has a mechanic (expertise) it saves a lot on wording and confusion to use the terminology.

[RATHSQUATCH]

You are correct, you could change that line to be acrobatics and dex saves.
Edit; which they kind of already have :(
It's still an improvement though, maybe good enough, maybe needs a little more juice.


Advantage on saves would be rather strong for the good levels (3 & 14), so putting it in at 6th which is usually not a huge deal pushes the archetype above others.
It also doesn't overly fit a primal theme. If anything you would expect animals to be more susceptible to magics (baring the ones that have a minimum Int requirement, although I can't think of any of the top of my head so that might be imagination). Something along the lines of you now count as a beast for the purpose of spells and other affects might fit. This means people trying to use "person" spells will fail to their confusion.

I actually think that's a pretty good balance if you took the "you count as a beast type" along with one of the non stat bonus increases (you know +5 speed etc) it would be very comparable to mindless rage.


Giving 2 skills and expertise is rather strong especially for a level 10 barbarian path.
That is true (although there is a matter of interpretation, it could be read given that it's in the background section that it only applies to background skills).
Given that the game has already has a mechanic (expertise) it saves a lot on wording and confusion to use the terminology.

I especially like the idea of being a "beast" type. That pretty much fits what I was going for, thank you. I also think your method of skills at level 10 (either proficiency or expertise depending) is very balanced. I will adjust accordingly. Thank you.