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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Barbarian Subclass: Bloodstorm Blade (WIP)



Dralnu
2017-02-14, 04:23 PM
Path of the Bloodstorm Blade PDF (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1pdYIcfHauwTnF6bFZoeS1GVEk/view?usp=sharing)


Path of the Bloodstorm Blade
Barbarians typically unleash their fury in the form of melee combat alone. Barbarians who follow the Path of the Bloodstorm Blade instead learn to channel their rage through ranged attacks as well, becoming equally adept at taking out their foe in both close quarters and at a distance. A barbarian that follows this path can hurl their devastating weapons at enemies and ricochet them back to their hands.


Furious Throw
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you've fully incorporated your throwing techniques into your regular arsenal. You may count your thrown weapon attacks as if they were melee weapon attacks for the purposes of abilities and feats.


Returning Attacks
At 3rd level, any weapon you throw can ricochet back to you at your command. You may have any weapon you throw immediately return to you, requiring no action to catch it on your part.


Throw Anything
At 6th level, your strength and mastery of throwing techniques has allowed you to throw greatswords as easily as others hurl daggers. You can treat all melee weapons that you are proficient with as if they had the Thrown property, with a base range of 20/60.


Throw People
At 10th level, you can use an action to pick up and throw a friend or foe. The creature must be no more than one size larger than you, must be within your reach, and you must have at least one hand free.
Throw Friend. If the creature is a willing ally, you throw the target into any unoccupied space within 60 feet. That creature may immediately use its reaction to make one weapon attack, adding double your Strength modifier to the attack’s damage roll.
Throw Foe. If the creature is an opponent, make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use.) If you succeed, you grab and throw the target into any unoccupied space within 30 feet, where it takes damage equal to double your Strength modifier and falls prone.


Raging Whirlwind
Beginning at 14th level, you can send your weapon spinning into a gravity-defying whirlwind of pain. Once per rage as an action, you may throw a weapon with the Thrown property to a point you choose within 60 feet. The weapon fills the air as a whirlwind in a cube 10 feet on each side. A creature takes damage equal to the thrown weapon’s damage + your Strength modifier + your Rage Damage when it enter’s the whirlwind’s area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there. This effect ends when you command the weapon to return to you as a free action or your rage ends.

Nimlouth
2017-02-14, 08:09 PM
This is SO cool :D

It is a great alternative than just the standard "ME SMASH" Barbarian. The "Throw Anything" Feature also is just awesome.

However, I think it could use more options. When someone says "Bloodstorm Blade Barbarian" I imagine a raging frenzy of steel and blood flying everywhere as countless hordes of goblinoids fall under the feet of a titanic goliath.

60ft. is A LOT of range for an ability such as the whirlind rage. Make it 30-40ft. and add options to that feature:

Instead of just being able to do that, let the player choose from other alternatives for this "move" like:

- A 15ft. cone "Rake" sweep. (THIS pls xd)
- A "Catch my weapon and hit another target" cleave-fashioned attack.
- An "Ignores/breaks Cover" attack
- A "Throw a small creature" skill-check Attack
- Maybe something that causes bleeding?

Just naming some ideas. The barbarian falls into the "I just attack every round and meat-shield the party" problem really often so this more offensive path looks like a good oportunity to let the barbarian do awesome (and bloody) things. Although, don't loose the "Brute force instead of skillfullness" feeling of the barbarian while adding things.

Nice work m8. I can also help you add fluff if you need :)

Rhaegar14
2017-02-14, 08:52 PM
It's certainly not the best, but this was probably one of the coolest PrCs from Tome of Battle. It's cool to see somebody adapting it. Raging Whirlwind doesn't seem worth an action to me; it seems to have the same problems as Cloud of Daggers, where it's really difficult to force them to stay in it. I suppose you could grapple as a Barbarian, though.

Why give them Throw Anything so late? The fact that they were flinging greatswords, not daggers, was one of the iconic things about the Bloodstorm Blade to me.

I'm sure this is intended, but for clarity I might specify in Furious Throw that they can make ranged attacks without penalty while in melee.

Potato_Priest
2017-02-14, 09:22 PM
I'm sure this is intended, but for clarity I might specify in Furious Throw that they can make ranged attacks without penalty while in melee.

Why would that make any difference? Unless the player is using darts or a net, they can make a melee attack with a thrown weapon anyway. I'd rather not encourage the use of darts myself. This is a Barbarian, remember.

Rhaegar14
2017-02-14, 09:27 PM
Why would that make any difference? Unless the player is using darts or a net, they can make a melee attack with a thrown weapon anyway. I'd rather not encourage the use of darts myself. This is a Barbarian, remember.

Simple. I'm adjacent to enemy A and would like to throw my greatsword at enemy B without moving out of melee with enemy A. It's an uncommon situation but not out of the question.

Potato_Priest
2017-02-14, 09:55 PM
Simple. I'm adjacent to enemy A and would like to throw my greatsword at enemy B without moving out of melee with enemy A. It's an uncommon situation but not out of the question.

Good point. Seems like something they should be able to do. It's common in lots of fiction for warriors to pause in their current fight to throw a weapon to help an ally.

An additional feature I would suggest is the ability to draw weapons without expending interaction.

Dralnu
2017-02-15, 02:00 PM
Nimlouth:
My initial idea for the subclass was to be the Barbarian equivalent of the Battlemaster, where you get a list of techniques to choose from. But looking at Barbarian subclasses vs. Fighter ones, it feels like the Fighter subclasses are stronger than Barbarians, possibly because the base classes are different power levels too? I can still do something like that, and it would be sweeter but also more complex and harder to balance.

Oh and yes, if you have any good ideas for the flavor section I'm all for it. I'm drawing a blank.

Rhaegar14:
For Raging Whirlwind, my idea was to treat it as area denial which you can further abuse with forced movement. If it's too weak perhaps I could double its radius? Or maybe make it more like Flaming Sphere and less like Cloud of Daggers?

For Throw Anything, I thought that letting them chuck greataxes would be too big of a damage boost early, but in fact I think it's not a boost at all. Throwing 2 handaxes should be superior to throwing 1 greataxe. Also your thrown weapons do not benefit from Great Weapon Master, or Sharpshooter's power attack feature. So maybe I add it at 6th level?

I'll clarify Furious Throw, thanks. EDIT: Actually, why not keep that flaw? All ranged classes / casters deal with this already, except the Barbarian has less of an issue because you can just swing with your weapon at the person beside you.

Potato_Priest:

I don't think a "quick draw" feature is needed since your thrown weapons are instantly returning to you, no need to pull out new ones each time.

Rhaegar14
2017-02-15, 07:53 PM
Rhaegar14:
For Raging Whirlwind, my idea was to treat it as area denial which you can further abuse with forced movement. If it's too weak perhaps I could double its radius? Or maybe make it more like Flaming Sphere and less like Cloud of Daggers?

For Throw Anything, I thought that letting them chuck greataxes would be too big of a damage boost early, but in fact I think it's not a boost at all. Throwing 2 handaxes should be superior to throwing 1 greataxe. Also your thrown weapons do not benefit from Great Weapon Master, or Sharpshooter's power attack feature. So maybe I add it at 6th level?

I'll clarify Furious Throw, thanks. EDIT: Actually, why not keep that flaw? All ranged classes / casters deal with this already, except the Barbarian has less of an issue because you can just swing with your weapon at the person beside you.

Disclaimer: at least this far, I am primarily approaching this from the perspective of what I thought was cool about Bloodstorm Blade and being faithful to that, not necessarily what's balanced, though I try to include some consideration of balance.

The thing that was awesome about Bloodstorm Blade is that for all intents and purposes they could make melee attacks at range for their swift action. They didn't provoke opportunity attacks, and they could still use Power Attack and other melee feats. The only thing that limited them was their range.

A Bloodstorm Blade was not going to fling daggers at you (though it often got used for that purpose because Lightning Ricochet was basically mandatory on any thrown weapon build, I'm mostly talking about what I saw as the spirit of the class as a whole). A Bloodstorm Blade was going to hurl a weapon almost as big as themselves through the air, and when it hit you it was gonna hurt just as bad as if they had closed to melee. Then it bounced back to their hand and they could either do it again, just like if they were in melee with you, or turn around and slam it into your friend who you thought was going to get a free attack out of it.

That might seem unbalanced in the 5e landscape, but stop and think about how far most thrown weapons actually go. There are few situations (though admittedly not no situations) that a 20 foot range is gonna make the difference in the character getting attacks or not. Frankly, if you wanted to give them Throw Anything early, and let them use all their melee goodness, you could cut it to dagger range, 10/30. Then, really, all they have is reach, and the OPTION to throw their weapon up to 30 feet with disadvantage (which they can wash with Reckless Attack, so it's not a useless capability for them to have). Perhaps you could give them an improved version as a capstone with longer range and some other benefit.

So I would suggest working Furious Throw and Throw Anything into the same ability. You can treat your attacks with thrown weapons as melee attacks, and any melee weapon you wield has the thrown (10/30) property unless it already has thrown with a longer range.

On Raging Whirlwind, that is really just from my experiences with my play group, where we have trouble leveraging our Bard's Cloud of Daggers into more than one instance of damage. This is also a party that doesn't have a single grapple check worth a damn (of the two of us with decent Strength scores neither one has Athletics proficiency), and no control casters besides the Bard (we have a Wizard, but he's an evoker and uses the vast majority of his spells for blasting; this is not badwrongfun, but it doesn't really help us reliably combo off Cloud of Daggers hahaha). In its current state Raging Whirlwind is probably quite strong as long as the Bloodstorm Blade has a one-handed weapon and Athletics proficiency. Although, from a realism perspective, the Barbarian shouldn't be able to hold their opponent in the whirlwind without their arm getting sliced to ribbons. I will say confidently, however, that a 5 foot cube (1 square) is rarely actually usable as area denial, assuming the DM (like ours) doesn't allow you to do shenanigans by placing it partially in multiple squares. It's just not big enough.

Potato_Priest
2017-02-15, 08:28 PM
Dagger range in 5e is 20/60.

Rhaegar14
2017-02-15, 09:08 PM
Dagger range in 5e is 20/60.

So it is. Huh. Still, I think the rest of the argument for 10/30 is fine.

chando
2017-02-15, 09:37 PM
I have a couple suggestions based on the thread and my own view as DM and player. One of the nice thing was that you could power attack with throwing melee weapons, but the power attack on both sharpshooter and GWM are considered by many to be OP and no class get that kind of boost to damage, so its probably best if they stayed on those feats alone. I think those give more of a tome of battle feel.(with some small amount text borrowing :P)
Sorry if i meddle too much its just that i had the tab open on my browser for a while today :P

Bloodstorm Blade

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/tob_gallery/99691.jpg
The most famous adepts of the bloodstorm style are the orcs of the Bloddied Axe tribe, where every baby is said to carry an axe since birth, but they are not the only practitioners of this deadly style. Many races and cultures have adapted ways to utilize throw weapons more effectively in close combat, such as the deadly jungle halflings or the goblinoid-descendant barbarians from beyond the mountains. Whatever their origin, practitioners of this style learn how to become just as deadly at distance as they are in close combat, with the masters of this path often becoming much more dangerous when a weapon leaves his hands than when he holds onto it.

Furious Throw
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you've fully incorporated your throwing techniques into your regular arsenal. You may treat your thrown weapon attacks as if they were melee weapon attacks for the purposes of all barbarian abilities such as Rage and Reckless Attack.

Throw Anything
At 3rd level, your strength and mastery of throwing techniques has allowed you to throw great weapons as easily as others hurl daggers. You can treat all melee weapons that you are proficient with as if they had the Thrown property, with a base range of 20/60. Additionally, you can draw or stow any number of weapons during your turn.

Returning Attacks
At 6th level, any weapon you hurl can ricochet back to you at your command. You may have any weapon you throw immediately return to you, requiring no action to catch it on your part.

Eye of the Storm
At 10th level, you learn to center your being and adopt a mindset of calm readiness despite the furor of battle raging about you. In any round where you have moved no more than half your speed, ranged attacks made against you have disadvantage, and being within 5 feet of a hostile creature does not give you disadvantage on throw weapons attacks.

Martial Throw
At 14th level, you learn a series of deadly throwing techniques. Once per rage, you can use one of the following actions. You regain the use of this ability whenever you score a critical hit with a weapon attack or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one.
Blood Wind Ricochet. You can hurl your weapon at a foe and compel it to ricochet to other enemies before hurtling back to your waiting hand. Make a throw weapon attack against a target within range. If this attack hits, you can choose a new target and make a new attack, calculating cover and range penalties from the last target position. You can repeat this attack until you miss or you have struck a number of targets equal to your Dexterity modifier. No foe can be targeted more than once by the same use of this ability.
Ligthning Throw. You can hurl your weapon forward in a line of devastation. The line is 60 feet long and 5 feet wide, and each creature in its area must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier). A creature takes damage equal to the thrown weapon's damage + your Strength modifier + your Rage Damage on a failed save and is shunted to the nearest unoccupied space it can occupy outside of the line's path. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage and isn't shunted.
Thunderous Throw. You can use an action to pick up and throw an adjacent creature of your size or smaller. The creature makes a Dexterity saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier). On a failed save, you grab the target and throw him or her into any unoccupied space up to 30 feet, where the target lands prone and takes damage equal to 2d6 + your Strength modifier + your Rage Damage. A successful save negates the effect. A willing creature can allow itself to be thrown, but still makes the saving throw. On a successful save, it takes no damage and avoids landing prone. Using this action on a unwilling creature counts as attacking a hostile creature in order to keep your rage.

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I like to think of the Bloodstorm Blade as melee/thrower damage dealer, with some maneuvers allowing him to take on a controller role in larger battles a bit later on. I would like for it to have maneuvers sooner but they would need to be toned down a lot. i innitially made them with level 10 in mind, but decided to switch since both PHB option have their more offensive feature on the 14th level. And 6th level features on barbarian shouldn't be that much focused on combat anyway. Would be nice to have some sort of exploration or roleplaying ability at 6th level too. A ability to turn your weapon attacks into lightning damage would also not look out of place, although that might be better suited for a ranger-diabloamazon subclass...

On the argument about the weapon range: i see the point for a 10/30 for the actual throw weapons actually have a use, although the point of bloodstorm blade is to throw melee weapons around and if you cant even throw half decently 4 squares away why bother with the subclas? Also you should be able to throw your weapon further than you can walk. I could go either way, but i think 20/60 feels better in play.

edit-spelling

Dralnu
2017-03-01, 07:54 PM
I came back and made some changes to the subclass. I focused on the "throw stuff" aspect so now you can pick up and throw people too, inspired by chando. I was scratching my head how to give the subclass some utility, and I think Throw Friend is a sweet way to do that. You can throw you allies up ledges and stuff!

I tweaked Furious Throw so it not only works with barbarian abilities, but also feats and multiclass stuff. Should be more versatile now.

Raging Whirlwind is the tentative capstone. I think it's a cool ability and I increased the radius so it should be good.