Belzique
2017-12-24, 08:48 AM
Good day,
This is a barbarian subclass that tries to utilize the Ki feature of monks to create a barbarian with a slightly different skillset based on options and choices given a limited resource.
This thread was originally posted with quite a different mindset behind the abilities (which are still relatively similar) and the old version can be found in the spoilers at the bottom of the post. I've decided to keep the original name of the post, although I'd prefer to call the current version "Path of the Ancient Sentinel".
The premise this is built on is that if a Four Elements monk uses all of their Ki to cast spells, they are casting approximately the same amount of spells as a ranger or a paladin, effectively making monks "half casters" in a sense. This means that a "full caster" monk would get 40 Ki per short rest, and a "1/3rds caster" monk would get 13.33 Ki per short rest. Using this information, as well as the fact that the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster exist, I've created this "1/3rds caster monk" subclass for the barbarians. Here are its features:
Path of the Ancient Sentinel
Often in the company of druids or rangers, barbarians of the Path of the Ancient Sentinel draw on the power of nature. Having a particular affinity for the most prominent aspect of living nature, trees, they create tree totems to signify their connection.
Spiritual Connection
When you adopt this path at 3rd level, you can spend 1 hour in ritual to summon a totem which acts as a conduit to the spirits you channel. Your access to these spirits is represented by a number of spirit ethos, from now on referred to as ethos points. Your barbarian level determines the number of points you have, as shown in the Ethos Points table found below. You may only have one totem at a time, performing the 1 hour ritual to summon a totem while you already have one active instantly destroys the previous totem.
The totem has the statistics of a warhammer or a maul when wielded as a weapon by you (your choice whenever you summon it). If you choose for your totem to have the statistics of a warhammer when wielding by you, it has the statistics of a club when wielded by others. Likewise, if you choose for your totem to have the statistics of a maul when wielding by you, it has the statistics of a greatclub when wielded by others. While wielding your totem you can calculate the AC granted to you by your Unarmored Defense feature as 10 + your Wisdom Modifier + your Constitution modifier. All other rules of the feature apply. Your totem counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
Whenever you are wielding your totem you can spend ethos points to fuel your two ethos features: Earthshock and Enchant Totem. Once you spend ethos points they become unavailable until you finish a short or long rest.
Some of your ethos features require your target to make a saving throw to resist the feature's effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:
Ethos save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Earthshock
As an action on your turn while you are raging, you can spend 1 ethos point to slam your totem into the ground, creating a thunderwave that damages nearby creatures. Each creature within 10 feet of you must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 1d8 thunder damage. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage. The damage this feature does increases by 1d8 for each additional ethos point you spend to perform it, although you can never spend more ethos points than listed in the Ethos Points table.
Enchant Totem
As a bonus action on your turn, you can spend 1 ethos point to enchant your totem with the spirits. The totem remains enchanted until the end of your turn or until you successfully hit a creature with an attack, at which point the attack does damage equal to the damage you would do on a critical hit, and the enchant ends. While your totem is enchanted you cannot critically hit with it. If you perform this ethos feature on the same turn as your Earthshock ethos feature, the enchantment instead lasts until the end of your next turn.
Here we're basically giving the barbarian the "1/3rds caster" version of the Ki feature. The totem is mostly for flavor and can easily be replaced or removed, but it's also a nice way to give the barbarian this alternate version of unarmored defense keying off of Wisdom to make them less MAD. I felt it makes sense to have the Ki features key off Wisdom to keep in line with monks. Earthshock is comparable to the thunderwave spell in that a Four Elements monk would use 2 Ki points to cast a 1st level spell, and thunderwave even has a rider in the pushback that earthshock doesn't have. Enchant totem is likelier to be the Ki (or well, ethos) dump for barbarians, but I hope it's balanced out by the fact that it's basically useless if you miss or crit.
Fissure
At 6th level, whenever you use your Earthshock ethos feature, you can choose to have the area it affects be a line 5-feet wide and 120-foot long originating from you.
As the 6th level feature has usually been a ribbon-ish (semi-useful only) one for barbarians and I was lacking an idea for this subclass I threw in this slight buff for the earthshock ethos feature. It can easily be replaced by anything if it makes earthshock too powerful, especially considering the next part.
Aftershock
Starting at 10th level, whenever a creature fails the Constitution saving throw on your Earthshock ethos feature (including echo waves created by the Echo Slam feature) or when you hit a creature with your totem while it is enchanted by your Enchant Totem ethos feature, you can spend 1 ethos point in an attempt to surge it with additional power to stun it. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn.
Basically a worse version of the monk's Stunning Strike, requiring you to spend Ki points to even get the option to spend even more Ki in an attempt to stun.
Echo Slam
At 14th level, whenever you use your Earthshock ethos feature, you can spend 3 additional ethos points to amplify it. Each creature besides you in the radius affected echoes the wave you created, prompting each creature within a 10-feet radius of that creature to be subject to the feature's effects. This feature cannot damage you. If a creature is hit by multiple Earthshock effects as a result of this feature, it only makes one saving throw to determine whether it succeeds or fails.
Just like last time, this is really where the balance falls apart. This is not a good feature if you're facing a small amount of enemies but likely way too good if you have a large amount of opponents facing you.
Ethos Points Table
| Barbarian Level | Ethos Points | Max Ethos Per Earthshock |
| 3 | 5 | 3 |
| 5 | 6 | 3 |
| 7 | 7 | 3 |
| 9 | 8 | 4 |
| 11 | 9 | 4 |
| 13 | 10 | 5 |
| 15 | 11 | 5 |
| 17 | 12 | 6 |
| 19 | 13 | 6 |
All feedback is welcome and appreciated.
I wanted some evaluation of my earthshaker inspired barbarian subclass, hope I'll find some here.
Enchant Totem
When you adopt this path at 3rd level, you build a totem which acts as a conduit between you and the spirits you channel. The totem has the statistics of a maul when wielded as a weapon by you and is considered a druidic focus to you. If you are raging and are wielding your totem you can use an action to cast the earth tremor spell by slamming your totem down. The spell is cast at a level equal to half your proficiency bonus (rounded down) and its DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier. If you do so your totem becomes enchanted for 1 minute or until your rage ends. If your attack against a target hits while your totem is enchanted, you may choose to roll your damage dice as if it had been a critical hit, at which point the totem loses its enchantment early. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Strength modifier. You regain all uses of this feature when you finish a long rest.
Compared to the features granted by Totem Warrior path I figure being able to cast one specific spell five times a day is reasonable. The crit damage on a hit is what I'm less sure about. I figure the way it scales with Brutal Critical would make it balanced across levels but I'd appreciate input here. Note that it is not an auto-crit, but rather you have to hit first and then you can make the damage of a critical hit.
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 10 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
You cause a tremor in the ground within range. Each creature other than you in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. If the ground in that area is loose earth or stone, it becomes difficult terrain until cleared, with each 5-foot diameter portion requiring at least 1 minute to clear by hand.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 1st.
Druidic Spirit
At 6th level, you learn a number of druid spells that you can cast as rituals. These spells are carved into your totem, which you must have in hand while casting one of them. You learn one 1st-level druid spell of your choice that has the ritual tag. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for spells cast in this fashion. If you come across a spell in written form, such as a magical spell scroll or a druid's scripture, you might be able to add it to your totem. The spell must be on the druid spell list, the spell's level can be no higher than half your level (rounded up), and it must have the ritual tag. The process of copying the spell onto your totem takes 2 hours per level of the spell, and costs 50 gp per level. The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the paint and adornments you work into your totem while recording it.
As the 6th level feature has usually been a ribbon-ish (semi-useful only) one for barbarians and I was lacking an idea for this subclass I threw this nerfed (one spell instead of two) and subpar (who'd choose druid, really?) version of ritual caster in here. I justify it by having this subclass have a greater connection to the spirits in my setting.
Aftershock
Starting at 10th level, your Enchant Totem feature becomes stronger. All creatures within range of the earth tremor spell cast through the feature must now also succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier) or be stunned until the start of your next turn.
A barbarian will probably have a pretty high Strength modifier, meaning the DC will be at its highest. So this is basically a pretty good chance to stun everyone in a 10 feet radius (6x6 square area if I'm reading the spell correctly). I figured I'd offset this by having the stun only last until the start of the next turn instead of end of the next turn.
Echo Slam
At 14th level, your Enchant Totem feature becomes even more powerful. The damage the spell does increases by 1 per creature inside the radius of the spell.
Feature changed somewhat since original posting, see comment #3. Like this it's not a great feature for a typical adventuring encounter but in return you can quite easily slaughter up to 240 low CR creatures in 30 seconds, assuming they're tightly packed enough and you can get into the middle of them.
I'd really appreciate feedback here, as I know homebrew tends to be very unbalanced.
This is a barbarian subclass that tries to utilize the Ki feature of monks to create a barbarian with a slightly different skillset based on options and choices given a limited resource.
This thread was originally posted with quite a different mindset behind the abilities (which are still relatively similar) and the old version can be found in the spoilers at the bottom of the post. I've decided to keep the original name of the post, although I'd prefer to call the current version "Path of the Ancient Sentinel".
The premise this is built on is that if a Four Elements monk uses all of their Ki to cast spells, they are casting approximately the same amount of spells as a ranger or a paladin, effectively making monks "half casters" in a sense. This means that a "full caster" monk would get 40 Ki per short rest, and a "1/3rds caster" monk would get 13.33 Ki per short rest. Using this information, as well as the fact that the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster exist, I've created this "1/3rds caster monk" subclass for the barbarians. Here are its features:
Path of the Ancient Sentinel
Often in the company of druids or rangers, barbarians of the Path of the Ancient Sentinel draw on the power of nature. Having a particular affinity for the most prominent aspect of living nature, trees, they create tree totems to signify their connection.
Spiritual Connection
When you adopt this path at 3rd level, you can spend 1 hour in ritual to summon a totem which acts as a conduit to the spirits you channel. Your access to these spirits is represented by a number of spirit ethos, from now on referred to as ethos points. Your barbarian level determines the number of points you have, as shown in the Ethos Points table found below. You may only have one totem at a time, performing the 1 hour ritual to summon a totem while you already have one active instantly destroys the previous totem.
The totem has the statistics of a warhammer or a maul when wielded as a weapon by you (your choice whenever you summon it). If you choose for your totem to have the statistics of a warhammer when wielding by you, it has the statistics of a club when wielded by others. Likewise, if you choose for your totem to have the statistics of a maul when wielding by you, it has the statistics of a greatclub when wielded by others. While wielding your totem you can calculate the AC granted to you by your Unarmored Defense feature as 10 + your Wisdom Modifier + your Constitution modifier. All other rules of the feature apply. Your totem counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
Whenever you are wielding your totem you can spend ethos points to fuel your two ethos features: Earthshock and Enchant Totem. Once you spend ethos points they become unavailable until you finish a short or long rest.
Some of your ethos features require your target to make a saving throw to resist the feature's effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:
Ethos save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Earthshock
As an action on your turn while you are raging, you can spend 1 ethos point to slam your totem into the ground, creating a thunderwave that damages nearby creatures. Each creature within 10 feet of you must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 1d8 thunder damage. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage. The damage this feature does increases by 1d8 for each additional ethos point you spend to perform it, although you can never spend more ethos points than listed in the Ethos Points table.
Enchant Totem
As a bonus action on your turn, you can spend 1 ethos point to enchant your totem with the spirits. The totem remains enchanted until the end of your turn or until you successfully hit a creature with an attack, at which point the attack does damage equal to the damage you would do on a critical hit, and the enchant ends. While your totem is enchanted you cannot critically hit with it. If you perform this ethos feature on the same turn as your Earthshock ethos feature, the enchantment instead lasts until the end of your next turn.
Here we're basically giving the barbarian the "1/3rds caster" version of the Ki feature. The totem is mostly for flavor and can easily be replaced or removed, but it's also a nice way to give the barbarian this alternate version of unarmored defense keying off of Wisdom to make them less MAD. I felt it makes sense to have the Ki features key off Wisdom to keep in line with monks. Earthshock is comparable to the thunderwave spell in that a Four Elements monk would use 2 Ki points to cast a 1st level spell, and thunderwave even has a rider in the pushback that earthshock doesn't have. Enchant totem is likelier to be the Ki (or well, ethos) dump for barbarians, but I hope it's balanced out by the fact that it's basically useless if you miss or crit.
Fissure
At 6th level, whenever you use your Earthshock ethos feature, you can choose to have the area it affects be a line 5-feet wide and 120-foot long originating from you.
As the 6th level feature has usually been a ribbon-ish (semi-useful only) one for barbarians and I was lacking an idea for this subclass I threw in this slight buff for the earthshock ethos feature. It can easily be replaced by anything if it makes earthshock too powerful, especially considering the next part.
Aftershock
Starting at 10th level, whenever a creature fails the Constitution saving throw on your Earthshock ethos feature (including echo waves created by the Echo Slam feature) or when you hit a creature with your totem while it is enchanted by your Enchant Totem ethos feature, you can spend 1 ethos point in an attempt to surge it with additional power to stun it. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn.
Basically a worse version of the monk's Stunning Strike, requiring you to spend Ki points to even get the option to spend even more Ki in an attempt to stun.
Echo Slam
At 14th level, whenever you use your Earthshock ethos feature, you can spend 3 additional ethos points to amplify it. Each creature besides you in the radius affected echoes the wave you created, prompting each creature within a 10-feet radius of that creature to be subject to the feature's effects. This feature cannot damage you. If a creature is hit by multiple Earthshock effects as a result of this feature, it only makes one saving throw to determine whether it succeeds or fails.
Just like last time, this is really where the balance falls apart. This is not a good feature if you're facing a small amount of enemies but likely way too good if you have a large amount of opponents facing you.
Ethos Points Table
| Barbarian Level | Ethos Points | Max Ethos Per Earthshock |
| 3 | 5 | 3 |
| 5 | 6 | 3 |
| 7 | 7 | 3 |
| 9 | 8 | 4 |
| 11 | 9 | 4 |
| 13 | 10 | 5 |
| 15 | 11 | 5 |
| 17 | 12 | 6 |
| 19 | 13 | 6 |
All feedback is welcome and appreciated.
I wanted some evaluation of my earthshaker inspired barbarian subclass, hope I'll find some here.
Enchant Totem
When you adopt this path at 3rd level, you build a totem which acts as a conduit between you and the spirits you channel. The totem has the statistics of a maul when wielded as a weapon by you and is considered a druidic focus to you. If you are raging and are wielding your totem you can use an action to cast the earth tremor spell by slamming your totem down. The spell is cast at a level equal to half your proficiency bonus (rounded down) and its DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier. If you do so your totem becomes enchanted for 1 minute or until your rage ends. If your attack against a target hits while your totem is enchanted, you may choose to roll your damage dice as if it had been a critical hit, at which point the totem loses its enchantment early. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Strength modifier. You regain all uses of this feature when you finish a long rest.
Compared to the features granted by Totem Warrior path I figure being able to cast one specific spell five times a day is reasonable. The crit damage on a hit is what I'm less sure about. I figure the way it scales with Brutal Critical would make it balanced across levels but I'd appreciate input here. Note that it is not an auto-crit, but rather you have to hit first and then you can make the damage of a critical hit.
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 10 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
You cause a tremor in the ground within range. Each creature other than you in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. If the ground in that area is loose earth or stone, it becomes difficult terrain until cleared, with each 5-foot diameter portion requiring at least 1 minute to clear by hand.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 1st.
Druidic Spirit
At 6th level, you learn a number of druid spells that you can cast as rituals. These spells are carved into your totem, which you must have in hand while casting one of them. You learn one 1st-level druid spell of your choice that has the ritual tag. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for spells cast in this fashion. If you come across a spell in written form, such as a magical spell scroll or a druid's scripture, you might be able to add it to your totem. The spell must be on the druid spell list, the spell's level can be no higher than half your level (rounded up), and it must have the ritual tag. The process of copying the spell onto your totem takes 2 hours per level of the spell, and costs 50 gp per level. The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the paint and adornments you work into your totem while recording it.
As the 6th level feature has usually been a ribbon-ish (semi-useful only) one for barbarians and I was lacking an idea for this subclass I threw this nerfed (one spell instead of two) and subpar (who'd choose druid, really?) version of ritual caster in here. I justify it by having this subclass have a greater connection to the spirits in my setting.
Aftershock
Starting at 10th level, your Enchant Totem feature becomes stronger. All creatures within range of the earth tremor spell cast through the feature must now also succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier) or be stunned until the start of your next turn.
A barbarian will probably have a pretty high Strength modifier, meaning the DC will be at its highest. So this is basically a pretty good chance to stun everyone in a 10 feet radius (6x6 square area if I'm reading the spell correctly). I figured I'd offset this by having the stun only last until the start of the next turn instead of end of the next turn.
Echo Slam
At 14th level, your Enchant Totem feature becomes even more powerful. The damage the spell does increases by 1 per creature inside the radius of the spell.
Feature changed somewhat since original posting, see comment #3. Like this it's not a great feature for a typical adventuring encounter but in return you can quite easily slaughter up to 240 low CR creatures in 30 seconds, assuming they're tightly packed enough and you can get into the middle of them.
I'd really appreciate feedback here, as I know homebrew tends to be very unbalanced.