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Clodix367
2018-07-19, 12:25 PM
So a barbarian with minions or a large pet is a weird kind of archetype I've wanted to play for years but can't exactly find a way to do it. The closest I've come to being mechanically sound is multiclassing with with Beast Master or Circle of Spores from UA but these classes dont mesh the best together with barbarian so I was wondering if there is already a good subclass for this before I jump on Homebrewery

If it doesnt, how would you theme it?
What would you have them summon?
Do they only get summoned during rage or should your rage affect them somehow also?
And do they have any out of combat use?

GalacticAxekick
2018-07-19, 03:33 PM
If it doesnt, how would you theme it?
What would you have them summon?
Do they only get summoned during rage or should your rage affect them somehow also?
And do they have any out of combat use?I wrote homebrew rules for animal handling, which should be in my signature. They allow anyone with Animal Handling to command a tame animal. They also provide feats that make your companion level up with you, share your class features and share it's senses with you.

If you want a minion based path for the Barbarian, I see two thematically relevant methods.

(A) give the Barbarian a companion at 3rd level, and use rage to enter a feral state that shares some features with the companion (think Wild Shape, but the transformation isn't literal)

(B) give the Barbarian leadership features, such as giving allies extra actions, reactions, or movement, giving them resistance to fear, and letting them deal rage damage. Thematically, the Barbarian is flinging allies into rages of their own and siccing them on the enemy.

Summoning a large group of minions doesn't sound thematically appropriate for the Barbarian, in my opinion. But taking after am animal or emboldeming allies are snug fits.

Amnoriath
2018-07-19, 07:48 PM
1. GalacticAxeKick pretty much hit the nail on the head. In traditional Barbarian themes and contexts leadership and an animal companion is the easiest to apply and customize. That being said it isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility to have an outlier that could work really well.
2. What I am thinking that instead of actually summoning an actual creature by raw during rage your summon the manifestation of your anger, pain..etc. Funcrionally it would be more like a special attack action that moves by your will(flavorwise you could play up losing control of it if something tramatic happens or related to your past anger, pain...). It then would scale and act more like an extension of you.

Clodix367
2018-07-19, 08:23 PM
GalaticAxeKick your animal friendship stuff is great and your ideas are pretty dope as well. I think in my head when I was thinking about this myself I had something close to Amnoriath's idea of a spirit extension but I imagined a bunch of small "sparks of rage" possibly doing the support or leader type of abilities rather than them coming from the barbarian himself so you can control your own little mosh pit while moving around the battlefield.

Thanks for the great ideas so far my dudes

GalacticAxekick
2018-07-20, 09:46 AM
2. What I am thinking that instead of actually summoning an actual creature by raw during rage your summon the manifestation of your anger, pain..etc. "This is my stand, 『Rage Against the Machine』."

ChaoticHarmony
2018-07-20, 10:45 AM
I don't know what the mechanics could be for 5e, but you could take some inspiration from Pathfinder's Summoner. It has two archetypes you might be interested in looking at, Broodmaster, and Master Summoner. Broodmaster allows you to have many smaller Eidolons(instead of a single one), and Master Summoner increases the number and power of summoned monsters(other than his Eidolon). You could trade rounds of rage for a summoned monster, which gains the rage bonus instead of you. Or create a "Rage Eidolon" a creature that appears whenever you go into a rage(just like a stand)

Amnoriath
2018-07-20, 06:01 PM
"This is my stand, 『Rage Against the Machine』."
Said while giant tentacles are shredding a guitar.
😆

Clodix367
2018-07-21, 10:29 AM
"This is my stand, 『Rage Against the Machine』."

NOW were getting somewhere

Vogie
2018-07-26, 10:52 AM
An idea:

Feral Barbarian

Home with the Animals
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you gain the ability to cast Animal Friendship as a ritual.

Feral Rage
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can go into a feral rage. If you do so, for the duration of your rage you make a telepathic link with one beast that is friendly or charmed by you with an intelligence of 3 or less. While the link is active, the beast can understand you and can communicate simple emotions and concepts, and has advantage on attacks against any creature it can see within 5 feet of you. (This is the Beast Bond spell from XGtE)

Coordinated Companion
Starting at 6th level, you gain an Animal Companion (Copied from the Revised Beast Conclave Ranger with the same name, with the option to use a Coordinated attack while raging)

Brutality of the Wild
Starting at 10th level, whenever you score a critical hit, the creature you're connected to with Feral Rage gains an extended critical range and the Brutal critical effect for the next turn.

Pack Retribution
Starting at 14th level, when you or your animal companion take damage from a creature that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against that creature. If you hit, your Animal Companion can also use its reaction to make a melee attack against that same creature as well.