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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Barbarian: Path of the Reaver (attempt at making dual-wielding more optimal)



pygmybatrider
2018-09-25, 04:22 AM
Hi all,

One of my players has asked me to help change his barbarian from a two-handed Zealot build to a dual wielder, while maintaining a similar power level. Here's my first stab at it - I'd love to hear what you guys think. Comments and critique are encouraged.

You can find it in it's pretty form via the homebrewery link or PDF below, or else in plain text below that.
http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HyGCouDFm
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tolX4D967Kdn87tdI6nj2i8NMz2z2oAX/view?usp=sharing

Path of the Reaver

The Path of the Reaver is a call to arms that is felt most strongly by those with a natural passion for hand-to-hand combat. The followers of this path are strong and inhumanly fast, capable of landing multiple attacks before an enemy can attempt to mount a defence. Reavers most often attack with two weapons, showing a mastery over the style rarely seen in mortals.

Bloodlust
When you choose this path at 3rd level, your rage becomes powered by a strong desire to shed blood. When you use the Attack action to attack with a light melee weapon on the same turn that you activate your rage, you can make one additional attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand. If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it, and still gain the benefits of this feature.

In addition, whenever you engage in two-weapon fighting while raging, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.


Iron Grit
At 6th level, your determination to rush into the fray lets you ignore obstacles that would slow down others or stop them in their tracks. While raging, you ignore difficult terrain, and have advantage on saving throws against the paralysed and restrained conditions.

War Cry
At 10th level, your voice has become almost as dangerous as your weapons. As a bonus action, you can unleash a war cry filled with malicious intent. Up to five creatures you can see must make a Wisdom save (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier), or make their next weapon or spell attack at disadvantage. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you have finished a short or long rest.

Flurry
At 14th level, you gain the ability to rain a storm of mighty blows down upon your foes. When you take the Attack action, you can use a bonus action to make two attacks with a different weapon that you're holding in the other hand.

nickl_2000
2018-09-25, 07:28 AM
Disclaimer: I haven't played a barbarian, so this is based on feel more than anything else.

Bloodlust - You are a barbarian. I don't see the need for this to be light weapons only, if you have the TWF feat, then you should be able to do this with heavy weapons. Also this seems overly complication. Basically it's when you use your bonus action to rage, you make make an off hand attack as a free action instead of a bonus action.

War Cry - This is terribly underpowered. You are a level 10 character and once per long rest you can give 5 creatures that fail a wisdom verses a barbarians charisma 1 attack at disadvantage? Very little for a barb is based on charisma, this either needs a re-write or it needs to cause a fear effect or something.

Blackbando
2018-09-25, 08:12 AM
Bloodlust - You are a barbarian. I don't see the need for this to be light weapons only, if you have the TWF feat, then you should be able to do this with heavy weapons.

I don't think letting a barbarian dual wield greatswords is a good idea. Unless you only mean one-handed heavy weapons, which, to my knowledge, don't exist without homebrewing some up. Maybe at higher levels, sure, but at 3rd level it'd just be berserker's Frenzy without any downsides at all.

Vogie
2018-09-25, 08:55 AM
Path of the Reaver

The Path of the Reaver is a call to arms that is felt most strongly by those with a natural passion for hand-to-hand combat. The followers of this path are strong and inhumanly fast, capable of landing multiple attacks before an enemy can attempt to mount a defence. Reavers most often attack with two weapons, showing a mastery over the style rarely seen in mortals.

I understand your desire to make it sound neat, but all of the martial classes with fighting styles (other than paladin) have 2 weapon fighting. They're all mortals.


Bloodlust
When you choose this path at 3rd level, your rage becomes powered by a strong desire to shed blood. When you use the Attack action to attack with a light melee weapon on the same turn that you activate your rage, you can make one additional attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand. If either weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon, instead of making a melee attack with it, and still gain the benefits of this feature.

In addition, whenever you engage in two-weapon fighting while raging, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

All this is giving you is a single extra attack on the same turn that you activate your rage, the TWF fighting style... and nothing else. Give it something more, show us the bloodlust mechanically. Something like:

the initial extra attack from the Gloom Stalker Ranger's level 3 ability, but triggered by your rage.
an equipment change, like the ability to attach chains or ropes to javelins & tridents, allowing you to "fish" for your targets.
Increased damage to "bloodied" targets (those with less than half of their hit points)
Increased damage to targets who are not yet "bloodied"(those with more than half of their hit points)
Some mechanical connection to blood, like self healing when you get a target's blood on you


If you want this to be a TWF class, just give the TWF fighting style, and something like the Dual Wielding feat's ability to use all non-heavy one handed weapons. Definitely add the ability to draw multiple weapons while raging, and maybe add some verbiage that allows this to be the throwing Barbarian Archetype as well.


Iron Grit
At 6th level, your determination to rush into the fray lets you ignore obstacles that would slow down others or stop them in their tracks. While raging, you ignore difficult terrain, and have advantage on saving throws against the paralysed and restrained conditions.

This is fine, if underpowered.


War Cry
At 10th level, your voice has become almost as dangerous as your weapons. As a bonus action, you can unleash a war cry filled with malicious intent. Up to five creatures you can see must make a Wisdom save (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier), or make their next weapon or spell attack at disadvantage. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you have finished a short or long rest.

I'd love to see a "voice that is dangerous as weapons" be actually as dangerous as weapons. And remember, if you're a Dual Wielding class, any bonus action abilities are DPR reducers. I'd make this something more like a Long Death Monk's Hour of Reaping mixed with a Thunderwave:

"Thundering Cry
At 10th level, your voice has become as dangerous as your weapons. When you take this action, each creature within 30 feet of you that can see you must succeed a wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 4d8 thunder damage, is pushed 10 feet away from you, and is frightened of you until the end of your next turn. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage, and isn’t pushed or frightened. The DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier.

The damage increases to 5d8 at level 13, and 6d8 at level 17.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you have finished a short or long rest."


Flurry
At 14th level, you gain the ability to rain a storm of mighty blows down upon your foes. When you take the Attack action, you can use a bonus action to make two attacks with a different weapon that you're holding in the other hand.

This is nice - you have an "extra" extra attack. This will still be under powered if you don't include that DW non-heavy one handed weapons I mentioned in the level 3 feature... it's similar to the monk flurry, but Monks have the growing martial arts die. That, plus the brutal critical features, should keep you on the table, DPR-wise.

nickl_2000
2018-09-25, 09:10 AM
I don't think letting a barbarian dual wield greatswords is a good idea. Unless you only mean one-handed heavy weapons, which, to my knowledge, don't exist without homebrewing some up. Maybe at higher levels, sure, but at 3rd level it'd just be berserker's Frenzy without any downsides at all.

Yes, sorry. I misspoke. By heavy what I meant to say was not light :) So, dual wielding two long swords is a valid option, but not two great swords.

Lalliman
2018-09-25, 10:09 AM
It should be noted that the 6th and 10th level features are supposed to be minor, at least for the core subclasses. I don't think either Iron Grit or War Cry are underpowered, though Iron Grit is pretty boring.

The barbarian's rage damage bonus also provides some extra synergy with making extra attacks. A 3rd level barbarian with a great sword deals 2d6+3+2 = 12 DPR. A 3rd level Reaver deals 2 x (1d6+3+2) = 17 DPR. That I think is easily enough power for the 3rd level feature. The advantage does lessen at 5th level (26 vs 28.5), so you could afford to give something more at 6th with that in mind.

Vogie
2018-09-25, 10:26 AM
The barbarian's rage damage bonus also provides some extra synergy with making extra attacks. A 3rd level barbarian with a great sword deals 2d6+3+2 = 12 DPR. A 3rd level Reaver deals 2 x (1d6+3+2) = 17 DPR. That I think is easily enough power for the 3rd level feature. The advantage does lessen at 5th level (26 vs 28.5), so you could afford to give something more at 6th with that in mind.

Sure, but you can get a bonus action attack with 'zerker barbarian with a d10 or d12 weapon. Being able to switch to d8 weapons will certainly help.

If you want the 10th ability to be a more boring ribbon, switch the 10th and 14th feature, and buff the War Cry feature.

Lalliman
2018-09-25, 10:41 AM
Sure, but you can get a bonus action attack with 'zerker barbarian with a d10 or d12 weapon. Being able to switch to d8 weapons will certainly help.
At a penalty so hefty that berserker is rarely played. It's not a very fair comparison.

Dual-wielding larger weapons is also the domain of the Dual Wielder feat, and it's general principle not to provide the benefits of feats as class features. (Dual Wielder is admittedly a crappy feat, but that should be fixed at the source of the problem.) Of course, Bloodlust should be reworded to actually work with Dual Wielder, which it currently doesn't.

Vogie
2018-09-25, 11:19 AM
Of course, Bloodlust should be reworded to actually work with Dual Wielder, which it currently doesn't.

My bad, I thought you were replying to my post where I had suggested that.

pygmybatrider
2018-09-25, 08:33 PM
Thanks for all your feedback guys. Here's the changes I have made so far.

I have changed the wording of Bloodlust to make it more clear:

Bloodlust
When you choose this path at 3rd level, your rage becomes powered by a strong desire to shed blood. You can make one attack with a one-handed weapon you're holding as part of the bonus action used to activate your rage.

In addition, whenever you engage in two-weapon fighting while raging, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

While I like your ideas for adding more interesting mechanics Vogie, I'm aiming for simplicity with this subclass, and while it may not seem like a huge boost, adding your prof bonus to the second attack actually helps keep this build competitive across levels.

I am also intentionally keeping the benefits of Dual Wielder within the feat itself rather than building them into the subclass. In the way that most 2h barbarians will take GWM and/or PAM, I want our Reaver player to take Dual Wielder.

I actually quite liked the original level 10 feature, but after reflecting on feedback and speaking to my player, this is what we've come up with.

War Stomp
At 10th level, you can channel your rage to slam the ground with such fury that it sends enemies flying. As an action, you can unleash a war cry filled with malicious intent as you stomp the ground. All creatures within 5 feet of you must make a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency modifier + your Strength modifier), or be pushed up to 5 feet away from you.

You can then immediately use your reaction to make one weapon attack against each enemy who failed their saving throw.

Once you have used this feature, you can't use it again until you have finished a short or long rest.

I am not sure how I feel about this keying off a stat that will likely be maxed out by now, but it's only once per rest, and many melee combatants will likely have a high Strength score anyway.

Flurry works with the Dual Wielder feat, which I expect anyone interested in playing this subclass to have picked up by level 14. The level 6 and level 10 features are deliberately less powerful than their 3rd and 14th level counterparts to follow the pattern of the official barbarian subclasses.

Damage comparison, without calculating to-hit chance. In both cases the PC is a Variant Human with the relevant feat: Dual Wielder for Reaver, PAM for Zealot.

Reaver 3: (1d8 + Str + rage) * 2. Avg: 19
Zealot 3: 1d10 + 1d6 + half Barb level + 1d4 + (rage + Str) * 2. Avg 22.5

At level 4, the Reaver takes +2 Str and the Zealot takes GWM.

Reaver 5: (1d8 + Str + rage) * 3. Avg: 31.5
Zealot 5: (1d10 + Str + rage) * 2 + 1d6 + half Barb lel + 1d4 + Str + rage. Avg: 34, without factoring in GWM.

Both max out Strength by level 12, so the Reaver has one additional ASI to put elsewhere.

Reaver 14: (1d8 + Str + rage) * 4. Avg: 50
Zealot 14: (1d10 + Str + rage) * 2 + 1d6 + half Barb level +1d4 + Str + rage. Avg: 48, without factoring in GWM.

A level 14 Reaver using War Stomp, totally surrounded by enemies, who all fail their save: (1d8 + Str + rage) * 8. Avg: 100

A level 14 Zealot, hitting with GWM on all attacks, and getting a PAM attack in the same round: (1d10 + Str + rage + 10) * 3 + 1d6 + half barb level + 1d4 + Str + rage + 10. Avg: 101.5

Seems pretty okay to me overall.

kosh49
2018-09-26, 07:49 PM
I like both of these changes.

Even though the effect of the third level ability is pretty much the same as before the wording is simpler and clearer and it also now works with the dual wielder feat when it did not before.

The 10th level feat feels more useful and shows blood lust better than the original, and it feels like a good improvement.

The thing I would love to see added is a rending effect that gives a small damage boost when the reaver hits an opponent with two different weapons on the reavers turn, but I am not sure where it would fit.