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Spectrulus
2019-12-27, 03:58 AM
Hey all! I had this idea floating in my head for a while, just feel like it might be worth sharing now that I've revised and play-tested it a bit.

The archetype is built a little around the Fourth Edition Warden, and barbarian seemed like a good fit in 5e. Basic premise is one concentration spell active while raging, and that is why the level 6, 10, and 14 features are on the weak side for a barbarian. Since most of the spells and Rage share a 1 minute duration, they pair together pretty well.w

PATH OF THE WARDEN FEATURES
Barbarian Level Feature
3rd Primal Warrior, Nature's Wrath
6th Stormheart
10th Lifespirit's Blessing
14th Guardian's Might

PRIMAL WARRIOR
You learn two cantrips of your choice from the Druid Spell List. You learn an additional druid cantrip of your choice at 10th level.

They count as barbarian spells for you, and Constitution is your spellcasting ability for them. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace one of these cantrips with another cantrip from the druid spell list.

NATURE'S WRATH V.3
Starting at 3rd level, you emanate a primal energy while you rage. You are able to cast Nature's Wrath spells while raging, but you are still unable to cast spells from other classes or features while raging. As part of the bonus action to begin raging, you may also cast one of your Nature's Wrath spells. You may also cast any of your Nature's Wrath spells as a bonus action on subsequent turns. Your concentration on a spell cast this way automatically ends when you stop raging, even if its duration would normally be longer.

Constitution is your Spellcasting Ability for your Warden Spells. The power of your Spells comes from your connection with natural energies. You use your Constitution whenever a Warden spell refers to your Spellcasting Ability. In addition, you use your Constitution modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a Warden spell you cast and when Making an Attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your Proficiency Bonus + your Constitution modifier
Spell Attack modifier = your Proficiency Bonus + your Constitution modifier

You are treated as a spellcaster one third of you barbarian level (rounded down). When you reach 7th level, treat the spell as having been cast from a 2nd level slot, a 3rd level slot from level 13, and a 4th level from level 18. You know a number of Warden Spells equal to half your Barbarian level rounded up. Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the spells you know from this class and replace it with another spell from the Warden Spell list, which also must be of a level for which you meet or exceed.

Older Versions in Spoiler

NATURE'S WRATH V.1
Starting at 3rd level, you emanate a primal energy while you rage. Nature's wrath replicates a spell effect that activates when you enter your rage and ends when your rage stops. You do not need to concentrate on the effects but they end immediately when your rage stops.

NATURE'S WRATH V.2
Starting at 3rd level, you emanate a primal energy while you rage. When you begin raging, choose a spell from your Warden Spell Effect list to activate as part of the bonus action. Nature's Wrath's effect ends when your rage stops.

You know a number of Warden Spells equal to half your Barbarian level rounded up. Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the spells you know and replace it with another spell from the Warden Spell list, which also must be of a level for which you meet or exceed.

You may choose spells from the below list based on your barbarian level:

WARDEN SPELL LIST

3RD LEVEL
Ensnaring Strike
Entangle
Faerie Fire
Fog Cloud
Hunter's Mark
Jump
Longstrider
Shield of Faith
Zephyr Strike

7TH LEVEL
Alter Self
Barkskin
Dust Devil
Enlarge/Reduce
Flaming Sphere
Gust of Wind
Healing Spirit
Heat Metal
Moonbeam
Spider Climb
Warding Wind

13TH LEVEL
Aura of Vitality
Beacon of Hope
Conjure Animals
Elemental Weapon
Fly
Melf's Minute Meteors
Protection from Energy
Sleet Storm
Stinking Cloud

18TH LEVEL
Conjure Elementals
Conjure Woodland Creatures
Elemental Bane
Giant Insect
Grasping Vine
Guardian of Nature
Stoneskin
Storm Sphere
Watery Sphere

STORMHEART
At 6th level, the wilds protect you while defend them. While you are raging, you may gain resistance to acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage for the duration of your rage.

LIFESPIRIT'S BLESSING
At 10th level, you learn to use your connection to the ancients to protect others. Each creature of your choice has the same active damage resistance from your Stormheart feature while the creature is within 30 feet of you.

GUARDIAN'S MIGHT
At 14th level, ancient power surges through your weapons. At the start of each of your turns while raging, you may add 1d8 acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage to your weapon attacks this round.

Some Design Choices
- Avoided spells that require an action to maintain to ensure barbarian still attacking. Only spells with Bonus Action to keep up or that not require interaction
- Chose spells that are combat focused to suit archetype. Beast Bond, Detect Poison and Disease seemed unnecessary.
- Hunter's Mark won't be super helpful for tracking, but should still be usable for fighting.
- Some spells were borrowed from non-druid non-ranger class spell lists as thematically appropriate.
- Modified wording on Nature's Wrath to indicate casting of spells.
- Increased spell list per suggestions

Any critiques, feedback, or wording tips would be greatly appreciated.

Damon_Tor
2019-12-27, 11:36 AM
I feel like Nature's Wrath has some weird wording you put in there so you could avoid having him actually "cast a spell", but why not just have him... cast the spell? I think the language would be neater if you just wrote the feature as an exception to the normal barbarian spellcasting prohibition rather than go through the whole song and dance of simulating a spell casting without technically casting a spell.

I like the concept a lot though.

EDIT: Some more spells that could be good-
Alter Self: Growing horns or gills all seems well in keeping with the Warden's various abilities.
Enlarge/Reduce: Getting big was a very common effect of Warden powers in 4e.

Old Harry MTX
2019-12-28, 04:50 AM
I feel like Nature's Wrath has some weird wording you put in there so you could avoid having him actually "cast a spell", but why not just have him... cast the spell? I think the language would be neater if you just wrote the feature as an exception to the normal barbarian spellcasting prohibition rather than go through the whole song and dance of simulating a spell casting without technically casting a spell.

I like the concept a lot though.

EDIT: Some more spells that could be good-
Alter Self: Growing horns or gills all seems well in keeping with the Warden's various abilities.
Enlarge/Reduce: Getting big was a very common effect of Warden powers in 4e.

I like the concept, but I also agree with everything Damon_tor said.

Spectrulus
2019-12-29, 02:03 AM
I feel like Nature's Wrath has some weird wording you put in there so you could avoid having him actually "cast a spell", but why not just have him... cast the spell? I think the language would be neater if you just wrote the feature as an exception to the normal barbarian spellcasting prohibition rather than go through the whole song and dance of simulating a spell casting without technically casting a spell.

I like the concept a lot though.

EDIT: Some more spells that could be good-
Alter Self: Growing horns or gills all seems well in keeping with the Warden's various abilities.
Enlarge/Reduce: Getting big was a very common effect of Warden powers in 4e.

Thanks for the reply!

My thought process for avoiding giving spell casting was that I didn't want to overwrite the rage mechanic of "If you are able to cast Spells, you can't cast them or concentrate on them while raging." because I didn't want to write an exception into the rules.
I thought maintaining a rage by attacking was an elegant way to keep a "concentration," mechanic and to keep the subclass true to playing like a barbarian. As long as the character is hitting or being hit, the spell effect maintains.
I was trying to avoid making a barbarian boost Wisdom for spellcasting's sake. I did not want to have it allow casting during a rage to make it a homebrew archetype a "dip" for casters as Nature's wrath ignores concentration, which feels strong to me.
This feature also makes an awesome Primal Champion capstone with infinite spells at level 20, albeit only 4th level.

The only thing I can think of by adding Alter Self to the list is that 1 minute of gills or horns may not be that useful with the Nature's Wrath mechanic. I presume you were thinking if this was a caster subclass?

Enlarge/Reduce could be interesting, and flavorful, but I don't think it scales well.

I gave the wording a rewrite with what I think is simpler, see below

NATURE'S WRATH
Starting at 3rd level, you emanate a primal energy while you rage. When you begin raging, choose a spell from your Warden Spell Effect list to activate as part of the bonus action to rage. Nature's Wrath's effects end when your rage stops.

Any other ideas or input?

Damon_Tor
2019-12-29, 01:38 PM
Thanks for the reply!

My thought process for avoiding giving spell casting was that I didn't want to overwrite the rage mechanic of "If you are able to cast Spells, you can't cast them or concentrate on them while raging." because I didn't want to write an exception into the rules.
I thought maintaining a rage by attacking was an elegant way to keep a "concentration," mechanic and to keep the subclass true to playing like a barbarian. As long as the character is hitting or being hit, the spell effect maintains.
I was trying to avoid making a barbarian boost Wisdom for spellcasting's sake. I did not want to have it allow casting during a rage to make it a homebrew archetype a "dip" for casters as Nature's wrath ignores concentration, which feels strong to me.
This feature also makes an awesome Primal Champion capstone with infinite spells at level 20, albeit only 4th level.

To be clear, I support the design goals of how you've approached the casting here, I just feel like trying to avoid the word "casting" is going to lead to more trouble than it's worth. You either under-define your not-casting system and create gaps in the rules and unforseen side effects, or you effectively rewrite the rules for spellcasting to fit this new context. Neither is a good result.


The only thing I can think of by adding Alter Self to the list is that 1 minute of gills or horns may not be that useful with the Nature's Wrath mechanic. I presume you were thinking if this was a caster subclass?

Alter Self's natural weapon is a great value for a second level spell. For one thing, it gives you a magic weapon if you're lacking one, which can be extremely important to overcome resistances or immunities. The gills and swim speed could be critical facing a black dragon style aquatic lurker type enemy. In both cases they're solutions to specific problems: they aren't useful often but when you need them you REALLY need them.


Enlarge/Reduce could be interesting, and flavorful, but I don't think it scales well.

It's true, there's no scaling on the spell. Purely from a damage dealing perspective it would get outclassed by elemental weapon, but it would fill an important gap in the meantime.


I gave the wording a rewrite with what I think is simpler, see below

NATURE'S WRATH
Starting at 3rd level, you emanate a primal energy while you rage. When you begin raging, choose a spell from your Warden Spell Effect list to activate as part of the bonus action to rage. Nature's Wrath's effects end when your rage stops.

The simplicity is good, but there are still problems. You've lost your spellcasting modifier, you've lost upcasting.

Spectrulus
2020-01-03, 12:25 AM
To be clear, I support the design goals of how you've approached the casting here, I just feel like trying to avoid the word "casting" is going to lead to more trouble than it's worth. You either under-define your not-casting system and create gaps in the rules and unforseen side effects, or you effectively rewrite the rules for spellcasting to fit this new context. Neither is a good result.

Alter Self's natural weapon is a great value for a second level spell. For one thing, it gives you a magic weapon if you're lacking one, which can be extremely important to overcome resistances or immunities. The gills and swim speed could be critical facing a black dragon style aquatic lurker type enemy. In both cases they're solutions to specific problems: they aren't useful often but when you need them you REALLY need them.

It's true, there's no scaling on the spell. Purely from a damage dealing perspective it would get outclassed by elemental weapon, but it would fill an important gap in the meantime.

The simplicity is good, but there are still problems. You've lost your spellcasting modifier, you've lost upcasting.

Thanks for the feedback! I had to take some time to figure out how to word it. I've edited the first post again with my third shot. I also added some spells that made sense for the class as well.

I didn't lose the upcasting, it was part of another paragraph.