Barbarian: Path of the Blindfighter

[RickAsWritten]

One of my players wants to play a blind barbarian heavily inspired by Jason Momoa in the show See. After watching some of it and getting a feel for how the fighting works, here's the elf sub-race (based on high-elves) and subclass. He is restricted from multi-classing in the game so I'm not super concerned with any weird interactions that that may make.

Barbarian: Path of the Blindfighter

Blindfighting

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you learn to fight without your sense of sight. While you are raging, you gain blindsight with a range of 30ft. If you have blindsight from another source, such as a fighting style or racial ability, the range of your blindsight abilities are cumulative
In addition, when you have advantage on a skill check to initiate a grapple, you can reroll one of the dice.

Close Combat

At 6th level, you have mastered close quarters combat. Once per turn you can use one of the following abilities as a bonus action against a creature you are grappling:
• Suplex. The creature must make a Strength saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier). On a failure the creature takes 1d10 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. On a success, they take When you reach 14th level in this class, the damage increases to 2d10.
• Feel the Lie. Until the end of your next turn, you automatically know if the creature is lying or telling the truth
• Human Shield. Until the start of your next turn or until the grapple is broken (whichever comes first), you can use a reaction to impose disadvantage against one attack roll made against you. If this attack misses, the grappled creature takes damage equal to half of the damage that the attack would have done.

Heightened Senses

Beginning at 10th level, your non-sight-based senses have become stronger. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing.
As an action you can make a special Perception check using only your sense of smell to seek out a specific type of creature or humanoid within one mile of your location. Based on the outcome of the roll, you may learn some or all of the following: the number of that type of creature, their exact location, their heading, and their current emotional state. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest.
In addition, you can use your Feel the Lie ability on any creature that you are touching.

An Intimate Death

At 14th level, you have perfected the brutal art of blindfighting. While you have a creature grappled, your weapon attacks against that creature score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20.


Elf Subrace: Moon Elves of Selena

Ability Score Increase

One ability score of your choice increases by 1 (must be different that your +2).

Born Blind

You can't see, and automatically fail any ability check that requires sight. You are immune to the blinded condition.

Heightened Senses

You have blindsight with a range of 15 feet (blind beyond this radius). Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind total cover, even if you’re in complete darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you.

In addition, you have tremorsense with a range of 30 feet, which can detect and pinpoint the origin of vibrations within a specific radius, provided that you and the source of the vibrations are in contact with the same ground or substance.

Cantrip

You know one cantrip of your choice from the wizard spell list. Wisdom, Intelligence or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it (choose 1).

Extra Language

You can speak, read, and write one extra language of your choice.

[GalacticAxekick]

Blindfighting

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you learn to fight without your sense of sight. While you are raging, you gain blindsight with a range of 30ft. If you have blindsight from another source, such as a fighting style or racial ability, the range of your blindsight abilities are cumulative
In addition, when you have advantage on a skill check to initiate a grapple, you can reroll one of the dice.Blindsight is awesome on a thematic level, and handy in niche situations (in darkness, and against illusions). But it's not particularly powerful, and it doesn't expand the variety of things the player can do.

Similarly, the grappling buff is handy (and a very creative use of the Barbarians rage advantage! Awesome feature writing there!), but ultimately it doesnt increase the strength or variety of things the Barbarian can do.

3rd level needs a little oomph.


Close Combat

At 6th level, you have mastered close quarters combat. Once per turn you can use one of the following abilities as a bonus action against a creature you are grappling:
• Suplex. The creature must make a Strength saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier). On a failure the creature takes 1d10 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. On a success, they take When you reach 14th level in this class, the damage increases to 2d10.
• Feel the Lie. Until the end of your next turn, you automatically know if the creature is lying or telling the truth
• Human Shield. Until the start of your next turn or until the grapple is broken (whichever comes first), you can use a reaction to impose disadvantage against one attack roll made against you. If this attack misses, the grappled creature takes damage equal to half of the damage that the attack would have done.Really cool! I would simplify Human Shield though.

"Until the start of your next turn or until the grapple us broken, you treat the grappled creature as a source of 1/2 cover"

1/2 cover does everything you want this feature to do. It boosts your AC, and when an attack misses you due to that boost, the cover source is hit instead. No need for reactions or disadvantage or half damage.


Heightened Senses

Beginning at 10th level, your non-sight-based senses have become stronger. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing.
As an action you can make a special Perception check using only your sense of smell to seek out a specific type of creature or humanoid within one mile of your location. Based on the outcome of the roll, you may learn some or all of the following: the number of that type of creature, their exact location, their heading, and their current emotional state. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest.
In addition, you can use your Feel the Lie ability on any creature that you are touching. Cool! I might put these at a lower level (for instance, Feel the Lie should've worked like that from the start), but great features!


An Intimate Death

At 14th level, you have perfected the brutal art of blindfighting. While you have a creature grappled, your weapon attacks against that creature score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20.Useful! Barbarians benefit a lot from crits! But kinda underwhelming in my opinion, since I like variety of option more than Big Damage.

Not sure if others feel the same.


Elf Subrace: Moon Elves of Selena

You might be interested in my 5e Race Revision. The Grey Dwarves in that project have 60 feet of tremorsense and a weakened version of your Feel the Lie. It might give you feature ideas!

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?633318-Race-Revised-(Gnome-Barbarians-Orc-Wizards-amp-Hybrids-Hybrids-Hybrids)

[Loek]

For the most part, I'm going to be agreeing with "GalacticAxekick".

So I'll only post a few things I have questions/suggestions/doubts about.

Close Combat, Suplex: This one is fine in a void. But thematically, wouldn't you also be prone afterwards? (Maybe make it so you're prone, but as part of the action, you can stand up again for 5ft of movement?) Also, does it end the grapple? I'd suggest 2 options: 1) you are also prone, but you keep the grapple (and I'd add something that makes it so you can continue using this to your advantage... some Judo/Wrestling type ground fighting) or 2) You stand up with minimal effort, but the grapple breaks (but I'm guess the raging barbarian will then use their action to severely punish the downed enemy)

Close Combat, Feel the Lie: Like GalacticAxekick said, this feels a bit.. limited. I'd split this off from Close combat and instead make it advantage on insight checks to see if someone is lying, always and certainty while grappling (dunno if they'd need a bonus action for that)

An Intimate Death I dunno about this one... I'd be tempted to either expand this or something... Also, weapon attacks (especially with the bigger weapons that a Barbarian typically favors) in a grapple seems... odd.


As written we have a few "senses" features and a lot of close combat fighting.
I'd be tempted to go 3 branches:

Senses: Some neat tricks, lots of flavour - Rarely a main feature on level up, more the "and you also get to do some senses stuff"
Close combat: A main feature, but not on all levels
Something related to blind fighting maybe?: Playing with the fact that you are very likely to ignore visual illusions for example ("hiding behind mirror images, stabbity-death, what mirror images?" <== that could be an easier time hitting/critying because the average illusionist isn't going to expect you to beat their tricks so easily.)



This way, you get less of a 1 trick pony and more of a "the things that blindsight help me with and that I get better at" vibe.

[GalacticAxekick]

Close Combat, Suplex: This one is fine in a void. But thematically, wouldn't you also be prone afterwards? (Maybe make it so you're prone, but as part of the action, you can stand up again for 5ft of movement?) Also, does it end the grapple? I'd suggest 2 options: 1) you are also prone, but you keep the grapple (and I'd add something that makes it so you can continue using this to your advantage... some Judo/Wrestling type ground fighting) or 2) You stand up with minimal effort, but the grapple breaks (but I'm guess the raging barbarian will then use their action to severely punish the downed enemy)As a wrestler in real life, I'd say no.

It's possible to grapple a prone target without falling prone yourself. A few pins involve resting one foot or knee on them while clutching a leg or arm. So suplexing a target prone doesnt mean falling prone yourself, nor releasing them.

[Loek]

While there's a massive difference between prone and indeed actively grappling in real life (Judo here). I don't think there's one in D&D by default. Which is why I suggested the option to quickly get up as part of the suplex. So you don't put yourself in a massive disadvantage with the move.
That said, all the suplex things I've seen (as in, not many, plus some google fu) involve you falling on the ground along with your opponent. Which in D&D has fixed meaning.

Maybe all it needs is a different, fantasy-y, name. And then specifically mention that you can maintain the grapple while they are prone or something. (Though I'd still be tempted to limit the options of such a grappler... which the prone condition already provides)