Homebrew Barbarian - Path of the Old Wall

[Arnink]

So, I've decided to try and make a sort of Magic Barbarian. It's my first time actually creating a subclass, and I chose to do a Barbarian caster.

Please feel free to leave a comment. This is not a final version, and I will probably tweak it a little more.


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[/SPOILER]
Spellcasting Ability
Constitution is your spellcasting ability for your spells. You use your Constitution whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Constitution modifier when setting the saving throw DC for spells learned in this subclass spell list.
Spell Save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier

Casting Spells and Concentrating
The Old Wall Barbarian ignores any material components a spell from this subclass needs.
Except for cantrips, this Barbarian can only cast spells when raging. Your rage lasts for 1 minute, but it does not end early if you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, whether your spell causes any damage or not. Additionally, you can concentrate on spells learned from this subclass while raging. Spells that require concentration will last for their duration or until your rage ends, whichever happens first. When you are hit, you still must succeed on a Constitution Saving Throw in order to keep concentrating on the spell.

You can also add your Rage Damage to the damage rolls of any spell you cast.

Spells from this subclass can only be cast with spell slots from their level and can't be cast at higher levels.

Nature Bond
At 3rd level, your spells do not harm you. You take no damage even if you are in the spell's area of effect. You also ignore any difficult terrain created by your spells.

Anger Casting
At 6th level, you can cast a spell learned from this subclass as soon as you rage. The casting time for that spell counts as a bonus action.
Additionally, if you want to cast a spell but have no more spell slots, you can take a point of exhaustion (to a maximum of 3) and cast the spell as an action.

Greater Nature Bond
At 10th level, you completely ignore any difficult terrain and can move freely. You also learn how to walk on water and breath under it.
You are resistant to all damage, except radiant, psychic, and necrotic.

Anger Smite
At 14th level, you can use your anger to put your enemies down. Whenever an enemy is damaged by you or one of your spells' effects, you can knock the enemy prone and bind it to the ground. The enemy must then use all of its movement to get up on its turn. You can use this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. Once you spend all usages of your Anger Smite, you must finish a long rest before you can use this feature again.

[quindraco]

You need to fix your caster slot progression so it plays along with multiclassing with other spellcasters - for example, 2/1 (your slot progression at level 5) doesn't exist. You should obey the standard allocation of slots - you can present the slots in table form if you like, but the slot progression should be ceiling(Barbarian level* fraction), where ceiling becomes floor when multiclassing and frac is 1/1 for full casting, 1/2 for half casting, and 1/3 for third casting. You can use a different fraction if you like, provided you're willing to specify how multiclassing with it will work.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'll also suggest giving them a (standard) 1/2 caster spell slot assignment, and stealing the progression from the Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster to maintain coherency with the greater system, especially given as how you've made Constitution their spellcasting ability modifier.

Instead of letting them simply ignore all material components, steal a line from the Swords bard: If you're proficient with a simple or martial melee weapon, you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your bard barbarian spells.

Does the rage damage apply to all targets of the spell, or a single one? Outright banning people from upcasting is a strange design choice - mind if I ask at the thoughts behind that?

I'd be careful about allowing the subclass to cast beyond their limits, even if it is inflicting exhaustion on them. The spell slot limits exist for a reason, and allowing you to cast a spell as you enter the rage (often giving you a free Quicken metamagic) is likely a powerful enough feature to stand on its own.

I'll throw in a mention that that 10th level feature is hilariously OP. Tenth level features for Barbarians tend to be minor features that improve utility. Yours is a straight up huge defensive buff in addition to the typical utility boost.

Greater Nature Bond
At 10th level, you completely ignore any difficult terrain and can move freely. You also learn how to walk on water and breath under it.
You are resistant to all damage, except radiant, psychic, and necrotic.

It's not only while raging, which is the hilarious part. On a less general note, you're effectively taking the best feature of another subclass (Bear Totem) and giving it to your class. Yes, it's later and (slightly) weaker, but my point remains that stealing another class's feature isn't really great design, imho.

The last feature, however, I feel is a little lacklustre. Freezing them in place and giving you a free Shove effect is neat, sure, but is it really capstone material? Although this gets a little silly when combined with spells like wall of fire to knock down and freeze an entire swath of the enemy.

[Arnink]

You need to fix your caster slot progression so it plays along with multiclassing with other spellcasters - for example, 2/1 (your slot progression at level 5) doesn't exist. You should obey the standard allocation of slots - you can present the slots in table form if you like, but the slot progression should be ceiling(Barbarian level* fraction), where ceiling becomes floor when multiclassing and frac is 1/1 for full casting, 1/2 for half casting, and 1/3 for third casting. You can use a different fraction if you like, provided you're willing to specify how multiclassing with it will work.

Will be done. I was thinking about using the Eldritch Knight chart, but that stops at level 4. But yeah, progression will be fixed.

[Arnink]

Instead of letting them simply ignore all material components, steal a line from the Swords bard: If you're proficient with a simple or martial melee weapon, you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your bard barbarian spells.

I completely forgot about that. That's a good idea for dealing with material components

Does the rage damage apply to all targets of the spell, or a single one? Outright banning people from upcasting is a strange design choice - mind if I ask at the thoughts behind that?

I'd say it applies to all targets and any time the spell deals damage you can add your rage damage. It would be a way to compensate for banning the upcasting. And about that, I wanted people to use magic but not only it. A Barbarian isn't a caster, so a raging one wouldn't be smart enough to upcast a spell. And this helps to limit casting so the Barbarian doesn't forget that hitting people is what it does best.

It's not only while raging, which is the hilarious part. On a less general note, you're effectively taking the best feature of another subclass (Bear Totem) and giving it to your class. Yes, it's later and (slightly) weaker, but my point remains that stealing another class's feature isn't really great design, imho.

That's something I should probably give a second thought about. Maybe forget about resistances.

The last feature, however, I feel is a little lacklustre. Freezing them in place and giving you a free Shove effect is neat, sure, but is it really capstone material? Although this gets a little silly when combined with spells like wall of fire to knock down and freeze an entire swath of the enemy.

Yeah. I thought it was good because of the spells you have available. Getting knocked down without having a Saving Throw sounds really annoying. Eldritch Smite can knock enemies prone without ST, but it costs a spell slot, and the enemy size is limited. With this Barbarian, it can happen any time an enemy is damaged by the spell, and it only uses your proficiency bonus. It's not much, but better than burning a spell slot for that since you won't have many. And having the enemy use all of its movement to get up instead of half is pretty good. An enemy in a wall of fire would have to use its action to dash to move away. This really puts a limit on what the enemy can do on its turn.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Will be done. I was thinking about using the Eldritch Knight chart, but that stops at level 4. But yeah, progression will be fixed.

There's a good reason why the EK and AT lists end at 4th level, though. You're literally giving the Barbarian better spellcasting than the Paladin and Ranger through this subclass (fewer spell slots, but with a mechanic that lets you cast your high level spells more often). You get access to a spell level a full real level before the 2/3 casters. The issue with higher level spells versus upcasting is that you'll almost never want to upcast if it's just for extra damage because it's not worth it compared to a new tier of spellcasting, and your list of spells is highly pruned to basically all cause damage.

I'd say it applies to all targets and any time the spell deals damage you can add your rage damage. It would be a way to compensate for banning the upcasting. And about that, I wanted people to use magic but not only it. A Barbarian isn't a caster, so a raging one wouldn't be smart enough to upcast a spell. And this helps to limit casting so the Barbarian doesn't forget that hitting people is what it does best.

Hmm. Can't say that I agree with your reasoning, but I can see where you're coming from (I would argue that it's a lot harder to cast a whole new tier of spell compared to pumping extra pizzazz into a basic spell, but YMMV). From what I can tell, EKs don't forget that hitting people is what they do best (though they're more constrained by less spell slots than punitive rules).

[Krym]

Will be done. I was thinking about using the Eldritch Knight chart, but that stops at level 4. But yeah, progression will be fixed.

I think maybe using the paladin or ranger progression might work. Sure it still means losing 6th level spells, but as people in this thread have mentioned, this is still a barbarian, and it makes it slightly better than Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster in spellcasting terms.

Additionally, if you want to cast a spell but have no more spell slots, you can take a point of exhaustion (to a maximum of 3) and cast the spell as an action.

This feature seems a bit powerful to me. Perhaps by changing it to taking a point of exhaustion for every two spell levels(rounded down), and keeping the maximum at three, you can make it harder to cast more higher-level spells.
These two changes might blunt the spellcasting a bit, but otherwise, this is a pretty cool idea.

[JNAProductions]

Yeah, this is pretty dang OP. Subclass-specific casting is at 1/3rd the rate of a full caster (see EK or AT), and considering your casting stat improves your Concentration saves, your AC, and your HP as well...