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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Barbarian - Path of the Ravaged Spirits



M Placeholder
2016-01-09, 02:53 PM
This is a barbarian path inspired by the Primal Path in 4e that saw you seek out the most damaged, psychotic spirits of nature and allow youself to be a conduit for their rancor. It was designed with Dark Sun in mind, but could be used for any campaign in which the land has been left desolate and broken.

Not 100 sure about the balance, so please let me know how.

Path of the Ravaged
The druids and the shamans of feral tribes are not the only ones that make pacts with the spirits that call the broiled lands of Athas home. A number of Barbarians that wander the wastes sometimes seek out, or are sought, by the spirits, and they are recruited for the express purposes of laying waste to the ones that have left Athas a blasted wasteland

Elemental Protection
Starting when you choose (or the spirits choose you) at 3rd level, when you are raging, you have immunity from a certain type of damage. Choose between Thunder, Lightning, Cold, Fire or Acid damage when you first walk the footsteps of this path.

Spirit Payback
At 6th level, when raging, you can add an extra 1d4 of Psychic Damage on a successful hit as the spirit ravages the victim and lays waste to the mind as you lay waste to the body. This increases to 2d4 at 12th level and 3d4 at 18th level.
If the target has ever practiced defiling magic, you add an extra 1d4 of damage, which increases to 1d8 at 14th level.

Spirit Steadfast
At 10th level, when you have a power manifested or a spell cast on you by an ally that requires concentration, any time the ally needs to make a saving throw, the spirits will aid your ally in concentration. Your ally has advantage on the saving throw to maintain concentration on the spell or power.

Spirit Punishment
At 14th level, when you hit a creature with a critical attack, you are able to make a creature that is allied with that creature feel its pain. You select a creature within 60 feet of the original target that you can see, and the spirits punish it mentally. The creature you selected sufferers half the damage of the original target as psychic damage.

Fast Jimmy
2016-01-10, 07:18 PM
Interesting take on things. Could help with those who want to play a Barbarian that has a darker background. I like the balance on it, as it competes nicely but doesn't overshadow its Totem Spirit and Berseker counterparts. However, there may be a few wording things as well:

Elemental Protection - good ability, allows for customization without being too crazy. Solid.

Spirit Payback - with a crit, you add an extra (1?)d6. I'm not sure if this would be subject to the double damage dice aspect of critical hits or not? That would make it a 2d6, so I'm thinking no. Also, what does "defiling magic" consist of? This could be everyone or no one, depending on if Necromancy spells count. Lastly - this does not seem to scale well. At level 6, an extra 3.5 damage every 1/20 hits isn't bad, but at level 16, it's totally irrelevant. Maybe a way to scale this over the long haul.

Restorative Fury - if you crit, you get the damage you inflicted as HP. Nice, but confusing when it refers only to physical damage and damage inflicted by Spirit Payback. What if I have a magical weapon that deals elemental damage like thunder? Is that damage not considered for healing? That may add a level of math (now which dice were physical and which weren't?) that is a little unnecessary.

Spirit Punishment - when you crit, you hurt a fellow creature within 60 feet. Maybe make this limited to a creature you can see? I can see someone try to cheese this to hurt an invisible creature by critical hitting another target or something along those lines.

Further Commentary:
With this Path based solely around crits, it can be circumstantial. It begs to MC with the Champion Archetype, as well as maybe dual wield (more attacks, more crits). I can envision it being very frustrating, where a fight can swing entirely by making a few lucky rolls that set off every Archetype ability all at once, while the player may feel they aren't getting anything out of their class if they go through a Nat 20 drought.

As stated, MCing this with Fighter 3 (Champion) means every 10 attacks (19+20 crit threshold) while raging means getting all three of the above benefits on one swing. That's pretty frequent. Maybe change one of these to not be crit based and instead just at will on a SR? Just a thought.

M Placeholder
2016-01-12, 04:37 AM
Thanks Jim for the feedback and the extensive critique, I will have a sit down tonight and go over this and improve it.

The "Defiling Magic" is unique to Dark Sun, and its anyone that has used defiling magic, at any time, to power spells. So thats pretty dependent on magic use of enemies. As for the crit nature of the path, I agree that 2 out of 4 is a bit much. Ill change that too.

M Placeholder
2016-01-16, 01:40 PM
Added a new feature, Spirit Steadfast, and changed the wording on Spirit Payback and Spirit Punishment. Also scaled up the damage on Spirit Payback. Nout sure if this is under or overpowered, so please let me know.

PoeticDwarf
2016-01-16, 03:44 PM
The elemental protection is too weak. I'd say making it immunity, and then move it to 6th level. Put the level 6 feature on level 3.

It sounds really fun

Durazno
2016-01-16, 05:55 PM
I'm not sure that Spirit Punishment needs to be limited to creatures you can see - are the spirits as limited in their perceptions as you? Crits won't likely happen reliably enough that you'll be able to smack an invisible creature consistently, and the idea of a barbarian smashing an orc so hard that a dead Thought Eater abruptly falls out of the air next to him is kind of great.

M Placeholder
2016-01-16, 06:40 PM
I'm not sure that Spirit Punishment needs to be limited to creatures you can see - are the spirits as limited in their perceptions as you? Crits won't likely happen reliably enough that you'll be able to smack an invisible creature consistently, and the idea of a barbarian smashing an orc so hard that a dead Thought Eater abruptly falls out of the air next to him is kind of great.

There are no orcs on Athas, but the idea of a raging half giant smashing a piece of bone over a defilers dome and a thing resembling an emaciated platypus dropping out of thin air is brilliant.

WMO?
2016-01-18, 06:23 PM
Spirit Payback
At 6th level, when raging, you can add an extra 1d4 of Psychic Damage on a successful hit as the spirit ravages the victim and lays waste to the mind as you lay waste to the body. If any of the targets have ever practiced defiling magic, you add an extra 1d4 of damage. This increases to 2d4 at 12th level and 3d4 at 18th level.


The bolded 'this' is ambiguous as to whether it refers to the base 1d4 against everyone or the extra 1d4 against defilers (or both?).
I would swap the order of the last two sentences so as to match the format of Divine Smite and other spells and effects that do an extra die of damage to specific targets on top of whatever the scaled regular number of dice.

Overall, great flavor, and seems well balanced on cursory examination.

M Placeholder
2016-01-19, 11:30 AM
The bolded 'this' is ambiguous as to whether it refers to the base 1d4 against everyone or the extra 1d4 against defilers (or both?).
I would swap the order of the last two sentences so as to match the format of Divine Smite and other spells and effects that do an extra die of damage to specific targets on top of whatever the scaled regular number of dice.

Overall, great flavor, and seems well balanced on cursory examination.

Thank you, changed the wording, and scaled the defiling specific damage.