Barbarian Path of the Warchief

[Lightmagemike]

I'd been trying to think of something to make Barbarian seem a little more versatile and came up with something that uses its rage charges for more diverse effects. And I was on a Diablo II kick and thought I'd go for something in the vein of the D2 Barbarian. Thus: Path of the Warchief. I don't really know how balanced this is, and one worry I have is that it lets the Barbarian do too much.


War Shout
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you gain the ability to channel your rage, to bolster your allies and weaken your enemies. On your turn, you can consume one usage of rage to make a war shout. For the next minute, the effects of your war shout are active. The war shouts have a radius of 15 ft. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if choose to make another war shout. Creatures must be able to hear in order to be affected by your war shouts.
You learn two war shouts of your choice, which are detailed in the war shout list below. You learn an additional war shout at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.
Your modifier, as it pertains to the war shouts, is Charisma. Any saving throw required by your war shouts is equal to 8 + proficiency + Charisma modifier.

Chieftain’s Weapon Training.
At 6th level, your extensive training in weapons and warfare has granted you the techniques required to fight with two weapons at the same time. When you engage in two weapon fighting, you can add your Strength modifier to the damage of the second attack.

Improved War Shout.
At 10th level, the range of your war shouts increases to 30 ft.

Einherjar Weapon Training
At 14th level, your experience with dual wielding allows you to fight with even greater proficiency. You can wield two-handed melee weapons with one hand so long as you are using two-weapon fighting. When you use your bonus action to attack with an off-hand weapon, you can make a war shout as a part of the same bonus action.



Feral Roar
All enemies within range must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be routed for duration. Enemies routed this way must use their movement action to move as far away from the barbarian as possible. They cannot willingly move closer to the barbarian. The save may be repeated at the end of an affected creature’s turn, ending the effect on a success.

Warning Shout
All allies within range gain a bonus to AC equal to your rage damage for the duration.

Infuriating Insult
All enemies within range must make a Wisdom saving throw. Those that fail are drawn by their anger towards the barbarian. They must use their movement to move towards the barbarian and must attack the barbarian if able. Enemies attacking the barbarian have a penalty to hit equal to the barbarian’s rage damage. This save may be repeated at the end of an affected creature’s turn, ending the effect on a success.

Battle Cry
All enemies within range must make a wisdom saving throw. Those that fail are shaken by fear and cannot muster up their defenses. Allies receive a bonus to hit equal to the barbarian’s rage damage when attacking enemies affected this way. The save may be repeated at the end of an affected creature’s turn, ending the effect on a success.

Chieftan’s Orders
All allies within range gain temporary hit points equal to the barbarian’s level.

Thundering Howl
Prerequisite: Level 10
All enemies within range must make a Constitution saving throw, taking 4d8 Thunder damage on failure and being stunned for the duration. A successful save takes half damage and is not stunned. The save may be repeated at the end of an affected creature’s turn, ending the effect on a success. The Thunder damage taken is increased by 1d8 every third barbarian level the barbarian gains.

Dictate of Ferocity
All allies within range gain a bonus equal to their damage equal to the barbarian’s rage damage for the duration.

Bulwark of Rage
All allies within range gain resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage for the duration.

Spirit of Resistance
Prerequisite: Level 10
All allies within range gain resistance to a damage type of the barbarian’s choice for the duration.

Command of Victory
Prerequisite: Level 10
All allies within range gain a bonus to saving throws equal to the barbarian’s rage damage for the duration.

Crippling Cry
Prerequisite: Level 10
All enemies within range must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failure, they gain a weakness to a damage type of the barbarian’s choice for the duration.

Command of Survival
All allies within range gain the guts status for the duration. If an ally affected by the guts status would be reduced to 0 HP, it is reduced to 1 HP instead. They lose the guts status.

Willbreaker Shout
All enemies within range must succeed a Wisdom saving throw. Those that fail have their speed halved for duration. An affected creature may repeat the save at the end of each of their turns, ending the effect on a success.

Terror Shout
Prerequisite: Level 10
All enemies within range must succeed a Wisdom saving throw. Those that fail are frightened of the barbarian for the duration. An affected creature may repeat the save at the end of each of their turns, ending the effect on a success.

[Daghoulish]

I'll line out my thoughts as I go along.

War Shout - Sounds alright, makes a barbarian want 4 stats instead of three but otherwise it sounds ok. Having a use for rage beyond rage sounds good at first, but you have so few per long rest that I don't really see using this unless your doing a 10 minute adventuring day.

Chieftain’s Weapon Training - While this sounds good, it doesn't remove the requirement of light weaponry. So unless your take the dual wielder feat your stuck with shortswords.

Improved War Shout - Same problems as before.

Einherjar Weapon Training - There we go. This feels like the defining feature of this path and it's fantastic. Might be a little strong because of brutal criticals but I don't know how to fix that. Ah well it's a capstone.

I would rate the shouts but with the previous problems I don't think I would ever use them. Especially because this is a dual wielding barbarian. Not only do you lose your resistance to damage, but by dual wielding your doubling how much additional damage your rage adds making the shouts even more unappealing. If you want to make a barbarian that doesn't rage at all I could see using this, but why not play a fighter at that point?

[Lightmagemike]

My big thing on the removal of the light requirement for dual wielding is that that is a part of the dual wielder feat and I was worried that putting something already on a feat in a class would be wrong since it would remove part of the need for the feat in the first place. I suppose then the counter is that not including it means that you would virtually be required to take the feat anyways, but... I don't know.
As for the shout/rage issue, it's less of wanting to play a Barbarian that doesn't rage and more playing a barbarian that isn't limited to only raging. Since it can get a bit boring to have every combat be enter rage and hit things until they die. I guess the usage consideration was something I had brushed aside under the thought that it is something you would use an equivalent number of times as rage and so that wouldn't really be a problem. I hadn't really considered competition or, on the other hand, using them at the same time. So again, I don't know.

[Daghoulish]

My big thing on the removal of the light requirement for dual wielding is that that is a part of the dual wielder feat and I was worried that putting something already on a feat in a class would be wrong since it would remove part of the need for the feat in the first place. I suppose then the counter is that not including it means that you would virtually be required to take the feat anyways, but... I don't know.
As for the shout/rage issue, it's less of wanting to play a Barbarian that doesn't rage and more playing a barbarian that isn't limited to only raging. Since it can get a bit boring to have every combat be enter rage and hit things until they die. I guess the usage consideration was something I had brushed aside under the thought that it is something you would use an equivalent number of times as rage and so that wouldn't really be a problem. I hadn't really considered competition or, on the other hand, using them at the same time. So again, I don't know.

The more I think about it, taking the dual wielder feat would just replace the GWM feat that most barbarians like to take. The new problem I thought up was that the capstone would make one of your feat choices completely worthless. That's the real hard part to figure out.
As for the rage/shout issue, competition with a resource is always something hard to balance. I think you could just change it to a resource based on your stats. Like Con modifier times per long rest with a minimum of 1. That way if you max con and stay barb all the way to 20 you'd have 7 uses per long rest. That's about in line with Battlemaster's superiority dice.

[Lightmagemike]

I suppose that would be a better way to do it, especially since I was kind of trying to capture the Battlemaster vibe to an extent. What do you mean about the capstone making a feat choice worthless?

[Daghoulish]

I suppose that would be a better way to do it, especially since I was kind of trying to capture the Battlemaster vibe to an extent. What do you mean about the capstone making a feat choice worthless?

If you take dual wielder than you could use battle axes/long swords/war hammers while two weapon fighting. Once you get the 14th ability you can innately use two handed weapons with two weapon fighting. Meaning if you didn't take the feat you would still end up using the same weapons, just with an extra +2 to stats or a feat that still contributes to your character(resilience, tough, ect.).

[Lightmagemike]

If you take dual wielder than you could use battle axes/long swords/war hammers while two weapon fighting. Once you get the 14th ability you can innately use two handed weapons with two weapon fighting. Meaning if you didn't take the feat you would still end up using the same weapons, just with an extra +2 to stats or a feat that still contributes to your character(resilience, tough, ect.).

Would it be better if you got the ability to use two handed weapons with the 6th level feature at a degraded damage range and then the 14th level boosted it to full damage?

[Daghoulish]

Would it be better if you got the ability to use two handed weapons with the 6th level feature at a degraded damage range and then the 14th level boosted it to full damage?

I could see that, letting them use two handed weapons without their STR to damage would give you a special identity early. Certainly more damage than other barbs but with a lower minimum damage. Yeah, I could see that working.

[Lightmagemike]

After making some updates, Version 2.


War Shout
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you gain the ability to channel your rage, to bolster your allies and weaken your enemies. On your turn, as a bonus action, you make a war shout. For the next minute, the effects of your war shout are active. The war shouts have a radius of 15 ft. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if choose to make another war shout. Creatures must be able to hear in order to be affected by your war shouts. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1). When you finish a long rest, you regain all expended uses.
You learn two war shouts of your choice, which are detailed in the war shout list below. You learn an additional war shout at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.
Your modifier, as it pertains to the war shouts, is Charisma. Any saving throw required by your war shouts is equal to 8 + proficiency + Charisma modifier.

Chieftain’s Weapon Training.
At 6th level, your extensive training in weapons and warfare has granted you the techniques required to fight with two weapons at the same time. You may wield a two handed weapon with one hand so long as you are engaged in two weapon fighting. The barbarian’s Strength modifier is not added to damage with two handed weapons wielded this way and the damage die of offhand weapons wielded this way is degraded by one stage (1d12 to 1d10, etc.).

Improved War Shout.
At 10th level, the range of your war shouts increases to 30 ft.

Einherjar Weapon Training
At 14th level, your experience with dual wielding allows you to fight with even greater proficiency. You may add your Strength modifier to the damage of two handed weapons wielded with two weapon fighting as described in the Chieftain’s Weapon Training feature. Furthermore, two handed weapons wielded in the offhand through this feature now use their full damage die. When you use your bonus action to attack with an off-hand weapon, you can make a war shout as a part of the same bonus action.


No changes have been made to the War Shout list yet, so I'm leaving those as is.