Barbarian of the Cold Rage Archetype (2.0)

[DuctTapeKatar]

Ok, I have been thinking this one over for a while now, but I'm not quite sure if it is balanced, please recommend modifications.


Barbarian of the Cold Rage (2.0)

3rd Level: Cold Rage
Whereas most would use their rage in explosive bouts of fury, yours is a cold, cunning wrath.[/CENTER]
While raging, whenever you attack with a weapon with the finesse modifier, you may use your reaction to make an additional attack with that weapon.

6th Level: Raptor's Grace
Every move you make, carefully calculated. Every foe, predictable.
Once per round, you ignore one sneak attack made against you while raging (the attack goes as normal, but does not apply any sneak attack bonuses).

10th Level: Iron Dance
Like leaves in autumn, you shall blow your foes away.
You gain the ability to cast Steel Wind Strike as a non-magical ability every long rest. You may only use this ability when wielding a weapon with the finesse modifier.

14th Level: Untouchable
Your foes' strikes are the lashing of the wind: wild, relentless, but inconsequential.
While raging, enemies attacking you have disadvantage when making attacks of opportunity or ranged attacks further than 30 feet of you.


For inspiration, I used King Bradley from Fullmetal Alchemist as a model for this one. Though, I would enjoy modifying it some more to make it more available for different character archetypes. I also think it may have some balancing issues.

[GalacticAxekick]

3rd Level: Cold Rage
Whereas most would use their rage in explosive bouts of fury, yours is a cold, cunning wrath.[/CENTER]
While raging, whenever you attack with a weapon with the finesse modifier, you may use your reaction to make an additional attack with that weapon.Rage damage only applies to Strength-based attacks. If you're encouraging the use of finesse weapons, why not allow Rage damage to apply to Dex based attacks starting at 3rd level?


6th Level: Raptor's Grace
Every move you make, carefully calculated. Every foe, predictable.
Once per round, you ignore one sneak attack made against you while raging (the attack goes as normal, but does not apply any sneak attack bonuses).99% of the enemies a play fights won't be rogues, and so sneak attacks are very rare. This feature us almost useless.

Instead of avoiding sneak attacks, why prevent them with a feature that disadvantages attacks against you? Like the one you give at 14th level?

[Lalliman]

Reaction attack on your turn is weird, should be a bonus action. I'd agree with Axekick to just apply the Rage damage bonus to finesse weapons instead though. Being able to go finesse as a barbarian is so good in and of itself that you don't need much of a benefit on top of that.

As Axekick said, Raptor's Grace is pointless because only PCs and a bare few NPCs have Sneak Attack. Some monsters (doppelganger, bugbear) have similar abilities but they wouldn't apply because they're not called Sneak Attack. You could instead negate advantage on one attack per round against you.

I feel like Untouchable is a bit weak compared to the other 14th level abilities. You could probably remove the range restriction from the ranged attacks.

It's a cool archetype though, I would totally play it. I love King Bradley.

[Man_Over_Game]

Rage damage only applies to Strength-based attacks. If you're encouraging the use of finesse weapons, why not allow Rage damage to apply to Dex based attacks starting at 3rd level?


That's likely to avoid terrible Dexterity-based Barbarian builds at levels 1 and 2. With this, you have a bonus to using Finesse weapons (which do just as much damage as every other one-handed weapon) without the requirement for Dexterity. With the way you suggested, it'd also leave room for Monks' unarmed strikes to get bonuses, which might not be the intent.


99% of the enemies a play fights won't be rogues, and so sneak attacks are very rare. This feature us almost useless.

Instead of avoiding sneak attacks, why prevent them with a feature that disadvantages attacks against you? Like the one you give at 14th level


Right on the money here. Or I'd make it something like "Critical Hits count as normal hits against you. You cannot be surprised in any circumstance, and creatures cannot benefit from advantage on an attack or skill due to you not seeing them."

That seems very Bradley-esc. "EYE SEE YOU".


A few other things:

Spending your reaction on your turn is very counter-intuitive. It can be a possibility, but it shouldn't be the default. How about when an enemy steps within 5 feet of you, or when a creature misses you with a melee attack (roughly balanced since Barbarians generally have poor AC).

If it mentions a spell, acts like a spell, it's a spell. Even if you say it's non-magical, it's a non-magical spell, and Barbarians cannot cast spells while raging without an explicit exception, and this one doesn't say anything about being able to cast it while raging.

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You could say, though, that as part of the bonus action you use to Rage, you can also cast X spell with the same bonus action. It requires no components, if it requires Concentration, you are assumed to be maintaining Concentration for as long as you're raging, you automatically save on any Concentration check to maintain it, and the spell automatically ends when your Rage does. You cannot cast spells in any other way while raging besides using this feature. You can maintain Concentration on more than one spell at a time while Raging.

That'd be dope.

In fact, I'd change it to do that at level 3, and you later get additional spells to choose from each time you Rage.

Things like Zephyr Strike(1), Hunter's Mark(1), Jump(1), Longstrider(1), Pass Without Trace(2), Darkvision(2), Water Walk(3), Water Breathing(3), Guardian of Nature (4), Freedom of Movement(4) and Steel Wind Strike(5).

It's very different from your original idea, but I think it'd be cool if, when you rage, you can cast one Sadism and one Stalker spell to cast when you rage. You gain the affects of both for as long as you maintain your rage:
At level 3, You add these spells to your Sadism list: Zephyr Strike, Hunter's Mark. You add these spells to your Stalker list: Jump, Longstrider
At level 6, You add these spells to your Stalker List: Pass Without Trace, Darkvision
At level 10, You add these spells to your Stalker List: Water Walk, Water Breathing
At level 14, You add these spells to your Sadism list: Guardian of Nature, Steel Wind Strike. You add these spells to your Stalker list: Freedom of Movement

And for S***ts and giggles, make Intelligence your spellcasting modifier for these (or your Zephyr Strike) spells. That'd be really cool, for even more "Bradley-ism".

[DuctTapeKatar]

That's likely to avoid terrible Dexterity-based Barbarian builds at levels 1 and 2. With this, you have a bonus to using Finesse weapons (which do just as much damage as every other one-handed weapon) without the requirement for Dexterity. With the way you suggested, it'd also leave room for Monks' unarmed strikes to get bonuses, which might not be the intent.



Right on the money here. Or I'd make it something like "Critical Hits count as normal hits against you. You cannot be surprised in any circumstance, and creatures cannot benefit from advantage on an attack or skill due to you not seeing them."

That seems very Bradley-esc. "EYE SEE YOU".


A few other things:

Spending your reaction on your turn is very counter-intuitive. It can be a possibility, but it shouldn't be the default. How about when an enemy steps within 5 feet of you, or when a creature misses you with a melee attack (roughly balanced since Barbarians generally have poor AC).

If it mentions a spell, acts like a spell, it's a spell. Even if you say it's non-magical, it's a non-magical spell, and Barbarians cannot cast spells while raging without an explicit exception, and this one doesn't say anything about being able to cast it while raging.

----------------------------------------------

You could say, though, that as part of the bonus action you use to Rage, you can also cast X spell with the same bonus action. It requires no components, if it requires Concentration, you are assumed to be maintaining Concentration for as long as you're raging, you automatically save on any Concentration check to maintain it, and the spell automatically ends when your Rage does. You cannot cast spells in any other way while raging besides using this feature. You can maintain Concentration on more than one spell at a time while Raging.

That'd be dope.

In fact, I'd change it to do that at level 3, and you later get additional spells to choose from each time you Rage.

Things like Zephyr Strike(1), Hunter's Mark(1), Jump(1), Longstrider(1), Pass Without Trace(2), Darkvision(2), Water Walk(3), Water Breathing(3), Guardian of Nature (4), Freedom of Movement(4) and Steel Wind Strike(5).

It's very different from your original idea, but I think it'd be cool if, when you rage, you can cast one Sadism and one Stalker spell to cast when you rage. You gain the affects of both for as long as you maintain your rage:
At level 3, You add these spells to your Sadism list: Zephyr Strike, Hunter's Mark. You add these spells to your Stalker list: Jump, Longstrider
At level 6, You add these spells to your Stalker List: Pass Without Trace, Darkvision
At level 10, You add these spells to your Stalker List: Water Walk, Water Breathing
At level 14, You add these spells to your Sadism list: Guardian of Nature, Steel Wind Strike. You add these spells to your Stalker list: Freedom of Movement

And for S***ts and giggles, make Intelligence your spellcasting modifier for these (or your Zephyr Strike) spells. That'd be really cool, for even more "Bradley-ism".

I actually kinda wanted to go the route of "Your rage doesn't hinder you from casting spells or making concentration checks," but wasn't quite sure how to balance that out. I also wanted to have it so that your rage bonus adds to your dex, but that would be insanely finicky to balance (I am starting to feel like 5e is actually a little overbalanced, now that I think about it), and I like the way this is going anyway.

Have no idea if you have to rest before using the spells again, recompose or something, may need to take a look at that. And I probably need testers.

Though I love the idea of Guardian of Nature as a spell for this class, I don't think it really fits the idea of "Cold Rage." I was thinking less along the lines of a barbarian from a typical tribe and more along the lines of a more civilized person whose rage is something at odds with their setting (why I was thinking of having advantages with finesse weapons, since, y'know, rapiers and other fancy shmanciness).
I, A NOBLEMAN FROM A NOBLE HOUSE, BURDENED WITH INTENSE WRATH AND FURY UNCHARACTERISTIC OF SOMEONE OF MY CLASS, SHALL SLAY MY FOES AS A GIANT TREE.

So, redux:


Barbarian of the Cold Rage (2.1)

3rd Level: Cold Rage
Upon reaching 3rd level, you gain the ability to cast spells and make concentration checks while raging. You may cast one spell from your "sadism" list and another from your "stalker" list at the beginning of your rage. Your spell list expands as you level, and may not use spells from other classes while raging1.

Though I'm still not sure what to do with the other abilities. A handfull of spells is nice and all, but it's a far cry from a complete archetype. Since this thing is going toward a kinda ranger-barbarian mix, I might want to peek under the ranger's hood, maybe the fighter as well for strategy abilities and such...