5e-Psychic Barbarian-PEACH

[RustyDemiGod]

Path of the Savage Mind

Hardy primal warriors are known for their iron wills, but true psychic might is rare amongst the barbarian tribes. In the few instances where a Barbarian does exhibit the gift it is often as wild and untamed as it’s wielder. In the heat of battle the Savage Mind can lash out instinctively and prove as dangerous as any double headed axe.

-Primitive Telepath: Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, your mind begins to awaken to it’s inborn gifts. You become resistant to Psychic damage, and gain a rudimentary form of telepathy. You gain telepathy to a range of 30ft, but you can only communicate emotions, images, and sensory information such as scents or sensations. You can not communicate actual words or messages as most would expect. You do not need to share a language to use this form of communication, and the recipient can not respond telepathically unless they too are telepathic. Creatures with an intelligence of 2, or lower, can not receive telepathic correspondence in this way.

-Overwhelming Force: At 3rd level, the psychic fury you unleash in your rage strikes your enemy like a hammer. While raging, the first enemy you hit on each of your turns with an unarmed or weapon attack takes an additional 1d6 psychic damage and must make an Intelligence saving throw (DC 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus). An enemy that fails this saving throw suffers disadvantage on their next attack roll, saving throw, or ability check before the end of it’s next turn.

-Psychokinetic Carapace: Starting at 6th level, your psychic might turns away danger while you rage. While raging, you can use your reaction to grant yourself resistance to that specific instance of damage.

-Violent Feedback: At 10th level, any attempt to manipulate your volatile mind may result in a violent psychic backlash. When an enemy subjects you to an effect that would charm, frighten, command, or read your thoughts they must make an Intelligence saving throw (DC 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus). On a failure the enemy is incapacitated for 1 round. The enemy immediately loses concentration on any spell that they were casting.
This effect does not make you immune to any of the triggering conditions, but you are not subject to the condition if the caster fails their saving throw.

-Telekinetic Fury: Beginning at 14th level, your rage forces your mind to unleash vicious telekinetic attacks. While raging, you may perform one of the following maneuvers as a Bonus Action:
-You can force an enemy within 10ft to make a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus). On a failed save, you may push or pull an enemy 10ft. You may also choose to move them side to side.
-You may eject a shockwave of psychic force at an enemy within 10ft of you. This enemy must make a strength saving throw (DC 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus). On a failed save, the enemy is knocked prone.
-You sheathe your weapon in psychic energy giving it the thrown property with a normal range of 30ft and a long range of 60ft. You may use your Bonus action to make a ranged attack, and the weapon flies back to your hand after it hits or misses. The force of this strike causes the weapon to do an additional 1d12 Force damage on a hit.

[JNAProductions]

Telepath looks fine. Flavorful. :)

Overwhelming Force also looks fine.

Carapace is basically Uncanny Dodge, but worse. Just make it Uncanny Dodge?

Feedback is really potent. Maybe just Incapacitated and they waste the spell/ability?

Fury has a size limitation-that I'd just dump. You're a high-level psychic Barbarian. Let them move around big dudes!

Overall! Seems pretty cool. :)

[RustyDemiGod]

Revision made to feedback and fury, carapace kept the same for the moment until I can look into it more

[Vogie]

Overall this looks pretty good.

Path of the Savage Mind
-Primitive Telepath: Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, your mind begins to awaken to it’s inborn gifts. You become resistant to Psychic damage, and gain a rudimentary form of telepathy. You gain telepathy to a range of 30ft, but you can only communicate emotions, images, and sensory information such as scents or sensations. You can not communicate actual words or messages as most would expect. You do not need to share a language to use this form of communication, and the recipient can not respond telepathically unless they too are telepathic. Creatures with an intelligence of 2, or lower, can not receive telepathic correspondence in this way.

This looks good. I just kind of wish there were something more done with being connected to all creatures within range telepathically. My initial thought is that mental status conditions are shared with others in your area - "If you hit me with Fear, you are also Frightened" - but I don't know how that would work mechanically.

One thing you could do here that would be to share certain skill proficiencies with allies within the radius. If you're raging near the wizard, you essentially have proficiency in arcana.

-Overwhelming Force: At 3rd level, the psychic fury you unleash in your rage strikes your enemy like a hammer. While raging, the first enemy you hit on each of your turns with an unarmed or weapon attack takes an additional 1d6 psychic damage and must make an Intelligence saving throw (DC 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus). An enemy that fails this saving throw suffers disadvantage on their next attack roll, saving throw, or ability check before the end of it’s next turn.

I'm not sure if adding another die of damage to a raging barbarian. They're already getting a rage bonus, and this subclass isn't limiting their weapon choice, so it's just piling on. It makes sense later on when you are making the weapon dance, which makes it into a thrown/ranged weapon, which makes the rage damage vanish. You could have the bonus damage die appear if the barbarian is not using a heavy weapon (as then their attacks will be d8 and lower).

Alternatively, you could have the psychic damage decoupled from the weapon entirely. You rage with a bonus action, which also creates what is essentially a reflavored spiritual weapon that you can then use on subsequent turns, also using that bonus action with each attack. It would have to be written out, as raging means no spellcasting and no concentration, and then be "upgraded" at 14 by using your actual weapon.

I'm also inclined to remove the "disadvantage on their next attack roll" portion of the fail effect. This is a barbarian - they're using Reckless strike, which means all their enemies have advantage on their attacks towards the barb anyway. Having that get nullified by an effect of the rage feature doesn't feel "barbarian". I'm not certain about the disadvantage on skill checks - that rarely comes up in 5e - but that disadvantage on saving throws is absolute gold. It gives early game psybarbs some sweet setups for their caster friends, and late game ones a way to set up their own telekinetic abilities.

-Psychokinetic Carapace: Starting at 6th level, your psychic might turns away danger while you rage. While raging, you can use your reaction to grant yourself resistance to that specific instance of damage.

I agree with JNA - this is slightly less good than uncanny dodge, because a handful multiple damage type spells will override it. It's also not particularly carapace-y to me. Remember, rage already gives physical damage resistance, so this would only be for the elemental damage. Maybe make it a false life analog, where there's a small shield of temp hp you can either throw in between you and the damage (as reaction) or just a chunk of temp HP that is granted when you begin raging, at the beginning of each turn, or maybe even each time you have to perform a saving throw (that would be pretty sweet).

-Violent Feedback: At 10th level, any attempt to manipulate your volatile mind may result in a violent psychic backlash. When an enemy subjects you to an effect that would charm, frighten, command, or read your thoughts they must make an Intelligence saving throw (DC 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus). On a failure the enemy is paralyzed for 1 round. The enemy immediately loses concentration on any spell that they were casting.
This effect does not make you immune to any of the triggering conditions, but you are not subject to the condition if the caster fails their saving throw.

I like this effect, but paralyzing them might be too far. I understand what you're trying to do here, but it's this level of power that would make a DM "randomly" make their boss monsters immune to the paralyze condition. One thing that you could do is have certain effects that aren't specifically conditions. Maybe dealing dealing chunks of psychic damage to the caster? You could also have it paralyze specifically creatures whose CR is equal or lower than your level. Yes, CR is genuinely broken in 5e, but "low is low" still works. It's not as calculated as the 'incapacitate' trait spells in Pathfinder 2e, but still would work.

-Telekinetic Fury: Beginning at 14th level, your rage forces your mind to unleash vicious telekinetic attacks. While raging, you may perform one of the following maneuvers as a Bonus Action:

• You can force an enemy within 10ft to make a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus). On a failed save, you may push or pull an enemy of large size or smaller 10ft. You may also choose to move them side to side.
• You may eject a shockwave of psychic force at an enemy within 10ft of you. This enemy must make a strength saving throw (DC 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus). On a failed save, the enemy is knocked prone.
• You sheathe your weapon in psychic energy giving it the thrown property with a normal range of 30ft and a long range of 60ft. You may use your Bonus action to make a ranged attack, and the weapon flies back to your hand after it hits or misses. The force of this strike causes the weapon to do an additional 1d12 Force damage on a hit

.

These are pretty great. My only criticism is that you're basing these off of the Con modifier. It's level 14 - casters are disintegrating things and creating temples and metaphysical mansions for giggles. Let your abilities scale off of Strength. It'll almost always be the highest ability score. On top of that, Strength Saves are typically the weakest of the saving throws so being hiked up even higher at level 20 is still fantastic. Also, let the guy push and pull everything. Tiny things, gargantuan things, all the things. It's only 10ft - you won't be able to punt a Tarrasque off a cliff with 10 ft of push unless they're already 10 ft over the edge.