Barbarian Subclass Tier Ranking (Part 2) in Dungeons and Dragons 5e
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- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2024
- MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to Kickstarter March 26th, 2024: www.kickstarter.com/projects/... We look at the two subclasses introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, discuss how they compare to the other options, and look at what our community thought of these new additions.
This episode is SPONSORED by Stibbles Codex Of Companions, which is available now! bit.ly/3vnA8lX
TIME STAMPS
0:00 - Sponsor
0:40 - Intro
2:15 - Path Of The Beast
15:25 - Path Of Wild Magic
27:07 - Community Rankings
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Игры
Monty: “ I want to be a barbarian, not a battery.”
But barbarians can be both in the sense of assault and battery. 🤓
I played a Path of the Beast build with the Slasher feat and Dual Wielder feat from Custom Lineage. My strategy was the leap through the enemies into the backline and lock down as many people as I could with Slasher until I tore them apart. It played pretty much exactly like a diver archetype in a MOBA
Slasher feat is so nice with this. I love skill master too, pumping strength and getting expertise in athletics. Turns out being able to walk on walls and jump 30 feet consistently is pretty good XD
I know they're not factoring multiclassing, but I think that makes a great pair with Fighter. Gets you two weapon fighting style, action surge, and maybe some battle maneuvers (DC strength based).
I am play with the piercer feat with a focus on conn and ac. It is fun so far and I can do close to 50-60 damage in a round. A lot more with a crit.
Y’all just described my character perfectly lol, we just hit level 4 and I took skill expert for that extra jump distance at level 6 and better grappling and I plan on taking slasher and two weapon fighting later.
I also want to make use of Tasha’s falling rules where you split the damage to effectively have a pounce mechanic
My character is werewolf based in a horror campaign and I’m really taking inspiration from Van Helsing’s werewolves.
Here is another idea for multi-class. Paladin. Story could be fun but the claws count as weapons, so you can smite with claws. Pick up a few utility spells for outside of combat, Cure wounds perhaps. Smite and Channel Divinity are abilities so you can do them while raging.
The claws aren't part of a bonus action offhand attack, it just says you can attack with your claws an additional time and it doesn't specify if has to be the other hand. That means you can use the same claw hand to attack with the strength mod while having a shield or a magical weapon in the other.
You can also sheath/draw one weapon each round (free interaction) and have 4 attacks during your turn (2 with weapon, 2 with Claw ;-)).
Exactly!
I also made this mistake, it seems that Wizards finally learned from Berserker in that people want to use their Rage stuff the same turn when they rage. Still wish you got Multiattack instead of the weird CON spellcasting that's pretty much just extra damage prof/day.
I'm actually playing a Beast Barbarian and it's putting in serious work. You use Thrown Weapon Fighting and Dual Wielder. Start with your claws get those two attacks, then Extra Attack draw two handaxes hit with one then bonus action to hit with the other. I have more attacks a round then our Fighter.
@@JuckiCZ That is incorrect, the ability specifies “Once on each of your turns when you attack with a claw using the Attack action, you can make one additional claw attack” you get one extra claw attack each turn.
The jumping option of Beast Barb is really undersold:
In a situation where you face a flying opponent and they are within possible reach distance from the ground (20-40 feet), you can, in most cases, just jump up to them (the jumping distance is for *any* jump, not just long jump) and either hit them with all your attacks or grapple them to the ground level. They will suffer full brunt of fall damage while the barb won't
They also underestimated this in the Glory Paladin review. Bigger jumps are way more potent than people give credit. Most difficult terrain/ terrain hazards can be jumped over. If you can jump over 30 feet (very doable with these abilities), pick up your lighter party members, and you can jump OVER most walls.
My Glory Paladin stormed an entire castle in a minute with haste cast on him, including jumping over battlements and moving so fast that the wyvern guards in the air literally couldn't get down quick enough to stop him.
If combined with high movement speed, high jumps can often be more effective and less risky than flying.
If you're bored of min-maxing for damage, then builds like these open up Hulk-like movement for your Barbarian; Which is way more fun IMO.
Can confirm, jumping is crazy useful. My Githyanki eldritch knight gets one use of the Jump spell per day, and I've used it to: maneuver a watery battlefield with spaced out land platforms, leap onto and off of defensive walls to engage besieging bugbears and hobgoblins, cross a river after parking the party's folding boat on the side away from beefier enemies that would have pummeled our full casters otherwise, and literally tackle goblin raiders off the backs of their giant bat mounts. Fighters don't get the same kind of damage negation as barbarians, so I took a good bit of damage from most of these, but it is still VERY useful if done right.
@@moloy559 DD always look at the stuff that isn't obviously useful and requires insight and be like "this ain't it, we want flying". Except Barbs and Paladins don't get it by any means aside from magic items, and they can't ranged attack effectively. Jumping is indeed a better alternative to flying for them
Especially since a lot of fliers rely on maneuverability over health. I think the climb is more reliable, but you make an excellent point. I haven't gotten around to using my Beast Barb yet so we shall see.
Also with the falling rules in Tasha's, jump on the enemy. They take half of the falling damage before resistances you should have taken and knocks them down if they fail a DC 15 Dexterity check. Combine that with Instinctive Pounce and the jump boost from Bestial Soul to jump between enemies knocking them down and attacking them using only movement. dealing 2d6 bludgeoning easily while keeping your full movement available since Instinctive Pounce gives you half of your movement extra when you rage.
While agree the Beast Barbarian is probably in the B territory I feel like you’re kinda underselling it based on misinterpretations. The claw grants you an additional attack as a part of your multi attack on your turn, so your using a slightly less strong weapon attack, but your getting a consistent additional 5+ damage bonus on a successful hit, and the tail is essentially a spear that doesn’t take up your hands, and gives you a bonus to AC that can potentially rival the shield spell or defensive duelist feat.
Adding onto this, I accidentally found a nutty combo with the Beast Barbarian. Because I wanted to flavor that my Barbarian was a Werewolf, I made him a Longtooth Shifter who would fully transform into a Werewolf when he used his Shifting Feature and Rage at the time.
Longtooth Shifter's get a bonus action unarmed strike with their claws, and add that onto the Claws of the Beast Barbarian, he was attacking 4 times during his turn; the one downside was that it did take 2 turns to set up, but on the 3rd turn he was going apeshit.
Not only this but if you multiclass into kensai monk you can by level 9 6 barb/3monk I think ,you can make 9 attacks in one turn if you blow your cool downs. I think you get at minimum 5 or 6 once flurry of blows runs out.
it's also worth noting that when the tail is our your reach is 10 feet this can help prevent enemies from just running right around the barbarian to get to the backline, even more so with sentinel
@@dracoflame33 Go Wildhunt Shifter instead and enjoy the Benefits of Reckless Attack without any of the Downsides
@@kimislizy679 oh that’s strong, I didn’t even think of that!
The wild magic barbarian isn’t a random fun mess like the sorcerer it instead ads an extra random buff that ads a difference between fight to fight.
I agree. Rather then "Oh crap, I hope I dont roll x" it is "Oh, fun! I rolled y! How can I incorporate this in the combat?"
I feel like I would let the barbarian just to use the actual wild magic table and watch the fun yes they are going to be more powerful but the chaos would be fun
But I would only allow it if there wasn’t a wild magic sorcerer in the party
As a DM, using a wild magic barbarian as a miniboss was really fun.
My friend is playing one in my game and it definitely results in some very interesting scenarios
Trash the Wild Magic Barbarian all you like, there's a 1 in 8 chance that I get to dual wield a handaxe and a greataxe and that's the stuff I've been wanting from a barbarian ever since I started playing D&D
What I like more is the notion of turning a great axe into a thrown weapon
Play a Goliath, bugbear, or another race with the racial ability that allows them to lift more weight. Pick up the dual wielder feat that allows one to dual wield non light weapons, and there is no reason why your character wouldn't be able to dual wield badass heavy weapons. Aside from a boring DM that is.
@@norokodven4768
Lifting more weight as in carrying capacity, not as in wielding bulky greatswords in each hand like they’re shortswords. And that comment about boring DMs is pretty sus player behavior, “I should be able to break the rules with this build and if the DM doesn’t allow it he or she is lame”.
@@Hadaron I agree with both of these comments. Being a huge scarred mangy bugbear with twin huge axes? Amazing. Fair to call someone boring for using published rules that make sense and *try* to balance? Inaccurate.
@@norokodven4768 It's fun playing a Wild Magic Barbarian Goliath in my campaign. It helps having the Stone's Endurance and Natural Athlete.
So... We have a wild magic barbarian in our now lvl 17 group. He started about 12-13 or so since his last character died and switched to the new barbarian. And honestly? There was not a lot of emphasis on their utility in this. That 1d3 and interesting surges have been pretty clutch a lot of the time. Like, really, he's been extremely supportive with a lot of his abilities. Also, there was ZERO mention of the magical awareness ability they get at lvl 3, which is pretty much a free, instant, wider ranged detect magic without being the spell itself. We had spellcasters in the class that could already cast it, but he was often always able to use it creatively and wasn't shy about using it so we could conserve time or spell slots.
Yes, there's a gamble to the wild surge, but even without damage scaling for its surge abilities, outside of the "flumph" burst (yes, it can summon flumphs with one of the abilities every turn) and the retribution force damage, it just as wild as the wild magic sorcerer, and is not dm dependant on how effective it can be like the WMS is. This is coming from someone who's played as and with a WMS for years. If my two DMs weren't as cool to let wild magic surge go off as much as they did after using tides of chaos, our wild magic barbarian would have had their surges happen plenty more often than both combined by now in the short time he's been around. Comparing the two sub classes, they essentially have the same abilities, except the barbarian version is more consistently benefitial and supportive but has a less flexible tides of chaos (it's more for out of combat or pre big battle planning).
It actually is the most consistent with dealing with larger crowds of enemies with 3 surge abilities that can do damage to multiple targets in a turn. And aside from the ancestral guardian's spirit shield or zealot's divine fury, none of the barbarian subclasses have any good scaling for an ability (as in with the ability getting improved with levels by itself) or just don't do scaling at all (storm herald scaling really isn't good and can easily be resisted). Really, I feel it's the subclass that has the most support role abilities while having the potential to do the most damage out of any subclass, if in a crowd, with 3 of the surges. It's specific, but getting a 1 in a room full of mobs, that's practically a mini fireball at level 3 that DOESN'T hurt all your friends.
They did mention the Magic Awareness but it was so quick. They didn't even say "This is good if your wizard doesnt want to prepare detect magic, and they can send the tank in to do a quick sweep of the room."
I dunno. The fact that detect magic can be cast unprepared as a ritual really diminishes this class feature. Unless your characters are constantly in time crunches where they can't stop for 10 minutes, it's mostly just cool fluff.
@@blesper3415 Trust there are times where an instant cast would be better. It can be within a social encounter and you sense something off about the room or whatever and you need to know immediately. I've used it in that sense.
@@MegaAniLinkFan that just sounds like you have a good DM who plans events around your subclass. Which is awesome. I guess the reverse would be a DM that constantly uses that plot hook which makes such a thing mandatory, but I hope it's the first.
This guy knows.
One of the Wild Surge results actually does have a bit of scaling at high levels: "Whenever a creature hits you with an attack roll before your rage ends, that creature takes 1d6 force damage, as magic lashes out in retribution." As your opponents more frequently get multiattack or legendary action attacks, you'll end up triggering this more often. Between this and the damage reduction from rage, that marilith attacking you will be doing about half as much damage to herself as she does to you. Still not all that impressive, but it's something.
Thanks for mentioning that!
Yeah, but at the same time the vast majority of monsters do 2-3 attacks with multiattack meaning they take that many d6's if they hit and if they even aimbat you. Part of what makes the Maralith and Pit Fiend special is they break that mold.
additionally, creatures can make up to 3 attacks as legendary actions, if they dont do something else. Meaning the most you do in a round to a single creature is 6d6 avg of 21.
As a point i agree with you but also dont want people to overestimate the ability.
@@vadaritis That's all true, but remember you get all that without having to use actions, bonus actions or even reactions. It's just free damage, and it's force.
@@vadaritis Agreed. As I said, "Still not all that impressive, but it's something." My point was only meant to be a small correction to the contention that there was no scaling of the ability. As it happens, this represents a small bit of scaling.
Being able to negate the risk of Reckless Attack with the Tail along with getting a reach weapon is fantastic.
Heck, if you asked nicely the DM might even let the tail count as a polearm for the feat and let you get those extra hits in.
and d8 to add to your ac!! if you roll well that more than negates.
Honestly it's my favorite option for the Beast Barbarian's natural weapons.
And besides, being part wolf or bear or something is cool, but having a giant scorpion or dinosaur tail coming out of you as a weapon is so weird and badass.
Whenever I play a barbarian, I always try to max out my Con as soon as possible since it's incredibly easy to get advantage on attacks + extra damage when raging.
It was so off putting they were saying barely anyone focuses on maxing CON first. Raising your CON is important, and the DC on the some of the surge effects will scale up because it uses your CON mod along with your Prof Bo.
@@MegaAniLinkFan I'm sure a lot of people max Strength first for damage, but I just prefer to max Con instead, especially for the Wild Surge DC
The claws don't fall behind in damage, even with just a 16 in strength the claws hit more often meaning the strength score gets applied as damage more. Throw in the rage damage bonus applying more often too and it out damages things even without magic being applied.
I calculated DPR for claw beast barb at several different levels and while without the 4th attack it is a bit behind in damage it's still functional after you grapple someone (no GWM if you have hands busy with a goblin), is disarmed, is carrying a torch, etc. While beast barb misses bonus of magic weapons, things like the bonus damage of eldritch claw tattoo (eldritch maul) or the bonus of the chromatic infusion of the gift of chromatic dragon work well with extra attacks.
After looking at it, I see what you mean... presuming all attacks hit, it has a higher minimum and average damage, with the trade off of slightly reduced maximum. But I'm not sold of forfeiting the potential for a good magic weapon that might have more bonus damage or apply a de-buff to targets. On top of that, it is taking claws instead of what another class gets at that level.
16 Str makes it +3 dmg per attack that lands. Presuming all of them land, that is +5 dmg (3 Str and 2 rage) over the two attacks of a regular weapon. The potential dmg is 3d6 + 5*3 (6d6 + 5*3 if all crit)... or I can wield a great sword (2d6 per hit) for a potential of 4d6 + 5*2 (8d6 + 5*2) and have Ancestral Guardians to encourage the enemy to focus on me... or get Storm Herald and do an extra 1d6 per turn... or get Divine Fury for +1d6+HalfBarbLvl per turn.
@@PedroHISilva But you get 4 attacks with Beast Barbarian, that is the biggest strength of that subclass - at least when you dual wield. 2 with weapon and 2 with claw.
So at lvl 5, we are talking about 3x 1d6+6 and 1x 1d6+2.
And all apply for Slasher feat!
If you take 3 levels of Champion then, you get STR bonus to your off-hand attack, so you have 4x 1d6+6, your chance to crit doubles (it is now cca 19%), so you crit in 3 of 4 rounds.
If you combine this with Half-Orc, you crits will also increase until they will do 6d6 :-D.
Honestly, GWM throws this for a loop. Three hits with the claws is just 3d6+15, while a single hit with a GWM greatsword is already 2d6+15. Then take into account you have two potential attacks with GWM and get a third bonus action attack if you crit or down an opponent with GWM, and your per round damage has a potential of 6d6+45. Sure, the the -5 to hit with GWM needs to be accounted for, but even with an attack bonus of only +6 GWM does more damage on average up to opponent AC 20, and continues to scale higher as your proficiency bonus/strength increase. Without GWM in the game, the claws seem good. With that feat, the claws are pathetic damage even if you hit every time.
@@abronian but you have 4 attacks at lvl 5 with claws/light weapons, so you have potential 4d6+20, but what is most important is 4 chances to crit which pairs with Half-Orc, Barbarian and Slasher feat. So at higher levels, you crit for 6d6 with claws (with 4 chances per turn), with Greatsword, crits do “only” 8d6 (with 2 chances per turn).
A fun build for Beast barbarian is a take on the Sword and Board build I affectionately call Scale and Fang.
Most people love their two-handed unarmoured tank barbarians to the point that they forget they have access to shields, which is fair since Great Weapon Master exists. However, the ability to allow yourself to gain the shield's extra AC, still use magical weapons and the Beasts abilities can lead to a different kind of barbarian experience.
For instance, a javelin-weilding Beastbarian can chuck their weapon and continue attacking with any of their natural weapons, and still be as effective as normal. A Beastbarian can keep their weapon and attack normally, with two out of three of the natural weapons, as the only natural weapon you'd need a free hand for is the claw, which still works with this build if you use a thrown weapon.
As for feats, the Shield Master feat also works well with Danger Sense, and gives a use for your bonus action in rage if you want to push enemies around in combat or knock them prone.
Another way you could use this that Monty had begun theorycrafting is a Tavern Brawler Beastbarian. A Tavern Brawler Beastbarian can use their shield to make an improvised weapon attack to enable the bonus action grapple. They can then jump up to 36 feet in the air with the grappled enemy at 6th level, causing an extra 2-3d6 bludgeoning damage to both of them, halved if raging.
I somehow never considered shields as an improvised weapon. Thak you sir or madame.
@@ARatherDapperTapir No problem!
Plus of you lean into shields the tail DOESN’T REQUIRE HANDS and is a free d8 to your ac which basically negates reckless attack’s downside
I never got to a very high level with it, but my WIld Magic Barbarian was a lot of fun. My favorite Wild Surge to roll was actually being able to throw my Two-Handed Sword or Great Axe. I think you've discounted the effectiveness of some of these Wild Surges. Having every hit you take do retributive FORCE damage to monsters multi-attacking you or to hordes of enemies without requiring your reaction. That damage can start stacking up, and hopefully your rage is allowing you to tank all those hits. Giving all your nearby allies and yourself an AC bump--boring but good. Every creature in 30' taking d12 isn't bad either (although I kind of wish you GAINED all those hit points rather than just d12 + barbarian level.) I admit, though, that I didn't get to the high levels where these might feel underpowered, but considering most campaigns generally don't, I think these Wild Magic surges were fun and effective. I can't remember what I rated it at the time of your survey, but I think it was an A or B. Definitely higher than a Battlerager. And I will agree, if some of those effects used 2 or 3 dice at higher levels, it probably would feel better at higher levels.
i had a wild magic barb in a pretty high level campaign (we went to 14) but like. by then all the spellcasters were outpowering the barbarian so bad that he basically just sat at ground level and would rage to get the light thrown weapon rage. bc most things at that point were, flying, and the barb couldnt. it got to the point where the DM homebrewed an insane magic item that finally pushed him up to our level
Thank you! I was really surprised that Kelly didn't say something like, "in the hands of a tactically brilliant player, this subclass can rule the battlefield." I have a spreadsheet, gosh darnit, of the conditions each Wild Magic surge will rock. It's a subclass for players who love tactics and are gifted with flexible tactic chops.
I played one in a level 12 mini-campaign. My DM and I did decide to scale the damage dice for wild magic effects by basing the number of dice on rage damage (i.e. 2dX until level 8, 3dX levels 9-15, etc.), which felt more balanced with the rest of the party.
That said, I agree that my favorite part was definitely the versatility and having to think on my feet to leverage whatever effect the dice happened to choose for me.
@@the.jamie.turner basing it off rage damage is very clever. I might steal that.
It's just 1d12 they gain back, not even 1d12+lvl
"I don't want to be a battery", welcome to the life of cleric "heal bots". It's a support role, man. It comes with the territory.
The cleric spell list has way more to offer, including some of the best damage output in the game... In fact, playing them as a heal bot is I arguably suboptimal.
I think there is a fun synergy with the Simic Hybrid race and the Path of the Beast Barbarian. You could have both a climb and a swimming speed with this race/class combo and also have 2 additional claw arms that allow you to bonus action grapple without a feat starting at level 5. Very thematic as well.
Yeah, I'm playing one right now and cannot wait to get to the next level and start grappling with those bad boys
Wild magic also fits as side effects of the transformation into a simic hybrid that also forces you to have unstable magical outbursts
Hear me out on this for path of the beast, grapple check + jump ability straight up = Suplex from the top ropes with fall damage. I know it not at all optimal, but it just sounds nutty and fun to me
A standing high jump is (3+STR)/2, with the feature it's (3+STR+Athletics)/2. The distance will be halved again because you move at half-speed while grappling and even a vertical jump uses your movement, so the equation is then (3+STR+Athletics)/4. So you would need to have a total result of 40 (quartered to 10) to even get 1d6 of fall damage, but that's not even possible at level 6 without outside help even if you have expertise in Athletics.
If you move at least 10 ft first, then you can keep the (3+STR+Athletics)/2. However you're still limited to your movement, of which you only have 10 ft left; 30 base speed, +10 from Fast Movement at Level 5, then halved because you're grappling. The plus side is you only need to have a result of 20 or higher which is very doable (guaranteed if you have +5 to STR and expertise in Athletics), but you are capped at the 10' height because of your remaining movement. So it's still just 1d6.
HOWEVER, if you're a Harengon then you can use their Bunny Hop trait and combine it with the Beast feature to jump (PB * 5)+Athletics feet in the air as a bonus action. The Bunny Hop has it's own specific rules for determining the distance and does not use your movement, so RAW it is not hindered by the Jump or Moving While Grappling rules. This is even better because RAW if a creature takes any fall damage, they're prone. And since they're already grappled by you, they literally cannot get up without using their action to break the grapple first.
@@PiroMunkie So grappling the enemy and Suplexing them is a great visual and all, but the falling rules would work much better if you were to just jump yourself and land on them, each taking half of that fall damage, which would be halved again for you due to your rage.
So you get to do some damage and knock them prone with just your movement
@@PiroMunkie thinking of a barbarian harengon and immediately my brain went “that’s the most foul and cruel tempered rodent you’d ever set eyes on!”
@@AlexanderBaird Oh yeah, gotta drop the people's elbow on 'em. xD
@ Matt & if you gave him a vorpal sword he'd be a vorpal bunny 🐰
I see the Wild Magic ability as extra sprinkles on a barbarian Sundae. From my experience the bonus action isn't very heavily used by barbarians outside of maybe polearm master. So it's just extra bonus damage, imagine great weapon master with a greatsword or maul and adding that free additional damage each round. 5d6 plus your rage damage and strength mod times 2 isn't that bad.
Exactly.
Yes the damage doesn't scale but it is still weaponizing your bonus action for free. Then you throw in that 1/2 of the options can damage at distance that is just awesome. I can't tell you how many times I have lost rage just because I couldn't get close enough to attack and I didn't take any damage.
@@targetdreamer257 some ranged damage and a teleport can help you stay in rage as well
For the path of the beast, if you don't like the bite or claws, you can use the tail option and use a weapon and have the tail ready for its reaction defensive ability. That way, if you really didn't want to use the claws or bite, you still get a benefit for transforming while your rage, as the tail doesn't mean your hands are occupied and thus can use a weapon like normal. You don't have to use a tail as a weapon if you don't want to, even if you have it out
I'd like to have seen the wild magic table work like the college of spirits bard where the die you roll changes as you level up, so crazier things can happen at higher levels.
At the end of the day, I like to be feral and bonk things with sticks. It's a match made in heaven. Top tier.
I played a Mino - Path of the beast barb in a few games, always brought the tail out, and was using a polearm... only kept the tail for the +AC, which was awesome, and just attacked with regular attacks... it was fun
The most fun I've ever had as a barbarian was the Path of the Beast. Slasher feat was very nice with those claws, and the flavor of the build was on point. As far as magic weapons are concerned... I think there needs to be something for monks and builds that want to use unarmed attacks that can rival Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter, while still remaining balanced. That aside, it just frees this build up to get some cool, non-weapon, magic items instead.
A little oddly specific and also depends on how generous your DM is but a belt of giant strength can go a long way with each of those.
Yeah, more magic gauntlets! That and bows definitely need more magic items, although you can transfer A LOT of magic swords into either
Dhampir is an interesting choice for a Beast Barbarian build, since it gives you some similar effects as Beast that are always on, allowing you to kind of double-dip with the subclass. The Dhampir spider climb is slightly better (since it can be done hands-free), so you can always have that on while picking the Beast's jump or swimming speed based on the setting.
The Dhampir's bite also gives you something similar to the Beast's bite (it deals less damage but has greater utility, especially out of combat), allowing you to stick with claws or tail in combat while keeping the bite in reserve if it's needed.
Would a Dhampir Barbarian be more effective with a different path? Probably. But it is still an interesting combination with a lot of flavor.
I was considering playing that combination myself. Quite vexing that there are no magic items to give enhancement bonuses to attack with natural weapons.
Technically Beast climbing speed never say you need to use your hands to climb, so as long as you can convince your DM that you can grab the wall with your feet, you don't need to use your hands to climb. Growing claws that can grab the walls is a good way to do that.
IM GOING TO BE PLAYING A DHAMPIR BEAST BARBARIAN!!!
That beast tail is under rated. An average boost of +4 to AC cannot be understated. It absolutely devours enemy actions.
I made a minotaur path of the beats barbarian and gave him the Slasher feat to go with the claw attacks, three chances to reduce their speed by 10 is nice
Minotaur is a bad choice (mechanically).
Beast Barbarian is BA heavy and Minotaur needs something that is not (BA for horns attack after Dash, BA Shove).
Much better is Half-Orc, with 2 light slashing weapons for 4 attacks each round (2 with weapons, 2 with claws), especially with 3 level dip of Champion for higher crit chance.
@@JuckiCZ There isn't a single ability that uses the bonus action for a Beast Barbarian outside of Rage.
@@JuckiCZ True it's not the most efficient pairing, but I liked the image of a raging minotaur with claws slashing everything up and screaming in rage and built it from there, I try not to min/max where possible and just build what I would find fun to play
@@RatchildUK BA attack from dual-wielding is - and it is by far the best option for Beast Barbarian.
@@JuckiCZ Or use a magical greataxe, attack, put on back with a free item interaction, attack with claws.
I played a wild magic barbarian in a short level 12 campaign, and my DM and I agreed on two changes that worked really well for our game and line up with the Dudes' main complaints against the subclass.
1. We used an expanded wild magic table with a mix of helpful/harmful/neutral effects to capture more of the high risk, high reward flavor of a wild magic sorcerer.
2. Where a wild magic effect had potential to deal damage, the damage dice scaled with rage damage (i.e. 2dX until level 8, 3dX levels 9-15, etc.). This really helped the wild magic feature stay impactful at higher levels, and combined with the expanded table, increased both the possible risk and the possible benefit.
I can't speak to how well these changes would work at other tables, but it never felt imbalanced with the rest of our party (a monk, a bard/rogue, and a warlock/gunslinger) and made the character a lot more fun for both me and our DM.
My only concern with expanding the table with possible detrimental effects is that since it happens EVERY time you rage, it may make the barbarian shy about using their rage in combat. If you're in a game where you're the only frontliner or the primary damage dealer and you risk turning into a potted plant every time you rage, you might think twice about doing so.
@@josephbrayton116 That’s fair, but also feels in line with the high risk/high reward chaos of a wild magic sorcerer. I wanted that same unpredictability in a martial, and while the name promised it, the mechanics didn’t seem to match. We didn’t go to a full wild magic table, so the really frustrating ones like potted plant weren’t included, but it introduced some more fun possibilities. Our fix was based on homebrew suggestions I’d seen elsewhere and worked well for us, but as I said, I can’t speak to the viability at every table. Even if you didn’t want an expanded effect list, though, I’d definitely endorse scaling the damage dice so it still feels meaningful at higher levels.
Path of the Beast doesn’t mean you can’t use a Greataxe or halberd. They’re natural weapons so you can have them active in tandem with a regular weapon. Need more AC activate the Tail. Need some recovery use the bite attack. And this means you’re never unarmed which is a great thing for the barbarian.
Though they do make a point with the bite, the healing is _pitiful,_ but it wouldn’t be so bad if the healing wasn’t restricted to being below half health and also once a turn. Healing yourself a measly 2 or 3 once a turn isn’t going to be very beneficial
I came down to say this! Lol great axe with a d8 to AC. Let’s go!
Me too. Great Axe & tail.
@@dracoflame33 it seems very low, but remember that if it’s something you have resistance to it’s effectively double that healing.
If you were to get his for 22 damage from a slashing attack, you would take 11 damage. If you healed 3, that’s 3/11 that you just negated. That’s nearly 28% that you negated from that attack. Is it a ton of healing? No. Are there times it’s more or less useful? Certainly. But that doesn’t mean that it’s useless like they pretend it to be.
I think their point was that the claws are the best option, and it says you need a free hand to use them meaning you can only use a one handed weapon with the claws. they may have missed that it only says you need one free hand.
I absolutely love playing the Path of the Beast! The last part of the campaign was mostly inside a dungeon. Having the climbing speed was so clutch at many places during then!
A huge, huge oversight with the Beast Barbarian is that you're fully capable of using a weapon alongside the natural weapons.
If you use the claws, you can attack once with a greatsword, and then twice with your claws. That's almost as good as what the Berserker gets to do, but with no Bonus Action cost and no Exhaustion.
You could use the greatsword alongside the tail and just take free reactions to dodge hits, or take 10-foot shots at any enemies you don't want to be in melee with, like an ooze.
Your hands need to be empty to use the claws, RAW made that clear. You can't attack with a onehanded weapon and once with a claw either, you only get the extra attack if you make the attack action with the claws and need both hands free to do 2 claw attacks.
@@CornBreadtm1 Nowhere does it say you need both hands free to do the second claw attack.
It also only says you need the hand to be empty to attack with it.
A two-handed weapon only needs to be held with one hand, and only needs _both_ hands when attacking with it.
Use both hands to swing the greatsword once, shoulder it in one hand, then attack twice with your other clawed hand.
The AC element of the beast Barbarian is so huge actually. It makes the AC nearly untouchable at low levels and insane at high levels.
The subclass does not have to be powererful, you can say wathever you want but the first time the Tinkabel sucidebomber from the wild magic babarian comes up you know that its going to be a fun session
Until you realise it only did 3 damage because you can only roll a d6 of damage for the effect. Still in flavour its fun. Just so weak it would probably suck the fun out of it at my table.
@@sleepingbeast9351 if low dmg sucks out the fun of the description of suicide bomber Tinkerbell, that table sucks lol
So kind of you to let people say what they want
I’d still run a magic greataxe with great weapon master but always use the tail to get the ac bonus on a reaction
The option to attack with reach isn’t really addressed either.
@@rock21611 or that it increases your attack of opportunity reach too.
The Wild Magic Barbarian is both fun and really useful. I'd give it an A+ at least. You seem to be really underestimating the power of giving all allies within 10ft an AC bonus, turning your weapon's damage to force and making it a light thrown weapon with the returning attribute, making the area around you difficult terrain for enemies in a 15 ft radius, and all the other effects. I would love for it to have more effects but with the ones it has it's a really effective and fun subclass to play and is well above a C ranking.
What incredible timing! I've got a tribe of barbarian NPC's coming up in my campaign, and these videos are populating the tribe
With a little bit of cleverness, you can find ways to make the Beast Barbarian’s claw attacks deal consistently more than a Great Weapon Master’s build.
Multiclasses with monk or spore Druid synergize wonderfully with the beast barb.
Monk Barbarian? Sure, you get 5 attacks but are you using strength for them? And How much Ki is this character going to have to fuel that? Maybe there’s a nova build there, but doesn’t seem very good to me.
@@logancuster8035 yup! STR based, you can put up pretty consistent damage.
I can’t claim credit for the build, but there was a Reddit post called “Power in MADness - a monk that competes with Great Weapon Master” that goes into a great deal of detail on how the build works.
I more or less used that build, with a few minor tweaks, but I found it very effective.
I’d encourage you to google that post to judge for yourself.
You appear to read the Claws wrong - You are not required to make your Attacks with alternating Claws - you can make all 3 of your Attacks with the same Claw - this means that you are able to wear a Shield, which no GWM Barbarian is able to do.
Between the Healing of the Bite, the AC Bonus of the Tail and the fact that you can wear a Shield with your Claws The Beast Barbarian is far more Survivable as your typical GWM Barbarian.
If you want to not use the Shield, you can grab a Two Handed Weapon instead aswell, as the Claws only require you to make one Claw attack to get the Bonus Attack. This means you can go Rage -> Greataxe Attack -> Claw Attack -> Claw Attack in one Turn.
You could also not use a Weapon or a Shield and to a Grapple or Shove with your first Attack and you would still be able to Attack 2 additianol times after that (Rage -> Grapple/Shove -> Claw - Claw)
Having 3 Attacks, let's you apply your Strength and Rage modifiers 3 or 4 times a turn, which is a considerable damage Boost.
In the end the Beast Barbarian is an defensive Barbarian with higher AC (Shield + Tail Reaction) than any other Barbarian and the fact that you have no need for GWM means that you can pick another Feat like Sentinel which makes you the best tank after the Ancestral Guardian.
And let's be real here of a second. Every sensible DM will offer a Beast Barbarian Player who wants to go all in on Natural Weapons part of the Class a way to augment their Natural Weapons in a similar way a magic Weapon would. Maybe they grant you a Insignia of the Claws or a Frostbrand Totem that covers your Claws with ice when you attack or something that resembles an other magic weapon from the DMG.
You can even have 4 attacks from lvl 4 as Beast Barbarian - you just need to sheath/draw one light weapon every turn. 4 attacks at lvl 5, each for 1d6+6 dmg seems like a better choice than any other Barbarian subclass can offer (apart from Berserker, who gets exhaustion after Frenzy).
"shoot em with your... chest beam Steve" that made me laugh
23:42 “I don’t want to be a battery. I want to be a Barbarian!” ~Monty Martin, 2021
What a quote.
Anyone else think that it is perfect that the sponsor for the ranking of the Path of the Beast is Stibble’s Codex of Companions? 😂🤣😂
I'm gonna be honest with you guys, as much as I love your videos and enjoy them, this video tells me you've never actually played a Wild Magic Barbarian. I agree that the lack of scaling will hurt at higher levels, but most campaigns will never get to a point where it matters, and I've always had fun with the wild magic table. The 6th level feature is super fun to use for me personally, as it feels like I'm actually contributing something to the team (and compared to literally any other Barbarian's 6th level feature it's just much better regardless). The weaknesses at higher levels is shit that every barbarian deals with anyways, just make a slight scaling change at the table and you're all good.
Here's our live play where one of the players is a Wild Magic Barbarian: ruclips.net/video/P74z0RIZcWk/видео.html
@@DungeonDudes damn, shut down quick fast and in a hurry💀💀
"if you change the subclass its good. S Tier."
@@DungeonDudes Touche, I'll give it watch.
@@nelu2371 I love it when assholes just blatantly misquote/reinterpret people on the Internet. I never said it was a near perfect subclass, or that the changes were even necessary. I've been playing this subclass for a year in 2 campaigns & have been balancing subclasses for 2 years. In the first two tiers (where most of DnD takes place) this subclass is fine. Is it perfect? No. I simply disagree with ranking it a C.
EDIT: and clearly most of the community agrees, but that's polling data from months ago, so obviously that's to be taken with a grain of salt on top of things pooling towards the middle most of time. Wild Magic Sorcerer by comparison was much more divisive though.
I feel like you guys are really overlooking the side benefits of the wild magic simply because it isn't as random as the sorcerer. I personally would never play a wild magic sorcerer as luck is not my friend, but I see the appeal. However a table of just 8 buffs is much more appealing to me, and while the damage is usually a d6, the single target damage is not the most important thing on the table. It is the ability to use your bonus action without feats, the ability to do small AOE damage, and the ability to inflict the Blinded condition (potentially every turn, changing the course of the battle as the enemy can't respond to your party's attacks and does nearly everything with disadvantage). Teleporting is great, but honestly I don't think it's their best option. I would often rather take the difficult terrain (which specifies only enemies are affected) for battlefield control or the d6 retaliation to make my tanking into my damage against hordes or monsters that rely on multiattack.
In summary, I think you're disappointed by the number of possibilities, and so didn't really think about what they all actually accomplish.
Love the new visuals!! Good stuff fellas
The best thing about Beast Barbarian is ability to have 4 attacks from lvl 5 (2 with Light weapons and 2 with Claws).
All that with Rage bonus DMG!
The best option here is to take Half-Orc, STR 17, Slasher on lvl 4, after 5 levels of Barbarian take 3 levels of Champion.
Now (from lvl 8), you have 4 attacks (while raging) - 2 with Hand-axes for 1d6+6 each, 2 with claws for 1d6+6 each, you have advantage (Reckless Attack), crit on 19-20 and crit DMG is 3d6+6 (becomes later 4d6, 5d6 and 6d6). You slow enemy by 10ft once per turn, but you also give them disadvantage on all attack rolls for the whole round per each crit. And your crit chance will be 4x 19%! So you basically cripple one enemy every 3/4 rounds, you are doing insane dmg, you have great HPs, physical dmg resistance and on higher levels, you also boost your party!
The best Barbarian subclass by far!
How are you attacking 4 times? You can hold a hand axe in one hand while it's a claw, but if you attack with the other clawed hand then you can't use the light weapon to attack with your bonus action unless you have the Dual Wielder Feat since the clawed hand isn't a light weapon.
@@brandf.7691 You can sheath/draw one weapon as a free interaction each round. So you make your 3 attacks with a hand axe and the claws, then draw the 2nd hand axe and attack with it as a bonus action. Next round you just switch up when you make the bonus action attack, and then sheath the hand axe to attack with the claws.
At least this how I understand it.
@@brandf.7691 1st round:
Have 1 hand-axe, 1 free hand. BA to enter Rage, Action to attack 3 times - once with hand-axe, twice with claw.
2nd round:
Use Action for Attack Action (which gives you 2 attacks) - attack once with claw (it uses your first attack from Attack Action), then use your free attack with the same claw (given from you lvl 3 feature), then draw second hand-axe (now you are wielding 2 light weapons in your hands), use your second attack granted by Attack Action to attack with your hand-axe and use your BA for off-hand attack with that drawn hand-axe. 4 attacks in total!
3rd round:
Attack action (so 2 attacks) - use first for axe attack, then use your BA for off-hand attack, then sheath one of those axes (free object interaction), use second attack from that Attack Action for claw attack (you have 1 hand free now) and then you can attack once more with that claw (lvl 3 feature). 4 attacks in total!
round 4 - X: repeat 2nd and 3rd round tactics.
@@JuckiCZ oh interesting. Is there something written about being able to take your BA between attacks? It makes sense, since you can use your move and apply other BA actions following an attack, I guess I've never seen DW attacks separated in that way before.
@@Valwryn00 it is RAW. Nothing says you cannot.
And as dual wielding is written, you need to take attack action, make attack with light weapon and then you meet prerequisites for that off-hand attack. And both conditions are fulfilled even before your second attack from that attack action.
Apart from that, you can separate those 2 attacks from attack action with any BA (rage, spell, cunning action, change targets of Hunter’s Mark, Bardic inspiration,…), so why would you not be able to use this BA (when you fulfill all requirements for it already)?
The tail for Beast Barbs have reach as well
Being the Wild Magic guys, I actually find myself curious what you'd do for a wild magic table for the barbarian
*LumTehMad* made a pretty nice D100 wild surge table on Reddit like 7 months back that I'm using in our campaign.
It has a ton of wild things from fireballing yourself and everyone close by on rolling 1 to becoming a demigod with 2x your normal stats and speed on a 100.
I gave it as a bonus option to a barbarian in our party by saying that he got possessed by a fae that channels the wild magic into whatever he feels would be funny.
So now the barbarian is kind of an Archfey hexblade warlock as long as he is using his new and shiny Ring of Protection where the fae was locked up in.
I also had some ideas about what would happen if anyone else in the party decided to use it, but nobody has yet.
It's now also an unintentional plot hook because they are considering trying to free him from the Unseelie Court´s spell that locked him in the ring.
Not sure what I'm going to do if he gets out, but my initial thought was to make him a group patron of some kind ( never done that before, so i thought it could be fun )
Video idea reccomendation: How you guys would upgrade/homebrew lower tiered sub classes to make them A or S tier.
I feel like they would make perfect 15 to 30 minutes and would help the community bring to life these flavorful subclasses that just aren't reaching their full potential.
Glad to see the community embracing the beast! I'm currently playing a Beast Barbarian reskinned as a pugilist and I'm having A LOT of fun.
Instead of fangs, claws or tail, we describe the beast forms as boxing/martial art stances. Gonna grab a couple of monk levels to add bonus actions attacks on top of the "claw" extra attack and a couple levels of fighter for action surge, second wind and to boost the claw damage to a d8 with fighting style (we interpret natural weapons as type of unarmed strike). As variant human, I also added the tough feat to boost the HP. One of my favorite characters ever!
Oo boy, I've been looking forward to this, because now I get to talk about my Beast Barbarian from the Eberron campaign I'm in.
Her name is Jenny "Rizzo" Rizolli; one of her parents was a wererat and her lycanthropy powers awakened one day in her mid-twenties. She has a metal baseball bat (reflavoured Warhammer) called Monday that has recently been upgraded to be magical and deal additional force damage, while she mostly uses her tail for her natural weapon.
She's one of my absolute favourite characters that I've created and RPing in her THICK Bronx accent never gets old.
Love the video! I think I would go for wild magic anytime, for any class that gives it to you. I just love the randomness and how chaotic it can be lol. Also, what do you think of my idea of a human or half elf wild magic sorcerer where the wild magic has its own personality? Like Venom and Eddie Brock ?
That's a fun idea!
Nothing checks me out of one of these videos faster than Monty comparing a subclass' features to Great Weapon Mastery/Polearm Mastery/Sharpshooter. Maybe I don't want to take the same feat on every single character, Monty!
Exactly. I don't want to be just creating the same character over and over again mechanically.
My wife played a wild magic barbarian in my Dragonheist campaign. She was having so much fun. I tell people that if they just want to have fun as a barbarian to play wild magic. Every time the table cheered when she got the “nipple beam” or the teleport. The thrown weapon part actually ended a fight that the villain was trying to escape. Dude had very little health left, barbarian couldn’t reach him, but she had the thrown weapon surge. Pinned that sucker to the door to wild cheers.
Beast is also great for a whole other lore approach for Barbarians--it's perfect for a Jekyll and Hyde sort of character. A charlatan "alchemist" was selling illicit potions, and the guards were on the way... only way to "hide" them was to drink them. Basically, how Hank McCoy in X-Men got all blue and fuzzy.
Poor magic item use is also kinda frustrating, though.
Not really, magic items are basically crutches
I LOVE this idea!!
@@jpjfrey5673 Or are they one of the greatest reasons to play D&D? A lot of people love loot.
I know that isn't every game table--and that's fine! People should play the way they enjoy. But for some players, D&D is about killing monsters to get more magic items. And the Path of the Beast doesn't necessarily work well with that.
@@thebitterfig9903 loot isn't just magic items that are pure stat boosters. Proper consumables, other items with interesting uses, potions - all of it makes you *use ya brain* for once. A stat stick - the coveted "issue" of Beast - does the exact opposite - makes the game play itself for you. Rolls become less significant, the need to plan - pointless, all due to the fact that your attacks don't miss, your armor prevents hits, and every item solves puzzles that you had to use spells for: the very *definition* of a crutch. Especially when magic items can replicate *class features* that you had to work for with sweat and tears and the DM just gives you one on a stick
@@jpjfrey5673 Are there cool non-stat-boost magic items? Sure. If your DM gives it to you.
If your DM just gives you a +2 Great Axe, tho... well... that's maybe when you wish you picked some other subclass.
Taking the Dual Wielder feat you still get 4 claw attacks per turn at level 5, I think that's considerable.
Frankly, Barbs don't seem to do much with their bonus action anyways.
It would be comparable to a monk using flurry of blows. Just average, nothing special.
@@Mastikator with the exception that it doesn't cost you any Ki points and you get free +1 AC from the feat.
A worthwhile option I think.
@@DaMuetze "You gain a +1 bonus to AC while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand."
Unless you're holding someone else's claws in your hand you aint getting any AC bonus
If the monk is allowed a free feat they could take Fighting Initiate and take Defense fighting style for the same +1 AC.
Though as a monk with a feat I'd start with FI and take Unarmed Fighting to increase the martial arts dice to d8 (and switch it out to defense or blindfighting when they have d8s from the class)
@@Mastikator it is al a very wonky thing to begin with. RAW the claws count as weapons for you, so technically having both hands free and them being claws should constitute "wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand" (if the first claw does, the second should too).
Thus the requirement for Dual Wielding should be fulfilled.
The Defense Fighting Style needs you to wear armor, which a monk does not have (usually). So that wouldn't count.
Unarmed Fighting on a monk would be interesting for the higher damage die, but there are other Feats that I think are more interesting, like Mobile for a skirmisher style of play or Fey Touched for some Misty step action and Hex/Hunter's Mark and +1 WIS.
Blindfighting is indeed a very interesting Fightings Style that I also would choose for my monk, especially if you're a shadow monk and can cast Darkness.
Grung Path of the Beast who gets ungodly standing leaps is pretty funny. Fly across the room, land on the enemy's face with a slapping sound, and start clawing/grappling them, while they get poisoned and struggle to escape the grapple checks.
Well, one interesting use of the beams for the Wild magic one, a free ranged attack without having to take your hands off your massive weapon acts as a good closer while you close the distance to a distant enemy. Just seems to have a lot of options for maintaining your rage.
I'm actually playing a Beast Barbarian and it's putting in serious work. You use Thrown Weapon Fighting and Dual Wielder. Start with your claws get those two attacks, then Extra Attack draw two handaxes hit with one then bonus action to hit with the other. I have more attacks a round then our Fighter.
Now I agree that WM barb is underwhelming, but to say that they have no features for outside of combat, when Magical awareness and bolstering magic for ability checks exist is a disservice.
Also, in your example of using rage to get teleportation and explore, you can use your action to damage yourself (for like 1-2 damage), thereby extending your rage.
jump, water walk, fly, spider climb - 3 spells that they can give back to the caster to allow for this + their version guidance on skill checks out of combat is amazing.
You guys are awesome! Keep it up!
Beast barbarian is more like a Sabertooth then Wolverine.
I'm currently playing a fairy wild magic barbarian and it's a ton of fun so far. I've flavored the rage as extreme emotions (joy, fear, sadness, etc) rather than anger.
Well, if you look at some races you can cover the Beast barbarians weaknesses pretty well. For example, I built a beast barbarian with a Longtooth shifter. By combining the shifting feature (1d6 bite as a bonus action) with the claws, you get a super rage that basically turns you into a werewolf, where you have resistance to melee attacks, temp hit points, and FOUR attacks per turn all dealing 1d6+str+rage bonus, and provided you land them all you can average 4d6+24 PER TURN for an entire minute at level 5. This can out damage almost every other barbarian subclass at that level, just because you’re attacking so much per turn and getting that rage and strength bonus with all of them. Also, remember that you’re playing with your DM. If you feel that your natural weapons are falling behind without magic items, talk to your DM, and work with them to get some magic items that enhance your natural weapons. I’m sure your DM wants you to be having fun, so homebrewing and making new items to keep you up with your party isn’t going to be a problem for them.
I immediately think of an item from Campaign 1 of Critical Role, where Keyleth had a magic item that added a permanant 1d6 fire damage to all claw and unarmed attacks, something like that would be massively powerful on a beast barbarian.
I played a PAth of the Beast in a short campaign and one of the things i like about their natural weapons is that it actually DOEs encourage a more defensive build. A Barbarian who focuses a bit more on their Dex, and Con while using a shield is REally defensive
I honestly wouldn't say you need much dex, I think you get to 16 then you use a shield and breastplate or half plate.
Getting all those points isn't rly needed.
As a DM for a wild magic barbarian, it was an incredibly easy choice to have the wild magic damage scale with cantrips. We've also been struggling to come up with interesting additions/replacements for the table.
I just want to point out that the Beast Barbarian Claws allows you to make an additional attack as part of the action and doesn't require your bonus action so at 3rd level you get two attacks and at 5th level you get three!
With dual wielding, you get 4 attacks at lvl 5 ;-).
@@JuckiCZ With the duelist fighting style you can wear a shield while doing +6 damage each turn, providing you land all your shots. Getting that extra attack is certainly nice, but I think doing a bit less damage in exchange for having a shield is pretty nice. Not to mention that you can't make that offhand attack on the turn you rage. Plus, as my guy is a shifter, I wouldn't be able to use Wild Hunt and get the bonus attack on my second turn anyways.
@@andruism7 Good point.
I am not saying that dual-wielding is the only good option for Beast Barbs, I am just saying that a lot of people don’t realize, that Beast Barb can attack 4 times at lvl 5.
On the other hand, you don’t seem to realize all numbers.
That BA attack also profits from Fighting Style and Rage bonus, so with STR +5 we are talking about 1d6+7, later 1d6+9 and with Dual Wielder feat even 1d8+9. If you compare this to your +6 dmg, you fall behind a lot.
The other problem with dueling is, that it doesn’t profit from crits at all and Barbarians are crit machines. My Half-Orc Beast Barbarian with 3 levels in Champion has 19% chance to crit with each attack, which means 2d6 bonus dmg. On higher levels, it becomes 5d6 and with Dual Wielder even 5d8 bonus dmg (average 5.13 dmg boost per attack).
The last thing you seem to miss are magic weapons. With dual wielding Barbarian, you do 2 attacks with weapons and 2 with claw, with S&B, you do only 1 attack with weapon, so with +2 magic weapons, you miss 2 dmg per round only from that weapon (and +2 attack).
And we also have feats like Slasher, that debuff on crit, which means with 4 attacks, there is 33% higher chance to debuff an enemy.
To sum it up, with STR +5 and S&B, your dmg is 3*(1d6+9), with 2WF, it is 4*(1d6+7). It is 37.5 vs 42 even before crits. With crits and 65% to hit, we have 34.9 vs 42.2.
And how is it on high levels with magic weapons +2 and Dual Wielder feat? Your Shifter even while shifted (so with fangs and BA attack) deals 1d8+13 + 2*(1d6+11) + 1d6+9 = 64.25 dmg (50.6 without fangs, all including 65% base chance to hit and crits). Dual wielding does 2*(1d8+11) + 2*(1d6+9) = 66.2 dmg (47.4 in round 1).
So you deal in 1/2/3/4 rounds with your S&B 50.6/101.2/165.45/229.7 and dual Wielder does 47.4/113.6/179.8/246.
See? Even with Shifter fangs, you loose cca 10% dmg output right from round 2! So yes, you will have more durable character (with higher AC and temp HPs), but will deal less dmg. The question is, if that 33% higher chance to debuff enemy with slasher wouldn’t mean better survivability that AC and temp HPs.
PS: if we run out of rages, your build does (not attacking recklessly) 2*(1d8+7) = 26 dmg, while mine does 3*(1d8+5) = 33 dmg, which is 27% more and 50% higher chance to debuff (on crit).
While I haven't tried it yet I've been thinking about a throwing build Beast Barbarian since you don't need free hands to fight with the tail or Jaws and a climb speed/Jump to get to places to throw from.
That is a cool thought.
The wild magic's light beam isn't about the d6 damage. It's about the blinded condition it applies as a bonus action.
I thought the same thing.
How perfectly timed! I'm playing with both Beast Barbarian and a Wild Magic Barbarian in the same game and this was quite the interesting breakdown.
The other three are Eloquence Bard, Divination Wizard and Blood Hunter so its gonna be interesting!
@@stars1941 eloquence bard plus divination wizard equals zero chance for plans to fail
About freaking time you guys do this. Took way too long. Although I'm glad, because Wild Magic has been awesome to play and I don't care what you guys think. This is not a C. It is a B at worst.
Okay bringing back the emotion.
You guys also forget that its says you can re-roll also when you fail a saving throw, that's major. Also, I'm extremely disappointed you didn't go over every surge effect. There only 8 on the table and you only mentioned less than half. My only issue is the effects like damage dont scale, however since some require the target to make a saving throw, your AS and PB will increase the DC overtime and your CON is a big focus for Barb. You also have to remember that while the damage is low, most of these can be repeated every turn for free.
I can't believe you didn't cover effect #1 which is any creatures of your choice take 1d12 necrotic if they fail a CON save. AND you gain 1d12 temp HP. While this only occurs on the roll and not after, it is extremely powerful, and at higher levels when you re-roll this means you can potentially do this again.
Or effect #6 that gives you and allies within 10ft of you +1 AC until your rage ends!
Or even effect #4 that a weapon you're holding will turn into a freaking keyblade/Mjolnir. The main weapon damage becomes force (a less resisted damage type), it also gains the light and thrown properties meaning you can take out your shield while wielding a greatsword in one hand AND you can throw the weapon dealing damage AAAAANNNNDDD it will return to your hand at the end of the "current turn" meaning you could do this as a reaction and it will come back to you at the end of that turn!
That magic awareness ability was very pushed aside too. Aside from it only lasting a round and only extends 60ft, its better than detect magic in the sense that there are no restrictions against penetrating through certain objects, except for behind full cover. This great if your spellcaster really wants to take something else, they can rely on you. And I have done this myself.
Becoming a walking pearl of power vending machine and a non concentrated mini bless that last for 10 mins? At lvl 6? Guys cmon.
And one last nitpick. Comparing this to the Wild Magic sorcerer in the way you did was unfair. That has like a hundred random effects and only the DM decides if the sorcerer rolls on it and it could endanger the party. There are eight effects here. They do not put your allies in harms way, not even effect #7 as its creates difficult terrain for your enemies. There are plenty of harmful and debuffing abilities and spells that spellcasters have that hurt their allies. Here you are the magical supporting tank that everyone will love at the table.
Im happy the community gave this a mostly B leaning to A.
EDIT 11/17/21
Thanks for the replies and constructive discussion. Glad we can discuss this like civilized people. This may be he first time that Kelly and Monty have disappointed me as a D&D player. They dropped the ball and spoke bad about it without going over everything. People who have no idea about this subclass who watch this video would automatically assume its not worth anyone's time like battlerager or way of the four elements. They need to redo this vid on the Wild Magic specifically. I'm really surprised this has over 2k likes and less than 100 dislikes.
I agree with you, but I will point out that effect 4 doesn't remove the two-handed property so you can't use a shield with a greatsword.
The biggest problem is that its primary ability is random. That means you can’t really optimize your build around it. Also, on their scale, B is not just better than C, it has to be an S in the right campaign. I just don’t see the campaign where this is an S.
That being said, it could be pretty interesting as a multiclass for a Paladin. Getting Rage, Reckless Attack and restoring spell slots for smites could be really great. WMB 6/Pal X could be really interesting.
One more note: Magical Awareness is stopped by total cover, making it easier to block than Detect Magic, not harder.
@@dascientist8443 I'd argue that you could. Because its specifically states you gain the light property on the weapon. This of course doesn't mean you can dual wield great swords, but you certainly can wield a one handed weapon in the other.
@@theresnoracelikegnome My biggest issue with Monty and Kelly in this video, is they went over everything in Beast, but skimmed over the important features of Wild, thus giving this a terrible overview and critique. It's so odd they will criticize how bad the Beast's Bite HP regain is after attack, but wont talk about how that compares to Wild's lashing tendrils gaining a bunch of temp hp.
I have played wild magic Barbarian and will absolutely play it again it's my favorite subclass in the game. Yeah, they are very wrong, and also wild magic sorcerer is not good. Not even looking at the fact that a good chunk of that chart just ruins your day and is only going to be fun for a certain kind of people. Your chance to Wild surge only happens when you cast the spell if your DM decides to do it and you roll a one. So like you don't get to use that feature hardly ever, it would be very easy to go full combats without seeing it once. . And then if when you do finally see it it's bad or not even close to being fun that's a very poorly designed class. wild magic barbarian fixed that problem. Also arguably like everything on the table is pretty decent. the only real criticism I could agree with is the damage not scaling but like that's not a big criticism. I'm going to do a ton of damage anyways I'm a barbarian wielding a great Axe with great weapon master I'm fine. Also, I believe there are only four effects of the eight where they take magic damage that's the first one that only happens once . One where you summon a Frump it explodes and Deals damage around it which you can do every turn as a bonus action and I can't think of too many things that barbarians actually get the spend their bonus action in the first place on. The radiant light one that if they fail that bc save they are also blind so that's honestly good on its own the damage is just extra. And the last one that deals damage doesn't even require a save if they hit you they just take D6 extra damage that's kind of cool that's just solid. Pretty much everything else makes a barbarian extremely sticky being able to teleport makes things hard to get away from you it's literally Misty step as a bonus action every turn. Making everything around you difficult terrain for your enemies makes it harder for them to get away from you and that's very good as a barbarian and the other one that makes you sticky you get the throw your fucking weapon at them in it does force damage then returns to you and you can keep doing this. You and everyone around you better AC like they acted like these are kind of mediocre but they're all really solid and they didn't mention how sticky this makes the Barbarian at all which is kind of one of the best parts of it.
OH YEAH! Is Angy time!
(And Wild Magic should have a lot more options)
That would just conflict with the later features, just make it so they scale properly and you're fine. And ask your DM if you can make a custom table for your character as well.
@@malmasterson3890 So a 1d12 Wild Magic Table that Scales. God that sounds nice.
I knew there was something I had a bad feeling about the Wild Magic barbarian. Thanks for putting it into words.
In my group, I played a wild magic barbarian and GM agreed to do a little homebrew tweaking. For example, one of the things we did was gave the damaging magical effects a pretty reasonable, standard type of level-based damage dice scaling. That alone really helped to keep the subclass very fun at higher levels. We also tried using a slightly tweaked version of the wild magic sorcerer's surge table instead of the wild magic barbarian's surge table. Both options are actually pretty fun.
I'm playing a level 14 wild magic barbarian and I highly disagree! I love the ranged option, the ac buff to me and allies around me, and of course the teleporting. For me this is perfect amount of random since I *loathe* wild magic sorc and hate friendly fire. Its just enough to give an extra thing in combat. The d3 can be added to your own attacks. Plus the flavor is just amazing and fits my character concept to a T. I'll never tote it as the best, but its a solid pick and I dont regret taking it.
it's not the strongest but it's SO FUN. Barbarian mechanics are usually quite cut and dry, you get bonuses for your attack or dmg absorption. I love the randomness of this subclass
@@kixmix2450 Just enough spice! I honestly don't understand the dislike of being "a battery" giving the barbarian something else to do outside of combat is a nice touch! The one thing I dislike about barb and fighter is that you're kinda stuck just being good at combat, so *any* outside utility is welcomed.
As far as the Wild Magic Barbarian goes, I'm pretty sure "this feature is really good but I don't want to use it" isn't a great reason to knock it out of A tier. I really, really hate healbot Clerics, but I'm not about to rank the Life Cleric with a C because it's not fun for me personally. The fact is, that 6th level feature is really good, and you're going to want to use it all the time if you're in that subclass.
Also, every other feature combines to ensure that you're slowly growing from "random buff table" to "I can basically get the right buff every time" with better and better consistency. By level 14 it's difficult to go through a battle and NOT get the rage effect you want. Again, that should be reflected in your rankings: there are some really useful buffs that you can basically always have on. I think you both let your bias get the better of you on this ranking, it's absolutely worthy of A-tier.
In my campaign I play a wild magic barbarian named Tutag and the DM and I spiced him up by giving him the mental and emotional maturity of a toddler. If anything happens that might upset him he has to make a wisdom saving throw and depending on the level of failure I have to roll on an expanded wild magic surge table. He's basically the magical equivalent of an unstable isotope on legs and the party has to keep a constant eye on him or else risk an arcane nuclear meltdown. The saving throws don't happen very often, but when they do it becomes a hilarious event for the whole table.
Finally!!! It's here!!!!!!!!!
Disagree with the WM, getting an extra use of web of hypno patter is probably the best thing any Barbarian could ever bring to the table
Unless you roll a 1 and in high levels of play web is one of the most useless spells that exist
@@sleepingbeast9351 that's just blatantly not correct. Does it lose a lot of its power over time? Yes. But it's nowhere near the worst of the spells in the book
The wild magic table for barbarians is actually pretty good because it triggers every time, unlike sorcerers where it has a low chance of triggering it that gets higher over time. You can't have the high highs and low lows with such a main feature, otherwise people might be afraid to go into a rage and gimp themselves for fear of making things worse.
Wildhunt Shifter Beast Barbarian. On the second round of combat at level 5 using your Shifter feature you effectively get Four attacks w/ advantage using Reckless Attack and all enemies within 30 feet of you no longer benefit from also having advantage against you. Ranged enemies apply normally, but you essentially can just unleash an onslaught of claw or mix claw/weapon attacks on enemies within 30 feet of you. Also, you gain advantage on Perception checks as well.
Currently playing a Warforged barbarian that was built to be a precision weapon by the red mages of Thay, who was discarded by the wizards because a malfunction formed in the source of his rage. He would often break formation when attacked and the wizards saw it as problematic. So they deactivated him and buried him in a hillside, only to be dug up decades later by a dwarven farmer digging a well on his land. Taking the wild magic subclass was another way I chose to build on the malfunctioning Warforged angle to being a barbarian robot.
Tavern Brawler isn’t the feat you take with Beast Barbarians, it’s Fighting Initiate with Unarmed fighting. While Tavern Brawler let’s you grapple as a bonus action Unarmed Fighting deals extra damage. First round of combat BA rage choose claws, first attack grapple, second attack make two attacks with your claws. Second round of combat deal 1d4 damage with grapple, make three attacks with your claws. Rinse and repeat. Also if you take a level in monk with unarmed fighting style the second round and subsequent rounds you deal 1d4+3d6+1d8+Strength mod (4x)+Rage bonus (4x)
Plus turning it up with FoB at monk 3+
but the claws are natural weapons/simple weapons... they aren't unarmed strikes
@@irwingbrasilyes, he is taking that into account. Thats why he specified the damage, so you can see they he is counting the claws as the main attacks and the d8 unarmed attack as the monk BA Unarmed attack.
Edit: because you can do the monk BA unarmed attack due to attacking with the simple, melee claws with which you are proficient
@@Thiccyg Can we grapple with our claws (simple weapon)? Bc it needs one free hand.
And the unarmed fighting grappling damage works if we grapple with a weapon?
@@irwingbrasil rules dont say, and theres no SAC either way but if your dm rules that you cant grapple something because you have claws, thats a bit unreasonable
Hey, do you guys think once you're done with the reviews, do you think you could make a series where you 'fix' the subclasses that are under S tier to at least be an A subclass? I would love to see what you think would be able to bring up the level of the subclass!
That does sound like a good series. I second this.
Interesting tidbit on the Beast Barbarian... 1d8+STR weapon with 10ft reach that allows for use with a shield and pairs well with any flying race! I envision a flying tiefling spouting a thicker demon tail out of their small prehensile tail, or an Aarakocra sprouting a beastial dinosaur tail from their butt, swinging from the air, keeping a higher AC leveraging a shield, and using reckless attack at reach, then backing up vertically a few feet avoiding AoO from many creatures. Using the claws, Attack, with Claw Extra Attack with Claw, Additional attack with Claw, offhand attack as bonus action using a light weapon in the other hand using STR instead of Dex.
A friend of mine ran a path of the beast barbarian in a game from 1st level to 11th level that was pretty good. The main reason for that, besides it being mostly low-level, was that we didn't get a ton of magical items/weapons.
This meant the claws were comparable damage, and the ability to count as magical weapons mattered quite a bit.
They also added weapon attacks as part of their Attack actions, since they only needed to make one claw attack to get the other one once they picked up a +1 weapon. Their mobility ended up being really useful also, so I would say that as long as the GM is willing to provide magic items that are actually useful for a natural weapon using character(ie, magical tattoos, or a necklaces that adds a modifier to natural weapon attacks, etc...), then it ends up being pretty reasonable.
So…. Seems a little unfair to rank down a subclass based on what magic items a DM may award. Your barbarian is going to feel underpowered using their claws when the DM is awarding magic hammers and axes…. Well, isn’t that a DM problem? That’s like pushing down an archer build because there are so few bow magic items in D&D. Any DM that is worth their weight, is going to try to award magic items that make the player feel empowered. If a Beast Barbarian is my only melee player, as a DM, I’m not going to be awarding magic hammers to the party. I’ll be dropping the Insignia of Claws…. I also think you got the extra attack mechanic a little wrong there.
I half agree.
Thing is a lot of DMs will be playing modules and handing out only the items in those modules. Not every DM tosses in player-specific homebrew and not every DM should have to.
Lore is also a big thing to consider. In my Greek-themed game I might not be tossing out +3 guns and handbows made by the gods because it just doesn't fit the lore of the weapons associated with those gods. Doesn't mean I wouldn't let a gunner build play but it might take some reskinning and I might have their top tier items be non-weapons (e.g., cloaks or armor).
I think you were a bit hard on the Beast. This is easily S Tier to me. The amount of options you get is amazing and creates cool build diversity applicable for lots of a playstyles and tactics. For example a Barbarian with a shield and tail is a cool combo. You could take shield master and destroy at range while being quite tanky. And in terms of the bite I find it quite helpful. Regeneration is just not given to other options in the game. It's a really fun idea. They already take half damage so you are going to be healing while taking half damage.
Number 7 on the barbarian table is a monster of a feature. Let's just throw a great ax with great weapon master.
"Shadows weave around a weapon of your choice you are holding. Until your rage ends, your weapon deals psychic damage instead of its bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage, and it gains the light and thrown properties with a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet. If you drop the weapon or throw it, the weapon dissipates and reappears in your hand at the end of your turn."
Path of the Beast is a subclass that intrigues me on a role play perspective, especially as a warforged who would reconfigure himself for each of the choices made. I get though that you really focus on damage output with all melee classes and that is about it, while I really enjoy role play options.
As many said, there are some misunderstood aspects, but also, with the magic greataxe bent, the DM can always help and give an item that buffs natural attacks. That goes along though with discussing with your DM about your natural attacks and unarmed strikes. As always, it all depends on your DM, who can strengthen or weaken any class with their choices.
Going into this: "Yeah, WM Barbarian is gonna be great!"
Going out: "Oh man that Barbarian subclass is trash!"
Not exactly trash, more like multiclass option (barb 6 + other class) which is not uncommon for barbarian. All good features scales with PB, after all. Concentrationless single-target bless is good for any party, and 4/8 of wild surge effects gonna be good at any level (and only one is strait up useless - flumpf-bomb).
@@notsochosenone5669 True. I'm always thinking of "right to 20" with the class hardly ever dipping. Then again, I haven't really hit level 20 except for one time, so a multiclass would be great as you've suggested.
-Shifter(longtooth) is a great race for beast barbarian. You get temp HP and can attack with your off hand dealing 1d6 piercing instead of slashing but your DM can rule this to slashing if you want to.
-Wild magic barbarian most useful feat is to give your party members spell slots back or pseudo bless. Overall mediocre subclass.
I’m currently playing a Beast Barbarian in my Saltmarsh game and I’m loving it. I’m a winged Tiefling as well, so between that and the swimming speed I have been able to do some really silly moves (I hijacked an enemy galleon during a ship encounter and steered it into another enemy galleon, then swam away).
I’m also, funny enough, using tavern brawler on that character and I’m also having a lot of fun. In a recent combat we were surprised by a pair of barlguras who flanked us and went for the Bard and the Wizard. I was raging with the claws, used one of my attacks to make a tavern brawler strike, used my bonus action to grapple them, then flew them up out of melee range of our Bard and used the claws to still make two more attacks.
Imo, the subclass is fantastic. Magic weapons on demand is also huge in a campaign where those are typically really rare. Flight + reach from the tail has also let me do some silly things, and while the Bite doesn’t heal *a lot,* it gives you just a little bit of regen which can make a huge difference (I admit the bite is my least favorite option though). The claws giving you three attacks (combined with reckless attack and brutal critical) can really add up, even if it isn’t as strong in terms of raw numbers compared to other subclasses that are available. Those other subclasses trade off variety and versatility for doing one thing really well. I like variety. Especially for Barbarians, who, like you both said, don’t get to do much outside of combat in a lot of cases.
I agree with the B ranking, but one underestimated aspect of the beast barbarian is that you CAN get GWM and still attack with claws. You dont have to make the second claw attack with the opposite hand, meaning you can get your greataxe, attack with it once, then let one hand go and hit with the claws twice. The versatility allows for you to switch from mob to solo target dps. That extra rage damage definitely adds up.
Ive played a Dhampir beast barbarian and my goodness it was effective. Claws and wall climbing, massive jumping so terrain can be weaponised, plus switching to a tail and bite attack combo when dropping low for sustain.
PS a monk beast barbarian attacks 5 times a round with FoB
I did a multiclass of wild magic barbarian with wild magic sorcerer. Homebrewed so I can roll on the wild magic sorcerer table every time I wanna use the Tides of Chaos ability. It's so much fun and replaced reckless attack for me.
Question for WOTC: why is it that the rogue, artificer, paladin, and fighter subclasses are perfectly balanced, but the barbarian and bard subclasses are middle of pack. And the Wizard, Cleric subclasses are SUPER BUSTED. It feels like sub classes are made to solve the issues for the class and then for the more well-balanced classes there’s a sub class power creep. But each class has a different issue with the sub classes
I ranked the wild magic really highly when I took the survey as I had just started playing one.
I’ve been playing one in a long term campaign since tasha’s came out and I agree completely. This class doesn’t scale, you end up without a subclass in some combats, and you end up as utility battery being the most useful thing you can do outside of the base kit.
Outside of the blind and the misty step, my dm and I are working on replacing all of the other ones with level one or two spells as effects.
I played one in a high level mini campaign, and my DM and I agreed to scale the effects by basing the number of damage dice on rage damage (i.e. 2dX until level 8, 3dX levels 9-15, etc.). It felt a lot more balanced with the rest of the party once we did that.
A few weeks my group decided to assemble the party to play WBtW, and to increase the madness we had to roll basically everything for our characters: race, class, background and all background traits... I ended up with a fairy barbarian. Kind of hated the idea at first, but I kept going along and eventually I grew fond of it. We could still choose our subclass, so I didn't think twice before going with the path of wild magic. It is quite strange but facinating what my character can do, with magical awareness and things like flying, Enlarge/reduce and druidcraft that I get from my race. I consider my character very good at exploration, and the combination felt strange at first but now I feel like it just fits.
Another cool interaction between fairy and the barbarian class is the fact that Enlarge/reduce lets me not only become tiny, aiding in exploration, but also become medium, allowing me to use heavy weapons. Another point, and this is just something cool that my DM let me do, but I can cast Enlarge/reduce to enlarge myself as the same bonus action I use to rage, if I have uses of the spell left. This may be powerful, but it's more about the cool factor and me not having to set up Enlarge/reduce beforehand or giving up on attacking when I activate rage, and also kind of fits the "wild magic surge" bill
Best build concept for Beast Barbarian, is to just use the Tail weapon for its defensive property and still use a two-handed weapon.
I think you guys really undersold the effectiveness of 1, 5, 7, and 8 on the Wild Magic Barbarian table. It seems rather apparent to me that this is more of a Support Tank than a Hearty DPS.
For 1, the damage is mediocre, but 4-15 temp hp for free at level 3 is pretty solid(and 21-32 at level 20), plus rage resistance effectively doubles the temp hp if the enemy is using bludgeoning/slashing/piercing.
5 is spectacular late level against creatures with multi attack, not just hordes of goblins. No reaction required to return practically unresisted damage
7 is literally budget Spirit Guardians. You trade the concentration requirement for the decent AoE damage. Also, the spell doesn't create difficult terrain, which can be countered by certain features.
8 applies blind as a bonus action. The damage is yet again negligible, but the effect is great for mitigating damage against your allies as well as negating the opponent's advantage when you use reckless attack. Plus, it's not a ranged attack, so you can use it freely against someone right in front of you.
Even 4 turns your greataxe/sword into a force damage thrown weapon, which is a little niche, but useful when it's needed. All of this being said, I'd still rank it a solid B at best. It would have been so much better if the level 14 feature let you have two at once, in my opinion that'd make it an A.
Highlight of my DnD career was using the beast climb speed while grappling an enemy to effectively do a Stone Cold Steve Austin Stunner into a “jump from the top rope” leaping off of the high up cliff with the enemy to the ground below. Destroyed the enemy, Barb only took half damage from resistance to bludgeoning damage, and then made a belt out of the enemy’s snake leather as a trophy. (Enemy was Yuan-Ti)
100% the Path of the Beast Barb needs to get in the thick of it as a brawler/unarmed meat shield.
Played a mid level campaign with tavern brawler, eldritch claw tattoo for bonus to unarmed (and depending on the situation melee weapons)
It’s ability to disrupt the enemy line really opens it up for the party to pick off the stragglers.
Just as a gist for my previous comment, I very much enjoy watching your subclass rankings and I do like hearing different opinions. But I believe the reason why the community is so opposite because we see a lot of potentials. I want to play a 5ft 3 Shifter Barbarian after the beast so that way I could use my claws and say that they're like wolverines claws. Is it damage going to be high? Probably not, but I would have so much fun feeling like the character I've always wanted to play. And as for the wild magic, it allows us to play this weird goofy Barbarian who doesn't know where he gets these extra powers from and that's pretty awesome. What you guys are not seeing whether it's comes to damage or utility, we see a lot of creativity and wonderful class that most of us love.
The wild magic barbarian doesn't scale but it can shine. I used it in a one shot and was doing the most damage at the table and was able to do the most creative things. I wouldn't choose this for a long term campaign but would definitely do it again for a campaign that ended at lower levels.