The flavor of a roguebarian showing she's unarmed to ask for an audience with an assassination target, before pulling out her claws and ripping out his throat, then wall-running or leaping three stories and out the window seems absolutely kickass. It's a shame the natural weapons can't benefit from sneak attack, though.
@@shenpai1566 Ya but like the poster said: sneak attack doesn't work with the natural weapons. which is why i think playing a goblin pure barbarian would be better for this concept.
“This might be decent if you’re playing in a game where feats aren’t allowed.” If I’m playing in a game without feats there’s no way I’m playing a martial character. Feats are the only thing that let martials even approach spellcasters in combat.
No feats, Rune Knight is kinda okay? You get to spam reactions to shut down enemies, which is pretty feat independent as is. You still miss Sentinal a bunch, and run into those awkward ABI's when everything you care about is at 20 already. But, that's life. Maybe, uh, a Hexadin? That's... technically a martial. Technically. Tortle becomes the standout spellcaster choice. Plop down a spell, withdraw, and cackle madly as you sport the only beefy concentration save in the world. And Loxodon becomes the go-to for hybrid casters and such, since your trunk is pretty much the only way to handle material components that a PC gets, failing trying to finagle your DM to let you use your tail or something. The Con AC is also pretty nice in a world without Moderately Armored. The casters that pull up at level 1 with 17+ AC, without feats, but still with half of Warcaster stapled to them anyways really prove that feats help martials more, man.
If you take feats out of the equation, suddenly monk/rogue look like more reasonable options when considering a martial to play. I wonder if the designers just didn't think about feats when balancing the martial classes.
I guess you are missing something regarding the jump. Using the new rule of Tasha's for falling onto creatures, you could knock them prone by jumping and falling onto them. This requires no actions. Moreover you halve the falling damage since you have resistance. Idk if this is strong, but surely it is fun, and I just made a build around this concept and took the athlete feat.
I planned out a tabaxi beast barbarian mixed with ranger for the jump and longstrider spells. Can just 100ft+ into the air. Would love to be enlarged and then jump up and grapple an adult dragon. Once grappled you would both plummet to the ground. Fun stuff.
It multiclasses quite well with Rogue (Scout or Swashbuckler). 6 levels of Beast for the magical weapons/movement, then the rest Rogue. You land your sneak attack with a finesse weapon, then make two claw attacks. All the offensive benefits of rage and reckless with all of the expertise (Athletics, Stealth, whatever else you want), sneakiness and evasiveness/speed of a Rogue (that can now climb ceilings), and your bonus action remains free to Cunning Action (or Bite if you're a Longtooth Shifter). The two claw attacks make up for the lost sneak attack, and the sneak attack (mostly) makes up for not using a great weapon. Not the most optimised, but incredibly flavourful and still performs well, and needs no feats.
I'd think about multiclassing it with Soulknife maybe? Then you don't need to use traditional weapons at all. I'd take attack Action and hit with my Psyhic Blade (which disappears after hit leaving my hand free) + Sneak Attack, then Bonus Action hit with other hand with Psyhic Blade, then Claw attack and 2nd Claw attack. I'm not 100% sure on the rules, but I **think** you can use rage bonus and str modifier on all attacks - Sneak Attack only requires you *use* Finese weapon, not that you use Dex with Finese weapon to hit.. It's quite flavorful - a psychic almost-lycanthrope just going HAM on an enemy, starting precisely with psychic strikes and loosing temper mid attack
I went 6 levels on Beast and now going down the Ranger/Hunter Class (another free attack per turn, spells that don't need concentration, heals for after, and want the Rover ability to claw/climb ANY surface)
I feel you really undersold the Claws and missed an opportunity at a great build here. Yes they are d6s but you get to add your rage damage to each attack. Thats 3 attacks per round at level 5 for free. If you take Dual Wielder tou can then make BA attack for 4 attacks per round. With 4 attacks I don't care about a lower damage die. Additionally they become magical at 6 so you never have to worry about resistance. Yes a good DM will give a barbarian a magical axe or whatever but that same DM would probably give you something to upgrade your claws. But relying on a DM to give you something shouldn't be a factor in optimizing. So assuming no magic weapons(and I have been in campaigns like this.) I will take 4 magical attacks that are d6s over 2 non magical d12s. This isn't even mentioning the oppoutunties presented by multiclassing. Hexblade for thier curse, Fighter for a Fighting Style, Second Wind , and Action Surge, Paladin for Smites. I could go on.
you can't make 4 attacks, the second claw attack specifically says that it only happens once per turn. They DO, however, count as monk weapons, since it specifies that they are simple weapons. So you could do your two claw attacks then flurry of blows.
@@SavageGreywolf thats just not true, the claw gives you an extra attack as part of the attack action for a total of 3, and your bonus action attack is what brings it up to 4. With flurry of blows you could make 5
There is one side to the claws that make them better in some ways. One, you only have to attack once to get the extra attack, so if you like you can have your two-handed weaped, hold it in one hand, then take the two claws attacks before taking the extra attack with the two-handed weapon. When considering the added rage damage, and increased to-hit it might be worth it over great weapon fighting, at least against high AC enemies. Another aspect of the claws that is an advantage is that you can wear a shield and still attack 2-3 times with your action, at no penelatiy for the increased AC.
I currently DM a player who plays a Paladin with a Ring of Jumping. I've done it by the book, and I can say from experience that added jumping distance is a great low key way to power up a melee fighter. Path of the Beast barbarians could be pretty scary in this regard.
You can’t quite jump that high, but a build I’ve been considering is beast 6 / monk x. Step doubles movement and jump distance so you get (strength + athletics + 1d20). Plus you have 35 feet of extra base movement. With that alone you’re going to get around 82 feet of long jump. If you start to throw in the jump spell or boots of striding and sprinting things get crazy.
Been using the Tasha's rules since they came out, and Instinctive Pounce does some serious heavy lifting. At this point I can't imagine playing without it, it just enables so much more stuff on a tactical level. From setting up behind any enemy and blocking their movement to getting into the enemy backline as fast as possible to catching fleeing foes to just making turn one movement easier to route, it just has so many uses.
I think that I can see the claws work for a build with a shield, three 1d6+5 attacks are better than two 1d8+5 attacks so it's a good damage boost with no addittional cost, but I don't know if I would pick it over the tail anyway
Well, your shield build could already do that with a quarter staff or spear, and the polearm master feat. Yes it uses your bonus action, but most barbarians don't use that very much. I guess you could go shield master to get a use of your bonus action. How good that is, would depend on your party, and how many melee combatants you have around you to take advantage of the enemy being prone, and how many archers you have, that would be sad you made the enemy prone.
Your comment about 'no incentive to take barbarian's to a high level' is spot on. I have always felt that barbarians get the core of their features around levels 6-7. Almost every time I'm playing a barbarian as a PC or theory crafting a build I tend to multiclass around that level. The exceptions typically include Zealot as they scale well and their 10th and 14th abilities are phenomenal or some Totem builds that use Wolf or Eagle at 14th can be quite fun. Overall the Beast subclass offers everything you need at level 6, that feature is amazing and gives the Barbarian a real powerful feature that is flexible for the combat and exploration pillars of play.
what kills barbarian progression for me is how much the designers rationed rage -but then tied so many of your class features to it. For most the subclasses 3 out of 4 of your subclass level features are tied to it, plus your level 1, 11 and 15 features revolve around it. -Meanwhile you are only able to use it in up to 3-5 fights per long rest for most of the game. After that you're just a worse fighter. Also I don' think brutal critical holds up as a stand alone level up feature -let alone 3...
Something with claws, you don't need to use both attacks on your Attack action to be claw attacks to get the extra one. Ie, if you have 2 light weapons, you could Attack action to do 1 light and 2 claw attacks, and BA for another light weapon attack.
You don't need to use two hands to HOLD two-handed weapons, just to attack, so you can still attack with your main weapon and do two claw attacks with the same hand.
@@herrkrabbe148 claw shield is certainly effective... But isn't using a shield kinda very counter to the fantasy of being a raging beast? ^^ I just can't imagine a raging werewolf having a shield in one hand :P
PAM + Halberd + Claw. 4 attacks/round at level 5. (1d10+2+3)+2*(1d6+2+3)+(1d4+2+3) avg 35 before crits with full attack bonus with advantage. Not terrible
Polearm master requires you to only attack with the polearm, so no you can't get four attacks per round without great weapon master's bonus action attack.
Claws + no feats + two handaxes: 4 attacks/round at level 5, damage 4*(1d6+2+4) = 4*(9.5) = 34 on average, with better attack than PAM (+2 STR thanks to ASI), so why even bother with PAM feat? ;-)
I’m going to point out that as long as the Barbarian is taking Piercing, Slashing, or Bludgeoning the healing from the Bite can be viewed as technically double the effective healing due to resistance. So assuming that you’re taking damage that you’re resistant to this is equivalent to 4 HP at 2nd level and 12 HP per turn at 17th. It’s not the best but that is something to consider.
Minor point, but wanted to point out that contrary to what you said, having a swimming speed actually does allow you to ignore underwater fighting rules (to some extent). A creature that has a swim speed ignores the melee weapon attack penalties.
Hey Treantmonk, what would your opinion be on a grappling build with the Beast Barb? Trying to break away from the standard GWM barb, and one that could focus more on defense and single target control than pure damage in the early tiers and slightly addresses the tank fallacy of some barbarians. Barbarian rage for advantage + proficiency in athletics for the grappling check. As you need at least one hand to grapple one creature, carrying no weapons or shields allows you to grapple up to two creatures at once. Combine this with the tail and you could remove two melee only enemies from the combat, and have them focus only on you with resistance to P, S, B damage, and a reaction increase to your AC, in addition it acts as a 1d8 weapon you can attack them with. Not the most optimal in terms of damage or base AC, but it allows you to drag around two enemies and still attack them which I thought was fun. Otherwise you could use tail + shield for a nice increase to AC. Or no shield and both claws for decent single target grappling and damage. Also a fun combination to use Infectious fury on your two grappled targets and have them attack eachother in addition to your own attacks.
This is definitely not an overpowered subclass, but it gives some great options that add to the class and are a ton of fun. Not to mention all of the movement utility for out of combat and roleplay options.
Depending on your race or your DM, the claws are an excellent damage boost. If you can weaponize your BA with an offhand attack, that’s 4 attacks per round and 4 times you can add your rage damage. This gets you close to GWM without the penalty to hit and without using up a feat.
@@antongrigoryev6381 I guess it would depend on the DM. I DM for our group and it make sense to me that claws would be lighter than a short sword and would allow them to be light weapons.
@@GrensealAsellus I’d love to try it out. Still don’t think it’s the most powerful barbarian build, but it definitely delivers on that gothic horror theme I love.
@@antongrigoryev6381 You don't need dual wielder feat! First round: Attack action for 2 attacks. Use first attack to attack with weapon, then BA for offhand attack, then toss weapon, attack with claw twice. Second round: Attack action for 2 attacks. Use fist to attack twice with claw, then draw second weapon, use second attack to attack with a weapon and then BA for offhand attack. Repeat every round. No feat needed, 4 attacks every round (appart from first round when you rage). Combine with Slasher feat, 3 levels of champion, half-orc and you are crit monster right from lvl 8!
Me: "This subclass seems cool, but I don't know if the mechanics work fine." Treantmonk: "This is a fine subclass, especially if you consider..." Me: "Say no more!" *starts making a character*
Dual wielder feat gives you a bonus action attack for a total of four claws attacks, combine it with reckless attacks for advantage, throw in 3 levels of champion fighter for two weapon fighting, crits on a 19 and action surge and you're looking at a 7 hit combo Nova with advantage and Str+Rage bonus for each attack. Congratulations, you're a walking wood chipper! Edit: the additional claw attack only happens once a turn so it's 6 attacks in total.
"Once on each of your turns when you attack with a claw using the attack action, you can make an additional claw attack as part of the same action". So, Dual wielder only gives one additional claw attack. That said, it's still an ugly build.
Consider rather this (with Champion 3 dip): Slasher feat, dual wielder not required. Appart from first round (when you are already in rage), you do this: Attack action - 1 attack (Handaxe or Scimitar), BA for another attack from dual wielding, then toos one of your weapons, second attack from Attack action will be done with claws so then follows your fourth attack. In next round, you attack twice with claws (it costs you one attack), then draw weapon, do second attack in attack action and fourth attack as BA. So 4 attacks every turn without a feat from lvl 5. Now Slasher feat. With Champion and reckless attack you have 19% chance to crit, so with 4 attacks, you will force one enemy to have disadvantage on all of his attacks in 3/4 rounds. This boosts your survivability extremely, it nulifies reckless attack drawback against most bosses, so it seems like fantastic combo! DMG will be also quite good. At lvl 8, we are talking about 4 times 1d6+6, with +7 attack and advantage (a little better than 2 times 2d6+16 with GWM, because the attack will be only +2 in this case). You also reduce enemy speed by 10ft. As Half orc, we are also talking about extra 2d6 dmg on every crit, so average extra 5 dmg each turn (3/4*(2d6)).
The Claws granting an extra attack will definitely be an overall offensive boost - more rage damage applied, more chances for criticals, and because you just need the one hand to make them, that free hand can be used for other tactical purposes (holding a shield, holding a different weapon, grappling someone to hold them in place, etc.). For example, you could wield a spear one-handed and take PAM as a vHuman, and that’s 4 attacks per round starting round 2 as early as level 3, all of which have rage damage applied, and using reckless attack to get advantage on all of those makes it that much more likely that we’ll land them all (plus the increase to our chances to get critical hits). Plus, getting guaranteed access to magic weapons can be a literal game changer in low-magic settings where you’re not guaranteed to find a magic weapon that can overcome that pesky resistance to non-magical weapon damage that just becomes more and more common as you face higher CR foes.
I think the claws are great for specifically a grapple barb. You can’t really use great weapon with a grapple build. So that’s a Build where the claws are better
Imagine all the beast features appearing as dinosaur parts and you can begin making a fairly convincing Dr Ferdinand & her stand Scary Monsters from Steel Ball Run.
Also of note for this class, in the UA the bite was the only "defensive" option and it worked period, regardless of your HP. That made it a little more unique. They both nerfed it and added the tail which... Yeah it's kind of useless now. Weird design choices, per usual. They should've made it do something unique, like automatically initiate a grapple.
The claw attack could be pretty good. When you get extra attack, you can swing with your primary weapon then use your second attack to attack with claws (which warrants a follow up attack). Nothing in the the rules says you can't just hold a two handed weapon with one hand and use the other hand to attack. Three attacks at level five for a barbarian could be crazy good.
Yeah, I had that thought myself. And you could have 4 attacks per round as a longclaw shifter. Bonus action bite attack on top of those 3 other attacks. Or take the one subrace that negates advantage on attacks against you from up to 30' away
Regarding the claws natural weapon, and this might be a very rules lawyer-y thing to try to push for, but it specifies that you must use the attack action to attack with your claws, but not that you must use the entire action for this purpose. So hypothetically if we have the polearm master feat: at level 5 we could attack with a glaive, let go of the glaive and attack with our claws, attack again with our claws as part of our action, then place both bands on the weapon again and attack with the rear end of the polearm as a bonus action. This would give you 2d6+1d10+1d4+16+8=39 average damage, whereas a pure PAM barbarian would be getting 2d10+1d4+12+6=31.5. GWM beards both with 4d6+8+4+20=46 damage, but that significantly cuts into your chance to hit, even with reckless attack. Beast damage would also arguably scale better due to more attacks getting more from boosts to strength and rage damage, and they would also get a bit more from brutal criticals than other barbarians, although they would lose out if there were good magic weapons available (a problem shared with the monk).
@@marekkubicek1235 No real argument there, but the problem with a subclass that provides a straight damage boost is that other options will struggle to compete. I do think that the flavour and the level 6 utility is going to turn people towards this subclass though.
eh not really. The zealot barbs additional damage at level 5 is on average like 5 points at level 5. The claws additional attack is just better. It may become more even at higher levels though
I'm actually inspired somewhat. Lizardfolk (Swap Wis for Strength) Beast Barbarian with a Maul. I know the Polearm is more optimal, but GWM/Crusher does open up some tasty combo potential, plus having essentially 3 different attack profiles at the same time (tail, bite, club) does give some flexibility. Plus, giant angry crocodile man. Don't know if I'd go full barbarian or dip out around 7 for Fighter
Big missed point here!!! You can add your Str Modifier to each hit of the natural weapons!! I feel like this was massively glossed over and is a main sticking point for staying with the claw attack. If your Str is +3 at level 3, that's a free 10 damage on top of your claw damage! ( 3strx2 + 2 rage damage per hit!) Then, claw also doesn't specify you need to hit with each hand. So, if you keep one hand free you have a hand to either grapple, hold a shield or even hold a second weapon if you go dual wielder feat.
I've made a bit of peculiar build with this, using the claws, tho the optimal version uses the UA brute, maybe can be changed for battle master tho a lot ps lost The idea is do many attacks and use things that add to each So 3 barb 2 monk 11 fighter 3 gloom stalker and 1 warlock maybe That's 3atks+1 claws+1 gloom stalker on first round so 5 and then 5 again w action surge and if ya don t need or want to rage or hex curse 2 more as bonus for monk So either 10 atks+20 (rage)+60(5 str+1 from insignia of claws)+55(10d8 from brute) while setting up rage Or 10 atks+60 (curse)+60(same as before)+55 (same) and even +20 if ya set up rage early) Or just 12atks+ 66(12d8)+24(rage if set up) Pretty good options on first round followed by a consistent 5 atks per round (3 fighter 1 barb 1 asbonus action from monk) Also with most groups I play with consistently +1 to +3 "fistcuffs" are allowed for monks since they are unplayable without and hardly decent with, so of your group does that too go ahead and add 30 to 36 dmg to each of the calcs above
If you have access to Ebberon and the double scimitar, you can use THAT with the beast claws to make four attacks at level 5 (one from the scimitar, two from your claws, and one as a bonus action) which could be quite strong, especially since it doesn't require any feats. Also, can't wait for a discussion of what is IMO the worst subclass in the entire game.
I keep thinking about how appealing this subclass gets with the "Three House Rules to Fix D&D" for non-feat -5/+10 on attacks made as part of the Attack Action. The extra Claw attack you make is still part of the Attack Action, so it'd work out great. Equip a Shield, reach level 5, make three claw attacks with one hand, then use your bonus action for something else. Since you get a lot of the damage potential of GWM and PAM for free, you'll be free to grab other feats. Maybe Shield Master and Sentinel are nice and easy grabs, or Slasher to reduce enemy movement speeds (great if you dip Champion for crit-fishing). With the -5/+10 house rule allowing your damage to mostly keep up with other options (mostly), you can really ramp up the control and defense, which is kinda neat.
Consider this (with Champion 3 dip): Slasher feat, dual wielder not required. Appart from first round (when you are already in rage), you do this: Attack action - 1 attack (Handaxe or Scimitar), BA for another attack from dual wielding, then toss one of your weapons, second attack from Attack action will be done with claws so then follows your fourth attack (claws feature). In next round, you attack twice with claws (it costs you one attack), then draw weapon, do second attack in attack action and fourth attack as BA. So 4 attacks every turn without a feat from lvl 5. Now Slasher feat. With Champion and reckless attack you have 19% chance to crit, so with 4 attacks, you will force one enemy to have disadvantage on all of his attacks in 3/4 rounds. This boosts your survivability extremely, it nulifies reckless attack drawback against most bosses, so it seems like fantastic combo! DMG will be also quite good. At lvl 8, we are talking about 4 times 1d6+6, with +7 attack and advantage (a little better than 2 times 2d6+16 with GWM, because the attack will be only +2 in this case). You also reduce enemy speed by 10ft each round. As Half orc, we are also talking about extra 2d6 dmg on every crit, so average extra 5 dmg each turn (3/4*(2d6)).
As much as I like to say I love optimization, however I am a player that lets the game dictate how I advance in a class or even why I am choosing a subclass. My character is a son of a Devil (newly discovered) I am doing this subclass with a little tweaks for a Devil; Tail is a Chain from a Chain devil and so on.
As a Beasthide Shifter, I multi-classed this with a Way of the Living Weapon (bestial) monk; his name is Temujin of the Plains. Loosely based off the character Ma San from the excellent martial arts film The Grandmaster, produced my Martin Scorsese. I envisioned a version of him from an earlier version of Northern China, when the Jian Hu Underworld was kicking off. Before the Wall was built. Having a Martial Arts Bonus action really rounds out the PotB Barb opening level extra attacks. I'm just straight monk now, to incr. the Martial Arts Die and build into the sub. ( I think).
I absolutely agree that you lose damage doing a claw build. That said, it's the one "viable" option to not two hand a barbarian. 3 levels of fighter champion, half orc, rest of levels in barbarian beast. Pick up two weapon feat if your DM is being a dick. Now go crit fishing with a berserker barrage. It's fun, doesn't totally beat out great weapon... but it's close enough I don't hate myself. (Jumping into a berserker barrage will get you the closest to Wolverine energy)
Yeah. And also I had to check to make sure, but it's a specific curated list of weapons that are not disadvantaged underwater, leaving piercing weapons like the lance, the pike, the morningstar and your poor bite attack with disadvantage if you're caught underwater without a swim speed.
So the dual wielder + claws combo doesn't quite work the way most people think, though I think most DMs will allow it (I certainly would), and there's a narratively awkward, but mechanically solid workaround, anyway, that works from 5th level onward (see below). The problem is that both two weapon fighting rules (under "Attack" in PHB) and the Dual Wielder feat are limited to weapons that you are *wielding* and the path of the beast barbarian is very clear that, although you may use your claws as a weapon, your hands must be empty when you do so - in other words, when you are using your claws as weapons, you are still technically not *wielding* any weapon (light or otherwise). The dual wielder feat removes the constraint of "light weapons only," but it does not remove the "wielding" condition - in fact, the text of the feat re-states that condition explicitly: "You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one handed melee weapons *you are wielding* aren’t light." So... talk to your DM. I'd allow it, I think nearly every DM would allow it, but going very strictly by RAW, there are some problems. If they don't allow it, here's the awkward workaround, which requires dual wielder feat and extra attack feature: 1st round of combat Draw two one-handed weapons (dual wielder feat), use bonus action to rage, take attack action and make two attacks w/ whichever weapon is better Subsequent rounds Take attack action and make one attack with one of the weapons. Before taking your next attack, drop the weapon you just attacked with. Use your extra attack to attack with your claw. You have now met the conditions for two-weapon fighting bonus action attack *and* the extra claw attack. Before ending your turn, use interact with object to pick up the weapon you dropped (or to draw a new one) Doing all of that is completely RAW legal but also weird and clunky, and I'd wager that 99% of DMs would just simplify all of that and say "For all intents and purposes, you can 'dual wield' your claws as if they were simple melee weapons." But it is something you should talk to your DM about before you make the character. (And do note that you will want the two-weapon fighting style for this all to be worthwhile.)
i love this version of barbarian! at level 8 my mountain dwarf, bare chested rager has PAM and GWM and does comparable damage to the non-path of the beast versions. and i have more chances at landing crits with the extra attack each turn. and at 10, i'm going to treat infectious fury like a paladin smite and try to save them for crits, where an extra 4d12 damage sure will be nice :) the fun you can have making your target smash it's friend is hella fun too. and for extra memes, go half-elf custom lineage(even regular half-elf), and take elven accuracy at 4.... double advantage on every attack swing with reckless attack... lol
@@Rodrik18 as Treantmonk points out none of the natural weapons are better options than Great Weapon Master/Polearm Master. Abilities that are all about doing damage but can't compete with existing options are generally not worth taking
@@Rodrik18 So I ran through the math of both builds making just their normal attacks while raging against targets with AC that gives the barb a 60% hit chance assuming they start at 16 str and increase it as quickly as possible. I also assume the barb is always reckless attacking. The GWM/PAM makes its 1 or 2 normal attacks plus its bonus action attack. The beast barb makes its 2 or 3 attacks, as the claws don't function with dual wielding RAW (I assume that's why they added in the pseudo dual wielding feature of the extra attack). Looking at this math the beast claws are at their best at early levels, and fall off later. You are right that these damage outputs are fairly close, but the beast barb has the major problem that it doesn't scale with magic items the way a normal weapon build does. Add in a +1, 2, or 3 weapon and the GWM/PAM jumps way ahead as increases to hit make a big difference with GWM. Beast Barb also loses out on better barb subclass features like Bear Totem's resistance to everything or the Zealot's refusal to die at higher levels. It's not that the beast barb's weapons are useless, you can play one and do just fine, but that's true for basically any monoclass in 5e, doesn't make it a mechanically strong option. GWM/PAM 3. 15.520 4. 19.780 5. 30.510 6. 30.510 7. 30.510 8. 32.040 9. 33.570 10. 33.570 11. 33.570 12. 39.555 13. 39.555 14. 39.555 15. 39.555 16. 41.283 17. 41.283 18. 41.283 19. 41.283 20. 41.283 Beast Claws 3. 18.190 4. 19.870 5. 24.480 6. 24.480 7. 29.805 8. 32.325 9. 34.845 10. 34.845 11. 34.845 12. 34.845 13. 34.845 14. 34.845 15. 34.845 16. 37.365 17. 37.365 18. 37.365 19. 37.365 20. 37.365
@@Rodrik18 dual wielder requires a "weapon that you're holding in one hand" . Your claws are not held in your hand, they are your hand. This is akin to not being able to use two-weapon fighting with your fists, monks need a special feature to allow it. Insignia of the claws does add +1, and if your GM allows it to be in their game then it does partially deal with the scaling issue. However, there are a few problems. 1. It's an unusual item from a specific adventure and will be less likely to show up than a +1 weapon 2. It doesn't have a +2 or +3 variant 3. The GWM/PAM build gets more even comparing +1 weapon to Insignia of Claws as its starting accuracy is lower and it does more damage per hit. Edit: I use the same target AC for both, the GWM/PAM build is less accurate in my model
Question about the 6th Level Beastial Soul : Extra Jump. Could you grapple and then vertical jump?... essentially performing a Cyclone Pile-driver like Zangief from Street Fighter.
@@nicolasvillasecaali7662 For sure my bonk ( barbarian/monk) does just that with his bonus action step of the wind doubling my high jump and being a strength based boyo
Seems interesting for a three level dip for a mainly monk character. Monk 2 beast 3 monk 17 would (I think) let you use the monk dice for the natural weapon, which could make it worthwhile to use the claws in combat. Maybe not up to scratch with the GWM-PAM build, but no feat requirements either
The text of Form of the Beast says, "It counts as a simple melee weapon for you..." So, I would think that qualifies the claws for the Dual Wielder feat. However, I don't think the bonus action claw attack and +1 AC really makes up for the usefulness of a shield with shield master feat.
Honest talk about the barbarian. The base class does the majority of its labor, this subclass actually looks like something of a response to the Pathfinder 2E barbarian.
Dragonborn Barbarian looking slightly better with Tasha’s attributes shift, the tail for defense, breath weapon and Great Weapon Master & Sentinel to lock down targets you can do a good job at tanking.
Nuh uh. Plenty of BS you could theoretically do for "the most damaging". Push off of skyship? 20d6. Roll the check to cast a scroll with Meteor Swarm? 40d6 x however many creatures you hit. Tell someone that looks up to you that they have smelly breath? Freaking scarred them forever.
That extra claw attack is benefitting from your rage damage bonus, which combined with the cut in accuracy I think narrows the gap with GWM quite a lot (especially since you're also up one ASI). The downside, and it's a big one, is that you're not holding a magic weapon. As for the healing, resistance makes it stretch a little farther and it doesn't have to happen a lot to be competitive with a reasonable amount of CON for your hit die in terms of impact. Nobody would argue that more CON is a bad thing.
Tail pretty much just have to block 1 attack to "heal" you more than bite. And bite will lower your damage output, tail will not. For claws vs poelarm, a longer analysis is needed: Edit: my math was off, corrected the numbers TLDR: Comparable polearm build and Claw build. Polarm build averages 37 damage per turn, and claw build averages 34 damage per turn. We can try to compare damage. The claw build we will give dualwielder feat and +2 strength, and the non-claw build with polearm master and great weapon master. Lets assume a strength bonus of 4 for the polearm master, and 5 for the claw build, the claw build having 65 % chance to hit, and the polearm 35 % chance to hit, those numbers are before advantage. (Obviously these numbers would depend on enemy AC.) After advantage that becomes. 88 % for claws, and 69.75 % for polearm. Both types of attack have a 9.75 % chance of a crit. Let us further assume they have the extra attack feature, and rage is dealing +2 damage. Polearm guy is making 3 attacks. 1d10 +16 has an average damage of 21.5 but we have to multiply that by his chance to hit. 12.5 damage on avearge. We can add in critical damage by calculating the average extra damage of a crit, and multiply by his chance to crit. 5.5 extra damage on a crit, times 9.75% chance of a crit. 0.54. That is around average 13 damage per big attack, for 26 damage for both his attacks on average. But he also gets a small attack. Same calculations just with a d4, gives us around 11 damage, for total average damage per turn of 37. Claw guy. 1d6 + 7 damage, averages at 10.5. After calculating chance to hit, and crit, we end around 9.6 average damage per attack. times 3 attacks brings us to 28.6 Off hand brings another 5.2 damage on average for a total of around 34 on average. Claw guy has a few advantages +1 AC for dualwielder, and +1 strength for athletics checks and strength saves. But polearm guy has his own advantages, such as reaction attack when the enemy approaches, using reach weapon, the use of the tail feature, can use magical weapons, and doesn't lose as much damage output if not raging. And of course if you take the character to high levels, polearm guy will eventually catch up in strength. At higher levels, claw guy gets more out of the increase in rage damage. Polearm guy gets more out of brutal critical, but the difference there isn't big. Depending on how you tweak the assumptions, you can probably get the two damage numbers closer or further apart.
@@Rodrik18 Actually I assumed dual weapon fighting style from a 1 level dip in fighter, which is the same benefit as fighting initiate would grant. Also the polearm fighter has room for a strength increase for better damage, where the claw one is already maxed out. After reading the ability carefully, I think it would be possible to hold a longsword in one hand, and do your attack action, making 1 attack with long sword, and another with claw, then because you attacked with your claw, you get an extra claw attack, and you get to bonus action attack with the long sword. This upgrades 2 of your attacks to d8s and make them able to benefit from magic weapons. Not enough to catch up but we are closer. I also think claws could be interesting for a shield build, that might want to use their bonus action on shield master shove.
@@Rodrik18 In my first analysis I considered not calculating with dual wield fighting style, but concluded it was unrealistic. Fighting initiate is a fairly weak feat for anything other than archery fighting style. The +2 str will probably still be better than fighting initiate. But yeah, I suppose I could have given the polearm guy the two handed weapon fighting style, for a more fair comparison. If we insist on monobuilds with 2 ASI each. The polearm master pulls even more ahead. The claw build loses around 4 damage per round. While the polearm guy stays the same. (at least in my example above)
@@Rodrik18 I redid my math, and I had a calculation error, and I can see they are indeed very close in DPR, I would still personally prefer the polearm master, build, because of what it can do. Reach and extra attacks when enemies approach, as well as leaving me free to pick the tail option for natural weapon. I also like having a more threatening opportunity attack to keep the enemies close. But you have a really good point about the grapple, you lose very little DPR and ensure someone stays close, so that will do very nicely. I am happy to see that the two builds are much closer than my first calculations showed. It really comes more down to play style, and what else you want the build to do. Which is how it should be in my opinion.
You're sleeping on the claws hard, I'm currently in a campaign where I'm playing a Path of the Beast Barbarian, and started playing it back when it was still a UA class. At level 5 you get 4 attacks with the claws, due to Extra Attack. Now, let's say you have 18 strength at that point, assuming all your claws hit, your damage will be 4d6+24, and taking the average for all those dice, which is 4, you'll be doing 48 damage per turn! That's phenominal, and cannot be compared to any other class at that level, hell even at higher levels! You're essentially turning yourself into a level 20 fighter with 22 strength wielding a short sword or scimitar! This is better than a greatsword/maul dealing 4d6+12 due to the guaranteed stacking bonus damage from strength + rage and gets better and better as you level up, and since Barbarians don't get Fighting Styles outside of feats, you won't even have the rerolls on 1's and 2's to rely on anyway. Now sure, you might say "But there are no magic items that buff unarmed attacks", and you'd be right... But that's where homebrew comes in, which 99% of DM's allow/actively enjoy using so your point is kind of moot. Oh and the extra reach from the tail? Play a Bugbear, which is what I did. Now your claws will have that reach. Sure, less damage on reactions, but that's a miniscule price to pay!
I wonder about how a Path of the Beast barbarian would gel with a Monk character multiclass build. Having more damaging natural claws when raging (especially at low levels), and a possible extra attack with the tail, might up a monk's damage output in interesting ways.
A reasonable DM would rule that you don't take damage from falling the same height as you jump. The forces on your legs are exactly the same when you jump and when you land, so unless you also want them to take damage when they jump, the landing shouldn't deal damage either.
@@michaelhenman4887 Lots of dm's would rule the raw way of you taking fall damage unfortunately. I also think you should be able to choose how high you jump rather than having to go the max hight you roll.
@@michaelhenman4887 it also should be noted that if you grapple an opponent and jump/fall you would both be taking fall damage. If you let the barbarian ignore taking fall damage while letting the opponent take it you'd be making the character more powerful. At least with manta glide you paid a race opportunity cost to get this kind of power.
@@afrosamurai3847 yub exactly lol. Except with simic hybrid you can do it without the monk levels, tho unarmed moment would still help your jump height
I think Path of the Beast suffers from the design philosophy of "You're not assumed to have magic weapons" WotC uses to balance. I made a google doc for this (below). Since you can do an axe+claw+claw once you get extra attack, path of the beast is actually light years ahead of GWM and GWM + Polearm (assuming you're not getting them "free" on a variant human) without a magic weapon. However, add even a +1 magic weapon to negate GWM's accuracy loss, suddenly it starts catching up. And of course, if you have an even stronger magic weapon, you're looking at a worse and worse tradeoff. Google doc: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LoAZHD2GnfoAxCuti7rKdJlvmnuDiHhteKbPe27BDm0/edit?usp=sharing
ill just go ahaid and say it. i think the claws are one of the better dmg options that barb offers. build propperly you can expect dropping 60 dmg avg every round barring your first. which is on avg 4 more then a gwm barb making 2 attack's with a great axe. and that without the -5 penalty. so you will be able to achieve your damage far more reliably and consistently then a gwm barb. which also leads me to mention. this is likely one of the best grapple barbarians since you get 3 attack's each of which is a grapple attempt, but since you have 2 claws you can still attack your grappled target. this is not something a gwm barb using its 2 handed weapon can claim.
I would be interested to see a breakdown of the difference in damage output between a maul w/ GWM and the claw attacks. I wonder whether the additional DPR would really be worth the trade-off of the +2 AC and other feat options using a shield.
Jumping feature could actually be a really great power boost for a grappler build. Grab an enemy, jump up. With Athletics check you should be able to easily exceed 10 feet, so after landing your grappled creature would take a little bit of damage and fall prone. Would barbarian himself take the falling damage is questionable, by RAW I beleive it would, but it is stupid, because if your legs are able to launch you at some height they should be able to withstand the force of you falling from exact this height as forces they are dealing with are exactly the same in either case. But even if DM will rule strickly RAW and tell you that you will get falling damage from it it is still net positive for you as you will half this damage and you will be able to stand up, while it will be impossible to your grappled target
I think the claws are an attempt at making a TWF-like thing. Also, the most I can think of with them is to take the dual wielder feat. You make another attack with them with the attack action, you can now TWF with them, and because they both count as weapons, you gain the +1 ac. Not saying this is good, just that is the best I got right now
@@Rodrik18 I feel like you can’t really omit crits from barbarian build comparisons, -eventually 1/5th of their level up features are based around them (reckless attack and 3 brutal criticals) -and they’re made to soak up hits following reckless attack, - all of which play to the greataxe’s favor (averaging +3 more for Each d12, landing that +10 hit and getting a 3rd attack). Even w/o reckless attack or accounting for kills, you’re probably still getting at least 1 crit and a subsequent bonus action attack 10% of the time. (2 attacks each with a 5% chance assuming outside sources of advantage and disadvantage average each other out). Also GWM builds still work even when you can’t afford to rage.
@@Rodrik18 these calculations don't account for reckless attack/advantage, -which is something you might want to have if you are otherwise looking at a 60% chance to hit. Advantage would bring your chance to hit from 60% to 84% [claws would go from 85% to basically 98%]. It's a 10% crit chance to land one in your turn -without applying reckless/any other source of advantage. Advantage boosts the chance for EACH to 9.75% for an 18.5% chance to land at least one when you have extra attack and advantage. This is not calculating the chance for a bonus action following a kill which is too variable to quantify. I'm also a little confused with your brutal critical picture you've drawn. I'm assuming we're going with brutal critical (1), so with two crits out of 20 attacks, and using the previous Unadvantaged attack percentages] it would deliver +2d12 to Each of the critting attacks for +4d12 (added after deducting the 40% lost damage), -and 2 additional bonus action attacks [increasing your total number of attacks to 22, for (22d12 + 374 x 0.6) +4d12 -for 336. -Whereas the TWF claws nets you 39 attacks [no bonus action on the rage round] each dealing 1d6+3 (rage), with 30 of them letting you add your +4 strength modifier [as you are now two weapon fighting without the two weapon fighting style], and you can expect 4 critical hits each bringing in an additional 2d6. So (39d6 + 117 + 120 x 0.85) +8d6 -for 345. -So pretty comparable damage, -but each round you use reckless attack/attack with advantage it greatly favors the great axe wielder, increasing their likelihood to hit by 24% (13% for claws) and also their likelihood to a crit by 8.75%, which are more powerful than claw crit and also lead to more chances to hit....
-One thing I did not consider though with the claws + dual wielder build is that you could make 2 of your 4 attacks using a single handed melee weapon [bumping the damage die from 1d6 to 1d8] and still TWF for 4 attacks total since dual wielder feat. -So for the Unadvantaged attack calculation it would increase the claws damage further, an average of +1 to 19 of the 39 attacks and +3 to 2 of the crits, bringing the Unadvantaged Attack average to 366 vs the GWM's 336, which is pretty significant. Advantage and crits can still bridge the gap pretty fast though. [each gwm greataxe crit dice adding 5 more damage than claw/longsword to the crit average and providing another attack, made w/ advantage brings an average +19.74 w/ another 9.75% chance of dealing another 5 more -bringing that attack's average to 20.22 -and the 5 from the initial crit, with +0.48 from the crit chance on other action attack, for +25.7 added from the advantage round where a crit occured, while advantaged TWF increased likelihood of crits from more attacks increases the average damage by 0.78 per advantaged attack, averaging +3.12 to your average advantaged round, a difference of 22.58, so with an 18.5% chance to land 1 crit with 2 advantaged attacks, that's an average +41.73 difference over 10 rounds, becoming 377.73 vs 366, which creeps bigger with additional crit dice. But getting access to the TWF fighting style becomes a game changer! -But yeah, while you have rage available claws/twf is more comparable than I thought! And unlike GWM, it has synergy with sneak attack or kensei's deft strike were you to multiclass.
If you use Claw and Shield with 2 levels in fighter you can use Duelist Fighting Style to boost that Claw dmg to a ''1d10'' damage, this could be a very nice Barb 3 or 4/ Fighter X too ( i never multiclassed a barbarian so i dont know how bad/irritating is low Rages Charges) Edit : 2 level is for Action Surge and attack 6 or 8 (if 11 level in fighter) Times XD ( Wolverine Berserker Barrage anyone ? ) pair that with a Eldritch Claw tattoo for extra potency
Regarding the claws from Form of the Beast, it states that "...when you attack with a claw using the Attack action, you can make one additional claw attack as part of that action." Doesn't that mean, then, at level 5, when you can make two attacks with the Attack action, you can make an additional attack with each attack? Otherwise, it would say something like "...when you take the Attack action..." Seems like that means additional attack with each attack. That would mean four attacks a turn at level 4. If you have some ability that adds more damage per attack (like Hunter's Mark), four attacks is great!
It limits it to once, though presumably when you get extra attack you could make one claw attack, one other weapon attack and still qualify for the additional claw attack.
IMO this subclass just needs slight tweaks. Make the claws light weapons, and once they're magical let them eventually scale up to +3 magic items. The idea of a barbarian ripping people apart with his bare hands (or in this case bear hands) is just a cool mental image, and I hate that it's designed to be less viable than it could be. Once magical items start entering the game, these natural weapons really start to lag behind, so letting them scale competitively would be nice. You'd probably still choose a magic weapon over your natural weapons, but at least you'd have to think about it.
I actually made a really cool claws build. Using Unarmed Fighting (My DM allowed it to improve my claw damage to 1d8) and Two-Weapon Fighting (for an off-hand claw attack) Combat Styles. At level 5 I can do 4 attacks of 1d8+rage+str, which is very cool, all are with advantages and I am using Wildhunt Shifter to mitigate some of the reckless attack disadvantages when needed. Later I will take levels in fighter for Action Surge, Giant's Might, and some runes :) The character is like a demonically possessed warrior, with a lot of transformations. If my barb was using Polearm Master, GWM, and Reckless Attack, he would do 35.1 damage at 5th level against a 15 ac monster. The same barbarian with claws and increased str instead of feats does 36.3 damage. It's very cool :)
To get d8 on Claw attack, assuming it would work like that (though it shouldn't), you need to attack with both hands, which excludes the option of TWF. Your DM is super generous.
@@antongrigoryev6381 "If you aren't wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8." Which I am. I am not wielding a weapon or a shield.
@@antongrigoryev6381 We understand it. But the logic jump of using your fists, claws and mouth as weapons was quite clear to us that even if it's not, it should work as an unarmed combat style, because realistically speaking your not armed, you are fighting with your body. We did made more modification. My character start with no weapon, amor or shield proficiencies, for example.
I don't think being lackluster at high levels is unique to Barbarians, but applicable to martials as a whole (even if Fighters and, if you count them, Rangers, are slightly better off).
@@jaredpuwalski8545 Well, I was asking more about the fact that barbarians usually have to balance the three physical atributes, and allowing a finesse weapon in its natural weapons would make the barb dump str with no doubt, what makes me uneasy about breaking the class. Thoughts?
@@bezaocbf I don’t think it would be worth it. Too many barbarian class features are tied to using strength for attacks. A 14 dex is fine for medium armor, and a 16 is doable if you want medium armor master.
Barbarian's Rage and Reckless Attack specifically work only with Str attacks. Changing it for a specific subclass would be a poor design choice I think.
re:claws The only advantage of the claws that comes to mind vs Great Sword + Great Weapon Master once you have Extra Attack at 6... If you're somehow doing a crit fishing build with a Barbarian, and for some reason you're an elf or half-elf, and get Elven Accuracy, then -maybe- you do one of your attacks as a claw just so you can roll an additional set of dice to fish that crit. But like you said Tail seems to be the standout; You're almost casting Shield without any resources like spell slots. Edit: Well... Infectious Fury... So here's a question Treantmonk: If you choose the 2d12 Psychic on-hit for Infectious Fury, does that damage get multiplied by a crit? I'm seeing "Target takes 2d12" so I'm thinking no, but... The nice thing about Infectious Fury is that we get to choose AFTER we hit, much akin to smite. The reaction-melee thing might be the way to go generally, but if the 2d12 Psychic can be multiplied by a crit, then with a crit fishing build the claw becomes more desirable.
Beast weapons don’t have the finesse property so no elven accuracy benefit. And infectious fury damage is taken after a failed saving throw like a spell so no crit synergy.
I feel like Claws would be pretty good on a Small race that can't use heavy weapons? I'm not very good at optimizing so I may be completely wrong on that.
@@skymanta1222 I love it. If you wanted to have a full Beast of Caerbannog with a demon form. Have your Small Rabbitfolk with Beast Barbarian 8, then go Ascendant Dragon Monk 4/Rune Knight X with Unarmed Fighting Style for unarmed d8 attacks, Slasher, Athlete, Tavern Brawler and Mobile. An inescapable force of destruction. an insanely rapid, running, jumping vicious little monster that can transorm into a massive, fire breathing, all-powerful, ferocious clawed beastie from the blackest depths of the abyss.
@@skymanta1222 ADM is UA. It's completely a non-legit published, silly build. I was up to 199 characters in my dndbeyond and your comment and the video gave me the idea for the 200th build, a Beast of Caerbannog with Final Form. Tavern brawler was just for a half feat stat and BA grapple, I think take out Slasher and add Skill Expert in there, for Athletics Expertise instead. Add the Bestial Soul Jumping with Rabbit Hop and your High and Long Jump could get a bit ridiculous, eg. for flying grapples, like how in the movie the rabbit just launches at a Knight's throat and latches on lol You're right about the claw attacks not becoming d8 RAW but the unarmed monk attacks should, so you have a good few attacks and various damage types available to choose from. Thanks for the great inspiration.
As a single class this is an OK sublcass. As a multiclass though... the option of getting 4 resourceless attacks per round can be huge (Dual Wielder feat). Blood Hunter is a great multiclass here with either the Mutant (Potency mutagen) or the Lycan being great ways to go. You'll end up with the Dueling fighting style to toss your strength onto your bonus attack, Crimson Rite for a 1d4-1d8 add to each attack, and either a +1-2 damage per hit from the Lycan Shape Shift or a +1-2 damage from the Potency mutagen. That adds up to 1d6 claw attack + 1d6 Crimson Rite + 5 Strength + 2 Rage + 2 Potency Mutagen = 16 average DPR by level 11. Times 4 is 64 average DPR if everything hits. By comparison a level 11 Greatsword GWM Zealot Barbarian would do 58.5 Average DPR if everything hit, but they'd still have the -5 to attack rolls to achieve that. Even a fully optimized Pole Arm GWM barbarian at level 11 would still only get to 73, with a reduced chance to hit those attacks. The Path of the Beast barbarian is also a great subclass choice if you want to use a shield. You can forgo the Dual Wielder feat and snag the Shifter - Longtooth race. You'll get 3 attacks per round, or 4 if you add the Shift in. The same multiclass into Bloodhunter boosts your damage potential as well, but lets you take Dueling for a further damage boost. At level 12 you're at 54 average damage per round with just the claws, and 72 damage per round without the bite attack. This is a build that I worked out over here: old.reddit.com/r/DND5EBuilds/comments/m7vfay/the_escaped_experiment_path_of_the_beast/
Just remember if you multiclass, you are probably only getting 3 rages per day. Might be a problem, might not. Also bloodhunter is homebrew, so I am not sure you can count on it being available at your table. Outside blood hunter, it is actually pretty hard to find abilities that add damage to every attack. Except of course things that require concentration, but that doesn't work with rage. Only abilities I can think of that adds damage to every attack is paladin improved smite at level 11, and rage. The rest requires concentration, or only apply to one attack per turn, to my knowledge.
@@peterrasmussen4428 Halo of Spores for the Spores Druid will also add a concentration-less 1d6 for 2 levels of druid. If Blood Hunter wasn't an option I'd probably go with that and then multiclass into Fighter to pick up the Fighting Style of choice, Action Surge, and then some Superiority die. A bit less damage, but a bit more burst and versatility. Probably something like Barb 6 (magic attack claws) > Fighter 3 > Druid 3 > Barb 3 (Rage damage boost) > Druid 5 (more temporary HP to not lose the 1d6). Some of those are swappable in order, but it would still work. I might even just stop with Barb 6 and take the reduced damage in favor of the extra temporary HP and spell utility. I'd probably also go with a Shield build for this one.
@@TheWanderersWit I had overlooked Halo of Spores, interesting build. I think you will have a problem with Halo of spores only lasting 10 minutes and being an action to apply. Depending on style, that means it might be pretty hard to have up at the start of combat. If you spend your first round applying halo of spores, you might have trouble staying in rage. Also even in rage, 12 temp HP is not a lot to keep your damage boost. I could see this being interesting for a shield build though, especially if you want the shield master feat, so your have a good use of bonus action.
@@peterrasmussen4428 Yeah, it's not as clean as Blood Hunter, but still workable. After thinking about it a bit I'd probably do Barb 6 > Fighter 4 > Druid 10. By level 7 you'd be at 34.5 average DPR or with Shifter Bite, 45 average DPR. At level 8 you could Action Surge up to 69 average DPR, 80.5 with Shifter form. For the Spore druid piece, the resistances would take some levels, but eventually the temp HP would hold out. That'd get base damage to 48.5 average, 59 with Bite, and up to 94.5 with Action Surge + Bite. At 20 strength all of those numbers would bump up by another 3-4. The Shield Master feat would be cool, though maybe tough to fit in in the early game unless you started at 18 Strength due to a good stat roll. Otherwise your third ASI wouldn't come until 14.
Anyone else considering using this class + fighter to get a bunch of unarmed melee attacks and then the crusher + slasher feats? Reckless attack and crusher make sure everyone in your party has a chance to get advantage on their attacks, slasher helps mitigate advantage on attacks against you + being generally a nice way to debuff enemies. Fighter provides extra ASI/feats, unarmored fighting style and a third attack eventually. I would probably go fighter 12 barb 8, but finding the right order has been a challenge.
I'm just tired of every martial class taking GWM or Sharpshooter. Anything feasible and different is wonderful. I just convinced my DM that Dragonborn Beast just always has these options from lvl 3 because I was born with claws, a tail, and a toothy maw. Having all 3 options always available is perfect! Claws for attacks, tail for reactions, and a bite when things get "hairy"
i just found out about this subclass recently, it might not be super amazing but for me is a great subclass to multiclass a few level into: - a monk with tail is even harder to hit and the tail have longer reach so pair that with sentinel feat then you got yourself a nice combo - a druid wild shape into a bear with the claws feature can have up to 3 attack (1 bite 2 claw) (if your dm agree that bear claws get enhance by the feature so you can get 1 additional atk) which is a nice way to use the claw feature as well, even the tail and the bite one can still benefit the druid, especially the moon druid who like to use wild shape a lot this is just 2 combo i come up when found out about this subclass, good for combat and nice touch in term of flavor as well for me
As far as using the tail. Does this occur after the die roll is known? or does this have to be stated when the attack is made but before the results are determined?
Interesting analysis though I'd point out that your damage output analysis of the claws is flawed. Assuming +4 to damage and 60% chance to hit: Claws: (3.5+4)*2*.6= 9 DPR Claws + TWF: ((3.5+4)*2 + 3.5)*.6 = 11.1 DPR greatsword: (3.5+3.5+4)*.6 = 6.6 DPR greatsword and GWM: (3.5+3.5+4+10)*.35= 7.35 DPR. As you can see. with a 1 attack/rnd, claws are doing more DPR than a greatsword...and adding a feat doesn't help enough. The GWM IS slightly better at 5th level with the second attack, but Brutal Crit swings it back as the potential chances to crit are twice as high with claws.
I feel like the claws leave half the barbarian’s tools on the table. There’s not really a lot of incentive to attack recklessly when your critical only adds 7 damage more than a regular hit (factoring in brutal critical 1), meanwhile with rage resistance, relentless rage and the hp pool sets the barb up to be a glutton for punishment while attacking recklessly. -The greataxe GWM barb crits for an additional 13 & a guaranteed +10 -and then has a third attack after the crit (or following kills) -all of this independent of your limited rages. -This damage gap is further exacerbated with critical hit synergy features like half orc’s savage attacks, and the piercer half feat (switching to Pike), or the orcish fury half feat. -Additionally the gwm barb doesn’t have the opportunity cost of being a beast barb (or could just use the tail for reactions) and could take another subclass, such as zealot for an additional 1d6+half barb level on one of its attacks when it comes to average damage comparison. -but that’s a digression.
Unless I miscalculated something, Claws deal much more damage than GWM. Let's assume we have 75% on hit. Then, with the GWM penalty it'll be 50%. Our barbarian has +4 Strength and +3 Rage damage. Greataxe (GWM): (6,5+4+3+10)*2*0,5 = 23,5 damage. Polearm (GWM+PM): ((5,5+4+3+10)*2+(2,5+4+3+10))*0,5 = 32,25 damage. Claws: (3,5+3+4)*3*0,75 = 23,675 Claws (DW): ((3,5+3+4)*3+(3,5+3))*0,75 = 28,5 damage. So Claws can be compared to GWM even without using a feat. With a single feat, they are much better, but fall behind of GWM+PM combo. You'll need an extra feat though, and considering that Barbs need to keep 3 stats at decent level (Str, Dex and Con) you may not want it.
Claws have less synergy with the rest of a barbarians tool set. -When you only crit for an average of 7 extra damage (assuming brutal critical 1) you don’t have a lot of incentive to attack recklessly (and subsequently less synergy with rage resistance, relentless rage, the barb hp pool and draw less aggression). -While the greataxe GWM barb is guaranteeing +10 and +13 from extra dice. -And gets a 3rd attack with their bonus action following a crit or kill. This gap is further exacerbated with later brutal critical improvements and other crit dice boosting features like half orc’s savage attacks, the orcish fury half feat or the piercer half feat (switching to pike). Additionally this output isn’t tied to rage, and even if you don’t use reckless attack or the -5/+10 they’re still getting a 3rd attack like 10% of the time after level 5 (2 attacks each w/ a 5% chance) -without accounting for kills or outside sources of advantage/autocrits.
@@elliotbryant3459 Crits do not work like this. Yes, with greataxe damage on each crit will be bigger, but Claws have more attacks and therefore they will score more more crits. So the actual weapon damage does not matter as long as it is compensated with attack speed. Even more, Claws will deal slightly more damage on crit because bigger part of their damage comes from dice: on crit, 33% of all their damage in multiplied, while with greataxe it's 27%.
@@antongrigoryev6381 A normal hit with a greataxe power strike is 1d12+10+Str+Mod, a crit is 3d12+10+rage+mod, a normal claw hit is 1d6+rage+mod, on a crit with claws is 3d6+rage+mod, so yes a brutal crit is a larger contribution to the percentage of a claws attack than the axe's -But they still provide more overall value to the Greataxe. The crit dice alone bring the weapon's dice from 6.5 to 19.5 (+13) vs the claw's 3.5 to 10.5 (+7). The difference becomes even more dramatic the more dice you add in from later brutal criticals/other extra dice features. -BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! The Critical guarantees your +10 lands -And it gets you a bonus action attack. If you were using a maul/great sword brutal critical isn't as valuable but the latter 2 benefits still apply. Assuming a a 10 round fight with a level 9 barbarian with +3 rage damage and +4 Str Mod, that has an 85% chance to hit normally and a 60% chance to hit with the great axe powerstirke. Advantage would bring your chance to hit with the axe from 60% to 84% [claws would go from 85% to basically 98%]. It's a 10% crit chance to land one in your turn -without applying reckless/any other source of advantage. Advantage boosts the chance for EACH from 5% to 9.75% -for an 18.5% chance to land one critical hit when you have extra attack and advantage. This is not calculating the chance for a bonus action following a kill which is too variable to quantify but would further increase your extra attacks. Without using advantage you can expect 2 crits delivering +2d12 to Each of the critting attacks for +4d12 (added after deducting the 40% lost damage), -and 2 additional bonus action attacks [increasing your total number of attacks to 22, for (22d12 + 220 [GWM] + 66 [rage] + 88 [Strength x 0.6) +4d12 -for 336. -Whereas the TWF claws nets you 39 attacks [no bonus action on the rage round] each dealing 1d6+3 (rage), with 30 of them letting you add your +4 strength modifier [as you are now two weapon fighting without the two weapon fighting style], and you can expect 4 critical hits each bringing in an additional 2d6. So (39d6 + 117 [rage] + 120 [strength] x 0.85) +8d6 -for 345. -So pretty comparable damage, -but each round you use reckless attack/attack with advantage it greatly favors the greataxe wielder, increasing their likelihood to hit by 24% (only 13% for claws) and also the likelihood to with either crit by 8.75%, [which are more powerful than a claw crit] and also lead to more chances to make another powerful attack.... -And the GWM still works when you can't rage, whereas the former claw user is now just two weapon fighting with battleaxes.
Barb is definitely no good at high levels. That is why I fold in the champion fighter into their back end to make the crits worth a worth a damn and give them some other small benis.
1 monk. 3 barb beast then and fighter unarmed style. Not in that exact order. Use tortal for ac. Then at 9th lvl thats 4x 1d8+6 unarmed strike when raging with claws. Using action and bonus. Does that work?
Is there anything stopping you from using your claws for your first attack giving you another, then putting that hand back on a two handed weapon for your last attack? Namely I'm interested in the possibility of using a dual bladed scimitar with it to get four attacks at lvl 5, and open up the rogue multiclass with revenant blade
A little sad that this didn't take a deeper analysis on how a shield bearer grappler build could work, but focused on the easy to see fact that GWM+PAM are better for combat, which we already could tell, i think this subclass is better used for crowd control with the tail for the extra AC and the reach for OAs so he have a hand free to stop enemies from getting close to other frail party members.
Correction: If you have a swimming speed, you are not subject to the underwater restrictions mentioned in the video.
The flavor of a roguebarian showing she's unarmed to ask for an audience with an assassination target, before pulling out her claws and ripping out his throat, then wall-running or leaping three stories and out the window seems absolutely kickass. It's a shame the natural weapons can't benefit from sneak attack, though.
Just play a goblin. Nimble escape makes you part rogue
@@theeye8276 Rogue and barbarian is a solid multiclass, though. And pretty fun, which is more important.
Edited
play soulknife? lel
@@shenpai1566 Ya but like the poster said: sneak attack doesn't work with the natural weapons. which is why i think playing a goblin pure barbarian would be better for this concept.
“This might be decent if you’re playing in a game where feats aren’t allowed.”
If I’m playing in a game without feats there’s no way I’m playing a martial character. Feats are the only thing that let martials even approach spellcasters in combat.
I just wish they'd add more feats for the various styles of combat the same old gwm pam, sentinel in whatever mix you wish gets old fast.
No feats, Rune Knight is kinda okay?
You get to spam reactions to shut down enemies, which is pretty feat independent as is. You still miss Sentinal a bunch, and run into those awkward ABI's when everything you care about is at 20 already. But, that's life.
Maybe, uh, a Hexadin? That's... technically a martial. Technically.
Tortle becomes the standout spellcaster choice.
Plop down a spell, withdraw, and cackle madly as you sport the only beefy concentration save in the world.
And Loxodon becomes the go-to for hybrid casters and such, since your trunk is pretty much the only way to handle material components that a PC gets, failing trying to finagle your DM to let you use your tail or something. The Con AC is also pretty nice in a world without Moderately Armored.
The casters that pull up at level 1 with 17+ AC, without feats, but still with half of Warcaster stapled to them anyways really prove that feats help martials more, man.
[laughs in Paladin]
If you take feats out of the equation, suddenly monk/rogue look like more reasonable options when considering a martial to play. I wonder if the designers just didn't think about feats when balancing the martial classes.
I guess you are missing something regarding the jump. Using the new rule of Tasha's for falling onto creatures, you could knock them prone by jumping and falling onto them. This requires no actions. Moreover you halve the falling damage since you have resistance.
Idk if this is strong, but surely it is fun, and I just made a build around this concept and took the athlete feat.
I planned out a tabaxi beast barbarian mixed with ranger for the jump and longstrider spells. Can just 100ft+ into the air. Would love to be enlarged and then jump up and grapple an adult dragon. Once grappled you would both plummet to the ground. Fun stuff.
It multiclasses quite well with Rogue (Scout or Swashbuckler). 6 levels of Beast for the magical weapons/movement, then the rest Rogue. You land your sneak attack with a finesse weapon, then make two claw attacks. All the offensive benefits of rage and reckless with all of the expertise (Athletics, Stealth, whatever else you want), sneakiness and evasiveness/speed of a Rogue (that can now climb ceilings), and your bonus action remains free to Cunning Action (or Bite if you're a Longtooth Shifter). The two claw attacks make up for the lost sneak attack, and the sneak attack (mostly) makes up for not using a great weapon. Not the most optimised, but incredibly flavourful and still performs well, and needs no feats.
I'd think about multiclassing it with Soulknife maybe? Then you don't need to use traditional weapons at all.
I'd take attack Action and hit with my Psyhic Blade (which disappears after hit leaving my hand free) + Sneak Attack, then Bonus Action hit with other hand with Psyhic Blade, then Claw attack and 2nd Claw attack.
I'm not 100% sure on the rules, but I **think** you can use rage bonus and str modifier on all attacks - Sneak Attack only requires you *use* Finese weapon, not that you use Dex with Finese weapon to hit..
It's quite flavorful - a psychic almost-lycanthrope just going HAM on an enemy, starting precisely with psychic strikes and loosing temper mid attack
I went 6 levels on Beast and now going down the Ranger/Hunter Class (another free attack per turn, spells that don't need concentration, heals for after, and want the Rover ability to claw/climb ANY surface)
12:27 creatures with a swimming speed don't have the weapon limitation underwater, so axe then to yours hearts content.
Yep, my mistake, I'll post a correction.
I feel you really undersold the Claws and missed an opportunity at a great build here. Yes they are d6s but you get to add your rage damage to each attack. Thats 3 attacks per round at level 5 for free. If you take Dual Wielder tou can then make BA attack for 4 attacks per round. With 4 attacks I don't care about a lower damage die. Additionally they become magical at 6 so you never have to worry about resistance. Yes a good DM will give a barbarian a magical axe or whatever but that same DM would probably give you something to upgrade your claws. But relying on a DM to give you something shouldn't be a factor in optimizing. So assuming no magic weapons(and I have been in campaigns like this.) I will take 4 magical attacks that are d6s over 2 non magical d12s.
This isn't even mentioning the oppoutunties presented by multiclassing. Hexblade for thier curse, Fighter for a Fighting Style, Second Wind , and Action Surge, Paladin for Smites. I could go on.
After crunching the numbers a beast barb with a 3 level dip in echo knight fighter has the craziest burst and utility.
Leaning toward spore dip myself with longtooth shifter race. Don't need feats
you can't make 4 attacks, the second claw attack specifically says that it only happens once per turn.
They DO, however, count as monk weapons, since it specifies that they are simple weapons. So you could do your two claw attacks then flurry of blows.
@@SavageGreywolf thats just not true, the claw gives you an extra attack as part of the attack action for a total of 3, and your bonus action attack is what brings it up to 4. With flurry of blows you could make 5
@@rileykwinn3527what bonus action attack? On the dual wielder feat I don’t see anything about that
This is the one I've been waiting for!
There is one side to the claws that make them better in some ways. One, you only have to attack once to get the extra attack, so if you like you can have your two-handed weaped, hold it in one hand, then take the two claws attacks before taking the extra attack with the two-handed weapon. When considering the added rage damage, and increased to-hit it might be worth it over great weapon fighting, at least against high AC enemies. Another aspect of the claws that is an advantage is that you can wear a shield and still attack 2-3 times with your action, at no penelatiy for the increased AC.
I currently DM a player who plays a Paladin with a Ring of Jumping. I've done it by the book, and I can say from experience that added jumping distance is a great low key way to power up a melee fighter. Path of the Beast barbarians could be pretty scary in this regard.
3 beast barb, 2 monk, 10 rogue, 20 STR, Athletics expertise, jump spell. Easy minimum 210 ft jump height.
Edit: Kept watching the video, forgot about speed. Add haste I guess?
Hey I have a black dragonborn paladin with a ring of jumping currently lol
You can’t quite jump that high, but a build I’ve been considering is beast 6 / monk x. Step doubles movement and jump distance so you get (strength + athletics + 1d20). Plus you have 35 feet of extra base movement. With that alone you’re going to get around 82 feet of long jump. If you start to throw in the jump spell or boots of striding and sprinting things get crazy.
Been using the Tasha's rules since they came out, and Instinctive Pounce does some serious heavy lifting. At this point I can't imagine playing without it, it just enables so much more stuff on a tactical level. From setting up behind any enemy and blocking their movement to getting into the enemy backline as fast as possible to catching fleeing foes to just making turn one movement easier to route, it just has so many uses.
Anyone play bloody roar? Shifter path of the beast just makes me think bloody roar.
I think that I can see the claws work for a build with a shield, three 1d6+5 attacks are better than two 1d8+5 attacks so it's a good damage boost with no addittional cost, but I don't know if I would pick it over the tail anyway
Well, your shield build could already do that with a quarter staff or spear, and the polearm master feat. Yes it uses your bonus action, but most barbarians don't use that very much.
I guess you could go shield master to get a use of your bonus action. How good that is, would depend on your party, and how many melee combatants you have around you to take advantage of the enemy being prone, and how many archers you have, that would be sad you made the enemy prone.
add 2 levels of Fighter and you get Duelist and Action Surge for a 6 Attack Burst .
Consider the claws with the doublebladed scimitar. It’s super strong without feats, freeing you up for more creative choices or lots of multiclassing.
Your comment about 'no incentive to take barbarian's to a high level' is spot on. I have always felt that barbarians get the core of their features around levels 6-7. Almost every time I'm playing a barbarian as a PC or theory crafting a build I tend to multiclass around that level. The exceptions typically include Zealot as they scale well and their 10th and 14th abilities are phenomenal or some Totem builds that use Wolf or Eagle at 14th can be quite fun. Overall the Beast subclass offers everything you need at level 6, that feature is amazing and gives the Barbarian a real powerful feature that is flexible for the combat and exploration pillars of play.
what kills barbarian progression for me is how much the designers rationed rage -but then tied so many of your class features to it. For most the subclasses 3 out of 4 of your subclass level features are tied to it, plus your level 1, 11 and 15 features revolve around it. -Meanwhile you are only able to use it in up to 3-5 fights per long rest for most of the game. After that you're just a worse fighter.
Also I don' think brutal critical holds up as a stand alone level up feature -let alone 3...
Something with claws, you don't need to use both attacks on your Attack action to be claw attacks to get the extra one. Ie, if you have 2 light weapons, you could Attack action to do 1 light and 2 claw attacks, and BA for another light weapon attack.
You don't need to use two hands to HOLD two-handed weapons, just to attack, so you can still attack with your main weapon and do two claw attacks with the same hand.
i was thinking claw + shield
Those also work. But 4 attacks/round at level 5 is something usually only a monk can do :P
@@herrkrabbe148 claw shield is certainly effective... But isn't using a shield kinda very counter to the fantasy of being a raging beast? ^^ I just can't imagine a raging werewolf having a shield in one hand :P
@@MaMastoast you can Roleplay the Shield as a Vambrace on one arm
PAM + Halberd + Claw. 4 attacks/round at level 5. (1d10+2+3)+2*(1d6+2+3)+(1d4+2+3) avg 35 before crits with full attack bonus with advantage. Not terrible
Polearm master requires you to only attack with the polearm, so no you can't get four attacks per round without great weapon master's bonus action attack.
@@christopherbryan160 True. looks like you do need Dual Wielder or GWM.
Can't you use a double bladed scimitar + revenant blade for that?
Claws + no feats + two handaxes:
4 attacks/round at level 5, damage 4*(1d6+2+4) = 4*(9.5) = 34 on average, with better attack than PAM (+2 STR thanks to ASI), so why even bother with PAM feat? ;-)
I’m going to point out that as long as the Barbarian is taking Piercing, Slashing, or Bludgeoning the healing from the Bite can be viewed as technically double the effective healing due to resistance. So assuming that you’re taking damage that you’re resistant to this is equivalent to 4 HP at 2nd level and 12 HP per turn at 17th. It’s not the best but that is something to consider.
Minor point, but wanted to point out that contrary to what you said, having a swimming speed actually does allow you to ignore underwater fighting rules (to some extent). A creature that has a swim speed ignores the melee weapon attack penalties.
Hey Treantmonk, what would your opinion be on a grappling build with the Beast Barb? Trying to break away from the standard GWM barb, and one that could focus more on defense and single target control than pure damage in the early tiers and slightly addresses the tank fallacy of some barbarians.
Barbarian rage for advantage + proficiency in athletics for the grappling check. As you need at least one hand to grapple one creature, carrying no weapons or shields allows you to grapple up to two creatures at once. Combine this with the tail and you could remove two melee only enemies from the combat, and have them focus only on you with resistance to P, S, B damage, and a reaction increase to your AC, in addition it acts as a 1d8 weapon you can attack them with. Not the most optimal in terms of damage or base AC, but it allows you to drag around two enemies and still attack them which I thought was fun.
Otherwise you could use tail + shield for a nice increase to AC. Or no shield and both claws for decent single target grappling and damage.
Also a fun combination to use Infectious fury on your two grappled targets and have them attack eachother in addition to your own attacks.
Excellent! I agree that tail is best. I made a Tortle Beast Barb who was a champion of the dinosaurs of chult.
This subclass is on my list for a one shot. Looks fun for low levels or just if you want non- traditional barbarian build.
This is definitely not an overpowered subclass, but it gives some great options that add to the class and are a ton of fun. Not to mention all of the movement utility for out of combat and roleplay options.
Depending on your race or your DM, the claws are an excellent damage boost. If you can weaponize your BA with an offhand attack, that’s 4 attacks per round and 4 times you can add your rage damage. This gets you close to GWM without the penalty to hit and without using up a feat.
Claws aren't light weapons. You still need a feat to "dual-wield" them.
@@antongrigoryev6381 I guess it would depend on the DM. I DM for our group and it make sense to me that claws would be lighter than a short sword and would allow them to be light weapons.
That's what we did too. Super fun.
@@GrensealAsellus I’d love to try it out. Still don’t think it’s the most powerful barbarian build, but it definitely delivers on that gothic horror theme I love.
@@antongrigoryev6381 You don't need dual wielder feat!
First round: Attack action for 2 attacks. Use first attack to attack with weapon, then BA for offhand attack, then toss weapon, attack with claw twice.
Second round: Attack action for 2 attacks. Use fist to attack twice with claw, then draw second weapon, use second attack to attack with a weapon and then BA for offhand attack.
Repeat every round.
No feat needed, 4 attacks every round (appart from first round when you rage).
Combine with Slasher feat, 3 levels of champion, half-orc and you are crit monster right from lvl 8!
Me: "This subclass seems cool, but I don't know if the mechanics work fine."
Treantmonk: "This is a fine subclass, especially if you consider..."
Me: "Say no more!" *starts making a character*
Dual wielder feat gives you a bonus action attack for a total of four claws attacks, combine it with reckless attacks for advantage, throw in 3 levels of champion fighter for two weapon fighting, crits on a 19 and action surge and you're looking at a 7 hit combo Nova with advantage and Str+Rage bonus for each attack. Congratulations, you're a walking wood chipper!
Edit: the additional claw attack only happens once a turn so it's 6 attacks in total.
"Once on each of your turns when you attack with a claw using the attack action, you can make an additional claw attack as part of the same action". So, Dual wielder only gives one additional claw attack. That said, it's still an ugly build.
@@meraduddcethin2812 you're right, my math was off...6 attacks instead of 7.
Kind of a shame they put that caveat in....
Consider rather this (with Champion 3 dip):
Slasher feat, dual wielder not required.
Appart from first round (when you are already in rage), you do this:
Attack action - 1 attack (Handaxe or Scimitar), BA for another attack from dual wielding, then toos one of your weapons, second attack from Attack action will be done with claws so then follows your fourth attack.
In next round, you attack twice with claws (it costs you one attack), then draw weapon, do second attack in attack action and fourth attack as BA.
So 4 attacks every turn without a feat from lvl 5.
Now Slasher feat. With Champion and reckless attack you have 19% chance to crit, so with 4 attacks, you will force one enemy to have disadvantage on all of his attacks in 3/4 rounds. This boosts your survivability extremely, it nulifies reckless attack drawback against most bosses, so it seems like fantastic combo!
DMG will be also quite good. At lvl 8, we are talking about 4 times 1d6+6, with +7 attack and advantage (a little better than 2 times 2d6+16 with GWM, because the attack will be only +2 in this case). You also reduce enemy speed by 10ft. As Half orc, we are also talking about extra 2d6 dmg on every crit, so average extra 5 dmg each turn (3/4*(2d6)).
Path of the Beast's natural weapons are simple weapons which makes them count as monk weapons. Weremonkbarian!
The Claws granting an extra attack will definitely be an overall offensive boost - more rage damage applied, more chances for criticals, and because you just need the one hand to make them, that free hand can be used for other tactical purposes (holding a shield, holding a different weapon, grappling someone to hold them in place, etc.).
For example, you could wield a spear one-handed and take PAM as a vHuman, and that’s 4 attacks per round starting round 2 as early as level 3, all of which have rage damage applied, and using reckless attack to get advantage on all of those makes it that much more likely that we’ll land them all (plus the increase to our chances to get critical hits).
Plus, getting guaranteed access to magic weapons can be a literal game changer in low-magic settings where you’re not guaranteed to find a magic weapon that can overcome that pesky resistance to non-magical weapon damage that just becomes more and more common as you face higher CR foes.
I think the claws are great for specifically a grapple barb. You can’t really use great weapon with a grapple build. So that’s a Build where the claws are better
Imagine all the beast features appearing as dinosaur parts and you can begin making a fairly convincing Dr Ferdinand & her stand Scary Monsters from Steel Ball Run.
I like the idea of warforged barbs extending claws/fangs/tail. The con bonus works too but I'm not sure the armour class rules stack.
Also of note for this class, in the UA the bite was the only "defensive" option and it worked period, regardless of your HP. That made it a little more unique. They both nerfed it and added the tail which... Yeah it's kind of useless now. Weird design choices, per usual. They should've made it do something unique, like automatically initiate a grapple.
The claw attack could be pretty good. When you get extra attack, you can swing with your primary weapon then use your second attack to attack with claws (which warrants a follow up attack). Nothing in the the rules says you can't just hold a two handed weapon with one hand and use the other hand to attack. Three attacks at level five for a barbarian could be crazy good.
Yeah, I had that thought myself. And you could have 4 attacks per round as a longclaw shifter. Bonus action bite attack on top of those 3 other attacks. Or take the one subrace that negates advantage on attacks against you from up to 30' away
Regarding the claws natural weapon, and this might be a very rules lawyer-y thing to try to push for, but it specifies that you must use the attack action to attack with your claws, but not that you must use the entire action for this purpose. So hypothetically if we have the polearm master feat: at level 5 we could attack with a glaive, let go of the glaive and attack with our claws, attack again with our claws as part of our action, then place both bands on the weapon again and attack with the rear end of the polearm as a bonus action.
This would give you 2d6+1d10+1d4+16+8=39 average damage, whereas a pure PAM barbarian would be getting 2d10+1d4+12+6=31.5.
GWM beards both with 4d6+8+4+20=46 damage, but that significantly cuts into your chance to hit, even with reckless attack.
Beast damage would also arguably scale better due to more attacks getting more from boosts to strength and rage damage, and they would also get a bit more from brutal criticals than other barbarians, although they would lose out if there were good magic weapons available (a problem shared with the monk).
The main problem with claws is that the zealot damage addon is simply better
@@marekkubicek1235 No real argument there, but the problem with a subclass that provides a straight damage boost is that other options will struggle to compete. I do think that the flavour and the level 6 utility is going to turn people towards this subclass though.
eh not really. The zealot barbs additional damage at level 5 is on average like 5 points at level 5. The claws additional attack is just better. It may become more even at higher levels though
Was going to write a comment about this, but couldn't have said it any better than you. Beast Barbarians have huge dmg potential
I'm actually inspired somewhat. Lizardfolk (Swap Wis for Strength) Beast Barbarian with a Maul. I know the Polearm is more optimal, but GWM/Crusher does open up some tasty combo potential, plus having essentially 3 different attack profiles at the same time (tail, bite, club) does give some flexibility. Plus, giant angry crocodile man. Don't know if I'd go full barbarian or dip out around 7 for Fighter
I absolutely love this subclass, and your analysis did it justice.
Big missed point here!!! You can add your Str Modifier to each hit of the natural weapons!! I feel like this was massively glossed over and is a main sticking point for staying with the claw attack. If your Str is +3 at level 3, that's a free 10 damage on top of your claw damage! ( 3strx2 + 2 rage damage per hit!)
Then, claw also doesn't specify you need to hit with each hand. So, if you keep one hand free you have a hand to either grapple, hold a shield or even hold a second weapon if you go dual wielder feat.
I've made a bit of peculiar build with this, using the claws, tho the optimal version uses the UA brute, maybe can be changed for battle master tho a lot ps lost
The idea is do many attacks and use things that add to each
So 3 barb 2 monk 11 fighter 3 gloom stalker and 1 warlock maybe
That's 3atks+1 claws+1 gloom stalker on first round so 5 and then 5 again w action surge and if ya don t need or want to rage or hex curse 2 more as bonus for monk
So either 10 atks+20 (rage)+60(5 str+1 from insignia of claws)+55(10d8 from brute) while setting up rage
Or 10 atks+60 (curse)+60(same as before)+55 (same) and even +20 if ya set up rage early)
Or just 12atks+ 66(12d8)+24(rage if set up)
Pretty good options on first round followed by a consistent 5 atks per round (3 fighter 1 barb 1 asbonus action from monk)
Also with most groups I play with consistently +1 to +3 "fistcuffs" are allowed for monks since they are unplayable without and hardly decent with, so of your group does that too go ahead and add 30 to 36 dmg to each of the calcs above
If you have access to Ebberon and the double scimitar, you can use THAT with the beast claws to make four attacks at level 5 (one from the scimitar, two from your claws, and one as a bonus action) which could be quite strong, especially since it doesn't require any feats.
Also, can't wait for a discussion of what is IMO the worst subclass in the entire game.
I keep thinking about how appealing this subclass gets with the "Three House Rules to Fix D&D" for non-feat -5/+10 on attacks made as part of the Attack Action.
The extra Claw attack you make is still part of the Attack Action, so it'd work out great. Equip a Shield, reach level 5, make three claw attacks with one hand, then use your bonus action for something else. Since you get a lot of the damage potential of GWM and PAM for free, you'll be free to grab other feats. Maybe Shield Master and Sentinel are nice and easy grabs, or Slasher to reduce enemy movement speeds (great if you dip Champion for crit-fishing).
With the -5/+10 house rule allowing your damage to mostly keep up with other options (mostly), you can really ramp up the control and defense, which is kinda neat.
Consider this (with Champion 3 dip):
Slasher feat, dual wielder not required.
Appart from first round (when you are already in rage), you do this:
Attack action - 1 attack (Handaxe or Scimitar), BA for another attack from dual wielding, then toss one of your weapons, second attack from Attack action will be done with claws so then follows your fourth attack (claws feature).
In next round, you attack twice with claws (it costs you one attack), then draw weapon, do second attack in attack action and fourth attack as BA.
So 4 attacks every turn without a feat from lvl 5.
Now Slasher feat. With Champion and reckless attack you have 19% chance to crit, so with 4 attacks, you will force one enemy to have disadvantage on all of his attacks in 3/4 rounds. This boosts your survivability extremely, it nulifies reckless attack drawback against most bosses, so it seems like fantastic combo!
DMG will be also quite good. At lvl 8, we are talking about 4 times 1d6+6, with +7 attack and advantage (a little better than 2 times 2d6+16 with GWM, because the attack will be only +2 in this case). You also reduce enemy speed by 10ft each round. As Half orc, we are also talking about extra 2d6 dmg on every crit, so average extra 5 dmg each turn (3/4*(2d6)).
As much as I like to say I love optimization, however I am a player that lets the game dictate how I advance in a class or even why I am choosing a subclass.
My character is a son of a Devil (newly discovered) I am doing this subclass with a little tweaks for a Devil; Tail is a Chain from a Chain devil and so on.
Just stumbled on your channel today, glad I did. Thanks for the info.
As a Beasthide Shifter, I multi-classed this with a Way of the Living Weapon (bestial) monk; his name is Temujin of the Plains. Loosely based off the character Ma San from the excellent martial arts film The Grandmaster, produced my Martin Scorsese. I envisioned a version of him from an earlier version of Northern China, when the Jian Hu Underworld was kicking off. Before the Wall was built. Having a Martial Arts Bonus action really rounds out the PotB Barb opening level extra attacks. I'm just straight monk now, to incr. the Martial Arts Die and build into the sub. ( I think).
I absolutely agree that you lose damage doing a claw build. That said, it's the one "viable" option to not two hand a barbarian. 3 levels of fighter champion, half orc, rest of levels in barbarian beast. Pick up two weapon feat if your DM is being a dick. Now go crit fishing with a berserker barrage. It's fun, doesn't totally beat out great weapon... but it's close enough I don't hate myself. (Jumping into a berserker barrage will get you the closest to Wolverine energy)
Aren’t creatures with a swimming speed except from some of the underwater weapon penalties?
"Exempt"; yes, they are.
Yeah. And also I had to check to make sure, but it's a specific curated list of weapons that are not disadvantaged underwater, leaving piercing weapons like the lance, the pike, the morningstar and your poor bite attack with disadvantage if you're caught underwater without a swim speed.
@@Alfrebaut And if you have a swim speed, any melee attack is fine. Might as well use the Maul then.
Yep, my mistake. I'll post a correction
So the dual wielder + claws combo doesn't quite work the way most people think, though I think most DMs will allow it (I certainly would), and there's a narratively awkward, but mechanically solid workaround, anyway, that works from 5th level onward (see below).
The problem is that both two weapon fighting rules (under "Attack" in PHB) and the Dual Wielder feat are limited to weapons that you are *wielding* and the path of the beast barbarian is very clear that, although you may use your claws as a weapon, your hands must be empty when you do so - in other words, when you are using your claws as weapons, you are still technically not *wielding* any weapon (light or otherwise).
The dual wielder feat removes the constraint of "light weapons only," but it does not remove the "wielding" condition - in fact, the text of the feat re-states that condition explicitly:
"You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one handed melee weapons *you are wielding* aren’t light."
So... talk to your DM. I'd allow it, I think nearly every DM would allow it, but going very strictly by RAW, there are some problems.
If they don't allow it, here's the awkward workaround, which requires dual wielder feat and extra attack feature:
1st round of combat
Draw two one-handed weapons (dual wielder feat), use bonus action to rage, take attack action and make two attacks w/ whichever weapon is better
Subsequent rounds
Take attack action and make one attack with one of the weapons. Before taking your next attack, drop the weapon you just attacked with. Use your extra attack to attack with your claw. You have now met the conditions for two-weapon fighting bonus action attack *and* the extra claw attack. Before ending your turn, use interact with object to pick up the weapon you dropped (or to draw a new one)
Doing all of that is completely RAW legal but also weird and clunky, and I'd wager that 99% of DMs would just simplify all of that and say "For all intents and purposes, you can 'dual wield' your claws as if they were simple melee weapons."
But it is something you should talk to your DM about before you make the character. (And do note that you will want the two-weapon fighting style for this all to be worthwhile.)
i love this version of barbarian! at level 8 my mountain dwarf, bare chested rager has PAM and GWM and does comparable damage to the non-path of the beast versions. and i have more chances at landing crits with the extra attack each turn. and at 10, i'm going to treat infectious fury like a paladin smite and try to save them for crits, where an extra 4d12 damage sure will be nice :) the fun you can have making your target smash it's friend is hella fun too.
and for extra memes, go half-elf custom lineage(even regular half-elf), and take elven accuracy at 4.... double advantage on every attack swing with reckless attack... lol
I love the idea of this subclass, but sadly I doubt I'll ever want to use a subclass where its strongest early feature is defensive duelist
Lol, jumping at lvl 6 as a simic hybrid with manta glide while grappling someone is where it's at.
@@Rodrik18 as Treantmonk points out none of the natural weapons are better options than Great Weapon Master/Polearm Master. Abilities that are all about doing damage but can't compete with existing options are generally not worth taking
@@theeye8276 definitely a cool mental image
@@Rodrik18
So I ran through the math of both builds making just their normal attacks while raging against targets with AC that gives the barb a 60% hit chance assuming they start at 16 str and increase it as quickly as possible. I also assume the barb is always reckless attacking. The GWM/PAM makes its 1 or 2 normal attacks plus its bonus action attack. The beast barb makes its 2 or 3 attacks, as the claws don't function with dual wielding RAW (I assume that's why they added in the pseudo dual wielding feature of the extra attack).
Looking at this math the beast claws are at their best at early levels, and fall off later. You are right that these damage outputs are fairly close, but the beast barb has the major problem that it doesn't scale with magic items the way a normal weapon build does. Add in a +1, 2, or 3 weapon and the GWM/PAM jumps way ahead as increases to hit make a big difference with GWM. Beast Barb also loses out on better barb subclass features like Bear Totem's resistance to everything or the Zealot's refusal to die at higher levels.
It's not that the beast barb's weapons are useless, you can play one and do just fine, but that's true for basically any monoclass in 5e, doesn't make it a mechanically strong option.
GWM/PAM
3. 15.520
4. 19.780
5. 30.510
6. 30.510
7. 30.510
8. 32.040
9. 33.570
10. 33.570
11. 33.570
12. 39.555
13. 39.555
14. 39.555
15. 39.555
16. 41.283
17. 41.283
18. 41.283
19. 41.283
20. 41.283
Beast Claws
3. 18.190
4. 19.870
5. 24.480
6. 24.480
7. 29.805
8. 32.325
9. 34.845
10. 34.845
11. 34.845
12. 34.845
13. 34.845
14. 34.845
15. 34.845
16. 37.365
17. 37.365
18. 37.365
19. 37.365
20. 37.365
@@Rodrik18 dual wielder requires a "weapon that you're holding in one hand" . Your claws are not held in your hand, they are your hand. This is akin to not being able to use two-weapon fighting with your fists, monks need a special feature to allow it.
Insignia of the claws does add +1, and if your GM allows it to be in their game then it does partially deal with the scaling issue. However, there are a few problems.
1. It's an unusual item from a specific adventure and will be less likely to show up than a +1 weapon
2. It doesn't have a +2 or +3 variant
3. The GWM/PAM build gets more even comparing +1 weapon to Insignia of Claws as its starting accuracy is lower and it does more damage per hit.
Edit: I use the same target AC for both, the GWM/PAM build is less accurate in my model
Question about the 6th Level Beastial Soul : Extra Jump. Could you grapple and then vertical jump?... essentially performing a Cyclone Pile-driver like Zangief from Street Fighter.
Still movement and when you grapple someone they gotta come along. You would be working at half movement though so would have to keep that in mind.
@@afrosamurai3847 but with the extra speed of barbarians they can at least jump 10ft for a easy prone from the suplex maneuver with relative ease
@@nicolasvillasecaali7662 For sure my bonk ( barbarian/monk) does just that with his bonus action step of the wind doubling my high jump and being a strength based boyo
I think the claws are my fave just for the sheer flavor of mauling enemies apart.
Seems interesting for a three level dip for a mainly monk character. Monk 2 beast 3 monk 17 would (I think) let you use the monk dice for the natural weapon, which could make it worthwhile to use the claws in combat. Maybe not up to scratch with the GWM-PAM build, but no feat requirements either
"I wont expect a barbarian to have a high con at this level..." me, rolling well, starting with 20 con.
The text of Form of the Beast says, "It counts as a simple melee weapon for you..." So, I would think that qualifies the claws for the Dual Wielder feat. However, I don't think the bonus action claw attack and +1 AC really makes up for the usefulness of a shield with shield master feat.
One of my players was abducted by Mind Flayers and experimented on, giving him the powers of a beast barb flavored far more sinisterly
Honest talk about the barbarian. The base class does the majority of its labor, this subclass actually looks like something of a response to the Pathfinder 2E barbarian.
Dragonborn Barbarian looking slightly better with Tasha’s attributes shift, the tail for defense, breath weapon and Great Weapon Master & Sentinel to lock down targets you can do a good job at tanking.
If i'm not mistaken, claws are the most damaging thing you can do at level 3 without feats
Nuh uh. Plenty of BS you could theoretically do for "the most damaging". Push off of skyship? 20d6. Roll the check to cast a scroll with Meteor Swarm? 40d6 x however many creatures you hit. Tell someone that looks up to you that they have smelly breath? Freaking scarred them forever.
Of course I'll join you for that :D
That extra claw attack is benefitting from your rage damage bonus, which combined with the cut in accuracy I think narrows the gap with GWM quite a lot (especially since you're also up one ASI). The downside, and it's a big one, is that you're not holding a magic weapon. As for the healing, resistance makes it stretch a little farther and it doesn't have to happen a lot to be competitive with a reasonable amount of CON for your hit die in terms of impact. Nobody would argue that more CON is a bad thing.
But GWM is one attack less, so one less application of rage damage.
Tail pretty much just have to block 1 attack to "heal" you more than bite. And bite will lower your damage output, tail will not.
For claws vs poelarm, a longer analysis is needed:
Edit: my math was off, corrected the numbers
TLDR: Comparable polearm build and Claw build. Polarm build averages 37 damage per turn, and claw build averages 34 damage per turn.
We can try to compare damage. The claw build we will give dualwielder feat and +2 strength, and the non-claw build with polearm master and great weapon master.
Lets assume a strength bonus of 4 for the polearm master, and 5 for the claw build, the claw build having 65 % chance to hit, and the polearm 35 % chance to hit, those numbers are before advantage. (Obviously these numbers would depend on enemy AC.)
After advantage that becomes. 88 % for claws, and 69.75 % for polearm. Both types of attack have a 9.75 % chance of a crit.
Let us further assume they have the extra attack feature, and rage is dealing +2 damage.
Polearm guy is making 3 attacks.
1d10 +16 has an average damage of 21.5 but we have to multiply that by his chance to hit. 12.5 damage on avearge.
We can add in critical damage by calculating the average extra damage of a crit, and multiply by his chance to crit. 5.5 extra damage on a crit, times 9.75% chance of a crit. 0.54.
That is around average 13 damage per big attack, for 26 damage for both his attacks on average.
But he also gets a small attack.
Same calculations just with a d4, gives us around 11 damage, for total average damage per turn of 37.
Claw guy.
1d6 + 7 damage, averages at 10.5. After calculating chance to hit, and crit, we end around 9.6 average damage per attack. times 3 attacks brings us to 28.6
Off hand brings another 5.2 damage on average for a total of around 34 on average.
Claw guy has a few advantages +1 AC for dualwielder, and +1 strength for athletics checks and strength saves.
But polearm guy has his own advantages, such as reaction attack when the enemy approaches, using reach weapon, the use of the tail feature, can use magical weapons, and doesn't lose as much damage output if not raging. And of course if you take the character to high levels, polearm guy will eventually catch up in strength.
At higher levels, claw guy gets more out of the increase in rage damage. Polearm guy gets more out of brutal critical, but the difference there isn't big.
Depending on how you tweak the assumptions, you can probably get the two damage numbers closer or further apart.
@@Rodrik18 Actually I assumed dual weapon fighting style from a 1 level dip in fighter, which is the same benefit as fighting initiate would grant. Also the polearm fighter has room for a strength increase for better damage, where the claw one is already maxed out.
After reading the ability carefully, I think it would be possible to hold a longsword in one hand, and do your attack action, making 1 attack with long sword, and another with claw, then because you attacked with your claw, you get an extra claw attack, and you get to bonus action attack with the long sword. This upgrades 2 of your attacks to d8s and make them able to benefit from magic weapons. Not enough to catch up but we are closer.
I also think claws could be interesting for a shield build, that might want to use their bonus action on shield master shove.
@@Rodrik18 In my first analysis I considered not calculating with dual wield fighting style, but concluded it was unrealistic.
Fighting initiate is a fairly weak feat for anything other than archery fighting style.
The +2 str will probably still be better than fighting initiate.
But yeah, I suppose I could have given the polearm guy the two handed weapon fighting style, for a more fair comparison.
If we insist on monobuilds with 2 ASI each. The polearm master pulls even more ahead. The claw build loses around 4 damage per round. While the polearm guy stays the same. (at least in my example above)
@@Rodrik18 I redid my math, and I had a calculation error, and I can see they are indeed very close in DPR, I would still personally prefer the polearm master, build, because of what it can do. Reach and extra attacks when enemies approach, as well as leaving me free to pick the tail option for natural weapon. I also like having a more threatening opportunity attack to keep the enemies close.
But you have a really good point about the grapple, you lose very little DPR and ensure someone stays close, so that will do very nicely.
I am happy to see that the two builds are much closer than my first calculations showed. It really comes more down to play style, and what else you want the build to do. Which is how it should be in my opinion.
You're sleeping on the claws hard, I'm currently in a campaign where I'm playing a Path of the Beast Barbarian, and started playing it back when it was still a UA class.
At level 5 you get 4 attacks with the claws, due to Extra Attack. Now, let's say you have 18 strength at that point, assuming all your claws hit, your damage will be 4d6+24, and taking the average for all those dice, which is 4, you'll be doing 48 damage per turn! That's phenominal, and cannot be compared to any other class at that level, hell even at higher levels! You're essentially turning yourself into a level 20 fighter with 22 strength wielding a short sword or scimitar!
This is better than a greatsword/maul dealing 4d6+12 due to the guaranteed stacking bonus damage from strength + rage and gets better and better as you level up, and since Barbarians don't get Fighting Styles outside of feats, you won't even have the rerolls on 1's and 2's to rely on anyway. Now sure, you might say "But there are no magic items that buff unarmed attacks", and you'd be right... But that's where homebrew comes in, which 99% of DM's allow/actively enjoy using so your point is kind of moot.
Oh and the extra reach from the tail? Play a Bugbear, which is what I did. Now your claws will have that reach. Sure, less damage on reactions, but that's a miniscule price to pay!
You get 3 attacks at lvl 5 not 4, unless your talking about a bonus action attack plus your 3 other attacks.
I wonder about how a Path of the Beast barbarian would gel with a Monk character multiclass build. Having more damaging natural claws when raging (especially at low levels), and a possible extra attack with the tail, might up a monk's damage output in interesting ways.
Hey up to answers Chris here.
Don't forget that if you jump 10 feet or more up you take fall damage. Manta glide from the simic hybrid can help with this.
A reasonable DM would rule that you don't take damage from falling the same height as you jump. The forces on your legs are exactly the same when you jump and when you land, so unless you also want them to take damage when they jump, the landing shouldn't deal damage either.
@@michaelhenman4887 Lots of dm's would rule the raw way of you taking fall damage unfortunately. I also think you should be able to choose how high you jump rather than having to go the max hight you roll.
@@michaelhenman4887 it also should be noted that if you grapple an opponent and jump/fall you would both be taking fall damage. If you let the barbarian ignore taking fall damage while letting the opponent take it you'd be making the character more powerful. At least with manta glide you paid a race opportunity cost to get this kind of power.
@@theeye8276 See my bonk (barbarian/monk just uses his slow fall and resistance to tank falls so he can do piledrivers on whoever
@@afrosamurai3847 yub exactly lol. Except with simic hybrid you can do it without the monk levels, tho unarmed moment would still help your jump height
I think Path of the Beast suffers from the design philosophy of "You're not assumed to have magic weapons" WotC uses to balance. I made a google doc for this (below). Since you can do an axe+claw+claw once you get extra attack, path of the beast is actually light years ahead of GWM and GWM + Polearm (assuming you're not getting them "free" on a variant human) without a magic weapon. However, add even a +1 magic weapon to negate GWM's accuracy loss, suddenly it starts catching up. And of course, if you have an even stronger magic weapon, you're looking at a worse and worse tradeoff.
Google doc: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LoAZHD2GnfoAxCuti7rKdJlvmnuDiHhteKbPe27BDm0/edit?usp=sharing
ill just go ahaid and say it. i think the claws are one of the better dmg options that barb offers.
build propperly you can expect dropping 60 dmg avg every round barring your first. which is on avg 4 more then a gwm barb making 2 attack's with a great axe. and that without the -5 penalty. so you will be able to achieve your damage far more reliably and consistently then a gwm barb.
which also leads me to mention. this is likely one of the best grapple barbarians since you get 3 attack's each of which is a grapple attempt, but since you have 2 claws you can still attack your grappled target. this is not something a gwm barb using its 2 handed weapon can claim.
I would be interested to see a breakdown of the difference in damage output between a maul w/ GWM and the claw attacks.
I wonder whether the additional DPR would really be worth the trade-off of the +2 AC and other feat options using a shield.
Jumping feature could actually be a really great power boost for a grappler build. Grab an enemy, jump up. With Athletics check you should be able to easily exceed 10 feet, so after landing your grappled creature would take a little bit of damage and fall prone. Would barbarian himself take the falling damage is questionable, by RAW I beleive it would, but it is stupid, because if your legs are able to launch you at some height they should be able to withstand the force of you falling from exact this height as forces they are dealing with are exactly the same in either case. But even if DM will rule strickly RAW and tell you that you will get falling damage from it it is still net positive for you as you will half this damage and you will be able to stand up, while it will be impossible to your grappled target
manta glide from a simic hybrid would allow no damage.
I think the claws are an attempt at making a TWF-like thing.
Also, the most I can think of with them is to take the dual wielder feat. You make another attack with them with the attack action, you can now TWF with them, and because they both count as weapons, you gain the +1 ac.
Not saying this is good, just that is the best I got right now
@@Rodrik18 I feel like you can’t really omit crits from barbarian build comparisons, -eventually 1/5th of their level up features are based around them (reckless attack and 3 brutal criticals) -and they’re made to soak up hits following reckless attack, - all of which play to the greataxe’s favor (averaging +3 more for Each d12, landing that +10 hit and getting a 3rd attack). Even w/o reckless attack or accounting for kills, you’re probably still getting at least 1 crit and a subsequent bonus action attack 10% of the time. (2 attacks each with a 5% chance assuming outside sources of advantage and disadvantage average each other out).
Also GWM builds still work even when you can’t afford to rage.
@@Rodrik18 these calculations don't account for reckless attack/advantage, -which is something you might want to have if you are otherwise looking at a 60% chance to hit. Advantage would bring your chance to hit from 60% to 84% [claws would go from 85% to basically 98%]. It's a 10% crit chance to land one in your turn -without applying reckless/any other source of advantage. Advantage boosts the chance for EACH to 9.75% for an 18.5% chance to land at least one when you have extra attack and advantage. This is not calculating the chance for a bonus action following a kill which is too variable to quantify.
I'm also a little confused with your brutal critical picture you've drawn. I'm assuming we're going with brutal critical (1), so with two crits out of 20 attacks, and using the previous Unadvantaged attack percentages] it would deliver +2d12 to Each of the critting attacks for +4d12 (added after deducting the 40% lost damage), -and 2 additional bonus action attacks [increasing your total number of attacks to 22, for (22d12 + 374 x 0.6) +4d12 -for 336. -Whereas the TWF claws nets you 39 attacks [no bonus action on the rage round] each dealing 1d6+3 (rage), with 30 of them letting you add your +4 strength modifier [as you are now two weapon fighting without the two weapon fighting style], and you can expect 4 critical hits each bringing in an additional 2d6. So (39d6 + 117 + 120 x 0.85) +8d6 -for 345. -So pretty comparable damage, -but each round you use reckless attack/attack with advantage it greatly favors the great axe wielder, increasing their likelihood to hit by 24% (13% for claws) and also their likelihood to a crit by 8.75%, which are more powerful than claw crit and also lead to more chances to hit....
-One thing I did not consider though with the claws + dual wielder build is that you could make 2 of your 4 attacks using a single handed melee weapon [bumping the damage die from 1d6 to 1d8] and still TWF for 4 attacks total since dual wielder feat. -So for the Unadvantaged attack calculation it would increase the claws damage further, an average of +1 to 19 of the 39 attacks and +3 to 2 of the crits, bringing the Unadvantaged Attack average to 366 vs the GWM's 336, which is pretty significant. Advantage and crits can still bridge the gap pretty fast though. [each gwm greataxe crit dice adding 5 more damage than claw/longsword to the crit average and providing another attack, made w/ advantage brings an average +19.74 w/ another 9.75% chance of dealing another 5 more -bringing that attack's average to 20.22 -and the 5 from the initial crit, with +0.48 from the crit chance on other action attack, for +25.7 added from the advantage round where a crit occured, while advantaged TWF increased likelihood of crits from more attacks increases the average damage by 0.78 per advantaged attack, averaging +3.12 to your average advantaged round, a difference of 22.58, so with an 18.5% chance to land 1 crit with 2 advantaged attacks, that's an average +41.73 difference over 10 rounds, becoming 377.73 vs 366, which creeps bigger with additional crit dice. But getting access to the TWF fighting style becomes a game changer!
-But yeah, while you have rage available claws/twf is more comparable than I thought! And unlike GWM, it has synergy with sneak attack or kensei's deft strike were you to multiclass.
If you use Claw and Shield with 2 levels in fighter you can use Duelist Fighting Style to boost that Claw dmg to a ''1d10'' damage, this could be a very nice Barb 3 or 4/ Fighter X too ( i never multiclassed a barbarian so i dont know how bad/irritating is low Rages Charges)
Edit : 2 level is for Action Surge and attack 6 or 8 (if 11 level in fighter) Times XD ( Wolverine Berserker Barrage anyone ? ) pair that with a Eldritch Claw tattoo for extra potency
Dwarf Beast Barbarian that uses his beard as the tail
Regarding the claws from Form of the Beast, it states that "...when you attack with a claw using the Attack action, you can make one additional claw attack as part of that action." Doesn't that mean, then, at level 5, when you can make two attacks with the Attack action, you can make an additional attack with each attack? Otherwise, it would say something like "...when you take the Attack action..." Seems like that means additional attack with each attack. That would mean four attacks a turn at level 4. If you have some ability that adds more damage per attack (like Hunter's Mark), four attacks is great!
It says "Once on each of your turns".
It limits it to once, though presumably when you get extra attack you could make one claw attack, one other weapon attack and still qualify for the additional claw attack.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Yes. Thank you for that. Once, it is.
I really gotta ask what kind of DM wouldn't OK the claw as an offhand attack with full strength damage?
IMO this subclass just needs slight tweaks. Make the claws light weapons, and once they're magical let them eventually scale up to +3 magic items.
The idea of a barbarian ripping people apart with his bare hands (or in this case bear hands) is just a cool mental image, and I hate that it's designed to be less viable than it could be. Once magical items start entering the game, these natural weapons really start to lag behind, so letting them scale competitively would be nice. You'd probably still choose a magic weapon over your natural weapons, but at least you'd have to think about it.
Still strange for me to see you talk about anything that isn't a caster :D Nice video!
Bring on the thicc tailed kobolds, tabaxi, lizardmen t-rex totemists and tieflings ..
At last a Dragonborn kings have a tails .. rage gets me HARD!
spined devil tiefling! take the infernal fortitude feat for resistance to fire, cold, poison + rage resistances
Tail attack on a big tank with spider climb? This is the class for Scorpion from the Spider-man books
I actually made a really cool claws build. Using Unarmed Fighting (My DM allowed it to improve my claw damage to 1d8) and Two-Weapon Fighting (for an off-hand claw attack) Combat Styles. At level 5 I can do 4 attacks of 1d8+rage+str, which is very cool, all are with advantages and I am using Wildhunt Shifter to mitigate some of the reckless attack disadvantages when needed.
Later I will take levels in fighter for Action Surge, Giant's Might, and some runes :)
The character is like a demonically possessed warrior, with a lot of transformations.
If my barb was using Polearm Master, GWM, and Reckless Attack, he would do 35.1 damage at 5th level against a 15 ac monster. The same barbarian with claws and increased str instead of feats does 36.3 damage. It's very cool :)
To get d8 on Claw attack, assuming it would work like that (though it shouldn't), you need to attack with both hands, which excludes the option of TWF.
Your DM is super generous.
@@antongrigoryev6381 "If you aren't wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8." Which I am. I am not wielding a weapon or a shield.
@@itaymiara444 Claws are considered weapons.
@@antongrigoryev6381 We understand it. But the logic jump of using your fists, claws and mouth as weapons was quite clear to us that even if it's not, it should work as an unarmed combat style, because realistically speaking your not armed, you are fighting with your body.
We did made more modification. My character start with no weapon, amor or shield proficiencies, for example.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Also, even without house rules, and staying with 1d6 damage, it is still very nice damage.
Loved shifter BM .. gave him ritual casting just for extra fun
I don't think being lackluster at high levels is unique to Barbarians, but applicable to martials as a whole (even if Fighters and, if you count them, Rangers, are slightly better off).
What do you think about allowing the natural weapons in this class to be finesse weapons? Would it be beneficial or could it break the game?
I’d say the only potential benefit would be if you multi-classed with rogue for sneak attack. I’d allow it.
@@jaredpuwalski8545 Well, I was asking more about the fact that barbarians usually have to balance the three physical atributes, and allowing a finesse weapon in its natural weapons would make the barb dump str with no doubt, what makes me uneasy about breaking the class. Thoughts?
@@bezaocbf I don’t think it would be worth it. Too many barbarian class features are tied to using strength for attacks. A 14 dex is fine for medium armor, and a 16 is doable if you want medium armor master.
Barbarian's Rage and Reckless Attack specifically work only with Str attacks. Changing it for a specific subclass would be a poor design choice I think.
New barbarian subclasses are pretty fun and quirky.
re:claws The only advantage of the claws that comes to mind vs Great Sword + Great Weapon Master once you have Extra Attack at 6... If you're somehow doing a crit fishing build with a Barbarian, and for some reason you're an elf or half-elf, and get Elven Accuracy, then -maybe- you do one of your attacks as a claw just so you can roll an additional set of dice to fish that crit. But like you said Tail seems to be the standout; You're almost casting Shield without any resources like spell slots.
Edit: Well... Infectious Fury... So here's a question Treantmonk: If you choose the 2d12 Psychic on-hit for Infectious Fury, does that damage get multiplied by a crit? I'm seeing "Target takes 2d12" so I'm thinking no, but... The nice thing about Infectious Fury is that we get to choose AFTER we hit, much akin to smite. The reaction-melee thing might be the way to go generally, but if the 2d12 Psychic can be multiplied by a crit, then with a crit fishing build the claw becomes more desirable.
Beast weapons don’t have the finesse property so no elven accuracy benefit. And infectious fury damage is taken after a failed saving throw like a spell so no crit synergy.
i would really like the claw attack damage to scale with your level
I am hopeful there will be a Conan, the multi-class Rogue/Fighter movie.
I feel like Claws would be pretty good on a Small race that can't use heavy weapons? I'm not very good at optimizing so I may be completely wrong on that.
@@skymanta1222 I love it.
If you wanted to have a full Beast of Caerbannog with a demon form. Have your Small Rabbitfolk with Beast Barbarian 8, then go Ascendant Dragon Monk 4/Rune Knight X with Unarmed Fighting Style for unarmed d8 attacks, Slasher, Athlete, Tavern Brawler and Mobile.
An inescapable force of destruction. an insanely rapid, running, jumping vicious little monster that can transorm into a massive, fire breathing, all-powerful, ferocious clawed beastie from the blackest depths of the abyss.
@@skymanta1222 ADM is UA. It's completely a non-legit published, silly build. I was up to 199 characters in my dndbeyond and your comment and the video gave me the idea for the 200th build, a Beast of Caerbannog with Final Form.
Tavern brawler was just for a half feat stat and BA grapple, I think take out Slasher and add Skill Expert in there, for Athletics Expertise instead. Add the Bestial Soul Jumping with Rabbit Hop and your High and Long Jump could get a bit ridiculous, eg. for flying grapples, like how in the movie the rabbit just launches at a Knight's throat and latches on lol
You're right about the claw attacks not becoming d8 RAW but the unarmed monk attacks should, so you have a good few attacks and various damage types available to choose from. Thanks for the great inspiration.
"Run from the monster!"
"What, behind the rabbit?"
"It IS the rabbit!"
As a single class this is an OK sublcass. As a multiclass though... the option of getting 4 resourceless attacks per round can be huge (Dual Wielder feat). Blood Hunter is a great multiclass here with either the Mutant (Potency mutagen) or the Lycan being great ways to go. You'll end up with the Dueling fighting style to toss your strength onto your bonus attack, Crimson Rite for a 1d4-1d8 add to each attack, and either a +1-2 damage per hit from the Lycan Shape Shift or a +1-2 damage from the Potency mutagen. That adds up to 1d6 claw attack + 1d6 Crimson Rite + 5 Strength + 2 Rage + 2 Potency Mutagen = 16 average DPR by level 11. Times 4 is 64 average DPR if everything hits.
By comparison a level 11 Greatsword GWM Zealot Barbarian would do 58.5 Average DPR if everything hit, but they'd still have the -5 to attack rolls to achieve that. Even a fully optimized Pole Arm GWM barbarian at level 11 would still only get to 73, with a reduced chance to hit those attacks.
The Path of the Beast barbarian is also a great subclass choice if you want to use a shield. You can forgo the Dual Wielder feat and snag the Shifter - Longtooth race. You'll get 3 attacks per round, or 4 if you add the Shift in. The same multiclass into Bloodhunter boosts your damage potential as well, but lets you take Dueling for a further damage boost. At level 12 you're at 54 average damage per round with just the claws, and 72 damage per round without the bite attack. This is a build that I worked out over here: old.reddit.com/r/DND5EBuilds/comments/m7vfay/the_escaped_experiment_path_of_the_beast/
Just remember if you multiclass, you are probably only getting 3 rages per day. Might be a problem, might not.
Also bloodhunter is homebrew, so I am not sure you can count on it being available at your table.
Outside blood hunter, it is actually pretty hard to find abilities that add damage to every attack. Except of course things that require concentration, but that doesn't work with rage.
Only abilities I can think of that adds damage to every attack is paladin improved smite at level 11, and rage. The rest requires concentration, or only apply to one attack per turn, to my knowledge.
@@peterrasmussen4428 Halo of Spores for the Spores Druid will also add a concentration-less 1d6 for 2 levels of druid. If Blood Hunter wasn't an option I'd probably go with that and then multiclass into Fighter to pick up the Fighting Style of choice, Action Surge, and then some Superiority die. A bit less damage, but a bit more burst and versatility. Probably something like Barb 6 (magic attack claws) > Fighter 3 > Druid 3 > Barb 3 (Rage damage boost) > Druid 5 (more temporary HP to not lose the 1d6). Some of those are swappable in order, but it would still work. I might even just stop with Barb 6 and take the reduced damage in favor of the extra temporary HP and spell utility. I'd probably also go with a Shield build for this one.
@@TheWanderersWit I had overlooked Halo of Spores, interesting build.
I think you will have a problem with Halo of spores only lasting 10 minutes and being an action to apply. Depending on style, that means it might be pretty hard to have up at the start of combat. If you spend your first round applying halo of spores, you might have trouble staying in rage.
Also even in rage, 12 temp HP is not a lot to keep your damage boost.
I could see this being interesting for a shield build though, especially if you want the shield master feat, so your have a good use of bonus action.
@@peterrasmussen4428 Yeah, it's not as clean as Blood Hunter, but still workable. After thinking about it a bit I'd probably do Barb 6 > Fighter 4 > Druid 10. By level 7 you'd be at 34.5 average DPR or with Shifter Bite, 45 average DPR. At level 8 you could Action Surge up to 69 average DPR, 80.5 with Shifter form. For the Spore druid piece, the resistances would take some levels, but eventually the temp HP would hold out. That'd get base damage to 48.5 average, 59 with Bite, and up to 94.5 with Action Surge + Bite. At 20 strength all of those numbers would bump up by another 3-4. The Shield Master feat would be cool, though maybe tough to fit in in the early game unless you started at 18 Strength due to a good stat roll. Otherwise your third ASI wouldn't come until 14.
I'm loving all the Tasha's videos, but my brain is still stuck on the Scribes Wizard. Are you going to make a build for that wizard?
Anyone else considering using this class + fighter to get a bunch of unarmed melee attacks and then the crusher + slasher feats?
Reckless attack and crusher make sure everyone in your party has a chance to get advantage on their attacks, slasher helps mitigate advantage on attacks against you + being generally a nice way to debuff enemies. Fighter provides extra ASI/feats, unarmored fighting style and a third attack eventually.
I would probably go fighter 12 barb 8, but finding the right order has been a challenge.
probably would take rune knight fighter for this build
Bite: grappler build
I'm just tired of every martial class taking GWM or Sharpshooter. Anything feasible and different is wonderful.
I just convinced my DM that Dragonborn Beast just always has these options from lvl 3 because I was born with claws, a tail, and a toothy maw. Having all 3 options always available is perfect! Claws for attacks, tail for reactions, and a bite when things get "hairy"
i just found out about this subclass recently, it might not be super amazing but for me is a great subclass to multiclass a few level into:
- a monk with tail is even harder to hit and the tail have longer reach so pair that with sentinel feat then you got yourself a nice combo
- a druid wild shape into a bear with the claws feature can have up to 3 attack (1 bite 2 claw) (if your dm agree that bear claws get enhance by the feature so you can get 1 additional atk) which is a nice way to use the claw feature as well, even the tail and the bite one can still benefit the druid, especially the moon druid who like to use wild shape a lot
this is just 2 combo i come up when found out about this subclass, good for combat and nice touch in term of flavor as well for me
As far as using the tail. Does this occur after the die roll is known? or does this have to be stated when the attack is made but before the results are determined?
Interesting analysis though I'd point out that your damage output analysis of the claws is flawed. Assuming +4 to damage and 60% chance to hit:
Claws: (3.5+4)*2*.6= 9 DPR
Claws + TWF: ((3.5+4)*2 + 3.5)*.6 = 11.1 DPR
greatsword: (3.5+3.5+4)*.6 = 6.6 DPR
greatsword and GWM: (3.5+3.5+4+10)*.35= 7.35 DPR.
As you can see. with a 1 attack/rnd, claws are doing more DPR than a greatsword...and adding a feat doesn't help enough. The GWM IS slightly better at 5th level with the second attack, but Brutal Crit swings it back as the potential chances to crit are twice as high with claws.
I feel like the claws leave half the barbarian’s tools on the table. There’s not really a lot of incentive to attack recklessly when your critical only adds 7 damage more than a regular hit (factoring in brutal critical 1), meanwhile with rage resistance, relentless rage and the hp pool sets the barb up to be a glutton for punishment while attacking recklessly. -The greataxe GWM barb crits for an additional 13 & a guaranteed +10 -and then has a third attack after the crit (or following kills) -all of this independent of your limited rages. -This damage gap is further exacerbated with critical hit synergy features like half orc’s savage attacks, and the piercer half feat (switching to Pike), or the orcish fury half feat.
-Additionally the gwm barb doesn’t have the opportunity cost of being a beast barb (or could just use the tail for reactions) and could take another subclass, such as zealot for an additional 1d6+half barb level on one of its attacks when it comes to average damage comparison. -but that’s a digression.
Unless I miscalculated something, Claws deal much more damage than GWM.
Let's assume we have 75% on hit. Then, with the GWM penalty it'll be 50%. Our barbarian has +4 Strength and +3 Rage damage.
Greataxe (GWM):
(6,5+4+3+10)*2*0,5 = 23,5 damage.
Polearm (GWM+PM):
((5,5+4+3+10)*2+(2,5+4+3+10))*0,5 = 32,25 damage.
Claws:
(3,5+3+4)*3*0,75 = 23,675
Claws (DW):
((3,5+3+4)*3+(3,5+3))*0,75 = 28,5 damage.
So Claws can be compared to GWM even without using a feat. With a single feat, they are much better, but fall behind of GWM+PM combo. You'll need an extra feat though, and considering that Barbs need to keep 3 stats at decent level (Str, Dex and Con) you may not want it.
You used commas instead of periods, just a heads up.
Claws have less synergy with the rest of a barbarians tool set. -When you only crit for an average of 7 extra damage (assuming brutal critical 1) you don’t have a lot of incentive to attack recklessly (and subsequently less synergy with rage resistance, relentless rage, the barb hp pool and draw less aggression). -While the greataxe GWM barb is guaranteeing +10 and +13 from extra dice. -And gets a 3rd attack with their bonus action following a crit or kill. This gap is further exacerbated with later brutal critical improvements and other crit dice boosting features like half orc’s savage attacks, the orcish fury half feat or the piercer half feat (switching to pike).
Additionally this output isn’t tied to rage, and even if you don’t use reckless attack or the -5/+10 they’re still getting a 3rd attack like 10% of the time after level 5 (2 attacks each w/ a 5% chance) -without accounting for kills or outside sources of advantage/autocrits.
@@elliotbryant3459 Crits do not work like this. Yes, with greataxe damage on each crit will be bigger, but Claws have more attacks and therefore they will score more more crits. So the actual weapon damage does not matter as long as it is compensated with attack speed. Even more, Claws will deal slightly more damage on crit because bigger part of their damage comes from dice: on crit, 33% of all their damage in multiplied, while with greataxe it's 27%.
@@antongrigoryev6381 A normal hit with a greataxe power strike is 1d12+10+Str+Mod, a crit is 3d12+10+rage+mod, a normal claw hit is 1d6+rage+mod, on a crit with claws is 3d6+rage+mod, so yes a brutal crit is a larger contribution to the percentage of a claws attack than the axe's -But they still provide more overall value to the Greataxe. The crit dice alone bring the weapon's dice from 6.5 to 19.5 (+13) vs the claw's 3.5 to 10.5 (+7). The difference becomes even more dramatic the more dice you add in from later brutal criticals/other extra dice features. -BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! The Critical guarantees your +10 lands -And it gets you a bonus action attack. If you were using a maul/great sword brutal critical isn't as valuable but the latter 2 benefits still apply.
Assuming a a 10 round fight with a level 9 barbarian with +3 rage damage and +4 Str Mod, that has an 85% chance to hit normally and a 60% chance to hit with the great axe powerstirke. Advantage would bring your chance to hit with the axe from 60% to 84% [claws would go from 85% to basically 98%]. It's a 10% crit chance to land one in your turn -without applying reckless/any other source of advantage. Advantage boosts the chance for EACH from 5% to 9.75% -for an 18.5% chance to land one critical hit when you have extra attack and advantage. This is not calculating the chance for a bonus action following a kill which is too variable to quantify but would further increase your extra attacks.
Without using advantage you can expect 2 crits delivering +2d12 to Each of the critting attacks for +4d12 (added after deducting the 40% lost damage), -and 2 additional bonus action attacks [increasing your total number of attacks to 22, for (22d12 + 220 [GWM] + 66 [rage] + 88 [Strength x 0.6) +4d12 -for 336. -Whereas the TWF claws nets you 39 attacks [no bonus action on the rage round] each dealing 1d6+3 (rage), with 30 of them letting you add your +4 strength modifier [as you are now two weapon fighting without the two weapon fighting style], and you can expect 4 critical hits each bringing in an additional 2d6. So (39d6 + 117 [rage] + 120 [strength] x 0.85) +8d6 -for 345. -So pretty comparable damage, -but each round you use reckless attack/attack with advantage it greatly favors the greataxe wielder, increasing their likelihood to hit by 24% (only 13% for claws) and also the likelihood to with either crit by 8.75%, [which are more powerful than a claw crit] and also lead to more chances to make another powerful attack....
-And the GWM still works when you can't rage, whereas the former claw user is now just two weapon fighting with battleaxes.
Barb is definitely no good at high levels. That is why I fold in the champion fighter into their back end to make the crits worth a worth a damn and give them some other small benis.
I recommend using treant's homebrew barbarian. It also boosts crits.
1 monk. 3 barb beast then and fighter unarmed style. Not in that exact order. Use tortal for ac. Then at 9th lvl thats 4x 1d8+6 unarmed strike when raging with claws. Using action and bonus. Does that work?
Is there anything stopping you from using your claws for your first attack giving you another, then putting that hand back on a two handed weapon for your last attack?
Namely I'm interested in the possibility of using a dual bladed scimitar with it to get four attacks at lvl 5, and open up the rogue multiclass with revenant blade
A little sad that this didn't take a deeper analysis on how a shield bearer grappler build could work, but focused on the easy to see fact that GWM+PAM are better for combat, which we already could tell, i think this subclass is better used for crowd control with the tail for the extra AC and the reach for OAs so he have a hand free to stop enemies from getting close to other frail party members.
How to get 6 attacks by level 8: 3 BarbBeast, 5 echo knight