Barbarian Build Guide: The Zealot D&D 5e
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- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2024
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A link to this build: ddb.ac/characters/68151669/OU...
If you would like to know how I calculate damage or how baseline damage is determined, I go through it in this video:
• How To Calculate Avera...
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:43 Barbarian features
10:50 Some warnings
14:30 Strategy for our character
16:15 Raging beyond death
19:15 Rage dropping
25:21 Level 1
35:30 Level 2
36:55 Levels 3-5
45:50 Levels 6-11
51:45 Levels 12-17
56:17 Levels 18+
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Игры
By far my favorite Barbarian sub for both flavor and mechanics :). Enjoyed this one. Also: “We get Brutal Critical again but, good news, it’s the last time we get it” was comedy gold 😂
Thanks Colby. Looking forward to your light hammer build.
Haha yes! I was cracking up at that 😂
@@TreantmonksTemple I feel like he’s going to use the returning weapon infusion and I would imagine that he’ll put a disclaimer saying if your dm allows it you could use the boomerang instead if you wanted to.
@@TreantmonksTemple ⁰00😂
I've always thought Barbarian is overall the single best possible option for tabletop rookies just testing the waters. It's straightforward enough to not be overwhelming, but within the first two levels you get tutorials on Actions and Bonus Actions, Advantage (and by extension, Disadvantage), and basic resource management with Rage, all wrapped up in what is likely the most durable party member. It gives you more freedom to make mistakes and learn without punishing you too harshly.
I was just thinking about that the other day too. It was my first class and I think it gives a good base to build on
@@victorholmes7075 Totally agree, my second character ever, a dumb, half-orc zealot barb, was almost impressively unoriginal but goddamn was he fun to play and easy to get into character with!
Another benefit: less needed customization early on compared to fighters or other martials, also does not pidgeonhold you into any specific weapon via fighting style, you can swap from two-handed to sword & board to two-weapon as nessesary
I've got one at my table that almost never rages, refuses to use reckless attack, didn't add any abilities from class or subclass after level 3. Has never used their subclass abilities (ancestral guard) and used the dash action 50% of turns.
Agree that bard is the easiest and knocked fighter out of the running in 5e and been trying to convince people about it since day 1. Would add an addendum that you would want the rookies to take bear totem too.
a cool trick for a barbarian is to set ourselves on fire using alchemist fire. Rage don't drop if we take damage. Alchemist fire deals damage every turn unless we take an action to make a dex save to extinguish the flames. If we don't we just keep burning for a whole minute
Also this is such a barbarian move.
Metal as fuck
Be a dragonborn and you're basically a humanoid Monstrous Nightmare from how to train your dragon lol
Next step is to tame and train a nightmare. Riding dead into battle on a flaming steed with a head of fire screaming FLAMES!! like a confused zombie.
Zealot Barbs are great. Recently ended a campaign at level 16, and I straight-classed Zealot Barb. In the final big combat, I soaked over 600 points of damage (enough to drop all other party members combined over twice over). I rode that high for weeks.
Impressive truly! Also Zealots have good damage compared to totem!
I appreciate that in this video on barbarians, Chris turns up the sass.
As per usual everything you say is spot on, but as amazing as Rage Beyond Death is, I feel like you overlooked talking about how Persistent Rage pairs so well with it.
You can just choose not to drop your rage when you go out of combat. Which means that even in your example where you get ambushed with one hit point, you are still not dropped. You are literally... Too Angry To Die (tm).
This buys you time for the ever important out-of-combat heal.
But it still ends at the end of a minute. That's not long enough to get into another fight in many circumstances.
Hitting yourself is thematic. How many movies have you seen where the large angry guy pounds his chest super hard to get more angry before a fight. Seems to be standard cliche rage building move.
At the end when he says “basically any flying race”, all I can think of is a slightly less optimized fairy reigning down spear damage from above. So cute, until taken by the zealot rage!
The lucky feat should also be a serious consideration for anyone playing this character after level 14. You can use it as a failsafe to win initiative or worst case scenario dodge attack against you when you start a combat at extremely low hp, or to succeed a saving throw that would end your rage and instantly kill you. Depending on your preference and what you find you're needing at your table, you may want to take it over alert or even over capping strength.
Yes the Lucky feat is RAW broken: find any important check at disadvantage? You have just turned it into super-advantage with the lucky feat.
You might find yourself in a situation that you blindfold yourself to climb a wall, in order to roll 3 dice and pick the highest.
I'm in a group right now, playing an Ancestral Guardians Barbarian, alongside a Zealot Barbarian
Lemme tell you about synergy...
The Zealot's damage is high and consistent, and I mitigate a shitload of damage.
Add in a Sharpshooter Ranger, and most encounters just melt. Sure, it's not clever or elegant. But damn if it doesn't work well.
The zealot isn't immune to effects like disintegrate and power word kill (it skips the unconscious), but to any meaty enemies the zealot is immortal.
Moon Knight
Another useful spell for a Cleric to take when a Zealot barbarian is in the party is Gentle Repose. This gives insurance in case the Zealot dies after using our 3rd level spells. Or if the cleric is too low level to cast Revivify themselves so you can drag the Zealot to the nearest aligned temple for a relatively cheap Revivify
Scribes Wizards are also good for this. It doesn't even take up one of your spell preperations and you can always have Gentle Repose ready in your back pocket for if anyone needs it. Plus you can even deliver it with your familiar, in case you're using it while retreating from strong enemies or your ally went and died somewhere dangerous like a pool of lava or a spike pit.
wait..... Acolyte background, temples will help you out for free as long as it's withing reason and doesn't go over x cost.... You could totally just have an acolyte zealot and use churches like respawn points with gentle repose.
We faced one of these in a level 20 game. HE COULD NOT DIE. Its not something any party wants to see. We finally figured out how to put the other enemies between him and us, and used him as a weapon for the next 4 sessions. That was such a fun game.
Just cast sleep unless its a race immune to sleep :D
@@thorsteinmortensen4399 Sleep is a pretty rare preparation at level 20
@@thorsteinmortensen4399 I wish that spell was more effective throughout the game
@@TreantmonksTemple its one of those spells i keep around for shits and giggles
@@TreantmonksTemple Another reason Twilight Clerics are OP!
Talking races, I think protector aasimar are pretty good. Dm's don't generally have a problem with their flight, it's thematically appropriate, it has some extra resistances, barbarian movement boosts apply, giving you 60 ft of flight on that first turn by lv 7, and you even get a little healing option which you can use to save yourself after rage beyond death.
And of course, you're looking at 1.5x your level in damage boosts when both rage and radiant soul are active
I agree. I mention the protector aasimar as a good pick later in the video.
To that end, I’d guess a straight-class barbarian is going to have an easier time convincing a DM to allow a flying race than a Wizard or Ranger. You don’t get to cheese through fights and avoid melee opponents by going up. You just aren’t useless against a flying opponent, so the DM doesn’t have to make a dragon land so you can be relevant.
The one swooping around my head lately: Dhampir Aarakocra, with a craving for raw eggs.
@@thebitterfig9903 ruclips.net/video/qRdNc7QmDzA/видео.html
@@thebitterfig9903 while a barbarian certainly does not excell at ranged combat like other classes, they certainly could use javelins or bows when need be
@@defensivekobra3873 you can, but will you? I guess what I mean is that if you're trying to convince the DM that it's ok to let you have a flying Barbarian, it's kind of a negotiation. Barbs have a reasonable pitch that they probably won't abuse flight mechanics early in a campaign, between theme and melee focused mechanics. If you promise not to, a DM is more likely to believe you than the purely ranged character.
One thing I don't think you mentioned is that we don't get our Polearm Master attack on the turn we rage, since that also takes a bonus action, which decreases our DPR a little bit depending on the length of combat.
That's true
31:40 It's also worth noting that we would want potions of healing as the party barbarian because we are going to be particularly adept at administering healing to our party cleric who just went down. With our better movement and proclivity to lasting far longer than our mates it may be up to us to raise the party member who can then healing word/revivify other downed comrades.
unmentioned racial option that could go really well with this: hill dwarf (or really any kind of dwarf) thanks to an obscure racial feat you can get to heal yourself using hit dice mid-combat. A dwarven barbarian with that feat not only has a bit of flavour going for them, but they will also not need to get healing from elsewhere in the party to get them from no health to a tiny little sliver of health.
My house rule for rage is if the barbarian is in a dangerous situation, their adrenaline maintains the rage, you don't necessarily need to attack or receive damage, maybe you are trying to lift a rock that fell on top of you or an ally, putting back breaking strength to lift a bolder, or the dragon lift off and you are hanging for dear life in it's tail, you get thrown off a cliff and the muscles on your fingers are preventing your from falling further, the kraken grabs you with one of it's tentacles and you have to use your strength to free yourself and swim back up, and other similar examples.
Nice rule, I will steal this.
That battlefield at 14:42 made me laugh, Tiamat, Demogorgon, Tarrasque, Orcus, and what I am assuming is a Red Great Wurm vs one angry man.
No fear.
in my game i offer barbs a bonus feat at level 10, and i expand crit-range to 19-20 with brutal critical, and 18-20 with the final level of brutal critical. Makes those high levels less 'brutal.'
Might also be fun to switch the flat +2/3/4 bonus damage on a rage to d4/d6/d8, so those would get crit boosted. It won't make much of a difference, at high levels 4 more damage on a crit, but dang does it play into the glory of big crits and throwing lots of dice.
I did simular houserules. Brutal Citical is decent flavor, but needs a little boost.
So you give the expanded critical range at 9th or at 13th level?
@@JorisVDC 9th
I'd still recommend that at level 14 you never fall bellow 20-30hp out of combat because of the existence of traps and stealthy enemies that can deal damage to you without you having a chance to set up your rage.
It's pretty obvious that Brutal Critical (coupled with Rage Damage) was meant to provide a boost in damage similar to the extra attacks gained by fighter. However, because crits are so rare, it could literally add 50 extra damage to each crit and not come close to matching extra attack in effectiveness.
Change rage damage to a scaling die and change brutal crit to extend the crit range & provide a damage floor for their crits?
I am so glad someone brought this up. I've known about this for awhile now. Zealot barb is a truly unique anomaly. I think scourge aasimar is really strong because it's once per day transformation, specifically states that its aura damages you.
Until Monsters of the Multiverse gets released and goes and ruins it (the aura no longer damages you).
@@insertphrasehere15 I'm probably not going to use monsters of the multiverse at all... They nerf so many cool things in the name of "standardization". Aasimar as a whole get fucking dumpstered in that book
Just off the top of my head, I think a good fix to brutal critical would be an increase in critical threat range. At level 17 having crits on a 17 or higher doesn't sound ridiculous.
The low number of rage uses is why I view barbarians as more of a one-shot class rather than a full campaign class, since in my experience one-shots typically have fewer combats than a normal adventuring day
That jab at twilight clerics was the saltiest I've ever seen you 😂
I tend to get salty talking about peace and twilight domain clerics. Terrible design.
When it comes to Barbarians and the Twilight Cleric, I really wish that the Storm Herald would get more value out of his auras. I really like the cold aura for 2-5 temporary hit points per turn, but it gets really overshadowed by the Twilgiht Clerics Twilight Sanctuary as well as features from less overpowered classes like the Artficier Artillerist. I mean, I can see why WotC might not want to gives Barbarians big sources of thp every round, but it makes no difference if you compare it to another Barbarian just simply beeing in a party with a Twilight Cleric, Artificer Artillerist etc. .
So why not take Twilight Cleric lvls to 2nd or 3rd (for Aid) and however many in Barbarian as you can then bolster your hit points with their Domain feature every round with Temp HP.
@@jameswebb4545 That would of course be effective, but what I really like about the Storm Herald is its flavour.
Storm Herald's mechanics are very disappointing mostly because the numbers are too small. The style of the mechanics is great - an icy covering, calling down a bolt of lightning, blast of fire... - but all of them just do too little you could easily double amount of dmg / thp and it still feel weaker than other similar features.
@@agilemind6241 tbh the THP I think is actually decently strong because it is effectively doubled for the baby compared to most attacks they will take and over a 3-4 round combat they can prevent just on themselves (at higher levels) upwards of 40 HP. Let alone allies.
That all being said, the Lightning damage is very comparable to a Zealot without PAM at almost all levels which is pretty nice.
we should do a new Chris meme:
Chris: "not great..."
Chris: "not great..."
Zealot barb = best barb. I'm about to level mine (from three to four, don't go nuts) but I'll happily theorycraft her up to 20.
Excuse me, beast barb - best barb.
My first D&D character was a Frenzied Berserker from 3.5 edition. He had a feature very similar to this Zealot Barbarian's Rage Beyond Death and it was crazy fun to play with! At least until the DM put the Calm Emotions spell on 50% of the monsters...
Damn, that's a stupid way of countering a player ability. You can toss it in from time to time but on 50% of the monsters, gee!
I personally like Protector Aasimar with Zealot Barbarian. Protector's Radiant Soul gives a good work around to a ban on flying races. The extra damage is always a plus. The reason why Aasimar pairs so well though is Healing Hands. Save this for when your rage ends and use it to give yourself hitpoints so you don't instantly die.
Zealot barbarian is my favorite barbarian, I’ve always wanted to combine it with rogue for shenanigans. Or just play one straight, and you built it basically how I would. Resilient wisdom is a must and a lot of my friends don’t see it.
But I’ve always wanted to combine it with 14 celestial warlock, it always felt pretty flavorful. Go dwarf and grab dwarven fortitude to dodge as Ana croon and roll some d12 hit dice that are automatically maxed, then use your bonus action to spend some d6s from celestial warlock to get the flavor of a regenerating barbarian. Could also mix it with other sorts of martials, maybe 6 Paladin.
I've seen barbarian/rogues, they work OK. It kinda feels bad to be a barbarian smashing with a flimsy rapier though.
@@TreantmonksTemple An Inquisitor/torturer flavored zealot barbarian with a whip tho.
Yeah it is an odd mental image. When I played a one shot with a barbogue I used a shortsword reflavored as a big cleaver/machete. I made him more of a street thug enforcer who would break legs for a mob boss rather than a sneaky rogue or a wild barbarian. You could always reflavor the rapier as a sort of nail weapon, a three sided thrusting short sword was used at one point to inflict grevious wounds. It would be like a smaller Lance in shape.
I LOL'd at your clips, Chris. OMG. Kirk hitting himself and Leslie Nielsen from "Dead and Loving it". Beautifully done.
Good morning Chris! Time for more progress on my mission! We're starting to get close to completing it!
Hope your day is a great one! Much love 💜
Another single class guide. Very nice.
I’d love to see your take on a BattleMaster 3 Valor Bard 17 build.
You’re basically a dodge tank that boosts the party’s efficiency. Grab Trip Attack for Advantage, Conbat Inspiration for a boost to accuracy, and some other spells and manuevers to top yourself off
Why not BattleMaster 3 Swords 17? Inspiration already improves accuracy and Swords gets to actually use it instead of handing off a one-use "Parry". That and your weapon is your spellcasting focus.
@@larstollefsen1236 I found the fourishes redundant with manuevers, especially because they take BI.
That’s not to say that there isn’t merit to sword bard. You get spellcasting weapons and an extra fighting style, but that’s all the class has to offer. Unless you want defensive flourish that badly.
Valor Bard’s combat inspiration can ensure people hit important attacks or deflect a hit that would’ve downed them. And the 14th ability lets you cast spells as BA, making the spell weaving much more accessible.
@@Iceblade269 TL;DR Fighter start makes Valour pointless, Swords gets subclass features when Valour doesn't.
The thing about Valour, is that the level 3 gives you so little. Base BI is so good and Valour's is just... +damge (waste) or "Parry" which feels silly to ever use if the enemy has something like +11 to hit.
Swords gives you the fighting style, blade flourish, and the spell focus instead of Valour's shield proficiency. The thing with that shield too, you just don't have enough hands. You either use a weapon, use a shield, or cast spells, pick two. But you took Fighter first so... That shield proficiency is irrelevant. Defensive Flourish granting AC is similar to the Shield spell. Unless you chose to be a MPMM Githzeri, Bard doesn't get that spell.
6 is just extra attack either way and then we have to be honest about that 14. Its not happening ever. That level is so high you will simply never see it outside of a one-shot. Your also referring to Valour getting a Weapon Attack as a bonus action when casting a spell at _level 17_. That's basically just Two-weapon fighting, which we all know is terrible past 4.
Swords gets infinite Blade Flourish which is great since it lets you keep your BI and actually live. Fun fact, "Whenever you take the Attack action on your turn... and if a weapon attack that you make as part of this action hits a creature..." has nothing mentioning that it cannot a ranged weapon attack.
@@larstollefsen1236 Fair emough
" *remains* to be seen"! In conjunction with the Weekend At Bernie's pic, that's hilarious!
Really awesome video and the swipe at twilight clerics was pure gold 😂
Great video! Another cheap and great spell to combine with Zealot is the lovely ritual Gentle Repose, which can effectively supports resource management for a future Revivify.
Barbs are, imo, the strongest class for tier 1 play, beaten out only by moon druid. The combination of superior bulk and superior damage is so hard to beat.
Shame about everything after 5th level. But that’s what multiclassing is for!
Since Adventurer's League allows you to completely remake your character between games up to level 5, one cheesy strategy is to play a Barbarian for the first few levels of play, then rebuild as the character you really want to play once they get high enough to have some of the more fun abilities/feats. I had a few level 1 deaths, so I started playing Barbarians or Moon Druids until higher levels or even until Tier 2.
Forgot to mention that another way to bypass the requirements to maintain rage is to be a level 15 barbarian. Persistent Rage let's you keep trucking without needing to hit yourself for the full minute duration.
Also, barbarian is the only class where I feel like NOT having the highest manageable AC is a benefit. As you mentioned, we WANT to be the target. Having an AC of ~16-17 is perfect because, with reckless, it's tempting enough where enemies might opt for us instead of a squishy ally that has 15 AC.
You should do a video for the barbarian subs just like the monk fix videos, maybe for other classes too. I'd love too see this series. Excelent job, congrats to the content
Great video! I was going to mention that you forgot one key strategy to use in the times where finesse is needed. You rage, run at them and then attack them. Apart from that, great guide!
I enjoyed the dry humor delivery in this one. Never change! :P
Love it. I hate multiclassing too much. Single or double class builds rule my roost. A cool concept.
If we want brutal critical to feel like it scales better, I think it needs two changes: 1) It should start at 5th level and 2) Brutal Critical (either the 5th level version or the 9th level version) should let you crit on a 19/20, then 18/19/20 at the next one and so on. Getting a meaty hit and cleaving through maybe impossible AC feels thematic for the barbarian. I’m preferential for 5th level, as it gives a stronger reason to take more than a 1-2 level barbarian dip. Additionally, champions and hexblade can already improve their critical range at a much lower level. It does somewhat dilute the identity of Champion Fighter, but that sub is more boring than vanilla ice cream at the moment and needs a rework to bring it up to modern D&D balance.
Wow! Almost the same build I've made for my last character, but I went with gem dragonborn (Sardior Zealot) and used Sentinel instead GWM for more tankness. Was really good and fun to play that!
What I experienced after a full campaign (lvl1 to lvl 11 and final battle at 20) of Half-Orc Zealot Barbarian with a greataxe is that Barbarian is a character that feels twice as great when you roll good and ten times when you roll great. With GWM and crits if you roll well damage feels astronomical. And that is the purpose of the Brutal Critical feature - you roll great - you feel even greater. When I dealt 59 damage at level 9 with 1 attack it was cathartic. As well as the following 60-ish damage from 2 other attacks on that turn.
I agree on the point of consistency of such feature, but picking Barbarian for consistency feels kinda wrong.
His "1.3 added avg damage for a GA per brutal critical dice" is incorrect. It is an added 6.5 avg damage per brutal critical dice. The avg damage for 1d12 is 6.5. 2d12 is 13. 3d12 19.5 and and so on.
@@DrAnac-qh5dc Isn't it weighted by the chance you roll a critical?
If I'm not mistaken, Treantmonk uses an average of 5 rounds of combat and calculates the average damage output by all attacks and adds the difference of how much critical hits do on average.
I did a build very similar to this one. I was a scourge aasimar zealot barbarian follower of Torm the god of courageand self sacrifice. Healing hands gave me a good self heal and radiant consumption was a great damage ability. I was able to take this character all the way to 20 as a Barbarian.
I did a Beast Barbarian with dual wielder and three lev la of Fighter Champion for the improved crit. It was simple and I wouldn’t call it optimized by any means. But a lot of attacks and a lot of crits was fun.
Barbs getting expanded crit range would be a lot fun. 19 or 18 threat ranges at the level 13 and 17 Brutal Critical upgrades?
Likewise, seeing the flat damage bonus when raging being replaced with d4, d6, d8 so that it was multiplied on a crit. Trivial effect, but joy of big crits is part of the appeal of the class.
I wonder if there needs to be a change in 5 edition to how a barbarian's rage interacts with spells, since spells are so much more powerful than martial capabilities on the whole (and WotC does not seem interested in giving Martials maneuvers outside of one fighter subclass).
Maybe it could be changed to: When you start your rage, you lose concentration on any spell you are concentrating on, and if you cast a spell while raging, your rage ends.
Eh, I think the current rule of "you can't cast spells not concentrate on them" is perfectly fine.
Loved this video. Easily my favorite high level Barbarian. This was how my group beat Tiamat. Regenerate+High Level Zealot=unmovable wall
How did you get regenerate?
@@DUES_EX another party member
This is not major but in your level by level features you should include the increases of rage and rage damage.
True. I did include them in the damage calcs
@@TreantmonksTemple you didn’t mention the broken first level spell that destroys almost all Zealot Barbarian’s Chris. Sleep is an instant death spell for a raging Zealot Barb with zero HP. 😂
@@keeganmbg6999 lol, disintegrate, too.
@@keeganmbg6999 I did mention it.
@@TreantmonksTemple I can’t believe I missed it!
One of my players is currently playing a Storm Herald Barbarian and took the Healer feat, taking care of his own hitpoints which is working out great.
As for Barbarian fixes, he really likes Brutal Criticals so as other players get more specialized boons he will receive a wider crit range on top of other minor features, eventually reaching crits on a 20-17.
He also obtained a very potent item in his session 0, a gauntlet that turned his arm into metal and greatly enhances his javelin throws.
Amazing video, as always! Thank you!
My pleasure!
Thank you for replying! I look forward to all your videos and it always gives me inspiration as a dm. The build videos and the spell rankings are so helpful and fun. I often share your videos with the children I live with and I also appreciate your PG ranked language (though I personally don’t care the little spell casters in my life can also benefit from your wisdom- and they need help!). Thank you Treantmonk!
I made this guy last year as a tribute to Moorcock's Eternal Champion series, the Nameless One from Planescape, and Senua from the Hellblade game with an ancient Hindu twist. He is a Champion Aasimar Zealot named David Davidson. Its hard to be so important to any given encounter & to do so little, but I appreciate the RP opportunities so much I overlook it.
This is the most essential part of playing a Barbarian IMO; make a character you REALLY want to RP & enjoy
For a while, I had come up with a fairly cheesy Zealot build for a different way, that being a Scourge Aasimar Zealot. Scourge Aasimar before MotM had an Aura that dealt half their level to anything within I thing 10 feet of them - including themselves. However, this damage by RAW was also resisted by you, since it's Radiant, you resist Radiant and Necrotic damage, so you'd be taking a pittance of damage each round (plus, you're a Barbarian, you have the resources). The cheese idea was to use this feature to keep Rage up for what I call the "Supernova" Rage (since the Aasimar trait is only 1 per rest), taking the damage but also stacking and stacking that additional Radiant Damage on your attacks.
However! Watching this, now there's even more cheese that I didn't even consider, and it works with every Aasimar type in Volo's - The Healing Hands trait lets you have a psuedo-Lay-on-Hands ala Paladin, but if you were to, say, use it on yourself before Rage before Death expired, then you wouldn't necessarily even need an external source such as a potion or another character's spell to keep you going at the end.
Even better second time listening, thank you
I died laughing at the Twilight cleric dig.
Your energy on guessing AC has done a complete 180 from literally your last video!
In my last video I also said you can often learn the AC of an enemy after a few attacks. That's different than knowing the AC of the enemy before you take your first swing, which I would not expect.
This build is really good, I love how much feats increase the potency of barbarian.
A personal favorite race/combo for me is Aasimar Scourge (choose your own stats) Zealot Barbarian. When you use your consumption ability it allows you to keep rage up since you take damage as well (your resistant to it) and it adds more damage (level on hit and 1/2 level to an AoE). Also healing hands give you a heal to prevent death.
Biggest con is that the AoE can hit allies, however it does its damage when the barbarian ends its turn so you control the damage pretty well.
I love the straight builds. I know with most games not going to level 20, multi-classing is the most optimized option in most cases.
No you have it backwards. Most games only go to lvl 10. Which means as a Barbarian you drop off around lvl 8 in terms of effectiveness but are still good monoclassed.
Level 20 games mono classing Barbarians suck because they scale very poorly. Because they scale poorly people multiclass.
I’m sure you have seen Barbs good at (tier 1&2) (bad at tier 3&4)
in my table we have 1 combat per long rest, because every full caster ends the fight with 0 spell slots, and the martials drop 5 times per fight
On the idea of hitting yourself to continue the rage- if your dm/ table isn’t for it you can always just jump 10 ft for guaranteed 1d6 damage. You can rp it as you’re so frustrated you’re stomping like crazy
You would need a jump spell or something, otherwise you would need a strength score of 24 to high jump 10 feet.
@@TreantmonksTemple pick a flying race and fly into the ground?
@@TreantmonksTemple I was thinking of long jump sadly 😞 I’m currently playing an Ascendent dragon monk and forget not everyone can jump like me. Then again that’s about all I’m good for hahaha
Love the idea. Works for any Beast 6 Barb with the Jumping Bestial Soul option. You can guarantee the height with Athletics proficiency even if your Str is abysmal (14+) . The Climbing option could also work to in certain areas.
@@SilvrSavior if you're a flying race just fly up and drop
This video was fun. I still don't have much interest in the 5E Barbarian, but the video was good. 😁👍🏻
Just found an insane damage boost to the build. With the legacy aasimar, when you use your power up you deal bonus damage equal to your level. Scourge’s radiant consumption also adds half their level to damage to all within 10 ft including yourself. So once per long rest, once per turn deal weapon+str+rage+zealot+lvl+0.5lvl. At lvl 5 with 16str wielding a glaive, after setting up on turn 1, the formula is 1d10+3+2+1d6+3+5+3. You have extra attack for 1d10+3+2 and bonus action PAM attack for 1d4+3+2 which if any land you will do the extra dmg from zealot and scourge. Also end your turn and everyone within 10 ft take the 3 damage from above formula with no save. You take it too, this will keep your rage up, you resist it too.
It works with the new motm version but damage is proficiency and half proficiency for scourge which is still good. And you activate this one with a bonus action so you can rage turn 1 and attack then turn two use radiant consumption.
I gotta say it: I HATE the polearm master feat.
It just homogenizes Barbarian/Fighter/Paladin builds.
Why would you ever take a different kind of weapon when you can get that extra attack? Why would you use a greatsword or greataxe?
Whey ever use a sword and a shield on your Paladin? The classic knight in shining armor is pointless because Polearm Mastery (and Great Weapon Mastery) are just BETTER!
If I was in charge of the next version of D&D it would be GONE!
I agree. I wish there was a way that provided a reliable bonus action attack (that didn't give you exhaustion) without a feat that restricts your weapon choice to a few options.
@@TreantmonksTemple Yes. That works be better. Lift everyone up instead of just removing the option that's too good.
Talked to my gm and we made PM a fighting style insted. Dmg scaled to the weapon but Never more than OG PM. You get reach that match the weapon, a bonus action dmg(match weapon) and OA When the enemy enters your reach. My guy is a sword master but there is no feat that makes you feel like that. This Way i Can have PM and GWM with my sword.
I also very much like the current Scourge Aasimar for this, it fits thematically and the self-damage comes build-in once per day
I have never played in any of this two cases I'm going to mention, but I believe playing a full barbarian would be pretty cool with a gestalt game or in a over cap game (going to legendary levels above 20).
One thing I really want to play in is a 2 players + DM gestalt campaign.
While I enjoy the name you chose I would rename it to "Chumbawamba". Because..."I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down!"
It's all fun and games until a mind flayer shows up, eats your brain and is still hungry for seconds!
My favorite build for this is a scourge aasimar i made who i wrote as a planar or deva that was cast out to the material plane by their god to understand mortals and resented their fleshy form. Adding the slow burn from the scourge feature keeps the barbarian in rage for the full duration and helps spread dmg across the field and the heal ability works with the lvl 14 ability. Lotsa extra radiant damage for flavor and tashas lets me put the charisma points into str so win win
Perk of Divine Fury I don't see brought up enough: it doesn't have the "strength-based melee" restriction. Wanna play a dexbarian? Here you go. Get archery fighting style from a fighter dip. That fighter dip also gets you a smidge of healing for when you're at 0 hp, sitting on 15 failed death saves, and nothing is left to kill. Pop second wind and you're fine. Or grab a shield and rapier and have very respectable AC while still doing passable damage. If nothing else, being able to get 1d6+lvl radiant damage on one ranged attack per round means you're not as useless when you can't get into melee as most barbarians are. Just run around with a bunch of darts if you don't want to pump dex enough to make a longbow viable.
my first campaign had a twilight cleric in it. and i often wondered why they just got so much that was a straight rip from other classes. it really is a subclass for someone attempting to step on the rest of the party's toes in and out of combat.
a proficiency bonus times per rest limit, or "at night" restriction should have been placed on that. it's not even thematic to its description and mechanically is just better gift of alacrity with no resource.
but more on topic. Zealot barb has always been the one i've either wanted to play straight or dip into with fighter. i know if i'm playing battlemaster i'm definitely dipping into that or bear totem if i don't have the wisdom for war/forge cleric
I love the Bernie's thumbnail
Elf might be an interesting synergy for zealot. BBEG casts sleep on you and your zero hit points..."I've never slept in my life, why start now?"
Wildhunt Shifter is amazing for Barbarian, as shifting will negate all enemy advantage against you within 30 feet of you, including the advantage you normally give with Reckless. Longtooth Shifter is also a good choice, giving you a bonus action bite attack that scales with strength.
Love this lass ty ty ty
One of the only moments that I liked from the sequel trilogy of Star wars is at the end of the force awakens, kylo Ren hits himself in his wounded side in order to literally keep his rage going because the dark side of the force is the only thing keeping him going after having sustained grievous wounds. Kylo Ren in this moment is literally a level 14 zealot.
I think it can be a very serious and metal moment to attack yourself to keep a rage going and isn't just something to be played for laughs.
Environmentally dependent, but another way to deal damage to yourself without cheese is to take a dangerous path to the enemy. Jump off a balcony, run through the spike trap, etc. Also if you're out of Jasmine's a handax is a good thing to chuck
Rage Beyond Death can be easily ended with a level 1 sleep spell with the lowest possible die roll given you can not be magically put to sleep. You effectively have 0 HP.
"By starting with a creature which has the lowest current hit points, each of the creature would be affected by the 5e sleep spell falls an Unconscious until the spell ends, the sleeper actually takes the damage, or else someone uses an action for shaking or else slap the sleeper awake."
I like that if you want to conserve your rage (if you even need to by lvl 14) you can pop rage when you are under half hp which may not even happen with the first combat of the day.
I have 2 Barbarian builds that both go to high levels (in fact 17 in Barbarian) and reason?
One of big reasons is Brutal Critical!
With Beast Barbarian and 4 attacks from lvl 5 and 3 Champion levels, we have 19% to crit on each hit, so we crit cca every 3/4 rounds. Those 3 extra dice now mean additional 10 dpr (flat).
With Ancestral Guardian and Pike, we are talking about 3d10 extra (so total of 6d10 extra on crits), which also cannot be ignored.
And those subclasses also have great late game abilities. Beast has probably the best lvl 10 ability from all Barbarian subclasses and lvl 14 feature is great as well (cca 20 extra HPs and bonus 3d6 bonus dmg per round for each rage isn't bad at all).
Ancestral Guardian has bad lvl 10 feature, but lvl 14 is huge. You now not only prevent 4d6 dmg per round, but also do the same amount of force dmg to the attacker. So again, 4d6 extra dpr (flat).
So that Brutal Critical is not the main reason, but this feature (along with bonus rage dmg) keeps Barbarian in game with dpr well enough.
Barbarian falls off so hard at mid to high levels it's hysterical. Laughable how they thought those features were okay. XD
I would drop dex and AC a bit so that you can get more out of resilient wisdom at 8. If you start with a 15/12/15/8/13/8 spread you will end up with a +5 wis save at level 8 versus +3. AC on a barb really just does not matter thanks to how good reckless is. It's the rage resistance and massive hp pool that will get you through the day. Rock the giga chad life with unarmored defense unless your DM is kind enough to give you some kind of adamantine, the AC really doesn't matter. Passing nasty wisdom saves does though, and that +5 is a big difference.
Really enjoyed the video. Zealot Barb is indeed incredibly cool and unique. Rage Beyond Death single-handedly makes me want to play a barb through all of those terrible levels.
they should hire treantmonk for class balancing, seriously
I'm trying hard to make this build work with a Dhampir. Spider Climb is a great skill, not comparable to flying, but it increases the possibilities of movement in a cool way. What really bothers me is the fact that Vampiric Bite almost looks perfect for a Zelot, advantage in attacks with low health, and the ease of healing by biting someone. But the difficulty of increasing the 1d4 damage, and of integrating the other available abilities into a constitution-based attack makes me think I'm entering a sub-optimal trap.
In adventure league & settings where it's rare to buy magic items, brewing healing potions ends up being the best use of your gold. It's also worth pointing out that in most cases, you should always brew the lowest level of healing potion and use them to heal in between combats. The higher ranks of healing potions are neither cost effective for gold nor downtime days. They also often don't give a super relevant amount of in combat HP either when 7 hp can often be the same as 27. This is less true for barbarians, but still feels relevant to mention. Given the Xanathar values, you can craft 40 regular healing potions for the price of 1 superior healing potion (1000g). That's 280 hp vs. 28hp for the same cost.
Thumbs Up'd for the dis on Twilight Cleric!
One correction. There are other ways you can die while under the effects of Rage Against Death. One is that is if an enemy can inflict damage equal or greater than your max HP. The defence against death only protects you from death by saving throw, and the effects of death by massive damage are instant. This is a similar effect to death by Power Word Kill, another insta-death effect. Finally, it is worth mentioning you are extremely vulnerable to Disintegrate, as it's death and vaporisation effect is triggered by your HP level, not by saving throw-and it leaves no body so you will need a True Resurrection spell to come back from that.
There may be some more insta-death effects I can't remember, but they all apply and some of them are triggered by 0 HP.
Receiving that capstone 2 points at a time during those barren levels (boosting the max limit by 2 each time) and finishing with the last 2 at 20 seems a fair way to fix the draught... Of course the capstone is a lot more crappy that way, but at least gives a reason to get there.
If you can pick up the Cloak of Displacement, you can Reckless Attack without the down side (if that matters to you).
Naturally, magic items are not part of a "build," but it's something to think about.
"We're dead already!" really got me
Option 1:Rage! and Attack
Option 2: There is no option 2
Who would win?
- An inmortal raging warrior chosen by the gods to keep fighting even beyond death
- A level 1 magic boi that makes you sleep
love how much fun you're having with this build.
Any chance you'll look into Tulok the Barbarian's Mantis build that mixes artificer and rogue for sneak attack lazers?
I've played a Bear totem barbarian in a campaign where there were a ton of combats in an adventuring day and no healer. My strategy 2 was to pick up a halberd and keep the party's paladin between me and the enemy if I couldn't rage. I definitely spent a combat recklessly attacking with a halberd and taking cover in a shed after each attack. I was pretty glad for the extra 10 ft of movement I get at level 5 giving me extra 10 feet of movement to run away. :P
IMO, crit fishing sucks, but brutal critical should come with an expansion to the crit range. Still a crap feature compared to fighters getting more attacks and Paladins getting better smites but it would make the extra damage come up more often.
And YES! I've actually hit myself to maintain rage.
I plan to play a Zealot Barbarian next time my wife and I play in a campaign as players (currently I am the DM for our group). She will be a shieldmaiden, and a Cleric.
I am Ødger the Restless, and I have visited Odin's halls more times than I can remember, but it is still not yet my time. My wife brings me back each time (for free!), with the added bonus that next time a major battle is approaching, we can "renew our vows" and cast Ceremony for a +2 AC bonus each.
I guess if you use the variant ability scores, picking elf as race can be decent to be immune to sleep and resistance to charm if it's something that comes up often enough.
One super niche thing I would like to point out. You *can* use elven accuracy and reckless attack together. It's possible. You just need to have levels of Devotion Paladin for it. Sacred Weapon allows you to add your charisma to your hit and damage for 1 minute. Therefore, your attacks would be using both strength and Charisma to hit and would qualify for both reckless attack and elven accuracy
That's true, though super limited.
@@TreantmonksTemple as I said, super niche. But an interesting idea
I think if ur fighting against tiamat, demagorgon, a tarassque, orcus, and an ancient red dragon the strategy isn't to go in and start swinging its to RUN!
There is no other strategy.
@@TreantmonksTemple SPARTANS! Prepare for Glory!