Path of the Berserker:
Original Idea: "Your rage and fury are your deepest joys, track the most amount of damage done in a single rage. With each new level of destruction you find deeper wells of joyous ruin."
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| Fun fact, historically a berserker was just a champion or one who wore a bear or wolf skin shirt as a sign of rank. There was not indication they had anger issues. So this image is at least partially correct. |
So the idea here is to keep track of the amount of damage done in a rage. Pretty simple stuff, and for players that want to play a Berserker I think a logical step.
After playing with AnyDice for a few minutes with an "average" berserker I came up with some appropriate thresholds (note the highest damage thresholds are only possible once Extra Attacks are earned at level 5, criticals occur, and/or they are buffed to the moon).
The real challenge is going to be finding enough things to kill/hit while raging to get to these high levels of damage. *Sigh* The challenges of the berserker.
75 damage/rage: +1 to hit while frenzied
100 damage/rage: +1 to damage while frenzied
150 damage/rage: Fast healing 2 while frenzied
200 damage/rage: Add half proficiency bonus to Unarmored Defense while frenzied
300 damage/rage: Additional +2 to hit while frenzied
400 damage/rage: Additional +2 to damage while frenzied
500 damage/rage: Fast healing 5 while frenzied
750 damage/rage: Add proficiency bonus to Unarmored Defense while frenzied
1000 damage/rage: Fast healing 10 while frenzied
Totem Warrior:
Original Idea: "You find your totem animal in a dream or an ecstatic trance over the heady fumes of a ritual fire. You and the animal meld in body and spirit, you are the primal incarnation of the bear, the eagle, the wolf, or some other. Track the number of animals you help, these must be the same as your totem animal(s)."
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| You can play that crazy hairy man the wandered out of the mountains asking "Say, have you seen any wolves in distress lately?" |
You have chosen a totem animal for your barbarian for the sweet fighting buffs, but this is to make actually confront and interact with the animal that you so admire. Every adventure you go on is going to be like this:
Anyway, down to the juicy stuff. These things all count as helping your totem animal:
- Freeing a bear from a bear trap
- Raising orphaned hawk eggs
- Leading a wolf pack out of the ranch lands to new grounds for safe hunting
But are they equivalent? I dunno, probably. So instead of accounting for exactly how many animals you actually save, (Are 9 eagles equal to 2 wolves? The math gets weird.) lets use an abstract rating of how helpful you are being to the abstract totemic ideal of the animals you help.
Rank 1: You help an individual of the animal group during a time of distress (ie nurse a she wolf during a risky child birth, help a lost faun find its mother, give a thirsty bear clean water after a wild fire)
Rank 2: You defend an animal in combat
Rank 3: You help a community of animals during a time of distress (ie lead the wolf pack out of newly settled ranch land for safer hunting, you teach a momma bear and her cubs to collect honey and forage for a season)
Rank 4: You defend a community of animals in combat
Rank 5: You help the whole of the animal kind (Super amorphous, DM discretion)
So you can kind of see the magnitude of help that each rank merits. Lets say you once helped a whole wolf pack through the winter by bringing them meat periodically (Rank 3) and you find a wolf about to be killed by an angry shepherd and you save it by fighting him off (Rank 2), that's nice but it wont help you get to Rank 4, you gotta do something really special for that.
If you have more than one totem animal you can gain favor with each of the animals you have a totem of.
Bonuses from each Rank and Animal:
Rank 1:
All: The animal you save becomes a close friend and ally, appearing at most once per session at an opportune moment to help you. (Example: the cub you rescued from drowning wanders out of the woods just in time to give you a boost up over the stone wall) Mechanically this means that if you can explain how the animal can help you, once per session your animal friend can give you advantage on one skill or ability check. You can have many animal friends, but only use this ability once per day.
Rank 2:
Wolf: Your sense of smell has gotten very good. You can now track by scent as a wolf could. You have disadvantage against smell based attacks.
Eagle: You gain a piercing scream that gives you advantage on Intimidation checks with civilized people or advantage with Persuasion checks with birds (player must actually scream for this to work).
Bear: You gain the ability to eat completely omnivorously. You can eat anything and anything you find, including raw meat, grass, branches, bees, moss, and mushrooms. This lets you get advantage on your save against ingested poisons.
Rank 3:
Wolf: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 3rd level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon wolves or wolf like animals (can use dire wolves or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Eagle: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 3rd level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon eagles or wolf like animals (can use giant eagles or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Bear: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 3rd level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon bears and bear like animals (can just use the different bears in the MM or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Rank 4:
Wolf: In the Spirit Realm you can choose to take the shape of a Dire Wolf with HD equal to your level.
Eagle: In the Spirit Realm you can choose to take the shape of a Giant Eagle with HD equal to your level.
Bear:In the Spirit Realm you can choose to take the shape of a Polar Bear with HD equal to your level.
Rank 5:
Wolf: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 5th level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon wolves or wolf like animals (can use dire wolves or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Eagle: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 5th level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon eagles or wolf like animals (can use giant eagles or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Bear: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 5th level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon bears and bear like animals (can just use the different bears in the MM or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
If you have more than one totem animal you can gain favor with each of the animals you have a totem of.
Bonuses from each Rank and Animal:
Rank 1:
All: The animal you save becomes a close friend and ally, appearing at most once per session at an opportune moment to help you. (Example: the cub you rescued from drowning wanders out of the woods just in time to give you a boost up over the stone wall) Mechanically this means that if you can explain how the animal can help you, once per session your animal friend can give you advantage on one skill or ability check. You can have many animal friends, but only use this ability once per day.
Rank 2:
Wolf: Your sense of smell has gotten very good. You can now track by scent as a wolf could. You have disadvantage against smell based attacks.
Eagle: You gain a piercing scream that gives you advantage on Intimidation checks with civilized people or advantage with Persuasion checks with birds (player must actually scream for this to work).
Bear: You gain the ability to eat completely omnivorously. You can eat anything and anything you find, including raw meat, grass, branches, bees, moss, and mushrooms. This lets you get advantage on your save against ingested poisons.
Wolf: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 3rd level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon wolves or wolf like animals (can use dire wolves or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Eagle: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 3rd level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon eagles or wolf like animals (can use giant eagles or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Bear: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 3rd level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon bears and bear like animals (can just use the different bears in the MM or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Wolf: In the Spirit Realm you can choose to take the shape of a Dire Wolf with HD equal to your level.
Eagle: In the Spirit Realm you can choose to take the shape of a Giant Eagle with HD equal to your level.
Bear:In the Spirit Realm you can choose to take the shape of a Polar Bear with HD equal to your level.
Wolf: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 5th level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon wolves or wolf like animals (can use dire wolves or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Eagle: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 5th level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon eagles or wolf like animals (can use giant eagles or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Bear: Can cast Conjure Animals as a 5th level spell as a ritual once a day, can only summon bears and bear like animals (can just use the different bears in the MM or re-skinned other beasts as appropriate).
Thoughts
Are they balanced? Probably not, but what ever, its going to take a Berserker a long time to get all of that damage in one frenzy. It does incentive-ize combat in a perhaps undesirable way.
The Totem Warrior I feel like better exemplifies a more whimsical and less combat oriented path, which is the goal for this series of posts. But it also more complex and unwieldy.
Look for a post on Bards next!
grt
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