Beast barbarian is my favorite class to play hands down. Past DMs have let me get tattoos that customize it even further. Like massive lobster claws in a pirate campaign or monkey tail that could grab people. DnD is awesome lol
Zealot is my favorite not because of how powerful it's abilities are, but because it is just the most barbarian a barbarian can be. "I cannot... I REFUSE TO DIE!" -zealot barbarians before doing something incredibly barbarish
I like Beast Barbarian, mostly because of a character idea I had a while ago where you play as a Warforged and all of your new appendages are these cool mechanical parts.
@@TheElectrikCow fortunately, Angry Druid works with any druid subclass, but I guess turning into an owlbear with teeth lining the beak at a relatively low level would make me crap my pants
@@shadowlotus6189 it does work with any druid, you're not wrong, I just want a bit more hp and extra attack lol. Also yeah an Owlbear with shark teeth would be terrifying, pants ruiner indeed
My last long run campaign, level 1-17 I played a Goblin Beast barbarian. His "Beast Form" was shark theme and the DM changed the tale damage type form pricing damage to slashing damage as I described my tail to resemble a Thresher shark tail.
MY favorite subclass from all the d&d editions is the Dungeon Crasher variant for the fighter in 3.5e Turning people into mush by shoving them into walls is an absolute blast~
My favorite part of the path of the beast is that it hits that sweet spot of flavor and rules shenanigans *perfectly*. It's all cool werewolf/shapeshifter flavor you can take in a million directions, then the subclass turns around and gives you great customizability, lets the natural weapons count as simple weapons for super fun rules bending, guarantees magical attacks so the DM isn't required by law to the give the barbarian a magic weapon, and even gives barbarians a support option as a subclass capstone, all while keeping up with other barbarian subclasses.
I am so happy to see this l, I've loved the Beast Barbarian since I found out about it and I even use it to help me with making my own homebrew because I find it to be one of the most balanced subclasses (at least for barbarian) in mechanics, fun/enjoyability, and power fantasy
I had a beast barbarian, they had a high dex and a shield, and with the tail reaction to parry they were pretty much unhitable. Some of the most fun I’ve had playing dnd came from that character.
I think longtooth or wild hunt shifter pairs really well with beast barbarian. Rage and get the claws and next turn shift for a bonus action bite attack. 4 attacks and really fits the theme plus free intimidation. Wild hunt makes it so no one has advantage on you and with reckless that's free advantage. Plus it thematically fits being part beast and just honing your natural instincts to be a way to fight.
I like most barbarians, but Wild Magic Barbarian was the most relevant to my DM's world building. This person who wasn't even a sorcerer was the closest to having real control of that power, and she didn't even know. And my fellow players were a Cleric and a Wizard, so I liked being able to hand out a spell slot as positive reinforcement for actually helping me take all those hits.
My personal favorite barbarian sub class is the Storm Herald. It creates an aura around you when you rage that does damage to all enemies in the radius of the aura. Unless you choose lightning, that just causes an enemy to be struck by lightning at the end of each of your turns. Plus at 14th level your aura gets more intense, adding debuffs to the damage
I played a multi classed Beast Barbarian with Order of the Lycan Bloodhunter, all the way from level 5 to level 20, and it was one of the best characters I've ever played. His name was Lupo, and the dude was like 7 feet tall, and had a thick Russian accent. Him raging and then transforming into a Werewolf was one of the most brutal things I've ever got to play. So much fun 10/10
I just have to ask, isn’t it kind of a waste being a barbarian and a lycan? Because both give you resistant to non magical attacks, and resistances don’t stack?
@@acendantoverlord5737 Yee, but the cool part is rage and lycan both give you bonus damage, and beast let's you make an extra Claw attack. So lots of Claw attacks and lots of stacked damage. Also putting your crimson rite on your claws is pretty fun too :) But it was overall more the idea that he became so angry he transformed, it was a little spooky 👻
Did a beast barbarian that had a whole outer pains, eldritch horror vibe. Simic Hybrid (mechanically) with the Astral Drifter background. He was already light green in skin tone & had purple eyes. When he transformed, however, even more eyes of varying sizes appeared all over his body, also glowing with an even brighter purple light. His skin became an even darker, almost "moist" looking green. Instead of just sharp teeth his lower lip & jaw split open to make a vertical opening filled with rows of teeth going down his throat (a sort of "T" shaped gullet). The claws were sharp, elongated bones from the tips of his fingers piercing the skin rather than nails. The tail was instead a tentacle growing out from his left arm (he already had grasping tentacles as a Simic Hybrid so it looked like a third tentacle). What I liked about him is that he isn't some angry, murderhobo Barbarian. Quite the opposite. He's just physically & mentally warped along side the rest of his "family" & is out to find them again. Helping the party & runing through the campaign is either a pit stop or a detour in the hopes of finding clues. Imagine a legitimately nice guy that accedentally makes children soil themselves in fear & the elderly fall over from a heart attack in horror. Locals: "Cecil, were under attack!" [Cecil transforms, mutating in a sharp, echoing roar] Locals: "Aha! Aah! Holy sh*t! Holy sh*t!"
Beast Barbarian also works well if you wanna DPS. Combine it with longtooth shifter and you can throw out 4 attacks with your claws and bite. If we talking tank focused, Totem can get more resistances, but Zeolot can straight up ignore death, 0 isn't even enough to kill them. Zealot can also get kinda damage heavy since they get a damage boost ability at LV 3. But if you wanna absolutely shit on enemies and cleave dragons in half, Giant barbarian can get incredibly scary. Your rage increases your reach, regardless of whether your size changes if you have the space or not. The final ability, Demiurgic collosus can let you have a melee reach of 25 if your also a bugbear with a reach weapon, polearm master, sentinel, and great weapon master with a halbered? Enemies are rarely gonna be out of your reach, and they wont be able to step anywhere near the party without answering to you first. You can even pick up the tunnel fighter fighting style to beat down on anything that dares to move in your range.
I ended up making a character in D&D (a Villain mind you) That is a Kenku Beast, Barbarian/monk He’s basically a wrestling heel with the head of a hawk. And his name is: The RAWK. and when I put this multi class together, I didn’t realize how deadly he was capable of being. Because one of the things that you can do when he reaches is to gain a 2 hit claw attack. Tack on flurry of blows. And the amount of times he can hit somebody is insane.
One of my favorite characters ever, was my Simic Hybrid Beast Barbarian / Inquisitive Rogue The Rogue part is no that important in this case. But Simic Hybrid - Beast Barbarian is an awesome combination based on customization. Depending on your priorities; -You can have a permanent Swimming and Climbing Speed without having to choose (Gills + Climbing Speed in walls and ceiling) -Or you can be even tankier than a regular Barbarian (Carapace + Tail Weapon) -OR even a total Animalistic Beast (Pincers + Bite Attack)
Fury. Gets along best with all other Classes in Multiclassing. Like, the Wizzard who was exspelled for his Anger Issues, either casting from or beating Enemies *with* his Tomes. Goes great with Druids Shapeshifting. Is really great along Rogues mitigation and movement-Skills Rangers Spells allow so much Utility and incombat compliments his Melee-Skills. And with Warlock or Pally, well... I just say "Smiting Barbarian".
How to give Barbarian players greater depth of choice: Change the baseline text for Rage from "You have resistance to Slashing, Bludgeoning, and Piercing damage" to "You have resistance to all damage except Psychic damage." Do something else for Bear totem. Now, all of a sudden, Barbarians can play whatever subclass they want without feeling sub-optimal, and you really didn't increase their power level that much. They already struggle past level 9, as their damage falls off pretty hard even with Great Weapon Mastery.
I went with Ancestral Guardian barbarian, because it was the only sub-class that I had available besides wild-magic. It also seemed cool because it'd let my gnome barbarian's ancestors help her.
I’ll admit that I slept on this subclass until you started vouching for it because I didn’t consider it to have a lot of personality. I didn’t see what it did differently from the Shifter races or Lycan Bloodhunter (which admittedly is homebrew, if well-vetted homebrew). But it has more versatility than any other Barbarian, is more consistent than the examples I gave, and is less spiritual than the Totem Barbarian. Lots more opportunities for flavor than I gave it credit for.
I really like the pov of doing smthn bc you like it not bc its the most useful.. i cant seem to find a good group like this though. Everyone i find has either ppl minmaxing or memeing :(
Oh that does sound fun. I'm currently thinking about making a dhampir barbarian. It's my first barbarian and I'm now torn between Beast and Zealot. He's from a tiny isolated village pretty redneck and doesn't realize he's a dhampir at first, because a) he does not know what a vampire is; and b) one horny Vampire has spread his genes in the limited genepool for centuries, so almost everyone is part vampire where he grew up. The plan is for him to find out pretty early on through the other PCs, then hate it about himself at first, but then making peace with it and embracing it while trying to keep his humanity. Maybe with a kind of reflavoring of the Rage to a more hunter's/ predator's instinct, similar to how cats forget about everything else once they are in their "hunting mode". Any feedback / advice for this build?
Any subclass or class works for this. Also, the part where you say he grew up as a dhampir his whole life. To then hate it and then accept it doesn't makes sense. Such character always grew up suffering consequences for what they are. Yours just grew up and realized he is diferent. By then I don't think someone would hate himself.
@@piketheknight2581 Thanks a lot! About the second part I thought that in his hometown these tendencies were normal and usually only connected to animals/ hunting. But now being around violebt conflicts that often he has started to desire blood from humanoids as well, which is the source of his internal conflict. I could have phrased that better, but I didn't want to write a too much. Does this make more sense?
@@centrifugedestroyer2579 makes more sense, although if I were the character I would add something like an addiction to humanoid blood. Cuz if he can get away drinking animal blood, there is no point in feeling self hatred or shame
I got a beast barbarian Grey Dwarf of unusual size, and she is on a quest to chow down on one of every beast to gain the ability to add their traits to her repertoire. Yes there is homebrew, but is it fun, fuck yeah.
I like the Storm Herald and Wildmagic Barbarian. They're not specifically strong But damn they're cool. Barbarians are, personally, stong and cool enough to not need all the extras. Let me hit things hard, the subclasses are all flavor in the end
Giant barbarian is my favorite you can actually throw crossbows and bows and since they are ranged weapons you can still benifit from the Sharpshooter feat even through your using the cross bow and bow wrong
I'm a bit of an odd one out in that I like the idea of the barbarian not having supernatural (or at least obviously supernatural) capabilities. They're just so full of raw, primal rage they're made powerful. "I DO NOT NEED SORCEROUS TRICKERY TO DEFEAT YOU, DEMON. GET AXED"
I’m playing a zealot Barbarian in my podcast. I love it. It’s my second favorite Barbarian subclass and I think the all around best “I wanna feel like a Barbarian but more Barbarian” subclass
@@Cinderblocksally nice. Last time i played this combo i was running it on a dragonborn the DM alowed me to use force instead of the elements due to thw fact i was trying to restore Io. If your not familiar, he is the dragon god that got split in in half to make the current 2. He also has another name, Asgorath. I think that's how you spell it
my favourite barbarian subclass is the Berserker and im still mad that i have to look/make homebrew to give this wonderful flavourful subclass the remake it needs but ye the Beast rocks too
Anything is boring if you don't do it cool. Totem whips ass if you really go in on it. Add your own flavor, don't just rely on the minimum. Here's one of mine. Had a level 1 Halfling Rogue steal a seemingly innocuous carving of a Badger (Bear reflavored for a lil' guy) off an old woman. Proceed to have it alter his mind and bring out his aggression and Barbarian qualities for a few levels as he tries to figure out why. Go in on the bestial angle somewhat. He figures it out, tracks down the old woman, learns about it, embraces it, and tames his power. Its tied to his bloodline but the totem brought it out of him. Proceed to continue Roguing with 5 or 6 levels of Barbarian that were very flavorful and still affect the character.
Beast Barb is cool, I've played around with the concept (Plasmoid Beast Barb is basically Carnage), but I think my favorite is actually the Zealot. It's got a pseudo-smite (which can be Radiant or Necrotic depending on the flavor you're going for) and one of weirdest 3rd level abilities where if you die the person resurrecting you doesn't have to pay taxes to their diety, as the Zealot Barb's diety foots the bill. And at higher levels the Zealot more than any other Barb is literally too angry to die.
Mine so far is the giant subclass, i can throw my weapon (and people) and my enemies and my wrapon always return to my hand, not to mention, i can become a huge problem for the enemy
I hope that WotC buff martials on the next DnD, i love play them but they are not strong enough compare to all the casters and half casters. Imagine a barbarian picking um a rock 5 times they weight and throwing it towards a flying dragon at lvl 10, that is awesome, a caster at that lvl can polimorph the dragon or make it thake like 10d6 area damage in one turn.
1. Bruhbarian subclass. Protein rage destroys soyboys and other friends from the Realm of whimps. 2. Bathsaltbarian. Can enter rage however many times he wants thanks to drugs! Attacks anything in sight though... 3. Barberian. Cuts hair real nice and quick like.
I do also have to add that Beasts have their 14th level power up that allows them to add their party members into a literal wolf pack with them, because what is one beast when there could be many?
So many good ones. While totem warrior is kinda lame for rp, it does have interesting moments. Especially if you can introduce the "spirit animal" kind of thing. Elk and bear are my favs for that. But the totem warrior isn't my favorite sub for barbarian. And i can't quite pick one, Wild magic is up there. I usually make my own table and have it scale. Berserker is cool too, homebrew some less glowing drawbacks. Zealot is a nice one too. So many good ones, beast is up there Played a shifter beast barbarian. I had more bear than the bear totem. I also had lycanthropy, wearbear version. So yea, i was crazy (bears are some of my favorite mammals)
I refuse to back down from berserker. Fear and charm immunity plus ape mode whenever you want is a pretty big deal. Retaliation is also a big ability that makes berserkers fun
Gotta disagree. I wanted to love Beast, hell, I'm trying to make my own version of it to fix it, but it has so many issues. Let me see if I can explain them: 1. The natural weapons are unbalanced, simultaneously too strong in some aspects and too weak in others. Bite has tons of free healing, which is nice, Claw lets you be a Berserker for free, and Tail is a polearm that gives you a one-attack parry every single turn. However, they are neither light nor heavy, so cannot benefit from Two-Weapon Fighting or Dual Wielder, or from Great Weapon Master/Fighting. The Tail is not a polearm, so won't benefit from Polearm Master. Practically all of them lock you into using a shield, since even the claw doesn't need both hands free, or having both less AC and less damage on average. Just, a messy design overall - "applying a bonus to your AC equal to the number rolled", but doesn't state for how long. One attack? One round? Forever? Obviously the intent is one attack, but RAW is important. 2. The chosen 6th features I have no problem with, other than the jump. Making an Athletics check to jump further is already in the game (granted, the game says the DM *may* allow it, but it's in the book and not a variant rule), so this is effectively not an option - besides, jumping 18 feet is great until you have to translate that to a battlemap that uses 5 ft. squares or hexes. My issue is with the first 6th level feature. Your natural weapon attacks count as magical, great, as expected by this level. But they don't get a bonus, to attacks nor damage. Sure, the game is to not require magic items, but are we really gonna make our one player poke things with their fingernail while Bob the Fighter is walking around with a Frostbrand scimitar and a Flame Tongue short sword? Meh. 3. You're really only going to use the damage - which is okay, but not great and doesn't add to your crits, which are already more banal than brutal because of the low damage dice. The attack option is great on melee enemies with low Charisma (brawlers), to make them poke their squishier buddies. However, if you're hitting the big boys, you're probably not in the backline, because then you'd hit the squishies yourself. Super situational, but can give you an expensive Disengage I guess. 4. Capstone feature is super gimmicky and overengineered, but it works out devently well, so no complaint there. Overall, I think there's better ways to play a Defender barbarian, and better ways to play a shapeshifter.
Yeah yeah modular customization is cool, but honestly I love to just shout "WAAAAAAAGH" and stop caring about things as I dual wield weapons and tank everything
Just a idea: but i had a idea to use the beast barbarian but flavour it more as the side effects of a radical drug he was addicted to. However the character was very shy and skittish only really raging when he suffered withdrawal or alot of stress What's your thoughts on making a character that, throughout a campaign. Their goal is to embrace or escape their class
I find Barb to be too boring in combat… and I usually feel awful, especially if the rest of the party is dead or dying, and they have to deal with my ass being resistant to everything. Zealot, though, actually kept me more interested in the class.
Does Beast Barbarian work well with Lizardfolk? I feel like some of the base stuff lizardfolk has the Beast Barb has too, is there another class that lets the lizardfolk shine?
