Best Feats for Totem Barbarian 5e
by Prince Phantom
Well, we found it. Here’s where all the design time of the PHB Barbarian went. It’s almost like the designers just wanted to see how many pages in that book a subclass could take up. I’m not even upset, more impressed than anything. With such a huge range of options that only grows as we level, each Totem Barbarian has the potential to look vastly different than any other.
The only problem is that these options are not balanced against each other in the slightest. Bear and Wolf reign supreme at 3rd level, so much better than all the other options that you will genuinely struggle to find someone who has actually picked something else in an actual game. None of these options really affect our feat selection however, so this will look pretty close to the standard Barbarian selections.
Best Feats for Totem Barbarian 5e
Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master (ASAP): This subclass does give us the opportunity to get a bonus action attack fairly consistently… at 14th level. If you are starting above level 14, I guess you can skip Polearm Master, but for those of us playing in normal campaigns, both of these feats are a must have. The increase to flat and potential damage is too huge to ever justify taking any other feats than these until we have both of them.
Sentinel (Lv 8): If you chose the bear at level 3 (be honest, you did), then you shouldn’t have many issues with enemies staying close to you. The biggest problem with tanking as a Barbarian is that your enemies can always just ignore you to target other party members, and while Sentinel is not enough to fix that problem entirely, it does give us at least one way to mitigate it. At level 14, there is an option that also helps a ton with this, but that’s another 6 levels away. Oh and of course it combos nicely with Polearm Master.
Resilient Wisdom (Lv 8): If you didn’t go bear, I’d probably take this now instead of at level 12 since our durability isn’t as good as it probably should be for a Sentinel build. As always, try to have this feat round your score up to a new modifier, and don’t skip this because Wisdom saves are crippling, especially to a melee combatant. You know your class struggles when a simple Cause Fear spell shuts down your entire character.
Skill Expert Athletics (Lv 12): This plus the 6th level bear feature makes you the king of picking up and moving heavy things. With this we have advantage and expertise on things like grapple checks during combat, and the same bonuses when interacting with objects out of combat. How useful is that exactly? Well, first it depends on if your DM rules picking something up as an Athletics check or just a straight Strength check. To be clear, it should definitely be Athletics, as the skill would have little reason to exist otherwise, but if they don’t, then this probably isn’t worth it. If they do, then maybe it’s worth it if you find that your DM throws out a lot of brute force challenges outside of combat. Side note: DMs, please create more strength based challenges outside of combat. Your Barbarian player is bored.
Ritual Caster (Lv 12): Leaning into the innate ritual spells we already get from this subclass, we can greatly expand those capabilities with this feat. You should have the Wisdom to qualify for it, especially if you took Resilient Wisdom. There are a ton of cool nature themed rituals, but I’d encourage you to find ways to reflavor other rituals to be more nature inspired. Perhaps your Telepathic Bond is shared more as instinctual feelings than clear thoughts, or your Phantom Steed is a large form of your favorite totem animal. Flavor is free, and if it’s free, it’s for me.
Lucky (Lv 16): We’re taking this to further improve our saving throws primarily, and also save ourselves from the occasional crit. A good defensive feat to round out the character and give us a new pool of resources to spend.
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