Best Feats for Wild Magic Barbarian 5e
by Prince Phantom
The path of Wild Magic is one that I love flavor-wise, but falls a bit short in mechanical power. The main problem is the lack of scaling on everything in the wild magic table, meaning the damage dealing effects quickly loose their luster once we get past mid-levels.
This makes this subclass great for a low level campaign, but I’d talk to your DM about homebrewing some scaling for the wild magic table. I recommend adding another die of damage to each effect that deals damage at 7th, 11th, and 17th levels, and allowing for at least half damage when the enemy succeeds their save on that effect at level 7. Oh right, this is about the best feats for the subclass. Sorry I’m just a bit passionate about this one and really wish it was better.
Best Feats for Wild Magic Barbarian 5e
Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master (ASAP): So yes, some of the options on the table do give us bonus actions to use each turn, but it’s only 3/8, so you’ve got less than a coin flip (also only 2 of those 3 deal damage). I’m still of the opinion that Polearm Master is worth it, especially because its bonus action attack will be better than most options on the table. The only times I’d use a table option rather than Polearm Master for our bonus action is if we can hit at least 3 enemies with the flumph, or we are very confident that they will fail the Constitution save for the blindness, and the blinded condition will be meaningfully impactful to that creature. Oh and yeah we take Great Weapon Master because we’re a Barbarian, of course we do.
Sentinel (Lv 8): We don’t have any special ranking abilities like other Barbarian subclasses, so we may not want this as much. Keeping enemies close to us and the combo with Polearm Master means that this is probably worth it nonetheless, but it’s not necessarily synergistic with any of our abilities (aside from like, one option on the table that gives us +1 AC).
Resilient Wisdom (Lv 8): We can take this a bit earlier since we may not be as concerned with Sentinel as the average Barbarian. This is much appreciated, as Wisdom saves are famously fatal for bit dumb brutes like us. I do kinda wish theirs subclass gave something to help with our mental saves, as I feel like it would fit the flavor, but alas, the designers don’t want you to have fun apparently. Instead you get to be a spell battery for the actually powerful members of your party. Yay.
Ritual Caster (Lv 12): This is mostly for flavor, as it just fits the flavor perfectly. That isn’t to say this feat isn’t a powerful option, as access to every ritual spell in the game as long as we have the gold is incredibly powerful both in and out of combat. We can give ourselves a familiar, an Unseen Servant, a Phantom Steed, and a Telepathic Bond all at the same time! I like this because it makes us feel like we are gaining some control over our wild magic.
Lucky (Lv 16): Lucky lets us reroll our failed saves and protects us from crits. Since we don’t have any specific durability options from our subclass, this helps us a ton, and I recommend this for us specifically more than I would for other barbarian subclasses.
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