Path of the Beast 5e: Barbarian Subclass Review

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobld

Have you ever felt like Path of the Totem Warrior Barbarians just aren’t monstrous enough? You want to transform into feral beasts and rip people apart, and the druid class just can’t deliver on that for you? Path of the Beast is here for you. With this barbarian subclass, you get to immediately embody a transforming bestial half person half beast with all the monstrous qualities you could dream of.

It does offer a decent amount of decisions and flexibility, embodying shapeshifting fairly well, but I think quickly you’ll start defaulting to some of the same options over and over.

3rd Level: Origin and Form of the Beast

When you pick this option, you get a cute little trait called your Origin, which is just a flavorful addition you can consider to add some bonus lore to your character and their connection to beasts. You don’t have to commit to one of the four presented options, but they tend to act as great jumping off points.

Form of the Beast offers you three weapon selection options whenever you rage that grow out of you: Bite, Claws, or Tail. Getting this choice every time can allow them to play well alongside some other build options, while also being build-arounds on their own.

Bite is probably the most unique of the bunch. A d8 damage dice isn’t revolutionary, but getting hit points back on each hit will actually help you fulfill the drain tank fantasy with multi-attack. It scales incredibly well with level, as the proficiency bonus keeps going up, and you getting more attacks each round can double or triple the growth. If you can get a third attack with this in the upper tiers, this can look like regaining 15+ hit points per round. Out the gate, 2 hit points isn’t amazing, though, leaving this as something I think you’ll start considering post 5th level when you’re entering a fight fairly injured.

Claws actually give you a reason to use d6 weapons, which is something I can’t say for nearly any other unarmed strikes akin to this. Getting a free extra attack that scales with your rage damage is excellent if you can build towards it. Paired with non-concentration duration effects that add damage to on hit can direct you towards multi-attacking. What’s also cool is with extra attack, you can attack with a two-handed weapon with one attack, let go with one hand and slash with the off hand, which is enough to give you that extra bonus attack as well.

Tail, like the other two, is a really solid way to empower your barbarian. A d8 reach weapon isn’t revolutionary, and probably not actually going to be something you’re using that often, but getting a bonus d8 to your AC against attacks that otherwise would hit you can be a massive upgrade for your defenses.

What sets all three of these apart from so many other options in the game is there are going to regularly be situations where you want all three. Going into a fight blind, Claws is easy and powerful multi-attacking. Going into a fight against one or two particularly brutal enemies, Tail is an excellent way to stretch your hit points further, and if you’re engaging a fight while already beaten up, taking Bite to sustain yourself through a barrage of smaller hits is great.

6th Level: Bestial Soul

Bestial Soul gives you a much needed out of combat improvement that you can swap between every short rest. When you need a swim speed and water breathing, you’ve got it here, but critically when you don’t you aren’t wasting an ability on it! Spider Climb is an underrated ability that getting at will at 6th level can be excellent in many environments, and increasing your jump distance by 15-20 feet in both vertical and long jumps at will can get you leaping all over the place in an exciting way. Bestial Soul is a massive boon for the class.

10th Level: Infectious Fury

Infectious Fury is weird. It has some outrageous potential, as getting a giant to smash their friend with their reaction can be insanely good. 2d12 bonus damage can also quickly aid in shredding down larger monsters. Three to four uses per long rest means this ability will really only shine particularly brightly at tables playing one to two encounters per long rest, and at those tables can be ludicrous. At tables playing with a lot more short rests and encounters between long rests, getting one or less uses of Infectious Fury per fight will leave it feeling a bit underwhelming, especially when you just choose to do the bonus 2d12 damage.

Regardless of table, this ability still is a powerful new thematic tool for barbarians. It does suffer from being attached to a Con based save DC, which you don’t really want to prop up that highly, meaning there will be a good amount of times this does nothing and feels really bad, but if you pick something, slash it three times for 3d6+9+9+6d12, you’re going to feel like a paladin does when they sink a 5th level slot into a crit.

14th Level: Call the Hunt

Call the Hunt caps off this superb subclass with big team support boost every time you rage. Out of all the options, this one really needs you to have a +3 Constitution, but when you do, my god, this feature is nuts. It also definitely wants to play alongside other martial characters or warlocks throwing out a lot of attack rolls, as you really want to be getting 3d6 bonus damage every round with this from your allies. If you’ve got a monk, rogue, and druid with a summon in the group, this will easily proc every round for bonus damage.

You not getting the bonus damage is kind of a bummer, and the temporary hit points aren’t out of this world good, but this will feel like a strict buff to your rage. You get 5-6 uses of this per long rest, and almost no table runs more than that.

All Together

Path of the Beast is one of my favorite options made for barbarian. You get meaningful choices, deeply satisfying payoffs for the fantasy promise, and a big bump in power that can fit into a decent amount of existing barbarian weapon based builds. You don’t have to commit to the Form of the Beast attacks to benefit from them, but you are rewarded for at least mixing them into your play pattern. There aren’t a lot of barbarian paths that offer this quantity of choices regularly that actually change how you engage the game. I can’t recommend this path enough- if you want to be Wolverine or Sabertooth, a barbarian that bites somebody's head off, or just an efficient, engaging barbarian, this absolutely will get you there.

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Barbarian 5e