Path of the Berserker 5e: Barbarian Subclass Review
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobld
The barbarian is known for two things: being dumb as rocks and getting real angry and smashing stuff. Path of the Berserker is aimed at the barbarians out there who just really want to embody the angriest creature alive, something that wants to turn their brain off entirely and beat things to death with a hammer. Mechanically, they’re kind of all over the place.
See Also: Best Feats for Berserker Barbarian
3rd Level: Frenzy
Frenzy is by and far the most contentious of their abilities. It has two foundational issues, one clear and one less apparent:
It imposes exhaustion after usage, and
It competes with your bonus action the turn you enter the rage.
Exhaustion as a system in 5th edition is pretty terrible to deal with. One level is often so debilitating that you’ll bend over backwards to avoid it. When the majority of the game out of combat is built making ability checks, and as a barbarian having next to no other tools for interfacing with out of combat play, giving yourself disadvantage on all ability checks for this bonus action attack feels terrible. If a fight only goes three rounds, using Frenzy means you’ve spent one round entering the rage, and thus are unable to get your frenzy bonus attack, get two bonus attacks, and then the combat’s over. In exchange for these two attacks, you are now penalized until you finish a long rest.
Oh, and you wanted to use it AGAIN? Well, after that, you’re speed is halved! Three times means you get disadvantage on all attack rolls and saving throws IN ADDITION to the disadvantage on ability checks. If you’re going for more than three fights in a long rest, you’re probably only going to feel like you’re able to Frenzy in the last one before the rest.
That being said, if you are doing just one big fight per long rest, and its normally towards the rest, getting five to six bonus attacks is very powerful. At some tables this can feel backbreaking with Great Weapon Master and other two handed weapon fighting options.
Frenzy can be difficult to use at a lot of tables effectively, though, and that makes it often feel just awful to have on your sheet.
6th Level: Mindless Rage
Mindless Rage isn’t particularly complicated, and mirrors most classes' “defensive” abilities given out around here. Immunity to charms and fears while raging is fine, and the ability to temporarily suspend their effects by starting to rage is pretty nifty. This will feel like a passive buff in one out of every ten fights, and in those fights it provides a mediocre benefit I’m not all that thrilled with.
10th Level: Intimidating Presence
Intimidating Presence gives you a new at will frighten action, which is interesting at least. The core problem here is you definitely want to be making attack rolls with your action in combat, but other smaller problems definitely pop up as well. This being the only charisma based ability that pops up in the subclass means you aren’t necessarily aiming your build to support a solid Charisma score. Barbarians want high Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity really badly for their AC, to hit score, damage, and health. It's kind of their whole deal. Just the frighten condition on a single creature isn’t usually going to be worth your action, especially not multiple actions. This effect feels like a worse 1st level spell, somewhere between a cantrip and 1st level spell, and this comes at 10th level. Out of combat, its a neat roleplay tool for some encounters, but that’s not particularly exciting.
14th Level: Retaliation
What is exciting is a new attack reaction, which is exactly what Retaliation is. As a barbarian, you want to get hit to leverage your rage resistances and huge hit dice, and you want to attack things to leverage your rage damage modifier and weapon proficiencies. Retaliation cleanly and concisely marries the two, giving you a reaction you’ll be using basically every turn in combat paired with a somewhat interesting decision to make: do you just use this the moment its available, or try to aim it at specific monsters? I’m a huge fan of Retaliation; out of all the Berserker abilities, this feels the most like it, and plays really well in practice.
All Together
Retaliation can’t really save the rest of this subclass. Frenzy is debilitating to try to use at many tables. Mindless Rage is a non-feature in the majority of fights, and Intimidating Presence is an action you’re almost never going to find its worth it to use. Having to wait 14 levels to get a solid, powerful ability that doesn’t hamstring you in some other way is just too much to ask. With a reworked exhaustion system, like the one in the D&D 1 playtests, this becomes a lot more palatable given that the bonus action attacks are powerful. If you aren’t forcing yourself to succumb to the current exhaustion system, Frenzy will feel a lot more interesting and fun. Even in that world, I still wouldn’t recommend this to nearly any player as their mid tier features are just really, really terrible. If you can get to the top end fantasy, you can have a blast smashing everything around you all the time with four attacks a round, which is pretty sweet.
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