Barbarian 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Relentless Fury – Posts

Step 2: Choose Your Class

Choose barbarian as your class (unless you’re not filled with a yearning for rage and bloodlust, then it’s best to choose a different class). This will grant you some class features right off the bat. We’ll touch on all of these features in the Barbarian Class Features section. For now, let’s focus on your two skill proficiencies.

• Choose skills that fit who you want your character to be. Skills that play to your strengths are useful, like Athletics, but also consider shoring up some of your weaknesses in order to make yourself a more balanced character. Some good choices would be Perception or Survival.

Step 3: Ability Scores

Your ability scores will determine your character’s baseline bonuses to all the rolls they’ll make in their adventuring career. Think about what role you want to fill in the party—offense, defense, or tank. We’ll look at this choice more closely down below, but for now, know that offense focuses on dealing damage, defense focuses on staying alive, and tanking focuses on protecting your allies. We’re assuming you’re using the Standard Array means of distributing your ability scores for the below example.

• If you want to play offense, put your highest ability score in Strength, and place your second highest in Constitution. If you want to play defense or tank, consider placing your highest in Constitution and your second highest in Strength instead. Even defense- or tank-minded barbarians can get by with Constitution being their second-highest score.
• Set your third highest in Dexterity. This is important for your Armor Class (AC), initiative rolls, and Stealth.
• Then, distribute the rest as you see fit.

Step 4: Description

Select a background that supports your character concept. Your choice of background can help you make strong roleplaying choices; a barbarian that has lived as an Outlander their entire life is a totally different character than one that served for many years as a Soldier, but then defected from their regiment.

Step 5: Equipment

Finally, determine your barbarian’s equipment! Choose your equipment by clicking on “Starting Equipment.” Then, when prompted to “Choose EQUIPMENT or GOLD,” click “EQUIPMENT'” and choose:

How to Play a Barbarian

As a barbarian, you may be expected to take on the role of a ferocious warrior that tears through enemies like paper, but there are more options available to you than sheer offense. Thanks to your massive pool of hit points and easy access to damage resistances, you can be a potent defensive force, weathering any blow while using feats and class features to keep your enemies from reaching your allies, interrupting rituals, or stealing vital magical artifacts. By walking the middle road of offense and defense, you become a dangerous tank—forcing your enemies to fight you instead of your allies by getting in their faces and never relenting in your onslaught.

Your role in your adventuring party probably won’t crystallize until at least 3rd level, when you choose your Primal Path. You may wish to decide which subclass you’ll choose during character creation so that you can plan your character’s theme, aesthetic, or mechanical build in advance.

Barbarian Class Features

1st level

Rage: You will use your barbarian’s Rage a lot throughout your adventuring career—it is perhaps your single most important class feature since many of your subclass features will grant you bonus powers while you’re raging in addition to its already formidable list of benefits. Don’t forget to add the damage bonus you get from raging to your damage rolls!

Unarmored Defense: This ability allows you to live out the classic fantasy of the bare-chested, Conan-style barbarian, but it essentially boils down to just giving you some free armor. Most of your staying power comes from your incredible hit point pool anyway, so don’t be afraid to forgo this feature in order to wear some snazzy magic armor if you need to. This feature’s main benefit is that it allows you to leap into battle without having to spend time donning your armor. Its utility is situational, but it can be very useful if your party is ambushed while sleeping.

2nd Level

Reckless Attack: This is a vital tool for both offense and tank-focused barbarians. Offensive barbarians will gladly accept the drawback of being easier to hit in exchange for advantage on their own attack rolls—but this feature poses a win-win scenario for tanks by letting them deal serious damage and by making them a more attractive target for their enemies.

Danger Sense: This ability is powerful in certain situations, though its power level will vary wildly based on what kind of campaign you’re playing in. A dungeon-crawling campaign with lots of traps or a campaign with lots of mages spamming burning hands and fireball? Splendid. A campaign with lots of poisonous creatures and invisible spirits? Much less powerful. Try not to forget about this niche feature when it actually comes into play.

3rd Level 

Primal Path: You get to choose a Primal Path. You can access the Path of the Berserker at no cost in the Basic Rules, and there is one more available in the Player’s Handbook (Path of the Totem Warrior). These subclasses will dictate which playstyle is most effective for your barbarian, which we’ll discuss in more detail in the Barbarian Subclasses section.

4th Level 

Ability Score Improvement (ASI): At 4th level, your barbarian improves their ability scores. You can choose one ability score to increase by 2 or increase two scores by 1. Most barbarians will either want to use both increases to bump their Strength by 2 if they’re offensive focused or Constitution by 2 points if they’re defensive focused.

You can also forgo this ability score improvement and choose a feat, which is a new permanent ability that can further customize your build. Feats are optional rules not covered within the Basic Rules, so talk to your DM before you choose one. If you’re interested in enhancing your barbarian with a feat, see the below options based on your preferred playstyle:

• Offense. Choose the Great Weapon Master feat. When paired with Reckless Attack, this feat can send your damage output through the roof.
• Defense. Choose the Shield Master feat. As a defense barbarian, you may wish to use a shield and a one-handed weapon to improve your AC, and Shield Master will help you make the most of that tool.
• Tank. Choose the Sentinel feat. This feat encourages enemies to attack you by punishing them for trying to move past you or attack your allies.

5th Level 

Extra Attack: You get to attack twice whenever you take the Attack action, effectively doubling your damage output. Hooray!

Fast Movement: You also get to increase your walking speed by 10 feet while you aren’t wearing heavy armor. This feature is less exciting, but a flat increase to your movement speed is almost always useful. It lets you get into fights faster, exit fights faster, and protect your allies more effectively.

Barbarian Subclasses

Path of the Berserker

This barbarian subclass is all about losing yourself in the bloodlust of battle. Its primary feature revolves around entering a Frenzy during your rage, which allows you to take a bonus action attack each round at the expense of gaining a level of exhaustion after your rage ends.

Playstyle: Berserker barbarians are all about dishing out the most damage possible each round. They get to take a melee weapon attack as a bonus action, which can net tons of extra damage over the course of a combat. However, they need to be careful. Gaining multiple levels of exhaustion can have deadly consequences, especially if you get above two levels. If you have a cleric or a druid that can afford to soothe that exhaustion by casting greater restoration, use Frenzy as often as you want! If you need to wait until a long rest to restore your exhaustion, maybe only use it in the most important fights of the day.

Key Benefits: On top of bonus action—and eventually reaction—attacks, Berserker barbarians become immune to charmed and frightened effects while raging at 6th level. This can be a huge advantage because normally, the big brutish party members are the first to get mind-controlled and turned against the party.

Path of the Totem Warrior

Totem Warrior barbarians are some of the best tanks in the game. They have plenty of options to choose from when selecting their Totem Spirit, but one choice certainly stands out from the rest. 

Playstyle: At 3rd level, Totem Warrior barbarians choose an ability that enhances their rage. There are some options that allow you to move around the battlefield more easily or help your allies gain advantage on attacks, but the best option by far is the Bear totem. This Spirit Totem gives you resistance to every damage type except for psychic, allowing you to stand out in front of the party and soak damage that would normally be directed at your teammates. Eventually, you’ll gain the ability to give hostile creatures disadvantage on their attacks if they don’t target you, which is an effective method to make sure you’re the focus of their attention.

Key Benefits: Beyond their incredible tanking abilities, Totem Warrior barbarians also get access to some fun nature spells, like speak with animals and commune with nature. This subclass also offers a lot of choices so, if you didn’t want to go for the Bear Totem Spirit, you can make a unique barbarian with an interesting playstyle. 

Making Your Barbarian Your Own

As usual, this 101 guide focuses primarily on your character’s “build,” stressing mechanical power over roleplaying or characterization. While barbarians are one of the most combat-focused classes in D&D, you should never ignore the other two pillars of the game: exploration and social interaction. If nothing else, having a clear idea of who your character is can help you feel more immersed in the game. Think of Grog Strongjaw, the goliath barbarian of Critical Role. Even though his character had simple motivations—drink ale, carouse, and protect his friends Scanlan and Pike—his antics were always able to make his fellow players laugh. These simple motivations even led to some incredibly emotional moments, though we won’t spoil them here.

Feel empowered to play against type, too. An intelligent, bookish barbarian is a fun twist on the usual dumb brute archetype. Even Conan, the quintessential barbarian, possessed great cleverness and won as many fights through guile as he did through the strength of his arms. Don’t worry about having a hard time roleplaying as a barbarian; even the most straightforward of characters can be fun to play.

Now, grab your greataxe and prepare to rage!