Barbarian: Path of the Ancestral Guardian

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Overview & Creation

A tall human tribesman strides through a blizzard, draped in fur and hefting his axe. He laughs as he charges toward the frost giant who dared poach his people’s elk herd.   A half-orc snarls at the latest challenger to her authority over their savage tribe, ready to break his neck with her bare hands as she did to the last six rivals.   Frothing at the mouth, a dwarf slams his helmet into the face of his drow foe, then turns to drive his armored elbow into the gut of another.   These barbarians, different as they might be, are defined by their rage: unbridled, unquenchable, and unthinking fury. More than a mere emotion, their anger is the ferocity of a cornered predator, the unrelenting assault of a storm, the churning turmoil of the sea.   For some, their rage springs from a communion with fierce animal spirits. Others draw from a roiling reservoir of anger at a world full of pain. For every barbarian, rage is a power that fuels not just a battle frenzy but also uncanny reflexes, resilience, and feats of strength.

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Class Features

Rage

In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action. While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren’t wearing heavy armour:

• You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.

• When you make a melee weapon attack using Strength, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table.

• You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

  If you are able to cast spells, you can’t cast them or concentrate on them while raging.   Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action.   Once you have raged the number of times shown for your barbarian level in the Rages column of the Barbarian table, you must finish a long rest before you can rage again.  

Unarmoured Defence

While you are not wearing any armour, your Armour Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.  

Reckless Attack

Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defence to attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.  

Danger Sense

At 2nd level, you gain an uncanny sense of when things nearby aren’t as they should be, giving you an edge when you dodge away from danger. You have advantage on Dexterity saving throws against effects that you can see, such as traps and spells. To gain this benefit, you can’t be blinded, deafened, or incapacitated.  

Primal Path

At 3rd level, you choose a path that shapes the nature of your rage. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 6th, 10th, and 14th levels.  

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.  

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.  

Fast Movement

Starting at 5th level, your speed increases by 10 feet while you aren’t wearing heavy armour.  

Feral Instinct

By 7th level, your instincts are so honed that you have advantage on initiative rolls.   Additionally, if you are surprised at the beginning of combat and aren’t incapacitated, you can act normally on your first turn, but only if you enter your rage before doing anything else on that turn.  

Brutal Critical

Beginning at 9th level, you can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee attack. This increases to two additional dice at 13th level and three additional dice at 17th level.  

Relentless Rage

Starting at 11th level, your rage can keep you fighting despite grievous wounds. If you drop to 0 hit points while you’re raging and don’t die outright, you can make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. If you succeed, you drop to 1 hit point instead.   Each time you use this feature after the first, the DC increases by 5. When you finish a short or long rest, the DC resets to 10.  

Persistent Rage

Beginning at 15th level, your rage is so fierce that it ends early only if you fall unconscious or if you choose to end it.  

Indomitable Might

Beginning at 18th level, if your total for a Strength check is less than your Strength score, you can use that score in place of the total.  

Primal Champion

At 20th level, you embody the power of the wilds. Your Strength and Constitution scores increase by 4. Your maximum for those scores is now 24.

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Starting Equipment

• Choose: a greataxe; or any martial melee weapon   • Choose: two handaxes; or any simple weapon   • An explorer’s pack and four javelins

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Subclass Options

Path of the Ancestral Guardian

Some barbarians hail from cultures that revere their ancestors. These tribes teach that the warriors of the past linger in the world as mighty spirits, who can guide and protect the living. When a barbarian who follows this path rages, the barbarian contacts the spirit world and calls on these guardian spirits for aid.   Barbarians who draw on their ancestral guardians can better fight to protect their tribes and their allies. In order to cement ties to their ancestral guardians, barbarians who follow this path cover themselves in elaborate tattoos that celebrate their ancestors’ deeds. These tattoos tell sagas of victories against terrible monsters and other fearsome rivals.  

Ancestral Protectors

Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, spectral warriors appear when you enter your rage. While you’re raging, the first creature you hit with an attack on your turn becomes the target of the warriors, which hinder its attacks. Until the start of your next turn, that target has disadvantage on any attack roll that isn’t against you, and when the target hits a creature other than you with an attack, that creature has resistance to the damage dealt by the attack. The effect on the target ends early if your rage ends.  

Spirit Shield

Beginning at 6th level, the guardian spirits that aid you can provide supernatural protection to those you defend. If you are raging and another creature you can see within 30 feet of you takes damage, you can use your reaction to reduce that damage by 2d6.   When you reach certain levels in this class, you can reduce the damage by more: by 3d6 at 10th level and by 4d6 at 14th level.  

Consult the Spirits

At 10th level, you gain the ability to consult with your ancestral spirits. When you do so, you cast the augury or clairvoyance spell, without using a spell slot or material components. Rather than creating a spherical sensor, this use of clairvoyance invisibly summons one of your ancestral spirits to the chosen location. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells.   After you cast either spell in this way, you can’t use this feature again until you finish a short or long rest.  

Vengeful Ancestors

At 14th level, your ancestral spirits grow powerful enough to retaliate. When you use your Spirit Shield to reduce the damage of an attack, the attacker takes an amount of force damage equal to the damage that your Spirit Shield prevents.

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