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Mike Mearls Games
Mike Mearls Games

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Here's a look at the first draft of this Tuesday's article, with a new barbarian subclass.

Comments

I really like the theming of the Path of the Spell Chosen in contrast to the more familiar trope of magic / wizard-antipathetic barbarians! Thought both lists of unique sources and marks of their spell energy were highly evocative in their flavour (would love to see you add to the 4 example inspirations of power sources!). Also really like the Arcane Nature (potential) bonus cantrip actions and damage while Raging — wonder if you'd consider adding a higher level option to increase the probability of triggering the bonus cantrip from 1/3 to 1/2 or 2/3? In terms of Subclass creation question, my primary question — which I feel like this and your posts do address to a degree, explicitly or implicitly — is your overall view of how narrow or broad a Subclass should be, both in terms of flavour and the utility of their abilities, and tips / tricks for getting the balance right. Sometimes I've seen Subclasses that are really narrow to achieve clear theming — your Path of the Spell Chosen seems to do a nice job of delivering a Subclass that can go in a number of directions, while still clearly depicting the concept of a magic-soaked barbarian.

Eric Tam

The idea is that these are spell abilities that you have learned to harness, so I need to sharpen up the flavor text. For the negative void concept, I completely focused on the opposite! I'll have to write up a second subclass that hits the opposite end.

Mike Mearls

Very cool! Love the 'From Magic Forged' section, great flavor. One bit that my mind isn't squaring thematically... The third one, where you lost all of your spellcasting abilities. That made me think of the idea someone else (or perhaps you) proposed of a barbarian that is a negative void of arcane... a caster killer. But then later in the writeup, they have a bunch of spellcasting powers. So to say that 'you lost your memories along with your spellcasting abilities' and then... here's your cantrips and a bunch of spells... I'm finding a bit confusing.

David Johnson


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