Editing Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (section)

===[[Barbarian]]===
Still the melee powerhouse, still rages. Now gains armor from Con when not wearing armor, so you can roleplay [[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]] if you want. Also offers critical ''damage'' bonuses, the ability to survive anything that doesn't kill you outright at one hitpoint (with the DC going up until you get medical attention), and the usual barbarian super-speed and dodge bonuses.

Subclasses are known as "Primal Paths":
* '''Path of the Berserker''' (PHB): The "I hit it again" archetype. Offers the standard rage boosts, but the exhaustion after one of their core archetype features, Frenzy, is more serious than it used to be since it now applies multiple stacking levels of exhaustion, and each one requires a separate long rest to strip off. Plus, if you stack up three, you're at disadvantage on all saves and attacks. The other features aren't bad, but such a double-edged sword of a first-level power means it has few fans.
* '''Path of the Totem Warrior''' (PHB): A Barbarian guided by spirits which grant him semi-magical abilities while raging based on the animal spirit he invokes (Eagle offers super-vision and the eventual ability to fly, Wolf helps you track and support your party as a pack hunter, Bear actually makes you a pretty good tank); has an overall mystical druidic flavour, including a few druid's rituals. Mix-and-matching totem animals by selecting different powers at different levels is technically allowed by the book, though it makes a point of noting that doing so is rare. New totem spirits are offered as part of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, specifically the Elk and the Tiger, which give powers relating to augmented movement and enhanced jumping respectively, which is honestly a little silly. A sidebar on Uthgardt totems shows how swapping abilities around can be used to make more unique totems; specific examples include the [[Pegasus|Skypony Totem]] (Eagle totem, but replace level 6 feature with that of the Elk totem), the Thunderbeast Totem (Bear totem, but replace the level 14 power with that of the Tiger totem) and the Treeghost Totem (Bear totem, but replace Speak With Beasts with Speak With Plants). Interestingly, that example of Treeghost letting you swap a spell for another spell is open encouragement to DMs to work with your Barbarian players to monkey with the abilities if you want to, which you don't really see a lot of (but that's the SCAG for you)
* '''Path of the Battlerager''' (Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide): The first official new Primal Path. Despite the name, it has little to do with the 4e [[Fighter]] path and instead owes more to the "dwarf barbarian" characters from the later [[Drizzt]] stories. Like the Bladesinger [[wizard]] it has a recommended racial restriction ([[dwarf|dwarves]] only), and it grants proficiency with spiked armor, enhanced abilities for attacking with spiked armor and permits Dashes whilst raging, and changes the temp HP from using Reckless Attack to the user's Con modifier. [[Troll| It's suggested, under the guidelines for reskinning it for other campaign settings, that a Krynnish Battlerager is probably wearing some dumb tinker gnome contraption, and that his or her boundless rage stems from having to work with those chucklefucks on a regular basis]]. This path is often shat upon because of it's lackluster final ability, dealing less than a peasant's dagger thrust worth of damage every time someone hits you means jack shit, even at lower levels.
* '''Path of the Ancestral Guardian''' (Xanathar's Guide to Everything): Summons the spirits of Ancestors to his aid, making this the [[Dwarf|Dorfiest]] Primal Path; alternatively, it gives an alternate "native American" feel to the Totem Warrior. The Path of the Ancestral Guardian was one of the five subclasses reworked in the May 2017 Unearthed Arcana. It works best as a support/aggro-magnet with the ability to reduce the damage others take while raging.
* '''Path of the Storm Herald''' (Xanathar's Guide to Everything): More of a "[[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition|controller]]" type; creates an aura around him that hurts enemies and aids the barbarian and allies, with different effects based on the type of storm the Storm Herald can conjure: Desert, Sea, or Tundra. 
* '''Path of the Zealot''' (Xanathar's Guide to Everything): Channels divine powers, giving both offensive and defensive benefits like cheating death while enraged. The multiclass Barbarian/Paladin you wanted to play back in 3.5 but were prevented from thanks to alignment restrictions. As a neat side note, at higher levels, while raging, YOU CANNOT DIE. You’ll keep taking death saves, but won’t actually keel over until your rage runs out, even with 3 failed saves. That means that even after losing, your blood-spattered, broken body only gives up after having killed every motherfucker in the room. Bad. Ass.
* '''Path of the Beast''' (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything): Grants you a somewhat loose approximation of shapeshifting, granting natural weapons and eventually a new movement speed. While each of these weapons grants a special feature, their damage is a bit on the low side once you start leveling up. Fortunately, later features allow you to spread your feral spirit to friend and foe alike, forcing the enemy to make a Wisdom save or else either take considerable psychic damage or hit someone you want while allies just get extra damage.
* '''Path of the Wild Soul''' (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything): Channeling something like a [[Bloodrager]], allowing you to channel a random magical effect whenever you rage. The other interesting feature here is the ability to either grant some minor assistance for skill checks or restore a random spell slot for a caster. Later levels focus more on the random effect, letting you re-roll the random power whenever you get hit and the capstone power of just rolling twice and picking the best one whenever you want.