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The Path of the Beast Barbarian is a new subclass introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. It’s a unique and interesting subclass that can be played in several different ways. The multitude of beasts you can emulate allows endless flavor options to describe your character.
In this review, I’ll analyze the features of the Beast and how they synergize with the Barbarian class features. I’ll dig into suitable feats, races, and multiclass options and then flesh these out into a few build concepts.
As always, these are my thoughts on the subclass. This one is really flexible and fun. If you have other ideas about the Beast Barbarian, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below. You can also comment on my YouTube video on this topic!
Form of the Beast – 3rd Level Beast Barbarian
This feature predictably allows you to become more beastlike and manifest one of three choices of natural weapons whenever you enter a rage. These natural weapons are all simple weapons and use Strength for attack and damage modifiers, as usual.
- Because these are simple weapons, they can’t be used with Two-Weapon Fighting (light weapons only) unless you take the Dual Wielder feat. Likewise, they can’t be used for the Rogue’s Sneak Attack (finesse and ranged weapons only). Ask your DM if you can use the Dual Wielder feat to use both claws for two-weapon fighting.
The three options are:
- Bite for 1d8 piercing damage and some healing (proficiency bonus amount) once per turn if you are below half health.
- Claws for one extra melee attack once per turn with 1d6 slashing damage. Your hands need to be empty to use these.
- Tail for 1d8 piercing damage with the reach property and nd a reaction option. Once per turn, when a creature that you can see hits you with an attack, you can apply an AC bonus of 1d8.
Bite is probably the least useful overall of the three. Its extra benefit only comes into play if you are below half health. The proficiency bonus amount of healing once a turn effectively counts as double if you’re fighting creatures doing slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage, all of which you are resistant to while raging.
Claws do the least damage but offer an additional attack to make up for this. You can become Wolverine!
- The wording of this additional attack is a little unclear: ’once on each of your turns when you attack with a claw using the Attack action, you can make one additional claw attack as part of the same action’. Given that ‘each of your hands transforms into a claw’, it’s not fully clear whether you get one extra attack total, or one for each claw (once you have Extra Attack). I think the intent is to get one extra attack total.
- Can you grapple with Claws active? It’s not clear. Can you wield weapons with Claws active? Again, not 100% clear.
Tail is a great defensive option. At least for one incoming attack, it compensates for the advantage you grant to enemies by using the Reckless Attack feature.
There is flexibility when using Form of the Beast. You can choose different forms whenever you rage; however, I expect most players will generally go for one main option and choose feats to suit that option. These natural weapon options do not use damage dice as large as the ‘traditional’ Barbarian heavy weapons (halberds, great axes, and the like). As such, they do not synergize with Brutal Critical. You’ll do less damage with critical hits than if you wield a heavy weapon.
Bestial Soul – 6th Level Beast Barbarian
Your natural weapons for Form of the Beast now count as magical. You can also alter your form after each short or long rest to give yourself one of three physical benefits:
- Swimming speed equal to walking speed, and underwater breathing.
- Climbing speed equal to walking speed, and you can climb difficult surfaces including upside down without needing an ability check.
- A boost to your jump: add the results of a Strength (Athletics) check to your jump distance, once per turn.
It’s not clear whether the jump bonus applies only to horizontal jumps or also to vertical jumps. This feature is boosted even more by proficiency or expertise in Athletics. The ‘spider climb’ style climbing sounds like a ton of fun on a Barbarian!
Infectious Fury – 10th Level Beast Barbarian
This boosts your natural weapons. When you hit with an attack while raging, the creature must make a Wisdom save vs your Constitution modifier. If failed, choose one of two effects:
- The creature must either use its reaction to make a melee attack against another creature you can see and select.
- The creature suffers 2d12 psychic damage.
You can use this ability a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest. This only affects hits from your natural weapons, so it doesn’t synergize with using regular weapons. It can give you a free disengage against a single target by forcing it to use its reaction. It provides a bit of ‘nova damage’ potential to the Barbarian; you could use this multiple times in a round (especially with two Fighter levels for Action Surge, see below).
Call the Hunt – 14th Level Beast Barbarian
You get 5 temporary hit points from each willing creature (up to your Constitution modifier) within 30ft when you enter a Rage. Each of these creatures can deal an extra 1d6 damage once on each of their turns with their attacks while your Rage lasts.
It’s not massively impactful for a 14h level ability. It’s dependent on having allies who are making attacks (as opposed to casting spells with saving throws), and the extra damage doesn’t go far for 14th level.
Path of the Beast Subclass Overall
The Beast Barbarian gets a lot of flexibility with their abilities, such as choosing your natural weapon when you enter your rage and choosing your movement boost after a rest. You can be more of a scout than usual for a Barbarian.
Your natural weapons get the ability to overcome non-magical weapon resistance but don’t get the additional bonuses to attack and damage rolls that magic weapons typically have. As a result, if you rely on natural weapons, you may be slightly below the curve in terms of damage output in higher tiers of play. However, your DM may reward you with items or boons that directly enhance your natural weapons if you point out this weakness in your scaling at higher levels.
Your natural weapons are not heavy, so the Beast is a better Barbarian option than usual for a small race.
You will only get your natural weapons when you Rage, so you will also need to carry around weapons for you to use when you are not raging.
Feat Options
There are two main paths available for your Beast Barbarian (from an optimization point of view). One is to use weapons and supplement these with the Bite or Tail natural weapons. The other is to forgo weapons and rely on your Claws instead (at least while you are raging). Each of these options lends itself to different choices of feats.
For a weapons-based Beast, it’s hard to look past Polearm Master. This provides both a bonus action attack option and a nice reaction option (both lacking from the base Barbarian). If you pick up a heavy polearm such as a glaive or halberd, this will synergize with the Tail natural weapon. Your weapons will have reach and the Tail reaction can help to make up for a lack of a shield.
- Adding Great Weapon Master to this would likely be the best approach for maximizing damage output.
- You could also look to add Sentinel instead of (or in addition to) Great Weapon Master. This is a fantastic control option and will help you lock down enemies on the front line, stopping them from being able to attack the squishier members of your party.
- Unfortunately, this is an optimal setup for pretty much all Barbarians and as such it’s a little boring.
For a Claws-based Beast, you can choose to go for two-weapon fighting, which would require you to pick up Dual Wielder in order to use a Claw as an off-hand bonus action attack (so you can dual-wield natural claw weapons that lack the ‘light’ property). Once you pick up Extra Attack you’ll be able to attack four times per round. This leads to impressive damage with the damage boosts you get from Rage and from your Infectious Fury ability and the reliable accuracy you gain from Reckless Attack. Another great option is to go for a shield and pick up Shield Master, which has a bonus action shove ability and helps shore up your defenses against Dexterity-targeting spell attacks.
For general Barbarian feat selection recommendations, Flutes Loot has a good read.
Race Options
As mentioned earlier, the Beast is one of the few Barbarians that particularly suits a small race. It would be pretty good fun to play a Kobold, Goblin, Halfling, or Gnome Barbarian. The Gnome gets Gnome Cunning (advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saves against magic) which can make up for one of the Barbarian’s big weaknesses. The Goblin gets bonus action hide and disengage and a damage bonus from Fury of the Small.
Shifters make wonderful Beast Barbarians. The thematic synergy here is great. All the bestial races make great fits – Tabaxi, Bugbear, Loxodon, Leonin, Tortle, Kenku, Aarakocra, Lizardfolk, Yuan-ti. The new Dhampir lineage has some interesting synergy; it already has Spider Climb (so you can choose one of the other two) and a superior Bite attack that leaves you free to choose Tail or Claws.
A spider-themed Drow Beast, halfway to a drider, might be a fun concept. You could even select another race that has been cursed by a Drow matron to become spider-like. Sounds like a fun backstory to explore!
Custom Lineage or Variant Human are as always great options with the free feat.
Multiclassing
I think the spider climb ability of the Beast would be enjoyable with stealth added, so a Rogue multiclass would be entertaining. Expertise in Stealth (and maybe Athletics for grapples) could lead to some fantastic upside-down hiding (Cunning Action dash) shenanigans. The Soulknife Rogue gets the interesting Psychic Blades attack and bonus action attack. You could combine Psychic Blades with two Claw attacks (with psychic damage from Infectious Fury) to get four attacks per round. Psychic Blades allows you to sneak attack (Claws don’t) and gives you a ranged option to help keep your Rage up if no enemies are within melee range.
Adding a couple of Fighter levels for a Fighting Style, Second Wind, and (most importantly) Action Surge is always a great option for Barbarians. You could have 5 attacks per round with the Beast Claws as early as level 7 (or 6 attacks if mixing in Dual Wielder, as above).
A Beastly Moon Druid also sounds like great fun, adding more natural weapons to your Wild Shape. Who wouldn’t love playing an upside-down bear with a Tail?!
Regarding a multiclass dip into Beast Barbarian, you could mirror Primal Companion features of a Beast Master Ranger or the Fathomless Warlock’s aquatic features (shark Bite, lobster Claws, manta ray Tail).
Build Ideas
I came up with basically four different build ideas for a Beast Barbarian, all of which would be fun to explore.
Classic: Polearm Master + Great Weapon Master + Tail + Custom Lineage.
- Not much to say here; the min/maxers dream 🙂 Simple, effective, powerful.
Dual Claws: Two-Weapon Fighting Style (two-level Fighter dip) + Dual Wielder + Claws + Action Surge + Goblin.
- An all-action Goblin with up to 6 Claw attacks per round!
Psychic Claws: Claws + Soulknife Rogue (three-level dip) + Kobold.
- Mixing psychic sneak attacks with ripping Claws and Expertise in Stealth. You’ll never see this deadly Kobold coming!
Grapplemania: Claws/Tail + grappling approach + Rogue (two-level dip) + Tabaxi + Athlete feat.
- This is a fun build that can involve running up cliffs or buildings with a grappled creature and dropping them or even leaping up in the air for a similar effect. It’s fairly involved though, and I’m intending to do an advanced grappling video fairly soon, so I will cover this particular concept in more detail later.
Summary
That wraps up my review of the Path of the Beast! In summary, there’s lots of flexibility and fun movement features – and it’s a great fit if you want to play as a raging shorty! Please cast Message in the comments either here or on YouTube if you have any questions or suggestions!
You can purchase Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything here to unlock the Path of the Beast in your game.
If you want to read more about Barbarians, visit these excellent articles here at Flutes Loot:
I don’t think you can use claws as off hand attacks. Two weapon fighting says you can attack with another weapon *in your hand*. The claws are not in your hand.
Up to you and your DM! My DM was perfectly fine with it because dual-wielding sucks in 5e and it’s notably weaker than a Barbarian with Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master feats.
Would you say that the new Longtooth + claws has the edge on all the other builds now? Three attacks at level 3. Four at level 5. All with no feats or multiclassing.
While it’s certainly an interesting option, you can get four attacks by juggling hand-axes in the way I described in the article (always have one in a hand, and stow/draw the other one each turn). No Shifter required!
I am currently building a “Path of the Beast” Barbarian with one level of Monk – that gives you an attack with your bonus action, so you have 3 claw attacks at level 4 and will get 4 attacks when you hit level 5 in Barbarian. There is overlap with Unarmored Defense, but that doesn’t really matter when you are getting an extra attack every turn over other builds. You can even throw in Polearm Master + Mobile if you really want, to get yet another extra attack from your reaction – just use a spear or quarterstaff (Monk weapons). And if the DM allows it, the Tunnel Fighter style from Fighter makes Polearm Master shine in situations where enemies lack a ranged attack.
The best part of this build is that it is finished at level 5, if you use a variant Human as your race to grab a free feat. But you can delay Mobile if you want another race, and will still be 99% operational at level 5 anyway. That level 15 levels that can be whatever class you want – you don’t particularly need any more levels in Barbarian or Monk after this, unless you like what they offer you.
I love making so many attacks with ease when I play Beast Barbarian. Are you sure the Monk level is necessary? You can get the same number of attacks at level five without it by using two-weapon fighting, as I described in the article. You’d use handaxes, but it achieves the same goal of getting a bonus action attack.
Could also use the double bladed scimitar to get a attack out of the bonus action instead of hand axes.
I don’t personally use those Eberron weapons, but they can be useful as you described!