*ADVENTURE IS CALLING! If you have a craving to play D&D or want to experiment with a new character, please come to our Interactive Campaign!* th-cam.com/channels/9psrDU3oftnU49mrbUNWLA.html
I have used extreme heat and cold semi-regularly, with a couple of variances depending on how cold it is, exactly. Extreme altitude is also something I homebrewed and use, and one of the most memorable arcs in a campaign I ran was a 20000 foot mountain the party had to climb. It was so much fun to run, and apparently my players really enjoyed it too since it gets brought up so frequently and so fondly between them
I made a lizardfolk(reskinned into a lamia) and played her as an electric eel in battles. To me it's about roleplaying, not efficiency and damn, this class delivered.
*Critical Role spoiler* 9:05 "Drowning in 5e is pretty damn hard" Me: gets flashbacks to that one shot where Percy and Vex were drowning at their wedding.
The flavor of Storm Herald is extremely versatile and can be interpreted in many different and unique ways due to how simple the idea of channeling the power of a storm can be when put into the context of Sea, Tundra, and Desert, but I think the reason few people actually choose to play the class is because of the very lacking numbers on their actual abilities and other Barbarian subclasses having far more power early on and maybe even widening the gap further at higher levels. Storm Herald has some very stiff competition with Wild Magic, Totem Warrior, Zealot, and Ancestral Guardian. Wild Magic has 2 abilities at level 3 and the main one, Wild Surge, has an effect that is basically the exact same as the Sea Aura but it deals force damage and can hit multiple enemies instead of just one, and then they have the other 7 possible wild surge effects such as dealing 1d12 necrotic of every enemy within 30 ft of you and gaining temporary hitpoints, Misty Step as a bonus action for your entire rage duration, making your weapon magical on top of dealing force damage and being throwable, 1d6 force damage to anyone that hits you, +1 AC for you and every party member within 10 feet of you, making 15 ft around you difficult terrain for just enemies, and being able to blind enemies. Then there's Totem Warrior, which is self explanatory as to why someone would choose it over Storm Herald. Zealot gets 1d6+Barbarian level damage on an attack every turn which is just way better damage output that scales extremely high to the point that a Zealot Barbarian could get a god damn +30 flat to an attacks damage at Level 20 having a 24 Strength and Great Weapon Master and a +3 Weapon. Ancestral Guardian can make an enemy have disadvantage on attacks against anyone except the Barbarian and even if they do hit your allies have resistance to the damage. All the other Barbarian Subclasses can just do what Storm Herald does but better, leaving flavor and cool factor as its only redeeming quality.
In a campaign of Icewind Dale Frostmaiden, as much of a frozen wasteland as you can imagine. First session DM has already given us a level of exhaustion for falling through some ice water and having to camp out on the frozen lake, right before our first big encounter. Doing great and I don't want to experience that for the rest of the campaign, not to mention all the frost creatures that are gonna spank the party. Tundra here we go, no cold damage for me. This path is super situational, but adds great flavor if you know exactly the type of climate you're going to be dealing with.
Choosing one and then only being able to chose again at level up sucks... I'd rather have a random one on every rage, at least you can try to adapt if you're unlucky by ending rage and reactivating, so you're not stuck for a long time with something that might not be useful as you thought it would be.
I really feel like the Storm Herald could use a rework. Some issues are i feel pretty easy to fix. - the prof damage being changed to half your level rounded up (or down depending on if you want it to still start at 2) - letting you choose your storm when you activate your rage and reactivate your rage to change it as a bonus action. -id say considering later changes id make it so you select a number of creatures equal to your prof bonus for dessert and tundra and maybe half as much for sea. Then there are hard ones. - sea..... It just lacks a identity, I'd say make it all about enemy manipulation and freedom of movement, making it's shock maybe act like a shocking grasp. - I'd make Sea storm shield for sea maybe make you and allies in your aura unhindered (you won't get knocked prone, have your speed reduced, or be forcefully moved) when walking on slick surfaces or under the effects of strong wind or currents instead of water breathing. - I'd also merge this feature with the ability that applies it to your allys. They are both mid and take up half of your abilities, and most of the ones you'll commonly see. To balance this and avoid issues with earlier changes this ability is active while you rage only. I'd honestly leave the final ability untouched with the exception of moving it to the now free 10th level slot. I'd say that this is the hard one but a potentially fun one just since this is adding a new feature. Adding a new effect per aura (maybe best done as limited uses equal to your con mod per long, maybe short rest) is a good direction to go personally. - Dessert: let's you attempt to blind any creature damaged by it until the start of your next turn, the target must make a con saving throw equal to 10+your prof+your con bonus, save or suck. Dose go against the damagedamagedamage identity of dessert but feels fitting for a sandstorm. - Sea: when you or a ally staring their turn in your aura moves they gain a fly speed of 15ft in addition to their current movement speed. The fly speed ends when you or your allies turn ends. - Tundra: select a number of willing creatures in your aura equal to your prof bonus, creatures affected by this ability subtract your prof. Bounus from the next attack that targets them. While this buff is active critical hits scored against them deal standard damage.
Fun fact, knocking a target prone, or being knocked prone is actually better/worse(depending on which side of the equation you fall on) the more movement you have, take the Monk for example a regular character with 30ft movement has to spend 15 to get up, a Monk with 50ft movement has to spend 25 to get up from prone, unless they have 90ft move speed they're not outrunning a Barb with 40ft move speed.
I wanna do 14 levels storm herald all desert choices, and combine it with 6 levels wildfire druid aka RAGING WILDFIRE Put it on a dragon born for that extra redundancy
*ADVENTURE IS CALLING! If you have a craving to play D&D or want to experiment with a new character, please come to our Interactive Campaign!*
th-cam.com/channels/9psrDU3oftnU49mrbUNWLA.html
I have used extreme heat and cold semi-regularly, with a couple of variances depending on how cold it is, exactly. Extreme altitude is also something I homebrewed and use, and one of the most memorable arcs in a campaign I ran was a 20000 foot mountain the party had to climb. It was so much fun to run, and apparently my players really enjoyed it too since it gets brought up so frequently and so fondly between them
I made a lizardfolk(reskinned into a lamia) and played her as an electric eel in battles. To me it's about roleplaying, not efficiency and damn, this class delivered.
*Critical Role spoiler*
9:05 "Drowning in 5e is pretty damn hard"
Me: gets flashbacks to that one shot where Percy and Vex were drowning at their wedding.
The flavor of Storm Herald is extremely versatile and can be interpreted in many different and unique ways due to how simple the idea of channeling the power of a storm can be when put into the context of Sea, Tundra, and Desert, but I think the reason few people actually choose to play the class is because of the very lacking numbers on their actual abilities and other Barbarian subclasses having far more power early on and maybe even widening the gap further at higher levels. Storm Herald has some very stiff competition with Wild Magic, Totem Warrior, Zealot, and Ancestral Guardian. Wild Magic has 2 abilities at level 3 and the main one, Wild Surge, has an effect that is basically the exact same as the Sea Aura but it deals force damage and can hit multiple enemies instead of just one, and then they have the other 7 possible wild surge effects such as dealing 1d12 necrotic of every enemy within 30 ft of you and gaining temporary hitpoints, Misty Step as a bonus action for your entire rage duration, making your weapon magical on top of dealing force damage and being throwable, 1d6 force damage to anyone that hits you, +1 AC for you and every party member within 10 feet of you, making 15 ft around you difficult terrain for just enemies, and being able to blind enemies. Then there's Totem Warrior, which is self explanatory as to why someone would choose it over Storm Herald. Zealot gets 1d6+Barbarian level damage on an attack every turn which is just way better damage output that scales extremely high to the point that a Zealot Barbarian could get a god damn +30 flat to an attacks damage at Level 20 having a 24 Strength and Great Weapon Master and a +3 Weapon. Ancestral Guardian can make an enemy have disadvantage on attacks against anyone except the Barbarian and even if they do hit your allies have resistance to the damage. All the other Barbarian Subclasses can just do what Storm Herald does but better, leaving flavor and cool factor as its only redeeming quality.
In a campaign of Icewind Dale Frostmaiden, as much of a frozen wasteland as you can imagine. First session DM has already given us a level of exhaustion for falling through some ice water and having to camp out on the frozen lake, right before our first big encounter. Doing great and I don't want to experience that for the rest of the campaign, not to mention all the frost creatures that are gonna spank the party. Tundra here we go, no cold damage for me.
This path is super situational, but adds great flavor if you know exactly the type of climate you're going to be dealing with.
Choosing one and then only being able to chose again at level up sucks... I'd rather have a random one on every rage, at least you can try to adapt if you're unlucky by ending rage and reactivating, so you're not stuck for a long time with something that might not be useful as you thought it would be.
I really feel like the Storm Herald could use a rework. Some issues are i feel pretty easy to fix.
- the prof damage being changed to half your level rounded up (or down depending on if you want it to still start at 2)
- letting you choose your storm when you activate your rage and reactivate your rage to change it as a bonus action.
-id say considering later changes id make it so you select a number of creatures equal to your prof bonus for dessert and tundra and maybe half as much for sea.
Then there are hard ones.
- sea..... It just lacks a identity, I'd say make it all about enemy manipulation and freedom of movement, making it's shock maybe act like a shocking grasp.
- I'd make Sea storm shield for sea maybe make you and allies in your aura unhindered (you won't get knocked prone, have your speed reduced, or be forcefully moved)
when walking on slick surfaces or under the effects of strong wind or currents instead of water breathing.
- I'd also merge this feature with the ability that applies it to your allys. They are both mid and take up half of your abilities, and most of the ones you'll commonly see. To balance this and avoid issues with earlier changes this ability is active while you rage only.
I'd honestly leave the final ability untouched with the exception of moving it to the now free 10th level slot.
I'd say that this is the hard one but a potentially fun one just since this is adding a new feature. Adding a new effect per aura (maybe best done as limited uses equal to your con mod per long, maybe short rest) is a good direction to go personally.
- Dessert: let's you attempt to blind any creature damaged by it until the start of your next turn, the target must make a con saving throw equal to 10+your prof+your con bonus, save or suck. Dose go against the damagedamagedamage identity of dessert but feels fitting for a sandstorm.
- Sea: when you or a ally staring their turn in your aura moves they gain a fly speed of 15ft in addition to their current movement speed. The fly speed ends when you or your allies turn ends.
- Tundra: select a number of willing creatures in your aura equal to your prof bonus, creatures affected by this ability subtract your prof. Bounus from the next attack that targets them. While this buff is active critical hits scored against them deal standard damage.
Fun fact, knocking a target prone, or being knocked prone is actually better/worse(depending on which side of the equation you fall on) the more movement you have, take the Monk for example a regular character with 30ft movement has to spend 15 to get up, a Monk with 50ft movement has to spend 25 to get up from prone, unless they have 90ft move speed they're not outrunning a Barb with 40ft move speed.
I wanna do 14 levels storm herald all desert choices, and combine it with 6 levels wildfire druid aka RAGING WILDFIRE
Put it on a dragon born for that extra redundancy
Also be a scourge aasimar for all that aoe damage
Dessert barb + scourge aasimar = The Sun
Dispel magic is still a danger.
Very nice 😍💋 💝💖♥️❤️