Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Barbarian Guide | New 5E Options
What a crazy new rulebook! Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is a really incredible book from WOTC that gives all players a ton of new options. The Barbarian is included in that pile, though the Barbarian got less than most casters. Even so, the new class features and awesome subclasses will be more than enough to satisfy creative character builders. Let’s see what the Barbarian can get in our Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything 5E guide!
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Barbarian Guide
The Barbarian essentially only got access to a few new class features and subclasses. Still, new class features is something that WOTC hasn’t done yet! So hopefully, they keep experimenting with these brand new class features in the future, and these two things still have some awesome implications for your new Barbarian builds!
Optional Barbarian Class Features
The Barbarian gains two class features that you and your DM can talk about adding to your character. These class features are separate; your DM can approve one or the other at will.
Primal Knowledge
At level 3 and level 10, you may become proficient in another skill from the Barbarian list of skills. As a reminder, this list includes Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Survival. So, at level 10, you have 4 skills just from natural class proficiencies but limited to this list.
That’s not bad at all! You can grab a ton of skills and become more useful out of combat. Sure, you’re not keeping up with a Rogue, but you might stop just sitting in a corner until someone needs an Athletics check.
Instinctive Pounce
The same level that you get Feral Instinct, you get to move half your movement speed when you Rage. That can be useful! The turn that you rage, you can move 1.5x your movement. Then you are more likely to swing your weapon! Admittedly, this can sometimes not quite be enough to get you into melee. If you’re feeling like you’re not too helpful in fights because of getting out-ranged, talk to your DM about this.
New Subclasses
In addition to our two class features, we also have two new options for a class archetype. Your choices are the Beast and Wild Magic.
Path of the Beast
The Beast Barbarian relies on a natural weapon to apply debuffs and status effects. Rather than strictly improving your durability while you rage, the Beast increases your utility by adding natural attacks with special effects, giving you a special movement speed, and debuffing enemies while buffing allies. They work well as a tank, of course, but they are almost a pseudo-caster with how strange their natural weapons become.
Path of Wild Magic
Wild Magic is as crazy as it appears! Unfortunately, most of your archetype is focused on a d8 table of random magical effects that don’t scale as your Barbarian level increases. This table will brutalize low-level encounters and then quickly become outleveled and just a funny bonus action. Thankfully, the Wild Magic barbarian has a resource-based, 10 minute buff to attack rolls or ability checks. That’s pretty fantastic, and the Barbarian can even work with casters to return spell slots if they’d prefer. It’s an incredibly odd utility build that may be more powerful than the table appears… Though it’s certainly stronger the lower level you are, if you’re feeling lucky!
Wrapping Up Our Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Barbarian Guide
The Barbarian got two stellar optional class features to help patch up weaknesses, and two good subclasses. While this might be a light treatment compared to other classes, the Barbarian is still quite potent with Tasha’s as a supplement. If you’ve been holding out on grabbing new 5E books, this one is a really great choice for a buy!
