Tactician (Barbarian Alternate Class) Playtest / Advice

[BigP4nda]

I've had the idea for a class that focuses on Support in a nonmagical way for a long time now, and it has evolved since.
I chose to make it an Alternate class for the Barbarian since mechanically it was very similar, thematically it is practically opposite though.

I would like for anybody to playtest the character and let me know how it turns out, create some characters with this class and compare it to others, I would like to make sure everything balances out well enough.

I would also like any advice and constructive criticism you can offer on what to add, change, or clarify.

Because of my formatting it would look very weird on the forums so here is a link to the word document

Thanks in advance!

[Ciaran Barnes]

Why did you choose to make a barbarian alt instead of a new class?

[BigP4nda]

I started off trying to make a new class, I kept coming up with ideas for features and abilities, looking at other classes like the Cavalier, Inquisitor, Tactician archetype for Fighter, etc. for inspiration and aid. The more I put into the idea the less I liked it, and I just kept trying to see how to make it work without completely screwing up the fluff and while not swerving too far from the core mechanics of the game. And one day I came up with the idea of the Focus ability to be a lot like the rage class feature, but adding the bonus to Int and Wis instead. I just kept going off of that and soon I realized that mechanically it would just make more sense to make it an alternate class for the barbarian.

[BigP4nda]

I would really like to playtest this if anybody is willing to run an encounter at least. Id greatly appreciate it

[Htennek]

Why make this a barbarian alternate class instead of Fighter

The Fighter fits this so much better both fluff and crunch wise that a barbarian.

That being said at my table I would ban this strictly for the fact that it makes no sense to me having barbarian as the base and not the fighter ( or cavalier honestly)

I might be on my own here but the heat and soul of a clas to me means something and a tactician goes against everything that a barbarian represents.

[Ciaran Barnes]

The urban barbarian goes against everything a barbarian represents to me, but its a popular one. Rather than making this a barbarian alternate class, you should instead use the barbarian as a rough structure and not feel beholden to keeping too much the same. Its kind of what you're doing already.

[BigP4nda]

Htennek wrote:

Why make this a barbarian alternate class instead of Fighter

The Fighter fits this so much better both fluff and crunch wise that a barbarian.

That being said at my table I would ban this strictly for the fact that it makes no sense to me having barbarian as the base and not the fighter ( or cavalier honestly)

I might be on my own here but the heat and soul of a clas to me means something and a tactician goes against everything that a barbarian represents.

As I said it is the base because of mechanics, not thematics. It fits because it is the opposite, you can't multiclass classes with their alternates, and that keeps barbarians from being tacticians.