The Storm Herald has always been kind of a niche subclass option for Barbarians, and unless the playtest changes things, it always will be.
Barbarians have a veritable feast in the latest round of subclass playtests in Unearthed Arcana. With two different subclasses in the works, there seems to be a renewed focus on the beefiest of boys. However, I don’t know that the revised version of the Path of the Storm Herald crawls out of the niche build hole any better than the pre-playtest version did either.
What I mean to say is that the Path of the Storm Herald isn’t exactly bad – in some ways, it’s worse, by being very middle-of-the-road. In its original incarnation, this was a Barbarian that was all about summoning up a “storm aura” that let you mostly deal irrelevant damage, and if you were lucky, you’d eventually grant resistance to fire, lightning, or cold damage to everyone in your party.
In the new Path of the Storm Herald playtest, the damage has improved slightly. But I’m not so sure that it’s done cooking. That’s what feedback forms are for, though. So let’s take a look!
Path of the Storm Herald Playtest – A Barbarian Who Rages Like A Storm
The key feature of the Storm Herald Barbarian is right there in the name. Your Rage lets you summon a storm of primal power around you, which sounds extremely cool. However, the execution is a little bit lackluster as you’ll soon see. Especially since the core idea of this class is that you “harness your Rage into a mantle of primal magic” that you can tap into to create “powerful magic effects.” The word “powerful” is doing a lot of stretching here.
But first we should get an understanding of the way the class worked in 5E. When WotC design was even more leery of automatic damage than they are now. You could maybe deal 2 damage per round whenever you went into a rage and/or spent a Bonus Action to do so to start with. And that was fine, except if you know Barbarians, you know they often need that Bonus Action free for things like a Heavy Weapon bonus attack.
Comparatively, the new Path of the Storm Herald Barbarian playtest is a lot more powerful. The core feature Storm Aura has been buffed from the 5E version. In the Unearthed Arcana, you summon a much more potent storm of primal magic. In a nutshell, when you go into a Rage, you can pick a storm: Desert, Sea, or Tundra. Depending on what you pick, you get an extra bonus effect.
Pick Desert and you’ll get to deal fire damage to everyone nearby. Pick Sea, and you can conjure up a bolt of lightning as a Bonus Action. And with Tundra, you get to reduce the damage of creatures caught in your aura. Each effect now scales with your Rage Damage bonus. So, for instance, the Desert aura lets you deal your Rage Damage bonus in d4s to each creature in a 10-foot aura around you.
That’s not bad! Especially considering the progression used to be a flat damage number. The desert aura in 5E dealt a measly 2 damage. And then at 5th level it scaled up to 3, then at 10th level 4 whole damage for your Bonus Action. Now you deal 2d4 all the way up to 6d4. Which isn’t bad – but by the time you’re 17th level, your Bonus Action will likely do well more than 15 points of damage. And it only works if creatures around you fail a save.
Same goes for the other effects. The bolt of lightning now deals 2d6-6d6 damage, and the target can save for half. While the Tundra reduces a creature’s damage rolls by 2d4-6d4. Which isn’t bad, but it’s only one damage roll and again, it only works if they fail their save. Compare that to the Spiritual Guardian’s Rage ability, which lets them cut damage in half. And then they can later reduce it by even more. It just doesn’t feel good in comparison.
Storm Herald At Higher Levels
At higher levels, the Path of the Storm Herald playtest plays with stronger bonuses. Though again, I don’t know that it goes far enough. At level 6, the Storm Soul ability starts granting you benefits even when you aren’t Raging. You gain a boon based on whatever storm you picked with your last rage. Desert grants you Fire resistance and lets you start fires. Sea lets you resist Lightning damage and you can breathe underwater and gain a Swim Speed. And Tundra lets you freeze water in a 5-foot cube and gives you resistance to Cold Damage.
At level 10, Shielding Storm is kind of a nothing burger. All it does is let you share your Storm Shield with any creature of your choice within your Aura. Which isn’t bad, until you realize that the Desert aura’s fire damage applies to each creature in your aura. And sure, you can exempt one creature from it, but that still means you’re dealing fire damage to your friends to grant them resistance to fire.
Then at level 14, we have the capstone feature, Raging Storm. This is, at last, an upgrade for the Storm Aura. And what an upgrade. The Desert Aura now sets foes on fire, so they take an extra 1d4 fire damage per round. Sea’s lightning bolt can chain to another target. And Tundra lets you also deal 2d4 cold damage and halve the speed of creatures that fail their save.
It’s a great feature, but it feels like it comes a little late. Especially since you’re wading through so many little bump in the road features on the way. But that’s just me. You should definitely take it for a spin for your own sake. And then let WotC know what you think when the feedback survey opens tomorrow!
The restraint it must have taken WotC not to type out the phrase “Desert Storm” when writing this subclass!
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