Path of Stone- Barbarian Subclass

# Path of Stone

The dragonborn stands a foot above his allies, walking out from the group toward the still, towering beast. As his footsteps pound across the ground, bits of stone and rock crawl up his body, coating him in a protective shell. A stone axe appears in his hands, impossibly long and immensely heavy. With a thundering charge he rushes the creature.

Churning ground surrounds the small halfing, coated in a stone carapace. The tall tielfing near him strides into the churning ground, and it levels for her at the halfling's will. Stone begins to coat her as well, providing a hard obstruction to oncoming attacks. A skeleton swings at the halfling, but he smashes into it with a heavy stone hammer. A craggy protrusion juts out from the hammer shattering the clacking bones.

Path of the Stone Barbarians have an innate connection to the earth and rocks. Their control over it is rough, but quite effective, giving them the ability to use the stones around them for defense or offense as needed. Stone and rocks seem to shape to their will, appearing out of thin air if needed, and Stone Barbarians use it to devastating effect.

## Building a Stone Barbarian

When you build a Stone Barbarian you will have a little more leeway in choosing playstyles, or changing them up, due to your *stone forming* cantrip at 3rd level.

## Playing a Stone Barbarian

Generally, you'll play your barbarian typical of most barbarians, focusing on an up close and personal fighting style, using Earthen Shell to absorb damage or expending those temporary hit points for temporary damage boosts.

When you reach 10th and 14th level, you'll benefit from staying close to allies when possible, or using your Tectonic Shove and Stone Garden to cut off enemies from reach allies that would prefer to stay out of reach.

#### Path of Crimson
| Barbarian Level  | Feature |
|:---:|:-----------:|
|  3rd  | Earthen Shell, Stone Arms|
|  6th  | Tectonic Shove |
|  10th | Craggy Bulwark |
|  14th | Stone Garden |

### Earthen Shell

Starting at 3rd level, when you enter your Rage you form a protective shield of stone around you. You gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier + half your Barbarian level (rounding down.)

Additionally, when you hit a creature with a melee attack while you have any temporary hit points provided by this subclass, you may choose to expend any number of those temporary hit points, dealing bludgeoning damage equal to the expended amount to the target creature.

### Stone Arms

You learn the *stone forming* spell, and may cast this spell using your Constitution modifier as your spellcasting ability. You may also cast this spell as part of the Bonus Action used to Rage, maintaining any stone weapons created as part of the casting.

Additionally, you ignore difficult terrain caused by stone, rock, or uneven terrain.

### Tectonic Shove

Starting at 6th level, if you hit an enemy with two melee attacks on your turn, you can attempt to Shove the creature as a free action.

### Craggy Bulwark

Starting at 10th level, you can extend your Earthen Shell to allies near you. When you enter your Rage, choose a number of creatures within 10 feet of you equal to your proficiency bonus. They gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier + half your Barbarian level (rounding down.)

They can also choose to expend any temporary hit points they gain from your subclass features to deal damage as stated in Earthen Shell.

### Stone Garden

Starting at 14th level, when you are raging, the area within 10 feet of you is difficult terrain for creatures of your choice.

Creatures of your choice (including you) gain +2 to their AC while within your Stone Garden.

\pagebreakNum

## Spells

#### Stone Forming
*transmutation cantrip*
___
- **Classes:** Druid, Occultist, Sorcerer, Warlock
- **Casting Time:** 1 bonus action
- **Range:** Touch
- **Components:** V, S
- **Duration:**  Instantaneous

You touch a stone surface or the ground, and call forth stone that shapes itself to your command. You can make any roughly shaped Small or Tiny item from the stone, including functional simple or martial melee weapons (for Medium or smaller creatures). Items made this way lose any magical durability after one hour, and become easily broken if they would not normally be functional in that shape.

## Feats

### Quick to Anger
*Prerequisite: Barbarian*

When you take bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage you can use your reaction to go into a Rage. The resistance from Rage applies to the triggering attack if applicable.

Additionally, you can make a melee weapon attack as part of the same reaction

### Breaking Strikes
*Prerequisite: 4th level*

You become proficient at breaking your enemies, gaining the following benefits.

- Increase your Strength or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
- Once per turn, when you hit a creature with a melee attack, it must succeed on a Strength saving throw (DC is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier) or be shoved 5 feet away from you, provided there is an unoccupied space available and the creature is no more than one size larger than you.

#### Thunderous Blow
*Active Ability (Action)*

When you take the Attack action on your turn, you may replace one of the attacks with a thundering blow against a target within 5 feet of you.

The target must make a Strength saving throw (DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier.) On a failure, the target takes 2d6 + your Strength modifier bludgeoning damage and is either pushed 10 feet away from you or is knocked prone (your choice.) The target's movement ends early if it collides with another creature or object. Both the target and anything it collides with take additional bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 for every 10 feet the target moved. On a success, the target takes half the initial damage and suffers no other effects.

The number of d6 for the initial blow increases by one when your proficiency bonus increases (with the total number of d6 equaling your proficiency bonus.) The distance you can shove a creature increases at higher levels, to 15 feet at 5th level, 20 feet at 9th level, 25 feet at 13th level, and 30 feet at 17th level.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

<div class="descriptive">
Path of Stone Barbarians may also take the <strong>Enduring Stone</strong> feat available to Stoneborn at 4th level. For more see <a href="https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-NYyV0SGOwUZJ96xQSWt">here</a>.
</div>

### Enduring Stone
*Prerequisite: 4th level Stoneborn*

- Increase your Strength or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20. 
- When an attack against you is a critical hit you may negate the critical hit, making it a normal hit instead. You may do this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining uses on a long rest.

#### Stone Carapace
Active Ability (Reaction)

As a reaction to being struck by an attack, you may choose to summon a shield of stone around you (made of earth or similar materials around you, summoning the material if there is none). Your AC increases by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus until the end of your next turn, potentially causing the triggering attack to miss. When a creature hits you with an attack within 5 feet of you, the creature takes 2d6 piercing damage. The number of d6 increases by one when your proficiency bonus increases (with total number of d6 equaling your proficiency bonus.)

Once you use this feature you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

\pagebreakNum

## Stone Barbarian Quirks
The following are some optional quirks for a player to choose from.

| **d6**  | **Quirk** |
|:---:|:-----------:|
|  1  | You sink like a stone in water, and were never taught to swim |
|  2  | You grind your teeth when using your stone shaping abilities. |
|  3  | You are always a little dusty or dirty no matter how often you bathe. |
|  4  | You have a heart of stone, in a good way though! You are the emotional rock for your loved ones. |
|  5  | You prefer your food crushed or mashed, nothing too hard or brittle. |
|  6  | You enjoy being rocked to sleep, the calm swaying motion of a hammock or water knocks you right out. |

> #### Credits
> Art: Dalton Davidson
>
> Subclass: [A Tiny Living Room](patreon.com/ATLR)

> Includes spells from Kibbles' Casting Compendium 2.0 by KibblesTasty Homebrew LLC, which is licensed CC-BY and available [here](https://www.kthomebrew.com/krd "KibblesTasty KRD").
>
> - Spells from KCC includes; stone forming.

> This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of
the Coast LLC and available at <https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document>. The
SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
legalcode.

## Thanks!!

Thank you for checking out this subclass, I would love feedback if you have any. You can comment or message me on our [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/ATLR).

### Shard Tabletop
I also made a Shard package for this content, which you can access [here](https://marketplace.shardtabletop.com/m/product?pub=A%20Tiny%20Living%20Room&id=nusj1dejb7d6xx5q). Let me know if you have any comments on it on their Discord server (@CoolHandLuke140).

\columnbreak

## Change Log

#### V0.5
Reformatted the end of the document, cleaned up a few abilities and added the "on success" effects to Thunderous Blow.

#### V0.4
- Added quirks

#### V0.3
- Added feats. Breaker is new and meant to replace the Crusher feat as well as being very thematic for this subclass. Quick to Anger is from my previous Path of Crimson subclass, but added here for ease. Enduring Stone is from my Elemental Expanded Options, but also added here for easy reference.
- Added art

Just need the quirks now, and it is pretty much done!

#### V0.2
- Made changes to Stone Garden to provide AC boost instead of additional temp HP.
- Cleaning up formatting, names, and grammar in a lot of places.
- Added flavor text and build/playstyle recommendations. 
- Added stone forming text

Current thoughts are I might change the order of Stone Garden and Craggy Bulwark. I just like Craggy Bulwark a lot more, and think it is likely strong and so should be the higher level feature. But I also would like to see that put into a level that would see more use in most groups, which often don't get into the higher ends of tier 3-4.

#### V0.1

Very early draft, just jotting ideas down right now.

Names are all just placeholders, but felt they read better than "3rd level feature", "6th level feature", etc.

The goal with this subclass is something that draws the feeling of a Barbarian that protects allies with the powers of the earth, and retributively punishes enemies that dare hurt them.

For Stone Garden, I may remove the Temp HP (since there's already plenty of that in this class) and give an AC Bonus to creatures of your choice within your garden. Probably low like 2, but that is still substantial for other martials. Maybe too substantial though, so I haven't grown on that idea much. I like the difficult terrain though, so I want that to stay regardless.