[RPG] How to balance the Zealot barbarian’s Warrior of the Gods feature in a setting without resurrection

balancebarbarianclass-featurednd-5ehomebrew-review

In our homebrew universe, we don't have resurrection (as we feel it cheapens character death, etc. – don't really want to get into that debate). Spells like revivify, raise dead, and resurrection simply aren't on anyone's spell lists. They don't exist.

But then Xanathar's Guide to Everything includes the Path of the Zealot barbarian (p. 11), which has the class feature Warrior of the Gods, which is all about resurrection:

At 3rd level, your soul is marked for endless battle. If a spell, such as raise dead, has the sole effect of restoring you to life (but not undeath), the caster doesn’t need material components to cast the spell on you.

In a universe without resurrection, this class is now missing a key feature. I want to come up with something to replace it that is still balanced and has a similar flavour but that doesn't involve resurrection.

I've come up with this:

At 3rd level, your soul is marked for endless battle. If you drop to 0 hit points, you have advantage on death saving throws, and any creature that attacks you in melee whilst you are at 0 hit points must roll a natural 20 on their attack roll to score a critical hit against you; otherwise, the melee attack is considered a normal hit, and you only suffer one death saving throw failure.

Compared to the original feature, is my proposed modification of the feature balanced?

Best Answer

Thematic Equivalence

The current third level ability Warrior of the Gods states that your soul is marked for endless battle. The functional aspect of this is that when you die and someone casts a Resurrection type spell there is no material cost for the casting. This allows the zealot to more easily return to keep fighting for their God(s).

In a world without resurrection, what can give this flavor without making the Zealot overpowered?

My idea riffs off Yakk's, but introduces some additional consequences. While I really liked the idea presented, I think that it is much more powerful than the original.

The original still requires a caster and for them to expend at least a 3rd level spell slot - if not higher. Additionally, unless Revivify (PHB, 272) is cast, there will be a fairly steep mechanical penalty for the resurrection. Namely:

The target takes a -4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. Every time the target finishes a long rest, the penalty is reduced by 1 until it disappears.

In order to balance the Zealot's 3rd level ability in a world without resurrection, similar penalties need to be incurred. The following is my suggestion:

Warrior of the Gods

At 3rd level, your soul is marked for endless battle. When you take damage that reduced you to 0 HP or suffer and effect that would cause you to die while raging, you may instead use a Rage to return to life with 1 HP and gain temporary HP equal to 1/2 your maximum HP value that lasts for 1 minute. You will also be exhaustion level (4). Once you do this, you may not use this again until you have completed a long rest.

Exhaustion Level 4 (PHB, 291) has the following effects:

  1. Disadvantage on ability checks
  2. Speed Halved
  3. Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws
  4. Hit point maximum Halved

The balance explained

In the original ability, it was required to find or have a caster who had the necessary spell slot available. When coming back (except for Revivify), the penalties are also very big. Allowing the Barbarian to bring themselves back is a big boost, as it becomes an on-demand ability. In order to mitigate this, I have set up a once per long rest mechanic. This way, the Zealot is immediately back up, but with many of the penalties typically given to a creature who has been resurrected.

Related Topic