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Crit Hit The Giant | Adventures In D&D & TTRPGs
What's Changing With Barbarian's Path Of The Ancestral Guardian and Path of the Storm Herald?
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In the latest Unearthed Arcana update released on October 30th of this year, Wizards Of The Coast dropped 5 updated subclasses for community review and feedback. Two of these subclasses are for the Barbarian: Path Of The Ancestral Guardian (which will be renamed Path of the Spiritual Guardian) and Path Of The Storm Herald.
Here's an overview of what I saw in the updates:
- They are making damage scale increases tied to the Barbarian Rage Damage bonus (e.g. "a number of d6s per Rage Damage Bonus). This makes it consistently across all of the subclasses and easier to remember instead of having it arbitrarily assigned.
- The update to the name "Path of the Spiritual Guardian" is a great change to broaden the flavor and narrative approach for player's characters. Spirit guardians can be in the form of ancestors, bestial spirits, or elemental spirits.
- They're wanting to make the Spirit Guardian be less of a shield, which I think goes away from the flavor and intended theme of the subclass (e.g. splitting up Spiritual Protectors and changing Vengeful Spirits to an extra attack instead of adding damage to the Spirit Shield reaction).
- Path Of The Storm Herald no longer requires you to pick a permanent environment when you select it. Now, you select which environment aura you're activating every time you Rage (consistent with other subclasses, such as Path of the Wild Heart).
- They gave some love to the upgrades in Path of the Storm Herald, but Tundra still remains unimpressive (or at least not as impressive as Desert or Sea).
What are your thoughts? Let me know.
00:00 - Intro
01:03 - Path of the SPIRIT Guardian Review
10:35 - Path Of The Storm Herald Review
21:11 - Final Thoughts
- ARTICLE: Updated Subclasses Unearthed Arcana 2025 | https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/2092-designer-insights-from-unearthed-arcana-subclasses
- WATCH: "Broken Chains", a D&D Actual Play | https://www.twitch.tv/dndwithdee
- Where You Can Find & Support Me Online | https://linktr.ee/crithitthegiant
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