Category: Class options

Barbarian: Path of the Warmachine

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

A while ago I started working on a barbarian subclass, one to go with my ranger Conclave of the Monkey Wrench. The Path of the Warmachine was to be its antithesis. Where one was supposed to pose resistance to a technologically advanced threat, the other was supposed to embrace the new technology. Or be embraced by it. It was all about enhancing the frail natural body with superior technology.

The resulting Path of the Warmachine offers survivability above all, with an immediate bonus to AC, and several situational options fueled by rage. The Directive is a built-in role-playing prompt. While the subclass is mostly combat-oriented, as one would expect from a barbarian path, there’s a lot of potential for RP.

Click the picture above or this link to get the full PDF.

The Path of the Warmachine is not part of any particular setting. “Canonically” a warmachine receives their chrome from an invading or at least encroaching foreign force. Either from a far away country, or a different planet/plane/dimension, whatever suits your needs. They might be a foreigner, or a local that has been turned and augmented.

There’s room for all kinds of backstories and events leading to becoming augmented, and also thereafter. You might struggle with the machine parts of your body, maybe it’s against some cultural or religios taboos. You are possibly a traitor to your country or planet.

My take on an augmented individual is far from modular or customizable. The feature options are different, but in the same vein. You don’t have the freedom you would have with Shadowrun cyberware.  But that never was the goal. Fifth edition D&D puts simplicity over complexity and modularity, and I wanted to stay in that line. There are surely other supplements that give you much more freedom and don’t limit the enhancements to a particular type of character. But for a novel twist on the barbarian, that fits a certain type of setting, the Path of the Warmachine is yours to use.

That being said, I’m working on a new class with much more options and versatility. I won’t be giving any release dates, but it’s in the works. I’m intending it to be usable both as a class on its own, and a multi-class candidate.

If you read this far thank you for your interest. Would you play a Warmachine barbarian? Let me know in the comments, and please share if you can, so I can get as much feedback as possible. Cheers!

Ranger: Conclave of the Monkey Wrench

UPDATED 05/08/2025

Finally some playable content! Below you can find the download link for a new class option for rangers, the Conclave of the Monkey Wrench. It is quite setting-specific, but I believe universal classes are not the way. After releasing its antithesis, the Path of the Warmachine for barbarian, I came back to finish this post.

Click the image to download the full PDF!

The Conclave of the Monkey Wrench was made with a specific scenario in mind. A more or less pre-industrial setting gets visited or outright invaded by a technologically advanced party. It might be an advanced nation from another continent (think Europeans in Earth’s modern period), aliens from another planet, or beings from other plane or dimension. The outsiders covet the local natural resources and start probing or exploiting them. Among the locals are those who would resist. Many of those would come from the nature-focused groups such as druid circles, rangers, and servants of nature deities.

The ranger of the Monkey Wrench conclave is your D&D equivalent of a noble ecoterrorist. Tree spiking, machine sabotage, escaping from pursuers. Ranger is a class that suits this role well thanks to their versatility. It only needed some anti-tech flavour.

The Conclave of the Monkey Wrench has several points of focus. First of all it aims to confront machinery. Whether in the form of various constructs or installations used for resource mining, you have advantages on dealing with them. At higher levels you also embody the reduce-reuse-recycle philosophy by creating weapons out of destroyed constructs. They should not be too powerful for a 11th level character, but might provide some needed damage variety. And the 15th level feature, Short Circuit, expands your sabotage options in multiple ways – range, scale, magnitude.

Next there is the mobility aspect. The 7th level feature lets you pull off hit and run stunts in the environment where you need it the most. Combined with spells like Jump, that are already at your ranger’s disposal, this makes for a very mobile character.

Last but not least I wanted to build this subclass a bit differently than the official ones. I didn’t want the generic combination of conclave spells and three features. The theme lends itself quite well to having a signature tool, the Monkey Wrench. The exact shape and stats can vary, you can make it into a sonic screwdriver for all I care. Just use the stats for a dagger if you need to hit something with it. The Monkey Wrench should in any case be a tool first and a weapon second. Ideally with ties to the technology you’re up against.

You can write in the comments what are your thoughts about this subclass. Would you play it? Is it playable? Let me know, and please share if you liked it!