I've been doing some further mucking around with Barbarian, seeing how it's been implemented and any other quirks. I got a Barbarian to level 4 and picked up the Heavily Armoured feat: this gives you heavy armour proficiency and +1 STR. Which was good for me! At 8 Strength my rather-unusual Barbarian wouldn't have been able to pick up a Chain Mail (it'd be 'too heavy'). They can pick it up at 9 Strength, though, which in turn means I can actually equip it.

So, how were heavy armour restrictions implemented? First, Barbarians can activate Rage while in heavy armour. However, doing so gives you the Rage Impeded condition:

[Linked Image from i.ibb.co]

This is moreorless in line with a Rules-as-Written reading of the PHB.

However, there was something I was curious about, so at level 4 I also switched myself to a Bear Barbarian. I started a fight while armoured up, Raged, then had Shadowheart punch me.

Shadowheart would do 1 damage to me while Raging, instead of the usual 2 damage of a 12 Strength character. This would imply that the Bear Totem's damage resistance against (almost) everything still works, even in heavy armour. (Against a raging Wolf Barbarian, meanwhile, Shadowheart would continue to do 2 damage.)

This is also in line with a certain RAW reading of the PHB, albeit one that's usually considered to be against the Rules-as-Intended. It does make the Rage Impeded description misleading, though. I'm curious if this is fully intended.

("RAW Explanation")

So, PHB text for the Rage feature, granted at first level:
Quote
In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action.

While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren’t wearing heavy armor:

[Level 1 Barbarian rage goodies.]

So, as-written the Barbarian armour stipulations should only apply to what you get at level 1 (which of course happens to be everything at that point). Since Bear Barbarian just blanket gives you "resistance to all damage except psychic damage" while raging, and since it isn't one of "the following benefits", it theoretically applies while armoured up. I've never been in a game where this ruling was used, though.

Other findings:

  • Reckless Attack requires a melee weapon to activate, which means you can't use it when unarmed. Similarly, unarmed strikes don't get any extra Rage damage. Although this is a difference from the PHB, this is in line with the in-game description of Rage: the damage works "with melee and improvised weapons" and "when throwing objects".
  • Unarmoured Defense still applies if you're wearing gloves, helmets, etc. that require armour proficiencies (which I think is probably for the best). It's just a matter of whether you're wearing any armor in the body slot, the slot that usually determines your base AC.
  • Reckless Attack will work with quarterstaff enchanted with Shillelagh. After some testing, Rage bonus damage didn't seem to be applying, but I also noticed the same lack of damage applied to my Rapier +1 and dagger. They did appear to work with my handaxes. I'm left with a conundrum: I don't know why I was able to get the Rage damage in my last post. Are the rules for "Rage: Wolf's Heart" different to the rules for "Rage", was there some error on my part, or is there something I'm overlooking? (As an aside, if a Barbarian grabs it through Magic Initiate, Shillelagh uses Intelligence as the weapon's modifier.)
  • Wolf Totem works by applying the "Rage: Wolf's Heart Prety" condition to enemies, which is said to grant advantage to any melee attack by Barbarian's allies. As far as I can tell, "Barbarian's allies" includes the Barbarian themself.

Last edited by Lavaeolus; 17/02/22 01:02 PM.