Would it be balanced to replace the Wild Shape feature of a druid with Rage?
This homebrew is intended for a pacifist supporting spellcaster, cursed with a violent blood lust curse. This homebrew is intended to capture the feeling of the character loosing his temper(ranging from someone harassing him in a bar, to witnessing his friend knocked unconscious by an enemy), going berserk and after words dealing with the regret and self disgust caused by the violence. The character is intended to be effective in a fight while in a rage, but generally a more valuable resource while calm to provide incentive for the rest of the party to keep him calm.
Circle of the Bloodlust (tentative name)
Rage would function as it does for a barbarian but without access to Reckless Attack, Relentless Rage, and Persistent Rage. He could rage 2 times per short rest for the 2 Wild Shapes per short rest. Additionally he would only go into frenzied rages (from the Berserker subclass) by taking a point of exhaustion to represent the disgust at injuring a creature. Below are the Barbarian features he would have:
Rage
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:
- You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
- When you make a melee weapon attack using Strength, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table.
- You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
If you are able to cast spells, you can’t cast them or concentrate on them while raging.
Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action.
Once you have raged the number of times shown for your barbarian level in the Rages column of the Barbarian table, you must finish a long rest before you can rage again.
The subclass features are those of the Berserker subclass, with the exception of gaining the Berserker's 3rd level feature at 2nd level;
Frenzy
Starting when you choose this path at 2nd level, you can go into a frenzy when you rage. If you do so, for the duration of your rage you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of your turns after this one. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion.
Mindless Rage
Beginning at 6th level, you can’t be charmed or frightened while raging. If you are charmed or frightened when you enter your rage, the effect is suspended for the duration of the rage.
Intimidating Presence
Beginning at 10th level, you can use your action to frighten someone with your menacing presence. When you do so, choose one creature that you can see within 30 feet of you. If the creature can see or hear you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn. On subsequent turns, you can use your action to extend the duration of this effect on the frightened creature until the end of your next turn. This effect ends if the creature ends its turn out of line of sight or more than 60 feet away from you.
If the creature succeeds on its saving throw, you can’t use this feature on that creature again for 24 hours.
Retaliation
Starting at 14th level, when you take damage from a creature that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against that creature.
These are features from the the Druid class that interact with Wild Shape. For now, they'll simply replace Wild Shape with Rage with some tentative tweaks . I'm a bit conflicted on these ones so please give feedback.
Beast Spells
Beginning at 18th level, you can cast some of your druid spells while raging. To cast a spell while raging, you must make a concentration check with a DC of 10. If the initial concentration check fails, the spell fails, not consuming a spell slot. In addition, you are unable to provide material components for spells while raging, limiting you to spells with only verbal or somatic components.
If the spell requires concentration, you must make a concentration check at the beginning of your turn.
Archdruid (name needs tweaking)
At 20th level, you can rage an unlimited amount of times per long rest.