Path of the Experiment Barbarian: Crooked Moon D&D 5e Optimisation Guide

Augment your rage with serums with this experimental barbarian subclass.

At a glance

Path of the experiment features

Alchemical experiments – Level 3

This is a ribbon feature. Alchemist’s supplies proficiency and the ability to craft healing potions with them is fine, but it’s just a bonus really.

Volatile serum – Level 3

This is more what the path of the experiment is about. There’s no extra cost for activating these as they activate alongside your rage so you might as well always have one active.

If you need to swap serums, it’s easy and costs nothing other than a bonus action. Unless you’re dual wielding, this shouldn’t be in high demand for a barbarian.

All the options here are pretty good, but as a general rule of thumb, I’d go with ferocity when dealing with crowds or difficult terrain, monstrosity when dealing with high AC enemies (for the increased accuracy) or when trying to keep enemies from escaping your range and reconstruction for longer combats where you need to stay standing for longer. You could also use monstrosity if you want to grapple some bigger creatures too.

They’re all pretty useful generally anyway, and if in doubt, durability (through reconstruction) will always be a good shout.

Augmentation compounds – Level 6

Basically, you get another enhancement to your rages that works in the same way as your volatile serum. Again, you might as well always have this active with something, but I’d roughly pick augmentations based on the following; stimulated senses against invisible creatures or in darkness, maddening fumes for keeping enemy attacks focused on you and corrosive expulsion for dealing with crowds.

Reactive catalyst – Level 10

This is mainly for turn 1 of combat if you’ve not had a chance to take a turn and activate your rage. I’d always use your reaction to do this though, and it actually spares your bonus action on your first turn ironically.

This won’t protect you from conditions once your rage is active. Though technically, you could end your rage then initiate it again the next turn, but that basically means wasting a turn to make that happen. I think for this reason though, this feature will rarely protect from conditions as it’s really a first round protection, and only before you take a turn.

Advantage on constitution saving throws is a handy bonus.

Biochemical admixture – Level 14

Doubling up on volatile serum effects is strong and I’d be tempted to just keep reconstruction on for the constant healing and an aggressive option. This is especially because the other part of this feature causes D12 damage to creatures that hit you within 5ft once per turn. This means you really want to be directing attacks against you (so the healing will be important.

If you combine this with maddening fumes, you become very difficult to get away from, but also dangerous to attack. This makes the path of the experiment a great tank for drawing attacks.

How good is the path of the experiment subclass?

Really good. Those enhancements require no extra resources or action economy, but add a lot to your damage output, durability and even utility.

The fact that their enhancements are so flexible too make them a really good option. They make barbarians better at their 2 core functions; be a tank that draws attacks and deal lots of damage.

They’re well designed and powerful. Not brokenly so, but I do wonder if they needed the extra D12 damage when hit from biochemical admixture. It’s quite a potent feature and I might have been tempted to drop it for the sake of balance. But it’s there, and it’s not broken, and there’s always ranged attacks to handle them.

5/5

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Building a path of the experiment barbarian

Largely, the path of the experiment barbarian can be optimised in the same ways as other barbarians. If you want a full breakdown on how to do this using D&D 2024 character options, you can check out my barbarian optimisation guide.

As this is a Crooked Moon subclass, I’ve just looked at character options in the Crooked Moon book and given advice on which work well for a path of the experiment barbarian.

Species/race

I’d consider the following species from Crooked Moon for a path of the experiment barbarian:

• Bogborn: A kind of weaker hunter’s mark is great on a high attack class (especially as this version isn’t a spellcaster). You also get self healing and both of these are activated using your bonus action which isn’t under heavy use unless you’re dual wielding. Plus, as the party tank, you’ll want to be able to heal, and rage almost doubles the usage you get out of those healed hit points (at least against physical attacks).
• Curseborn: I’d probably only use the unarmed strike for cursing enemies, but this is quite good against high damage enemies that you need to nullify a bit. Otherwise, attacks with a two-handed weapon or dual wielding are going to be more potent. Survive nasty saving throws (like fireball or banishment) with grey balance. You’ll have disadvantage on attacks rolls for a turn, but you could use reckless attack to balance this out, and even without that, passing a saving throw against something nasty will be more important than worse attacks. Perception is always a great skill and I’d probably pick that for a barbarian.
• Gnarlborn: You’re mainly here for the bonus action restraining. This will largely nullify an enemy and give you advantage on attack rolls against them without needing to use reckless attack. With a high constitution, you should be pretty good at this too. A free skill, being better at resisting being moved or knocked prone, tremorsense and advantage at ending the grappled condition are all pretty great too.
• Graveborn: Being able to bypass resistances is really beneficial for a class not really blessed with magical prowess as you’re quite reliant on physical damage. Cold resistance is fine for some extra resilience, but not a common damage type. Extra healing after combat outside of short rests is decent, but quite icky!
• Harvestborn: Barbarians are actually the best option for a harvestborn’s healing (because of their D12 hit dice). Means you can easily revive allies on 0HP. Extra damage on some attacks is handy too.
• Plagueborn: Resilience against the poisoned condition, stealth proficiency and the ability to infect others all work nicely for a barbarian. Your high constitution should make you good at spreading your contagion which is great at nullifying enemies a bit.

Backgrounds

Unlike the Player’s Handbook, Crooked Moon backgrounds give you a choice of any ability scores to increase. Based primarily on the origin feats and proficiencies, I’d recommend the following backgrounds for a path of the experiment barbarian:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Crossroads gambler	Any	Fate gambler	Deception, insight	One kind of gambling set
Druskenvald dweller	Any	Any	Survival and one other	Choose one
Experiment	Any	Altered	Intimidation, medicine	Alchemist’s tools
Night stalker	Any	Hunter of hunters	Stealth and one of arcana, history, religion or nature	Leather worker’s tool

Not many of these combine great origin feats and skills for a barbarian, but I’d probably lean towards night stalker as hunter of hunters and stealth are both great on a barbarian.

Feats

I’d consider the following feats for a path of the experiment barbarian:

• Altered: Natural weapons is really good if you want to go for a grapple build. Aquatic adaptation could be great in a sea-faring campaign. I’d avoid natural armor though, your unarmored defense or medium armor should be equal to this or better.
• Crimson ritualist: OK, so maybe the cantrip is a bit useless for you, but no one will make a better bottled life potion than you.
• Fate gambler: You should be reducing enemies to 0HP often enough to give a steady supply of heroic inspiration. Temporary hit points will also benefit you nicely and they’ll go twice as far with your rage (at least against physical attacks).
• Hunter of hunters: Bypassing resistances is the main appeal for a barbarian here, especially as you don’t have many ways to deal non-physical damage outside of magic weapons.
• Death defier: You’re the tank of the party, so more resilience is only going to be beneficial, especially when you’re harder to keep down or kill.

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