Since started my journey into tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), specifically Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), it’s been clear that I have a favorite class: Barbarian. So I’ll be focusing on creating a series of articles about my favorite class. If there’s anything specific about Barbarians you would like to know, leave a comment and I’ll post about it.

One of the biggest changes in the 2024 version of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) 5th Edition is how Feats are gained. If you’re not familiar with Feats, they’re essentially an extra ability you can choose for your character to gain. In the original 5th Edition, you only gain a Feat at 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th level. With 2024 rules, you still gain Feats at these levels, but you also gain an Origin Feat at level 1.

An Origin Feat is determined based on the Background that you choose for your character. And as you may know, I love the Barbarian Class. If you are wanting to build a Barbarian for your next D&D campaign, here are the best Origin Feats for you to consider for your character (and the Backgrounds that provide them).

As a side bar – I always recommend talking to your Dungeon Master (DM) about possibly making a Custom Background as this can provide you a lot more freedom with the choices you can make at Character Creation without locking you into a specific archetype. Custom Backgrounds allows you to select your own Origin Feat, Skill and Tool Proficiencies, and Ability Score Increases.

Tough

Probably the most popular option, the “Tough” Feat allows you to increase your Hit Point maximum by 2 per character level, on top of your Constitution Modifier. So with this Origin Feat at Level 1, your Barbarian is starting at 14 Hit Points minimum before adding your Constitution modifier, making your character tougher to kill, especially when they’re raging.

You can get the Tough Feat when you select the Farmer Background. This background is a good one for a Barbarian because it also allows you to increase your Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom Ability Scores, and Strength and Constitution tends to be the scores that players like to increase for their Barbarians. Now there are other Backgrounds from Expanded Rules that can also give you the Tough Origin Feat, such as the Rashemi Wanderer from the Forgotten Realms: Heroes Of Faerun book. But strictly from the Player’s Handbook, this is the only Background that provides this Feat, so this is another good reason why you may want to talk to your Dungeon Master about making a Custom Background so you’re not feeling stuck with having your character needing to be a Farmer in order to get this Origin Feat.

Savage Attacker

If you want to play a Barbarian, chances are you like to play a character that does a lot of weapon damage. The Savage Attacker Origin Feat helps guarantees this by allowing you, once per turn, to roll your damage dice twice and take the highest result. This helps you maximize your damage output as much as possible and you can’t really go wrong with this Feat, as long as you remember to use it.

This is another Origin Feat where you can only get this from the Player’s Handbook if you select the Soldier Background. This Background isn’t bad for a Barbarian since its Ability Score Increases are Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, but now you have to write in your character’s backstory that they were a soldier at some point in time, which you may not want to do. So this is another case where using the Custom Background really works well so you can take this Feat but create the character you really want to play and tell their story.

Alert

When combat rolls out, sometimes you want to be the first one to go out swinging in your party to try to take out as many enemies as possible, but also for your Rogue that needs that ally to be within 5 feet of them to get Sneak Attack Opportunity. So Alert really comes in handy for your Barbarian. First benefit is that you can add your Proficiency Bonus to your Initiative Bonus, which does allow you to put more points into your Constitution. With having Danger Sense and your Unarmored Defense benefiting from both Dexterity and Constitution, Alert can really help give your Barbarian that boost for your Initiative without sacrificing your Constitution.

Alert also allows you to swap places in the Initiative order with someone else in the party as well, so it’s a good strategic Feat to have so that you can ensure you go first if you need to, as long as it makes sense.

You can pick up the Alert Origin Feat from backgrounds like Criminal or Guard. The only downside is that Criminal doesn’t give you an ability score boost to your Strength score, and Guard gives your boost to Strength, but the other ability scores are Wisdom and Intelligence. But maybe that’s what you might be going for, so that works for you, depending on your plans for your character.

Skilled

So the first three Origin Feats mentioned are really useful for Barbarians in terms of combat. But sometimes we forget that the Skilled Feat can really help round out a Barbarian character, especially outside of combat. Skilled allows you to gain proficiency in 3 skills or tools of your choosing. And if you’ve played a Barbarian before, you know that your skills in other Abilities can be easily looked over sometimes and makes your character a little weaker in some skills. So if you want a Barbarian that can help out more in skill checks beyond what’s available to them in their Class and Background, this is a great way to get that boost.

Backgrounds that provide the Skilled Origin Feat include Charlatan, Noble, and Scribe, and each background does have at least one physical ability score that you can benefit from.

Honorable Mentions

Although the four I mentioned here are probably the best ones for your Barbarian, here are a couple that are definitely worth mentioning here that can really come helpful for your Barbarian, depending on what kind of build you’re going for.

Magic Initiate

Magic Initiate is not the most common Origin Feat that people think of for Barbarians, but this can actually really help if you want to have more utility for your Barbarian outside of combat. Selecting this can mean sacrificing a Combat boost since you can’t cast or concentrate on spells while you’re Raging, but sometimes we want to play a character that is rounded out and not necessarily a powerhouse in one or two things. So picking up Magic Initiate can allow you to pick up helpful spells like Guidance or Mage Hand and then a level 1 spell that’s useful outside of combat such as Cure Wounds, Alarm, or Detect Magic.

Magic Initiate can be picked up from taking the Acolyte, Guide, or Sage, but each one dictates which spell list you can choose from and again, Ability Scores from those Backgrounds are something you want to check out.

Lucky

The Lucky Feat gives you a number of Luck Points equal to your Proficiency Bonus that you gain back when you Finish a Long Rest. You can use a Luck Point to either give yourself advantage when you roll a d20 for a d20 Test, or spend a Luck Point to give someone Disadvantage on an attack roll against you. This can come in really handy for Barbarians in a number of ways; this can help offset the Advantage an enemy may have against you for when you use Reckless by spending a Luck Point to give them Disadvantage (and thus making it a straight roll) or you can give yourself Advantage on a d20 Test that is crucial for you to succeed and you know that the odds are against you. It’s definitely not the best Origin Feat for a Barbarian, but I wouldn’t say it’s the worst one, either.

You can gain the Lucky Origin Feat with the Merchant and Wayfarer background. And again, these backgrounds are okay for Barbarians unless you want to have a more style of breadth character.

A Brief Reminder About Origin Feats

One thing to keep in mind here is that you can take another Origin Feat at the Ability Score Increase, or ASI, levels for character progression, which is at 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th level. So you could technically get another one of these Origin Feats later if you like. The downside is that Origin Feat in and of itself does not provide increases to Ability Scores, whereas General Feats usually do. So taking an Origin Feat beyond your character Background is only worth it if you can get it another way, such as the Warlock’s Lesson of the First Ones, playing a Human character (which gives them an extra Origin Feat), or the Fighter class that has extra ASI leveling options.

So hopefully this helps you in designing and building your Barbarian character. Let me know your thoughts. And as always –

Go Reckless Or Go Home.