Image Credits: MTG art by Daarken

The Preamble

Unearthed Arcana is the system that the Dungeons & Dragons developers use to showcase and source playtesting for upcoming content for D&D. After a designated “playtest period,” players will have a chance to submit feedback via surveys on dndbeyond.com. In this post, I’ll cover the most recent Unearthed Arcana article, published on April 23rd, 2026: Villainous Options 2. Specifically, I will be looking at the Path of Lament Barbarian.

Note: This post assumes you have read (or at least skimmed) the content covered in the Unearthed Arcana article linked above. If you have not read it, you may find it useful to have it open in a separate tab.

Path of Lament (Barbarian)

This subclass is for Barbarians who are torn apart by some great grief. It feels like a twist on the Oath of Vengeance for Paladins. Yes, you are likely seeking to inflict pain on others as a result of a pain you faced, but unlike the Oath of Vengeance, I read this subclass as more fitting for a character whose warpath has no destination. In other words, rather than seeking one specific individual or group to punish, this character might take out their anger on the world until they learn to make peace with their sorrow. The Path of Lament Origins table provides a list of tragedies that may have inspired your Barbarian to take this path. The two prompts that stick out to me here are John Wick (#2) and Luke Skywalker (#4); I’m sure I could pick out media examples for the rest of the options on the table, but I’d rather go ahead and jump into the features.

Level 3: Banshee’s Wail

When you enter your Rage (or as a Bonus Action while you are raging), you can unleash an anguished wail that damages your foes. When you do so, each creature of your choice in a 30-foot Emanation originating from you takes 2d12 Psychic damage, or half as much if they succeed on a Constitution saving throw against your CON-based save DC, and the damage scales by 1d12 each time your Rage Damage bonus increases. Creatures that fail their saves are also Deafened for 1 minute, but the deafened condition is rarely an actual nerf, so I’ll only give it a passing mention. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier, and you regain expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

This is mediocre for single-target damage, but it’s good for multi-target damage, which Barbarians don’t usually get; compared to AOE spells at this level, it’s just slightly below Shatter. I think it’s a fun option, and if I was going to play this character, I’d probably lean into the multi-target specialization, using a Greataxe or Halberd with the Cleave mastery property. My one note is that I think the Constitution save feels off base thematically (since we’re dealing with Psychic damage), and I think it would make more sense to force a Wisdom or Charisma saving throw.

Level 6: Commune with the Dead

You can cast Speak with Dead as a ritual. Speak with Dead is a good spell, and it doesn’t have any costly components, so it should be easy to use this. It might be nice if you could cast it without components, just in case nobody in your party has a spare component pouch lying around and you don’t have a good opportunity to pick up incense, but I think it’s fine. I like this feature.

Level 6: Horrifying Strike

Once per turn when you hit a creature with a Strength-based attack roll while Raging, you can attempt to frighten the target until the start of your next turn. The DC is the same as your Banshee’s Wail DC. Frightened is a really good debuff and there’s no cost for using this, so it’s a good feature. It is worth mentioning that as you get into higher tiers of play, a lot of monsters become immune to the Frightened condition, but I don’t think that’s a huge knock against its value overall. No complaints here.

Level 10: Otherworldly Anguish

This feature is split into three different benefits. The first benefit, Deathly Wail, says that when a creature fails its saving throw against your Banshee’s Wail, it drops to 0 Hit Points instead of taking damage if its current Hit Points are equal to or less than twice your Barbarian level. So 20 HP now, maxes out at 40. Next, Impenetrable Sorrow says that you can’t be possessed. Possession doesn’t come up often, but when it does, it’s nasty. This is a good defense. Finally, Resistance says that you have Resistance to Cold and Necrotic damage while your Rage is active. Cold resistance is good; Necrotic resistance is even better.

I don’t think Deathly Wail is that good. At this level, the Psychic damage from Deathly Wail is 3d12, so you’ll have a 50% chance to do at least 20 damage anyways. It’ll feel good when you roll poorly on your d12s for the Psychic damage, or the enemies have Resistance to Psychic damage, and at least one of the enemies that failed its save is at the relevant Hit Point threshold, but that’s a lot of conditions that have to be met for this feature to even be relevant. I think it would be more compelling if instead of having them fall to 0 instead of taking the damage, they took the damage and then fell to 0 if they were below a certain threshold; e.g. “If a target fails its saving throw against your Banshee’s Wail and it has Hit Points equal to your Barbarian level or fewer after taking the damage, it drops to 0 Hit Points immediately after taking the damage.”

Level 14: Sorrow Form

This is basically your version of the Zealot’s Rage of the Gods feature. When you enter a Rage, you can empower yourself for 1 minute or until you drop to 0 Hit Points. While you are empowered, you have Immunity to the Charmed and Frightened conditions and you can’t gain Exhaustion levels, and your Creature Type is Undead. Additionally, when a creature fails its saving throw against your Horrifying Strike, it takes 2d10 Necrotic damage and you regain Hit Points equal to the Necrotic damage dealt. Note that this works even if the creature is immune to being Frightened, so that should help keep Horrifying Strike relevant even at this tier of play. You can only empower yourself this way once per Long Rest.

I like this pretty well for what it is. I’ll admit that I don’t love “once-per-day Rage gets better” features conceptually, but I still think this is a well-executed version of that. Becoming an Undead is cool, immunity to the Charmed and Frightened conditions is good, and the ability to regain HP with Horrifying Strike is fun. I think it’s probably a little weaker than the aforementioned Rage of the Gods, but only slightly (those condition immunities put in a lot of work).

Final Thoughts

I honestly don’t have a lot to say about this subclass. It’s good, but none of the mechanics are super mind-blowing or complex, so I can’t really go off on tangents or anything. Deathly Wail (the Banshee’s Wail improvement from Level 10) is my biggest disappointment with the subclass, and I’d like to see that improved, but otherwise, this feels about right. This is a good time to mention, I’ve been pretty impressed with the quality of this UA (and the last one) compared to the past few we’ve gotten, and I am looking forward to whatever book compiles all of these “villainous options” together. In any case, I hope you’ll join me next time as I look at the Warrior of Venom Monk. Ciao!