The Orcish Conan Project (multiclassing a 5e barbarian)

[GhorrinRedblade]

Hey there,

My subject title above refers to an old 3e character whose class build was an attempt to recreate my perception of Conan's life/career arc. Basically start with barbarian, mix in a few levels each of fighter and rogue, then go back to barbarian for the rest of the way.

I'm trying to decide if the OCP is usable updated to 5th edition. Any of you think there's a viable way to make a three-classed character like that? The benchmarks I'm looking at are he must be a half-orc, and I'd like proficiency in Survival, Perception, Intimidate, Athletics, Stealth (and thieves' tools if it can be worked in). If you've got any ideas how to do this, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks!

Later on,
Ghorrin Redblade

[Slipperychicken]

Barbarian and Rogue already mix well for athletics. Fighter2 is a good dip for fighting style and action surge. You can get the skill proficiencies by starting off with a Rogue dip, or by carefully picking your race, class, and a custom background to get them all.

Also, Conan has pretty high stats all around, and is a far cry from D&D's big stupid fighter archetype, so I doubt 27 point-buy would do him justice.

I haven't read the comics, so I don't know exactly the order he'd take them, but rogue2, barbarian5, and fighter2 could all be in there somewhere. Starting with rogue gets more skills but less armor and weapons, while fighter gets him heavy armor straight out of the gate.*


EDIT: Proficiencies can be accomplished with half-orc race (intimidation), modified criminal background to give perception instead of deception (that means it gives Stealth, Thieves Tools, gambling kit, and Perception), and then take survival and athletics with your first level class (Barbarian, rogue, and fighter can all do it). You can swing an extra skill if your DM is willing to let you trade gambler's kit proficiency for it.

I would suggest fighter for first level if you want heavy armor* (and may be easier to roleplay as pirate/thief conan). If not, then barbarian would be a good choice because it gives martial weapons and rage.

EDIT 2: I just remembered that you don't want heavy armor because it's incompatible with rage.

[noce]

Hey there,

My subject title above refers to an old 3e character whose class build was an attempt to recreate my perception of Conan's life/career arc. Basically start with barbarian, mix in a few levels each of fighter and rogue, then go back to barbarian for the rest of the way.

I'm trying to decide if the OCP is usable updated to 5th edition. Any of you think there's a viable way to make a three-classed character like that? The benchmarks I'm looking at are he must be a half-orc, and I'd like proficiency in Survival, Perception, Intimidate, Athletics, Stealth (and thieves' tools if it can be worked in). If you've got any ideas how to do this, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks!

Later on,
Ghorrin Redblade

Intimidation comes from being a half orc.
Start as a Barbarian and take Perception and another skill (animal handling fits the Conan theme for example).
Take the Outlander background that gives you Athletics and Survival.
Later, when you'll multiclass with rogue, thieves tools and another skill are granted to you: take Stealth.

So you'll have every skill you asked for, plus animal handling.

As for viability, such a build has really nice synergy. As an example, you will always attack with advantage, triggering sneak attacks (however, you should attack with a finessable weapon in order to benefit from this).
I'd go barb 3 and take bear totem. Then take rogue 3, assassin (take Athletics and Perception as expertise skills): assassin automatic crits synergyzes well with half orc and barbarian increased critical damage. Remember that, on a critical, sneak attack is doubled too.
Finally go fighter 2 for action surge. At this point continue with barbarian for a final build of 15/3/2.

- If you want you can go fighter 3 instead, and pick champion for 19-20 crits. While attacking with advantage this would mean 19% chance to critically hit with each attack.
- If you feel you need more feats, you can go rogue 4, or fighter 4, or both.
- If you want to be more tanky, you can push yourself to rogue 5, but rage should be enough on its own.

Basically, there are many ways to mix these classes, I just gave you totem/assassin/champion example because I think it's the easiest to manage. You will likely end with a pleasant build ;)

[GhorrinRedblade]

Noce, what you wrote sounds like a cogent version of what my brain was trying to put together. :) I was mildly concerned about sneak attack only working with finesse weapons, but reading it, it doesn't seem that they have to be used *as* finesse weapons, so OCP could just very forcefully jam a short sword into your favorite parts.

I know something like this would be MAD as hell, but my DM is being super-lenient with die roll scores for abilities, so I'm confident I could come up with a usable array.

On a straight barb build, the one feat that appeals to me is Shield Master, and anything else is negotiable. That should still work well for a knock-down-stab-out fight, yes?

Ghorrin Redblade

[noce]

OCP could just very forcefully jam a short sword into your favorite parts.

Sure thing ;)


I know something like this would be MAD as hell

Not so much MAD to be honest, you just need Str Dex and Con. A barbarian is going to need a bit of dexterity as well, expecially an unarmored one :)
Obviously, the more the better, but you can perform well even with 14 dex ;)
If you feel you need to be more stealthy, just put expertise on it ;)


On a straight barb build, the one feat that appeals to me is Shield Master, and anything else is negotiable. That should still work well for a knock-down-stab-out fight, yes?

Well, you have high STR, advantage on STR checks, double proficiency on athletics. I'd say that you can easily knock down anything you want :D
Remember that they can easily stand up on their turn but, if you can make your bonus-action shove before your attack action, then you'll have advantage on your attacks in that turn.
Even if he stands up, you can continue to shove him every turn, letting you and your melee comrades having continuous advantage with no need for reckless attack. :)

Hope this helps, sorry for my english but I'm Italian ;)

[Soular]

I don't recommend multiple class dips because it will gimp your toon in the long run.

I don't have my PHB handy but IMO Conan could be effectively built with either the Barbarian or Fighter class.

If you want the early, loincloth wearing Conan, take a Barbarian.

But don't forget that Conan had no problem wearing armor when it was available to him.

http://media.digititles.com/title-gallery/cfa9b6d46ea17dba7520304c44235ec6/medium/conan-the-barbarian-arnold-schwarzenegger-john-milius-on-set-2.jpg

So going Fighter would work as well, and leave you only needing to pump 2 stats instead of three.

There is a background, IIRC, that has thieves' tools and such, but that goes against the concept because he didn't become a thief until after his pit-fighting days.


If I had to build a Conan, I would choose The Destroyer, and build him as a Fighter and use Feats to boost his defensiveness and great weapon fighting.

Sorry that I have no advice for you if you are truly set on a multiclass option. But I think that a Fighter or Barbarian is better than a multiclass combination of the same level.


EDIT - I got my Conans mixed up, that pic was from Conan the Barbarian, not Conan the Destroyer. As was this one:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01789/Conan2_1789755i.jpg

[PeterM]

EDIT 2: I just remembered that you don't want heavy armor because it's incompatible with rage.

Thing is, Conan was proficient in heavy armor. And he didn't have rage, at least as far as I'm concerned. He certainly didn't have frenzy or totem powers. I honestly don't think I'd use Barbarian as is to model him. I'd use Fighter and Rogue, or maybe come up with a non-magical path for Barbarian. Not sure what abilities I would give it, though.

He'd need a fair few feats, though. If nothing else, he spoke damn near every language there was. Maybe a linguist feat, which lets you quickly learn a smattering of any language you're exposed to, and speeds up the learning process that leads to fluency.

[D-naras]

Maybe a spell-less Hunter Ranger for all of Conan's cleaving needs? I have a stack of old comics sitting next to me in the majority of which, Conan kills 3+ dudes in a single panel. Get Defense for your fighting style, wear medium armor (as book Conan usually does), get proficiency in Perception, Athletics, Survival, Stealth and Intimidate from Half Orc, grab Heavy Weapon Master and Alert for feats, pick Horde Breaker, Steel Will, Whirlwind Attack and Uncanny Dodge when you can. Choose mountains as your first favorite terrain (because Cimeria), coast (because piracy) and grasslands (because brigand). For favorite enemies, monstrosities make sense for all those ape-men, beasts for all those serpents and aberrations for the ancient gods.

[Gwendol]

Conan rages alright. In many stories that's what saves him.