Mounted Barbarian Advice

[AmbientRaven]

Hi Folks,

I'm looking at making a mounted barbarian and i am a bit torn on how to build it.

The basics: it will be a halfling and ride a dinosaur; I am required to take mounted Combatant (but Gm house ruled it and made it decent) to ride my dinosaur.

The decision: I am torn between 7 Barbarian/13 Swashbuckler (Dex: rapier that looks like a light lance); 20 barbarian (Str) and 9 barbarian/11 Battlemaster Fighter (Str)

There are pro's and cons to each, but I thought it would be worth getting some more opinions

Thanks!

[JellyPooga]

Arguably, Swashbuckler is somewhat redundant; your mount is always going to be adjacent to your melee targets, meaning you'll always be eligible for Sneak Attack.

Interestingly, Mastermind might be a better choice for your Rogue Archetype to grant your mount Advantage on one attack as a Bonus Action.

[AmbientRaven]

Arguably, Swashbuckler is somewhat redundant; your mount is always going to be adjacent to your melee targets, meaning you'll always be eligible for Sneak Attack.

Interestingly, Mastermind might be a better choice for your Rogue Archetype to grant your mount Advantage on one attack as a Bonus Action.

Swashbuckler was for the disengaging after performing an attack, as i wouldn't use the lance's 10ft reach to keep away from opponents. Though

[JellyPooga]

Swashbuckler was for the disengaging after performing an attack, as i wouldn't use the lance's 10ft reach to keep away from opponents. Though

Arguably (and I'm not saying this is definitely the case...check with your GM on interpretations), your mount will provoke OA's, even if you don't.

[N810]

Hmmm.... What kind of Dinosaur ?

[Toadkiller]

Oviraptor?

[Sir cryosin]

Do you have animal handling and how are you going to communicate with the dino.

[eastmabl]

Proficiency in taxidermy tools is a must.

[AmbientRaven]

Arguably (and I'm not saying this is definitely the case...check with your GM on interpretations), your mount will provoke OA's, even if you don't.

Discussed with the GM. He has ruled that I can direct the attack to myself, but I have disengaged so cannot be attack. So I can disengage the mount fine. He said it is basically showing my character tying them up with his lance, while the mount starts to get away


Hmmm.... What kind of Dinosaur ?

Panther re-skinned as a Raptor


Do you have animal handling and how are you going to communicate with the dino.

I'll be taking proficiency in it. The character is from Chult, where Dinosaurs are native. GM is happy for my tribe to have replaced horses in their society with Dinosaurs, meaning trained and ridable ones. So it's training will be like training a pet via animal handeling

[ruy343]

If I may...

Your mount can provoke opportunity attacks just as much as you do, though a creature only gets one reaction per turn to attack with. A smart enemy would take out your mount if they could. Your DM's ruling to simply allow you to make attacks against your mount go directly to you isn't correct (in my view) because there's a feat specifically for that: Mounted Combatant.

Also, I realize that you were hoping to go for barbarian, but a Beast Master Ranger might be a better choice for you. It'll significantly increase your mount's durability, as well as granting you a handful of potentially useful abilities that synergize with your mounted combat style (at later levels, for example, you can have your mount attack on your turn along with your own attacks). There's nothing wrong with you going Barbarian as you do this (or taking a few levels of barbarian later on), but I think that you should consider Beast Master for the benefits that it'll grant in this regard (including your method of communicating with your mount).