Build help plz

[Sir cryosin]

I would like to maximize using a great sword. So if you wonderful build builders have any builds or advice would be nice. Try not to make it a lv 20 build because most games don't go that far.

[Jeebs]

The Great Weapon Master feat should be a go to, but you can take advantage of that in a lot of ways.

You want to make sure you can compensate for the Attack roll penalty. The Barbarian's Reckless Attack feature has great synergy there. So does the Paladin, with the ability to cast Bless. The Vengeance Paladin's Channel Divinity is awesome too.

A Half-Orc Champion Fighter is great with a Greatsword (more, bigger crits). You just don't have your own method to produce Advantage or otherwise increase your accuracy -- outside of shoving enemies prone, which uses one of your attacks. But if you have an ally to boost your Attack rolls, it works great.

The Battlemaster has Precision Attack, making them a nice option too.

There's lots of different ways to do it.

[Foxhound438]

the battlerager barbarian in the sword coast adventure guide is pretty good in that it gives you a good way to spend your bonus action. Normally for a big str character i prefer polearms with the feat, but battlerager gives you an equivalent damage bonus attack with stronger main attacks. The other good option is a mix of sorcerer and paladin or fighter for quickened green flame/booming blade, but that's a bit more of an investment. Otherwise pure fighter is fine, 3 attacks at level 11 from your action is pretty good.

And with any greatsword build, take great weapon mastery. it's an easy way to clear out mooks faster, and gives you some bonus action potential if you don't already have it.

[Foxhound438]

a fine option is pact of the blade; start fighter 1 for heavy armor, then go straight warlock. maybe pick up fighter 2 or 3 eventually, action surge is great and fighter 3 abilites are okay on their own. late on you would get lifedrinker, pair with hex to deal a ton of damage with your base attacks. My big issue here is that it's almost better to go polearm for that build since 3 attacks with all the per hit damage boosts is way better than 2, but you can justify it to some degree by spending your bonus action to hex.

pure paladin is similar, get improved divine smite at 11, have hunter's mark or divine favor on top of that. maybe elemental weapon, but a lot of people don't like that spell for some reason. Devotion has the benefit of being able to largely negate the drop to hit chance from great weapon master with a channel that adds charisma mod to hit chance. personally i like that better than vengeance's since vengeance applies to one target and then ends.

paladin with sorcerer can boost up their elemental weapons a decent amount, as well as quicken it, so there's that option if you want it. quickening melee cantrips is also a great way to up your dpr as well, but note that it's costing slots that would otherwise be used to smite. i've done the math, it's generally a bit more efficient than smite, but it's still burning resources for burst damage.

[Foxhound438]

oh and then there's always the fighter-sorcerer-warlock, that uses quicken for bonus action economy. a bit high on levels before you really see much benefit of the build, but the option's there for you.

[Spectre9000]

Fighter 1/Barbarian 2/Eldritch Knight 2-8
Character level 10

This will make you an interesting and different Greatsword wielder. At first glance you might wonder how Eldritch Knight instead of Champion or Battlemaster would be better. Well, with Eldritch Knight You'll get GFB/BB at Fighter level 3 to use in conjunction with your Greatsword, until you get your second attack. Then at level 7 you'll switch back to using GFB/BB since that will allow the attack another weapon attack, which still gives you two, just with more damage. Then, at level 8, you can get Blur. Blur negates the negative effect of Reckless Attack from Barbarian, which will essentially mean you Reckless Attack without issue from the point forward.

How the progression works is as follows:

Fighter 1 first for Heavy Armor
Barbarian 2 for Reckless Attack and Danger Sense
Fighter 2-8 pick up Eldritch Knight as your Archetype, grab GFB/BB as one of your cantrips and select Great Weapon Master Feat for your level 4 ASI. You can now Reckless Attack to largely negate the negative of Great Weapon Master. At level 7, you can start using your War Magic to use GFB/BB as your Attack Action, then as a Bonus action still attack a second time. At level 8, you can pick up Blur and another ASI of your choice.

Damage increases by Level with 16 Str (CL=Character Level):

Greatsword with Great Weapon Fighting Style avg damage is 8

CL 1; Fighter 1:
11 Avg = 8(GS+GWFS)+3(Str)

CL 2; Barbarian 1:
13 Avg = 8(GS+GWFS)+3(Str)+2(Rage Bonus)

CL 5; Eldritch Knight Fighter 3:
15.5 Avg = 8(GS+GWFS)+1D8(GFB/BB)+3(Str)

CL 6: Eldritch Knight Fighter 4:
25.5 Avg = 8(GS+GWFS)+1D8(GFB/BB)+3(Str)+10(GWM)

CL 7; Eldritch Knight Fighter 5:
46 Avg = (8(GS+GWFS)+3(Str)+2(Rage)+10(GWM))*2

CL 9; Eldritch Knight Fighter 7:
46.5 Avg = 8(GS+GWFS)+1D8(GFB/BB)+3(Str)+10(GWM)+8(GS+GWFS)+3(Str)+10

CL 9; Eldritch Knight Fighter 8 (+2 Str ASI):
48.5 Avg = 8(GS+GWFS)+1D8(GFB/BB)+4(Str)+10(GWM)+2D6+4(Str)+10

CL 11
53 Avg = 2D6+2D8(GFB/BB)+4(Str)+10(GWM)+2D6+4(Str)+10

CL 17
57.5 Avg = 8(GS+GWFS)+3D8(GFB/BB)+4(Str)+10(GWM)+2D6+4(Str)+10



Levels after 10:
After level 10 you can go in whatever direction you choose. GFB/BB will continue leveling off Character level. There are other builds that have significantly more damage at later levels, but you wanted an earlier build centered on Greatsword. I like this one, cause it's a little different than you normally see, and it isn't MAD as you don't even need Int. I think Paladin wouldn't be a terrible idea for Divine Smite and other smite options, plus level 6 paladin bolsters your con saves so you don't have to worry as much about blur failing, though you could just take the War Caster feat for that.

[Mors]

I like the Fighter 1/Barbarian 2/Eldritch Knight 2-8. It has goood synergy and also some utility as a partial caster.

At character lvl 10, I also like Barbarian 1/ Shadow Sorcerer 1 / Oath of Devotion (or Oath of Vengence) Paladin 6 / any patron Warlock 2.

Paladin has the big advantage of being able to reroll the divine smite dices with great weapon fighting style (which is a bit unfair but not unbalanced). Barb gives you damage and resistance, sorcerer darkvision and con DC on lethal damage to stay alive, as well as more slots to smite. It also lets you cast Darkness which comboes with Devils Sight granted form warlock for permanent advantage against enemies that cannot see in darkness (and they have disadvnatage against you as well). You also have access to strong range damage with Eldrich Blast + Agonising Blast for the times that you cannot reach them and access to Greenflame Blade which is usually stronger than attacking twice against 2 enemies. Warlock also gives you more spell slots to smite that are recharged on short rest, and you have access to a lot of low lvl spells when whacking / eldrich blasting away is not the solution.