Looking for help with a War Cleric/ Barbarian build

[Kalmarjan]

Hello everyone. I'm new here (but it looks like they locked the introduction thread...)

I've been playing for a long time, through all the editions (except for 4th.) I've been dabbling in 5e for a little over a year now.

I'm usually the DM, but this time I'm the player. The last campaign (Tyranny of Dragons) ended in a TPK in the Stone Giant castle. I played a cleric of Tymora, and it went okay.

I want to play something more of a ginzu, modelled after the cool Vikings from that TV show. I'm thinking hand axes, and a berserker. But with a cleric of war flavor. We start at level 7.


I was thinking of having a character that gets multiple attacks, and set up to do a fair amount of damage. I was thinking of a progression like so:

Variant human with Wis and Str build. I am looking to build a character that is a ****ing badass warrior that wades into battle with two hand axes swinging, covered in blood, slashing left and right with a glee (but with a stoic crazy look on my face and stuff...)

Ideally having the heal spell may be important later, or if there were another cleric in the party, I'd love to see this character as a slicing and dicing machine. The ability to have extra attack, plus the divine extra attack...
Not to mention that Guided strike, and divine strike later on. 1d6 at +10 to attack, with the addition of 1d8 damage outweighs the brutal critical. What really tickles my interest is the reckless attack in that mix. Advantage on all attacks this round? x3? Okay. I'll take it. End progression would be something like a War Domain Cleric 15/Barbarian 5.... Initial thoughts anyway. Sounds like it would be fun to play. Add a good backstory and hooks to that, and we are looking at a really interesting slicing and dicing machine...

Maybe...

1 C, 2 C, 3 C, 4 B, 5 B, 6 B, 7 B, 8 B, 9 C 10 C, 11 C, and so on with the Cs...

Take observant feat as that bonus feat.
Enough cleric to get the domain parts right off for extra attack, and for guided strike? But then the reckless attack by 5th level, right? Adding an extra attack by 8th level, now we are talking up to 6 attacks per round with advantage on all, and maybe even a +10 on one of them. That's crazy. It may only be 6d6 plus strength but any critical? Also all attacks are with advantage.... Magic on top of that? Dude...

At 7th level for this character that would be That's 7d6+7d4+35 damage potential. Min 49 max 105. I think...

And I haven't found out whether Frenzy can be used for another attack or not...

[Crgaston]

How are you getting 6 attacks?

[Kalmarjan]

How are you getting 6 attacks?

I might be all over the place. I started off with this guide The Devout and the Dead (Can't link yet, sorry!)

Character Creation
1st Level : Cleric 1
Took the Wis 15, Str 14, Con 14, Dex 10, Cha 10, Int 8 line.

Took Variant Human, dumped the stat increase into Wis and Str. Took Observant as feat. Stats now look like:
STR 16 (+3)
DEX 10
CON 14 (+2)
INT 8 (-1)
WIS 17 (+3)
CHR 10

With all lovely bonuses outlied above, I'm sitting at +3 Bonus for Wis.
Took War Domain, This gives me an extra attack for each Wis bonus (so that's 4 per round to start.)
Note that having Divine Favor gives me an extra d4 radiant damage on each hit.

2nd Level : Barbarian 1
Get 2 rages, +2 Damage, Unarmored Defense, Plus resistance to bludgening, piercing, slashing damage
3rd Level : Barbarian 2
Reckless attack (Adv on Str Attack Rolls, but Dis against)
4th Level : Barbarian 3
Path of the Beserker - (Frenzy gives me extra attack as bon action on each of my turns) Rages per day increase to 3
5th Level : Barbarian 4
Increase in ability score. Wis+1 (giving me an 18 wis, or a +4, which now makes it 5 attacks per round, plus frenzy which is now 6)
6th Level : Barbarian 5
Gain Extra Attack (class ability) and Fast Movement. This ups the attacks per round to 6 per round, and 7 with Frenzy.
7th Level : Cleric 2
Channel Divinity, Guided Strike, +10 to an attack roll.

That's what I have so far. I'm sure there are plenty of holes in it...

What do you all think?

[Dralnu]

The War Priest ability from the War Domain says this:


When you use the Attack action, you can make one weapon attack as a bonus action.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

So you aren't getting 3 extra attacks per turn. When you Attack, you can use your bonus action to make a weapon attack a certain number of times per long rest.

Also, you only have 1 bonus action per turn.

Frenzy also lets you make a weapon attack as a bonus action. But since you only have 1 bonus action, you cannot use War Priest's bonus action weapon attack and Frenzy's bonus action weapon attack on the same turn.

Until you reach Barbarian 5, you will be able up to swing twice per turn: once for your Attack action, and once with your bonus action weapon attack (if available). When you reach Barbarian 5 and get the Extra Attack feature, it will go up to three swings per turn.

[Kalmarjan]

Ah, I knew it was too much Ginzu!

What I am looking for is something like the battle ragers on the show Vikings... I thought it would be an awesome character to roll up in there, swinging the hand axes, messing stuff up.

What would you suggest for a better build?

[Kalmarjan]

On the other hand... I could just reskin a Valorous Bard... Reading through some neat things..

I was thinking of a Bard built in skald fashion, but who utilized beat boxing as a primitive tool for his rhymes sung in a death metal chant. Same time he is swinging his two hand axes like a demon...