Barbarian/druid questions

[Klorox]

Just a little theory-crafting here. In a quest for an incredible tank, I've come up with a bear totem barbarian 3 (or 5)/ circle of the moon druid.

I know I'm not the first guy to come up with this. It's great because moon druids already have an amazing pool of HP, and the bear totem barbarian levels give you resistance to just about all damage, making the biggest pool of HP even bigger.

A few questions:

-do you get your CON bonus to AC while in animal form? I'd think you would get the CON bonus of whatever animal you take the form of (not your natural CON).

-Does the extra attack from barbarian level 5 work in animal form? If so, is it just one extra attack (a claw or bite), or do you get your full attack action again (for instance, if your form has three attacks, like a claw/claw/bite), do you get six attacks at barbarian level 5? I'd think just one extra attack would be the ruling, but I'm not sure.

- is adding 2 paladin levels worth it? You'd be able to drop spells to have a raging, smiting bear.

[Saggo]

1) You'd either get their natural armor or 10+Dex+Con using the animal Dex and Con. Armor Class formula usually replace, not stack.

2) Multi-attack is an Action, not an Attack, so you couldn't do it twice (unless you Action Surge). But Extra Attack works with normal attacks (2 bites, 2 claws, 1 bite and 1 claw, etc).

3) My gut reaction is maybe, but it would fluctuate in effectiveness compared to your party. Barbarian is a good multiclass and so is Paladin, but 3 levels minimum (more if you want other features from them) for both is starting to push back higher CR forms a lot.

[hymer]

1) You'd either get their natural armor or 10+Dex+Con using the animal Dex and Con. Armor Class formula usually replace, not stack.

2) Multi-attack is an Action, not an Attack, so you couldn't do it twice (unless you Action Surge). But Extra Attack works with normal attacks (2 bites, 2 claws, 1 bite and 1 claw, etc).

3) My gut reaction is maybe, but it would fluctuate in effectiveness compared to your party. Barbarian is a good multiclass and so is Paladin, but 3 levels minimum (more if you want other features from them) for both is starting to push back higher CR forms a lot.

I feel this is all correct, or at least could be, depending on the DM. I also feel it behooves me to leave a link to my druid dipping directory (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?457532-Druid-Multiclassing-an-addendum-%28WIP%29).

[R.Shackleford]

Just a little theory-crafting here. In a quest for an incredible tank, I've come up with a bear totem barbarian 3 (or 5)/ circle of the moon druid.

I know I'm not the first guy to come up with this. It's great because moon druids already have an amazing pool of HP, and the bear totem barbarian levels give you resistance to just about all damage, making the biggest pool of HP even bigger.

A few questions:

-do you get your CON bonus to AC while in animal form? I'd think you would get the CON bonus of whatever animal you take the form of (not your natural CON).

-Does the extra attack from barbarian level 5 work in animal form? If so, is it just one extra attack (a claw or bite), or do you get your full attack action again (for instance, if your form has three attacks, like a claw/claw/bite), do you get six attacks at barbarian level 5? I'd think just one extra attack would be the ruling, but I'm not sure.

- is adding 2 paladin levels worth it? You'd be able to drop spells to have a raging, smiting bear.

Paladin won't really be worth it. All you really be adding is damage which if you are going Barbarian/Druid you shouldn't have a lack of.

Plus that will mean you need Str, Wis, and Cha to be decent plus as a barbarian you want Con... that leaves very little for Dex and Int (latter may be ok).

Doable but you don't gain all that much from 2 levels and you have to spread yourself thinner on ability scores.

[RickAllison]

Unarmored Defense can be used in place of natural armor, not added to it. Depending on the beast form, this may or may not be useful. From the few creatures I've checked, it seems to be worth a +1 AC quite often.

Extra Attack is a wonderful thing for a moon Druid. Some forms don't benefit much (brown bears have two attacks already!, and others could actually be worse (giant scorpion gets three attacks, so you would only need it if you wanted to sting twice). For forms that had CR calculated for one attack, it can be a massive boost.

Paladin is probably not worth it. It increases MADness and also slows down form acquisition.

Let's look at some actual forms to see the effect this has. For CR 1 forms, two of the best are normally the Dire Wolf and Brown Bear. DW does not gain any AC, but moves to having two attacks at 2d6+3 each, probably with advantage and also inflicting auto-prone. BB moves to two attacks at 2d6+4, 13 AC (+2), and without any useful riders. Those barbarian levels have made both forms more powerful, but Dire Wolf becomes the better choice in most situations.

If you go this route, re-evaluate your standard choices of forms so more weight is lent to creatures with larger bonuses due to the barbarian levels.