Adding Barbarian to Sorcadin

[Haldir]

We've decided to start a second campaign with level 3 characters, and being as I've been doing this D&D thing for a billion years, i decided to play something i have never done before- a blaster caster.

Kurai is a level 3 Red Dragon sorceror with exclusively fire based spells and the Elemental Adept feat.

Let me tell you something, I hate blasters. The idea that a spell can go off on a single action and vanish from the game after doing a smidge of damage disgusts me, but I'm giving it a try anyway.

For roleplay and Armor Class reasons, i want to add barbarian to the traditional Pal6/Sorc6 mix.

At what point in the game would the playground recomend doing this?

[Biggstick]

Umm...never.

Adding Barbarian doesn't really bring anything to the class.

I mean, I guess Rage will help if you're using Medium Armor. Reckless Attack is great, but it requests you to grant advantage to enemies to hit you. One of the biggest things a Sorcadin does is rock a base 21 AC with the ability to spam Shield for 26 AC (Or rock Shield of Faith for 23 'base' AC and Shield spam for 28 AC). Barbarians kit is built around taking the hits, not dodging the hits.

I'm curious why you want to specifically Barbarian levels compared to more Paladin levels.

[DeAnno]

Part of playing a blaster is that by their nature they are very all or nothing; you want to dedicate a ton of resources to blasting if you do it so it's actually effective. This is part of why you see so many Warlock 2/Sorc X builds, so they can quicken a damage spell and then also hit with cantrip eldritch blast on the same turn.

If you play something as a half blaster you are probably going to have a bad time blasting and affirm your opinion that blasters are bad.

[RulesJD]

We've decided to start a second campaign with level 3 characters, and being as I've been doing this D&D thing for a billion years, i decided to play something i have never done before- a blaster caster.

Kurai is a level 3 Red Dragon sorceror with exclusively fire based spells and the Elemental Adept feat.

Let me tell you something, I hate blasters. The idea that a spell can go off on a single action and vanish from the game after doing a smidge of damage disgusts me, but I'm giving it a try anyway.

For roleplay and Armor Class reasons, i want to add barbarian to the traditional Pal6/Sorc6 mix.

At what point in the game would the playground recomend doing this?

Uhhhhh.....well I suppose that's one way of doing it....

However, what you're building is absolutely NOT a blaster cast.

What you're building is a MELEE cast, one who focuses on melee abilities in combat. Your build is actually a pretty terribly blaster caster.

A MUCH better blaster caster build is as follows:

1. Paladin 1, simply for Heavy Armor + shield proficiency.

2. Warlock 2 for Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast + Hex.

3. Sorcerer for the rest.

So you have based AC of 21 (Plate + shield + Defensive fighting style) increased up to 26 with Shield spell.

Assuming you're starting Variant Human, take Crossbow Expert as your starting feat. Per RAW and official Errata, the feat allows you to cast ranged damage cantrips in melee combat. That means you can cast EB at point blank range with no penalties, even gaining Advantage against prone targets.

Combine with Hex + AB for some pretty terrifying damage that DOESN'T CARE if you multiclass, because Cantrip damage levels with your character, not your class. Plus, it's two of the least resisted damage types in the game.

Use Metamagic for Twinned Hex (to save your bonus action later) and Quickened EBs to get stupefying damage numbers by mid game. Just boost Charisma with your ASI at 4 (character level 7) and 8 (character level 11) and you're done. You still get fantastic spell casting abilities (even level 9 spells for Sorc) that you can use as a Quicken bonus action and primary EB for still great damage.

[PeteNutButter]

I think it can definitely work.

Rage is a pretty big drawback as it not only prevents you from casting shield spell(kind of balanced by having resistance), but it also prevents you from doing things like quickened GFB.

But since you started sorcerer, you are stuck in medium armor so it won't hurt your AC.

You can smite while raging, and you can use reckless attack without raging. Reckless attack is your real money-maker here. Vengeance is the normal way for GWM pallies to get advantage, but its once/rest and only works on one baddie. Generally not worth using against mooks.

You should aim to get paladin 6 ASAP, as extra attack is good as soon as possible, and probably take your fourth level in sorc pretty soon for that ASI. After that or after sorc 6 you can branch out.

At 14th level you should have paladin 6/sorc 6/barb 2. You'll be able to attack 3 times a round dealing (2d6+14+smites)x3 +2d8+cha for GFB. All with advantage. If your foe counterattacks you, he may or may not be able to hit your ~18 AC with his advantage, and you still cast shield pushing it to 23. Alternatively, since paladorcs are famous for being resource hogs, you can rage in fights whenever you don't want to use resources or have none left.

Barbarian doesn't add a whole lot to the kit, but it wouldn't be horrible either. It's hard to say when you should take what without knowing your stats.

Hard to say what order you should do what without knowing your stats.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Uhhhhh.....well I suppose that's one way of doing it....

However, what you're building is absolutely NOT a blaster cast.

What you're building is a MELEE cast, one who focuses on melee abilities in combat. Your build is actually a pretty terribly blaster caster.
This. Although I disagree on the build; you should go straight vHuman Dragon Sorcerer with the Elemental Adept feat. You want as many spell slots of as high a level as possible ASAP; everything else is a distraction. You get decent armor and health from Dragon Sorcerer 1; you even get Con saves. Heck, you can even get Green Flame Blade for decent melee potential, if you really want-- if you pick a fire dragon heritage, it's an entire extra attack's worth of bonus damage from level 6 on, even without a secondary target. No need to dilute anything.

(I'm assuming you're not looking at the Warlock EB archer build, because that really plays more like an archer than anything else)

[Specter]

The only thing I can see going on for Barbarian is a level 2 dip, where you use Reckless Attack to gain advantage in your attacks to ease Great Weapon Master's -5 penalty. With smites involved, that would do a lot of damage. But still, a 2 level dip for a single class feature.