Whither now, Fafhrd?

[ZorroGames]

Blue sky conversation about Mountain Dwarf Barbarian...

Start
St 17
De 14
Co 17
In 08
Wi 10
Ch 08

ASIs
4th +1 St (18) and +1 Co (18)
8th +2 St (20)
12th +2 Co (20)
16 TBD
19 TBD
20 Capstone

The major mushy area was the ASIs and/or Feats for 16th and 19th.

Not that I personally ever think I will stay with a character past Tier Three but now that we have had this discussion I would invite your comments and input.

Thanks in advance.

[Arkhios]

That's a great baseline build for any mountain dwarf barbarian you've got there.

In our AL-esque* game I decided to go Battlerager* myself, with a slightly different stat distribution, with the intenton to multiclass into rogue (Thief) for the expertise in Athletics (obviously), and will take feats/ASI like this.

Stats are:
Str 17
Dex 14
Con 16
Int 8
Wis 12
Cha 8

Barbarian from 1st to 8th/Rogue from 1st to 12th
4th Tavern Brawler: +1 Str (18)
8th Durable: +1 Con (17)
12th (Rogue 4th) Dwarven Fortitude: +1 Con (18); XGtE*
16th (Rogue 8th) +2 Str (20)
18th (Rogue 10th) +2 Con (20)
20th (Rogue 12th) Sentinel

With Durable + Dwarven Fortitude + Con 20 (I know, I'll lose the Barbarian Capstone increase to Con to 24), whenever I use Dodge action, I get to expend a hit die and heal myself at minimum for 10 hit points, every single time.

*This is where our game is different from actual AL: We have no arbitrary restrictions for the books we can use, so I can be a Battlerager (from SCAG) and take Dwarven Fortitude (from XGtE)


That out of the way, might I suggest considering this for your build:

Instead of pumping Constitution immediately to 17 (and thus 18 at 4th level), leave Constitution at 16, then take Dwarven Fortitude at some point. Going this route you could, at 4th level, increase your Str and Con each by 1 (as your initial build suggests), and pick Dwarven Fortitude at 8th, or vice versa. This would, of course, push you one ASI further, but at least now you'd have only one ASI to be determined (at 19th). For that remaining ASI, you could also drop Wisdom to 8 (let's face it, it's sometimes fun to have a character that might fail his wisdom saves a bit more often than others!), and increase your DEX to 15. Then, at 19th level, pick up either Athlete (from PHB) or Squat Nimbleness (from XGtE) to increase your Dexterity to 16. Now you will get a whopping AC 20 bare naked.

[ZorroGames]

That's a great baseline build for any mountain dwarf barbarian you've got there.

In our AL-esque* game I decided to go Battlerager* myself, with a slightly different stat distribution, with the intenton to multiclass into rogue (Thief) for the expertise in Athletics (obviously), and will take feats/ASI like this.

Stats are:
Str 17
Dex 14
Con 16
Int 8
Wis 12
Cha 8

Barbarian from 1st to 8th/Rogue from 1st to 12th
4th Tavern Brawler: +1 Str (18)
8th Durable: +1 Con (17)
12th (Rogue 4th) Dwarven Fortitude: +1 Con (18); XGtE*
16th (Rogue 8th) +2 Str (20)
18th (Rogue 10th) +2 Con (20)
20th (Rogue 12th) Sentinel

With Durable + Dwarven Fortitude + Con 20 (I know, I'll lose the Barbarian Capstone increase to Con to 24), whenever I use Dodge action, I get to expend a hit die and heal myself at minimum for 10 hit points, every single time.

*This is where our game is different from actual AL: We have no arbitrary restrictions for the books we can use, so I can be a Battlerager (from SCAG) and take Dwarven Fortitude (from XGtE)


That out of the way, might I suggest considering this for your build:

Instead of pumping Constitution immediately to 17 (and thus 18 at 4th level), leave Constitution at 16, then take Dwarven Fortitude at some point. Going this route you could, at 4th level, increase your Str and Con each by 1 (as your initial build suggests), and pick Dwarven Fortitude at 8th, or vice versa. This would, of course, push you one ASI further, but at least now you'd have only one ASI to be determined (at 19th). For that remaining ASI, you could also drop Wisdom to 8 (let's face it, it's sometimes fun to have a character that might fail his wisdom saves a bit more often than others!), and increase your DEX to 15. Then, at 19th level, pick up either Athlete (from PHB) or Squat Nimbleness (from XGtE) to increase your Dexterity to 16. Now you will get a whopping AC 20 bare naked.

Ooh, that is a nice build, we never got to MC options in any depth. Will drop that in my group fir further discussion.

[Arkhios]

Ooh, that is a nice build, we never got to MC options in any depth. Will drop that in my group fir further discussion.

I blame coffee... or rather, lack of it ...that earlier today I didn't realize this: with your initial build you could leave the stats as they are, and increase str and con at 4th to 18 each, then use an ASI to improve str to 20. What I didn't realize is that you could, actually, instead of using one ASI to increase Con to 20, take both Durable and Dwarven Fortitude to get Con to 20 eventually, and you'd still have that one ASI to use. Might as well drop that Wisdom to 8 and increase dex to 15, and take that Athlete or Squat Nimbleness. Get the best of both builds - without multiclassing!