Which way to go with Rogue/Barbarian?

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Starting a game soon as a Gnome Bear Totem Barbarian/Rogue and wondering people’s opinions on a few things. As a preface, my party is a Monster Hunter PHB Ranger and two Clerics (Storm/Life) who both believe they’re squishy casters so I’m going to be the one holding enemies off in melee.

* Should I dual-wield shortswords for more Reckless Sneak Attacks or go sword&board for shield bashing?
* Which Rogue archetype should I take? Assassin’s off the table as the DM rules surprise as requiring the entire party to be undetected and they have damage covered anyway.
* Does Barb 5/Rogue 15 seem reasonable or should I take 2 more levels for Feral instinct?

[bid]

* Should I dual-wield shortswords for more Reckless Sneak Attacks or go sword&board for shield bashing?
* Which Rogue archetype should I take? Assassin’s off the table as the DM rules surprise as requiring the entire party to be undetected and they have damage covered anyway.
* Does Barb 5/Rogue 15 seem reasonable or should I take 2 more levels for Feral instinct?
2 attack rolls are enough to land SA regularly. TWF until you get extra attack. Reckless only if your target AC is high.

I'm partial to swashbuckler, but I'm not sure you can Cha12 with a gnome.

Beyond 5/5, I feel it's more where you wan to take your RP concept than anything.

[Blood of Gaea]

5/15 is a good split. I'd be very tempted to pick up Shield Master, as with advantage from rage and expertise from Rogue you'll be damn good at athletics checks, you just have to be careful to leave someone for the ranger to shoot. Though being small size can make this a bit less effective.

I would probably go with Scout Rogue, partially because the flavor fits very well with a Totem Barbarian, and partially because most of the other subclasses don't offer you a whole lot.

If you went 7 levels of Barbarian, I'd be very tempted to choose Ancestral Guardian over Totem.

[the secret fire]

Neither Swashbuckler nor Shield Master are particularly good choices for a Barb 5/Rogue X progression. Swashbuckler is mostly useless for a Barbarian because Reckless Attack gives you on-demand advantage. Shield Master makes little sense because it is largely redundant with evasion, and the bonus action shove competes with Cunning Action.

If Assassin is out, I would suggest you go with Thief, or Arcane Trickster if you want a more well-rounded character. Best advice I can give you for this build and your party composition is not to worry about AC. Try to find some adamantium medium armor, and just soak damage with rage DR and Uncanny Dodge.

Don't bother going to Barbarian 7. Not worth slowing down your progression as a Rogue. Just go ahead and dual wield shortswords. You're not going to be avoiding much damage with AC, anyway, and the option to make an extra attack is very nice on those rounds when you miss with your primary attacks.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

2 attack rolls are enough to land SA regularly. TWF until you get extra attack. Reckless only if your target AC is high.

I'm partial to swashbuckler, but I'm not sure you can Cha12 with a gnome.

Beyond 5/5, I feel it's more where you wan to take your RP concept than anything.
The group I’m playing with doesn’t seem like a deep concept will fit in, so I’m mostly going for mechanical effectiveness for now. I would note that Reckless lets me always use SA.


5/15 is a good split. I'd be very tempted to pick up Shield Master, as with advantage from rage and expertise from Rogue you'll be damn good at athletics checks, you just have to be careful to leave someone for the ranger to shoot. Though being small size can make this a bit less effective.

I would probably go with Scout Rogue, partially because the flavor fits very well with a Totem Barbarian, and partially because most of the other subclasses don't offer you a whole lot.

If you went 7 levels of Barbarian, I'd be very tempted to choose Ancestral Guardian over Totem.

Does being Small actually have any impact on shield bashing people? All I could find was that I’m slower and not allowed to use heavy weapons.
I’m pretty set on tanking rather than dps, so Resistance to everything and advantage on mental saves vs magic are set in stone here.
You wouldn’t say Thief or Mastermind have uses for this build? Seems like it would appreciate the support tricks


Neither Swashbuckler nor Shield Master are particularly good choices for a Barb 5/Rogue X progression. Swashbuckler is mostly useless for a Barbarian because Reckless Attack gives you on-demand advantage. Shield Master makes little sense because it is largely redundant with evasion, and the bonus action shove competes with Cunning Action.

If Assassin is out, I would suggest you go with Thief, or Arcane Trickster if you want a more well-rounded character. Best advice I can give you for this build and your party composition is not to worry about AC. Try to find some adamantium medium armor, and just soak damage with rage DR and Uncanny Dodge
Thief, Mastermind, and AT are the frontrunners in my mind currently.

[Blood of Gaea]

The group I’m playing with doesn’t seem like a deep concept will fit in, so I’m mostly going for mechanical effectiveness for now. I would note that Reckless lets me always use SA.



Does being Small actually have any impact on shield bashing people? All I could find was that I’m slower and not allowed to use heavy weapons.
I’m pretty set on tanking rather than dps, so Resistance to everything and advantage on mental saves vs magic are set in stone here.
You wouldn’t say Thief or Mastermind have uses for this build? Seems like it would appreciate the support tricks


Thief, Mastermind, and AT are the frontrunners in my mind currently.
Mastermind would have some use if you want to grant one of your friends advantage, but I don't think it matters much with your party composition, you might want the other features though.

Thief is a good Subclass, but it depends on how often you plan to be climbing, what you'll be using fast hands for, and what items you'll be able to use with use magic device.

AT would add a lot of out of combat utility, but most of their spell benefits will be unusable during a rage. A few spells like Mirror Image can be useful if precast.

[Contrast]

Does being Small actually have any impact on shield bashing people? All I could find was that I’m slower and not allowed to use heavy weapons.

The rules for shoving and grappling people note that you're only allowed to do it to someone one size category larger than you. So you could do it to medium creatures but not large.

[Citan]

Starting a game soon as a Gnome Bear Totem Barbarian/Rogue and wondering people’s opinions on a few things. As a preface, my party is a Monster Hunter PHB Ranger and two Clerics (Storm/Life) who both believe they’re squishy casters so I’m going to be the one holding enemies off in melee.

* Should I dual-wield shortswords for more Reckless Sneak Attacks or go sword&board for shield bashing?
* Which Rogue archetype should I take? Assassin’s off the table as the DM rules surprise as requiring the entire party to be undetected and they have damage covered anyway.
* Does Barb 5/Rogue 15 seem reasonable or should I take 2 more levels for Feral instinct?
Hi!

Well, you want to tank so...
Choice of feat for tanking

1. At low levels, Dual-Wielding is good, you can Shove with Attack and land Sneak Attack with bonus action attack (use two shortswords or daggers or one of each depending on whether you want thrown attacks as an option).

2. Once you get level 4 Barbarian, pick Shield Master or Grappler and stick with it. I may be a bit partial to Shield Master here, because you will want good AC to stay alive even though you are resistant to physical damage, and shield and feat help you doubly on that part (in addition to the Shove as bonus action)...

But if your casters use ranged attack cantrips it *will* annoy them because you would put them at disadvantage when focus-firing on the same target as you because you put it prone, in which case Grappling would be better.
Shield Master also mean you will always have only one hand available, which may limit your actions in some situations, mainly when you need to rely on ranged attacks one way or another (you may ask your DM though if he would allow the reload of a short crossbow with other hand on shield, in which case the main drawback disappears).
With SM and Extra Attack, you can Shove up to 3 different people (although this would mean no damage at all which is not a good idea generally, but hey, you never know). Or Shove one, grapple him and attack with advantage (so high chance of maximum damage). But that requires you to take Attack action and prevents the use of bonus action for something else (Cunning Action, Rage). This is not that big of a problem though: once you get Extra Attack, Attack (shove > attack) frees up your bonus action when you need it, you just deal a bit less damage.

Grappler may mean, on the other hand, that you can drag enemies directly into one AOE of your friends, either Ranger's Fog Cloud / Spike Growth or a Cleric's Spirit Guardians and still attack them with advantage, while using your bonus action on something else (like Dash to get "normal" movement, or activate a Rage... But if you just want to stand ground against one lone enemy and block him, Grappler brings not enough.

In short:
Shield Master
+ better defense
+ "small Evasion" until you get Rogue 7 (which may never happen)
+ guaranteed Shove as bonus action when you Attack.
- one hand always taken, so much less reactivity/efficiency when reach is a problem.
- Shove as bonus action depends on you taking Attack action.
- will be extremely annoying for your ranged pals, if any.

Grappler:
- lesser defense
- affects only one enemy
+ provides reliable source of advantage for Sneak Attack.
+ uses up only one weapon attack of Extra Attack (so you are free to use bonus action on whatever you want).
+ more versatility (need to switch to ranged? You could technically make a thrown attack, then grapple and make another attack with off-hand. Of just grab a hand crossbow and go to town, although obviously you cannot grapple while using it).
* complete and reliable aggro on that enemy: plus side it won't move at all (Expertise plus rage) minus side you will be hurt, probably, although Rage resistance plus Uncanny Dodge (later) will help much^^.

So, the three questions would be...
1. Who will use ranged attacks?
* Both Clerics get bonus to their weapon attacks, but not before level 8, and even then it's not really better than Sacred Flame except for range. So you can expect them to use cantrips, so no problem.
* Ranger may rely on bow attacks, so shoving creatures may be a problem for him. On the bright side, he may also switch to melee easily.
IF >=1 people would get disadvantaged on attacks because of prone AND you want to focus fire with him/her/them, Grappler gets 1 point. Otherwise, Shield Master.

2. Will there be heavy use of AOE?
Because you tell me that Clerics view themselves as frail, they probably wouln't think about using Spirit Guardians (which is sad but another topic entirely). Ranger would probably spend his concentration usually on Hex / Ensnaring Strike also rather than environmental effects.
So it basically amounts to whether Clerics will take confidence in themselves to use Spirit Guardians, even if they don't necessarily always go into the front line.
IF heavy use of AOE but putting enemies inside is problematic, Grappler gets 1 point. Otherwise, Shield Master.

3. How much do you want to stop and aggro the enemy?
Shield Master allows you to halve enemy speed, and you can reasonably apply it on two enemies and still get one chance at dealing damage. But you won't stop them from moving away if their priority is to attack squishies, unless/until you pick Sentinel to stop at least one of them.
Grappler means you can completely stop one enemy and ensure you deal high damage to him, but you can only affect one enemy at a time ever. Well, technically, IF your DM allow Extra Attack to be split in turn you could try Attack (first part: grapple X), bonus action attack X, free interaction (sheathe weapon), Attack (second part: grapple Y), but that seem very convoluted to me.^^
So let's consider that grappling is great but only against one enemy: his only choice is to attack you, and that's want you want, especially since you are resistant to damage plus you'll get Uncanny Dodge eventually.
Note though you go high Rogue, picking Sentinel first thing may be better in the long run: you still have to hit the fleeing enemy (without advantage), but on a success, you stop him and deal high damage thanks to Sneak Attack.
IF goal = aggro 1 at a time AND high priority is damage, Sentinel.
IF goal = aggro 1 at a time AND high priority is it sticking with you, Grappler.
Otherwise, Shield Master.

Note that I didn't talk much about Sentinel, for four reasons, all strongly linked to the tanking objective.

1/ Sentinel is great first and foremost for a martial that doesn't have high STR checks or has a very impressive damage output on a single weapon attack. Since you will probably go Barbarian 5 as a priority for Extra Attack and Rogue 5 then for Uncanny Dodge (at least is my guess) for a good while both statements will hold false.

2/ Sentinel only brings benefit on particular conditions (enemy tries to move away AND you manage to hit it, usually without advantage because enemy is standing up and it's not your turn so no Reckless Attack either), whereas Shield Master and Grappler provides benefits that are usable every turn (especially Shield Master thanks to the defense boons) and on a more reliable basis (relying on STR check -advantage + Expertise- instead of "plain" weapon attack).

3/ Sentinel uses up your reaction, and as someone who will be the main (only?) tank, you will want as much resilience as possible: in that regard, having no regrets on using up Uncanny Dodge will help in the long run, even on plain weapon attacks, and especially on a Grappler build.

4/ Both Shield Master and Grappler give you a reliable way to 1) enable Sneak Attack and 2) Improve your chance to hit, on your turn, against one target. As a BarbaRogue, and as a party in general, you will usually focus on one target per turn anyways so it's enough. It means that you don't need to use Reckless Attack systematically, which is another important factor to help you balance aggro and resilience (for example, you may want to use Reckless Attack on the first turn or so to make creatures believe you're an easy target, then resume with your normal AC once you're the only viable target in range for them).

Note also that I didn't talk about PAM / GWM because you would lose Sneak Attack benefit (and I expect you to get at least Rogue 5, probably even Rogue 7) and you have far enough things to do with your bonus action in the first place, so they were unsuited to you in essence.

EDIT: F*** stupid me, completely missed the "Gnome" part. Ok, let's completely drop the grappling idea and related Grappler feat. As a small character, it's too limited in scope because of size problems. ;)

On Rogue archetype.
I wouldn't recommend Swashbuckler, like, AT ALL.
Swashbuckler benefits, at level 3...
- Bonus to Initiative based on CHA, a stat which will probably be too low to make a real difference.
- Free disengage on enemies you attacked, except usually you won't want to disengage anyways because you won't move away because you actually want enemies to attack you, so being the closest target helps much motivating them (especially because it also mean you put them at disadvantage if they wanted to try a ranged attack against your friends).
- Sneak Attack only when you and your target are alone: because if there is a close-by friend of yours, by RAW you can Sneak Attack so Swash brings nothing to the table. And since you want to tank, high chances are that you will always have at the very least 2 enemies close-by to one another: you could of course make it work by separating them with a Shove (push) or Grapple, but its subpar: if you Shove, you might as well shove prone, meaning advantage, meaning Swash benefit is redundant. If you Grapple, you might have Grappler feat so you have advantage already, or you might just use bonus action to drag him close to your Ranger pal to enable Sneak Attack.

Sooo... Basically Swash is worthless for you until you get Rogue 9. And Rogue 9 ability is great but also prevents your friends to focus-fire with you on that particuar target. So it's a dual-bladed feature.

On the other archetypes:
Arcane Trickster is always nice, but obviously conflicts with Rage, and you should have enough Rages in the end to cover every fight: so it would be a sound choice only if you want to expand your options in non-fight situations.
Mastermind is always a good choice, mainly with Help as a bonus action. Simple, easy and efficient. Possibly the best option if your Ranger pal goes out on the front line but not close to you so you create two "pools of aggro".
Thief would be my second (maybe even first in fact ^^) recommendation, mainly if you like playing with objects: just caltrops/ball bearings may help in reducing enemy movement, you could also set up a rope for friends, put something on fire with alchemist's fire or torch, etc...
It basically expands your tactical options in another way than Mastermind. :)
It also boosts your movement although in a situational way.

Between two? If none is more appealing than the other to you, flip a coin. ^^

[smcmike]

Shield Master makes little sense because it is largely redundant with evasion, and the bonus action shove competes with Cunning Action.

Shield Master is good though. The redundancies aren’t that bad - as a front line tank, there will be many rounds that Cunning Action doesn’t do much for you, so you bonus action is open. +2 on dex saving throws is also nice, and lets your Evasion work fine even though you are not proficient (because you started as a barbarian). Also, +2 to AC is worth something. As nice as resistance is, stacking it with AC makes you that much tankier.

The other feat to consider is Sentinel, which makes you stickier and gives you a better chance at a second sneak attack per round.

I would probably go AT with a gnome, but that’s just my predisposition to give gnomes magic.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

The rules for shoving and grappling people note that you're only allowed to do it to someone one size category larger than you. So you could do it to medium creatures but not large.
I see. Well I'm hoping shove will just be part of my toolkit so that's not huge. I'd rather have advantage against Hold Person and the like if given the choice.


Arcane Trickster is always nice, but obviously conflicts with Rage, and you should have enough Rages in the end to cover every fight: so it would be a sound choice only if you want to expand your options in non-fight situations.
Mastermind is always a good choice, mainly with Help as a bonus action. Simple, easy and efficient. Possibly the best option if your Ranger pal goes out on the front line but not close to you so you create two "pools of aggro".
Thief would be my second (maybe even first in fact ^^) recommendation, mainly if you like playing with objects: just caltrops/ball bearings may help in reducing enemy movement, you could also set up a rope for friends, put something on fire with alchemist's fire or torch, etc...
It basically expands your tactical options in another way than Mastermind. :)
It also boosts your movement although in a situational way.
*Arcane Trickster is "gnome-y" and adds some non-fight options as you say. I could also buff myself before combat!
*The Ranger is focusing on crossbows, but I'm joining a few sessions in and he gets mobbed in melee pretty often anyway since the Clerics try to stay far away from enemies so the "dual aggro" thing has merit. I'm sure he'd appreciate Advantage when I'm not using my bonus action for other things.
*Thief gives me movement and I can do fun environment/item stuff, but I'm worried my use of its more creative features will be seen as cheesy


Shield Master is good though. The redundancies aren’t that bad - as a front line tank, there will be many rounds that Cunning Action doesn’t do much for you, so you bonus action is open. +2 on dex saving throws is also nice, and lets your Evasion work fine even though you are not proficient (because you started as a barbarian). Also, +2 to AC is worth something. As nice as resistance is, stacking it with AC makes you that much tankier
Thank you!

[darknite]

Hi!

...

On Rogue archetype.
I wouldn't recommend Swashbuckler, like, AT ALL.
Swashbuckler benefits, at level 3...
- Bonus to Initiative based on CHA, a stat which will probably be too low to make a real difference.
- Free disengage on enemies you attacked, except usually you won't want to disengage anyways because you won't move away because you actually want enemies to attack you, so being the closest target helps much motivating them (especially because it also mean you put them at disadvantage if they wanted to try a ranged attack against your friends).
- Sneak Attack only when you and your target are alone: because if there is a close-by friend of yours, by RAW you can Sneak Attack so Swash brings nothing to the table. And since you want to tank, high chances are that you will always have at the very least 2 enemies close-by to one another: you could of course make it work by separating them with a Shove (push) or Grapple, but its subpar: if you Shove, you might as well shove prone, meaning advantage, meaning Swash benefit is redundant. If you Grapple, you might have Grappler feat so you have advantage already, or you might just use bonus action to drag him close to your Ranger pal to enable Sneak Attack.

Sooo... Basically Swash is worthless for you until you get Rogue 9. And Rogue 9 ability is great but also prevents your friends to focus-fire with you on that particuar target. So it's a dual-bladed feature.
...


I've done pretty well with a swashbuckling barbarian. Of course he's got Winged Boots, so there's that. Typical attack involves flying down, using Shieldmaster to prone out the opponent, attacking twice with Advantage and then flying back up and out of range. Although there are times I want an enemy to attack me, you only get so many rages per long rest, so tactical mobility is always good to have.

A swashbuckler's Sneak Attack is like a regular one except you can also do it when no other enemies but your target are within 5'. No problem with that, it allows you to skirmish and do decent damage while away from supporting PCs.

If I'm in an open area it's always fun to Grapple an opponent, move 80' into the air (40' base move + 40' Cunning move) and drop them for 8d8 damage. More if it's off a cliff.

As usual, $0.02...

[Citan]

I've done pretty well with a swashbuckling barbarian. Of course he's got Winged Boots, so there's that. Typical attack involves flying down, using Shieldmaster to prone out the opponent, attacking twice with Advantage and then flying back up and out of range. Although there are times I want an enemy to attack me, you only get so many rages per long rest, so tactical mobility is always good to have.

A swashbuckler's Sneak Attack is like a regular one except you can also do it when no other enemies but your target are within 5'. No problem with that, it allows you to skirmish and do decent damage while away from supporting PCs.

If I'm in an open area it's always fun to Grapple an opponent, move 80' into the air (40' base move + 40' Cunning move) and drop them for 8d8 damage. More if it's off a cliff.

As usual, $0.02...
All what you say is true, but your character had different build and more importantly obviously very different goal: you described yourself as a hit & run striker, so in that case yeah Swashbuckler's "free Mobile and easier SA" may come in handy often.

But for a tank that want to make enemies stick into one place, preferably attacking him, I think I explained in detail enough why it's overall useless, especially with low CHA, and especially since it's so easy as a Barbarogue to enable SA with advantage against one enemy thanks to insanely high STR checks. :)

As for Grappling, I can firmy say I'm one of its strongest defenders of it as a very efficient way of providing battlefield control. But OP's character is a gnome. Small. Meaning that he won't be able to grapple people who are bigger than Medium, ever, unless someone casts Enlarge on him.
That sadly strongly reduces the interest of grappling in general, and makes Grappler feat in particular far too small in potential to be worth considering, even if BarbaRogue is otherwise one of the best fits for it.
And besides, the particular combo you describe, which I love as a 4E Monk by the way, entirely relies on a particular magic item, which OP has no guarantee of getting. And on having a particularly lenient DM, since as far as I understand, the fact that you get a fly speed through magic item does not affect Grapple's consequence on speed, which is being halved, so it should have been actually 40 feet in total. :)

@OP: since Grappler feat is out I would probably still recommend Shield Master over Sentinel, because as I (and others) stressed, as you won't move that much there won't be that much competition for bonus action, and the added defense is good too (you won't get Evasion before a very long time so you'll get good mileage of the simili-Evasion). With that said, it's not a clear cut decision between that and Sentinel, which has the big benefit, on successful hit, of stopping even the biggest creatures (as strange as may be) contrarily to grapple which is limited in size. :)

[the secret fire]

Shield Master will help at low levels, but it will be largely useless at higher levels once he has Evasion and avoiding damage through AC becomes much more difficult. He'd be better off just taking Lucky, which is always good, at every tier of play, and in every build. There is a high opportunity cost to taking a feat because it means you can't take different feats. Shield Master simply isn't worth it for this build. It becomes redundant with Evasion at level 12, and the bonus action shield push not only competes with Cunning Action, but also with Reckless Attack, advantage from a prone enemy being the biggest benefit of a shield push. It's a great feat, but not for this character...too much redundancy with what he can already do. You're not getting enough new abilities out of SM here to justify the investment of a feat.

Also, he's got two clerics in the party. This makes the goal of simply absorbing and minimizing damage more viable, and AC less of a priority (though Zealot might be a consideration).

[CTurbo]

Sentinel is extra good on any Rogue that plans to hang around in melee since Sneak Attacking twice per round is about the most OP thing a Rogue can do.

[Citan]

Shield Master will help at low levels, but it will be largely useless at higher levels once he has Evasion and avoiding damage through AC becomes much more difficult. He'd be better off just taking Lucky, which is always good, at every tier of play, and in every build. There is a high opportunity cost to taking a feat because it means you can't take different feats. Shield Master simply isn't worth it for this build. It becomes redundant with Evasion at level 12, and the bonus action shield push not only competes with Cunning Action, but also with Reckless Attack, advantage from a prone enemy being the biggest benefit of a shield push. It's a great feat, but not for this character...too much redundancy with what he can already do. You're not getting enough new abilities out of SM here to justify the investment of a feat.

Also, he's got two clerics in the party. This makes the goal of simply absorbing and minimizing damage more viable, and AC less of a priority (though Zealot might be a consideration).
As I explained, not necessarily.
First, Evasion will make one benefit of Shield Master in the end. Sure, but one has to reach there already. Even if OP does not pump Barbarian higher than 5 so Evasion comes around indeed at level 12, what guarantees OP that his character will be played up until then and beyond?

Second, there is absolutely no competition between Reckless Attack and Shield Master: the latter does use a bonus action which could have been otherwise used on a Cunning Action (which is not that big a deal as explained, as a tank you wouldn't need to Dash or Disengage very often -especially with a prone enemy-) but does not provide advantage on attacks against you. And if you manage to aggro the enemies, you may very well sustain enough damage per turn as is even with damage reduction and normal AC that you don't want to deplete HP potentially twice faster by making yourself even easier to hit. Especially since, as you stressed yourself, enemies at higher level hit better, more often and harder.
And Reckless Attack allows you to get advantage whatever enemy you attack, but one that has a decently high Sneak Attack will want to focus on the same one enemy anyways, in which case using one Shove is a good trade-off.
Those are complementary, not competitive against each other.

With that said, I agree that Sentinel is very good too so as already said, both are fine to pick. I guess OP will have to judge based on his experience of fights so far whichever is the hardest for him, keeping one enemy close or surviving multiple hits. :)
Whether Shield Master is good enough or not can only be evaluated by him in the end, it depends too much on party tactics and the kind of encounter they will usually face.


The rules for shoving and grappling people note that you're only allowed to do it to someone one size category larger than you. So you could do it to medium creatures but not large.
And I yet again forgot OP was a Gnome. Well, that settles it. What's true for Grapple being also true for Shoving, the balance just tipped strongly towards Sentinel. :)