Character build help- Infernal Armour

[Fuzzy Logic]

Inspired by a couple of posts around here, I was intrigued by the idea of a bear barbarian/warlock multiclass where you cast armor of agathys then rage, doing cold damage to everyone that hits you, and making those temp hp last twice as long thanks to rage resistance....

I loved the idea of a character who is effectively taken over by his armour when the fight starts, like a cross between hulk and iron Man.

Then I realized neither barb not warlock get heavy armour, and while I could make it work with half plate, I love the idea of him being totally encased in this armour. I was also eyeing heavy armour master to make the temp hp go a bit further.

Then I thought of the abjurer and his ward, does anyone know how this interacts with armour of agayths?
The end result of this is it looks like I'm staring down a pretty gnarly multiclass with barb, warlock, cleric and wizard all in the mix. I was hoping I could turn to the optimizers of giantitp for help.... Can it be done? Should it? Which bit should I ditch?

[leogobsin]

It actually pretty decidedly can't be done, since wearing heavy armor prevents you from getting any of the core benefits of rage. The best armor you could get would be half plate.

[RSP]

Inspired by a couple of posts around here, I was intrigued by the idea of a bear barbarian/warlock multiclass where you cast armor of agathys then rage, doing cold damage to everyone that hits you, and making those temp hp last twice as long thanks to rage resistance....

I loved the idea of a character who is effectively taken over by his armour when the fight starts, like a cross between hulk and iron Man.

Then I realized neither barb not warlock get heavy armour, and while I could make it work with half plate, I love the idea of him being totally encased in this armour. I was also eyeing heavy armour master to make the temp hp go a bit further.

Then I thought of the abjurer and his ward, does anyone know how this interacts with armour of agayths?
The end result of this is it looks like I'm staring down a pretty gnarly multiclass with barb, warlock, cleric and wizard all in the mix. I was hoping I could turn to the optimizers of giantitp for help.... Can it be done? Should it? Which bit should I ditch?

If your spell slots aren’t progressing, you’ll quickly run into an issue where even halved, the temp HPs won’t last long, and won’t do enough damage, so I’d probably just dip Barb for Rage and then get back to Warlock.

If you really want heavy armor and Heavy Armor Master, then I’d start Fighter 1, vhuman for HAM, then Warlock 1, then Barb 2, then just continue with Warlock. The fighter and Barb levels will help with staying alive until your Warlock levels get up enough that the AoA is hanging around a bit and dishing out significant enough damage for it to be worthwhile.

Edit: oh yeah, Rage won’t work with HAM.

[JackPhoenix]

Barbarians can't rage in heavy armor, so that's out.

Abjurer's Ward doesn't interact with AoA. At all. It's a effect completely separate from your HP.

Edit: my mistake about the ward. AoA acts on being hit, not on taking damage.

[CTurbo]

Your idea works except for the Heavy Armor part.

Arcane Ward and Armor of Agathys compliment each other well. Casting AoA recharges the Ward too

You'd want a few Barb levels, a couple Warlock levels, and then Abjur Wizard from there. Armor of Shadows and the Alert Ritual would keep your ward charged up too.

[Fuzzy Logic]

Thanks for your quick replies guys, I probably rushed the post a bit.
Re: not raging in heavy armour:
I was under the impression that you lose all the benefits of raging in heavy armour except for the bear totem's damage resistance. Was I mistaken?

It's starting to sound like the best option would be barb 5/warlock 1/ abjurer 14 for the ward, and giving up the heavy armour to go for half plate. This way I can cast higher level AoA and it will stick around longer thanks to the arcane ward.

[leogobsin]

Re: not raging in heavy armour:
I was under the impression that you lose all the benefits of raging in heavy armour except for the bear totem's damage resistance. Was I mistaken?


You are actually correct about this. The thing is, if you're going several levels into Barbarian you're doing yourself a huge disservice by denying yourself the other benefits of raging, and the only benefit you're getting out of it is better AC, which isn't even necessarily a good thing since the rest of this build is designed around you actually kind of wanting to get hit. It's an awful lot of optimization loss for your preferred flavor of wearing heavy armor, is all.

[Fuzzy Logic]

You are actually correct about this. The thing is, if you're going several levels into Barbarian you're doing yourself a huge disservice by denying yourself the other benefits of raging, and the only benefit you're getting out of it is better AC, which isn't even necessarily a good thing since the rest of this build is designed around you actually kind of wanting to get hit. It's an awful lot of optimization loss for your preferred flavor of wearing heavy armor, is all.

That's a very good point, and with a bit more research, I think I'm definitely going with medium armour. Putting most of my levels in abjurer also gives me access to fire shield, just to stack on the "thorns" damage:smallbiggrin: