Avatar H-O Barbarian, how to develop in 5e?

[El_Jairo]

Hey everybody, I have a Half-Orc, revenant Barbarian. Who has survived throuhg 3.5, 4e, homebrew heroic system and has now landed in Eberron to find a new party.
Coming in from another plane where he was chosen as the Avatar of Armagodin the god that can bend any metal to his will.

I heard that 5e is a particular good edition in that it has cut away a lot of clutter. Yet I am faced now with the dilemma of having only so many choices, when comes down to ASI/Feay for a Barbarian. I like this concept because it allows you to make meaningful choices that have an impact but yet I rather gather some insight before I make the wrong decisions.
We have reached lvl 3 and now the real choices of development are presenting themselves.

I'm not looking for optimisation, we have new players and there is no need to be as cheesy as can be. I'm rather looking for advise what works and what not.

We currently have Lizard Cleric, a Warforged Gunslinger and a High-Elf druid. So I have the feeling that I should be the Anvil for the party to work off.

So I have chosen that Ancestral Guardian as my party is in need for a decent tank and I can refurbish the class so it's metals I'm using instead of ancestrals.
So my reasoning was that I want to draw agro with 'ancestral protectors' which I have re-named 'Metal Insurrection'. At 6th level The 'Metal Shield' allows for some helping party members who get stuck in melee.
Because I would like to keep the enemies occupied at the Barbarian I wanted to pick Sentinel but it uses the same Reactions which 'Metal Shield' is looking to use.
I feel it can be bad synergy if both you Sub-class and a feature are competing for the same action.

So what are good options for a Ancestral Tank Barbarian at Lvl 4?
BTW, we all took the standard ability block so I'm sitting currently at 16-13-16-8-12-10.

I have done some research and the following options look appealing:


ASI +2 STR
Features
Resilient (DEX)
Lucky
Sentinel
Savage Attacker
Charger
Athlete


Standard ASI= +2 STR for more hitting power and overal Barbarian stuff. Or opt for +2 CON for +4 HP (which seems meh in comparison to the +10 HP I gain each level anyways). Yet this feels so empty when there are all these cool features, sure +5% to hit and +1 DMG are welcome but I don't feel is as necessary since Barb's have Reckless Attack to make sure they are hitting what needs to be hit.

So Features I like:
Reselient DEX: it rounds of the DEX to an even number does bump my AC to 15. In combination with Danger Sense a good way to have all physical saving throws covered. And DEX is useful allround.

Lucky: I believe this can be an OP feature in our type of campaign, as we typically don't make a ton of rolls, you can really make the important ones count. This seems like the most 'safe' feature as it is general purpose and thus save the day in any circumstance.

Sentinel: It remains the best feature for a tank, so what if you can't use a reaction twice. At least now you have multiple sources to get reactions triggered.

Savage Attacker: I know everybody hates this feature by I'm afraid it is severely underestimated. I do like this feature because it lets you wield that Great Axe with some reliability. I did some number crunching to get a good idea about it and comparing it to straight ASI it adds on average. Here are my findings:
Comparing 2d6 Great Sword with +2 STR ASI to Great Axe with Savage Attacker (I assumed you Re-roll anyway, so you have advantage on the damage roll). I have factored the +1 to hit as a -1 to hit for the Savage Attacker)


Minimum expected damage: from 6 to 7,6 +1,6
Median (most common value): from 8 to 11,4 +3,4
Maximum expected damage: from 10 to 11,4 +1,4
On average being able to re-roll will result in 2,98 damage increased. If we factor in the comparison to +2 STR: it becomes : 1,83 more damage increased on average
Being a half-orc also give the incentive to pick great axe for damage spikes with extra weapon die on criticals.

Other Features that could be interesting are Charger or Athlete because they give more mobility but are quite situational.

What is your experience with a Tank that also likes to hit. With barbarian go all out on tanking abilities as your Rage will provide with some extra damage.

What I had in mind:
I am going to see what our party needs, yet I would like Mohrdus to be like the champion of his god, so I considered dipping into Fighter after lvl6 for 3 levels, to go crit fishing with champion. I would consider grabbing GWM for the cleave feature on Lvl8 then.
Or just stick to Barabarian lvl's and pick up Savage Attacker to be able to wield the Great Axe and be a coold Barbarian

[stoutstien]

+2 str is boring but effective. Your reaction metal shield well soak up a lot of damage from big single threats but you will need a way to control hordes. GWM works well for the ba attack.

[Genoin]

Great Weapon Master is the gold standard of barbarian feats, because even if you are a "tank", killing things remains the most effective strategy for battle, and it synergizes ridiculously well with reckless attacks. Also if you are playing half orc check out Orcish Fury racial feat.

[El_Jairo]

+2 str is boring but effective. Your reaction metal shield well soak up a lot of damage from big single threats but you will need a way to control hordes. GWM works well for the ba attack.


Great Weapon Master is the gold standard of barbarian feats, because even if you are a "tank", killing things remains the most effective strategy for battle, and it synergizes ridiculously well with reckless attacks. Also if you are playing half orc check out Orcish Fury racial feat.

I agree with Genoin's analysis that Dead is the best status effect a tank can dish out.
As both have pointed out, GWM is great for taking care of hordes, because the Cleave part of the Feature. The Power Attack parts gives you a damage boost for dealing a lot more damage (+10), yet it comes with a penalty of -5 (20%) of hitting. With a miss comes the consequence of no damage dealt.
It's true that using Reckless Attack provides advantage, which is fairly equal to a +5 on the attack roll.

Let's dive into the numbers:
--Edit-- Maybe graphics is the better option here
So first let's look at the three different 2 hit distributions:
https://image.ibb.co/ho9ih0/2Hit-d20.png
So the 'normal roll' to hit is roll =>, which corresponds to Power Attack (-5/10)[=PA].
The +5 is used when you don't Power Attack and if you opt for +2 STR, you get to move it one to the right (+6).

Now if we accept 75% ast the point where we expect to be reliably hitting an AC value, we find the following AC values:
PA: AC 6 ; PA & ADV: AC 11
+2 STR (2S): AC 12 ; 2S & ADV: AC 17
Savage Attacker (SA): AC 11 ; SA ADV : AC 16
This teaches us that with Power Attack you need something to offset the -5 to hit. Or start accepting lower odds to score the hit.
So it costs typically 5% to hit to go up 1 in AC. Accept to the end of the curve for Advantage, there it drops quite faster.

Of course, the cleave ability of Great Weapon Master is very valuable: getting to make an extra attack is powerful and yet difficult to predict, without knowing when you are going to get someone to 0 HP. Especially given the fact that there are also other party members who might 'kill steal" and thus denying this extra attack. The other way to gain the attack is to bet on the chance of a critical roll, so only 5% when normally rolling, to 9,75% when Advantage.

So to be handling effectively with minions I want to be able to 'one-hit' them.
This will be determined by the damage we can do per attack and here is a little graph on damage distribution
https://image.ibb.co/gPDXaL/Damage-Distribution.png
For the build with GWM you just move the 2d6 1 step left.
Ingore the delta range, as it is not correct.

The expected damage is where 75% of the time we end up if rolling, centered around the median (= value with the highest probability).
For normal 2d6 we the following expected damage:
Min= 5, Median= 7, Max= 9 when +2 STR is chosen these bump up one: 6; 8; 10
For d12 with SA the expected damage becomes:
Min= 7, Median= 12 Max=12

So here we see the benefit of SA: it pushes the most probable roll to the highest value of one die.

Now when we want the chance of killing a creature with one attack, we need it's AC and HP. Then we multiply the chance to hit AC x % of the damage rolls which would be sufficient to kill it.
So let's look into some examples where I presume you Rage for +5 damage basis, where the different choices

Gnome: AC 15, HP 16
Normal rolls
+2S : 14%
SA : 20%
PA : 30% (but this equal to the chance to hit)

Advantage:
+2S : 22%
SA : 31%
PA : 51% (but this equal to the chance to hit)

Gnoll: AC 15, HP 22
Normal rolls
+2S : 5%
SA : 5%
PA : 20% (chance to hit is 30%)

Advantage:
+2S : 9,75%
SA : 9,75%
PA : 34% (chance to hit 51%)

Skeleton: AC 13, HP 13
Normal rolls
+2S : 43%
SA : 45%
PA : 40% (chance to hit is 40%)

Advantage:
+2S : 57,1%
SA : 61,2%
PA : 64% (chance to hit 64%)

So in general I can conclude that GWM is great for most foe's until AC 14-15 if you have a source of Advantage or you don't mind Reckless attack. The fact that it can so easily kill those minions, gives you a bonus attack, which you don't have to use PA on so you can get a hit in on a higher AC target.
The big down-side is it's accuracy of course.

+2 STR gives a small boost to hit and to damage, so it's a high probability of delivering 13 DMG (Median=Mean) (min 10,5 MAX 16,5)

SA skews the chances for the damaged rolled towards the end of the curve but doesn't boost the to hit. It's expected damage is rather boosted: min 12 to MAX = MEDIAN 17 but Average 13,5.
So Savage attacker seems less good on paper, if you only look at the average damage, yet it is not as bad as people think because damage distribution is more about the median than the average.

So it appears that GWM brings most to the table: you can have a significant boost to damage if the targets AC allows it (<14) and comes with the possible extra attack.
+2 STR gives only small boosts and doesn't offer any fancy options or extra's.
Savage Attacker only boost damage and seems really niche because it's optimal with Great Axe and so you need a class and/or race that has good synergy with d12 weapons.

For this specific build: Half-Orc Barbarian, Savage Attacker has the advantage that it allows to wield the Great Axe, which has synergy with the bigger critical hits for Barbarian and Half-Orc.
I am planning to build for a crit-fisher through 3 levels of Fighter at levels 7-9 to grab GWF style, to mitigate the lesser impact of SA and champion which will deliver more crits to get bigger damage spikes.
On the next ASI it seems imperative to go for GWM, given the fact that crits will become a lot more frequent.

[El_Jairo]

So to recap my conclusions here and provide a TLDR version.

Great Weapon Master remains king for any character which wants to use two-handed melee weapons. It brings extra damage (for a cost) and gives free chance on extra attacks.

+2 STR seems the most logical choice but I am not convinced that it's the best overal choice as it brings no fancy extra's a feature would bring you. I would consider Sentinel even a better option for tanks.

Savage Attacker is a feature only useful for attack with weapons which have a big damage die. So for barbarians who wish to wield the Great Axe this feels like a must take feature, unless you want to trust your faith in the dice gods. This greatly improves the distribution on which damage you roll.

[strangebloke]

GWM is best for damage, by far. Even the cleave functionality is better than a +2 to strength.

+2 to strength is solid. Not bad not good.

Savage attacker should be a half feat. If you're worried about vindictive dice gods, find a way to get the great weapon fighting style. I'm partial to going champion fighter 4 after barbarian 5-6. Remember that a rolled one doesn't feel that bad if your damage modifier is +17. Also, look up 'orcish fury'. It's a half feat that give you an extra damage die when you want it. Not bad, not great, but better than Savage attacker.

Sentinel is usually a great barbarian feat. However, when you're raging it competes for your reaction since it has the same trigger as your shield. I would take polearm master before this.

Don't bother with resilient: Dex. Your AC will be better if you just wear half plate anyway..

[El_Jairo]

GWM is best for damage, by far. Even the cleave functionality is better than a +2 to strength.

+2 to strength is solid. Not bad not good.

Yeah, the way GWM compensates for accuracy penalty by delivering +10 DMG and Cleave also triggering makes it extra juicy to Reckless Attack. You'll get 9,75% on Crits and if you hit the minion is dead which also can deliver the bonus attack.
Which is why GWM is broken. Later more on this issue.



Savage attacker should be a half feat. If you're worried about vindictive dice gods, find a way to get the great weapon fighting style. I'm partial to going champion fighter 4 after barbarian 5-6. Remember that a rolled one doesn't feel that bad if your damage modifier is +17. Also, look up 'orcish fury'. It's a half feat that give you an extra damage die when you want it. Not bad, not great, but better than Savage attacker.

I agree that Savage Attacker RAW seems less potent than other feat options.
Making it a half feat gives you something which doesn't fall off when leveling up.
I disagree though that GW fighting style would favour the great axe. As the great sword get 2d6 you'll have 2/3 chance of re-rolling at least one dice. As with the great axe you only have 1/6 chance, so you have less benefit from it.
My main goal for the fighter champion dip is to get better at crit-fishing so the great axe can deliver bigger critical hits. This is were Sav Att and GW FStyle help too in having big numbers pop up.

I wonder why you doubt this champion dip is a good idea, maybe because you miss out the extra Rage charges? That's what worrying me a bit but with Savage Attacker I also have damage boost, so that would make up for less Rages.
Later on after the fighter dip I would get GWM to cash in on these critical hits even more.
At level 4 with STR 16 I would have +13 and in rage +15 damage boost if I choose for GWM. I do get that you don't care much about what the dice roll is. Yet if you need to hit high AC you fall back to 2d6 +3/R+5 which is the only drawback of GWM.

You see, because AC is generally lower than I had expected, GWM is really OP at level 4. That's why I don't want to take it, to not outshine the rest of the party.
So I would like to do some homebrew tweaks to GWM and Savage Attacker.
I would take a little from GWM: 'bonus attack on dropping creature to 0 HP' and give it to Savage Attacker and being able to use the Weapon dice re-roll once during the whole turn, so you can use it on AoO reactions too.
That way GWM has less self synergy and no longer broken because it's downside is less well compensated.

Regarding Orcish Fury feature. I couldn't disagree more. Yes you get the +STR/CON ASI but the rest of the feature is more fluffy than actually useful. As we know a great axe is only worth it if you have Savage Attacker being able to add one weapon dice per s/l rest isn't cutting it.
Sure the extra weapon attack on triggering Endless Endurance is very nice but something I am willingly to aim for, unless I was a Path of the Zealot Barbarian.
Now to give this feature some benefit I would give 3 uses of the extra damage die and you regain 1/short and 3/long rest. On average 1d12 only adds 6,5 damage and this only once per rest?
Sure on criticals it doubles, but still not really feature worthy.
So I don't see how this Orcish Fury coud be any better than Savage Attacker, which guarantees at least one d12 re-roll which gives +2,33 on average and a change at getting to 10+ weapon damage damage per hit a lot more frequent that with 2d6.



Sentinel is usually a great barbarian feat. However, when you're raging it competes for your reaction since it has the same trigger as your shield. I would take polearm master before this.

Don't bother with resilient: Dex. Your AC will be better if you just wear half plate anyway..
Seeing that my party members are more ranges oriented, I reckon that Sentinel would be a great feature to make them shine more because they can easier stay out of melee.
Yet I want desperately to have my Mohrdus wield the Great Axe in a stereotypical H-O Barbarian style. I feel like the designers dropped the ball on the great-axe. It should have gotten 1d12 +1 damage instead.
And only having one reaction makes me shy away from it being an Ancestrial Guardian.

About AC: doesn't half plate allow for +2 DEX bonus? So if possible bumping DEX isn't bad as it improves my ranged attack, initiative and stealth skill. But not good enough to be take before upgrading the combat effectiveness of Morhdus.

This character has a long background from growing up in a Orcish tribe as Ohrcus, from where he was banished. Made a living in nature and fighting for money in the gamble pits. After which he started with a party of to adventures in aiding Ramor to break free from tyrannical suppression. In this effort he died and was reborn as a Revenant by some diety. This is how Mohrdus was born. He had no idea why he was brought back, maybe he needed to become the champion of a this diety?
After Ramor, Mohrdus stepped through a portal with his party to end up in a world where the magic was only granted through the will of some gods.
It's there that Morhdus discovered that he was anointed as Avatar for Armagodin, the god of metal.
Once again a portal offered a way back out, which Mohrdus took to search for his destiny. This time the portal led to Oberron and there seem all different forms of magic granted by the same type of marks grant magical powers.

Conclusion
Seeing his background, I reckon that dipping into fighter to become a champion is most fitting for this character.
Being able to dish out enough damage without needing to power attack and having a good shot at a critical gives some more flexibility at how to deliver the pain.
This is why I'm going to build this character with Savage Attacker first, hopefully in a homebrewed version.

[Man_Over_Game]

Valid points. I'm actually not a huge fan of GWM myself, and I nerf it (to only apply to attacks provided by the Attack Action) to make it more inline with other feats.

Other option you could consider is going Storm. As a "bender of metal", there's a lot to work with. Fire, Lightning and Cold could be references to the several aspects of forging metal (birth from the forge, conductivity, cold steel). Temporary Hitpoints are reframed as "steel plating".

It does fill a similar role as the Ancestral Guardians, with an emphasis on damage. Take it from me, Ancestral Guardians is very powerful, but also very boring and fragile in practice. You will find that YOU become the path of least resistance, without many options for you to improve your circumstance. You could just script your character to be "I attack the biggest enemy" every turn, for the next 17 levels. Things like Mobile or Monk can make it more interesting, but it's not a very exciting class.

[strangebloke]

Lots to reply to here:

First off, GWF style. It's better on a greatsword, but it still addresses the concern of low-rolling. Greataxes just synergize so well with the Half-orc ability that its worth it anyway. (Sorta. 3d12=18.5 vs. 5d6=17.5 on a crit. Kinda meh, honestly.)

Champ multiclass is really good. Reckless attack for advantage, and you'll be critting on about 20% of attacks. Feels goood.

Orcish fury is +1d12=6.5 on a hit, and +2d12=13 on a crit. A typical day will have 1-2 encounters per short rest, with the rounds that matter in an encounter basically being limited to the first 3-4. Since Savage Attacker adds +2 damage per round, you need 7 or eight rounds to equal orcish fury. But Orcish fury gives you a bigger spike in damage when you need it. Both feats make you better when you're doing poorly, just in different ways. Savage Attacker is better, but if you can use the +1 STR, Orcish Fury is usually better.

I'm fond of it because otherwise the Barbarian doesn't have any dependable burst ability.

+1 DEX to get you to 16-17 AC sounds great, but in practice... Reckless attack and Rage are both so good you'll be using them near constantly, and your AC is effectively going to be crap no matter what you do. The nature of AC being what it is, investing in it is only good if you can stack the bonuses really high, and in 5e, that means magic items past fifth level, which some DMs are really dodgy about allowing. All in all, There's multiple schools of thought, but I would argue that barbarians shouldn't worry about AC.

Sentinel won't work how you think it does. Or rather, AoOs are weaker than you've probably realized. You only get an AoO when they leave your reach, not when they move through it. So in practice, keeping the backline safe means finding a chokepoint and moving ten feet in front of your party, which leaves you open to flanking and makes your squishies hard to rescue if they do come under fire.

Ancestral Guardian is the tanking barbarian subclass. It's much better than sentinel for tanking and control. Play how you want, but I'm not following your logic.

[Contrast]

I'm not looking for optimisation


Graphs of expected damage per round

...well okay then.


I'd be inclined to just take the strength personally. If you wanted to be faffing around with fancy stuff rather than hitting things real good then another class may have suited. I don't think savage attacker is that good but you will get to use it a lot of turns, you'll remember when it clutches and you said you weren't that fussed with optimisation anyway so if you think its good, no worries :smallbiggrin:

[El_Jairo]

First off: thank you all for pitching in your opinions.


Take it from me, Ancestral Guardians is very powerful, but also very boring and fragile in practice. You will find that YOU become the path of least resistance, without many options for you to improve your circumstance. You could just script your character to be "I attack the biggest enemy" every turn, for the next 17 levels. Things like Mobile or Monk can make it more interesting, but it's not a very exciting class.
I have been playing Morhdus just like that during the campaigns he went through. So this is reassuring to hear that Anc Guardian will fit the way that I play Morhdus. He always wants to prove his prowess by attacking the biggest bad guy head on.



Orcish fury is +1d12=6.5 on a hit, and +2d12=13 on a crit. A typical day will have 1-2 encounters per short rest, with the rounds that matter in an encounter basically being limited to the first 3-4. Since Savage Attacker adds +2 damage per round, you need 7 or eight rounds to equal orcish fury. But Orcish fury gives you a bigger spike in damage when you need it. Both feats make you better when you're doing poorly, just in different ways. Savage Attacker is better, but if you can use the +1 STR, Orcish Fury is usually better.

I'm fond of it because otherwise the Barbarian doesn't have any dependable burst ability.

Yet if you take Orcish Fury over Savage Attacker, you will only roll 6,5 on average on the great axe, -0,833 if compared to Sav Att. Times 5-6 rounds = 4,167-5 damage per encounter, not counting AoO's.
So yeah you can burst but it's unreliable in the amount the burst gives. And Savage Attacker is all about making damage more reliable. This is why I prefer it, because I will be attacking the biggest threat I want to make sure that my damage is getting through in a significant way.



+1 DEX to get you to 16-17 AC sounds great, but in practice... Reckless attack and Rage are both so good you'll be using them near constantly, and your AC is effectively going to be crap no matter what you do. The nature of AC being what it is, investing in it is only good if you can stack the bonuses really high, and in 5e, that means magic items past fifth level, which some DMs are really dodgy about allowing. All in all, There's multiple schools of thought, but I would argue that barbarians shouldn't worry about AC.

I get that Reckless is a great option but I want to rather keep it as a safety card for when I need it to make sure I hit something and to go crit fishing.
I feel that applying it to only one attack is a little lack-luster, so I don't tend to use it unless most of the opponents have been already removed so the down-side of it is less of a problem.
I agree that AC isn't the biggest priority for a Barbarian as he has HP to tank for him and a Half-Orc has Endless Endurance as a safety net.



Sentinel won't work how you think it does. Or rather, AoOs are weaker than you've probably realized. You only get an AoO when they leave your reach, not when they move through it. So in practice, keeping the backline safe means finding a chokepoint and moving ten feet in front of your party, which leaves you open to flanking and makes your squishies hard to rescue if they do come under fire.

This is the way I imagined AoO works. Yet Sentinel also grants a reaction for when a foe tries to attack another target from your reach. Which is ideal for when enemies try to get past Morhdus to strike the middle line. This is also very fitting for a Champion who want his pray to only attack him.
I would reckon that our Lizardfolk Light Cleric would also be on line duty to stop holes.



Ancestral Guardian is the tanking barbarian subclass. It's much better than sentinel for tanking and control. Play how you want, but I'm not following your logic.
Okay, great that Ancestral Guardian is the best taking Barbarian subclass, I'm glad I chose it because a tank is what our party needs most.


...well okay then.


I'd be inclined to just take the strength personally. If you wanted to be faffing around with fancy stuff rather than hitting things real good then another class may have suited. I don't think savage attacker is that good but you will get to use it a lot of turns, you'll remember when it clutches and you said you weren't that fussed with optimisation anyway so if you think its good, no worries :smallbiggrin:
Yes, I do anticipate to be happy to have savage attacker when you re-roll a -5 into a 8+ on weapon damage. So it will be most satisfying, more than abusing the broken version of GWM before level 10. I heard it's then that casters get more powerful at damage dealing so GWM is great for keeping up.