Barbarian Optimization Question

[SteelArcana]

I usually like to have characters designed for each role in a party for every game that I play. With that said, I’m having a rough time building a martial character in D&D.

Looking at the martial classes from a roleplaying and optimization perspective, I like the barbarian. What I dislike is seemingly being punished for having even a +1 modifier in intelligence because they are so MAD. I think that playing a barbarian that is something other than a stupid brute offers an interesting character design.

I’ve never played a melee character in DnD, so I have no idea how they perform outside of just crunching numbers.

For those of you who have played a barbarian, how would you build one with some restrictions being that you need a minimum of +1 in intelligence and no multi-classing?

[Particle_Man]

High elf barbarian. Pick a cantrip that requires a saving throw.

If you like minor illusion as your canttip then forest gnome is another option.

Feats: Magic Initiate for wizard stuff, ritual casting maybe, war caster maybe.

Skills: Perception comes from high elf. Pick nature and athletics. Get safe background for arcana and history.

Be Conan the Librarian.

More thoughts: If you go with bear totem you get good protection vs. all but psychic damage while raging. Perhaps the feat that makes int your good save could help there since psychic damage sometimes has int saves. Resilience I think? Also totem barbarians get a few ritual spells.

[Innocent_bystan]

Ritual caster on a barbarian would be quite interesting in out-of-combat situations. And, depending on how your DM handles familiars, would also have some use in combat.

Edit: Found this while googling rituals:


Took ritual caster (wizard) on a barbarian.

Everything is friggin GOLD

Big winners from that game?
Find Familiar - A set of eyes with the option to switch out favoured terrain and vision types? Yes please! - as a side benefit, robes + unarmored defense + familiar left our foes often thinking I was "the wizard" (I was) and closing to melee. Then rage happened. Word got around by the time we were 6-7th level but I went Eagle totem so by then escape was not really an option for our foes.
Comprehend languages - Take a look, its in a book.
Gentle repose - a niche effect, but really solid when you need it. In our case? We needed (wanted) information from the outerplanes but the clerics we had access to could only cast revivify... so ya. Playing Orpheus? Its kinda like that.
Water Breathing - cast on the whole party in the morning, lasts all day. Holy Cattle. Turns every body of water into a weapon, most things can drown. Barbarian grapple powers activate.

and my favorite:
Contact Other Plane - when I absolutely positively need to fail a save and go insane from delving into things man was not meant to know. (we were opposing an Aboeth for the campaign, I passed the save myself, but would not have been disappointed in a fail.)

[Foxhound438]

Why intelligence and not wisdom or charisma? having good math skills but no identification of social cues and poor communication skills that lead to unstoppable bouts of anger does make a pretty believable character though.

To get a good mental stat without sacrificing too much in your stats, you can do one of two things- cheap out on con and use medium armor, or cheap out on dex and just ignore your AC all together. I would opt to do the latter, as you already really lean on your high HP and damage resistance to make up for reckless attack getting you hit all the time anyways. Something like this:

Variant Human (polearm master or great weapon master as your feat, both are good depending on subclass choice)
Str: 15+1 (9 pts)
Dex: 12 (4 pts)
Con: 15+1 (9 pts)
Int: 13 (5 pts)
wis: 8
cha: 8

If you don't care for a feat, mountain dwarf saves you 4 points in your point buy that you can use to bring wis and charisma to 10, or if you want to min/max hard you can start with two 17's to give you +4 in both stats at level 4.

from there you can max out str and con at some point take resilient: Int to really bamboozle someone trying to cast an illusion spell at you, or maybe observant for good perception, and in either case a +2 int modifier in the end.

[The Big Bear]

From an optimization standpoint Barbs are pretty MAD, so choosing to bump Int will generally decrease optimization.

Using medium armor would allow you focus more on Int than Dex/Con to some extent. Most barbs that I've seen play unarmored because of the flavor and they bump Str/Dex/Con while dumping Int/Wis/Chr. But medium armor allows you to have somewhat decent AC without relying on both high Dex and Con. You choose either Dex or Con instead of both; boost dex to +2 if you want better AC throughout and boost Con if you want more health.

Sage background gives you some cool roleplay too; it is not that hard to believe that the smartest barbarian of their tribe has an Int of 12.

[SteelArcana]

Why intelligence and not wisdom or charisma? having good math skills but no identification of social cues and poor communication skills that lead to unstoppable bouts of anger does make a pretty believable character though.

To get a good mental stat without sacrificing too much in your stats, you can do one of two things- cheap out on con and use medium armor, or cheap out on dex and just ignore your AC all together. I would opt to do the latter, as you already really lean on your high HP and damage resistance to make up for reckless attack getting you hit all the time anyways. Something like this:

Variant Human (polearm master or great weapon master as your feat, both are good depending on subclass choice)
Str: 15+1 (9 pts)
Dex: 12 (4 pts)
Con: 15+1 (9 pts)
Int: 13 (5 pts)
wis: 8
cha: 8

If you don't care for a feat, mountain dwarf saves you 4 points in your point buy that you can use to bring wis and charisma to 10, or if you want to min/max hard you can start with two 17's to give you +4 in both stats at level 4.

from there you can max out str and con at some point take resilient: Int to really bamboozle someone trying to cast an illusion spell at you, or maybe observant for good perception, and in either case a +2 int modifier in the end.

This was more or less the idea. I mean, he's still a barbarian. I hardly expect him to have access to magic or have a sage background, I'd just prefer him to have slightly above average intelligence.

[Nhorianscum]

Tortle bearbarian named Donatello is clearly the way to go here.

[Laird]

I second Ritual Caster.

If you have the stats to still cap Str/Dex or Str/Con with a 13 Int or Wis you will have a blast. Imagine having the familiar and 'basically' reckless attacking but using your familiar to help?

A lot of the gripes of playing a martial class is the lack of out of combat utility. Taking ritual Caster at lvl 1 as a Vuman or at lvl 4 as anything else gives Barb a TON of utility while still having the wicked awesome combat capabilities. My favorite Barb was a Fire Genasi stormherald. That racial +1 int with standard array allows for a spread of 15/14/15/13/10/8 which allows you to end up with Riual Caster, 20/14/18/13/10/8 and every wizard ritual plus a decent ranged cantrio and aoe from Fire Genasi.

Twas a fun Barb and a nice switch from relying on GWM. (We had enough damage but little utility.)

[Man_Over_Game]

Unfortunately, Intelligence just isn't used very often in the current status of 5e. Wizards, Arcane Tricksters, Inquisitives, and Eldritch Knights are the only things that utilize Intelligence outside of skills/feats.

Additionally, most of those don't work with the Barbarian. Barbarians can't cast spells while Raging, which leaves the Inquisitive, who's main benefit is sneak attacking at long range using Wisdom to activate (and none of that works for a Barbarian).

However, there are a few things you can do to spice up the Barbarian a bit:


1 level into Barbarian, going into Monk for some rapid-fire Strength punching and using the Barbarian's unarmored defense.
2 levels into Rogue, spamming Reckless Attack for some easy sneak attacks. Go Battlerager and Scout for some unlikely synergies.
2+ Levels into Druid, to become Moon Druid. Raging while in beast mode while having your AC scale with the beast's AC is incredibly good.
2+ levels into Druid, to utilize things like Jump, Longstrider and Mirror Image, all which don't utilize Concentration (and so can be used while Raging).
1+ Levels into Warlock, to gain Armor of Agathys and make it last much longer with Rage (halved damage means getting more value out of AoA)
Just be a friggin' smart Barbarian. Storm Herald has some interesting tactical uses. Ask your DM if there's some way he'd let you change your totem or storm when you rest/in combat, and it'd really add an interesting dynamic to the stagnant Barbarian.

[Particle_Man]

Another option is to play a dumb bunny that thinks he is smart. The sort of guy that uses words and phrases that are close to, but not quite correct. The sort of guy that says “that song mixes the sacred and the propane” or “your luck was
serendiculous”.

[Ganymede]

I usually like to have characters designed for each role in a party for every game that I play. With that said, I’m having a rough time building a martial character in D&D.

Looking at the martial classes from a roleplaying and optimization perspective, I like the barbarian. What I dislike is seemingly being punished for having even a +1 modifier in intelligence because they are so MAD. I think that playing a barbarian that is something other than a stupid brute offers an interesting character design.

I’ve never played a melee character in DnD, so I have no idea how they perform outside of just crunching numbers.

For those of you who have played a barbarian, how would you build one with some restrictions being that you need a minimum of +1 in intelligence and no multi-classing?

My barbarian starts with a +2 intelligence modifier. I started with a 15 strength, then bumped it to 16 at level four with a half feat. It really isn't a big deal at all.

[bid]

For those of you who have played a barbarian, how would you build one with some restrictions being that you need a minimum of +1 in intelligence and no multi-classing?
16 14 14 12 10 10 is doable with half-orc or half-elf.

[jas61292]

My barbarian starts with a +2 intelligence modifier. I started with a 15 strength, then bumped it to 16 at level four with a half feat. It really isn't a big deal at all.

This. I have not done this specifically, though I have played a high Charisma barbarian, which, build wise, has a similar issue. In my case, I didn't sacrifice strength (I was a Dragonborn), but I just didn't care about being optimal in everything else. I believe my starting stats were actually 16/12/14/8/8/16. It was an incredibly fun character. I know a lot of people cannot even imagine dumping Wisdom, but it honestly was not that bad. Especially since I went Berserker and had Mindless Rage. And that said, you don't even have to dump it, if you don't want to be as crazy as I was and absolutely pump a mental stat. Funnily enough, it was actually the lack of Intelligence, not Wisdom, that did in that character. Damn intellect devourers....

But seriously, AC is overrated on a barbarian. You are there to tank hits. Sure, in theory, not taking a hit at all is better than taking even a weak hit, but in some ways, having a lower AC is actually better. A barbarian is a tank, but unless you play an Ancients Barbarian, you don't have great ways to draw enemies to attack you. In my experience, the easier guys can hit you, the more likely they are to keep attacking you rather than the squishies. Though your mileage may vary on that one. Either way though, you are gonna be giving opponents advantage to hit you a lot, so you are going to be hit a lot. A point, or even two, of AC is not really a huge deal. Get whatever other stats you want and then put what you have left into Dex. You'll be fine.

[DarkKnightJin]

My Aasimar Barbearian started with Scale mail, +2 on Str, Dex, Con, and Cha. He was kinda fun. And since he was designed to be the 'traitor' at the end of the side campaign to get the Wizard up to speed with the main campaign.. I built him to be a Beast.

He shut down the Rogue hard, proceeded to take out the Paladin as well, with some NPC help.. and then 1-shot the Wizard to 1hp for interrogation.

He was a blast to play, even if he was a bit dull in-combat.

[Corran]

For those of you who have played a barbarian, how would you build one with some restrictions being that you need a minimum of +1 in intelligence and no multi-classing?
Variant Human
STR 15 + 1 = 16 (9 points)
DEX 12 (4 points)
CON 15 + 1 = 16 (9 points)
INT 12 (4 points)
WIS 9 (1 point)
CHA 8 (0 points)

I would round up wisdom by taking the feat resilient wisdom at some point. I would no lower str or con below 16, because both these stats are very important to the barbarian and I think the extra points spent to bring them there are justified at the expense of lower stats overall (meaning I don't think it is a good idea to lower CON to 14 for 4 extra points to distribute on your other stats). After setting a 16 in both STR and CON, and a 12 in INT per your plan, I decided to split the remaining 5 points between dex and wis, because charisma does not offer me any significant benefit when compared to those two other stats. Having in mind that I will eventually want resilient wisdom, it made sense to place the odd score in wisdom (and it was certainly convenient that I had to divide an odd number of points between these two stats). I didn't have to go with 12 dex and 9 wisdom, I could have gone for example with 10 dex and 11 wisdom, though I chose to go with the higher dex because initiative is important for barbarians, so that they have better chance to activate their rage before they get hit. So that made me prioritize dex over wis. I wouldn't raise int to 13 so that I could get ritual caster if I wanted to. Firstly it messes with my plan for an odd wis score (which I plan to round up with resilient), secondly and more importantly, barbarians can make good use of several feats and the competition for a feat/ASI is pretty high already, that means that you are not a good candidate for picking up ritual caster and that shoud be left to someone with less pressure on their ASI's. Picking variant human also ties with this last point.

Edit: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0791.html
(the last six windows)

[Azgeroth]

ok, so im going to assume that by optimise your referring to combat, specifically melee combat.

easy peasy, max str asap.

but your looking for more than GROG SMASH! so im going to change my assumption from combat optimised to concept optimization.

initial thoughts..

we all know 5e is a system with 'bound accuracy' so in reality, not having a great int modifier isn't going to hurt your concept that much at all, as 5e is very much a combat orientated game, provided you have at least a 16 in str, your gonna be gold

as mentioned above, how much you invest in dex/con is up to you, yes dex is the most used attribute, and con dictates HP, but you have the biggest HD so taking medium armor and potentially a shield when needed is going to cover the AC loss from low dex/con, and your not going to loose a huge amount of HP by having a con modifier thats 1 or 2 lower than it could be.

optimise for the smarts!

do not put points into int, its pointless, instead take 1 or 2 feat/half-feats that fit your concept, keen mind for example, you ALWAYS remember what x said, verbatim, you always know exactly the path you took, exactly how the map looked.. your just that kind of clever..
skilled, for all the int skills, why put any points in the stat, when you can just ride the proficiency wave? also, ritual caster wizard, i dont think it needs any justification here.

yes, your going to delay/decrease your combat effectiveness (especially if you take your int feats before GWM) but you will bring your concept online much, much quicker.. and honestly, you would have to try pretty damn hard to not be effective in melee combat as a barbarian.

in conclusion

play whatever race fits your concept the best, preferably something with at least a +1 you can add to STR. V.human is always attractive for the free feat, but personally i never take it, because darkvision.

prioritise your stats as normal, swap up your feat priorities, thats whats going to make this concept work, not your int mod..

also, you can RP your barbarian to be as eloquent and intelligent as you like, your not going to 'waxing philiosophical' in combat, so mechanics dont really matter.

[The Jack]

Another option is to play a dumb bunny that thinks he is smart. The sort of guy that uses words and phrases that are close to, but not quite correct. The sort of guy that says “that song mixes the sacred and the propane” or “your luck was
serendiculous”.

Or you can play the -dumb bunny that thinks he is smart- straight.


I know this guy in real life who's an absolute moron, but he was born into wealth. We'll call him Greg. Greg talks with an upper-class accent and talks slowly as if he's saying the most interesting stuff in the world, and will constantly bring up topics like politics or house prices. The guy is absolutely banal to be around, especially since he's an ass underneath all that and is prone to snapping when you don't give him attention/is a sexist piggy/has **** taste in everything but suits. The man has self control problems, and I don't think he has friends. But I think Greg's good inspiration for character.

You could probably play a good-guy Greg if you just edited out the sad parts.





more to the topic;
8 intelligence is normal intellegence and you would pass for ordinary outside of propper testing.

Something I know from experience; People with natural talent can do well, but they can also perform a lot worse than people who aren't tallented but work their ass off. I believe a -1 modifier is something you can very much compensate for.
A -2 modifier... Well, I don't know about how that'd apply to real life, but as proficiency is at a minimum of +2, it'd get you by.

I would prefer to roll for something as MAD as a barbarian. Point buy isn't adequate.

[Contrast]

Its really a question of how optimal you're looking to be.

I have a forest gnome barbarian in Adventurers League (primarily a combat based endeavour) who started with strength 14. Wildly un-optimal by starting without max strength and denying myself heavy weapons. Went zealot for the extra damage and spent his early levels dual wielding short swords or using a shield as I deemed appropriate.

He's been the last man standing more than once and if anything I would say he's usually been one of the more effective characters at the table. A 5% difference is statistically relevant but honestly not actually particularly noticable at the table, particularly when you can give yourself advantage to attacks at will. In the mean time I pretty much get perma-advantage on 4/6 saves and proficiency in the other two. Not a totally terrible trade off.


Its also worth saying that while barbarians do like dex and con, you really don't need to max them. You'll sometimes be reckless attacking so while you shouldn't just ignore AC its not necessarily worth worrying about stacking it too high. Unarmoured defence is often technically a trap as well as you'd usually be better off/just as good wearing medium armour. While you certainly don't want to dump con, barbarians have the best hit die and rage to soak damage so you can actually get by with a lower con than a melee fighter for example.

You'll be emphasising your strengths by dumping mental stats and focusing on physical ones but your character certainly won't be unplayable if you choose a more balanced build.

Even if you want a more traditional build, a half orc can do 16 14 14 12 10 10 (edit - or even 16 14 16 12 8 8) which is perfectly fine.


Edit -


Tortle bearbarian named Donatello is clearly the way to go here.

This is actually a pretty good shout. Tortles just get a flat AC so you could potentially just dump dex entirely giving you a load of points to play around with, without having as big an impact on combat effectiveness. Bear totem would cover you for the extra damage you might take from dex save spells which wouldn't normally be covered by your rage (bonus points if you want to go sword/board and your DM still rules Shield Master that you can bash before attacking as this lets you further mitigate the downside).

[Nhorianscum]

This is actually a pretty good shout. Tortles just get a flat AC so you could potentially just dump dex entirely giving you a load of points to play around with, without having as big an impact on combat effectiveness. Bear totem would cover you for the extra damage you might take from dex save spells which wouldn't normally be covered by your rage (bonus points if you want to go sword/board and your DM still rules Shield Master that you can bash before attacking as this lets you further mitigate the downside).

Didn't even think of shield mastery, good catch.

The most thematically appropriate quarterstaff & Shield PAM build.