Palbarian tank

[Spacehamster]

So how well would a paladin/barb multi class work, just thought of a use for the standard human maybe, point buy scores of 15/13/13/13/11/8 lets you have all the needed ability scores of the mc with pretty good stats, his spell slots will all be used mostly for smites and the occasional heal after a battle I suppose.

For subclasses ancients paladin + zealot barb would probably be best and most well fitting together, resistance to magic from ancients aura, resistance to physical attacks from rage, good ac with defense style plus medium armor + shield, pretty good mobility from the extra barb speed and a decent offense for sword and board due to smites + rage.

8 paladin and 12 barbarian levels I thought would be the best.

ASI’s would be used to max STR and to get CHA TO 16 or 18 and then one or two feats to pick.

So how would this work out? Sounds good in my head but not sure which class to start with and get to lvl 5 first for 2nd attack.

[Chugger]

Weak smites as he levels into barb cuz Pal slots capped and stopped growing - can't cast while raging - but can LoH and has aura at least. Meh. I mean 5e is very flexible, so even sub-optimal mc's "work" or are playable. Why not go sorcadin instead and have slots out the wazoo? And if crunch-time is coming, quicken cast blade ward - and halve all melee damage?

[Spacehamster]

Weak smites as he levels into barb cuz Pal slots capped and stopped growing - can't cast while raging - but can LoH and has aura at least. Meh. I mean 5e is very flexible, so even sub-optimal mc's "work" or are playable. Why not go sorcadin instead and have slots out the wazoo? And if crunch-time is coming, quicken cast blade ward - and halve all melee damage?

you can smite while raging tho as I said + you get zealot "smites" every turn while raging + way more durable than a squishy Sorcadin and were not trying to make a caster but a beefy guy. :)

[Dork_Forge]

Just a clarification, the Ancients aura gives you resistance to spell damage, not magic resistance.

I think this would work okay and would probably be quite fun, but it's far from optimal. You're spreading your stats very thinly and hitting the 5th level Extra Attack redundancy. I think this would work better as a primary Paladin with a 4 level dip into Barbarian.

[Spacehamster]

Just a clarification, the Ancients aura gives you resistance to spell damage, not magic resistance.

I think this would work okay and would probably be quite fun, but it's far from optimal. You're spreading your stats very thinly and hitting the 5th level Extra Attack redundancy. I think this would work better as a primary Paladin with a 4 level dip into Barbarian.

Curious why people always state the thing about extra attack redundancy? It’s not like it hurts the char in any way? And level five on both classes are not dead levels without extra attack, barb gets another rage and fast movement and pala gets level 2 smite slots, but yeah prob best with 16 ancients pala 4 zealot. :)

[Dork_Forge]

Curious why people always state the thing about extra attack redundancy? It’s not like it hurts the char in any way? And level five on both classes are not dead levels without extra attack, barb gets another rage and fast movement and pala gets level 2 smite slots, but yeah prob best with 16 ancients pala 4 zealot. :)

Whilst it doesn't 'hurt' the character, feature redundancy is something that's nice to avoid where possible. Think of it this way, is it worth trading an ASI for just a 10ft speed bump at a 15/5 split?

But yeah it seems like a fun build with a lot of damage/versatility.

[CheddarChampion]

I'm currently playing a palbarian and I'm having a lot of fun. I did roll for stats in that game, though. I'd recommend 1 to 4 levels in Barb and the rest in Pal.

Not a lot of barbarian features past level 5 will do much for ya. Not as in 'bad' but as in 'not as useful as they could be'.

Zealot level 3 is great. Zealot level 6 less so when you have +Cha to saves. Zealot 10 is only good when you have a lot of warrior/archer types with you. Zealot 14 is great, however, and stacks nicely with aura of protection. But that's a capstone (Barb 14/Pal 6) and you aren't likely to see that come to pass.

Barb 7 is good only when the DM ambushes you. Barb 9 adds some damage (6.5 max?) 9.75% of the time. Barb 11 should give you an extra 1-2 rounds of action if you're brought that low.

OTOH Pal 9 gives 3rd level spells and more spell slots. Pal 10 makes you immune to something that shuts you down. Pal 11 adds 4.5 damage to every attack. Pal 13 gives 4th level spells (including a flying mount) and more slots. Pal 14 gives magical-debuff removal. Pal 15 makes you ageless and gives you one use of Barb 11. Pal 17 gives 5th level spells (including Holy Weapon and Destructive Wave) and more spell slots. Pal 18 gives more allies your aura boosts more often.

1 level Barb is good if you just want damage resistance. 2 is good for dexterity saves and pairing with GWM. 3 is good for bonus damage (4.5 per round) and 0-monetary-cost revives. 4 is good to max out ASI's/feats and 1 damage point more per round.

5 levels in Barb is bad because Pal 16 and the feat 'mobile' is better. Barb 6 is a trade-off because you lose agelessness, one free use of Barb 11, and more spell slots but get +1 damage per round and reroll a save once per rage. Barb 7 is trading off magical-debuff removal for resistance to surprise (balanced, really). Barb 8 loses 4th level spells and spell slots for an ASI/feat (could be justified but who doesn't want a magical flying creature to carry you around?).

[GreyBlack]

You can't rage in heavy armor, so that's a thing.

[Spacehamster]

You can't rage in heavy armor, so that's a thing.

yep said medium armor + shield. :)

On another note, there is one thing with the zealot that I would want clarified, it’s lvl 3 ability says the first enemy you attack each turn while raging you deal 1d6 + half barb level damage to, since it does not say anything about how many times you deal that damage to “the first enemy you attack” does that mean that it applies to all attacks that round(if made against the first enemy)?

[ThatoneGuy84]

Seems super MAD to me.
You want
Very good str.
Decent Cha
Decent Dex
Decent Con

All of this to add a few smiles a day in? And alittle casting versatility/healing?
Smite are good dont get me wrong, but I think Pure pally / tank or pure Barb tank nets you a way better charactor.

Your probably going to end up with a medium HP barb with lower A/C and to trade for smite that will net you a medium amount of Damage.

[xen]

yep said medium armor + shield. :)

On another note, there is one thing with the zealot that I would want clarified, it’s lvl 3 ability says the first enemy you attack each turn while raging you deal 1d6 + half barb level damage to, since it does not say anything about how many times you deal that damage to “the first enemy you attack” does that mean that it applies to all attacks that round(if made against the first enemy)?

On Divine Fury, it's the first creature you hit on each of your turns with a weapon attack (while raging). I read that as just on your first hit of each turn.

[CheddarChampion]

On Divine Fury, it's the first creature you hit on each of your turns with a weapon attack (while raging). I read that as just on your first hit of each turn.

Seconded.
Imagine a fighter 12/zealot 8 with PAM doing 3x(1d10+1d6+4+Str+rage) and 1x(1d4+1d6+4+Str+rage) on their turn (with 20 Str, that's 3x20 and 1x17). Who needs GWM?

[Spacehamster]

Seconded.
Imagine a fighter 12/zealot 8 with PAM doing 3x(1d10+1d6+4+Str+rage) and 1x(1d4+1d6+4+Str+rage) on their turn (with 20 Str, that's 3x20 and 1x17). Who needs GWM?

Yeah imagine a 5e ability being good. *shudders* :p
Jokes aside, that’s like the only gripe with 5e that I have, you can’t really make powerful characters compared to pathfinder or 3.5. :(

[Spacehamster]

Seems super MAD to me.
You want
Very good str.
Decent Cha
Decent Dex
Decent Con

All of this to add a few smiles a day in? And alittle casting versatility/healing?
Smite are good dont get me wrong, but I think Pure pally / tank or pure Barb tank nets you a way better charactor.

Your probably going to end up with a medium HP barb with lower A/C and to trade for smite that will net you a medium amount of Damage.

With normal human you get good stats on all the things you listed tho which were my point. :)

And yeah perhaps slightly better going pure but damn much more boring, always refused single class cus of how boring it is. :(

[Magicspook]

Palbarian? Barbadin? Balabarian?