Barbarian5/Fighter1 Level Arc

[virtualslayer22]

Hey all,

I'm looking for some advice on my barbarian character. We recently just finished our first dungeon crawl campaign. Our last battle was vs a dragon (homebrewed to fit our levels thank Moradin). This was my first true taste of how powerful the barbarian can be.. The bear totem resistance while raging with two attacks and a bonus attack..... boy oh boy did I deal some damage. We have now leveled up to level 7. But I am a bit stuck..

What are ideas on a level up for this character? The obvious two are level 6 barbarian and choosing another totem path (but honestly I don't see a lot of benefit with this option for this round of totem picks...our campaign just wouldn't utilize many of the options, but I am open to hearing why they would be beneficial). Option 2 would be level 2 fighter to get the Action Surge to give me 5 attacks per short rest, which would deal some crazy damage.

Or... would it be weird to multiclass into a third class?

Here are my stats:
Str: 19 (gauntlets of ogre power)
Dex: 16
Con: 18
Int: 12
Wis: 8
Cha: 10

Feat: Dual Wielder

Would love thoughts/ideas. Thanks!

[Moxxmix]

Level 6 Barbarian not only gives you the minor path feature, but also increases your rages per day from 3 to 4.

Both the bear and eagle features are nice enough for minor utility. The Eagle is especially nice for races that don't get darkvision. Also, if you grab from the Sword Coast Adventure Guide, Tiger is nice for a couple extra skills ("You gain proficiency in two skills form the following list: Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth, and Survival.") Bear is useful if you track encumbrance, or if you can take advantage of Str checks.

Overall, barbarian 6 is there for some extra utility.

Fighter level 2 is there for extra combat power. Two extra attacks (you don't get another bonus action) can add a lot of damage. If you do go this way, I'd expect you will want to take fighter up to level 4 for the subclass and ASI.

A third multiclass would most likely be rogue, for an extra skill and expertise in two skills (athletics being a common choice). It's more utility, but a different type of utility than continuing with barbarian. You most likely won't be making use of Sneak Attack.


I'd go with the level in fighter if there's a fighter subclass that you're really interested in grabbing, and if you're lacking in combat output (which doesn't seem to be the case for you). Otherwise I'd look at what sort of utility you think would be useful — more skills, better perception, strength checks, etc.

Expertise from rogue is very tempting, but at the same time I don't think you're going to be able to really use what multiclassing rogue could do for you.


Whether you go for more combat power or more utility depends on your game. If you're not striving for higher level barbarian features, both fighter and rogue give some nice benefits, depending on your preference on how to grow your character. There are also issues of when you pick up new ASIs, and things like when you get an increase in Rage damage.

There are reasonable arguments for any of the choices, and I don't think I could advice you only on a forum post. It depends a lot on how you want to develop your character, and what interests you.


Since you already have a level in fighter, I would probably personally pursue that line for a while. My own barbarian was single-class all the way, because I was aiming for the level 14 flight totem ability, but I'll admit that I really wanted a level in rogue along the way.

Not sure that helped any.

[bid]

Rogue to BA-dash and get some expertise. But remember that feral instinct gives you "an extra turn" whenever it makes you win initiative.

But it really depends on what's your RP concept. How do you play it outside of combat?

[Yakk]

A standard barbarian-fighter ends at barbarian 9 fighter 11.

But fighter 3 is nice. Both battlemaster or champion; champion gives you 19-20 crit, whch is wonderful with reckless attacks. And action surge is the strongest combat ability from level 1 to 3 in the game.

DW makes -5/+10 feats out of play. Sad.

[bid]

Both battlemaster or champion; champion gives you 19-20 crit, whch is wonderful with reckless attacks.
Careful with champion. BM is stronger until barbarian 13 which you will never reach.

[virtualslayer22]

Ahhh I did not realize I’d get a 4th rage.. that makes the decision a bit harder. Although 2 extra attacks every short rest seems a bit more useful.

I do have the resources to get tiger, but we honestly don’t do much tracking.

The other issues I have is that one of the group members is already a fighter.

Rogue does sound interesting.

Can anyone elaborate on the battle master/ champion arcs?

[CTurbo]

What was your original vision for this character? Looking forward, which Totem would you take at level 14 if you continued on with Barbarian? Unless you're excited about one of those features, I would jump over to Fighter and not look bad probably.

Battle Master adds fun maneuvers that you can use as you please while Champion adds passive features that require no strategy.

[bid]

Can anyone elaborate on the battle master/ champion arcs?
Precision strike turns a miss into a hit, BM will use it when barely missing and this will get 3 more hits per short rest (out of 4 SD). That's an extra 3 * (1d6+4) ~ 22 extra damage.

Improved critical happens roughly every 20 rolls and adds 1d6 damage. You'll need 6 criticals to do ~ 21 extra damage. That's roughly 120 attack rolls or 40 rounds of combat.

Most battles are over in 5 rounds, and 5-8 encounters is considered a full day. You are expected to have roughly 2 short rests over that day to use some HD and recover your hp, because you will run out of hp in 3-4 encounters if you dont.

At level 7, the balance is somewhat back. BM only gets fluff; EK can war magic and BB for constant extra damage; Champion has better initiative thanks to remarkable athlete, which is an extra turn.


Barbarian 13 had brutal critical 2, every critical adds 3d6. In that case, you only need 13 rounds of combat to match BM. That's a fairly realistic day.


OTOH, you will always overkill by a few hp. For a large 2-hander that's an easy excess of 6 damage per kill. This overkill has a larger impact than the difference between the archetypes.

So.... what CTurbo said is the best tl;dr you can get.

[Moxxmix]

Ahhh I did not realize I’d get a 4th rage.. that makes the decision a bit harder. Although 2 extra attacks every short rest seems a bit more useful.

I do have the resources to get tiger, but we honestly don’t do much tracking.

The other issues I have is that one of the group members is already a fighter.

Rogue does sound interesting.

Can anyone elaborate on the battle master/ champion arcs?
Rogue might actually work better for you than I first thought.

Since you're dual-wielding, and have both the fighting style and the feat supporting that, you're most likely using something like a pair of longswords (1d8 each). Since the feat allows you to use non-light weapons for your offhand, you can swap that to a rapier, which is finesse, and thus usable for Sneak Attack. And you can still use Str for your attacks to gain the Rage damage bonus.

With Reckless Attacks, you can basically use Sneak Attack at will, and even without that you have another fighter in the group. Overall, you can probably use Sneak Attack just about every round without issue.

1d6 Sneak Attack averages 3.5 damage. Action Surge from fighter gives you two extra attacks, at 1d8+4 each. The Action Surge attacks do 5x as much damage as the Sneak Attack, but are only usable once per short rest. Two fights with 3 rounds each could give you 6 Sneak Attacks, allowing them to be on par, damage-wise, though weaker in terms of spike damage.

Combined with the skills and expertise, a level in rogue is actually a pretty decent option for you, given what you've already put into the build.

There might be value in taking rogue to level 2, to gain Dash as a bonus action, but that's an iffy choice. I probably wouldn't take more than 1 level in rogue, because the archetypes don't really help you at level 3, given you can get your Sneak Attack automatically. Maybe consider it for the extra Sneak Attack damage, which is about as useful than the extra Rage damage when you're making 3 attacks per round.

I'd look towards Barb 6 / Fighter 3 / Rogue 1 by level 10. Probably push towards Fighter 6 after that, for 2 more ASIs.

[Eldariel]

I'd definitely lean towards Fighter 2 and then Fighter 3. That gives you a lot of value regardless of the subclass you pick (basically any but PDK or EK since PDK is bad and EK relies on levels). Action Surge is just good when you have Extra Attack and high value attacks. Gloomstalker Ranger 3 is another strong pick to go with Fighter 2: it's pretty frontloaded and gives you a good number of nice bonuses, including Hunter's Mark (which goes great against bigger targets), Fighting Style (basically +1 AC since Defense is just the most natural option as you already have TWF style), and the awesome Gloomstalker abilities: Wis to Initiative, Extra Attack with Bonus Damage on first round (goes insanely well with Action Surge), Darkvision and invisibility to Darkvision. Makes you a natural sneak in any kind of dark place, and then you can just go Hulk Smash whatever you run into.

[Yakk]

Careful with champion. BM is stronger until barbarian 13 which you will never reach.
Stronger sure, but more fun?

20% crit rate is fun.

[Yakk]

Careful with champion. BM is stronger until barbarian 13 which you will never reach.
Stronger sure, but more fun?

20% crit rate is fun.

Over a 5 round fight you get 12+4=16 attacks and 3.2 crits. If you upgrade to dual flametongue, that is 3.2*(11.5) or almost 40 damage.

A BM has to use riposte or precision reasonably well to match that.

[DevilMcam]

Over a 5 round fight you get 12+4=16 attacks and 3.2 crits. If you upgrade to dual flametongue, that is 3.2*(11.5) or almost 40 damage.

but half of those would have been crits regardless of you subclass, so you only gain about 20 damages

A single successfull precision attack with a nonmagical longsword is 1d8+7 damage so about 12 damage. if you manage to get 3 of them you are at 36 damage, much higher that what a champion would get from those flametongues
Now with the same flametongue (that eats your BA to turn on,let's not forget that), a successfull precision attack is 3d8+7 so about 21 damage. you then only need to get 2 hits in to beat the champion.

Even if your accuracy is so high thanks to reckless attack, a longsword is a d8 damage, wich is as much as any battlemaster manouvers. So unless you do get that flammetongue, battlemaster gives you 4 "crits" per shortrest that you control, can stack on normal crits for 2d8 damages and have ridders.

There may be reasons to go for champion, but getting maximum damage on a dualwielding barb is not one. If that's what you are looking for, go for Battlemaster

[bid]

Stronger sure, but more fun?
Playing the roulette with toy money is anything but fun.

[virtualslayer22]

What was your original vision for this character? Looking forward, which Totem would you take at level 14 if you continued on with Barbarian? Unless you're excited about one of those features, I would jump over to Fighter and not look bad probably.

Battle Master adds fun maneuvers that you can use as you please while Champion adds passive features that require no strategy.

I would either go Eagle, Wolf, or Elk (in that order). I would love to be able to knock an enemy prone on my first weapon attack then have two more swings with advantage. But it would be dope to be able to fly from area to area in a battle, esp in situations where I would have to get around creatures/items.

My biggest battle flaw is that if I am not within movement distance, I have to throw a handaxe to stay raging or I am useless and have to wait until I am in range.

As for out of battle.. honestly, we didn't have many encounters without battle since it was a dungeon crawl. Being a barbarian, I didn't plan on having a lot of charisma.. but I do want him to be savvy. His backstory is interesting: a banished dwarf due to his illegitimacy who spent a few years as a sailor and doesn't sway from any challenge or danger. He's not reckless and knows his limits for battle.

I am not looking to play the BARBARIAN SMASH, ME ANGRY trope that I see many talk about. He is a sentient being with plenty of battle and life experience that can be voiced in a clear way. Although he will never be the face, the smartest, nor the wisest for the party. I hope this helps?

[Moxxmix]

I would either go Eagle, Wolf, or Elk (in that order). I would love to be able to knock an enemy prone on my first weapon attack then have two more swings with advantage. But it would be dope to be able to fly from area to area in a battle, esp in situations where I would have to get around creatures/items.

My biggest battle flaw is that if I am not within movement distance, I have to throw a handaxe to stay raging or I am useless and have to wait until I am in range.

As for out of battle.. honestly, we didn't have many encounters without battle since it was a dungeon crawl. Being a barbarian, I didn't plan on having a lot of charisma.. but I do want him to be savvy. His backstory is interesting: a banished dwarf due to his illegitimacy who spent a few years as a sailor and doesn't sway from any challenge or danger. He's not reckless and knows his limits for battle.

I am not looking to play the BARBARIAN SMASH, ME ANGRY trope that I see many talk about. He is a sentient being with plenty of battle and life experience that can be voiced in a clear way. Although he will never be the face, the smartest, nor the wisest for the party. I hope this helps?

If you're going to continue to focus on dungeoncrawls, I'd go for Fighter or Barbarian next. Rogue is more useful for the skills than for the extra damage. Reconsider it if you move to having more social encounters, but for now it's not necessary.

So that leaves the choice between Barb 6 and Fighter 2. Fighter is more spike damage (from Action Surge), Barb is more endurance (from more Rages). You'll likely want both, and it's just a question of which to take first before having both at level 8. Then likely take Fighter 3 after that for the archetype.

After that it's a question of whether you want to push Barb or Fighter. Options are: Barb 9/Fighter 11 (triple attack for optimal damage at 20, but I'd consider it less desirable prior to that); Barb 14/Fighter 6 (extra Fighter ASI, and lvl 14 totem choices); Barb 16/Fighter 4 (stop on ASIs, and Barb gets Persistant Rage); Barb 17/Fighter 3 (6th Barb Rage, but lose an ASI).