Would You Make This Trade

[Pex]

A new update chronicling my barbarian.

I have an opportunity I'm considering I'm not sure if it's a good idea. I suppose optimization is part of it, but I'm more concerned about not gimping myself. If it's a side trade that's ok.

Pertinent facts:

Character is level 8 bear barbarian/4 battle master fighter/4 thief rogue.
Campaign is intending to go to 20, but we'll see how it goes. Future levels will be in rogue.
I have Shield Master feat and can shove to trip as a bonus action before making my attacks.
I have expertise in Athletics, level 6 bear totem feature, +15 total Athletics modifier.
I have Dragon Scale armor, 14 DX, and Shield +1. AC 20
I have two magic weapons. One is an upgraded Frostbrand long sword that is +1 and deals 2d6 extra cold damage and does not need attuning. This is character campaign legacy item. It was originally just a +1 longsword that did +1d6 cold damage but through campaign plots and roleplay evolved to the weapon it is now. My second weapon is a Short Sword Flame Tongue.

Normally in combat I would trip with my shield to attack with advantage without needing to do Reckless Attack. I use Reckless Attack when I need my bonus action for something else. Last game we were fighting Yeenoghu, me using the Frostbrand. Too large to trip. He hits me on a Natural 3. I got caught up in the moment and accidentally broken the rules. I dropped my shield and took out the Flame Tongue for two weapon fighting. Since it's a short sword I get sneak attack, and I can still Reckless Attack for advantage. I got a lot of crits that battle. :smallbiggrin: I had a blast. When the session ended is when I realized I broke the two-weapon fighting rule. I told the DM, but he was ok with it. It was all Rule of Cool/Fun, and we accept it was a one time thing.

I did have great fun using two weapons. Sneak attack on a bonus action is significant. With DM permission if I want I can retrain Shield Master for Dual Wielding. That's my dilemma. Is it a good trade? The downside is losing AC, and it takes a bonus action to light up the Flametongue which competes with raging and two-weapon fighting itself. I also lose evasion. The upside is lots of damage on a bonus action, I can light up Flametongue before battle sometimes, and I'm resistant to all damage except psychic anyway.

When I first multiclassed into Rogue it was never about the sneak attack. I didn't care about it. I wanted the Expertise and Cunning Action. I didn't even have the Flametongue at the time. Now, though, it's starting to matter. Next level is 3d6 sneak attack. I'm getting hit anyway despite my AC. I'm leaning to making the trade but not fully convinced. Would you?

[MrStabby]

Hmm. In your position it might depend who else was in my party.

If there are other melee big damage dealers - I would let that be their thing.

As long as your DM is giving you opportunities to use your main style, even if it is not in every fight, then I would say stick with it (if its fun for you).

An extra attack with a flametongue is likely to be as frustrating as with shoving prone - if you arefacing fiends thereis a lot of fire resitance/immunity about and as you point out,you have a busy bonus action anyway. he shove is situational, but likely to be better when you use it - but the average power of an ability doesn't matter, it is only the average power whilst its the best thing. Situational is OK when you have alternative bonus action uses.

[Kane0]

Talking pure optimization you’re probably giving up more than you’re gaining.

But if you are having more fun dual wielding then its not a catastrophic loss.

What about your fighting style?

[KorvinStarmast]

I'd keep shield master, because the defensive features are handy as heck on a Barbarian.
(See the synergy of the 2d level feature and shield master vis a vis dex saves)

[Yakk]

You can shove in place of an attack.

Start with shove, when that lands short sword sneak, when that lands rotate to longsword.

For full damage, again start with short reckless until sneak lands, then longsword.

---

OTOH, shield+short sword is maybe better than your shield+long sword. +2 hit/damage vs 3d6 sneak; if you are recklessing anyhow, the hit doesn't do much, and the 4 static damage is less than 10.5 with 2 chances to land it.

OTOH, Rogue 5 gives you defensive roll *which stacks with rage*. Defence is fine, you need offence.

[CTurbo]

Can you switch your Fighting Style to TWF too? I'd be tempted to make the swap. You're trading defense for offense and that's usually more fun from my experiences. You can always hold onto the shield for times when you really need the extra AC or for when you're fighting something with Fire/Cold immunity.

[Unoriginal]

A new update chronicling my barbarian.

I have an opportunity I'm considering I'm not sure if it's a good idea. I suppose optimization is part of it, but I'm more concerned about not gimping myself. If it's a side trade that's ok.

Pertinent facts:

Character is level 8 bear barbarian/4 battle master fighter/4 thief rogue.
Campaign is intending to go to 20, but we'll see how it goes. Future levels will be in rogue.
I have Shield Master feat and can shove to trip as a bonus action before making my attacks.
I have expertise in Athletics, level 6 bear totem feature, +15 total Athletics modifier.
I have Dragon Scale armor, 14 DX, and Shield +1. AC 20
I have two magic weapons. One is an upgraded Frostbrand long sword that is +1 and deals 2d6 extra cold damage and does not need attuning. This is character campaign legacy item. It was originally just a +1 longsword that did +1d6 cold damage but through campaign plots and roleplay evolved to the weapon it is now. My second weapon is a Short Sword Flame Tongue.

Normally in combat I would trip with my shield to attack with advantage without needing to do Reckless Attack. I use Reckless Attack when I need my bonus action for something else. Last game we were fighting Yeenoghu, me using the Frostbrand. Too large to trip. He hits me on a Natural 3. I got caught up in the moment and accidentally broken the rules. I dropped my shield and took out the Flame Tongue for two weapon fighting. Since it's a short sword I get sneak attack, and I can still Reckless Attack for advantage. I got a lot of crits that battle. :smallbiggrin: I had a blast. When the session ended is when I realized I broke the two-weapon fighting rule. I told the DM, but he was ok with it. It was all Rule of Cool/Fun, and we accept it was a one time thing.

I did have great fun using two weapons. Sneak attack on a bonus action is significant. With DM permission if I want I can retrain Shield Master for Dual Wielding. That's my dilemma. Is it a good trade? The downside is losing AC, and it takes a bonus action to light up the Flametongue which competes with raging and two-weapon fighting itself. I also lose evasion. The upside is lots of damage on a bonus action, I can light up Flametongue before battle sometimes, and I'm resistant to all damage except psychic anyway.

When I first multiclassed into Rogue it was never about the sneak attack. I didn't care about it. I wanted the Expertise and Cunning Action. I didn't even have the Flametongue at the time. Now, though, it's starting to matter. Next level is 3d6 sneak attack. I'm getting hit anyway despite my AC. I'm leaning to making the trade but not fully convinced. Would you?

Well first, it really sounds like you had a great session, and the visuals I'm imagining of your Barbarian doing that are awesome, so from a rule of cool perspective I'd say "go for it, it sounds like you really enjoyed it".

Second, from a purely numerical perspective, the AC isn't going to do much of a difference, and as you noted a Bear Barbaian is good at parrying attacks with their guts anyway. So what matters is Shield Master's other perks vs a lots of damage. Personally I'd say it's a pretty good trade, but be aware it'll change the way you play your PC during combats quite a bit.

But since you just kicked Yeenoghu's ass, I'd say there is another solution: see if your DM would allow the DMG rules for getting a special trainer as a reward, and learn the Dual Wielding feat, so that you can effectively switch between the two fighting styles as you wish depending on the circumstances.


As a DM I would totally accept to have your PC seek a Dual Wielding master after pulling that kind of epic move and out-rampaged the Demon Prince of rampage himself.

[Keravath]

First, I'm curious what rule you broke? Ah ... just realized that you can't dual wield a long sword and short sword without the Dual Wielder feat since they aren't both light weapons.

If your main hand weapon was light, you could take the action to remove the shield, object interaction to pull out the short sword and use the bonus action to light it up. You lose one round of combat but that is all it costs in situations when you find that you are better off dual wielding than shield bashing.

Even at high levels, I would not think that all your opponents will be too large to knock prone with your shield - this is just one combat. In addition, it seems to me that the odds are good a lot of high level opponents might be NPC humanoids with or without PC classes - all of which could be very effectively dealt with using shield bash.

Do you have other melee in your party that benefit when you knock a target prone?

If you have found that you really like playing a dual wielding barbarian that would be cool and might be worth making the change ...

... but I might be more tempted to see if there was a quest you could do to find a blacksmith who might be able to trim or reforge the Frostbrand long sword to a Frostbrand short sword without damaging the magic of the weapon. If both your weapons were light and have the finesse property then you can use sneak attack on your main attacks AND dual wield when circumstances make that better than shield bashing.

[tKUUNK]

yeah, what are the odds you can acquire a second -magical- light weapon, for those times you want to dual-wield?

With that +15 athletics bonus, I'd hesitate to give up Shield Master. Especially as noted above- how many other melee-based PCs are in your party who benefit from prone enemies?

What would your character do?

[Pex]

Talking pure optimization you’re probably giving up more than you’re gaining.

But if you are having more fun dual wielding then its not a catastrophic loss.

What about your fighting style?

That's it! Thank you. I have dueling. I can't use two-weapon fighting on top of that. I can always ask the DM if that can change too, but it is probably asking for too much. He knows I'm not trying to game the system. He likes how the character has evolved over the course of the campaign. It's a big deal he wears clothes now. :smallyuk: I'll probably have to stay as I am now and just accept the fluke of the heat of the moment. If the DM does accept changing fighting style too that's significant.

Other melee combatants are strikers. Shadow Monk/Rogue and Swashbuckler Rogue/Paladin. Forge Cleric sometimes goes into battle. I'm the tank. The party wants and needs me in the enemy's face.

[Dork_Forge]

Your stats and some context for what your DM likes to throw at you would help, but based off what you said I'd trade:

-You're only losing 1AC, you were never really built for AC tanking to begin with

-You already have advantage on Dex saves and resistance to nearly all damage, imo living without evasion is just fine

-As already pointed out you can just trade an attack for a shove if you want anyway

In exchange for this you're getting the ability to hit more enemies and a bunch more damage (letting you leverage your Rage damage more on top of the weapon and Sneak). In my longest running game I'm DMing, I have a player built as a Bear totem 7/Swashbuckler 5, TWF with magic weapons and the amount of damage he can put out with his ridiculous durability has been very impressive.

[micahaphone]

As long as we're talking about "ask your DM for a sidequest to do x", swapping shield master feat out for Dual Wielder feat wouldn't be too shabby. Wouldn't require you to modify your weapons at all.

[JellyPooga]

If it were me, I'd ask the GM if you could do a quest or whatever to modify that legacy weapon into something you can sneak attack with; either a rapier or shortsword seems appropriate. Whether this is finding an epic blacksmith or something more magical/legacy related, is up to you/your GM, but it's the route I'd take. If I were the GM, it's something I'd have suggested as soon as you'd taken levels in Rogue and even if I hadn't, I'd at least have given it some thought.

The entire point of a legacy weapon is not that you adjust to it but that it adjusts to you, thus carrying *your* legacy forward. You have the skills to utilise and take advantage of a light blade; your weapon should reflect this.

[Pex]

If it were me, I'd ask the GM if you could do a quest or whatever to modify that legacy weapon into something you can sneak attack with; either a rapier or shortsword seems appropriate. Whether this is finding an epic blacksmith or something more magical/legacy related, is up to you/your GM, but it's the route I'd take. If I were the GM, it's something I'd have suggested as soon as you'd taken levels in Rogue and even if I hadn't, I'd at least have given it some thought.

The entire point of a legacy weapon is not that you adjust to it but that it adjusts to you, thus carrying *your* legacy forward. You have the skills to utilise and take advantage of a light blade; your weapon should reflect this.

I was speaking figuratively. There's no mystic connection between my character and the weapon. There's only an emotional attachment that bonds through use. It became a boosted Frostbrand by the addition of a tooth of a great wyrm silver dragon that was originally part of a magical spear that broke (by design) to slay a creature of Darkness. I kept the tooth as a trophy until such time a wizard offered to magic mumbo jumbo craft the tooth and sword together to make the Frostbrand.

Still, I didn't multiclass into Rogue for the sneak attack, but I did get the short sword for it. I think what made this more exciting was fighting in combat in a different way than my usual tactics. Just being different was the fun factor. In normal play sometimes I use the short sword instead for the sneak attack. It depends on the circumstances.

I do appreciate the thought and courtesy you would have provided were you the DM.

[Unoriginal]

Out of curiosity, did your group manage to foil Yeenoghu's operations?

[Pex]

Out of curiosity, did your group manage to foil Yeenoghu's operations?

It was just a combat, but it had context in relation to something that happened early in the campaign back when we were level 4 or so. We ticked him off early :smallbiggrin:. We're travelling through the Abyss for an unrelated matter. We killed Yeenoghu, but we also had a character death.

[Unoriginal]

It was just a combat, but it had context in relation to something that happened early in the campaign back when we were level 4 or so. We ticked him off early :smallbiggrin:. We're travelling through the Abyss for an unrelated matter. We killed Yeenoghu, but we also had a character death.

Damn, well at least it's easier to ressurect a mortal than it is for a Demon Prince to come back if slain in the Abyss. Sounds like a great campaign.