Ancestral Twilight Clerbarian?

[Seekergeek]

Ok ok ok. I know that these two base classes don’t play together very well but given enough room to wiggle I think this is actually a pretty intriguing combination that I haven’t seen bandied about before. If you invest at least six levels in barbarian and two levels in cleric you can realize the starting potential of this build. Ancestral Protectors and spirit shield play really nicely thematically with twilight sanctuary and those temporary hp from sanctuary are going to go farther both for the clerbarian and his allies that are enjoying resistance to damage from ancestral protectors. While it would take several rounds to be a fully running combo you can get spiritual weapon going along with a rage and twilight sanctuary and have something to do with your bonus action (spiritual weapon), your reaction (spirit shield) and two attacks with your main action. Caster levels would obviously take a big ding but for a protective tank type roll I think this would be a pretty fun build.

Assuming you had the stats to make it work, what feats or items would you angle for or work towards? Assuming you’d start at either level 5 or 8 how would you start out? My inclination would be 3 barbarian/2 cleric to start at five and 6/2 to start at 8. I think I’d be tempted to go vhuman with shadow touched as a starting feat to snag invisibility and disguise self as they seem thematic and useful out of combat which is where the primary use of spellcasting would have to lie with this build.

Character wise I think a sort of spirit shaman/ savage protector type archetype could be fun. Or maybe some kind of troubled samurai followed around by either his victims or his dead clan or somesuch. Maybe a bon vivant swashbuckling type who’s looked death in the face and just doesn’t see the big deal?

Think this could be fun and functional? Keeping in mind my table is far from optimized as a general rule...

[Dalinar]

One thing is that you probably won't want to rely on the Barbarian's Unarmored Defense. You can rage while wearing up to medium armor, which you have proficiency in. You can afford to drop a little DEX that way to meet your multiclassing requirements, although you may want to come up with something for DEX saves if you're worried (granted Barb 2 helps with that already). Best point buy I could figure for VHuman is 16 STR, 12 DEX, 16 CON, 8 INT, 13 WIS, 8 CHA. Move DEX and CON points to taste. Consider Fey-touched or Shadow-touched or another half-feat to bump that WIS to 14. With this, if you can get your hands on breastplate or half-plate, and you rock a shield, and you have Shield of Faith on yourself from Cleric (granted you lose concentration if you rage, so that's a backup strategy), you're looking at a pretty decent AC of 19-20.

You presumably won't have as good of a WIS as a full Cleric, so maybe focus on spells that don't rely on ranged spell attacks or DCs. On the other hand, you can't cast or concentrate on spells while raging, so that cuts down the list of useful spells even further. Maybe Light, Guidance, or Spare the Dying from your cantrip list. Twilight subclass gives you Sleep which will help at low levels but is notorious for scaling poorly. Maybe Detect Magic for its out of combat utility? This one's a toughie. Sanctuary might help if somebody other than you has too much attention, but that's a WIS save that you're not likely to pull a high DC for when the going gets tough. Luckily you can get an extra spell or two from your half-feat, so maybe just spend all your slots on Gift of Alacrity (from Fey-touched) and don't worry about them in combat?

Still, it sounds like a cool idea for a character, especially the haunted last-survivor-of-my-clan guy.