Dex Dumped Barbarian

[Chalkarts]

I'm working on a Barbarian who is a Genteel scholarly type that likes to throw down with the peasants for fun.
For thematic and role play reasons I wanted to dump stat his dex, he has a limp and he's a little dumpy.
I'm going to main stat his CON. He's a Hill Dwarf with the Tough feat. I'm hoping his obscene number of hit points will offset his inability to reliably dodge.
He carries War Pick is Disguised as his walking cane.
Would it be too crippling from an optimization standpoint to dump Dex like this?

[nickl_2000]

How low is dump stat? 8, 10, 6?

[quindraco]

I'm working on a Barbarian who is a Genteel scholarly type that likes to throw down with the peasants for fun.
For thematic and role play reasons I wanted to dump stat his dex, he has a limp and he's a little dumpy.
I'm going to main stat his CON. He's a Hill Dwarf with the Tough feat. I'm hoping his obscene number of hit points will offset his inability to reliably dodge.
He carries War Pick is Disguised as his walking cane.
Would it be too crippling from an optimization standpoint to dump Dex like this?

Why be a Barbarian at all? You could be a Fighter or Paladin and lean into the same core concept but with plate armor.

If your goal is to fight naked while dumping Dex, you should be a Tortle or Loxodon.

[Dork_Forge]

On a Barbarian it'd be pretty rough, you're not only gimping your AC and Dex saves, but you're going to have a rubbish initiative and so will likely end up taking a lot of damage before you can rage, which would probably offset the large amount of HP you're going for and then some.

[Chalkarts]

Why be a Barbarian at all? You could be a Fighter or Paladin and lean into the same core concept but with plate armor.

If your goal is to fight naked while dumping Dex, you should be a Tortle or Loxodon.

Path of Wild Magic

[Chalkarts]

How low is dump stat? 8, 10, 6?

Haven't bought in, 8 is the minimum I'd take. I think more than a -1 would be too much. In situations where battle is expected, dungeons and the like, he'll have a shield. But the shield isn't part of his formal wear, lol.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Why am I getting Kingsmen vibes from this? Not sure, but I kinda love it?

The degree of "Dex Dumping" is kinda necessary to know - as mentioned, are we talking a -2 modifier or a +0 modifier? Generally a bad idea regardless, unless you can get access to items like Barrier Tattoos and Bracers of Defense to prop up your otherwise lacklustre AC.

You don't particularly care about getting hit as a barbarian, but that's for purely physical damage, and even then getting hit every time instead of half the time is going to hurt in the long and short run. Any sort of elemental damage will wear you down quickly, and although most of that doesn't touch AC, the low Dexterity is gonna hit your Dexterity saves which is the difference between full damage and half damage.

[RogueJK]

Whether they're wearing Medium Armor or fighting naked, a Barbarian really needs a 14ish DEX for your AC to remain competitive. Otherwise, you're looking at something like a 14 AC at most if you have 8 DEX, 16 CON, and a Shield. (Eventually maxing out at 16 AC with 20 CON.) That's abysmal, especially for a front line melee character. A few extra HP per level isn't going to come close to making up for that, especially at the early squishiest levels.

(Compared to something like a Wild Shaped Moon Druid, who can get away with a 14ish AC in many of their combat wild shape forms because they have a comparatively massive pool of additional effective HP, well beyond the small handful from Hill Dwarf plus Tough.)



If your goal is to fight naked while dumping Dex, you should be a Tortle or Loxodon.

It's your best bet regardless, since no matter what, their racial natural armor will beat out Medium Armor with dumped DEX. Tortle is the better of the two, giving you a 19 AC from Level 1 when using a shield. Loxodon can eventually get to 19 with a shield too, but only once you've maxed out your CON to 20, which likely won't happen until Level 8 at the earliest, and probably Level 12 since you'd also want to be boosting your STR too.

Tortle with the Shield Master feat is a good option for a DEX-dumped Barbarian, not only helping (in conjunction with Danger Sense) to shore up your low DEX saves, but also giving you a reliable use for your Bonus Action on turns when you don't use it to activate Rage. And since your AC doesn't rely on maxing your CON, you can afford to spend your Level 4 ASI on that feat instead.

[quindraco]

Path of Wild Magic

If you have your heart set on this, Tortle is the way to go - the primary use-case for Tortle is any dex-dumping build that can't solve the AC problem with heavy armor or a heavy armor equivalent (by which I mostly mean Druids). The only other solution I can offer you is strictly homebrew and hence beyond the scope of your original question, which was how to do it RAW: replacing Unarmored Defense's 10 + Dex + Con with 10 + Con + Proficiency Bonus. That latter is effectively a Loxodon with level scaling - so at level 1 you have Loxodon AC, and at level 17 if you grab Con 20 you're functionally wearing +3 full plate. It's what Unarmored Defense always should have been, but it's homebrew.

[Chalkarts]

If you have your heart set on this, Tortle is the way to go - the primary use-case for Tortle is any dex-dumping build that can't solve the AC problem with heavy armor or a heavy armor equivalent (by which I mostly mean Druids).

At first I wasn't sold but the more I think about it the more I think this fits Tortle well.
I could give him the Alert feat to offset the initiative problem.
This shifts me away from the HP meat shield, but properly set I should have a Decent AC and room for several Magical enhancements over time.

Just personality wise, the character that's growing in my head already amuses me. I'm Imagining something like the very mellow Sea Turtle from Finding Nemo, chillin, travelin, hangin out in the sun, then occasionally finding a place to join in on a pit fight and go all Super Koopa.

His name will be Sheldon Koopa.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Chalkarts]

I built him as a Tortle. Here he is, the most painfully named Tortle that you'll meet today.

Barbarian:Path of Wild Magic
Name: Shelldon Koopa
Tortle, +2 Str, +1 Wis
6’2” 420lbs
Natural AC 17(No dex mod)
Claws 1d4+Str Slashing
Hold Breath 1 Hour
Shell Defense

Weapon: War Pick (Poorly Disguised as walking cane)

Background: Gladiator

Str 16
Con 15
Dex 8
Int 13
Wis 11
Cha 12

Feat: Lvl 1: Skilled: Arcana, History, Thieves Tools
Proficiencies: Survival, Nature, Athletics, Acrobatics, Performance, Disguise Kit
Languages: Common, Aquan

27 Years old. When he began his wandering he sought to travel to all the libraries of the multiverse and learn all there was. Wandering on the beach he found a weird cove with pink water. He took a swim, in a weird glowing lake in the feywild. When he made it to a town, he did what all wandering adventurers do. He immediately got into a tavern brawl. Normally he tried to avoid them but something had given him a lust for battle and he loved it. After steamrolling a few townsfolk he started picking fights in all the towns. When he ran out of commoners to knock out he started finding alley fights and basement brawls. He dreams that someday he’ll fight in the big times. He wants to fight in the Emperor's Arena and win obscene amounts of money to donate to Libraries throughout the realms. Until then he’ll adventure to beat new threats and become a better Gladiator for fun and profit. He Wears Warpaint & Looks like a Sugar Skull Luchador when fighting for profit. Fights with Pick & Claw, no shield.
Still very scholarly and well read. Never picks a fight, but if one comes to him, he’s absolutely thrilled to unleash, one might even say gleeful.

[Contrast]

Str 16
Con 15
Dex 8
Int 13
Wis 11
Cha 12

Do you have a plan for rounding out all those odd stats? If nothing else, 12 Int 12 Wis seems sensible.

[Chalkarts]

Do you have a plan for rounding out all those odd stats? If nothing else, 12 Int 12 Wis seems sensible.

I was going to use 1 Stat increase to raise my con and int, the wis is just 11 because of my racial.

[jas61292]

Personally, I think Dex dumping is not nearly as bad as some people think. The main use of dex for a barbarian is just their AC, but as a barbarian, you will be recklessly attacking all the time, meaning you will be hit a lot. High HP and rage are there to make that not so bad. The only other main downside is that your initiative will be lower, but as a barbarian, you eventually get advantage to initiative, meaning that you will still be decent at it.

All in all, if you are interested in being decent at something outside the stereotypical barbarian stuff, dumping Dex is not really that big a deal. All barbarians should have good Str and Con, but if you want a barbarian with decent Int or Wis or Cha, or more than one of those (either for a multiclass dip, a feat, or just to be good at an associated skill) there are far worse things you could do than dump Dex to get there. Its really not a huge deal, outside super high combat optimization tables.

[Sage Tellah]

Doesn't seem like it fits your fluff, but I have been toying with the idea of a warforged barbarian who dumps dex. The key is the racial AC calculation. The text suggests it works like modal unarmored AC with mode access depending on your armor proficiencies. Meaning, if you get heavy armor proficiency you can use Heavy Plating without giving up the barbarian features that don't work while wearing heavy armor. Could be the one build I would ever take Heavily Armored on.

[RogueJK]

Doesn't seem like it fits your fluff, but I have been toying with the idea of a warforged barbarian who dumps dex. The key is the racial AC calculation. The text suggests it works like modal unarmored AC with mode access depending on your armor proficiencies. Meaning, if you get heavy armor proficiency you can use Heavy Plating without giving up the barbarian features that don't work while wearing heavy armor. Could be the one build I would ever take Heavily Armored on.

No, the Warforged Integrated Protection specifically requires wearing armor. It's not unarmored. The text specifies that the armor is enhancing their built-in +1 AC defensive layer, and that you are donning armor when you incorporate it. After you don/incorporate the armor, you are then wearing that piece of armor.

It just has added benefits over other races wearing armor, such as that it's integrated and therefore cannot be removed against your will. (And since Warforged don't have to sleep, they don't have to worry about worn armor's penalties to rest.)

A Warforged Barbarian with Heavily Armored who integrates Heavy Armor will not be able to use stuff like Rage or Fast Movement.


Integrated Protection
Your body has built-in defensive layers, which can be enhanced with armor:

-You gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class.
-You can don only armor with which you have proficiency. To don armor other than a shield, you must incorporate it into your body over the course of 1 hour, during which you remain in contact with the armor. To doff armor, you must spend 1 hour removing it. You can rest while donning or doffing armor in this way.
-While you live, the armor incorporated into your body can’t be removed against your will.

[Sage Tellah]

Oh. I didn't realize Warforged got published again. The version I'm using is from Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron.


Integrated Protection
Your body has built-in defensive layers, which determine your armor class. You gain no benefit from wearing armor, but if you are using a shield, you apply its bonus as normal.
You can alter your body to enter different defensive modes; each time you finish a long rest, choose one mode to adopt from the Integrated Protection table, provided you meet the mode's prerequisite.


Darkwood Core (unarmored) - None - 11+your Dexterity modifier (add proficiency bonus if proficient with light armor)

Composite Plating (armor) - Medium armor proficiency - 13+your Dexterity modifier (maximum of 2)+your proficiency bonus

Heavy Plating (armor) - Heavy armor proficiency - 16+your proficiency bonus; disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks.