Support barbarian tank

[Hiro Quester]

We’re about to start a new campaign. Others are playing a doctor who develops sorcerous powers (wild magic) and a kobold monk.

I’m thinking of playing a tank type, who can deal damage, but who specializes in keeping his friends alive.

Im thinking of a shaman type. Fighter/Ancestral Guardians Barbarian. Echo Knight with echo refluffed as another use of guardian spirit could fit.

And maybe a bit of cleric for out of combat buffs, heals and cures, and long-term non-concentration buffs. A decent melee ability when he runs out of rage.

A warrior from a nomadic human tribe far away, who was sent on a vision-quest after suggesting that the tribe might change their migration patterns to avoid the encroaching hordes of orcs and demon worshippers.

When he returned from his walkabout, after dreaming of a great massacre, he found the rest of the tribe had indeed been wiped out. His anger (partly at himself, for not being there to help, for surviving) perhaps fuels his multi classing into barbarian.


He is haunted by the ghosts of the famed warriors of the tribe. Literally. But these Ancestors also act as guardians and mentors, helping him stay alive to ensure that the tribe is not forgotten. And help him protect his party.


He has an obligation to gain renown and glory, so that his name, and so the tribe’s name, will live on. He tells stories of the great deeds of his tribe and ancestors, as a way of making any point. ("When my great- uncle Tuanuku was in a similar situation, here’s what he did to defeat his enemy…” etc.)


Perhaps also his grandfather was a renowned warrior/cleric, who left a task unfinished when he died, and passed the obligation to complete task onto him. Grandfather’s ghost returned to him to ask him to cary out this task, passing on a sacred amulet as a symbol of the blood-debt.


Grandfather haunts him, urging him to complete that task so that he can pass on to join the other famed warriors in the great feasting hall. but also acts as a spiritual mentor.

Is a cleric dip viable? It makes him a bit MAD. But DM grants an extra 2points in point buy if we give a backstory with plot hooks, which makes a tertiary stat of 13 for multiclassing viable. Resilient (wisdom) is also a likely feat anyway, to shore up a weak save. So starting with 12 WIS might be okay.

[Edit: starting stats can be something like 13/14/16/8/16/8, with variant human taking Resilient Wisdom. Or could swap Str and Wis if I don’t use many spells with saving throws]

Moon Druid/barbarian is better, but that’s been done. I’m trying for flavor over power (without forgoing effectiveness).

What domain? War cleric seems good for a few bonus action extra attacks. Grave could be worked into the backstory easily (he buries the remains of his whole tribe).

Paladin could be good too, for channel divinity and smites that can be used while raging, too. Oath of the Ancients might fit thematically.

I’m even thinking that a dex barbarian (rapier and shield) could be viable, if my objective is tanking over damage dealing. Only needing 13 Str would make a decent wisdom more viable. And you can use strength with a rapier, if you needed a reckless attack (to activate Spirit Guardians, more than for damage). Dex-based also makes ranged attacks that activate SG a possibility, too.

I’m kind of blinded by having too many possibilities and options for a shaman tank.

Has anyone played or built something like this before?

[LudicSavant]

Im thinking of a shaman type. Fighter/Ancestral Guardians Barbarian. Echo Knight with echo refluffed as another use of guardian spirit could fit.

Has anyone played or built something like this before?

Here's my old take on the concept. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24673886&postcount=511)



Treantmonk's build looks like a severe downgrade from LudicSavant's.

Posted this in another thread. Essentially an elusive glass iron cannon who dishes out buckets of damage while simultaneously doing quite a lot to protect teammates from harm and lock down foes.

Build 11: The Ancestral Avenger
https://i.postimg.cc/Y0JKS664/ffdf35d031edb5e89c767a7f075c9a76.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/T2yPTCG3/e3ed953dc1683bee9e19e2ea10d0866b.jpg
"I've got friends on the other side. You, on the other hand, seem to have made many enemies there."

When I saw the Echo Knight class, my first thought was 'you know, as an Ancestral Guardian I always felt it'd be cool if grandpa could kick someone's @#$ directly.' Well, with Echo Knight, that flavor becomes easy! I built this guy as a sort of martial voodoo priest who summons vengeful spirits from smoke and mist, and seems to slip in and out of that mist themselves, disappearing and reappearing somewhere else.

This build aims to combine a bunch of mechanics that complement and cover each others' weaknesses in order to become more than the sum of its parts. You'll see what I mean.

VHuman Echo Knight 5 / Ancestral Guardian 3 / Echo X
Stats: Str 16 / Con 16 / Dex 14 / Wis 10
ASIs: Sentinel @1, GWM @4, Str +2@9, Str +2@11, Alert@15, Res(Wis) @17, Lucky@19

Sentinel is going to be pulling quadruple duty here. First, it'll be preventing people from moving away from your echo. Second, you'll have far more freedom to position for its 'make a reaction attack if an ally within 5 feet of you is attacked' feature since you don't actually have to stand in melee -- not to mention that you can threaten movement-halting OAs from multiple positions at once. Third, unlike a normal Sentinel-user, the movement restriction is actually protecting you from melee attacks, in addition to your allies. The synergy is just great, here.

After that, GWM is nice because we get to use it without many of its usual disadvantages, since we don't actually need to be in melee to use it. Oh sure, we're sacrificing the AC of a shield, but the enemy has to get past your echo and your allies (who become tanky themselves from the Ancestral Guardian mark) in order to get to you, and you can use cover and the like, so it works out. This added safety also means that you can spam Reckless Attack, which further synergizes with GWM (both for the accuracy, and for getting the bonus action attack proc more often). I'm not one to put GWM on tank builds typically, but in this case I think I can make an exception due to just how much the kit synergizes.

We also want to take the Great Weapon Fighting style, since it adds a good chunk of damage if you have lots of attacks (which we do) and a high crit rate (which we also do, thanks to the relatively freedom with which this build can spam Reckless).

Let's say you're level 8. In a single round, you can potentially Action Surge for 6 Reckless GWM attacks, plus a 46% chance of a 7th (from one of those Reckless attacks being a crit and triggering GWM's extra attack), plus the chance of getting a 7th from reducing something to 0HP (a good chance, given how much you're dishing out), plus a solid chance of an 8th from a Sentinel attack (either from the enemy hitting someone next to you, or from trying to walk away from you or your echo). And all of these attacks get the rage and GWF style bonuses. That's 6-8 Raging GWM/GWF attacks, all with Advantage, at tier 2. Which, in case you're curious, is around 100 DPR against AC 15, and yes that's with accounting for miss chance (and crit chance, GWF rerolls, etc). ~108.6 DPR vs AC15 if you get all 8 attacks (with the reaction lacking Advantage). Your at-will damage is similarly well above par, thanks to Reckless GWM/GWF attacks and reaction attacks. And again, this is all at just level 8.

But giant piles of burst and at-will damage is just a taste of what you bring to the table. Your control is multifaceted.
- You can mark 1 enemy with Ancestors, which basically makes allies considerably tankier than Bear-barians against that enemy.
- You can lock down or punish another enemy with Sentinel.
- You can lock down yet another enemy by Grappling/Proning them with Advantage (in fact, you can grapple as many people as you have hands available). You have lots of attacks to use for this, making you a highly effective grappler.
- You are decent at clearing swarms due to your high number of accurate attacks and the fact that you get an extra one when reducing someone to zero. "Dead" is a really great CC status effect, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. And after you clear the mooks, you will often still have enough attacks left over to use some lockdown on the big guy.
- You can block some attacks with Shadow Martyr.
- Enemies can attack your echo, sure, but think of it this way -- if you could use a bonus action to negate 1 or more attacks, that'd be pretty good, right? And it very well might be more than one attack -- your Echo has disadvantage to be hit thanks to Ancestral Protectors! Yep, that's right, the wording's compatible even though the Echo's not a creature!
- Unlike a normal GWM or Sentinel user, you can actually kite, and do all kinds of combos with hazard / control casters to boot. This has a ton of potential for party combos.
- Also unlike a normal GWM user, you're fairly resistant to being CCed yourself, thanks to your ability to teleport all over the place.

Your main weakness is going to be mental saving throws, so at higher levels we start reinforcing that a bit via Res(Wis) (it's stronger the later you take it), Indomitable, and eventually Lucky. Though ideally when you see something that has nasty mental saves, your first defense should be to try and kill it ASAP with your big fat burst damage. Maybe even put yourself out of line of sight so that it can't attack you (you can even Recklessly Attack to cancel out your Disadvantage from being unable to see the enemy. Or you could even have an Unseen Servant holding a mirror or something -- get creative, start Thinking With Echoes). Or create so much value in general that your team has more resources for countering spells and charms and such. Anyways, this is why I took Alert before Lucky; if you go first you can get into a favorable position or possibly just delete a troublesome foe outright.

Variants/Notes:
- You can take the Defense style instead of the GWF style, sacrificing a little offense for a little defense.
- You have a fair bit of flexibility in the order of your progression here. Going Ancestral 4 at any time can get you an ASI earlier if desired, at the cost of getting some fighter features later (and losing access to the second Action Surge at 20). You also can take EK 6, 8, or 11 prior to jumping into AG if desired (especially if you want Strength boosts earlier). You can also delay the 3rd level of AG for a bit after getting the 2nd if you want Fighter ASIs slightly sooner. Like I said, flexibility.
- One of the advantages of not taking strength boosts right away is that it gives you a little time to see if you're in the sort of campaign where you might be able to get your hands on Strength-replacing magic items (like Giant Belts and such), and if you do so, you are then freed up to take other excellent feats.
- The reason I don't take Barbarian as my level 1 class is because it makes your tier 1 progression better not to. If your campaign is starting at level 6+, this becomes irrelevant, and you can take Barbarian as your level 1 class for +2 max HP.
- The reality of Echo Barbarian builds is that they require Strength (for Reckless Attack), Dexterity (since you can't rage in heavy armor), and Constitution (for Echo Knight features), which limits our ability to meet multiclassing requirements without seriously impacting the build... unless of course you roll high for stats. In that case, you can improve this build further via multiclassing -- for example, Hexblade 1 (requires Cha 13) and Gloomstalker 3 (requires Wis 13) are both very powerful and synergistic additions which further add to the voodoo flavor. The only reason I don't take them is because of the pesky multiclassing stat requirements.
- The last 3 (or 4, if you take Ancestral 4 instead of Fighter 17) feats can be switched out as desired. If you can afford it in terms of stats (since it needs 13 Wis or Int), I really like the Ritual Caster feat, both mechanically and for the flavor. Simply boosting your Constitution is a decent option too, since it scales Echo Knight features (in addition to the usual benefits).

___

Let me know what you think.

[Hiro Quester]

Here's my old take on the concept. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24673886&postcount=511)

Thanks, LucidicSavant. That post was part of my inspiration.

I’m thinking that after a few levels of barbarian and echo knight, a caster class like cleric could be able to add some other tanky, control and buffing features, and out-of-combat utility. Especially when channel divinity can offer some features that can also be used while raging.

[truemane]

I don't have anything better to add than has already been posted, but I wanted to say that I keep reading this thread title like a fantasy political slogan.

[RogueJK]

I don't think dipping Cleric gets you much anything of value. Certainly not at the cost of only having a 13 STR. Ancestral Protectors required a hit to apply, which is unlikely to happen with only a 13 in your attack stat.

Echo Knight/Ancestral Guardian is a very solid build for a support-based fighter. I'm playing one currently.

The issue is that you want to get to Fighter 5/Barbarian 3 ASAP. And from there, you want to get to Fighter 11 ASAP. So there's not really a good opportunity to multiclass into Cleric, until perhaps after Fighter 11/Barbarian 3 (if you even get that far). And at that point, if you're not going to continue any further to Fighter to shoot for Fighter 17/Barbarian 3, you're almost certainly better off aiming for Fighter 11/Barbarian 9, rather than something like Fighter 11/Barbarian 3/Cleric 6. Those 6 levels of Cleric won't do you much good at that high of level.



While Echo Knight/Ancestral Guardian is already a good support chassis, consider how you can expand your support options further from there. Stuff like like leveraging the Fighter's extra feats to invest in 13 CHA and take the Inspiring Leader feat to get your entire party a huge amount of Temp HP over the course of a day, and/or invest in Ritual Caster: Wizard for out-of-combat utility casting, and/or invest in the Chef feat to round out an off WIS score and get some additional Hit Dice healing and Temp HP for the party.

That could look something like this:
Variant Human
Echo Knight Fighter 5 -> Ancestral Barbarian 3 -> Echo Knight Fighter 17
STR 15+1
DEX 14
CON 15+1
INT 8
WIS 9
CHA 11
ASIs: Resilient WIS (10 WIS) at Level 1, 18 STR at Fighter 4, 13 CHA at Fighter 6, Inspiring Leader at Fighter 8, GWM at Fighter 12, 18 CON at Fighter 14, and 20 STR at Fighter 16.

Refluff Inspiring Leader to you conducting a shamanistic ritual to call upon upon the Guardian Spirits to infuse you and your allies with battlefield protection.


Or alternately, do something like...

WIS 12
CHA 8
ASIs: Resilient WIS (13 WIS) at Level 1, Ritual Caster Wizard at Fighter 4, 18 STR at Fighter 6, Chef (14 WIS) at Fighter 8, GWM at Fighter 12, 18 CON at Fighter 14, and 20 STR at Fighter 16.

Refluff the wizardly casting into shamanistic rituals that channel the spirit world to achieve magical effects, once the associated spirits are properly assuaged/bribed/placated. During rests and down time, you prepare dubious concoctions and morsels, which smell terrible but infuse your allies with vigor and heal their wounds.

[Yakmala]

Ancestral Guardian for certain. Not only are you giving a targeted enemy disadvantage to hit anyone but you, but your allies have resistance to all damage from the tagged enemy.

The hardest part of playing an Ancestral Guardian is staying alive yourself. I suggest getting the Mobile feat so you can back off from enemies easily. Items that boost speed or allow you to fly are also excellent for AG's

You'll also be helping your party, and yourself by mitigating damage via Spirit Shield, so I don't suggest taking other feats that jam up your reaction such as PAM or Sentinel. I've even turned down offers of Silvery Barbs or Order Cleric bonus attacks while playing an AG to keep my reaction open for Spirit Shield.

If you want to do additional healing on top of Spirit Shield, I suggest picking up the Healer feat. If you want to take it one step further, play as a Hadozee for the Dexterous Feet racial ability so you can use your Healer's Kit as a bonus action.

[Hiro Quester]

The hardest part of playing an Ancestral Guardian is staying alive yourself. I suggest getting the Mobile feat so you can back off from enemies easily.
...
If you want to do additional healing on top of Spirit Shield, I suggest picking up the Healer feat. If you want to take it one step further, play as a Hadozee for the Dexterous Feet racial ability so you can use your Healer's Kit as a bonus action.

Echo knight takes care of what Mobile does. The echo knight feature enables me to create an echo duplicate (fluffed as a different ancestral guardian) as a bonus action, up to 30 feet away next to the Biggest Baddest Guy. "My" attacks can come from either me or my echo.

So if the echo then hits the biggest baddest guy, the Ancestral Guardians then give BBG disadvantage to hit anyone but me (and I’m 30 feet away) and gives my allies resistance to their damage if they try to attack others.

Plus the echo gets an opportunity attack if they move to try to attack me. And sentinel locks them down so they can't move.

And if they do get to move (my echo's OA misses) to hit me, I have damage resistance from raging, and I can switch places with my eco (costs 15 ft of movement) and do it all again.

It's mobile while leaving an "echo" behind to ht them again if they chase me.

So it's a good combination of aggro, damage mitigation and lockdown.

And yeah, Healer feat is definitely on my list. But goodberries might serve the purpose of reviving fallen allies, too (see below)


I don't think dipping Cleric gets you much anything of value. Certainly not at the cost of only having a 13 STR. Ancestral Protectors required a hit to apply, which is unlikely to happen with only a 13 in your attack stat.

Echo Knight/Ancestral Guardian is a very solid build for a support-based fighter. I'm playing one currently.

The issue is that you want to get to Fighter 5/Barbarian 3 ASAP. And from there, you want to get to Fighter 11 ASAP. So there's not really a good opportunity to multiclass into Cleric, until perhaps after Fighter 11/Barbarian 3 (if you even get that far). And at that point, if you're not going to continue any further to Fighter to shoot for Fighter 17/Barbarian 3, you're almost certainly better off aiming for Fighter 11/Barbarian 9, rather than something like Fighter 11/Barbarian 3/Cleric 6. Those 6 levels of Cleric won't do you much good at that high of level.


The 13 Str was only if I play a Dexterity-based character for extra AC (for tankiness). With a rapier I can use the 13 str and attack recklessly with advantage for a better chance to hit, or use Dex for a higher attack bonus. Which is better will depend on their AC.

But I'll probably play it with Strength, and take the lower AC. It's simpler, perhaps.

I'll probably be aiming for fighter 3 barbarian 3 ASAP. Extra attack is nice to get eventually, but perhaps less important if I'm focussing on tanking over DPS.

I'm also considering Celestial Pact of the Tome Warlock instead of Cleric, as an option for healing that does not require spells. T also gets Cure Wounds, Lesser Restoration and revivify. And with three cantrips from any class, I can also get Goodberry, that can be pre-cast for in-combat heals that don't require spells.

And Inspiring Leader fits very well if I bump Cha for Warlock instead of Wis for Cleric. All those ritual spells can be fluffed as Shamanic prayer rituals, too.

[stoutstien]

The celestial gift chain barbarian is an odd combo but actually works of you can swing the 13 CHA. Even with the minimum 3 levels to get celestial+ pact of chain(with gift if everlasting ones) you have almost double the EHP of a pure barbarian and a ton of utility and support options which is a notorious weak spot for barbarians when you're not just directly hitting stuff with a stick. All those SR slots will also buffer your long rest nature as barbarian. I made one for as a gag for a one shot combining it with the wild magic barb and the results were surprisingly good.