I started playing D&D with a group of friends a few months ago, so I'm basically a newbie. My character is the classic barbarian character you see in movies (path of the berserker) and I'm using all the nice little combos (GWM+reckless attacks, etc). I'm on 7th level right now. I inflict an insane amount of damage with multiple attacks and a great axe while taking half damage from physical attacks. It's very entertaining and I love my character :)
However, everytime the DM sends a fire inflicting damage creature my way, I take a lot of damage from fire (just an example) and that HURTS! Of course I don't expect to become immune to these attacks but I'm feeling very vulnerable since we're currently playing in a very hostile territory and there are many evil nasty creatures looking for our party. What could I do to improve my defenses in that matter?
I considered going for a multiclass (cleric would be my first choice) but, to be honest, there are many paths and I got a bit confused as I have never played with a cleric. On the other hand, I wanted to continue to develop my "pure" barbarian. I think something more practical would be better for what I want (looking for magical shield, a mystical cape, potions, etc). The DM is open minded.
What do you think I should/could do? What are your ideas? What kind of strategies do you have for those situations?
Welp, the Totem Warrior barbarian can take the Bear Totem at level 3 and get resistance to ALL damage except psychic, but only while raging. But you've already gone with Berzerker, so you've got two options:
1. Find magic items. Cloak of Protection to boost your saving throws, Ring of [Insert Damage Type] Resistance, stuff like that.
2. Multi-class into rogue. At level 7 rogues get Evasion. Granted, this may alter your classic archetype concept a bit, but remember that even Conan was a bit of a rogue (in the movies at least). And since you're already not wearing armor you'll be able to boost your Dex to gain not only a better AC but also a better chance to pass all those Dex saves that those nasty spells force on you. You'll still be able to do big damage, too! If you go up to Barbarian-13/Rogue-7 you'll get your Double Brutal Critical dice and a +3 rage damage bonus. You'll lose out on Retaliation (Berzerker-14) and Primal Champion (Barbarian-20), but you'll gain so much! You'll get not only Evasion, but also Uncanny Dodge, and expertise in four skills, and 4d6 sneak attack damage!
You would be the ultimate hunter, laying in wait to ambush your prey. But, that's just my 2 c.p.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
1. Find magic items. Cloak of Protection to boost your saving throws, Ring of [Insert Damage Type] Resistance, stuff like that.
2. Multi-class into rogue. At level 7 rogues get Evasion. Granted, this may alter your classic archetype concept a bit, but remember that even Conan was a bit of a rogue (in the movies at least).
Hello Tayn,
Yeah, I agree with what you wrote. Multiclass into Rogue looks like a sweet deal. I had already read some comments online about it. But to be honest, like a good barbarian, I fancied the sneak attack damage more than the defenses. I also agree with what you write about Conan. I could see my character going in that direction without any problem.
The simplest way would be find some item for protection. Does a cloak of protection conflict with my unarmored defense feat? That would not be healthy.
A multi-class Barbarian/Rogue chaos-driven damage-dealing skill-monkey with sneak attack, and evasion, AND a cloak of protection and heck maybe even a sweet little ring of fire resistance! And the cloak of protection would not interfere with Unarmored Defense. It would stack. Unarmored Defense only prevents you from wearing actual "armor", but a cloak is just a cloak. So your AC would be 10 + your Dex mod + your Con mod + 1 (for the cloak).
You'd be an absolute BEAST!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
First off, I'm glad to hear you're playing barbarian like a champ. Berserker is an excellent pick to shore up the classical barbarian weakness of mental saves, and GWM is fantastic for leaving on practically all the time.
Now, I think a multi-class might not be the solution you're looking for. Matter of fact, damage from any source outside of BPS is something that hurts everyone, barbarian or otherwise (excluding bear or ancients pally). Rather, the question you should be asking is "How can I kill casters quicker?" To that, you might alleviate the situation with the use of a reach weapon, halberd or glaive, or magic items that increase your mobility (winged boots can help reach pesky air-borne casters), or even both or even something outside like a team plan that depends on your fellow players (hey buddy, cast haste on me? thanks!). Maybe weapons that hit even harder, if you don't fancy a reach weapon, such as a flame tongue greatsword. If you have an odd number in your DEX, taking up resilient DEX feat will make dex saves even less of a pain, and will increase your AC in the process as well. Mage slayer is also a thing!
Also, you could be unarmored, but you don't -have- to either. Half plate is an option, and with your DEX mod, you can have something like 17 AC. My zealot barb's currently rocking 18 AC from using +1 half-plate. If you want to be armorless, bracers of defense are a thing, and you can certainly stack that with a cloak of protection and a ring of protection. That's 4 AC right there! Granted, that's using up all your attunement slots.
tl;dr- best offense is best defense, needs MORE barbarian.
Now, I think a multi-class might not be the solution you're looking for. Matter of fact, damage from any source outside of BPS is something that hurts everyone, barbarian or otherwise (excluding bear or ancients pally). Rather, the question you should be asking is "How can I kill casters quicker?" To that, you might alleviate the situation with the use of a reach weapon, halberd or glaive, or magic items that increase your mobility (winged boots can help reach pesky air-borne casters), or even both or even something outside like a team plan that depends on your fellow players (hey buddy, cast haste on me? thanks!). Maybe weapons that hit even harder, if you don't fancy a reach weapon, such as a flame tongue greatsword.
Hey there,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, one of the casters in my party has just got the haste spell and used that on me. It was fun.
Now, my real concern is not really for enemy casters, but for creatures that can inflict magic damage. We fought a hell hound recently that hurt me a lot with his fire attack. That's what was on my mind. Well, there is a fireball in my history too, but I was on level 3 so I was lucky to have survived...
I have a luchador barbarian(bear totem) that I absolutely love. and one of the greatest thing he will always do is soak up damage like a king. but here's the thing. What's you con looking like??? Because El Oso has disarmed many traps, and killed many Mind Flayers with out the rage going, but the fact is He has A crap ton of base health. look into the tough feat, it gives you extra heath, you can get tanking by just being healthy. Barbarians are rockin the Highest health of all PC's so lean in to that. Also Cloak of protection is amazing.
If you are running into area spells like fireball, make sure you are milking the 2nd level ability Danger Sense to get advantage on saving throws. Also, it will be tactically useful for you to just get in and kill threats that use spells as quickly as possible.
In terms of things you can do to make your character more resistant to spell damage, there isn't much available in your case. I might suggest raising your constitution or taking the tough feat to give you more hit points to survive those big hits, and related to that you can try to raise your Armor class so that you save more of your health for spell damage.
I would like to add that Rogue Multiclass probably isn't what you're looking for. 7 Levels for Evasion isn't a dip and Sneak Attack can only be used with finesse weapons - which you don't want, because you want that Great Weapon Master Bonus Damage. I'd say stay with the barbarian and just shore up those hp. You can up your AC for non Sve Based stuff and try to find magic Items that help against spells and saving throws. Just remember: You're a barbarian with a d12 hit dice. Your HP are your main tool of defense.
Like Sutlo says, you should use Danger Sense as much as possible to halve damage and avoid other effects, but the best way to avoid area of effect spells is not to let them happen in the first place, which may be more up to your party than you as the Barbarian. If you have a dedicated spellcaster, find out if they can take Counterspell (stopping 'splosions is basically what that's for), if you have a Rogue, let them sneak ahead into the area and once they strike, that's when you rush in and make some noise while the caster is distracted by their insides become outsides. A Paladin in your party should have one or more auras that will help, try to stay near to them to use that. Unless you've got a very unusual party then someone should have something they can do that can help. And all of these are alternatives to you getting to the caster first and giving them a high speed full frontal lobotomy, it's situational, but it should always be on your mind if you're playing tactically.
If all else fails, try being too close to things the enemy doesn't want to damage; if you're in the middle of a melee scrum and the enemy caster doesn't want to blow up their own side, then they shouldn't do so. If there's an artefact, treasure hoard etc. then sticking near it to make them think twice before blowing it up.
If there's nothing to use as a meat shield, consider fishing for cover from your DM; cover boosts your AC and saving throws (+2 for half, +5 for three quarter cover) so while it might feel strange to use it as a Berserker, if it's there then you might as well use it. Often when a DM describes a combat area my first question (if they haven't already addressed it) is whether there's any cover; it's up to your DM if they throw you a bone, but it's not very immersive when every fight is just an open featureless space so it's always worth asking.
In terms of character build I don't think there are really any ideal options; multi-classing won't help you much as spells are the easiest low level defence but you won't be able to use those while raging, meanwhile other class abilities will require quite a big dip to obtain. So in terms of other options it really comes down to feats and magic items.
Magic items are great if you get the ones you want, but only usually give you resistance to specific types of damage (so no use against anything else), though something like a [Tooltip Not Found] will boost not only your AC but your saving throws as well, which never hurts.
There aren't many obvious feats (or everyone would take them); Tough will give you more hit-points equivalent to having 4 more Constitution, while Durable will let you recover faster more using short rests between fights if your issue is more prolonged damage. You might consider Mobile for the extra speed as you already get a boost as a Barbarian, plus essentially a free disengage when you attack, and this will make it a lot easier to make use of cover/other enemies/valuable items as protection, though this will depend on your campaign/DM how effective it's likely to be.
Ultimately though, you may just have to face the fact that sometimes you can't avoid the damage and have to take it, against a dragon's breath attacks for example; you might suffer the same damage a Fighter/Paladin etc. would against some damage types (though Danger Sense does help a lot with many of them), but when you're in melee range most damage is going to be from bludgeoning/piercing/slashing which you can resist while raging, so you're still tanking massively overall.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
If you tend to be hit with magic effects. Not much you can do against things that make attack rolls to you. Making use of cover is a pretty big help. Maybe flavor it into kicking cover in so that you can hit the short people as they climb over, and make the pesky archers not able to hit you.
While not the best looking ones at lower levels, as well as what your stats look like. Resilient dex or wis. Very powerful to get some extra defense.
Another to consider is pulling out a shield and sorta discarding it as you get closer to targets with ranged capabilities. Snag that +2 ac for when you can't great weapon someone to death. If you like that, then the shield master feat (usable with your danger sense for those aoe effect you can see to then add the shield bonus on a reaction to take no damage instead if you succeed. But that is if you want to consider that. Personally I think resilient will help out more, as well as using a shield when moving around to get to the target.
Another option, aside from preparing for a fight or region. Like if you are going up a mountain, maybe consider cold and lightning resistance. Can be found in potion form somewhere. Going after a dragon, get potion for that. Maybe even a scroll if they are sprinkled. Would suggest protection from energy cast on you, but your caster would more than likely have something better for that concentration ability.
a short rest is a smart thing to try to encourage. Save spell slots and try to get a bit back along the day. Plus martial classes and casters also have things that come back on short rests. Like channel divinity, wizard using arcane recovery, however doesn't seem you get much besides maybe encouraging others to short rest too.
If you tend to be hit with magic effects. Not much you can do against things that make attack rolls to you. Making use of cover is a pretty big help. Maybe flavor it into kicking cover in so that you can hit the short people as they climb over, and make the pesky archers not able to hit you.
While not the best looking ones at lower levels, as well as what your stats look like. Resilient dex or wis. Very powerful to get some extra defense.
Another to consider is pulling out a shield and sorta discarding it as you get closer to targets with ranged capabilities. Snag that +2 ac for when you can't great weapon someone to death. If you like that, then the shield master feat (usable with your danger sense for those aoe effect you can see to then add the shield bonus on a reaction to take no damage instead if you succeed. But that is if you want to consider that. Personally I think resilient will help out more, as well as using a shield when moving around to get to the target.
Another option, aside from preparing for a fight or region. Like if you are going up a mountain, maybe consider cold and lightning resistance. Can be found in potion form somewhere. Going after a dragon, get potion for that. Maybe even a scroll if they are sprinkled. Would suggest protection from energy cast on you, but your caster would more than likely have something better for that concentration ability.
a short rest is a smart thing to try to encourage. Save spell slots and try to get a bit back along the day. Plus martial classes and casters also have things that come back on short rests. Like channel divinity, wizard using arcane recovery, however doesn't seem you get much besides maybe encouraging others to short rest too.
A lot of good stuff, I'd just point out that donning or doffing a shield is a whole action, so using a shield to help close range doesn't work very well as far as action economy goes. I'd personally allow it as a DM though, since its a creative way to try and function in that scenario, and can imagine the shield not being totally strapped on for that sprint.
If you're looking for a multiclassing option, Eldritch Knight offers *some* protection for you while also giving you a pretty solid boost to your primary role. You can get access to shield (can be very helpful when you get beat in initiative and can't activate rage before you take a big hit or when you're out of rages) and absorb elements. Of course there is the caveat that you can't use them while raging, but if you're fighting a monster that is hitting you with elemental attacks, it may be worth not raging. And if you have a lot of encounters in a day, you won't be raging all the time anyway.
Eldritch Knight has some other perks such as two cantrips and a third 1st level spell of your choice. It's not a bad choice for a fighter dip, despite not being able to cast while raging.
If your DM will allow it, Echo Knight is another interesting option. You can summon your echo and attack through it, potentially avoiding the elemental damage. The feature that lets you make an additional attack from your echo with uses equal to your con mod would also be pretty nice to have as a barbarian with a high CON score. You can do some insane front-loaded damage with that and action surge. Attack, Attack, Echo attack. Action surge. Attack, Attack, Echo Attack. Plus a bonus action attack (GWM or berzerking). That's 7 attacks in one round compared to a pure barbarian's max of 3.
Or you could just accept that sometimes you're going to take big hits like everyone else, lol. Barbarians have a d12 hit die for a reason.
My personal favorite is using the mage slayer feat to combat enemy spellcasters. You gain adv on all saving throws against spells if the caster is within 5ft of you, if a creature cast a spell you can melee attack as a reaction, and better yet those con saving throws to maintain concentration are at disadvantage. pick that up and rush the spell caster, your survivability with shoot up as adv is better than not. Also, you have a chance to stop a spell before it is cast with that reaction attack. I recommend picking up some javelins as even if you can't reach the ****ers this turn, hit em with a weapon attack to give em a disadvantage on that con saves.
If you wanna pick up a shield you can go with shield master, bonus action knock someone prone, a bonus to dex save equal to the ac buff granted by your shield, and as a reaction, if you passed a dex saving throw you can negate all damage instead of taking half. but since you have GWM, prolly not.
In the way of spells, talk to your local cleric/and or another spellcaster about the spell warding bond. It essentially pairs two creatures, and when either one of them takes damage, it's split and half and distributed between both. Spread the fire damage between two tanks makes them last twice as long and you essisntaly grant the resistances of your rage to another tank as the blg/sls/prc dmg you would receive would be a quarter of the initial amount.
Hello my fellow barbarians,
I started playing D&D with a group of friends a few months ago, so I'm basically a newbie. My character is the classic barbarian character you see in movies (path of the berserker) and I'm using all the nice little combos (GWM+reckless attacks, etc). I'm on 7th level right now. I inflict an insane amount of damage with multiple attacks and a great axe while taking half damage from physical attacks. It's very entertaining and I love my character :)
However, everytime the DM sends a fire inflicting damage creature my way, I take a lot of damage from fire (just an example) and that HURTS! Of course I don't expect to become immune to these attacks but I'm feeling very vulnerable since we're currently playing in a very hostile territory and there are many evil nasty creatures looking for our party. What could I do to improve my defenses in that matter?
I considered going for a multiclass (cleric would be my first choice) but, to be honest, there are many paths and I got a bit confused as I have never played with a cleric. On the other hand, I wanted to continue to develop my "pure" barbarian. I think something more practical would be better for what I want (looking for magical shield, a mystical cape, potions, etc). The DM is open minded.
What do you think I should/could do? What are your ideas? What kind of strategies do you have for those situations?
Thank you
Almighty enraged barbarian
Welp, the Totem Warrior barbarian can take the Bear Totem at level 3 and get resistance to ALL damage except psychic, but only while raging. But you've already gone with Berzerker, so you've got two options:
1. Find magic items. Cloak of Protection to boost your saving throws, Ring of [Insert Damage Type] Resistance, stuff like that.
2. Multi-class into rogue. At level 7 rogues get Evasion. Granted, this may alter your classic archetype concept a bit, but remember that even Conan was a bit of a rogue (in the movies at least). And since you're already not wearing armor you'll be able to boost your Dex to gain not only a better AC but also a better chance to pass all those Dex saves that those nasty spells force on you. You'll still be able to do big damage, too! If you go up to Barbarian-13/Rogue-7 you'll get your Double Brutal Critical dice and a +3 rage damage bonus. You'll lose out on Retaliation (Berzerker-14) and Primal Champion (Barbarian-20), but you'll gain so much! You'll get not only Evasion, but also Uncanny Dodge, and expertise in four skills, and 4d6 sneak attack damage!
You would be the ultimate hunter, laying in wait to ambush your prey. But, that's just my 2 c.p.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
Hello Tayn,
Yeah, I agree with what you wrote. Multiclass into Rogue looks like a sweet deal. I had already read some comments online about it. But to be honest, like a good barbarian, I fancied the sneak attack damage more than the defenses. I also agree with what you write about Conan. I could see my character going in that direction without any problem.
The simplest way would be find some item for protection. Does a cloak of protection conflict with my unarmored defense feat? That would not be healthy.
:)
Or... or.... BOTH!
A multi-class Barbarian/Rogue chaos-driven damage-dealing skill-monkey with sneak attack, and evasion, AND a cloak of protection and heck maybe even a sweet little ring of fire resistance! And the cloak of protection would not interfere with Unarmored Defense. It would stack. Unarmored Defense only prevents you from wearing actual "armor", but a cloak is just a cloak. So your AC would be 10 + your Dex mod + your Con mod + 1 (for the cloak).
You'd be an absolute BEAST!
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
First off, I'm glad to hear you're playing barbarian like a champ. Berserker is an excellent pick to shore up the classical barbarian weakness of mental saves, and GWM is fantastic for leaving on practically all the time.
Now, I think a multi-class might not be the solution you're looking for. Matter of fact, damage from any source outside of BPS is something that hurts everyone, barbarian or otherwise (excluding bear or ancients pally). Rather, the question you should be asking is "How can I kill casters quicker?" To that, you might alleviate the situation with the use of a reach weapon, halberd or glaive, or magic items that increase your mobility (winged boots can help reach pesky air-borne casters), or even both or even something outside like a team plan that depends on your fellow players (hey buddy, cast haste on me? thanks!). Maybe weapons that hit even harder, if you don't fancy a reach weapon, such as a flame tongue greatsword. If you have an odd number in your DEX, taking up resilient DEX feat will make dex saves even less of a pain, and will increase your AC in the process as well. Mage slayer is also a thing!
Also, you could be unarmored, but you don't -have- to either. Half plate is an option, and with your DEX mod, you can have something like 17 AC. My zealot barb's currently rocking 18 AC from using +1 half-plate. If you want to be armorless, bracers of defense are a thing, and you can certainly stack that with a cloak of protection and a ring of protection. That's 4 AC right there! Granted, that's using up all your attunement slots.
tl;dr- best offense is best defense, needs MORE barbarian.
Hey there,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, one of the casters in my party has just got the haste spell and used that on me. It was fun.
Now, my real concern is not really for enemy casters, but for creatures that can inflict magic damage. We fought a hell hound recently that hurt me a lot with his fire attack. That's what was on my mind. Well, there is a fireball in my history too, but I was on level 3 so I was lucky to have survived...
I have a luchador barbarian(bear totem) that I absolutely love. and one of the greatest thing he will always do is soak up damage like a king. but here's the thing. What's you con looking like??? Because El Oso has disarmed many traps, and killed many Mind Flayers with out the rage going, but the fact is He has A crap ton of base health. look into the tough feat, it gives you extra heath, you can get tanking by just being healthy. Barbarians are rockin the Highest health of all PC's so lean in to that. Also Cloak of protection is amazing.
https://ddb.ac/characters/10007193/AB64Ad
If you are running into area spells like fireball, make sure you are milking the 2nd level ability Danger Sense to get advantage on saving throws. Also, it will be tactically useful for you to just get in and kill threats that use spells as quickly as possible.
In terms of things you can do to make your character more resistant to spell damage, there isn't much available in your case. I might suggest raising your constitution or taking the tough feat to give you more hit points to survive those big hits, and related to that you can try to raise your Armor class so that you save more of your health for spell damage.
I would like to add that Rogue Multiclass probably isn't what you're looking for. 7 Levels for Evasion isn't a dip and Sneak Attack can only be used with finesse weapons - which you don't want, because you want that Great Weapon Master Bonus Damage. I'd say stay with the barbarian and just shore up those hp. You can up your AC for non Sve Based stuff and try to find magic Items that help against spells and saving throws. Just remember: You're a barbarian with a d12 hit dice. Your HP are your main tool of defense.
Short answer? Don't get hit!
Like Sutlo says, you should use Danger Sense as much as possible to halve damage and avoid other effects, but the best way to avoid area of effect spells is not to let them happen in the first place, which may be more up to your party than you as the Barbarian. If you have a dedicated spellcaster, find out if they can take Counterspell (stopping 'splosions is basically what that's for), if you have a Rogue, let them sneak ahead into the area and once they strike, that's when you rush in and make some noise while the caster is distracted by their insides become outsides. A Paladin in your party should have one or more auras that will help, try to stay near to them to use that. Unless you've got a very unusual party then someone should have something they can do that can help. And all of these are alternatives to you getting to the caster first and giving them a high speed full frontal lobotomy, it's situational, but it should always be on your mind if you're playing tactically.
If all else fails, try being too close to things the enemy doesn't want to damage; if you're in the middle of a melee scrum and the enemy caster doesn't want to blow up their own side, then they shouldn't do so. If there's an artefact, treasure hoard etc. then sticking near it to make them think twice before blowing it up.
If there's nothing to use as a meat shield, consider fishing for cover from your DM; cover boosts your AC and saving throws (+2 for half, +5 for three quarter cover) so while it might feel strange to use it as a Berserker, if it's there then you might as well use it. Often when a DM describes a combat area my first question (if they haven't already addressed it) is whether there's any cover; it's up to your DM if they throw you a bone, but it's not very immersive when every fight is just an open featureless space so it's always worth asking.
In terms of character build I don't think there are really any ideal options; multi-classing won't help you much as spells are the easiest low level defence but you won't be able to use those while raging, meanwhile other class abilities will require quite a big dip to obtain. So in terms of other options it really comes down to feats and magic items.
Magic items are great if you get the ones you want, but only usually give you resistance to specific types of damage (so no use against anything else), though something like a [Tooltip Not Found] will boost not only your AC but your saving throws as well, which never hurts.
There aren't many obvious feats (or everyone would take them); Tough will give you more hit-points equivalent to having 4 more Constitution, while Durable will let you recover faster more using short rests between fights if your issue is more prolonged damage. You might consider Mobile for the extra speed as you already get a boost as a Barbarian, plus essentially a free disengage when you attack, and this will make it a lot easier to make use of cover/other enemies/valuable items as protection, though this will depend on your campaign/DM how effective it's likely to be.
Ultimately though, you may just have to face the fact that sometimes you can't avoid the damage and have to take it, against a dragon's breath attacks for example; you might suffer the same damage a Fighter/Paladin etc. would against some damage types (though Danger Sense does help a lot with many of them), but when you're in melee range most damage is going to be from bludgeoning/piercing/slashing which you can resist while raging, so you're still tanking massively overall.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
If you tend to be hit with magic effects. Not much you can do against things that make attack rolls to you. Making use of cover is a pretty big help. Maybe flavor it into kicking cover in so that you can hit the short people as they climb over, and make the pesky archers not able to hit you.
While not the best looking ones at lower levels, as well as what your stats look like. Resilient dex or wis. Very powerful to get some extra defense.
Another to consider is pulling out a shield and sorta discarding it as you get closer to targets with ranged capabilities. Snag that +2 ac for when you can't great weapon someone to death. If you like that, then the shield master feat (usable with your danger sense for those aoe effect you can see to then add the shield bonus on a reaction to take no damage instead if you succeed. But that is if you want to consider that. Personally I think resilient will help out more, as well as using a shield when moving around to get to the target.
Another option, aside from preparing for a fight or region. Like if you are going up a mountain, maybe consider cold and lightning resistance. Can be found in potion form somewhere. Going after a dragon, get potion for that. Maybe even a scroll if they are sprinkled. Would suggest protection from energy cast on you, but your caster would more than likely have something better for that concentration ability.
a short rest is a smart thing to try to encourage. Save spell slots and try to get a bit back along the day. Plus martial classes and casters also have things that come back on short rests. Like channel divinity, wizard using arcane recovery, however doesn't seem you get much besides maybe encouraging others to short rest too.
A lot of good stuff, I'd just point out that donning or doffing a shield is a whole action, so using a shield to help close range doesn't work very well as far as action economy goes. I'd personally allow it as a DM though, since its a creative way to try and function in that scenario, and can imagine the shield not being totally strapped on for that sprint.
If you're looking for a multiclassing option, Eldritch Knight offers *some* protection for you while also giving you a pretty solid boost to your primary role. You can get access to shield (can be very helpful when you get beat in initiative and can't activate rage before you take a big hit or when you're out of rages) and absorb elements. Of course there is the caveat that you can't use them while raging, but if you're fighting a monster that is hitting you with elemental attacks, it may be worth not raging. And if you have a lot of encounters in a day, you won't be raging all the time anyway.
Eldritch Knight has some other perks such as two cantrips and a third 1st level spell of your choice. It's not a bad choice for a fighter dip, despite not being able to cast while raging.
If your DM will allow it, Echo Knight is another interesting option. You can summon your echo and attack through it, potentially avoiding the elemental damage. The feature that lets you make an additional attack from your echo with uses equal to your con mod would also be pretty nice to have as a barbarian with a high CON score. You can do some insane front-loaded damage with that and action surge. Attack, Attack, Echo attack. Action surge. Attack, Attack, Echo Attack. Plus a bonus action attack (GWM or berzerking). That's 7 attacks in one round compared to a pure barbarian's max of 3.
Or you could just accept that sometimes you're going to take big hits like everyone else, lol. Barbarians have a d12 hit die for a reason.
My personal favorite is using the mage slayer feat to combat enemy spellcasters. You gain adv on all saving throws against spells if the caster is within 5ft of you, if a creature cast a spell you can melee attack as a reaction, and better yet those con saving throws to maintain concentration are at disadvantage. pick that up and rush the spell caster, your survivability with shoot up as adv is better than not. Also, you have a chance to stop a spell before it is cast with that reaction attack. I recommend picking up some javelins as even if you can't reach the ****ers this turn, hit em with a weapon attack to give em a disadvantage on that con saves.
If you wanna pick up a shield you can go with shield master, bonus action knock someone prone, a bonus to dex save equal to the ac buff granted by your shield, and as a reaction, if you passed a dex saving throw you can negate all damage instead of taking half. but since you have GWM, prolly not.
In the way of spells, talk to your local cleric/and or another spellcaster about the spell warding bond. It essentially pairs two creatures, and when either one of them takes damage, it's split and half and distributed between both. Spread the fire damage between two tanks makes them last twice as long and you essisntaly grant the resistances of your rage to another tank as the blg/sls/prc dmg you would receive would be a quarter of the initial amount.