I'm going to be starting a curse of strahd campaign soon, and I'm building an ancestral guardian barbarian and planning to play it pretty tanky (using a shield and battle-axe instead of a great axe). Right now I'm debating whether being an Aasimar would be better for the radiant and necrotic resistances, or a variant human and taking the shield master feat. The party will be composed of a cleric, a sorcadin, and a rogue, so shoving enemies down for them to have advantage would work pretty will. So in the end, what's better - shove and giving advantage to people or the extra sustain from the resistances?
Honestly for Strahd I would go for the Aasimar, your going to probably be encountering necrotic a lot, and you can always pick up shield master after a couple of levels.
Aasimar is the better of the two choices you're offering, but I'd point out you can completely change the game with a completely different approach: Tasha's Custom Lineage (for darkvision, which should never be underestimated) and Sentinel. This is how a one-on-one fight goes once you're level 3 and raging:
You try and probably succeed at hitting the target, since you did it recklessly.
If the target stays in melee with you and tries to hit the rogue, it's at disadvantage, the rogue has resistance, and you can hit the target back for its temerity.
If the target tries to let you have an AoO in order to leave, if you hit, it doesn't get to leave.
The rogue gets sneak attacks all day long, since the target is next to you.
At level 6, when a target tries to solve this problem by casting spells at the rogue that cause damage via a failed save, you can reduce the damage by 2d6, which stacks with uncanny dodge.
Barbarians are normally shockingly poor tanks, one of the reasons for which is that they can't recklessly attack with an AoO, so they're not particularly talented at keeping a foe next to them (if they could recklessly AoO, they'd be extra good at murdering the escapee). Ancestral Guardian + Sentinel gives you powerful tools for getting an enemy to stay in melee with you trying to kill you, which is definitionally good tanking.
The only caveat here is that because the Sentinel feat shuts down the Sentinel feat, you should coordinate with your Sorcadin (who's only a paladin or a sorcerer at level 1, not both, of course) - you don't want them also taking Sentinel.
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Hello,
I'm going to be starting a curse of strahd campaign soon, and I'm building an ancestral guardian barbarian and planning to play it pretty tanky (using a shield and battle-axe instead of a great axe). Right now I'm debating whether being an Aasimar would be better for the radiant and necrotic resistances, or a variant human and taking the shield master feat. The party will be composed of a cleric, a sorcadin, and a rogue, so shoving enemies down for them to have advantage would work pretty will. So in the end, what's better - shove and giving advantage to people or the extra sustain from the resistances?
Any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks!
Honestly for Strahd I would go for the Aasimar, your going to probably be encountering necrotic a lot, and you can always pick up shield master after a couple of levels.
What level are you starting at?
1st
Aasimar is the better of the two choices you're offering, but I'd point out you can completely change the game with a completely different approach: Tasha's Custom Lineage (for darkvision, which should never be underestimated) and Sentinel. This is how a one-on-one fight goes once you're level 3 and raging:
Barbarians are normally shockingly poor tanks, one of the reasons for which is that they can't recklessly attack with an AoO, so they're not particularly talented at keeping a foe next to them (if they could recklessly AoO, they'd be extra good at murdering the escapee). Ancestral Guardian + Sentinel gives you powerful tools for getting an enemy to stay in melee with you trying to kill you, which is definitionally good tanking.
The only caveat here is that because the Sentinel feat shuts down the Sentinel feat, you should coordinate with your Sorcadin (who's only a paladin or a sorcerer at level 1, not both, of course) - you don't want them also taking Sentinel.