Seconding the "don't fixate on unarmoured defence but do focus at least a bit on AC". Medium armour is good enough to get you what you need and it means you don't have to focus as much on Dex. As a side note, since AC in 5E is rather fixed, if you want to tank it's often better to go for Big HP instead of Big AC.
I'm putting together a Barb with Medium Armor Master so he can still Stealth plus a shield. If I can get his Dex to 16 that's AC 20 with half-plate and a shield. Pretty hefty even if he does do Reckless Attack.
Sounds like a good plan. Personally I prioritize abilities as following for barbarians, Con, then strength, then Dex, then whatever you think fits the character. Unless going for a specific build like yours, there's really no need to get Dex higher than 14. The reason why I choose Con over Strength is simpl ethat Barbarians get enough boosts to damage anyways and with reckless attack you'll hit often enough but you can never have enough Con. Heck, if you really want to focus on the tanking aspect, go Dex before Strength. You're job isn't to hit often, your job is to hit hard and take ALL the damage. :P
If you really want to be good at tanking, having party members who can buff you with Temp HP will go a lot further than slight Con boosts.
Temp HP often does not go farther than small con boosts.
Not only do small con boosts get larger than most Temp HP. But Temp HP is effectively just one time use DR for the most part. The Health you get from the Con boost is infinitely reusable limited only by your ways for getting it back. The con Boost means that you take less damage from anything with a Con save such as Cold spells that tend to have con as their save to take reduced damage and avoid other effects that can often equal more than the Temp Hp. And finally even by level 10. A little con boost is usually giving you as much or more hp than most sources of Temp Hp. By level 20 there is almost nothing that actually gives the same amount of Temp Hp.
And Temp HP's value is just massively over stated. Specially when it comes to things like Twilight Sanctuary from the Twilight Cleric. They white room the hell out of it to try and maximise things to make it more useful than it actually is. But the truth is many of those kinds of things are going to do half or less of what they tell people it's going to do. And it doesn't protect in the same way as something thta actually increases your max health or bring you back onto your feet like Actual healing.
For Tanking Temp HP is a nice little extra on occasion for most tanks but only useful in any real capacity for those things trying to tank that have Less than stellar HP. No way to get more of it easily, and need something to improve their EHP that is better than nothing.
now that's not to say it's not useful when it does happen. But it's nothing to change an entire build to seek out in any way, or overly rely on allies to supply the tank.
The thing is, boosting your Con by 2 points only gives you HP equal to your level. Or effectively double that if you're a raging barbarian. That makes a difference of one, possibly two hits: a half-orc barbarian at 4th level is looking at a difference in HP (assuming the default option rather than rolling) of 49 HP instead of 45. If you have an ally who can cast Heroism on you, getting those extra temp HP each round is going to make a huge difference in your tanking ability- over the course of a fight you can potentially absorb an amount of damage greater than your actual HP through it.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that building a tank and being as effective as you can is a team effort.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The thing is, boosting your Con by 2 points only gives you HP equal to your level. Or effectively double that if you're a raging barbarian. That makes a difference of one, possibly two hits: a half-orc barbarian at 4th level is looking at a difference in HP (assuming the default option rather than rolling) of 49 HP instead of 45. If you have an ally who can cast Heroism on you, getting those extra temp HP each round is going to make a huge difference in your tanking ability- over the course of a fight you can potentially absorb an amount of damage greater than your actual HP through it.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that building a tank and being as effective as you can is a team effort.
Heroism is a wonderful spell. I throw it on the Barbarian in our party a lot.
As a thought exercise, I rolled up a Barb that went Battle Ax and Shield instead of GWM etc. At lvl 4 I took medium Armor Master so he has 19 AC in half-plate with a shield. Even if he goes Reckless that's respectable IMHO. ASIs at 8 and 12 will round out his Str and I chose Half-Orc so he has 16 Con already. Lvl 16 ASI will likely be for Con and the final one will be the Tough Feat. If I can manage magic armor and a shield, even for just +1, 21 AC and Bear Totem Resistance makes him an Energizer bunny...
As a thought exercise, I rolled up a Barb that went Battle Ax and Shield instead of GWM etc. At lvl 4 I took medium Armor Master so he has 19 AC in half-plate with a shield. Even if he goes Reckless that's respectable IMHO. ASIs at 8 and 12 will round out his Str and I chose Half-Orc so he has 16 Con already. Lvl 16 ASI will likely be for Con and the final one will be the Tough Feat. If I can manage magic armor and a shield, even for just +1, 21 AC and Bear Totem Resistance makes him an Energizer bunny...
You still have 19 AC without Medium Armor Master. Unless you have 16 DEX I feel Medium Armor Master does not provide enough value to taking over something else. It is hard to justify using a ASI just to remove disadvantage to stealth.
As a thought exercise, I rolled up a Barb that went Battle Ax and Shield instead of GWM etc. At lvl 4 I took medium Armor Master so he has 19 AC in half-plate with a shield. Even if he goes Reckless that's respectable IMHO. ASIs at 8 and 12 will round out his Str and I chose Half-Orc so he has 16 Con already. Lvl 16 ASI will likely be for Con and the final one will be the Tough Feat. If I can manage magic armor and a shield, even for just +1, 21 AC and Bear Totem Resistance makes him an Energizer bunny...
You still have 19 AC without Medium Armor Master. Unless you have 16 DEX I feel Medium Armor Master does not provide enough value to taking over something else. It is hard to justify using a ASI just to remove disadvantage to stealth.
This is a fair point but in the game I'm currently in I'm the only party member without Stealth and while I'll be fixing that next level, I've already nearly gotten us killed twice by being That Guy.
I definitely agree with the feat, but I would opt for the tough feat before the medium armor, just because you can still bump your AC up to a 19(15 from half plate + 2 from dex + 2 from shield) while also getting a nice boost to health. At lower levels this seems like a better option so you can take a couple more hits, but you could also just end up taking both feats further down the road. Plus while not worrying about dex being a higher stat, you can get the better stat roles in con and str so you can focus on what really matters to barbs.
Saying that it is possible to build a barbarian multiclass that can basically forgot about AC due to insane recovery. Something like the possessed zealot with a dip into celestial pact warlock for maximized healing from all sources with a small pool of healing that comes with it. Even of you only ever cast cure wounds with a 14 Cha that's 36 HP extra between every short rest and you still have 4 bonus action shots of HP at 6 each you can use during raging every day. Not to mention maximized HD healing.
Ok I must be missing something here but how does a Zealot get maximized healing with a Celestial Warlock dip? Are we talking homebrew here?
Saying that it is possible to build a barbarian multiclass that can basically forgot about AC due to insane recovery. Something like the possessed zealot with a dip into celestial pact warlock for maximized healing from all sources with a small pool of healing that comes with it. Even of you only ever cast cure wounds with a 14 Cha that's 36 HP extra between every short rest and you still have 4 bonus action shots of HP at 6 each you can use during raging every day. Not to mention maximized HD healing.
Ok I must be missing something here but how does a Zealot get maximized healing with a Celestial Warlock dip? Are we talking homebrew here?
For the path of the Zealot, I believe they are referencing the "Warrior of the Gods" and "Rage Beyond Death" abilities. Although they don't do anything toward healing, they do sustain the barbs life and keep them in the fight longer with "Warrior of the Gods" allowing an easier resurrection and "Rage Beyond Death" preventing the death in the first place.
The dip into Celestial Warlock would allow a pool of dice for healing that would synergize well with the "Rage Beyond Death" ability, given dms discretion on the representation of a creature within sight included the player that is doing the healing. This would allow you to drop to 0 hp at some point while raging and heal yourself so that you don't die when the rage has subsided. I haven't even talked about the spells you get as a warlock, although that would be a small bonus on the side in my eyes as you would need to end the rage to cast any spells.
I wouldn't classify it as max healing, but it does add to the barbs survivability in the absence of high AC.
Saying that it is possible to build a barbarian multiclass that can basically forgot about AC due to insane recovery. Something like the possessed zealot with a dip into celestial pact warlock for maximized healing from all sources with a small pool of healing that comes with it. Even of you only ever cast cure wounds with a 14 Cha that's 36 HP extra between every short rest and you still have 4 bonus action shots of HP at 6 each you can use during raging every day. Not to mention maximized HD healing.
Ok I must be missing something here but how does a Zealot get maximized healing with a Celestial Warlock dip? Are we talking homebrew here?
For the path of the Zealot, I believe they are referencing the "Warrior of the Gods" and "Rage Beyond Death" abilities. Although they don't do anything toward healing, they do sustain the barbs life and keep them in the fight longer with "Warrior of the Gods" allowing an easier resurrection and "Rage Beyond Death" preventing the death in the first place.
The dip into Celestial Warlock would allow a pool of dice for healing that would synergize well with the "Rage Beyond Death" ability, given dms discretion on the representation of a creature within sight included the player that is doing the healing. This would allow you to drop to 0 hp at some point while raging and heal yourself so that you don't die when the rage has subsided. I haven't even talked about the spells you get as a warlock, although that would be a small bonus on the side in my eyes as you would need to end the rage to cast any spells.
I wouldn't classify it as max healing, but it does add to the barbs survivability in the absence of high AC.
Stoutstein literally said "Even of you only ever cast cure wounds with a 14 Cha that's 36 HP extra between every short rest and you still have 4 bonus action shots of HP at 6 each you can use during raging every day. Not to mention maximized HD healing."
Hence my confusion, because nothing in the Zealot's or Celetial lock abilities grants anything like this.
I wouldn't recommend relying on HP solely and forgoing low hanging AC increasing options.
Has anyone even suggested this?
The OP was posting a question with a slightly incomplete understanding of AC and how it works with the barbarian's features. The core question was whether or not barbarian should even worry about AC at all.
Higher AC makes reckless attack better not worse. the same holds true with rage damage resistance.
Saying that it is possible to build a barbarian multiclass that can basically forgot about AC due to insane recovery. Something like the possessed zealot with a dip into celestial pact warlock for maximized healing from all sources with a small pool of healing that comes with it. Even of you only ever cast cure wounds with a 14 Cha that's 36 HP extra between every short rest and you still have 4 bonus action shots of HP at 6 each you can use during raging every day. Not to mention maximized HD healing.
As a thought exercise, I built a Dwarf Barb with the Durable and Dwarven Fortitude Feats. By level 8 I had 101 HP and every time I took the Dodge Action I could recover 1D12+4 HP.
IMHO this is as good any self-heal out there. Sure, I'm only at 14 Str for the first part of my career but if I can land a magic weapon then I'm happy.
Sounds like a good plan. Personally I prioritize abilities as following for barbarians, Con, then strength, then Dex, then whatever you think fits the character. Unless going for a specific build like yours, there's really no need to get Dex higher than 14. The reason why I choose Con over Strength is simpl ethat Barbarians get enough boosts to damage anyways and with reckless attack you'll hit often enough but you can never have enough Con. Heck, if you really want to focus on the tanking aspect, go Dex before Strength. You're job isn't to hit often, your job is to hit hard and take ALL the damage. :P
If you really want to be good at tanking, having party members who can buff you with Temp HP will go a lot further than slight Con boosts.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Temp HP often does not go farther than small con boosts.
Not only do small con boosts get larger than most Temp HP. But Temp HP is effectively just one time use DR for the most part. The Health you get from the Con boost is infinitely reusable limited only by your ways for getting it back. The con Boost means that you take less damage from anything with a Con save such as Cold spells that tend to have con as their save to take reduced damage and avoid other effects that can often equal more than the Temp Hp. And finally even by level 10. A little con boost is usually giving you as much or more hp than most sources of Temp Hp. By level 20 there is almost nothing that actually gives the same amount of Temp Hp.
And Temp HP's value is just massively over stated. Specially when it comes to things like Twilight Sanctuary from the Twilight Cleric. They white room the hell out of it to try and maximise things to make it more useful than it actually is. But the truth is many of those kinds of things are going to do half or less of what they tell people it's going to do. And it doesn't protect in the same way as something thta actually increases your max health or bring you back onto your feet like Actual healing.
For Tanking Temp HP is a nice little extra on occasion for most tanks but only useful in any real capacity for those things trying to tank that have Less than stellar HP. No way to get more of it easily, and need something to improve their EHP that is better than nothing.
now that's not to say it's not useful when it does happen. But it's nothing to change an entire build to seek out in any way, or overly rely on allies to supply the tank.
The thing is, boosting your Con by 2 points only gives you HP equal to your level. Or effectively double that if you're a raging barbarian. That makes a difference of one, possibly two hits: a half-orc barbarian at 4th level is looking at a difference in HP (assuming the default option rather than rolling) of 49 HP instead of 45. If you have an ally who can cast Heroism on you, getting those extra temp HP each round is going to make a huge difference in your tanking ability- over the course of a fight you can potentially absorb an amount of damage greater than your actual HP through it.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that building a tank and being as effective as you can is a team effort.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Heroism is a wonderful spell. I throw it on the Barbarian in our party a lot.
As a thought exercise, I rolled up a Barb that went Battle Ax and Shield instead of GWM etc. At lvl 4 I took medium Armor Master so he has 19 AC in half-plate with a shield. Even if he goes Reckless that's respectable IMHO. ASIs at 8 and 12 will round out his Str and I chose Half-Orc so he has 16 Con already. Lvl 16 ASI will likely be for Con and the final one will be the Tough Feat. If I can manage magic armor and a shield, even for just +1, 21 AC and Bear Totem Resistance makes him an Energizer bunny...
You still have 19 AC without Medium Armor Master. Unless you have 16 DEX I feel Medium Armor Master does not provide enough value to taking over something else. It is hard to justify using a ASI just to remove disadvantage to stealth.
This is a fair point but in the game I'm currently in I'm the only party member without Stealth and while I'll be fixing that next level, I've already nearly gotten us killed twice by being That Guy.
Has anyone even suggested this?
It's the question posed by the OP.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I definitely agree with the feat, but I would opt for the tough feat before the medium armor, just because you can still bump your AC up to a 19(15 from half plate + 2 from dex + 2 from shield) while also getting a nice boost to health. At lower levels this seems like a better option so you can take a couple more hits, but you could also just end up taking both feats further down the road. Plus while not worrying about dex being a higher stat, you can get the better stat roles in con and str so you can focus on what really matters to barbs.
Ok I must be missing something here but how does a Zealot get maximized healing with a Celestial Warlock dip? Are we talking homebrew here?
For the path of the Zealot, I believe they are referencing the "Warrior of the Gods" and "Rage Beyond Death" abilities. Although they don't do anything toward healing, they do sustain the barbs life and keep them in the fight longer with "Warrior of the Gods" allowing an easier resurrection and "Rage Beyond Death" preventing the death in the first place.
The dip into Celestial Warlock would allow a pool of dice for healing that would synergize well with the "Rage Beyond Death" ability, given dms discretion on the representation of a creature within sight included the player that is doing the healing. This would allow you to drop to 0 hp at some point while raging and heal yourself so that you don't die when the rage has subsided. I haven't even talked about the spells you get as a warlock, although that would be a small bonus on the side in my eyes as you would need to end the rage to cast any spells.
I wouldn't classify it as max healing, but it does add to the barbs survivability in the absence of high AC.
Stoutstein literally said "Even of you only ever cast cure wounds with a 14 Cha that's 36 HP extra between every short rest and you still have 4 bonus action shots of HP at 6 each you can use during raging every day. Not to mention maximized HD healing."
Hence my confusion, because nothing in the Zealot's or Celetial lock abilities grants anything like this.
As a thought exercise, I built a Dwarf Barb with the Durable and Dwarven Fortitude Feats. By level 8 I had 101 HP and every time I took the Dodge Action I could recover 1D12+4 HP.
IMHO this is as good any self-heal out there. Sure, I'm only at 14 Str for the first part of my career but if I can land a magic weapon then I'm happy.
Thank you for the clarification, I never thought about that invocation. That does indeed present a interesting build.