I am currently planning a gnome barbarian. I took the path of the berserker, because it fits my backstory. Now, which weapon should I take? Dual wielding isn’t of much use for a berserker, right? I thought about taking a Warhammer and wield it with two hands, but how will my damage output be without heavy weapons or GWM?
Disadvantage is much worse than a normal roll and Advantage is much better, so even with Reckless Attack, you should avoid Heavy weapons. 5E is specifically designed to punish you for rolling a build like this, but the best weapons you can wield are a javelin, battleaxe, and warhammer, as you thought. You can also dual wield, for sure - Berserker punishes you very severely for using your subclass feature more than 1/day. You'll, in practice, often find yourself choosing not to use it, meaning for every round after the first, dual wielding is perfectly fine. For that, you should use handaxes.
Spear + Polarm Master would be a good combo for this. Or Shield + Spear.
I would avoid the Berserker completely. Giving you exhaustion to use your subclass ability is insanely punishing. And there are not very ways to get rid of it. A long rest will only remove one, single level of exhaustion.
Berserker punishes you very severely for using your subclass feature more than 1/day. You'll, in practice, often find yourself choosing not to use it, meaning for every round after the first, dual wielding is perfectly fine. For that, you should use handaxes.
I would say that to clarify, Berserker punishes you severely for trying to use Frenzied Rage more than once per day on multiple consecutive days; you can absolutely use it more than once per day, and twice a day isn't a big deal as you get bonus speed as a Barbarian anyway so half speed isn't the end of the world. If you know that you're heading for the fight with the end boss of a quest, and should have some downtime/travel time on your way back to town or whatever, then you can risk the third point of exhaustion if you need to (then long rest ASAP to lose the disadvantage on attacks).
Now whether you should go dual wielding Berserker I'm less sure about; Berserker is at its best when you're using Frenzied Rage to get extra attacks with the nastiest two handed weapon you can take. For a dual wielder it's going to be a bit of a waste as all you're doing is adding a few points of damage to the off hand attacks; unless you pick up Dual Wielder so you can dual wield longswords (and put one away to two-hand the other during a frenzy) then I don't think it's worth it, and even then that's a costly route for a still small boost.
I like the Berserker sub-class but with your limited choice of two-handed weapons I'd go Zealot personally and re-flavour it as being less faith and more berserker-like rage to fit your theme, otherwise as JeanP says spear + PAM and/or shield may be your best route.
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Berserker punishes you very severely for using your subclass feature more than 1/day. You'll, in practice, often find yourself choosing not to use it, meaning for every round after the first, dual wielding is perfectly fine. For that, you should use handaxes.
I would say that to clarify, Berserker punishes you severely for trying to use Frenzied Rage more than once per day on multiple consecutive days; you can absolutely use it more than once per day, and twice a day isn't a big deal as you get bonus speed as a Barbarian anyway so half speed isn't the end of the world. If you know that you're heading for the fight with the end boss of a quest, and should have some downtime/travel time on your way back to town or whatever, then you can risk the third point of exhaustion if you need to (then long rest ASAP to lose the disadvantage on attacks).
Now whether you should go dual wielding Berserker I'm less sure about; Berserker is at its best when you're using Frenzied Rage to get extra attacks with the nastiest two handed weapon you can take. For a dual wielder it's going to be a bit of a waste as all you're doing is adding a few points of damage to the off hand attacks; unless you pick up Dual Wielder so you can dual wield longswords (and put one away to two-hand the other during a frenzy) then I don't think it's worth it, and even then that's a costly route for a still small boost.
I like the Berserker sub-class but with your limited choice of two-handed weapons I'd go Zealot personally and re-flavour it as being less faith and more berserker-like rage to fit your theme, otherwise as JeanP says spear + PAM and/or shield may be your best route.
Yeah, two-weapon fighting a Berserker makes no sense at all, as both (Frenzy and Two-Weapon Fighting) use your bonus action. There are already many ways to get a bonus action attack, so you must swing something like a greatsword just to prevent the punishment (exhaustion) from being pointless. If you go two-weapon fighting - you have to carry two light weapons, and the *only* thing Frenzy is giving you is the ability to add your strength modifier to the bonus action attack (after having already used a weapon that does half the damage).
There are countless combination in D&D that are bad because they don't have synergy. Two-weapon fighting + Berserker goes much further than that. They are bad together because they actively work against each other.
I am currently planning a gnome barbarian. I took the path of the berserker, because it fits my backstory. Now, which weapon should I take? Dual wielding isn’t of much use for a berserker, right? I thought about taking a Warhammer and wield it with two hands, but how will my damage output be without heavy weapons or GWM?
Any d8 martial weapon will work. You can go Versatile d10 for slightly more damage (battleaxe, longsword or warhammer) or shield for +2 AC for slightly more defense.
Multiclassing with Rogue and using Shortswords/Scimitar works very well. Personally I am quite unimpressed with Barbarian at higher levels, and adding more Rogue is great. It's one of the few, if not the only, multiclass that is quite good at 10/10. For Rogue subclass don't fall into the trap of looking for ways to get Sneak Attack, as a Barbarian you have that already with Reckless Attack.
Multiclassing with Rogue and using Shortswords/Scimitar works very well. Personally I am quite unimpressed with Barbarian at higher levels, and adding more Rogue is great. It's one of the few, if not the only, multiclass that is quite good at 10/10. For Rogue subclass don't fall into the trap of looking for ways to get Sneak Attack, as a Barbarian you have that already with Reckless Attack.
Dual wielding or Spear is fine.
I had not thought about that because I'm always thinking big weapons and rogue is so counterintuitive. Once you get the good Barbarian stuff through tiers 1 and 2, Rogue gives you some really useful abilities and it will help your damage continue scaling up.
I like the idea of a duel wielding Barbarian, but that requires a feat or a fighter dip if you want the strength bonus damage to be added. And specifically for the Berserker, duel wielding makes no sense at all.
Multiclassing with Rogue and using Shortswords/Scimitar works very well. Personally I am quite unimpressed with Barbarian at higher levels, and adding more Rogue is great. It's one of the few, if not the only, multiclass that is quite good at 10/10. For Rogue subclass don't fall into the trap of looking for ways to get Sneak Attack, as a Barbarian you have that already with Reckless Attack.
Dual wielding or Spear is fine.
I had not thought about that because I'm always thinking big weapons and rogue is so counterintuitive. Once you get the good Barbarian stuff through tiers 1 and 2, Rogue gives you some really useful abilities and it will help your damage continue scaling up.
I like the idea of a duel wielding Barbarian, but that requires a feat or a fighter dip if you want the strength bonus damage to be added. And specifically for the Berserker, duel wielding makes no sense at all.
The dual wielding barb would still apply their rage bonus to the offhand attacks. It still doesn't work out to being great mechanically, but it makes more sense than another class dual wielding without the fighting style and feat.
I took the path of the berserker, because it fits my backstory.
Berserker flavor is basically redundant with being a barbarian. Rage is already going berserk. I wouldn't feel obligated to take Berserker for story reasons when every barbarian covers those same themes. I'd consider Path of the Beast as a small character as the claws are better than any weapon you can wield.
I took the path of the berserker, because it fits my backstory.
Berserker flavor is basically redundant with being a barbarian. Rage is already going berserk. I wouldn't feel obligated to take Berserker for story reasons when every barbarian covers those same themes. I'd consider Path of the Beast as a small character as the claws are better than any weapon you can wield.
100%. Berserker is like the Hunter Ranger of Barbarians. It's what I think of every member of that class, but for some reason made its own distinct subclass. Only difference is the Berserker is complete trash. I recommend going with literally any other subclass because using your abilities is fun and the Berserker punishes you very harshly for doing so.
Personally I think Zealot or Bear Totem would be hilarious. This little bastard that just refuses to die. After changing subclasses (really, I cannot recommend this enough) then dual wielding makes for a decent option that I think fits a smol rager perfectly. Take a dip at some point into fighter for two-weapon fighting, action surge and a subclass and you have a very fun build that can dish out some good damage (not GWM damage, but solid enough)
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I am currently planning a gnome barbarian. I took the path of the berserker, because it fits my backstory. Now, which weapon should I take? Dual wielding isn’t of much use for a berserker, right? I thought about taking a Warhammer and wield it with two hands, but how will my damage output be without heavy weapons or GWM?
Disadvantage is much worse than a normal roll and Advantage is much better, so even with Reckless Attack, you should avoid Heavy weapons. 5E is specifically designed to punish you for rolling a build like this, but the best weapons you can wield are a javelin, battleaxe, and warhammer, as you thought. You can also dual wield, for sure - Berserker punishes you very severely for using your subclass feature more than 1/day. You'll, in practice, often find yourself choosing not to use it, meaning for every round after the first, dual wielding is perfectly fine. For that, you should use handaxes.
Spear + Polarm Master would be a good combo for this. Or Shield + Spear.
I would avoid the Berserker completely. Giving you exhaustion to use your subclass ability is insanely punishing. And there are not very ways to get rid of it. A long rest will only remove one, single level of exhaustion.
A dex barb is one of the tankiest builds possible, although the damage isn't as pleasing. Unless you go rogue after 4 levels of barb
Spear + Shield and polemaster feat is good as SeanJP says.
I would say that to clarify, Berserker punishes you severely for trying to use Frenzied Rage more than once per day on multiple consecutive days; you can absolutely use it more than once per day, and twice a day isn't a big deal as you get bonus speed as a Barbarian anyway so half speed isn't the end of the world. If you know that you're heading for the fight with the end boss of a quest, and should have some downtime/travel time on your way back to town or whatever, then you can risk the third point of exhaustion if you need to (then long rest ASAP to lose the disadvantage on attacks).
Now whether you should go dual wielding Berserker I'm less sure about; Berserker is at its best when you're using Frenzied Rage to get extra attacks with the nastiest two handed weapon you can take. For a dual wielder it's going to be a bit of a waste as all you're doing is adding a few points of damage to the off hand attacks; unless you pick up Dual Wielder so you can dual wield longswords (and put one away to two-hand the other during a frenzy) then I don't think it's worth it, and even then that's a costly route for a still small boost.
I like the Berserker sub-class but with your limited choice of two-handed weapons I'd go Zealot personally and re-flavour it as being less faith and more berserker-like rage to fit your theme, otherwise as JeanP says spear + PAM and/or shield may be your best route.
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.
Yeah, two-weapon fighting a Berserker makes no sense at all, as both (Frenzy and Two-Weapon Fighting) use your bonus action. There are already many ways to get a bonus action attack, so you must swing something like a greatsword just to prevent the punishment (exhaustion) from being pointless. If you go two-weapon fighting - you have to carry two light weapons, and the *only* thing Frenzy is giving you is the ability to add your strength modifier to the bonus action attack (after having already used a weapon that does half the damage).
There are countless combination in D&D that are bad because they don't have synergy. Two-weapon fighting + Berserker goes much further than that. They are bad together because they actively work against each other.
Any d8 martial weapon will work. You can go Versatile d10 for slightly more damage (battleaxe, longsword or warhammer) or shield for +2 AC for slightly more defense.
Multiclassing with Rogue and using Shortswords/Scimitar works very well. Personally I am quite unimpressed with Barbarian at higher levels, and adding more Rogue is great. It's one of the few, if not the only, multiclass that is quite good at 10/10. For Rogue subclass don't fall into the trap of looking for ways to get Sneak Attack, as a Barbarian you have that already with Reckless Attack.
Dual wielding or Spear is fine.
I had not thought about that because I'm always thinking big weapons and rogue is so counterintuitive. Once you get the good Barbarian stuff through tiers 1 and 2, Rogue gives you some really useful abilities and it will help your damage continue scaling up.
I like the idea of a duel wielding Barbarian, but that requires a feat or a fighter dip if you want the strength bonus damage to be added. And specifically for the Berserker, duel wielding makes no sense at all.
The dual wielding barb would still apply their rage bonus to the offhand attacks. It still doesn't work out to being great mechanically, but it makes more sense than another class dual wielding without the fighting style and feat.
Berserker flavor is basically redundant with being a barbarian. Rage is already going berserk. I wouldn't feel obligated to take Berserker for story reasons when every barbarian covers those same themes. I'd consider Path of the Beast as a small character as the claws are better than any weapon you can wield.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
100%. Berserker is like the Hunter Ranger of Barbarians. It's what I think of every member of that class, but for some reason made its own distinct subclass. Only difference is the Berserker is complete trash. I recommend going with literally any other subclass because using your abilities is fun and the Berserker punishes you very harshly for doing so.
Personally I think Zealot or Bear Totem would be hilarious. This little bastard that just refuses to die. After changing subclasses (really, I cannot recommend this enough) then dual wielding makes for a decent option that I think fits a smol rager perfectly. Take a dip at some point into fighter for two-weapon fighting, action surge and a subclass and you have a very fun build that can dish out some good damage (not GWM damage, but solid enough)