Barbarian/Fiend Warlock, temp HP last longer when raging, or Amour of Agathys with the other patrons,
And at lvl 5, pact of blade knocks everything prone with eldritch smite, my barblock eyes starts burning with infernal flames when raging, whist he is chopping away with his obsidian black great sword that he summoned from thin air before started foaming at the mouth.
This question is actually a bit of a trap. Not only is it based in personal perceptions. It's based in Level range as well.
At low level Sure, Barb/Druid combo's look great. Really strong. We're talking about two somewhat front loaded combat heavy possibilities. AT high level. They fall behind and fall down. Beast forms don't keep up adequately With moon only getting a few level reprieve from this with Elemental forms. Magic and Rage don't mix making much of the non-form stuff hard to use or back up "what if" secondary options.
Fighter/Barbarian is a possibility. But if you do it. You have to take delays and build it up early to get the most out of it. And if your going to level 2, You can stop there or consider going to level 3 for Champion like people mentioned. Champion mixes well with barbarian and it gives you a few more tools to have that cool bunch of high damage hits rounds that people like to sensationalize. But it's value is found more over the longer that a campaign goes on and is more built up in a lot of little moments over that stretch. Which may or may not be matched by the increases the straight Barbarian would get from leveling up in it's primary class a bit quicker depending on certain factors of luck, how many daily fights your group has, etc. (It's almost a matter of which way you want your 1000 cuts of advantage to build up. Tacked on in tiny ways to every hit or in little bursts every few combats.)
For Me. I tend to fear more the Barbarian that just goes straight with his class and finds items or ways to mitigate the short comings of that class. (such as objects that let him fly or things that make him move faster so rounds of combat not being able to attack are less likely.) Their capstone is late game and may not get to be used as much. So it's a strong one that you have to weigh out value to you on if it's worth it any time you consider taking a level in something else unless your campaigns are eternally low to mid level at best.
~~~
As for the Berserker argument.
It's buried in a lot of mistakes and misconceptions that plague a few classes (Like Monk for Example). They have this tool so they think they must try to fit it into every fight or as many attacks as they can for it to have value much like burning through ki like water for Flurries for every attack and then finding out they have no utility when they need it.
Frenzy is meant for the Big fights and the Tough Enemies. not every little peon that comes along. It's your way of telling the big bad to be afraid because you are taking the fight seriously and you are going to wreck his stuff up. you don't waste your Action surge on every little Peon so why do the same to your Frenzy? And Frenzy lasts longer in those key fights if things go well.
Charm and Fear affects are powerful. many big creatures have some kind of fear affect. And the Barbarian is the perfect charm target. particularly in battle. Turning your opponents biggest weapon against them, particularly when most parties are not prepared to deal with the destruction the barbarian can rain down themselves, is a powerful tactic. if your never charming the barbarian. Your either metagaming or your missing something valuably important. Charm/control spells are perhaps the most powerful weaknesses things like Totem Barbarians have and Barbarians 90% or more of the time are statted out to be the perfect targets with low chance of resisting. This makes the Berserkers ability to shake these off mid combat quite strong. As for the argument that some would make that charm spells don't work well in combat because it causes advantage. Two things to keep in mind for that. First, If no ally of the caster has targeted the barbarian with attacks before the charm spell. He doesn't get advantage. Even if he's being aggressive to them. Second, A lot of such creatures aren't casting a spell. They are using an ability that does not have the advantage in combat weakness to it's capabilities. Which makes them valuably useful in combat. (This is part of what can make fighting things like Vampires extremely dangerous.)
And finally. Retaliation is a great skill and it pairs amazingly well with Sentinel. Get onto a big target and beat on him. He tries to move away, sentinel to shut him down, he tries to attack an ally, sentinel hit him to shut him down, he hits you to escape those two possibilities? Retaliation him for being brave enough to challenge you to a fight. It's something that a Berserker excels at. Making every action that an opponent would consider have a cost. Even if it is 14th level. it's still valuable at that level unless you never bother to play in campaigns that get that high or higher.
This question is actually a bit of a trap. Not only is it based in personal perceptions. It's based in Level range as well.
[Fateless goes on and makes some very good points on play levels, multi-classing and Berserker benefits]
I have to agree with most you are saying, the level you play at and/or hope to end up with can be the most important for your build.
I'm currently playing a campaign from lvl1 up and Chose the Ancestral Guardian Subclass, because I thought it would be great for tanking. Yet I also wanted to go crit-fishing, because I love to wield a great axe. I must say that your example build for Berserker with Sentinel at lvl 14 is really impressive. I won't go in all the details why I dislike the Berserker Subclass, I posted a lengthy post In the thread about Berserker but will say what discouraged me. I didn't want to play through Level 1 - 14, with only raging, hitting stuff and maybe trigger Frenzy if the battle proved too strong or that I was quite confident the long rest would follow. Also the Mindless Rage, while very good, isn't dynamic. So I don't get to make many important decisions during combat and that's what I like to do. In hindsight, Battlemaster Fighter might have been the better choice, because you have plenty of resource decisions there.
Yet because I took Ancestral Guardian, I have postponed the 3 level dip into Champion until after Level 6, because the Spirit Shield is that good. I found myself taking Level 7 Barbarian too, because Advantage on Initiative and not being surprised sounded too good on a tank, to pass up on.
I went for a rather peculiar build because I rally wanted starting using a Greataxe before level 9 Barbarian, so I created my homebrew version of Savage Attacker, so it wouldn't be a trap feature. Which I'm quite happy about. My reasoning is that I want my Tank to deal enough damage, so they can't ignore me. Reckless attack also helps to draw aggro.
Now I find myself doubting if I don't want lvl 8 with the next ASI, so I can take Lucky to re-roll those failed saving throws and crucial roleplay roles, which would help mitigate the weaknesses of my build, and only after that go 3 deep into Fighter.
EDIT: to answer the OP question.
For crit-fisher Champion, I would pick a subclass that hasn't an interesting lvl 6 ability, like totem bear and than go 3 deep into Champion, maybe even 4 to pick up ASI in Fighter faster (for GWM) and use first Barbarian ASI for +2 STR or maybe Sentinel to keep the enemies from running from you. Probably +2 STR to help mitigate the to hit penalty from Power Attack part of GWM. I would probably swing Greatsword than, because damage dice are less important if you add a Frequent +15/16/17 (depending on Ability array) to that roll.
What about a Barbarian X/ Cavalier Fighter 4? You get the Action Surge, 2nd Wind, Fighting Style and multiple opportunities to hinder enemies when they attack someone other than your Barbarian.
Noobiwan your aware a barbarian could do that pictish representation your talking about without a single level of the Bard class right?
My employers demand the best and I aim to please. I mean if you are going to hire a guy to cut people to pieces while playing a goblin skin bagpipe, you should want only the very best, one that attended the finest Bardic Colleges. not some ill-bred murder hobo with a tartan towel and a kobold bagpipe, the nerve of some people:)
Noobiwan your aware a barbarian could do that pictish representation your talking about without a single level of the Bard class right?
My employers demand the best and I aim to please. I mean if you are going to hire a guy to cut people to pieces while playing a goblin skin bagpipe, you should want only the very best, one that attended the finest Bardic Colleges. not some ill-bred murder hobo with a tartan towel and a kobold bagpipe, the nerve of some people:)
Thus making the barbarian part of it pointless....
Noobiwan your aware a barbarian could do that pictish representation your talking about without a single level of the Bard class right?
My employers demand the best and I aim to please. I mean if you are going to hire a guy to cut people to pieces while playing a goblin skin bagpipe, you should want only the very best, one that attended the finest Bardic Colleges. not some ill-bred murder hobo with a tartan towel and a kobold bagpipe, the nerve of some people:)
Thus making the barbarian part of it pointless....
The whole thing was a play at a humorous character concept, which you missed entirely. The thread was scariest class combo with a barbarian, roleplay wise it could be pretty scary to see the description above with the right player and mindset, mechanically it's a joke.
Barbarian with three levels in fighter/champion can be pretty scary. Critical hit chance while using reckless attack and critically hitting on 19 and 20 means you'll be critically hitting almost 1 out of 5 attacks. When you critical, you get to roll extra weapon dice. At level 20 with a great axe, when you critically hit you deal 5d12 weapon damage. Not bad! You can also take GWF to reroll your ones and twos. You could also take great weapon master to add some more damage. I'd be afraid!
Then take 4 levels of barbarian (for a total player character of 8, 5 fighter/3 barb). Take ancestral guardian subclass. At level 4 take polearm master feat. Back to fighter.
The rest of your levels will be done with fighter. At fighter 6 (player character level 10), take sentinel feat. At level 8, take the savage attacker feat. At level 12 take the orcish fury feat. At level 14 take the magic initiate feat (wizard. Take mold earth and Ray of frost cantrips, find familiar for your spell). At level 16 take the martial Adept feat, take disarm and trip manuevers. Alternatively you could take the war caster feat (I explain why later).
The mechanics behind this: You fight with a polearm. You attack with advantage on every roll and crit on an 18. You get four attacks per turn to crit, not counting action surge. Each deals 1d10 (rerolling 1s and 2s, and even then again getting to reroll once per turn your damage) + 12 + mod. If by some miracle you don't crit on this turn or kill, your fourth attack only deals 1d4 + 12+ mod. You will kill everything.
Not to mention that when you crit you deal 3d10 per hit, not just 2d10 (and once per rest you deal 4d10).
Assuming you don't kill everything, you impose disadvantage on attacks made against anyone other than you on the first creature you attack that turn. You further incentivize the rest of the enemies to attack you by granting them advantage (via reckless attack). Of course you're taking half damage cuz rage, and since you're a half-orc you can resist getting knocked down and then smack them immediately again because of orcish fury.
Assuming they somehow survive your attacks AND choose for whatever reason NOT to attack you, they have to get past your 10ft radius area of AOO which also stops them dead in their tracks, meaning on your next turn you can lay the smack on them and kill them before they get to your allies.
Let's talk a bit more about all those attacks you're making and the crits and what that means for your damage output. Assuming 4 hits per turn with advantage on all of them, and no AOO. You have an approx. 73% chance to crit at least once a turn. Without a crit or kill in a turn, and factoring in savage attacker and GWFS and GWM and assuming a str of 18 you deal on average approx 80.65 damage per turn. Assuming you crit .73 times per turn and you add 2d10 on that crit and you get an additional 1d10 instead of 1d4 for the bonus action attack, the actual average damage would come out to 96.55 damage per turn. Of course just a straight level 20 champion wielding a greatsword, deals slightly more damage per turn, BUT they don't get that AOO range of 10 ft, AOO on entry into range and exit from range, AND they don't get to impose disadvantage on enemies when they don't attack you. So you get rid of a little bit of offense for a LOT of defense.
Now, in addition to ALL of this, mold earth can allow you to raise cover for your ranged players and spell caster, can allow you to create difficult terrain and bottle neck enemies to fight you and you alone. Ray of frost is just to have some magic and ranged options AND will lower enemies speed also hampering their ability to get past you. If you combine this with war caster you can cast ray of frost as an AOO. Find Familiar allows you to grant advantage to your allies as well.
Now of course the issues with this are sacrificing all your ASIs for feats. Meaning if you want to be at all an effective character with this build, you will need at least an 18 in str, 14 in dex, 16 in con, and 16 in int, Wis and Cha can be trash. LEAST to be reliable. Which if you're playing standard array is impossible and even when rolling 4d6 is unlikely to achieve without a single ASI. But if you roll incredibly well on your next character, consider this build.
Tl;dr: This guy is the tank of all tanks, making a one man border wall, has advantage on all attacks, crits on an 18, deals max damage all the time, imposes disadvantage on enemies, and gives allies advantage and can't get knocked down.
bezerker barbarians cannot be charmed, a fact that hardly is ever brought up, and whenever its relevant i assure you nobody complains about it, and earlier there was a mention that great weaponmaster was better than the bezerkers bonusaction attack, the bonus action attack from GWM only activates if you crit, and even with the most critfishing build you can do, its not a whole lotand polearm masters only a d4, versus 2d6 a d12 or if using a shield a d8 essentially bezerkers are consistent with their damage
They can't be Charmed or Frightenedwhile raging. Most enemies aren't going to charm mid-combat, and those that do probably aren't going to charm the Barbarian. They'd be difficult to control (all sub-classes), so charm someone else and force them into the Barbarian's way. Whether the Barbarian starts slaughtering their allies or has to fend them off you get the same effect: Barbarian is neutralized/hindered. Most creatures/casters that can charm are intelligent enough to do this.
The bonus action attack from GWM activates on a critical hit OR reducing a creature to 0 HP. That tends to happen pretty dang regularly. The bonus action of Frenzy is good, don't get me wrong, and it's a lot better than it was in previous editions.
exahustion isnt fun i get that, but its not as big of a deal, barbarians skillchecks arernt terribly important
Tell that to the rest of the party after stepping on every single twig in the forest. 😂
Exhaustion is a HUGE deal. Levels of exhaustion are cumulative; you gain another level of exhaustion every time you Frenzy. If you reach level 3 Exhaustion, you are essentially less effective at everything than if you had never bothered using Frenzy in the first place. If you reach level 6 Exhaustion, you die. Removing levels of Exhaustion is not as easy as you'd think either. You can remove one level of exhaustion by taking a long rest (and actually consuming food & drink). Greater Restoration is a 5th level spell that can remove one level of exhaustion per cast, and is also expensive (100gp of diamond dust which is consumed by the spell).
If you're using all of your frenzy uses each day, a level 3 Berserker can kill themselves in 3 days. A level 17 Berserker can commit suicide in 36 seconds.
and at later level with them being able to use their reacion to attack, its great! lets be real here, while preventing them from moving with sentinel is nice, ist still pretty niche when it comes up because whatever you are smacking around with your weapon either is meant to stand up with you for significant amount of time witch admitedly might not be a lot, can get away safely withough taking an attack(like a spellaster with misty step) or dies(like said caster withought misty step), and the other bit where you can attack as a reaction in response to an ally being hit, bezerkers have that as soon as they are hit as a class feature, witch keep in mind, as a barbarian, is a lot and sure you could say that they could just ignore the barbarian, that is NOT a good idea for your enemies
and the intimidating presense doesnt get a lot of love either! you dont have to use it in combat always!
Retaliation is a level 14 feature. It's a good feature, but getting a reaction feature that late in the game is pretty lackluster. Keep in mind that you can still only do it once per full round. Same with Intimidating Presence, and that takes your ACTION to do.
Berserker does what it does well, but ends up being more of a liability than an asset very quickly. Do you have to use Frenzy every time that you use Rage? No, you don't, but then why play the Berserker at all? That'd be like an Eldritch Knight that doesn't bother using spells.
Complete sidenote: playing a Berserker in an Adventurer's League game is probably the worst possible thing a player can (currently) do. It's just asking for your own death, a TPK, and/or at minimum annoying everyone else at the table. Why? The exhaustion. It WILL add up. It WILL severely hinder everyone present. With the way gold/spell components/spellcasting services work in AL now, you will die, or you will go broke and then die. It is highly unlikely that anyone else would spend their own limited resources on fixing exhaustion that you inflict upon yourself.
Ok as someone who has played a Berseker Barian in adventure league I will completely dismiss your entire arguement.
First Frenzy should be used like a Paladin uses smites. Conserved for the boss. Exhaustion barely becomes an issue when you conserve its use. Dismissing an extra attack with full modifiers before lvl 5 is idiotic.
Second it cant be charmed or frightened while raging. You completely dismiss this saying "barbarians are difficult to control." WTF does that mean. A charm spell is a charm spell. You are charmed if you fail a saving throw it doesnt matter if you think you're hard to control or not you HAVE to do what the charmer says within confines of the Spell. Last I Also checked most people in AL (at least at my game store) max out str, dex, and con in point buy. Givinin you -1 to int, wis, and cha. Which for the most part are dump stats for a barbarian anyway. Being frightened is the bane of a melee classes existance. So I dont know where you come off as stating its archetype feature is meaningless.
Third D&D regardless of AL or homebrew is a team game. People will most definitely help you out considering a competent Player will be using Frenzy to help his team out. Not doing so gets the Party killed and is piss poor gamemanship. Again I dont know where you get this moronic opinion of AL games but you're absolutely way off base.
Do you just have something against Berserkers? Or do you not understand how to ration abilities? No Berserker Barbarian is going to use Frenzy Rage 6 times in a row and if they do the character should die. No! GWMs ability doesnt come up all the time. If it is for you then that's nice that is not the realistic situation of it though. And a bonus action attack at will for 10 rounds is far better than waiting for a nat 20 or a creatures ho to drop to zero from you're hit.
You can make a Barblock work even with the rage/spells restriction. For example you can cast Armor of Agathys before you Rage and still retain the temporary health.
This can be done very well with the Tortle race as you wouldn't need to rely on dex so much for AC as your AC is fixed to 17. I made one of these, totem barb 3/kensai monk 14 atm. He is super fun to play. I chose to make him the fastest Tortle in the land with path of the elk speed increase, mobility feat and I was able to start with a boots of speed...So raging I have a 160' movement speed.... gotta to go fast ;)
Kalashtar, Totem of the Bear Barbarian, Moon Druid dip. You are resistant to ALL damage while raging.(Kalashtar is resistant to psychic) And with two Giant Hyena wild shapes your almost guaranteed 180 more hp. (45 hp effectively doubled from rage multiplied by 2 for amount of wildshapes).
Currently playing a mountain dwarf bear totem barbarian level 6, moon Druid level 2, and rogue level 1. And have been having a blast. Expertise took my athletics to +12, and a simple spider wildshape has been clutch a few times.
I think Barb 5 and rogue the rest of the way is a scary combo. Reckless to trigger sneak attacks with at least two attempts each round to get sneak attack off. You get a big sack of hit points compared to pure rogue builds. Uncanny dodge can help against big spells that come your way. Expertise in athletics will let you feel even more barbarian like. You’ll be a grappling/shoving monster. Cunning action is nice on subsequent rounds after raging. My personal choice of rogue for this build would be mastermind to help support the party with the help action. Swashbuckler and ancestral guardian work well together so you can hit someone and run away so they either have disadvantage against your allies or they have to chase you and maybe provoke attacks of opportunities from your friends.
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Barbarian/Fiend Warlock, temp HP last longer when raging, or Amour of Agathys with the other patrons,
And at lvl 5, pact of blade knocks everything prone with eldritch smite, my barblock eyes starts burning with infernal flames when raging, whist he is chopping away with his obsidian black great sword that he summoned from thin air before started foaming at the mouth.
This question is actually a bit of a trap. Not only is it based in personal perceptions. It's based in Level range as well.
At low level Sure, Barb/Druid combo's look great. Really strong. We're talking about two somewhat front loaded combat heavy possibilities. AT high level. They fall behind and fall down. Beast forms don't keep up adequately With moon only getting a few level reprieve from this with Elemental forms. Magic and Rage don't mix making much of the non-form stuff hard to use or back up "what if" secondary options.
Fighter/Barbarian is a possibility. But if you do it. You have to take delays and build it up early to get the most out of it. And if your going to level 2, You can stop there or consider going to level 3 for Champion like people mentioned. Champion mixes well with barbarian and it gives you a few more tools to have that cool bunch of high damage hits rounds that people like to sensationalize. But it's value is found more over the longer that a campaign goes on and is more built up in a lot of little moments over that stretch. Which may or may not be matched by the increases the straight Barbarian would get from leveling up in it's primary class a bit quicker depending on certain factors of luck, how many daily fights your group has, etc. (It's almost a matter of which way you want your 1000 cuts of advantage to build up. Tacked on in tiny ways to every hit or in little bursts every few combats.)
For Me. I tend to fear more the Barbarian that just goes straight with his class and finds items or ways to mitigate the short comings of that class. (such as objects that let him fly or things that make him move faster so rounds of combat not being able to attack are less likely.) Their capstone is late game and may not get to be used as much. So it's a strong one that you have to weigh out value to you on if it's worth it any time you consider taking a level in something else unless your campaigns are eternally low to mid level at best.
~~~
As for the Berserker argument.
It's buried in a lot of mistakes and misconceptions that plague a few classes (Like Monk for Example). They have this tool so they think they must try to fit it into every fight or as many attacks as they can for it to have value much like burning through ki like water for Flurries for every attack and then finding out they have no utility when they need it.
Frenzy is meant for the Big fights and the Tough Enemies. not every little peon that comes along. It's your way of telling the big bad to be afraid because you are taking the fight seriously and you are going to wreck his stuff up. you don't waste your Action surge on every little Peon so why do the same to your Frenzy? And Frenzy lasts longer in those key fights if things go well.
Charm and Fear affects are powerful. many big creatures have some kind of fear affect. And the Barbarian is the perfect charm target. particularly in battle. Turning your opponents biggest weapon against them, particularly when most parties are not prepared to deal with the destruction the barbarian can rain down themselves, is a powerful tactic. if your never charming the barbarian. Your either metagaming or your missing something valuably important. Charm/control spells are perhaps the most powerful weaknesses things like Totem Barbarians have and Barbarians 90% or more of the time are statted out to be the perfect targets with low chance of resisting. This makes the Berserkers ability to shake these off mid combat quite strong. As for the argument that some would make that charm spells don't work well in combat because it causes advantage. Two things to keep in mind for that. First, If no ally of the caster has targeted the barbarian with attacks before the charm spell. He doesn't get advantage. Even if he's being aggressive to them. Second, A lot of such creatures aren't casting a spell. They are using an ability that does not have the advantage in combat weakness to it's capabilities. Which makes them valuably useful in combat. (This is part of what can make fighting things like Vampires extremely dangerous.)
And finally. Retaliation is a great skill and it pairs amazingly well with Sentinel. Get onto a big target and beat on him. He tries to move away, sentinel to shut him down, he tries to attack an ally, sentinel hit him to shut him down, he hits you to escape those two possibilities? Retaliation him for being brave enough to challenge you to a fight. It's something that a Berserker excels at. Making every action that an opponent would consider have a cost. Even if it is 14th level. it's still valuable at that level unless you never bother to play in campaigns that get that high or higher.
I have to agree with most you are saying, the level you play at and/or hope to end up with can be the most important for your build.
I'm currently playing a campaign from lvl1 up and Chose the Ancestral Guardian Subclass, because I thought it would be great for tanking. Yet I also wanted to go crit-fishing, because I love to wield a great axe. I must say that your example build for Berserker with Sentinel at lvl 14 is really impressive. I won't go in all the details why I dislike the Berserker Subclass, I posted a lengthy post In the thread about Berserker but will say what discouraged me. I didn't want to play through Level 1 - 14, with only raging, hitting stuff and maybe trigger Frenzy if the battle proved too strong or that I was quite confident the long rest would follow. Also the Mindless Rage, while very good, isn't dynamic. So I don't get to make many important decisions during combat and that's what I like to do. In hindsight, Battlemaster Fighter might have been the better choice, because you have plenty of resource decisions there.
Yet because I took Ancestral Guardian, I have postponed the 3 level dip into Champion until after Level 6, because the Spirit Shield is that good. I found myself taking Level 7 Barbarian too, because Advantage on Initiative and not being surprised sounded too good on a tank, to pass up on.
I went for a rather peculiar build because I rally wanted starting using a Greataxe before level 9 Barbarian, so I created my homebrew version of Savage Attacker, so it wouldn't be a trap feature. Which I'm quite happy about. My reasoning is that I want my Tank to deal enough damage, so they can't ignore me. Reckless attack also helps to draw aggro.
Now I find myself doubting if I don't want lvl 8 with the next ASI, so I can take Lucky to re-roll those failed saving throws and crucial roleplay roles, which would help mitigate the weaknesses of my build, and only after that go 3 deep into Fighter.
EDIT: to answer the OP question.
For crit-fisher Champion, I would pick a subclass that hasn't an interesting lvl 6 ability, like totem bear and than go 3 deep into Champion, maybe even 4 to pick up ASI in Fighter faster (for GWM) and use first Barbarian ASI for +2 STR or maybe Sentinel to keep the enemies from running from you. Probably +2 STR to help mitigate the to hit penalty from Power Attack part of GWM. I would probably swing Greatsword than, because damage dice are less important if you add a Frequent +15/16/17 (depending on Ability array) to that roll.
What about a Barbarian X/ Cavalier Fighter 4? You get the Action Surge, 2nd Wind, Fighting Style and multiple opportunities to hinder enemies when they attack someone other than your Barbarian.
Take tavern brawler and grappler feats, entertainer background. He's a pro-wrestler/luchador.
Bard, a kilted bardbarian with bagpipes made from the skin of a goblin covered in blue paint is a fearsome sight to behold.
Noobiwan your aware a barbarian could do that pictish representation your talking about without a single level of the Bard class right?
My employers demand the best and I aim to please. I mean if you are going to hire a guy to cut people to pieces while playing a goblin skin bagpipe, you should want only the very best, one that attended the finest Bardic Colleges. not some ill-bred murder hobo with a tartan towel and a kobold bagpipe, the nerve of some people:)
Thus making the barbarian part of it pointless....
The whole thing was a play at a humorous character concept, which you missed entirely. The thread was scariest class combo with a barbarian, roleplay wise it could be pretty scary to see the description above with the right player and mindset, mechanically it's a joke.
Meet Wee Mad Haimish:
Barbarian with three levels in fighter/champion can be pretty scary. Critical hit chance while using reckless attack and critically hitting on 19 and 20 means you'll be critically hitting almost 1 out of 5 attacks. When you critical, you get to roll extra weapon dice. At level 20 with a great axe, when you critically hit you deal 5d12 weapon damage. Not bad! You can also take GWF to reroll your ones and twos. You could also take great weapon master to add some more damage. I'd be afraid!
A build I once saw and fell in love with centered on this.
Half-orc fighter barbarian. Lvl 1-5 fighter. Greatweapon fighting style. Lvl 3 champion, lvl 4 Great Weapon Master feat.
Then take 4 levels of barbarian (for a total player character of 8, 5 fighter/3 barb). Take ancestral guardian subclass. At level 4 take polearm master feat. Back to fighter.
The rest of your levels will be done with fighter. At fighter 6 (player character level 10), take sentinel feat. At level 8, take the savage attacker feat. At level 12 take the orcish fury feat. At level 14 take the magic initiate feat (wizard. Take mold earth and Ray of frost cantrips, find familiar for your spell). At level 16 take the martial Adept feat, take disarm and trip manuevers. Alternatively you could take the war caster feat (I explain why later).
The mechanics behind this: You fight with a polearm. You attack with advantage on every roll and crit on an 18. You get four attacks per turn to crit, not counting action surge. Each deals 1d10 (rerolling 1s and 2s, and even then again getting to reroll once per turn your damage) + 12 + mod. If by some miracle you don't crit on this turn or kill, your fourth attack only deals 1d4 + 12+ mod. You will kill everything.
Not to mention that when you crit you deal 3d10 per hit, not just 2d10 (and once per rest you deal 4d10).
Assuming you don't kill everything, you impose disadvantage on attacks made against anyone other than you on the first creature you attack that turn. You further incentivize the rest of the enemies to attack you by granting them advantage (via reckless attack). Of course you're taking half damage cuz rage, and since you're a half-orc you can resist getting knocked down and then smack them immediately again because of orcish fury.
Assuming they somehow survive your attacks AND choose for whatever reason NOT to attack you, they have to get past your 10ft radius area of AOO which also stops them dead in their tracks, meaning on your next turn you can lay the smack on them and kill them before they get to your allies.
Let's talk a bit more about all those attacks you're making and the crits and what that means for your damage output. Assuming 4 hits per turn with advantage on all of them, and no AOO. You have an approx. 73% chance to crit at least once a turn. Without a crit or kill in a turn, and factoring in savage attacker and GWFS and GWM and assuming a str of 18 you deal on average approx 80.65 damage per turn. Assuming you crit .73 times per turn and you add 2d10 on that crit and you get an additional 1d10 instead of 1d4 for the bonus action attack, the actual average damage would come out to 96.55 damage per turn. Of course just a straight level 20 champion wielding a greatsword, deals slightly more damage per turn, BUT they don't get that AOO range of 10 ft, AOO on entry into range and exit from range, AND they don't get to impose disadvantage on enemies when they don't attack you. So you get rid of a little bit of offense for a LOT of defense.
Now, in addition to ALL of this, mold earth can allow you to raise cover for your ranged players and spell caster, can allow you to create difficult terrain and bottle neck enemies to fight you and you alone. Ray of frost is just to have some magic and ranged options AND will lower enemies speed also hampering their ability to get past you. If you combine this with war caster you can cast ray of frost as an AOO. Find Familiar allows you to grant advantage to your allies as well.
Now of course the issues with this are sacrificing all your ASIs for feats. Meaning if you want to be at all an effective character with this build, you will need at least an 18 in str, 14 in dex, 16 in con, and 16 in int, Wis and Cha can be trash. LEAST to be reliable. Which if you're playing standard array is impossible and even when rolling 4d6 is unlikely to achieve without a single ASI. But if you roll incredibly well on your next character, consider this build.
Tl;dr: This guy is the tank of all tanks, making a one man border wall, has advantage on all attacks, crits on an 18, deals max damage all the time, imposes disadvantage on enemies, and gives allies advantage and can't get knocked down.
Yep, i agree
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Ok as someone who has played a Berseker Barian in adventure league I will completely dismiss your entire arguement.
First Frenzy should be used like a Paladin uses smites. Conserved for the boss. Exhaustion barely becomes an issue when you conserve its use. Dismissing an extra attack with full modifiers before lvl 5 is idiotic.
Second it cant be charmed or frightened while raging. You completely dismiss this saying "barbarians are difficult to control." WTF does that mean. A charm spell is a charm spell. You are charmed if you fail a saving throw it doesnt matter if you think you're hard to control or not you HAVE to do what the charmer says within confines of the Spell. Last I Also checked most people in AL (at least at my game store) max out str, dex, and con in point buy. Givinin you -1 to int, wis, and cha. Which for the most part are dump stats for a barbarian anyway. Being frightened is the bane of a melee classes existance. So I dont know where you come off as stating its archetype feature is meaningless.
Third D&D regardless of AL or homebrew is a team game. People will most definitely help you out considering a competent Player will be using Frenzy to help his team out. Not doing so gets the Party killed and is piss poor gamemanship. Again I dont know where you get this moronic opinion of AL games but you're absolutely way off base.
Do you just have something against Berserkers? Or do you not understand how to ration abilities? No Berserker Barbarian is going to use Frenzy Rage 6 times in a row and if they do the character should die. No! GWMs ability doesnt come up all the time. If it is for you then that's nice that is not the realistic situation of it though. And a bonus action attack at will for 10 rounds is far better than waiting for a nat 20 or a creatures ho to drop to zero from you're hit.
You can make a Barblock work even with the rage/spells restriction. For example you can cast Armor of Agathys before you Rage and still retain the temporary health.
This can be done very well with the Tortle race as you wouldn't need to rely on dex so much for AC as your AC is fixed to 17. I made one of these, totem barb 3/kensai monk 14 atm. He is super fun to play. I chose to make him the fastest Tortle in the land with path of the elk speed increase, mobility feat and I was able to start with a boots of speed...So raging I have a 160' movement speed.... gotta to go fast ;)
Kalashtar, Totem of the Bear Barbarian, Moon Druid dip. You are resistant to ALL damage while raging.(Kalashtar is resistant to psychic) And with two Giant Hyena wild shapes your almost guaranteed 180 more hp. (45 hp effectively doubled from rage multiplied by 2 for amount of wildshapes).
Currently playing a mountain dwarf bear totem barbarian level 6, moon Druid level 2, and rogue level 1. And have been having a blast. Expertise took my athletics to +12, and a simple spider wildshape has been clutch a few times.
Especially with Kalashtar as the race since that gives you psychic resistance.
Edit: Didn’t look to see if someone else made the same suggestion. Sorry.
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
I think Barb 5 and rogue the rest of the way is a scary combo. Reckless to trigger sneak attacks with at least two attempts each round to get sneak attack off. You get a big sack of hit points compared to pure rogue builds. Uncanny dodge can help against big spells that come your way. Expertise in athletics will let you feel even more barbarian like. You’ll be a grappling/shoving monster. Cunning action is nice on subsequent rounds after raging. My personal choice of rogue for this build would be mastermind to help support the party with the help action. Swashbuckler and ancestral guardian work well together so you can hit someone and run away so they either have disadvantage against your allies or they have to chase you and maybe provoke attacks of opportunities from your friends.
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy