so...even though I've played a very long time, ive hardly played barbarian to its full class and built it well, so i need help with my ancestral barbarian?
for reference, he was saved by a prior character of mine in a prior campaign who was very good with a rapier and took on several champion statblock npcs alone, when at his full strength at lvl 14, (fighter,ranger, paladin, he got lucky with shit npc rolls against him) but i kinda want to do something opposite with a barb if possible, with good hp and feats instead of the insane dmg and ac, if at all possible id prefer not to go great weapon master but if its needed ill do it
basically i need help choosing good feats, sorry rambling
So you want to play a weird non gwm barbarian. Ancestral is a good choice since it offers some neat features.
Currently I am playing a Barbarian Warlock 4/1. As a genie warlock he gets to add his prof bonus in damage to one attack per round. He can have hex and agathys. At 4th level he grabbed eldritch adept to give him ag blast. Plan is an 8th level build of 5/3 with pact of the chain and gift of everloving ones, and probably the metallic dragon feat. Damage wise when not raging he does great damage with hex, and while raging the genie damage boosts him enough to stay competitive. He is not as damaging as a GWM, but he keeps up OK.
My second multi weirdo is a Barbarian war wizard to abuse the 2nd level feature that adds to AC/saves with a reaction.
If you just want a weird barbarian and want feats for that, then I love gift of the metallic dragon, aberrant dragonmark, chef, mobility.
A non GWM Barbarian isn't weird in itself, it's just a bit weird wanting to play a Barbarian to its fullest potential without taking the best damage option (PAM as well since you don't need your BA a whole lot and the BA attack from it benefits from your Rage bonus as well). 😅
The thing is that as Barbarian your job pretty much is to be a meatshield.
You usually achieve that by being rather easy to hit due to Reckless Attack and dealing reasonably high damage, which is offset by having rather high potential HP with your d12 hit dice, rage resistance and potentially higher CON than other characters. So since you don't care a whole lot about avoiding hits it doesn't make much sense to not go for a two-handed weapon and since you're most likely going for a two-handed weapon it just makes sense to take GWM as well, especially because thanks to Reckless Attack you have a build-in way to make that sweet +10 damage attack hit more reliably. Not to mention the fact that Barbarians get the Brutal Critical feature with up to 3 additional dice which of course benefits more from wielding a big weapon.
HOWEVER, as Ancestral Guardian you get a really nice soft-taunt feature (the best in the game I'd say) right away that makes it more difficult and less rewarding to hit someone else than you, so you have to rely less on being easy to hit via Reckless Attack to make enemies want to attack you. You could just go with a shield wielding build for additional AC instead. Definitely a whole lot less damage than the GWM/PAM Barbarian build, however as Ancestral Guardian you're leaning more into getting attacked than into trying to take out enemies asap. Instead of GWM and PAM you could take feats like Sentinel, Shield Master, Slasher or Crusher. Since the Ancestral Guardian subclass doesn't make use of your BA all the time you could even go for two-weapon fighting (with the Dual Wielder feat) for the additional Rage bonus damage procc, however if damage is your focus then that'd be the vastly inferior option unfortunately.
I'd say it's a weaker build, no question, but still very much viable.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
Shield Master is definitely a great feat for this concept. Getting to shove as a bonus action is great for either pushing enemies into hazards, knocking them out of range of your weaker allies to avoid attacks of opportunity, or just knocking someone prone to get advantage against them. Plus it gives you some boosts to your survivability against DEX saves, which pairs great with Danger Sense.
I think sentinel is the other major feat I would recommend. It's a great way to keep an enemy focused on you... You can more easily pin down an enemy so they're stuck one-on-one with you, and if you have an ally nearby and they do target them, you can heavily punish them for it.
Shield Master is definitely a great feat for this concept. Getting to shove as a bonus action is great for either pushing enemies into hazards, knocking them out of range of your weaker allies to avoid attacks of opportunity, or just knocking someone prone to get advantage against them. Plus it gives you some boosts to your survivability against DEX saves, which pairs great with Danger Sense.
I think sentinel is the other major feat I would recommend. It's a great way to keep an enemy focused on you... You can more easily pin down an enemy so they're stuck one-on-one with you, and if you have an ally nearby and they do target them, you can heavily punish them for it.
I had another thought, would gift of the chromatic dragon be good? itd increase my damage for a bit, and increase my survivability, also if i go shield master, would resilient dex be a good strat, or should i grab something else?
Gift of the Chromatic Dragon seems more fun, but ultimately I think Resilient Dex will have more mechanical impact on the game. Dex Saves, at Advantage, with Proficiency, and a reaction to reduce to zero... plus the ability to add a +2 to your DEX saves under specific conditions all adds up to a character that's incredibly hard to hit with the most common save in the game.
A non GWM Barbarian isn't weird in itself, it's just a bit weird wanting to play a Barbarian to its fullest potential without taking the best damage option (PAM as well since you don't need your BA a whole lot and the BA attack from it benefits from your Rage bonus as well). 😅
The thing is that as Barbarian your job pretty much is to be a meatshield.
You usually achieve that by being rather easy to hit due to Reckless Attack and dealing reasonably high damage, which is offset by having rather high potential HP with your d12 hit dice, rage resistance and potentially higher CON than other characters. So since you don't care a whole lot about avoiding hits it doesn't make much sense to not go for a two-handed weapon and since you're most likely going for a two-handed weapon it just makes sense to take GWM as well, especially because thanks to Reckless Attack you have a build-in way to make that sweet +10 damage attack hit more reliably. Not to mention the fact that Barbarians get the Brutal Critical feature with up to 3 additional dice which of course benefits more from wielding a big weapon.
HOWEVER, as Ancestral Guardian you get a really nice soft-taunt feature (the best in the game I'd say) right away that makes it more difficult and less rewarding to hit someone else than you, so you have to rely less on being easy to hit via Reckless Attack to make enemies want to attack you. You could just go with a shield wielding build for additional AC instead. Definitely a whole lot less damage than the GWM/PAM Barbarian build, however as Ancestral Guardian you're leaning more into getting attacked than into trying to take out enemies asap. Instead of GWM and PAM you could take feats like Sentinel, Shield Master, Slasher or Crusher. Since the Ancestral Guardian subclass doesn't make use of your BA all the time you could even go for two-weapon fighting (with the Dual Wielder feat) for the additional Rage bonus damage procc, however if damage is your focus then that'd be the vastly inferior option unfortunately.
I'd say it's a weaker build, no question, but still very much viable.
and i dont want it because its not fun for me, its as simple as that, and im not using a two handed weapon since im taking shield master
A non GWM Barbarian isn't weird in itself, it's just a bit weird wanting to play a Barbarian to its fullest potential without taking the best damage option (PAM as well since you don't need your BA a whole lot and the BA attack from it benefits from your Rage bonus as well). 😅
The thing is that as Barbarian your job pretty much is to be a meatshield.
You usually achieve that by being rather easy to hit due to Reckless Attack and dealing reasonably high damage, which is offset by having rather high potential HP with your d12 hit dice, rage resistance and potentially higher CON than other characters. So since you don't care a whole lot about avoiding hits it doesn't make much sense to not go for a two-handed weapon and since you're most likely going for a two-handed weapon it just makes sense to take GWM as well, especially because thanks to Reckless Attack you have a build-in way to make that sweet +10 damage attack hit more reliably. Not to mention the fact that Barbarians get the Brutal Critical feature with up to 3 additional dice which of course benefits more from wielding a big weapon.
HOWEVER, as Ancestral Guardian you get a really nice soft-taunt feature (the best in the game I'd say) right away that makes it more difficult and less rewarding to hit someone else than you, so you have to rely less on being easy to hit via Reckless Attack to make enemies want to attack you. You could just go with a shield wielding build for additional AC instead. Definitely a whole lot less damage than the GWM/PAM Barbarian build, however as Ancestral Guardian you're leaning more into getting attacked than into trying to take out enemies asap. Instead of GWM and PAM you could take feats like Sentinel, Shield Master, Slasher or Crusher. Since the Ancestral Guardian subclass doesn't make use of your BA all the time you could even go for two-weapon fighting (with the Dual Wielder feat) for the additional Rage bonus damage procc, however if damage is your focus then that'd be the vastly inferior option unfortunately.
I'd say it's a weaker build, no question, but still very much viable.
and i dont want it because its not fun for me, its as simple as that, and im not using a two handed weapon since im taking shield master
That's perfectly fine. As I said, it's viable. No idea why you act like I attacked you or something. If I didn't think it's fine to play a shield wielding Barbarian I wouldn't have dedicated more than half of my post to writing about it obviously. I even listed you a bunch of other feats you could take alongside shield master.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
perhaps, but why not both? add tough to, and it seems like youll have a decent amount of survivability
I suppose it's just my own habits showing... I tend to limit myself to just 2 feats per character, unless I'm playing as a variant human or if I just happened to roll really, really good on my stats.
I think that's partly why OneDnD playtesting has focused on every feat being a half-feat, and changing backgrounds so they provide you with a feat instead of a background feature... even some of the newer backgrounds in 5e are just giving out feats as well.
I think sentinel is the other major feat I would recommend. It's a great way to keep an enemy focused on you... You can more easily pin down an enemy so they're stuck one-on-one with you, and if you have an ally nearby and they do target them, you can heavily punish them for it.
Yes, Sentinel is a great feat IF you have at least one member of your party nearby. I originally chose that feat for my totem barb, but found that I rushed into combat like the barbarian I am while the rest of my party didn't, so it was rarely useful. Ultimately, I switched to GWM.
I think sentinel is the other major feat I would recommend. It's a great way to keep an enemy focused on you... You can more easily pin down an enemy so they're stuck one-on-one with you, and if you have an ally nearby and they do target them, you can heavily punish them for it.
Yes, Sentinel is a great feat IF you have at least one member of your party nearby. I originally chose that feat for my totem barb, but found that I rushed into combat like the barbarian I am while the rest of my party didn't, so it was rarely useful. Ultimately, I switched to GWM.
Sentinel is also good if you aren't standing with the one you want to protect, since it prevents people from running away from you and towards the squishies. In fact, I'd argue that's the main benefit of it.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
Sentinel is also good if you aren't standing with the one you want to protect, since it prevents people from running away from you and towards the squishies. In fact, I'd argue that's the main benefit of it.
True, but I found that I rarely got to use Sentinel's reaction attack because my party wasn't usually close enough to me for it to work. That's a huge benefit of Sentinel that mostly went unused for me, but if you have a party member fight in melee range with you, it's an excellent feat.
I know when I was playing as a Barbarian with Sentinel we also had a Monk in our party, so the two of us were usually both rushing into the mix and I got a lot more uses out of Sentinel because of that.
Sentinel is also good if you aren't standing with the one you want to protect, since it prevents people from running away from you and towards the squishies. In fact, I'd argue that's the main benefit of it.
True, but I found that I rarely got to use Sentinel's reaction attack because my party wasn't usually close enough to me for it to work. That's a huge benefit of Sentinel that mostly went unused for me, but if you have a party member fight in melee range with you, it's an excellent feat.
Eh, and if you have someone within 5ft, you rarely get to use the speed reduction on your opportunity attack. The feat is designed so that you never really get to use both and as far as protection goes making someone have to stick with you is a LOT better than just getting a reaction attack in.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
I know when I was playing as a Barbarian with Sentinel we also had a Monk in our party, so the two of us were usually both rushing into the mix and I got a lot more uses out of Sentinel because of that.
If you have two melee characters, Sentinel is great. The rest of my party is squishy casters and/or ranged, so I rarely got to use the Sentinel bonus attack. GWM is much more useful for my barb.
Sentinel is also good if you aren't standing with the one you want to protect, since it prevents people from running away from you and towards the squishies. In fact, I'd argue that's the main benefit of it.
True, but I found that I rarely got to use Sentinel's reaction attack because my party wasn't usually close enough to me for it to work. That's a huge benefit of Sentinel that mostly went unused for me, but if you have a party member fight in melee range with you, it's an excellent feat.
Eh, and if you have someone within 5ft, you rarely get to use the speed reduction on your opportunity attack. The feat is designed so that you never really get to use both and as far as protection goes making someone have to stick with you is a LOT better than just getting a reaction attack in.
You're probably right that the speed reduction is way more useful, but the fact that I had a reaction attack that I hardly ever got to use bothered me. The way my party and my barb play, I get much more mileage out of GWM.
so...even though I've played a very long time, ive hardly played barbarian to its full class and built it well, so i need help with my ancestral barbarian?
for reference, he was saved by a prior character of mine in a prior campaign who was very good with a rapier and took on several champion statblock npcs alone, when at his full strength at lvl 14, (fighter,ranger, paladin, he got lucky with shit npc rolls against him) but i kinda want to do something opposite with a barb if possible, with good hp and feats instead of the insane dmg and ac, if at all possible id prefer not to go great weapon master but if its needed ill do it
basically i need help choosing good feats, sorry rambling
So you want to play a weird non gwm barbarian. Ancestral is a good choice since it offers some neat features.
Currently I am playing a Barbarian Warlock 4/1. As a genie warlock he gets to add his prof bonus in damage to one attack per round. He can have hex and agathys. At 4th level he grabbed eldritch adept to give him ag blast. Plan is an 8th level build of 5/3 with pact of the chain and gift of everloving ones, and probably the metallic dragon feat. Damage wise when not raging he does great damage with hex, and while raging the genie damage boosts him enough to stay competitive. He is not as damaging as a GWM, but he keeps up OK.
My second multi weirdo is a Barbarian war wizard to abuse the 2nd level feature that adds to AC/saves with a reaction.
If you just want a weird barbarian and want feats for that, then I love gift of the metallic dragon, aberrant dragonmark, chef, mobility.
idk if a non gwm barbarian is weird, im just asking for a few good feats for ancestral barb that arent gwm focused
A non GWM Barbarian isn't weird in itself, it's just a bit weird wanting to play a Barbarian to its fullest potential without taking the best damage option (PAM as well since you don't need your BA a whole lot and the BA attack from it benefits from your Rage bonus as well). 😅
The thing is that as Barbarian your job pretty much is to be a meatshield.
You usually achieve that by being rather easy to hit due to Reckless Attack and dealing reasonably high damage, which is offset by having rather high potential HP with your d12 hit dice, rage resistance and potentially higher CON than other characters. So since you don't care a whole lot about avoiding hits it doesn't make much sense to not go for a two-handed weapon and since you're most likely going for a two-handed weapon it just makes sense to take GWM as well, especially because thanks to Reckless Attack you have a build-in way to make that sweet +10 damage attack hit more reliably. Not to mention the fact that Barbarians get the Brutal Critical feature with up to 3 additional dice which of course benefits more from wielding a big weapon.
HOWEVER, as Ancestral Guardian you get a really nice soft-taunt feature (the best in the game I'd say) right away that makes it more difficult and less rewarding to hit someone else than you, so you have to rely less on being easy to hit via Reckless Attack to make enemies want to attack you. You could just go with a shield wielding build for additional AC instead. Definitely a whole lot less damage than the GWM/PAM Barbarian build, however as Ancestral Guardian you're leaning more into getting attacked than into trying to take out enemies asap. Instead of GWM and PAM you could take feats like Sentinel, Shield Master, Slasher or Crusher. Since the Ancestral Guardian subclass doesn't make use of your BA all the time you could even go for two-weapon fighting (with the Dual Wielder feat) for the additional Rage bonus damage procc, however if damage is your focus then that'd be the vastly inferior option unfortunately.
I'd say it's a weaker build, no question, but still very much viable.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
Shield Master is definitely a great feat for this concept. Getting to shove as a bonus action is great for either pushing enemies into hazards, knocking them out of range of your weaker allies to avoid attacks of opportunity, or just knocking someone prone to get advantage against them. Plus it gives you some boosts to your survivability against DEX saves, which pairs great with Danger Sense.
I think sentinel is the other major feat I would recommend. It's a great way to keep an enemy focused on you... You can more easily pin down an enemy so they're stuck one-on-one with you, and if you have an ally nearby and they do target them, you can heavily punish them for it.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I had another thought, would gift of the chromatic dragon be good? itd increase my damage for a bit, and increase my survivability, also if i go shield master, would resilient dex be a good strat, or should i grab something else?
Gift of the Chromatic Dragon seems more fun, but ultimately I think Resilient Dex will have more mechanical impact on the game. Dex Saves, at Advantage, with Proficiency, and a reaction to reduce to zero... plus the ability to add a +2 to your DEX saves under specific conditions all adds up to a character that's incredibly hard to hit with the most common save in the game.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
perhaps, but why not both? add tough to, and it seems like youll have a decent amount of survivability
Because you only have a VERY limited amount of ASI and you still need to take care of your actual ability scores lol
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
no?
you dont know where i play lol, i have 5 feats class wise and a 96 in ability scores with an 88 minimum, this doesnt help at all
and i dont want it because its not fun for me, its as simple as that, and im not using a two handed weapon since im taking shield master
That's perfectly fine. As I said, it's viable. No idea why you act like I attacked you or something. If I didn't think it's fine to play a shield wielding Barbarian I wouldn't have dedicated more than half of my post to writing about it obviously. I even listed you a bunch of other feats you could take alongside shield master.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
I suppose it's just my own habits showing... I tend to limit myself to just 2 feats per character, unless I'm playing as a variant human or if I just happened to roll really, really good on my stats.
I think that's partly why OneDnD playtesting has focused on every feat being a half-feat, and changing backgrounds so they provide you with a feat instead of a background feature... even some of the newer backgrounds in 5e are just giving out feats as well.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Yes, Sentinel is a great feat IF you have at least one member of your party nearby. I originally chose that feat for my totem barb, but found that I rushed into combat like the barbarian I am while the rest of my party didn't, so it was rarely useful. Ultimately, I switched to GWM.
Sentinel is also good if you aren't standing with the one you want to protect, since it prevents people from running away from you and towards the squishies. In fact, I'd argue that's the main benefit of it.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
True, but I found that I rarely got to use Sentinel's reaction attack because my party wasn't usually close enough to me for it to work. That's a huge benefit of Sentinel that mostly went unused for me, but if you have a party member fight in melee range with you, it's an excellent feat.
I know when I was playing as a Barbarian with Sentinel we also had a Monk in our party, so the two of us were usually both rushing into the mix and I got a lot more uses out of Sentinel because of that.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Eh, and if you have someone within 5ft, you rarely get to use the speed reduction on your opportunity attack. The feat is designed so that you never really get to use both and as far as protection goes making someone have to stick with you is a LOT better than just getting a reaction attack in.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
If you have two melee characters, Sentinel is great. The rest of my party is squishy casters and/or ranged, so I rarely got to use the Sentinel bonus attack. GWM is much more useful for my barb.
You're probably right that the speed reduction is way more useful, but the fact that I had a reaction attack that I hardly ever got to use bothered me. The way my party and my barb play, I get much more mileage out of GWM.