What about Lizardfolks for race? Volos guide to monsters
My lv 5 Lizardfolk Barbarian has an AC of 42 no magic items or spells.
That's impossible
Look at my thread I posted asking about AC rules to see how I got that unit of AC
I've replied to your original thread, I'm afraid that you were doing it wrong! the 13+dex AC from lizardfolk doesn't stack with the 10+dex+con of the barbarian, it's one or the other!
What about Lizardfolks for race? Volos guide to monsters
My lv 5 Lizardfolk Barbarian has an AC of 42 no magic items or spells.
That's impossible
Look at my thread I posted asking about AC rules to see how I got that unit of AC
I've replied to your original thread, I'm afraid that you were doing it wrong! the 13+dex AC from lizardfolk doesn't stack with the 10+dex+con of the barbarian, it's one or the other!
Yup... So while you could drop CON more with lizardfolk to focus more on AC you would have less HP
I wouldn't want to drop Con for my barb either, so it would be a sacrifice or wasted feature. But it might be fun if someone just wants it thematically.
I like the interaction of a lizard folk dumping wis as a monk better, assuming the player doesn't want to spam stunning strike.
To each his or her own, but to me, Reckless Attacks is a crucial part of what makes the barbarian so good. Barbarians ability to self generate advantage with melee attacks is a large part of what makes them so good. This build removes a crucial cornerstone of what a barbarian is. A standard half orc barbarian with polearm master will do much more damage than an elven or lizard man dex barbarian. The author kind of mocks the damage bonus from Rage, but the more attacks you have, the more it adds up. At 16th level, with PAM's three attacks, you can get a potential +12 damage (+4 x 3 attacks) if all attacks hit. That passive bonus is just "money in the bank," while raging.
If this is your thing, then more power to you. I suspect you will just end up being a suboptimal barbarian, at the end of the day using Dex over Str.
I wouldn't want to drop Con for my barb either, so it would be a sacrifice or wasted feature. But it might be fun if someone just wants it thematically.
I like the interaction of a lizard folk dumping wis as a monk better, assuming the player doesn't want to spam stunning strike.
To each his or her own, but to me, Reckless Attacks is a crucial part of what makes the barbarian so good. Barbarians ability to self generate advantage with melee attacks is a large part of what makes them so good. This build removes a crucial cornerstone of what a barbarian is. A standard half orc barbarian with polearm master will do much more damage than an elven or lizard man dex barbarian. The author kind of mocks the damage bonus from Rage, but the more attacks you have, the more it adds up. At 16th level, with PAM's three attacks, you can get a potential +12 damage (+4 x 3 attacks) if all attacks hit. That passive bonus is just "money in the bank," while raging.
If this is your thing, then more power to you. I suspect you will just end up being a suboptimal barbarian, at the end of the day using Dex over Str.
I propose barb 4, rogue 16 to answer this issue then. All the AC of of dex barb, with sneak attack
To each his or her own, but to me, Reckless Attacks is a crucial part of what makes the barbarian so good. Barbarians ability to self generate advantage with melee attacks is a large part of what makes them so good. This build removes a crucial cornerstone of what a barbarian is. A standard half orc barbarian with polearm master will do much more damage than an elven or lizard man dex barbarian. The author kind of mocks the damage bonus from Rage, but the more attacks you have, the more it adds up. At 16th level, with PAM's three attacks, you can get a potential +12 damage (+4 x 3 attacks) if all attacks hit. That passive bonus is just "money in the bank," while raging.
If this is your thing, then more power to you. I suspect you will just end up being a suboptimal barbarian, at the end of the day using Dex over Str.
I propose barb 4, rogue 16 to answer this issue then. All the AC of of dex barb, with sneak attack
So you propose not really even being a barbarian mainly, but a suboptimal rogue, instead?
You miss out on all the rogue abilities of the last four levels, so you can get:
Rage...which doesn't add bonuses to attacks with Dex weapons and ties you in to 100% having to make a weapon attack or take damage...or you are going to lose rage. While only having 4 barbarian dice for hp, but 16 rogue dice! i.e. not really meant to take damage as well.
Unarmored Defense- you will get it, but hardly offsets what you will lose
Reckless Attack - a great barbarian mainstay feature which won't work with Dex weapon attacks, at all.
Danger Sense - always useful, but again, is it worth what you are losing from 17-20 of rogue?
Primal Path- many of the features have an issue with Dex weapons or rely on maintaining Rage.
I just see this is a trying to put the square peg into the round hole with a Dex Barbarian. Dex barbarian can be played, but IF played according to the RAW, will constantly be problematic.
To activate sneak attack, you need to attack with a finese weapon. So, what if we're playing a STR based barbarian who goes 5 levels for extra attack, then goes rogue the whole way for the other 15 levels? A rapier is still a finese weapon even if you attack with STR. Generating advantage from reckless, you'll get sneak attack AND rage damage.
8d6+ (2d8+4+10)= 51 DPR.
compared to a straight 20 rogue, who's using two short swords to dual wield, will get about
10d6+ (2d6+5)= 47 DPR
the barbarian does more damage, and still has a bonus action left to use, won't crumple like paper thanks to rage resistances and d12 hitdie, and will actually more consistently sneak attack compared to a rogue who has to look for conditions to meet or compromises to make. You could argue the barbarian MC is the optimal rogue if all we care about is rogue martial damage.
BUT ANYWAYS
The issue with the DEX barbarian is the innate assumption that it's all about AC, and it's not. It's about making saves, just as important. No matter what, a barbarian has god awful saves. Fighters get extra feats, they can afford to take Res: whatever, and they get indomitable to boost that further. A barbarian is incentivized to be built with high STR, high CON, and DEX. The only resilient feat you'd want to take is resilient dex, but that pretty much ensures your mental saves are going out the window, ontop of the fact you're forgoing crucial feats or boosting your main damage stat. Even if we assume you make a DEX-based barbarian, and you want to keep up in damage, you'll need to take sharp shooter. So, you start with 17 DEX, and get res: dex at 4. then SS at 8. All that fuss, just to have an AC of 17? Eh. Not a big deal.
But what happens when you face a caster who wants to banish you? or charm you? or hold person? You're gonna cry, is what you'll do. The STR based barbarian at least has the possibility to kill that nerd into a pile of meat-n-blood paste before they get to cast the spell.
EDIT: for some reason I included two weapon fighting style on the rogue calculation. I removed it for more accurate DPR .
So you propose not really even being a barbarian mainly, but a suboptimal rogue, instead?
The point is optomizing dex barb, and multi-classing is a strong option for doing that. An optimized straight dex barb wouldn't be awful, just a way more defensively oriented barb.
You miss out on all the rogue abilities of the last four levels,
Campaigns at the higher levels are so rare, its hardly any loss. Especially when trading for abilities you get to use for most of the campaign.
Rage...which doesn't add bonuses to attacks with Dex weapons and ties you in to 100% having to make a weapon attack or take damage...or you are going to lose rage. While only having 4 barbarian dice for hp, but 16 rogue dice! i.e. not really meant to take damage as well.
Rage gives a great defensive bonus and advantage on strength checks. Its not going to be hard for dex barb/rogue to make a weapon attack every turn either, since they can throw daggers or bonus action dash.
And as for HP, you would be playing a barb who is incentivized to max out Con rather than take feats like GWF, PAM, or other offensive feats. The HP difference will be miniscule until very high level play. Not to mention that 20+AC, better dex saving throws, evasion, uncanny dodge, and better ranged options will make that HP go further. And with an extra feat, the dex barb can take Tough or some other useful feat.
Unarmored Defense- you will get it, but hardly offsets what you will lose
Built in +2 plate while naked is pretty sweet. Much better than a +4 to strength attacks for my 2 attacks per turn.
Reckless Attack - a great barbarian mainstay feature which won't work with Dex weapon attacks, at all.
It will work with finesse weapons.
Danger Sense - always useful, but again, is it worth what you are losing from 17-20 of rogue?
Considering how this stacks with Evasion and increased dex saves to almost guarantee you will rarely ever take damage from big hits like dragons' breath weapons? Pretty useful, and its useful for from levels 2 through 20, not just 17-20 if the campaign even gets there.
Primal Path- many of the features have an issue with Dex weapons or rely on maintaining Rage
Again, you can maintain rage while using finesse weapons. There are no such issues with the features.
I think the problem with this is that Barbarians are already high dexterity.
If you take the standard points buy you're going to have 15s in strength, dexterity, and constitution, because your damage comes from strength and your AC and HP come from dexterity and constitution. With +1s from Variant Human and a half-feat you're going to start with 16s in those stats.
After that your only real choices are whether you're going to maximize strength and con, or dexterity and con, and if you get to level 20 you get a +4 to con and strength anyway. You get 20 strength and con without doing anything more, but of course being strength and con 24 is kind of tempting.
To each his or her own, but to me, Reckless Attacks is a crucial part of what makes the barbarian so good. Barbarians ability to self generate advantage with melee attacks is a large part of what makes them so good. This build removes a crucial cornerstone of what a barbarian is. A standard half orc barbarian with polearm master will do much more damage than an elven or lizard man dex barbarian. The author kind of mocks the damage bonus from Rage, but the more attacks you have, the more it adds up. At 16th level, with PAM's three attacks, you can get a potential +12 damage (+4 x 3 attacks) if all attacks hit. That passive bonus is just "money in the bank," while raging.
If this is your thing, then more power to you. I suspect you will just end up being a suboptimal barbarian, at the end of the day using Dex over Str.
I actually like the idea of the dual-wielding Barb with twin battle axes. Take the Dual Wield Feat for +1 AC, dip 2 Fighter for the 2-weapon Fighting style, Second Wind and Action Surge, and by level 5 Barb you're doing three attacks at +6 to hit (assuming 16 Str), +5 damage, 3x1D8 attacks and you don't have to go Reckless every turn and dump your AC.
I built a Homebrew Barbarian subclass called the Path of Twin Blades around this idea.
Post-Tasha's, the Monk deserves another look as a multi-class option for Dexterity Barbarians. The new Monk feature, Dedicated Weapon, offers a new way for Dex-Barbs to get access to much better weapons. With this feature, a Monk can focus their Ki on any simple or martial weapon with which they're proficient, and which lacks the Heavy or Special Properties, and treat it as a Monk Weapon. What makes this work is that a multi-classed Barbarian/Monk is proficient with ALL simple and martial weapons! So a mere two levels in Monk is all you need to add a battleaxe, longsword, or warhammer to your list of monk weapons and attack with it using dexterity. This feature doesn't specify melee weapons only, so this could also apply to ranged weapons, if desired. (Except for heavies like the longbow.)
It's still a difficult multiclass to rationalize. My next character will be a Reborn Barbarian who was a Monk in his previous life. When he starts taking Monk levels, I'll have a reasonable explanation; he's starting to remember training from his earlier lifetime. Zealot/Way of Mercy sounds like a good combo; Radiant and Necrotic damage. Nothing resists both, am I right?
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I've replied to your original thread, I'm afraid that you were doing it wrong! the 13+dex AC from lizardfolk doesn't stack with the 10+dex+con of the barbarian, it's one or the other!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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Yup... So while you could drop CON more with lizardfolk to focus more on AC you would have less HP
I wouldn't want to drop Con for my barb either, so it would be a sacrifice or wasted feature. But it might be fun if someone just wants it thematically.
I like the interaction of a lizard folk dumping wis as a monk better, assuming the player doesn't want to spam stunning strike.
To each his or her own, but to me, Reckless Attacks is a crucial part of what makes the barbarian so good. Barbarians ability to self generate advantage with melee attacks is a large part of what makes them so good. This build removes a crucial cornerstone of what a barbarian is. A standard half orc barbarian with polearm master will do much more damage than an elven or lizard man dex barbarian. The author kind of mocks the damage bonus from Rage, but the more attacks you have, the more it adds up. At 16th level, with PAM's three attacks, you can get a potential +12 damage (+4 x 3 attacks) if all attacks hit. That passive bonus is just "money in the bank," while raging.
If this is your thing, then more power to you. I suspect you will just end up being a suboptimal barbarian, at the end of the day using Dex over Str.
Fair enough!
I propose barb 4, rogue 16 to answer this issue then. All the AC of of dex barb, with sneak attack
So you propose not really even being a barbarian mainly, but a suboptimal rogue, instead?
You miss out on all the rogue abilities of the last four levels, so you can get:
Rage...which doesn't add bonuses to attacks with Dex weapons and ties you in to 100% having to make a weapon attack or take damage...or you are going to lose rage. While only having 4 barbarian dice for hp, but 16 rogue dice! i.e. not really meant to take damage as well.
Unarmored Defense- you will get it, but hardly offsets what you will lose
Reckless Attack - a great barbarian mainstay feature which won't work with Dex weapon attacks, at all.
Danger Sense - always useful, but again, is it worth what you are losing from 17-20 of rogue?
Primal Path- many of the features have an issue with Dex weapons or rely on maintaining Rage.
I just see this is a trying to put the square peg into the round hole with a Dex Barbarian. Dex barbarian can be played, but IF played according to the RAW, will constantly be problematic.
To activate sneak attack, you need to attack with a finese weapon. So, what if we're playing a STR based barbarian who goes 5 levels for extra attack, then goes rogue the whole way for the other 15 levels? A rapier is still a finese weapon even if you attack with STR. Generating advantage from reckless, you'll get sneak attack AND rage damage.
8d6+ (2d8+4+10)= 51 DPR.
compared to a straight 20 rogue, who's using two short swords to dual wield, will get about
10d6+ (2d6+5)= 47 DPR
the barbarian does more damage, and still has a bonus action left to use, won't crumple like paper thanks to rage resistances and d12 hitdie, and will actually more consistently sneak attack compared to a rogue who has to look for conditions to meet or compromises to make. You could argue the barbarian MC is the optimal rogue if all we care about is rogue martial damage.
BUT ANYWAYS
The issue with the DEX barbarian is the innate assumption that it's all about AC, and it's not. It's about making saves, just as important. No matter what, a barbarian has god awful saves. Fighters get extra feats, they can afford to take Res: whatever, and they get indomitable to boost that further. A barbarian is incentivized to be built with high STR, high CON, and DEX. The only resilient feat you'd want to take is resilient dex, but that pretty much ensures your mental saves are going out the window, ontop of the fact you're forgoing crucial feats or boosting your main damage stat. Even if we assume you make a DEX-based barbarian, and you want to keep up in damage, you'll need to take sharp shooter. So, you start with 17 DEX, and get res: dex at 4. then SS at 8. All that fuss, just to have an AC of 17? Eh. Not a big deal.
But what happens when you face a caster who wants to banish you? or charm you? or hold person? You're gonna cry, is what you'll do. The STR based barbarian at least has the possibility to kill that nerd into a pile of meat-n-blood paste before they get to cast the spell.
EDIT: for some reason I included two weapon fighting style on the rogue calculation. I removed it for more accurate DPR .
The point is optomizing dex barb, and multi-classing is a strong option for doing that. An optimized straight dex barb wouldn't be awful, just a way more defensively oriented barb.
Campaigns at the higher levels are so rare, its hardly any loss. Especially when trading for abilities you get to use for most of the campaign.
Rage gives a great defensive bonus and advantage on strength checks. Its not going to be hard for dex barb/rogue to make a weapon attack every turn either, since they can throw daggers or bonus action dash.
And as for HP, you would be playing a barb who is incentivized to max out Con rather than take feats like GWF, PAM, or other offensive feats. The HP difference will be miniscule until very high level play. Not to mention that 20+AC, better dex saving throws, evasion, uncanny dodge, and better ranged options will make that HP go further. And with an extra feat, the dex barb can take Tough or some other useful feat.
Built in +2 plate while naked is pretty sweet. Much better than a +4 to strength attacks for my 2 attacks per turn.
It will work with finesse weapons.
Considering how this stacks with Evasion and increased dex saves to almost guarantee you will rarely ever take damage from big hits like dragons' breath weapons? Pretty useful, and its useful for from levels 2 through 20, not just 17-20 if the campaign even gets there.
Again, you can maintain rage while using finesse weapons. There are no such issues with the features.
I think the problem with this is that Barbarians are already high dexterity.
If you take the standard points buy you're going to have 15s in strength, dexterity, and constitution, because your damage comes from strength and your AC and HP come from dexterity and constitution. With +1s from Variant Human and a half-feat you're going to start with 16s in those stats.
After that your only real choices are whether you're going to maximize strength and con, or dexterity and con, and if you get to level 20 you get a +4 to con and strength anyway. You get 20 strength and con without doing anything more, but of course being strength and con 24 is kind of tempting.
I actually like the idea of the dual-wielding Barb with twin battle axes. Take the Dual Wield Feat for +1 AC, dip 2 Fighter for the 2-weapon Fighting style, Second Wind and Action Surge, and by level 5 Barb you're doing three attacks at +6 to hit (assuming 16 Str), +5 damage, 3x1D8 attacks and you don't have to go Reckless every turn and dump your AC.
I built a Homebrew Barbarian subclass called the Path of Twin Blades around this idea.
Post-Tasha's, the Monk deserves another look as a multi-class option for Dexterity Barbarians. The new Monk feature, Dedicated Weapon, offers a new way for Dex-Barbs to get access to much better weapons. With this feature, a Monk can focus their Ki on any simple or martial weapon with which they're proficient, and which lacks the Heavy or Special Properties, and treat it as a Monk Weapon. What makes this work is that a multi-classed Barbarian/Monk is proficient with ALL simple and martial weapons! So a mere two levels in Monk is all you need to add a battleaxe, longsword, or warhammer to your list of monk weapons and attack with it using dexterity. This feature doesn't specify melee weapons only, so this could also apply to ranged weapons, if desired. (Except for heavies like the longbow.)
It's still a difficult multiclass to rationalize. My next character will be a Reborn Barbarian who was a Monk in his previous life. When he starts taking Monk levels, I'll have a reasonable explanation; he's starting to remember training from his earlier lifetime. Zealot/Way of Mercy sounds like a good combo; Radiant and Necrotic damage. Nothing resists both, am I right?
Behind every successful Warlock, there's an angry mob.