Path of the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian 8/Echo Knight Fighter 12 build help

I think I screwed up and am trying to course correct. 

My campaign started with me being a level 3 Path of the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian with the soldier background (16+2, 14, 13+1, 12, 14, 12). (This was before 5.5, but things have since been adjusted.) At first, I wanted my feats to maximize my Strength and Constitution perfectly with my feats, but I was convinced to go Sentinel and we RETCONNED MY ORIGINAL CHOICE ALREADY ONCE. From there, I took Mage Slayer since we were fighting Mind Flayers and the choice made sense after fighting some magic users once story-wise.

Then comes my mistake (second mistake if you count not realizing my Barbarian already had a built-in reaction I could have focused on instead of Sentinel.)

To have enough feats in order to maximize my constitution, I multiclassed to fighter with plans to take the Echo Knight. My DM plans on not getting to level 20, so forgetting the Barbarian capstone wasn’t my mistake. My mistake was not taking into account the Barbarian’s increased hit dice.

So yeah, I really can’t double-back a second time, so like it or not I am currently stuck with an Ancestral Guardian 8/ Fighter 1 build. The question is what do I do with it?

i currently have half-plate armor, a +1 shield, the dueling fighting style and a magic belt that lets me recall my hand-axes instantly after throwing them.

Should I just go with my original plan of taking +2 Con all the way, or do I embrace some of the other feats?

Also, I’ve heard great things about the Echo Knight from Critical Role that I do have access to from my campaign, but is it the beat option for what I have? Keep in mind I’ve only been playing for a year or two and don’t know many classes outside of the Celestial Warlock.

Speaking of which…

…there is… ONE other possible option.

One I really don’t want to pursue, but it is there:

Our youngest player wasn’t enjoying his druid and wanted to switch, so they let his character leave the party in favor of a new one. I could either do the same or if my DM allows it have my character killed off on some sort of sacrifice. I already have a backup character planned and even a story for how he knows and would replace my current character, but that was only to be used if I HAD to. Plus, my current character is the only strength-based class and my replacement isn’t strong. 

Stay with barbarian.  The 1st level fighter gave you a few weapon masteries, so not a total loss.  

I’d generally agree with switching back to barbarian. You could always take the second level of fighter for action surge, that always useful.

Personally, I’d stay away from echo knight. Not because it’s bad with barbarian, but because it’s really kind of badly written and a lot of the powers are poorly defined. The entire subclass is pretty much an edge case. In the fighter section there’s a thread of a few hundred pages discussing how it works. The thing is just a headache.

Besides that, what was the reasoning for going to con 20? It’s certainly not a bad thing to do, just was there a specific reason?

Not exactly, just trying to maximize my character’s strongpoints. I guess part of me got obsessed with HP due to my Celestial Warlock’s Searing Vengeance and Boon of Recovery giving back half-health upon dying (more health, more health back). I’m still learning too, so there’s that.

Still, I feel weird only taking a dip in fighter. I guess it can’t be helped. I’ll talk to my party and DM too about it, but it looks like I might be a Barbarian X/Fighter 2.

Thank you for your input!

That makes sense, I was just wondering if you were going for something specific. Taking con asi is a good choice for a barb. It’s just a question of taking the hp and con saves, which are never bad, or taking a feat that maybe gives you more options to play with. The eternal question of wide vs deep.

Also, at Barb 11, you’ll get the power to stay up if you hit 0 hp, if that’s what you were looking for.

That’s true, I forgot about the level 11 ability. 
i know my DM said we weren’t going to 20, but I could try going Barb 12 / Fighter 8 for two epic boons. Speaking of which, a friend in my group recommended going Champion Fighter for simplicity, just more crits and bonus movement. Thoughts?

I just finish a campaign where someone else was a champion through level 15. It was a very effective character, and I think she had fun playing it. 
the thing with them would be, level 3 is good, getting to crit on a 19. The moving after a crit sounds cool, but I don’t know it gets used often. Unless you drop an enemy with a crit, you probably don’t want to move, doubly true for a barbarian. You probably won’t get a lot of use on adv on str checks, as you already can get that from raging. 
The fighting style at 7 is nice, but not terribly exciting. The level 10 power, giving yourself inspiration every round, is fantastic. But that’s a lot of fighter levels on your barbarian.

So for a champion, I could see 3 levels mostly for the crit fishing, then probably a 4th for the feat. But level 5 would be a dead level, as extra attack doesn’t stack.

If you know you’re not going to 20, why plan on a level 20 character? You run the risk of ending earlier and just kind of screwing yourself out of both benefits. 

Quote from Xalthu >>

I just finish a campaign where someone else was a champion through level 15. It was a very effective character, and I think she had fun playing it. 
the thing with them would be, level 3 is good, getting to crit on a 19. The moving after a crit sounds cool, but I don’t know it gets used often. Unless you drop an enemy with a crit, you probably don’t want to move, doubly true for a barbarian. You probably won’t get a lot of use on adv on str checks, as you already can get that from raging. 
The fighting style at 7 is nice, but not terribly exciting. The level 10 power, giving yourself inspiration every round, is fantastic. But that’s a lot of fighter levels on your barbarian.

So for a champion, I could see 3 levels mostly for the crit fishing, then probably a 4th for the feat. But level 5 would be a dead level, as extra attack doesn’t stack.

If you know you’re not going to 20, why plan on a level 20 character? You run the risk of ending earlier and just kind of screwing yourself out of both benefits. 

That’s true about the increased crit threshold; of course there are some items that do that, and my DM was even offering to make a custom item with that. Everything else does seem mediocre when you consider when you get them.

i guess it’s just the way I think. I just love to look at the “whole picture,” even if it doesn’t end up mattering. Plus it’s hard when you don’t know when exactly you are stopping.

Quote from Actionsparda >>

Quote from Xalthu >>

I just finish a campaign where someone else was a champion through level 15. It was a very effective character, and I think she had fun playing it. 
the thing with them would be, level 3 is good, getting to crit on a 19. The moving after a crit sounds cool, but I don’t know it gets used often. Unless you drop an enemy with a crit, you probably don’t want to move, doubly true for a barbarian. You probably won’t get a lot of use on adv on str checks, as you already can get that from raging. 
The fighting style at 7 is nice, but not terribly exciting. The level 10 power, giving yourself inspiration every round, is fantastic. But that’s a lot of fighter levels on your barbarian.

So for a champion, I could see 3 levels mostly for the crit fishing, then probably a 4th for the feat. But level 5 would be a dead level, as extra attack doesn’t stack.

If you know you’re not going to 20, why plan on a level 20 character? You run the risk of ending earlier and just kind of screwing yourself out of both benefits. 

That’s true about the increased crit threshold; of course there are some items that do that, and my DM was even offering to make a custom item with that. Everything else does seem mediocre when you consider when you get them.

i guess it’s just the way I think. I just love to look at the “whole picture,” even if it doesn’t end up mattering. Plus it’s hard when you don’t know when exactly you are stopping.

 The last sentence is very true, and the one you really need to be careful of when you multiclass. Sometimes people come up with builds that don’t really come together until level 10 or something. They look good on paper, but the character is kind of mid at levels 1-9 until all the pieces fit, and most campaigns end before then. So if you choose to take more levels in fighter, consider what other class features from barb you’re giving up, and if the character will be fun even when you’re in between the parts you really want to get.

To me, 3 levels for an expanded crit range probably isn’t worth it. Though when you factor in reckless attack giving you extra die rolls, it does get kind of tempting. Though at that point, you probably want level 4 for the feat so you don’t fall behind there, unless you want to save it for character level 19 and the boon.

Quote from Xalthu >>

Quote from Actionsparda >>

Quote from Xalthu >>

I just finish a campaign where someone else was a champion through level 15. It was a very effective character, and I think she had fun playing it. 
the thing with them would be, level 3 is good, getting to crit on a 19. The moving after a crit sounds cool, but I don’t know it gets used often. Unless you drop an enemy with a crit, you probably don’t want to move, doubly true for a barbarian. You probably won’t get a lot of use on adv on str checks, as you already can get that from raging. 
The fighting style at 7 is nice, but not terribly exciting. The level 10 power, giving yourself inspiration every round, is fantastic. But that’s a lot of fighter levels on your barbarian.

So for a champion, I could see 3 levels mostly for the crit fishing, then probably a 4th for the feat. But level 5 would be a dead level, as extra attack doesn’t stack.

If you know you’re not going to 20, why plan on a level 20 character? You run the risk of ending earlier and just kind of screwing yourself out of both benefits. 

That’s true about the increased crit threshold; of course there are some items that do that, and my DM was even offering to make a custom item with that. Everything else does seem mediocre when you consider when you get them.

i guess it’s just the way I think. I just love to look at the “whole picture,” even if it doesn’t end up mattering. Plus it’s hard when you don’t know when exactly you are stopping.

 The last sentence is very true, and the one you really need to be careful of when you multiclass. Sometimes people come up with builds that don’t really come together until level 10 or something. They look good on paper, but the character is kind of mid at levels 1-9 until all the pieces fit, and most campaigns end before then. So if you choose to take more levels in fighter, consider what other class features from barb you’re giving up, and if the character will be fun even when you’re in between the parts you really want to get.

To me, 3 levels for an expanded crit range probably isn’t worth it. Though when you factor in reckless attack giving you extra die rolls, it does get kind of tempting. Though at that point, you probably want level 4 for the feat so you don’t fall behind there, unless you want to save it for character level 19 and the boon.

 I see what you are saying. While it is a mystery, our DM has said he has plenty of story left, so I’m not in danger of ending with just a level 1 in fighter.

I will say, while I don’t know for sure, I doubt we will grt to Epic Boons, so saving it might be kind of pointless. Then again, I’m not really sure what I would do with either. (Sigh)

I mean, part of why I multiclasses was because the extra Barbarian moves seemed too complicated. I have a hard time remembering what I have already. In my naivity, I thought multiclassing into more basic stuff would be easier to remember.

Part of me still understands the basic strategy of Ancestral Guardian/Echo Knight. You use your echo to lead, and since it’s technically not you your enemy gets disadvantage on hitting it. I’ll never remember Battle Maneuvers, Champion has too much overlap with Barbarian, and the others either rely on either rely on another stat, rely on another weapon type, or are Purple Dragon Knight. :(

I hate to say it, but I may be stuck going with my original plan and hooping for the best… or maybe even the worst; I already had a compelling story for my replacement’s involvement with the current character. It’s just awkward though, especially since I just now thought I was going to have my backup at the Bastion (Can characters working at the bastion die?)

Anyway, as always, thanks for letting me pick your brain. It really helps get mine going! :)