Going forward in this thread, I’d like to ask that we try not to get into a flame war over RAW. This thread is about optimizing a build, not about how good the finished build is in comparison to other classes. Im already aware that this build will underperform in some aspects and I really don’t care to hear people restate that again and again.
It’s definitely an interesting concept. I should have considered that the alchemists’ elixirs don’t require concentration and could be used in tandem with rage.
Going forward in this thread, I’d like to ask that we try not to get into a flame war over RAW. This thread is about optimizing a build, not about how good the finished build is in comparison to other classes. Im already aware that this build will underperform in some aspects and I really don’t care to hear people restate that again and again.
I think your biggest issue is that you don’t have a goal for what you want this character to be. What is it’s function, what is it meant to do? You talk about tanking but don’t care if you don’t do damage, you talk about using a ranged weapon for attacks - but that’s not tanking, you talk about using spells but can’t while you are raging. It’s a big, confusing, mishmash that ends up not being able to do anything. You need a good idea of what you want the character to be able to do and what role it will fulfil in a party before you start multiclassing. Nobody can tell you how to optimise it until you know what you want it to be optimised for.
Sure Luumin, it's just important that you don't miss out on features or tools available to you within the constraints of being a barbarian/artificer. Wearing heavy armor for a good AC while also raging for the level 3 bear totem resistance to all damage except psychic is a way to obtain a reasonably durable character to aid in that part of your tanking.
Personally if you want to do this I would probably start 2 levels of Barbarian with STR and CON high and INT at 13 maybe 14. Then at level 3 start artificer levels and go armorer or artillerist. Use STR for attacks raising it as you can with ASI’s. Use artificer infusions to add to the character (forget about the gauntlets) and focus on utility spells that don’t rely on your INT modifier. Someone mentioned mirror image. That could be nice for some extra damage mitigation but you can still hold enemies attention by taking GWM at level 1 if custom Lineage or vHuman. Or at level 4 if you go another race. If you go artillerist your cannon (shoulder mounted) can help dish out damage as you stand toe to toe with your enemy.
as others have said they don’t have great synergy and the focus on the gauntlets might be leading you astray
Personally if you want to do this I would probably start 2 levels of Barbarian with STR and CON high and INT at 13 maybe 14. Then at level 3 start artificer levels and go armorer or artillerist. Use STR for attacks raising it as you can with ASI’s. Use artificer infusions to add to the character (forget about the gauntlets) and focus on utility spells that don’t rely on your INT modifier. Someone mentioned mirror image. That could be nice for some extra damage mitigation but you can still hold enemies attention by taking GWM at level 1 if custom Lineage or vHuman. Or at level 4 if you go another race. If you go artillerist your cannon (shoulder mounted) can help dish out damage as you stand toe to toe with your enemy.
as others have said they don’t have great synergy and the focus on the gauntlets might be leading you astray
One quibble I have with this build is that if you're running a character who depends on attacks for combat, you really do not want to delay getting Extra Attack more than the bare minimum. If you go Armorer, race to 5th level as fast as possible once you multiclass. If you're going with Artillerist, you might want to wait until after you hit Barbarian level 5 to multiclass. Even with the cannon shooting off for your bonus action, being stuck with one attack per round at 7th or 8th level is a major loss in power.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
That’s true. Originally when I started to post I was thinking armorer and they get extra attack at 5th. But then I threw in artillerist as I typed and got off track. I figured if you went Barbarian GWM the thunder gauntlets would not take advantage of that so I thought artillerist might be better. .
My thought, to try to get both classes up and running go 2 Barbarian, the 3 Artificer, then 3 more levels Barbarian for extra attack and Path, then the rest Artificer.
My instinct would be to rush barb 5 for extra attack, but with a 13 strength that would be painful, even with rage adding +2 damage. The very low attack bonus means that GWM would be a bad choice too. +1 from strength and +3 from proficiency coupled with the -5 from GWM would give you a net -1 to hit and even with reckless attack it would be a matter of pure luck if you could hit a level appropriate enemy.
The only way this would work (imo) is to take Barb 1, then Arti 3 in order to be able to use intelligence. Armorer with half plate, shield and a +2 from dex gives you a really decent AC and with rage you are looking fairly good. Swapping out the shield for a 2h weapon when you pick up polearm master or GWM later. Alternatively if you are a small custom lineage race then take mounted combatant for your level 1 feat in readiness for Battlesmith and riding your into combat but then no heavy weapons.
Both of them would get extra attack at level 5 (character level 6) so that is still pretty good, with your level 4 artificer feat you could either take Polearm master, GWM or dual wielder if you go the small Battlesmith route. You now are getting 2 regular attacks and a bonus action attack most rounds, along with a good ac and rage (but no damage bonus from rage). At that point I would go back to barbarian and possibly take it to level 4 (character level 9) for the feat. Then personally I would switch and take 11 levels of Fighter Battle Master, for fighting style, some awesome manoeuvres, action surge, 3 more feats to max out intelligence and get some more utility, plus a third attack (at character level 20). You would then have a solid build using your intelligence for attack and damage. Most rounds you would get 4 attacks per round including ba attack from polearm master, you get a good ac (halfplate 15, shield +2, Dex +2) 19 without magic items or infusions. AC 17 with a 2 handed weapon but you can boost with a defensive infusion on your armour.
To be honest you don’t want to go any higher with your AC because a tank is supposed to be easy to hit. It’s their primary purpose. You want the enemies to attack you instead of ignoring you (if your ac is too high to hit and your damage output is low then they will) and going after the squishies. You still get all of the advantages of rage as you are in medium armour (except the damage increase). As for the barbarian subclass Zealot for even more damage, Totem for increased survivability (wolf if you go Battlesmith to give advantage to the steel defender mount), or Ancestral Guardian for the soft taunt. That for me is a solid build, with several options and will still be very capable in combat as well as having some out of combat utility. Trip attack, riposte, brace, and goading attack from fighter will make a huge difference (goading and the ancestral guardian feature are awesome for helping protect your allies).
Forget thunder gauntlets, forget making gauntlets of giant strength. Forget wearing plate armour. These things all massively hinder you and cost far more than they help you.
Sure Luumin, it's just important that you don't miss out on features or tools available to you within the constraints of being a barbarian/artificer. Wearing heavy armor for a good AC while also raging for the level 3 bear totem resistance to all damage except psychic is a way to obtain a reasonably durable character to aid in that part of your tanking.
I'm sorry that some people have decided to focus more on flaming users than aiding with the build goal.
Beardsinger is pointing out - rightly - that many DMs will not allow the combo you're speaking of, no matter what RAW has to say on the matter. Rage is not supposed to work properly when one is wearing heavy armor, in large part for this specific reason - exteensive resistances combined with heavy-armor AC and the freedom to dump Dexterity is considered an Issue. While yes, the ability works RAW, Bear Totem barb is already way up on many DM's Disapproval lists. Acquiring durability via shenaniganry is not likely to endear one to the DM or the table.
If the objective for an artificer/barbarian multiclass character is simply "be the best Art/Barb I can possibly be because I love the combo and I don't care how bad it is", then the answer is to stop trying to be a tank. Or at least a traditional tank. Find what the artificer does to enhance the barbarian, or find what the barbarian does to enhance the artificer. In the former case, I cannot find one single thing in artificer that is worth giving up levels in barbarian for since barbarian shuts down spellcasting entirely, and spellcasting is basically what artificers do. the other way around - what can barbarian do to enhance artificer - is...sketchy. Yes, barbaric rage is appealing, but you're basically limited to four or less levels of barbarian if you want to avoid redundancy in Extra Attack. That means Rage, Unarmored Defense, Reckless Attack, Danger Sense, and the third-level benefits of a given Primal Path. So...let's see.
Three levels of GARbarian, take Ancestral Guardians. Then do Armorer artificer, and take Infiltrator, not Guardian. Ancestral Guardians triggers its tanking junk on attack with a weapon, not attack with a melee weapon, which means the artificer can flit around zapping critters with its Lightning Launcher and severely hindering their attacks without actually having to be on top of it and taking damage. Do medium armor, ignore Unarmored Defense, and have a melee weapon on hand to take advantage of Reckless and Rage damage when you need deeps rather than muckery. Even if you intend to be just a melee character, stay with Infiltrator rather than Guardian. The extra movement speed helps, and the Guardian got butchered in the transition from UA. Though I suppose if you use the Guardian, at least you can use your Rage damage bonus and Reckless Attacks, but you will take more damage than you need to and probably die.
I don't think it's better than straight Ancestral Barb for tanking. Frankly, it's something of a gimmick without a lot of staying power, but at least it's something. About the best I can come up with in terms of forcing the two to produce a gestalt effect neither one can do by themselves. Good? No. But...once an Infiltrator gets Winged Boots and can impose disadvantage/resistance on an enemy's attacks from a hundred feet off the ground, it might feel semi-playable.
My instinct would be to rush barb 5 for extra attack, but with a 13 strength that would be painful, even with rage adding +2 damage. The very low attack bonus means that GWM would be a bad choice too. +1 from strength and +3 from proficiency coupled with the -5 from GWM would give you a net -1 to hit and even with reckless attack it would be a matter of pure luck if you could hit a level appropriate enemy.
The only way this would work (imo) is to take Barb 1, then Arti 3 in order to be able to use intelligence. Armorer with half plate, shield and a +2 from dex gives you a really decent AC and with rage you are looking fairly good. Swapping out the shield for a 2h weapon when you pick up polearm master or GWM later. Alternatively if you are a small custom lineage race then take mounted combatant for your level 1 feat in readiness for Battlesmith and riding your into combat but then no heavy weapons.
Both of them would get extra attack at level 5 (character level 6) so that is still pretty good, with your level 4 artificer feat you could either take Polearm master, GWM or dual wielder if you go the small Battlesmith route. You now are getting 2 regular attacks and a bonus action attack most rounds, along with a good ac and rage (but no damage bonus from rage). At that point I would go back to barbarian and possibly take it to level 4 (character level 9) for the feat. Then personally I would switch and take 11 levels of Fighter Battle Master, for fighting style, some awesome manoeuvres, action surge, 3 more feats to max out intelligence and get some more utility, plus a third attack (at character level 20). You would then have a solid build using your intelligence for attack and damage. Most rounds you would get 4 attacks per round including ba attack from polearm master, you get a good ac (halfplate 15, shield +2, Dex +2) 19 without magic items or infusions. AC 17 with a 2 handed weapon but you can boost with a defensive infusion on your armour.
To be honest you don’t want to go any higher with your AC because a tank is supposed to be easy to hit. It’s their primary purpose. You want the enemies to attack you instead of ignoring you (if your ac is too high to hit and your damage output is low then they will) and going after the squishies. You still get all of the advantages of rage as you are in medium armour (except the damage increase). As for the barbarian subclass Zealot for even more damage, Totem for increased survivability (wolf if you go Battlesmith to give advantage to the steel defender mount), or Ancestral Guardian for the soft taunt. That for me is a solid build, with several options and will still be very capable in combat as well as having some out of combat utility. Trip attack, riposte, brace, and goading attack from fighter will make a huge difference (goading and the ancestral guardian feature are awesome for helping protect your allies).
Forget thunder gauntlets, forget making gauntlets of giant strength. Forget wearing plate armour. These things all massively hinder you and cost far more than they help you.
In regards to the choice of feat and the idea of dipping into fighter, I thought of this beforehand, and figured that the steels defenders reaction would contradict the main focus of mounted combatant, unless it’s implied that we can draw the attack towards ourselves and then use the defender’s reaction, which in that case would be just fine. I chose to go with either fey touched or war caster.
For armor, I had never thought about making the jump to heavy armor in the first place. So that’s covered.
(EDIT) I forgot to mention that this can be remedied by taking the fighter dip mentioned previously, except we go to cavalier instead of battlemaster. I feel the cavalier’s abilities even at third level are more useful than the maneuvers we get, since the mark doesn’t get weird when combined with the steel defenders deflect. Albeit the bonus damage from the mark is literally useless unless we level up in fighter more, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole build, even though by all accounts it would be more functional.
Sure Luumin, it's just important that you don't miss out on features or tools available to you within the constraints of being a barbarian/artificer. Wearing heavy armor for a good AC while also raging for the level 3 bear totem resistance to all damage except psychic is a way to obtain a reasonably durable character to aid in that part of your tanking.
I'm sorry that some people have decided to focus more on flaming users than aiding with the build goal.
Beardsinger is pointing out - rightly - that many DMs will not allow the combo you're speaking of, no matter what RAW has to say on the matter. Rage is not supposed to work properly when one is wearing heavy armor, in large part for this specific reason - exteensive resistances combined with heavy-armor AC and the freedom to dump Dexterity is considered an Issue. While yes, the ability works RAW, Bear Totem barb is already way up on many DM's Disapproval lists. Acquiring durability via shenaniganry is not likely to endear one to the DM or the table.
If the objective for an artificer/barbarian multiclass character is simply "be the best Art/Barb I can possibly be because I love the combo and I don't care how bad it is", then the answer is to stop trying to be a tank. Or at least a traditional tank. Find what the artificer does to enhance the barbarian, or find what the barbarian does to enhance the artificer. In the former case, I cannot find one single thing in artificer that is worth giving up levels in barbarian for since barbarian shuts down spellcasting entirely, and spellcasting is basically what artificers do. the other way around - what can barbarian do to enhance artificer - is...sketchy. Yes, barbaric rage is appealing, but you're basically limited to four or less levels of barbarian if you want to avoid redundancy in Extra Attack. That means Rage, Unarmored Defense, Reckless Attack, Danger Sense, and the third-level benefits of a given Primal Path. So...let's see.
Three levels of GARbarian, take Ancestral Guardians. Then do Armorer artificer, and take Infiltrator, not Guardian. Ancestral Guardians triggers its tanking junk on attack with a weapon, not attack with a melee weapon, which means the artificer can flit around zapping critters with its Lightning Launcher and severely hindering their attacks without actually having to be on top of it and taking damage. Do medium armor, ignore Unarmored Defense, and have a melee weapon on hand to take advantage of Reckless and Rage damage when you need deeps rather than muckery. Even if you intend to be just a melee character, stay with Infiltrator rather than Guardian. The extra movement speed helps, and the Guardian got butchered in the transition from UA. Though I suppose if you use the Guardian, at least you can use your Rage damage bonus and Reckless Attacks, but you will take more damage than you need to and probably die.
I don't think it's better than straight Ancestral Barb for tanking. Frankly, it's something of a gimmick without a lot of staying power, but at least it's something. About the best I can come up with in terms of forcing the two to produce a gestalt effect neither one can do by themselves. Good? No. But...once an Infiltrator gets Winged Boots and can impose disadvantage/resistance on an enemy's attacks from a hundred feet off the ground, it might feel semi-playable.
This was pretty insightful, I like the idea of being a non-traditional tank who’s focus is on Harassing the enemy with either up close or ranged damage that makes them less effective in combat. And for that I love infiltrator (I always preferred it over the guardian anyway). And I don’t mind reducing the total level spread of this multiclass to just get guardians instead of going further into barb, that just means it’s possible to go deeper into artificer for an overall better build.
“many DMs will not allow the combo you're speaking of, no matter what RAW has to say on the matter. Rage is not supposed to work properly when one is wearing heavy armor, in large part for this specific reason - exteensive resistances combined with heavy-armor AC and the freedom to dump Dexterity is considered an Issue. While yes, the ability works RAW, Bear Totem barb is already way up on many DM's Disapproval lists.”
I have always considered the Bear totem ability to be an expansion of the base barbarian class ability rather than a completely separate ability. Therefore if you lose the base ability you would by default, lose the expanded ability. As in you get resistance to b/p/s at first level, and then at third level you become resistant to everything else as well (except psychic).
In regards to the choice of feat and the idea of dipping into fighter, I thought of this beforehand, and figured that the steels defenders reaction would contradict the main focus of mounted combatant, unless it’s implied that we can draw the attack towards ourselves and then use the defender’s reaction, which in that case would be just fine. I chose to go with either fey touched or war caster.
For armor, I had never thought about making the jump to heavy armor in the first place. So that’s covered.
“ In combat, the defender shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It can move and use its reaction on its own”
So based on that the defender gets its own movement and reaction. The ideal would be to let it take dodge as its action giving disadvantage on any attacks against it. If any attack does hit it then you transfer it to you as a free action. Then it uses its reaction to give the attack on you disadvantage. So you are both protecting each other. You still have your reaction, and you still have your bonus action as you didn’t order it to attack. You could of course order it to attack if you chose such as against enemies that are not targeting it to begin with.
While yes, the ability works RAW, Bear Totem barb is already way up on many DM's Disapproval lists. Acquiring durability via shenaniganry is not likely to endear one to the DM or the table.
Without knowing what specific house rules DMs will have in place it's impossible to tailor builds around those house rules. I think when giving build advice it's best to assume official rules until someone mentions specific house rules, but I suppose you can always add addendums for situations you expect to come up.
Regardless a barb/artificer can still be an reasonably effective character by taking 4-6 in barb (grabbing multi-attack from artificer if not barb), and then the remaining levels as artificer while focusing around building and playing as a traditional barbarian. The increased base rage damage and increase critical multiplier don't substantial increase damage output. Extra attack and the option for reckless attacking are the barbarian's primary damage features, so once thos are locked in the additional utility a caster/half-caster brings allows you to support the team (often outside of combat) in ways a full barbarian cannot match. This utility is lessened a low if it's duplicating what another cast could do, but if your team is light on casting then it can be a huge boon.
Reckless attack specifically requires a melee attack using strength. The OP wants to use intelligence as their attack stat. So reckless attack would not be locked in for this build.
Three levels of GARbarian, take Ancestral Guardians. Then do Armorer artificer, and take Infiltrator, not Guardian. Ancestral Guardians triggers its tanking junk on attack with a weapon, not attack with a melee weapon, which means the artificer can flit around zapping critters with its Lightning Launcher and severely hindering their attacks without actually having to be on top of it and taking damage.
Of course, you can do this by just being a Dexterity primary barbarian and using a longbow. It loses half the value of rage (no damage bonus, no reckless attack) but it is a pretty annoying tank. In fact, it's a sufficiently annoying tank that it makes me think of a semi-viable use for an artificer dip: take 2 levels to get a Returning Weapon infusion, the odds of acquiring a Dwarven Thrower or Hammer of Thunderbolts are low (of course, part of the blame for this is that returning weapons aren't normally available in 5e; 3e had it routinely available by mid tier, 4e applied it automatically to all throwable magic weapons).
Reckless attack specifically requires a melee attack using strength. The OP wants to use intelligence as their attack stat. So reckless attack would not be locked in for this build.
I never said I wanted to use that specifically I was just putting it out there as an option for the battlesmith specifically. For the other artificer subclasses we’d need to use strength.
Three levels of GARbarian, take Ancestral Guardians. Then do Armorer artificer, and take Infiltrator, not Guardian. Ancestral Guardians triggers its tanking junk on attack with a weapon, not attack with a melee weapon, which means the artificer can flit around zapping critters with its Lightning Launcher and severely hindering their attacks without actually having to be on top of it and taking damage.
Of course, you can do this by just being a Dexterity primary barbarian and using a longbow. It loses half the value of rage (no damage bonus, no reckless attack) but it is a pretty annoying tank. In fact, it's a sufficiently annoying tank that it makes me think of a semi-viable use for an artificer dip: take 2 levels to get a Returning Weapon infusion, the odds of acquiring a Dwarven Thrower or Hammer of Thunderbolts are low (of course, part of the blame for this is that returning weapons aren't normally available in 5e; 3e had it routinely available by mid tier, 4e applied it automatically to all throwable magic weapons).
Returning weapon is one of my favorite infusions but I don’t think it’s necessary for the ranged semi-tanky build in question. Unless it could fit on the backup melee weapon in which it would be flavorful but not very useful. I’m not sure if melee weapons get the bonuses from reckless attack and rage when they’re thrown so it would be better to use a different melee infusion.
Returning weapon is one of my favorite infusions but I don’t think it’s necessary for the ranged semi-tanky build in question. Unless it could fit on the backup melee weapon in which it would be flavorful but not very useful. I’m not sure if melee weapons get the bonuses from reckless attack and rage when they’re thrown so it would be better to use a different melee infusion.
The point isn't high damage. The point is to be able to apply ancestral guardian penalties at range.
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I havent read every post but have you considered going for a Jekyll and Hyde approach?
Here's a rough idea I had a while ago: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/108587-rob76s-unused-character-idea-2-dr-jack-hell
Going forward in this thread, I’d like to ask that we try not to get into a flame war over RAW. This thread is about optimizing a build, not about how good the finished build is in comparison to other classes. Im already aware that this build will underperform in some aspects and I really don’t care to hear people restate that again and again.
It’s definitely an interesting concept. I should have considered that the alchemists’ elixirs don’t require concentration and could be used in tandem with rage.
I think your biggest issue is that you don’t have a goal for what you want this character to be. What is it’s function, what is it meant to do? You talk about tanking but don’t care if you don’t do damage, you talk about using a ranged weapon for attacks - but that’s not tanking, you talk about using spells but can’t while you are raging. It’s a big, confusing, mishmash that ends up not being able to do anything. You need a good idea of what you want the character to be able to do and what role it will fulfil in a party before you start multiclassing. Nobody can tell you how to optimise it until you know what you want it to be optimised for.
Sure Luumin, it's just important that you don't miss out on features or tools available to you within the constraints of being a barbarian/artificer. Wearing heavy armor for a good AC while also raging for the level 3 bear totem resistance to all damage except psychic is a way to obtain a reasonably durable character to aid in that part of your tanking.
Personally if you want to do this I would probably start 2 levels of Barbarian with STR and CON high and INT at 13 maybe 14. Then at level 3 start artificer levels and go armorer or artillerist. Use STR for attacks raising it as you can with ASI’s. Use artificer infusions to add to the character (forget about the gauntlets) and focus on utility spells that don’t rely on your INT modifier. Someone mentioned mirror image. That could be nice for some extra damage mitigation but you can still hold enemies attention by taking GWM at level 1 if custom Lineage or vHuman. Or at level 4 if you go another race. If you go artillerist your cannon (shoulder mounted) can help dish out damage as you stand toe to toe with your enemy.
as others have said they don’t have great synergy and the focus on the gauntlets might be leading you astray
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One quibble I have with this build is that if you're running a character who depends on attacks for combat, you really do not want to delay getting Extra Attack more than the bare minimum. If you go Armorer, race to 5th level as fast as possible once you multiclass. If you're going with Artillerist, you might want to wait until after you hit Barbarian level 5 to multiclass. Even with the cannon shooting off for your bonus action, being stuck with one attack per round at 7th or 8th level is a major loss in power.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
That’s true. Originally when I started to post I was thinking armorer and they get extra attack at 5th. But then I threw in artillerist as I typed and got off track. I figured if you went Barbarian GWM the thunder gauntlets would not take advantage of that so I thought artillerist might be better. .
My thought, to try to get both classes up and running go 2 Barbarian, the 3 Artificer, then 3 more levels Barbarian for extra attack and Path, then the rest Artificer.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
My instinct would be to rush barb 5 for extra attack, but with a 13 strength that would be painful, even with rage adding +2 damage. The very low attack bonus means that GWM would be a bad choice too. +1 from strength and +3 from proficiency coupled with the -5 from GWM would give you a net -1 to hit and even with reckless attack it would be a matter of pure luck if you could hit a level appropriate enemy.
The only way this would work (imo) is to take Barb 1, then Arti 3 in order to be able to use intelligence. Armorer with half plate, shield and a +2 from dex gives you a really decent AC and with rage you are looking fairly good. Swapping out the shield for a 2h weapon when you pick up polearm master or GWM later. Alternatively if you are a small custom lineage race then take mounted combatant for your level 1 feat in readiness for Battlesmith and riding your into combat but then no heavy weapons.
Both of them would get extra attack at level 5 (character level 6) so that is still pretty good, with your level 4 artificer feat you could either take Polearm master, GWM or dual wielder if you go the small Battlesmith route. You now are getting 2 regular attacks and a bonus action attack most rounds, along with a good ac and rage (but no damage bonus from rage). At that point I would go back to barbarian and possibly take it to level 4 (character level 9) for the feat. Then personally I would switch and take 11 levels of Fighter Battle Master, for fighting style, some awesome manoeuvres, action surge, 3 more feats to max out intelligence and get some more utility, plus a third attack (at character level 20). You would then have a solid build using your intelligence for attack and damage. Most rounds you would get 4 attacks per round including ba attack from polearm master, you get a good ac (halfplate 15, shield +2, Dex +2) 19 without magic items or infusions. AC 17 with a 2 handed weapon but you can boost with a defensive infusion on your armour.
To be honest you don’t want to go any higher with your AC because a tank is supposed to be easy to hit. It’s their primary purpose. You want the enemies to attack you instead of ignoring you (if your ac is too high to hit and your damage output is low then they will) and going after the squishies. You still get all of the advantages of rage as you are in medium armour (except the damage increase). As for the barbarian subclass Zealot for even more damage, Totem for increased survivability (wolf if you go Battlesmith to give advantage to the steel defender mount), or Ancestral Guardian for the soft taunt. That for me is a solid build, with several options and will still be very capable in combat as well as having some out of combat utility. Trip attack, riposte, brace, and goading attack from fighter will make a huge difference (goading and the ancestral guardian feature are awesome for helping protect your allies).
Forget thunder gauntlets, forget making gauntlets of giant strength. Forget wearing plate armour. These things all massively hinder you and cost far more than they help you.
Beardsinger is pointing out - rightly - that many DMs will not allow the combo you're speaking of, no matter what RAW has to say on the matter. Rage is not supposed to work properly when one is wearing heavy armor, in large part for this specific reason - exteensive resistances combined with heavy-armor AC and the freedom to dump Dexterity is considered an Issue. While yes, the ability works RAW, Bear Totem barb is already way up on many DM's Disapproval lists. Acquiring durability via shenaniganry is not likely to endear one to the DM or the table.
If the objective for an artificer/barbarian multiclass character is simply "be the best Art/Barb I can possibly be because I love the combo and I don't care how bad it is", then the answer is to stop trying to be a tank. Or at least a traditional tank. Find what the artificer does to enhance the barbarian, or find what the barbarian does to enhance the artificer. In the former case, I cannot find one single thing in artificer that is worth giving up levels in barbarian for since barbarian shuts down spellcasting entirely, and spellcasting is basically what artificers do. the other way around - what can barbarian do to enhance artificer - is...sketchy. Yes, barbaric rage is appealing, but you're basically limited to four or less levels of barbarian if you want to avoid redundancy in Extra Attack. That means Rage, Unarmored Defense, Reckless Attack, Danger Sense, and the third-level benefits of a given Primal Path. So...let's see.
Three levels of GARbarian, take Ancestral Guardians. Then do Armorer artificer, and take Infiltrator, not Guardian. Ancestral Guardians triggers its tanking junk on attack with a weapon, not attack with a melee weapon, which means the artificer can flit around zapping critters with its Lightning Launcher and severely hindering their attacks without actually having to be on top of it and taking damage. Do medium armor, ignore Unarmored Defense, and have a melee weapon on hand to take advantage of Reckless and Rage damage when you need deeps rather than muckery. Even if you intend to be just a melee character, stay with Infiltrator rather than Guardian. The extra movement speed helps, and the Guardian got butchered in the transition from UA. Though I suppose if you use the Guardian, at least you can use your Rage damage bonus and Reckless Attacks, but you will take more damage than you need to and probably die.
I don't think it's better than straight Ancestral Barb for tanking. Frankly, it's something of a gimmick without a lot of staying power, but at least it's something. About the best I can come up with in terms of forcing the two to produce a gestalt effect neither one can do by themselves. Good? No. But...once an Infiltrator gets Winged Boots and can impose disadvantage/resistance on an enemy's attacks from a hundred feet off the ground, it might feel semi-playable.
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In regards to the choice of feat and the idea of dipping into fighter, I thought of this beforehand, and figured that the steels defenders reaction would contradict the main focus of mounted combatant, unless it’s implied that we can draw the attack towards ourselves and then use the defender’s reaction, which in that case would be just fine. I chose to go with either fey touched or war caster.
For armor, I had never thought about making the jump to heavy armor in the first place. So that’s covered.
(EDIT) I forgot to mention that this can be remedied by taking the fighter dip mentioned previously, except we go to cavalier instead of battlemaster. I feel the cavalier’s abilities even at third level are more useful than the maneuvers we get, since the mark doesn’t get weird when combined with the steel defenders deflect. Albeit the bonus damage from the mark is literally useless unless we level up in fighter more, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole build, even though by all accounts it would be more functional.
This was pretty insightful, I like the idea of being a non-traditional tank who’s focus is on Harassing the enemy with either up close or ranged damage that makes them less effective in combat. And for that I love infiltrator (I always preferred it over the guardian anyway). And I don’t mind reducing the total level spread of this multiclass to just get guardians instead of going further into barb, that just means it’s possible to go deeper into artificer for an overall better build.
“many DMs will not allow the combo you're speaking of, no matter what RAW has to say on the matter. Rage is not supposed to work properly when one is wearing heavy armor, in large part for this specific reason - exteensive resistances combined with heavy-armor AC and the freedom to dump Dexterity is considered an Issue. While yes, the ability works RAW, Bear Totem barb is already way up on many DM's Disapproval lists.”
I have always considered the Bear totem ability to be an expansion of the base barbarian class ability rather than a completely separate ability. Therefore if you lose the base ability you would by default, lose the expanded ability. As in you get resistance to b/p/s at first level, and then at third level you become resistant to everything else as well (except psychic).
“ In combat, the defender shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It can move and use its reaction on its own”
So based on that the defender gets its own movement and reaction. The ideal would be to let it take dodge as its action giving disadvantage on any attacks against it. If any attack does hit it then you transfer it to you as a free action. Then it uses its reaction to give the attack on you disadvantage. So you are both protecting each other. You still have your reaction, and you still have your bonus action as you didn’t order it to attack. You could of course order it to attack if you chose such as against enemies that are not targeting it to begin with.
Without knowing what specific house rules DMs will have in place it's impossible to tailor builds around those house rules. I think when giving build advice it's best to assume official rules until someone mentions specific house rules, but I suppose you can always add addendums for situations you expect to come up.
Regardless a barb/artificer can still be an reasonably effective character by taking 4-6 in barb (grabbing multi-attack from artificer if not barb), and then the remaining levels as artificer while focusing around building and playing as a traditional barbarian. The increased base rage damage and increase critical multiplier don't substantial increase damage output. Extra attack and the option for reckless attacking are the barbarian's primary damage features, so once thos are locked in the additional utility a caster/half-caster brings allows you to support the team (often outside of combat) in ways a full barbarian cannot match. This utility is lessened a low if it's duplicating what another cast could do, but if your team is light on casting then it can be a huge boon.
Reckless attack specifically requires a melee attack using strength. The OP wants to use intelligence as their attack stat. So reckless attack would not be locked in for this build.
Of course, you can do this by just being a Dexterity primary barbarian and using a longbow. It loses half the value of rage (no damage bonus, no reckless attack) but it is a pretty annoying tank. In fact, it's a sufficiently annoying tank that it makes me think of a semi-viable use for an artificer dip: take 2 levels to get a Returning Weapon infusion, the odds of acquiring a Dwarven Thrower or Hammer of Thunderbolts are low (of course, part of the blame for this is that returning weapons aren't normally available in 5e; 3e had it routinely available by mid tier, 4e applied it automatically to all throwable magic weapons).
I never said I wanted to use that specifically I was just putting it out there as an option for the battlesmith specifically. For the other artificer subclasses we’d need to use strength.
Returning weapon is one of my favorite infusions but I don’t think it’s necessary for the ranged semi-tanky build in question. Unless it could fit on the backup melee weapon in which it would be flavorful but not very useful. I’m not sure if melee weapons get the bonuses from reckless attack and rage when they’re thrown so it would be better to use a different melee infusion.
The point isn't high damage. The point is to be able to apply ancestral guardian penalties at range.