Hi, I am in a campaign and reached lvl 9 with my Totum Bear Barbarian. The rest of the party is limited in damage output due to the direction they took their chacters. I was thinking of adding in 3,4, or even 6(to get somefeats) levels of Fighter Champion(i know its pretty basic) but My thought is honestly the party needs more melee damage output so crit fish with the 19-20 rolls and make brutial crit happen more, plus action surge and take the defensive fighting style because my AC is pretty crappy. 

Currently have ple arm master and Great Weapon fighting feats, Belt of Giant Strength, Boots of Haste(one cast a day), and a plus two Glaive that has 2d6 poison on a hit. So honestly I do a crap load of damage but find the party barely surviving long battles due to the class designs.

Guess my question is does this plan make sense based off the goal of increasing the partys damage potential or is there a better route to accomplish this. My states will let me become a cleric, druid, ranger, fighter or just stay a barbarian and not multiclass.

We will be playing to level 20.

Could you please give us some information about the rest of the party?

I just looked at fighter, and I don't think it would be super helpful for you. Crits have a very small impact, as they are a 1/20 (or 2/20 with champion) chance to occur. Action surge would really be the only thing increasing your damage, which isn't worth giving up the barbarian capstone. 

Sure we have a level 9 cleric Arcana domain who kind of floats from cleric role to casting arcana spells to using cantrips that let him hit and run melee style.

A Fighter/ 2, Wizard 7 who fights with a maul, has a few spells like haste, shield, and a lot of utility spells like comprehend launguage and Tiny Hut. She hasn't reached lvl 5 fighter so only 1 or 2(if hasted) attacks per round.

Level 9 Warlock who is mostly a Eldrich blaste maching but does utilize her two spells well for aoe damage.

A Ranger 6 gloom stalker, druid 2, warlock 1 who uses Zepher strike and sometimes a bow, sometimes a melee weapon.

a lvl 4 rogue swashbuckler, level 5 Warlock who floates between Eldrich blasting and melee hit and run with backstab

A sourcer who is quiet addept at big aoe damage.

We have almost no debuffng or buffing and really no battlefield control. Some how we always pull through and we have a blaste as a party. Just trying to figure out what I can do to add even more punch.

Quote from Leaf_Onwind >>

Sure we have a level 9 cleric Arcana domain who kind of floats from cleric role to casting arcana spells to using cantrips that let him hit and run melee style.

A Fighter/ 2, Wizard 7 who fights with a maul, has a few spells like haste, shield, and a lot of utility spells like comprehend launguage and Tiny Hut. She hasn't reached lvl 5 fighter so only 1 or 2(if hasted) attacks per round.

Level 9 Warlock who is mostly a Eldrich blaste maching but does utilize her two spells well for aoe damage.

A Ranger 6 gloom stalker, druid 2, warlock 1 who uses Zepher strike and sometimes a bow, sometimes a melee weapon.

a lvl 4 rogue swashbuckler, level 5 Warlock who floates between Eldrich blasting and melee hit and run with backstab

A sourcer who is quiet addept at big aoe damage.

We have almost no debuffng or buffing and really no battlefield control. Some how we always pull through and we have a blaste as a party. Just trying to figure out what I can do to add even more punch.

 

 Wow. Some of those characters seem... bad. (seriously, what is the rogue warlock player doing?)

I second the notion that your party seems to have made some "bad" decisions on class mixing and that is why you are struggling.  On the flip side, if the party is truly challenged on many fights, but not actually dying (death saves and such) then the DM is adjusting the encounters already, to make it challenging but do-able.

Now, if you are SET on multi classing, IMO Champion Fighter is a great compliment to a Bear-barian.  They use the same stats, still a good hit die and the Champion's benefits are mostly background, or boosts, as opposed to action using perks (ie: you aren't using your Action or BA to make use of the benefits)  It was stated above that crit fishing isn't effective, but I would disagree slightly with the mix.  Reckless attack giving advantage, plus the enhanced crit range from Fighter will indeed yield result, more so than many other combinations.  While there may be some other mixes that would boost damage output further than your idea, most will start getting complicated and you will find yourself caught up in choices for what to do with BA and such.  Champion tends to be passive perks, like the increased crit range.  Action surge can give you another round of attacks, which can be HUGE in a close fight as it winds down, Second Wind might keep you from finding 0hp and allowing for one more round of damage dealing......all told, there are a lot of positives to the blend.  Finally, you are at 9 Barb now, so at 20, you COULD be 9 Barb, 11 Fighter....giving a 3rd attack.  SO, 6 attack rolls per round without using Action Surge (Reckless attack) increased crit chance with bonus Rage damage on every hit.  You would be a rather fearsome foe at that point.

Just my opinion, but I'd say go for it.  It doesn't look like about half your party has any concerns about being "optimal" and the mixes I see look to be more RP/character development choices over making the most of every level.  That is perfectly fine and, as I already said, if you aren't having 1-2 players down in most fights, the DM is already trying (and doing well) balancing the encounter to your party.  I DM and I end up doing the same.  As the party develops, I make sure the encounters meet the party's strengths (and weaknesses) as well as I can that most fights, for a time, seem uncertain.  They dish it out and absorb it and at the end, if I have done what I consider a good job, the party is pretty banged up, and the foes are slowly cooling corpses.

Quote from Falwith >>

I second the notion that your party seems to have made some "bad" decisions on class mixing and that is why you are struggling.  On the flip side, if the party is truly challenged on many fights, but not actually dying (death saves and such) then the DM is adjusting the encounters already, to make it challenging but do-able.

Now, if you are SET on multi classing, IMO Champion Fighter is a great compliment to a Bear-barian.  They use the same stats, still a good hit die and the Champion's benefits are mostly background, or boosts, as opposed to action using perks (ie: you aren't using your Action or BA to make use of the benefits)  It was stated above that crit fishing isn't effective, but I would disagree slightly with the mix.  Reckless attack giving advantage, plus the enhanced crit range from Fighter will indeed yield result, more so than many other combinations.  While there may be some other mixes that would boost damage output further than your idea, most will start getting complicated and you will find yourself caught up in choices for what to do with BA and such.  Champion tends to be passive perks, like the increased crit range.  Action surge can give you another round of attacks, which can be HUGE in a close fight as it winds down, Second Wind might keep you from finding 0hp and allowing for one more round of damage dealing......all told, there are a lot of positives to the blend.  Finally, you are at 9 Barb now, so at 20, you COULD be 9 Barb, 11 Fighter....giving a 3rd attack.  SO, 6 attack rolls per round without using Action Surge (Reckless attack) increased crit chance with bonus Rage damage on every hit.  You would be a rather fearsome foe at that point.

Just my opinion, but I'd say go for it.  It doesn't look like about half your party has any concerns about being "optimal" and the mixes I see look to be more RP/character development choices over making the most of every level.  That is perfectly fine and, as I already said, if you aren't having 1-2 players down in most fights, the DM is already trying (and doing well) balancing the encounter to your party.  I DM and I end up doing the same.  As the party develops, I make sure the encounters meet the party's strengths (and weaknesses) as well as I can that most fights, for a time, seem uncertain.  They dish it out and absorb it and at the end, if I have done what I consider a good job, the party is pretty banged up, and the foes are slowly cooling corpses.

 I would like to point out that you lose your capstone and don't get an epic boon if you multiclass like that. Also, while a DM will adjust difficulty based on the players, this means less experience.

Quote from Jurmondur >>

I just looked at fighter, and I don't think it would be super helpful for you. Crits have a very small impact, as they are a 1/20 (or 2/20 with champion) chance to occur. Action surge would really be the only thing increasing your damage, which isn't worth giving up the barbarian capstone. 

 Thank you.

Yes, the DM has been amazing at balancing encounters and most of the group would rather try a combo that doesnt make optimization sense but is fun for them to roleplay. I enjoy both roleplaying but also being heroic in battle. Just looking for ways to maybe keep others alive by doing a little faster damage.

Honestly, I'd suggest not optimizing for damage, because you don't want to completely overshadow the other players at the table. Since all of you are mainly doing damage in combat and playing in melee, you don’t want your character to be doing 90% of the party's damage.

Now if you had said the rest of the party was healers, utility caster, or battlefield control or support I'd say go for it since they would find it fun to help your character do as much damage as possible. But since they are all trying to do damage, don't optimize. The DM will balance encounters for your party so as long as everyone deals similar damage and has similar AC everyone will have a shot at glory and the DM can balance the game pretty easily.

Thank you.

One combo that could be fun is monk, but it would be hard to balance because rage doesn't work for dex attacks, but flurry of blows would deal a good amount of damage. Again, difficult to balance, but really awesome.

Also, if your wis is ok, you could try druid, because it's cool, gives some strong spells like entangle and also lots of poison damage goes well with your glaive, and because then you could be a brown bear bear-barian.

Fun idea

Hi Leaf_Onwind.
DnD2014: You could go the classic optimization route and improve your DamageDealt vs. DamageTaken ratio.


Fighter3 for BattleMaster for PrecisionAttack: That almost guarantees that you GWM attacks with -5 still hit. Togerher with ActionSurge & RecklessAttack, you’d deal huge damage of >100dmg in your first nova round. Since you have advantage on initiative already from Barbarian7, your first nova round serioulsly threatens dangerous targets early in combat. FightingStyle Defense +1AC is really good for a Barbarian.

Cleric 1 Peace, for rage compatible +1d4 on saving throws(!) and attack rolls once per turn for everyone not just you and it lasts for 10min without concentration!!! That means it applies when you or your mates make a saving throw during a monsters turn! It stacks with Bless. Somebody in your party should have this!

Ranger 3 GloomStalker for the invisibility when it is dim, the bonus on initiative rools, the extra attack for an even stronger nova round. Fog cloud + FightingStyle BlindFighting: You attack with advantage and they against you with disadvantage if they cannot see you. You are in the cloud with them and they unfortunately with you.

BarbarianCapstone is awesome but the road might be too painful to get it… all spellcasters are already dealing huge damage before you‘d even get there. STR24 is an additional +2attack, +2damage + additional rage damage compared to STR20. Fighter3 from above already gives you higher damage much, much earlier. Now add PeaceCleric and Ranger3. :-)
With the bad features it leaves a straight classed Barbarian waving from the sideline, instead of being a significant threat to say a god like spellcaster. I think, multi classing is better. You could nova in the first round, maybe kill the spellcaster, make an impact with >100dmg against a single target, then retreat and let the other spellcasters or ranged martials finish the job. 

Cheers

Quote from Analragorn >>

Hi Leaf_Onwind.
DnD2014: You could go the classic optimization route and improve your DamageDealt vs. DamageTaken ratio.


Fighter3 for BattleMaster for PrecisionAttack: That almost guarantees that you GWM attacks with -5 still hit. Togerher with ActionSurge & RecklessAttack, you’d deal huge damage of >100dmg in your first nova round. Since you have advantage on initiative already from Barbarian7, your first nova round serioulsly threatens dangerous targets early in combat. FightingStyle Defense +1AC is really good for a Barbarian.

Cleric 1 Peace, for rage compatible +1d4 on saving throws(!) and attack rolls once per turn for everyone not just you and it lasts for 10min without concentration!!! That means it applies when you or your mates make a saving throw during a monsters turn! It stacks with Bless. Somebody in your party should have this!

Ranger 3 GloomStalker for the invisibility when it is dim, the bonus on initiative rools, the extra attack for an even stronger nova round. Fog cloud + FightingStyle BlindFighting: You attack with advantage and they against you with disadvantage if they cannot see you. You are in the cloud with them and they unfortunately with you.

BarbarianCapstone is awesome but the road might be too painful to get it… all spellcasters are already dealing huge damage before you‘d even get there. STR24 is an additional +2attack, +2damage + additional rage damage compared to STR20. Fighter3 from above already gives you higher damage much, much earlier. Now add PeaceCleric and Ranger3. :-)
With the bad features it leaves a straight classed Barbarian waving from the sideline, instead of being a significant threat to say a god like spellcaster. I think, multi classing is better. You could nova in the first round, maybe kill the spellcaster, make an impact with >100dmg against a single target, then retreat and let the other spellcasters or ranged martials finish the job. 

Cheers

 

 Thank you I went fighter and I'm about to hit my 3rd level so Battle Master sounds great.