You really do not need to get medium armor from dwarf; you will get it from Barbarian. I picked half elf because I /have/ to have a 13 in my charisma in order to MC. As a barbarian, I need con, and prefer a 14 dex, not to mention my need for high str. While it's doable to get similar stats without raising three separate scores, half elf I feel brings more to the table than tasha's master race for this build.
Honestly, the whole concept works better as barb 1, fighter 9, warlock 11, but then it's not really a barbarian warlock anymore.
The dwarf option is if you wanted to start warlock to get the wisdom and charisma saves instead of the strength and constitution saves. You've have decent Strength saves just from going with strength plus rage advantage, decent dex saves between your AC dex and danger sense, decent saves for constitution from stats and the dwarven resiliency bonuses, and then decent saves for charisma and wisdom from stats and proficiency. You'd still be weak against intelligence saves, but reasonable across the board otherwise. Starting barbarian does give you awesome strength and constitution saves, but everything else that isn't dex lags. It helps if you can get Cloak of Protection and/or Ring of Protection.
As far as half elf versus mountain dwarf, you can get very similar stats as you said. It then comes down to what you want to get from it. I wasn't even considering the option of "create your own race" from Tasha's since that isn't supportable by DnDBeyond yet and it means that I have to create things on a PDF. You can still change proficiencies and abilities with Tasha's though. If you want the mental saves AND medium armor, then Mountain Dwarf is the way to go. If you are less concerned with the mental saves, then half elf gives some good options. If I want 16 14 16 8 9 13, I can point buy 14 14 14 8 9 13 with the Mountain Dwarf or 15 13 15 8 8 12 for a half elf to get 16 (13/14) (16/15) 8 8 14 to start. Mountain Dwarf does give you slightly better stats because you are able to get your 16s without eating 4 ability points between each 14 and each 15. You can change out Dwarven Combat Training for tool proficiencies to give you some out of combat things to do in addition to changing out the light armor proficiency from Dwarven Armor Training. Along with the Dwarven Tool Proficiency, you'll have a few of those to go around, plus you can start warlock for the saves. This comes with a 25 ft speed and darkvision, along with stonecunning for a limited quasi expertise in the history skill.
Half Elf gives up slightly better stats in favor of slightly better mobility, especially if you swap your skill versatility to fleet of foot for half woodelf. You do have darkvision, just like the dwarf and your fey ancestry gives you slightly better throws against being charmed and being immune to being put to sleep. Swapping skill versatility for keen senses is just silly, since you can take perception proficiency AND another skill with skill versatility. However, the other options are interesting: A swimming speed for the Aquatic Heritage half elf, Drow Magic for the half drow, Elf weapon training (which is redundant with martial weapons from Barbarian even if you come to Barbarian second) or another cantrip for half high elf, and Mask of the Wild goes along with the Fleet of Foot option for half wood elf. Being able to have 30 or 35 feet of movement isn't bad especially once it goes up to 40 or 45 feet at barb 5th.
Neither option is bad, but I feel like Half-elf might be the better option if starting as Barbarian while Mountain Dwarf is better if starting warlock. Either way, the racial bonuses help to improve some of the saves that the proficiencies that you'd be missing out on by choosing the corresponding starting class.
If is worth looking at the feats available with Xanathar's just to add a little more information to the choice. Going with PAM and then likely losing an ASI due to level distribution between the classes leaves 3 ASIs, meaning that half feats do have more value on average than the full feats, since they will also bump your stats. This is especially true with the half elf if you want to get your physical stats all even, are willing to leave your charisma at 14 (likely). Elven Accuracy is the love child of the elves, but doesn't help this build unless you are taking something like Eldritch Blast and something that will give you advantage on those attacks is available to you one way or another. If that is the case, then you would want to leave your dex at 13 like I mentioned above since strength and constitution are both invalid, though it would be an option to get your charisma to 13 from 12 if you don't start with a 13. Not a great option for what you are trying to do the majority of times, but not a bad option for when you aren't doing AoA and brawling. If your DM lets you use the full elf options from your elf parentage, then Drow High Magic, Fey Teleportation, and Wood Elf Magic are options that give you more magical abilities, but only the Fey Teleportation is a half feat and it only gives Charisma for stats that you are interested in. These don't have half-elf explicitly listed as a prerequisite, though, and not all DMs will allow them as a result. Prodigy is an option, but is an odd choice considering the circumstances of the build. Outside of those, you could conceivably hit up something like piercer (if using a spear), slasher (if using a glaive or halberd), chef, moderately armored (if you want to start warlock and go Half-elf), crusher (if using a quarterstaff), and resilient and maybe tavern brawler could be good options otherwise. Resilient is likely better as a half elf that starts warlock and wants constitution save proficiency, though any build that decides that it wants dexterity saves could make good use of it too. Shadow Touched, Fey Touched, Durable, Revenant Blade (less interesting in this build since it doesn't play with PAM), skill expert, telekinetic, and telepathic could be interesting options, but they either boost charisma or have abilities that don't play into the type of character that the build is suggesting. Weapon Master and Lightly Armored both offer the right stats, but the rest of the feat is redundant, making them strictly on par with a full ASI on an odd stat.
For the dwarven feats, Dwarven Fortitude bumps Constitution and allows you to heal yourself when you take the dodge action. This does have some synergy with the build as far as giving you an OS button to trigger once AoA drops and you need to go defensive. It's a little better than the elven specific feats as far as having a stat that is likely wanting to be bumped and something to do while outside of the builds bread and butter, but it's probably mostly on par with Elven Accuracy or Fey Teleportation as far as that goes. Squat Nimbleness increases your strength of dexterity, increases your speed by 5, gives you proficiency in acrobatics or athletics and advantage on both checks to escape being grappled. Again, rather meh. The other half feats that were mentioned above are likely better.
Feats don't really change the equation much, leaving it mostly up to flavor and a preference for superior stats or superior mobility and then what flavor of racial bonuses you want to have. While a Mountain Dwarf can start with medium armor as a warlock, a half elf can use a half feat to get moderately armored and still be on track.
Yes, it looks better starting off as warlock 1. The saves are much better balanced. I also dropped an ASI to pick up PAM. I traded in the greataxe for a halberd. A bonus action attack to stack on more rage damage is more important to me than a slightly bigger damage die for crit purposes. Adding an OA when something enters reach is also very tasty. I think this looks pretty playable.
It's funny, we posted about wanting to start with warlock at pretty much the exact same time. I like these changes of yours. One thing though, the build isn't actually proficient in medium armor. Barbarian multiclass confers proficiency in shields, simple weapons and martial weapons only. This is a tough dance, because those saves look so much better.
Getting Armor of Agathys up, raging, and then moving to provoke a OA would be a way to not drop the rage. Otherwise, there's no reason to try to rage turn one.
That is a fun little tactic. Don't know how I feel about inviting more attacks, but I love the creativity. Very clever.
I disagree that there is no reason to rage turn one though. In fact, I think there is a huge incentive to rage immediately because it greatly extends the longevity of AoA.
I'm also concerned about the survivability of a low level celestial warlock with stats built for strength based melee combat. The HP does not support that mediocre-at-best AC. Maybe Healing Light is enough? The build would also be stuck with simple weapons and no shield. Eh, I'm not convinced. I hate to say it but starting with 5 levels of Hexblade feels like the way.
Huh, didn't realize that. Perhaps I was too quick to jump on the "don't need dwarf" option.
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Unfortunately, I think that prepare an action is the best thing you can do. Prepare AoA, and move forward without rage. You're likely to eat some damage, but it's not the end of the world; you're a barbarian. You don't want AoA up when you /take/ this hit because it will chew through the temp hp, and you don't want to do that without rage up to soak the hit. Pick a trigger to ensure that AoA will go off /after/ you soak the first round, but before your turn 2 starts. AoA fires on trigger. Your turn comes around and you can now bonus action rage -> then attack as normal.
If we're willing to /not attack/ on round 1 anyways, it's not an effective loss of turn. The biggest loss is soaking damage on round 1, but there's simply no way around it I can see short of standing in front of your wizard to "burning hands" you. These situations would be further mitigated by scouting, you may often be able to pop AoA before combat starts. Since it's not a combo you're likely to use every combat anyways, it may turn out to be a non issue, especially if you take PAM and can twist in some OA attacks on round 1.
That said, I think the /idea/ works better as barb 1, EK 8, lock 11. BM is a solid pick here, but war magic really calls to me for those moments when you are /not/ in rage mode. Booming blade, plus a standard melee attack is pretty excellent. But, that's not really a barbarian|warlock.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I completely missed that barbs don't give medium armor as a proficiency when you MC /into/ them. That said, I personally will /never/ play a mountain dwarf with Tasha's changes. The tradeoff for them being so bloody good before was being locked into STR and CON. Now, they are just overpowered choices for any caster class. The thought of playing a mountain dwarf now is even dirtier than playing a hexblade warlock, unless I am making a pure martial out of it.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Jhfffan I definitely turned around a bit on your initial "don't need to rage immediately" thought after I thought about it more. Still doesn't sit super well, but I think it's a workable tactic.
crzyhawk I feel you on the mountain dwarf hate post Tasha's. I like custom lineage quite a bit (at least for enabling creativity), but the racial stat changes are the worst.
The fact that fighter gives the proper armor proficiencies has me more inclined than ever to try and build it in. Maybe this?
V. Human
1. Warlock 1. Celestial Patron, Polearm Master
2. Fighter 1. Fighting Style (defense)
3. Warlock 2.
4. Fighter 2.
5. Barbarian 1.
6. Warlock 3. Pact of the Blade
7. Warlock 4. +2 Strength
8. Warlock 5.
9. Barbarian 2.
10. Barbarian 3. Totem Warrior/Zealot
Not sure where to go from here, but I like picking up more than one level of Barb to get reckless attack, a subclass and more rages. This build gets a full version of the combo (even if a weak one) at level 5.
I think Sorcerer for Extend spell could actually be an interesting option. With a modified 2 hour duration, you could probably cast AoA near the beginning of a treacherous day and be pretty sure it would still be up for a fight when it comes. Quicken doesn't really help this build because then you're just clogged on bonus actions when trying to set everything up.
I know the comment was years ago, but my player's Mastermind Rogue saved the whole party during a mini-campaign I ran. Help action as bonus action goes brrrr....
Came looking to see if my idea was possible, not only that but it is awesome.
Bear in mind you'll need to be str13/cha13 to qualify for the multiclassing, but all around you'll still want constitution and at least some dexterity. I'm genuinely not following how Barbarian/Warlock is supposed to be better than Paladin/Warlock.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Came looking to see if my idea was possible, not only that but it is awesome.
Bear in mind you'll need to be str13/cha13 to qualify for the multiclassing, but all around you'll still want constitution and at least some dexterity. I'm genuinely not following how Barbarian/Warlock is supposed to be better than Paladin/Warlock.
Damage resistance from Rage to make Armor of Agathys last longer, likely through using bear totem for as many resistances as possible. The amount of damage dealt by AoA is the same regardless of the damage taken to trigger, so ideally you would only take 1 point of damage from an enemy to maximize the number of hits taken and therefore maximizing the amount of damage dealt.
Paladin can work, but it's harder to pull off. The paladin also gets less HP in case a big enough hit comes in to deplete AoA's THP plus some. Paladin can get the base rage resistances through HAM, but the best way to accomplish it would be to have someone else cast Warding Bond on the Paladin, ideally by a Life Cleric or someone with a lot of HP to absorb the damage that they share with the Paladin. Paladins do get more spell slots for more AoA damage, but will often use them for Divine Smite.
While an Ancients Paladin can get resistance at level 7, it's only for spell damage. AoA triggers off of melee attacks, meaning that there are many spells that are off the table in addition to weapon attack damage.
Finally, in order to trigger AoA, you actually have to get hit. Paladins will often have higher AC than a barbarian, and Warding bond increases their AC. Meanwhile, Barbarians are effective with around 16 AC, don't require something that will increase their AC to get resistence, and can fall back on reckless attacks to not only increase their hit rate and crit rate, but also invite attacks that will be more likely to hit.
Part of the challenge is finding the right mix of warlock levels to maximize spell slots while taking enough barbarian levels to keep your effectiveness high while not running AoA. 9th level is where pact magic slots max out at 5th level and the first with 3 slots is 11th. Getting to barbarian 5 ensures extra attack and fast Movement. 6th gives a fourth rage and 9th gives +3 rage damage. Those seem to be the natural cut offs for the build.
Part of the challenge is finding the right mix of warlock levels to maximize spell slots while taking enough barbarian levels to keep your effectiveness high while not running AoA. 9th level is where pact magic slots max out at 5th level and the first with 3 slots is 11th. Getting to barbarian 5 ensures extra attack and fast Movement. 6th gives a fourth rage and 9th gives +3 rage damage. Those seem to be the natural cut offs for the build.
I think you could make an argument for going down to 3 levels of Barbarian while relying on Pact of the Blade from warlock to get extra attack. Maximizing spell slot level in tier 1 and 2 is certainly worth considering over extra uses of rage and better rage damage.
Ugh. I was so close to thinking Storm Herald Barbarians were the salvation to the "maintaining rage the same turn you cast AoA" problem but then I read closer and you have to attack or be dealt damage to maintain it. Simply dealing damage isn't good enough. What a bummer that was.
Part of the challenge is finding the right mix of warlock levels to maximize spell slots while taking enough barbarian levels to keep your effectiveness high while not running AoA. 9th level is where pact magic slots max out at 5th level and the first with 3 slots is 11th. Getting to barbarian 5 ensures extra attack and fast Movement. 6th gives a fourth rage and 9th gives +3 rage damage. Those seem to be the natural cut offs for the build.
I think you could make an argument for going down to 3 levels of Barbarian while relying on Pact of the Blade from warlock to get extra attack. Maximizing spell slot level in tier 1 and 2 is certainly worth considering over extra uses of rage and better rage damage.
Ugh. I was so close to thinking Storm Herald Barbarians were the salvation to the "maintaining rage the same turn you cast AoA" problem but then I read closer and you have to attack or be dealt damage to maintain it. Simply dealing damage isn't good enough. What a bummer that was.
Yeah, Storm Herald might be enough for some DMs, but it's not reliable enough to be given as general advice. Your best turn one option to get everything up is to cast AoA, follow it with Rage, and then try to provoke OAs. The next best option that I can see is to ready AoA with a trigger that would happen before the beginning of your next turn, likely something like "once the last enemy stops moving before my next turn", the use your 2nd turn to proceed. This is assuming that a precast of AoA isn't possible.
What about using clockwork soul sorcerer instead of warlock as the source of Armor of Agathys?
Bastion of Law has a lot of natural synergy with the AoA + Rage routine as both a way to mitigate damage to maintaing longevity of the spell and as a use for sorcery points (and by extension spell slots funneled into more sorcery points) while raging.
This would also open up the Extend Spell metamagic, which I like a lot as a way to ease the ability to pre-cast the spell.
That would work starting at Sorcerer 2 when you can replace Alarm or Protection from Evil and Good with an Abjuration spell from the Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard spell list. Bastion of Law is an intriguing alternate for Rage. It could be used to enable the build: either from a single player concept, or as a support character. With a maximum amount of damage reduced at 40 and average per die of 4.5, being able to customize the reduced damage as much as possible would be ideal. Stacking Bastion of Law with Rage or some other form of damage resistance would be nice, especially since the damage reduction would be applied before the resistance, ensuring some damage would move through to trigger AoA.
This would enable the first turn to be Bastion of Law for the action and a Quickened AoA. Requiring 3 SP just to run that sequence, you wouldn't be able to do it until Sorcerer 3 for metamagic and 3 SP anyway, so having to wait until Sorcerer 2 to get AoA isn't a problem.
However, getting 2-3 levels of Warlock might still be ideal, since that would give you a short rest refresh of 2 level 1 or level 2 spell slots.
Something else that's interesting about adding Sorcerer to the build, you now have the ability to use Transmuted Spell to change the damage from Cold to something else. You could do something like Elemental Adept (Fire) to give you decent options from range or to give you a fall back damage type. The default casting of AoA could be cold damage with the Elemental Adept element being available against Cold Immunity or cold resistant enemies. Likewise, you could go with EA (Cold) to bypass cold resistance by default and transmute it only in the case of cold immunity. If you've gone warlock three, the ranged option would be taken care of at the cantrip level with Eldritch Blast, but Elemental Adept could still be useful for something like Fireball.
Popping in to say we have a (top of my head) 14 Ancestral/5 Hexblade Pact of the Chain, with Gift of the Ever Living Ones boon. She is *highly* effective. With the imp invisible and never near combat, all healing on her is maximized and she is a complete monster to take down. With Agathys and Rage up she can basically only be stopped by enchantment magic.
Shadar Kai with a stolen Double Scim and Revenant Blade feat. A true beast.
i would take improved pact weapon. that solves the material component. and then take the metamagic feat and take subtle spell, that solves the somatic problem. just my opinion and though.
I have played some barbarian warlock multis since this conversation. And I had a lot of fun and success with a char that did make it to 20 as a Barb/warlock 6/14 totem/fathomless.
you create the tentacle when you’re still far away as you close in. And then rage in round 2. Having the tentacle as a bonus action still. Or if you’re more close you reverse the order and rage first and then tentacle. Good economy, and gives you more outside combat versatility too with the spells and such.
I think the Barb/warlock multi class would get off to a slow start, but then again having weapon mastery for pact of the blade is nice. The only problem I can see is the fact that you can’t cast spells while raging. The best way to get away with this In my opinion is to mainly play barbarian with a few levels of warlock for a boost.
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The dwarf option is if you wanted to start warlock to get the wisdom and charisma saves instead of the strength and constitution saves. You've have decent Strength saves just from going with strength plus rage advantage, decent dex saves between your AC dex and danger sense, decent saves for constitution from stats and the dwarven resiliency bonuses, and then decent saves for charisma and wisdom from stats and proficiency. You'd still be weak against intelligence saves, but reasonable across the board otherwise. Starting barbarian does give you awesome strength and constitution saves, but everything else that isn't dex lags. It helps if you can get Cloak of Protection and/or Ring of Protection.
As far as half elf versus mountain dwarf, you can get very similar stats as you said. It then comes down to what you want to get from it. I wasn't even considering the option of "create your own race" from Tasha's since that isn't supportable by DnDBeyond yet and it means that I have to create things on a PDF. You can still change proficiencies and abilities with Tasha's though. If you want the mental saves AND medium armor, then Mountain Dwarf is the way to go. If you are less concerned with the mental saves, then half elf gives some good options. If I want 16 14 16 8 9 13, I can point buy 14 14 14 8 9 13 with the Mountain Dwarf or 15 13 15 8 8 12 for a half elf to get 16 (13/14) (16/15) 8 8 14 to start. Mountain Dwarf does give you slightly better stats because you are able to get your 16s without eating 4 ability points between each 14 and each 15. You can change out Dwarven Combat Training for tool proficiencies to give you some out of combat things to do in addition to changing out the light armor proficiency from Dwarven Armor Training. Along with the Dwarven Tool Proficiency, you'll have a few of those to go around, plus you can start warlock for the saves. This comes with a 25 ft speed and darkvision, along with stonecunning for a limited quasi expertise in the history skill.
Half Elf gives up slightly better stats in favor of slightly better mobility, especially if you swap your skill versatility to fleet of foot for half woodelf. You do have darkvision, just like the dwarf and your fey ancestry gives you slightly better throws against being charmed and being immune to being put to sleep. Swapping skill versatility for keen senses is just silly, since you can take perception proficiency AND another skill with skill versatility. However, the other options are interesting: A swimming speed for the Aquatic Heritage half elf, Drow Magic for the half drow, Elf weapon training (which is redundant with martial weapons from Barbarian even if you come to Barbarian second) or another cantrip for half high elf, and Mask of the Wild goes along with the Fleet of Foot option for half wood elf. Being able to have 30 or 35 feet of movement isn't bad especially once it goes up to 40 or 45 feet at barb 5th.
Neither option is bad, but I feel like Half-elf might be the better option if starting as Barbarian while Mountain Dwarf is better if starting warlock. Either way, the racial bonuses help to improve some of the saves that the proficiencies that you'd be missing out on by choosing the corresponding starting class.
If is worth looking at the feats available with Xanathar's just to add a little more information to the choice. Going with PAM and then likely losing an ASI due to level distribution between the classes leaves 3 ASIs, meaning that half feats do have more value on average than the full feats, since they will also bump your stats. This is especially true with the half elf if you want to get your physical stats all even, are willing to leave your charisma at 14 (likely). Elven Accuracy is the love child of the elves, but doesn't help this build unless you are taking something like Eldritch Blast and something that will give you advantage on those attacks is available to you one way or another. If that is the case, then you would want to leave your dex at 13 like I mentioned above since strength and constitution are both invalid, though it would be an option to get your charisma to 13 from 12 if you don't start with a 13. Not a great option for what you are trying to do the majority of times, but not a bad option for when you aren't doing AoA and brawling. If your DM lets you use the full elf options from your elf parentage, then Drow High Magic, Fey Teleportation, and Wood Elf Magic are options that give you more magical abilities, but only the Fey Teleportation is a half feat and it only gives Charisma for stats that you are interested in. These don't have half-elf explicitly listed as a prerequisite, though, and not all DMs will allow them as a result. Prodigy is an option, but is an odd choice considering the circumstances of the build. Outside of those, you could conceivably hit up something like piercer (if using a spear), slasher (if using a glaive or halberd), chef, moderately armored (if you want to start warlock and go Half-elf), crusher (if using a quarterstaff), and resilient and maybe tavern brawler could be good options otherwise. Resilient is likely better as a half elf that starts warlock and wants constitution save proficiency, though any build that decides that it wants dexterity saves could make good use of it too. Shadow Touched, Fey Touched, Durable, Revenant Blade (less interesting in this build since it doesn't play with PAM), skill expert, telekinetic, and telepathic could be interesting options, but they either boost charisma or have abilities that don't play into the type of character that the build is suggesting. Weapon Master and Lightly Armored both offer the right stats, but the rest of the feat is redundant, making them strictly on par with a full ASI on an odd stat.
For the dwarven feats, Dwarven Fortitude bumps Constitution and allows you to heal yourself when you take the dodge action. This does have some synergy with the build as far as giving you an OS button to trigger once AoA drops and you need to go defensive. It's a little better than the elven specific feats as far as having a stat that is likely wanting to be bumped and something to do while outside of the builds bread and butter, but it's probably mostly on par with Elven Accuracy or Fey Teleportation as far as that goes. Squat Nimbleness increases your strength of dexterity, increases your speed by 5, gives you proficiency in acrobatics or athletics and advantage on both checks to escape being grappled. Again, rather meh. The other half feats that were mentioned above are likely better.
Feats don't really change the equation much, leaving it mostly up to flavor and a preference for superior stats or superior mobility and then what flavor of racial bonuses you want to have. While a Mountain Dwarf can start with medium armor as a warlock, a half elf can use a half feat to get moderately armored and still be on track.
Huh, didn't realize that. Perhaps I was too quick to jump on the "don't need dwarf" option.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Unfortunately, I think that prepare an action is the best thing you can do. Prepare AoA, and move forward without rage. You're likely to eat some damage, but it's not the end of the world; you're a barbarian. You don't want AoA up when you /take/ this hit because it will chew through the temp hp, and you don't want to do that without rage up to soak the hit. Pick a trigger to ensure that AoA will go off /after/ you soak the first round, but before your turn 2 starts. AoA fires on trigger. Your turn comes around and you can now bonus action rage -> then attack as normal.
If we're willing to /not attack/ on round 1 anyways, it's not an effective loss of turn. The biggest loss is soaking damage on round 1, but there's simply no way around it I can see short of standing in front of your wizard to "burning hands" you. These situations would be further mitigated by scouting, you may often be able to pop AoA before combat starts. Since it's not a combo you're likely to use every combat anyways, it may turn out to be a non issue, especially if you take PAM and can twist in some OA attacks on round 1.
That said, I think the /idea/ works better as barb 1, EK 8, lock 11. BM is a solid pick here, but war magic really calls to me for those moments when you are /not/ in rage mode. Booming blade, plus a standard melee attack is pretty excellent. But, that's not really a barbarian|warlock.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I completely missed that barbs don't give medium armor as a proficiency when you MC /into/ them. That said, I personally will /never/ play a mountain dwarf with Tasha's changes. The tradeoff for them being so bloody good before was being locked into STR and CON. Now, they are just overpowered choices for any caster class. The thought of playing a mountain dwarf now is even dirtier than playing a hexblade warlock, unless I am making a pure martial out of it.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Jhfffan I definitely turned around a bit on your initial "don't need to rage immediately" thought after I thought about it more. Still doesn't sit super well, but I think it's a workable tactic.
crzyhawk I feel you on the mountain dwarf hate post Tasha's. I like custom lineage quite a bit (at least for enabling creativity), but the racial stat changes are the worst.
The fact that fighter gives the proper armor proficiencies has me more inclined than ever to try and build it in. Maybe this?
V. Human
1. Warlock 1. Celestial Patron, Polearm Master
2. Fighter 1. Fighting Style (defense)
3. Warlock 2.
4. Fighter 2.
5. Barbarian 1.
6. Warlock 3. Pact of the Blade
7. Warlock 4. +2 Strength
8. Warlock 5.
9. Barbarian 2.
10. Barbarian 3. Totem Warrior/Zealot
Not sure where to go from here, but I like picking up more than one level of Barb to get reckless attack, a subclass and more rages. This build gets a full version of the combo (even if a weak one) at level 5.
I think Sorcerer for Extend spell could actually be an interesting option. With a modified 2 hour duration, you could probably cast AoA near the beginning of a treacherous day and be pretty sure it would still be up for a fight when it comes. Quicken doesn't really help this build because then you're just clogged on bonus actions when trying to set everything up.
I know the comment was years ago, but my player's Mastermind Rogue saved the whole party during a mini-campaign I ran. Help action as bonus action goes brrrr....
Came looking to see if my idea was possible, not only that but it is awesome.
Bear in mind you'll need to be str13/cha13 to qualify for the multiclassing, but all around you'll still want constitution and at least some dexterity. I'm genuinely not following how Barbarian/Warlock is supposed to be better than Paladin/Warlock.
It doesn’t have to be better to be viable
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Damage resistance from Rage to make Armor of Agathys last longer, likely through using bear totem for as many resistances as possible. The amount of damage dealt by AoA is the same regardless of the damage taken to trigger, so ideally you would only take 1 point of damage from an enemy to maximize the number of hits taken and therefore maximizing the amount of damage dealt.
Paladin can work, but it's harder to pull off. The paladin also gets less HP in case a big enough hit comes in to deplete AoA's THP plus some. Paladin can get the base rage resistances through HAM, but the best way to accomplish it would be to have someone else cast Warding Bond on the Paladin, ideally by a Life Cleric or someone with a lot of HP to absorb the damage that they share with the Paladin. Paladins do get more spell slots for more AoA damage, but will often use them for Divine Smite.
While an Ancients Paladin can get resistance at level 7, it's only for spell damage. AoA triggers off of melee attacks, meaning that there are many spells that are off the table in addition to weapon attack damage.
Finally, in order to trigger AoA, you actually have to get hit. Paladins will often have higher AC than a barbarian, and Warding bond increases their AC. Meanwhile, Barbarians are effective with around 16 AC, don't require something that will increase their AC to get resistence, and can fall back on reckless attacks to not only increase their hit rate and crit rate, but also invite attacks that will be more likely to hit.
Part of the challenge is finding the right mix of warlock levels to maximize spell slots while taking enough barbarian levels to keep your effectiveness high while not running AoA. 9th level is where pact magic slots max out at 5th level and the first with 3 slots is 11th. Getting to barbarian 5 ensures extra attack and fast Movement. 6th gives a fourth rage and 9th gives +3 rage damage. Those seem to be the natural cut offs for the build.
I think you could make an argument for going down to 3 levels of Barbarian while relying on Pact of the Blade from warlock to get extra attack. Maximizing spell slot level in tier 1 and 2 is certainly worth considering over extra uses of rage and better rage damage.
Ugh. I was so close to thinking Storm Herald Barbarians were the salvation to the "maintaining rage the same turn you cast AoA" problem but then I read closer and you have to attack or be dealt damage to maintain it. Simply dealing damage isn't good enough. What a bummer that was.
Yeah, Storm Herald might be enough for some DMs, but it's not reliable enough to be given as general advice. Your best turn one option to get everything up is to cast AoA, follow it with Rage, and then try to provoke OAs. The next best option that I can see is to ready AoA with a trigger that would happen before the beginning of your next turn, likely something like "once the last enemy stops moving before my next turn", the use your 2nd turn to proceed. This is assuming that a precast of AoA isn't possible.
What about using clockwork soul sorcerer instead of warlock as the source of Armor of Agathys?
Bastion of Law has a lot of natural synergy with the AoA + Rage routine as both a way to mitigate damage to maintaing longevity of the spell and as a use for sorcery points (and by extension spell slots funneled into more sorcery points) while raging.
This would also open up the Extend Spell metamagic, which I like a lot as a way to ease the ability to pre-cast the spell.
That would work starting at Sorcerer 2 when you can replace Alarm or Protection from Evil and Good with an Abjuration spell from the Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard spell list. Bastion of Law is an intriguing alternate for Rage. It could be used to enable the build: either from a single player concept, or as a support character. With a maximum amount of damage reduced at 40 and average per die of 4.5, being able to customize the reduced damage as much as possible would be ideal. Stacking Bastion of Law with Rage or some other form of damage resistance would be nice, especially since the damage reduction would be applied before the resistance, ensuring some damage would move through to trigger AoA.
This would enable the first turn to be Bastion of Law for the action and a Quickened AoA. Requiring 3 SP just to run that sequence, you wouldn't be able to do it until Sorcerer 3 for metamagic and 3 SP anyway, so having to wait until Sorcerer 2 to get AoA isn't a problem.
However, getting 2-3 levels of Warlock might still be ideal, since that would give you a short rest refresh of 2 level 1 or level 2 spell slots.
Something else that's interesting about adding Sorcerer to the build, you now have the ability to use Transmuted Spell to change the damage from Cold to something else. You could do something like Elemental Adept (Fire) to give you decent options from range or to give you a fall back damage type. The default casting of AoA could be cold damage with the Elemental Adept element being available against Cold Immunity or cold resistant enemies. Likewise, you could go with EA (Cold) to bypass cold resistance by default and transmute it only in the case of cold immunity. If you've gone warlock three, the ranged option would be taken care of at the cantrip level with Eldritch Blast, but Elemental Adept could still be useful for something like Fireball.
Popping in to say we have a (top of my head) 14 Ancestral/5 Hexblade Pact of the Chain, with Gift of the Ever Living Ones boon. She is *highly* effective. With the imp invisible and never near combat, all healing on her is maximized and she is a complete monster to take down. With Agathys and Rage up she can basically only be stopped by enchantment magic.
Shadar Kai with a stolen Double Scim and Revenant Blade feat. A true beast.
Okay I like your logic. What's your stance on the age old bearbarian dispute?
i would take improved pact weapon. that solves the material component. and then take the metamagic feat and take subtle spell, that solves the somatic problem. just my opinion and though.
I’m building the exact same one with almost the exact invocations… glad to see someone else also thought of the same idea
To OP:
I have played some barbarian warlock multis since this conversation. And I had a lot of fun and success with a char that did make it to 20 as a Barb/warlock 6/14 totem/fathomless.
you create the tentacle when you’re still far away as you close in. And then rage in round 2. Having the tentacle as a bonus action still. Or if you’re more close you reverse the order and rage first and then tentacle. Good economy, and gives you more outside combat versatility too with the spells and such.
Blank
I think the Barb/warlock multi class would get off to a slow start, but then again having weapon mastery for pact of the blade is nice. The only problem I can see is the fact that you can’t cast spells while raging. The best way to get away with this In my opinion is to mainly play barbarian with a few levels of warlock for a boost.
Are you really sure about that?