So I recently started an Eberron campaign and I rolled very well for stats. After racial bonuses (mark of passage human) I have 17, 19, 18, 12, 14, 16. Originally my plan was to play Fighter (echo knight) with a 4 level dip into barbarian (zealot). It tied well into my plan for the character where they were resurrected at a young age and now their soul is "split".
However, recently I was thinking about starting out as a rogue (my background is smuggler) for the extra proficiencies, expertise, and sneak attack. This could help my party as we don't have much of a "face". Additionally, I could dual wield daggers using strength (so both rage and sneak attack would apply) and take the dual wield fighting style. I could also reckless attack and give myself sneak attack on demand. I'm just trying to decide if the 1 level dip is worth putting off my subclass features. Note, we are starting at level 3 so I would likely go either Fighter (2)/ Barbarian (1) or Rogue/Barbarian/Fighter.
Solid point with the scimitars and shortswords. I totally forgot they were finesse too.
Yeah, I figured most people would be hesitant to suggest it was a good idea. I will have an unarmored AC of 18 to start and there is another melee fighter so hopefully I won't have to be reckless too often.
This would delay your extra attack a lot, I recommend start as a Barbarian for better HP, move full in up to Fighter 5 and then get some levels of Rogue.
Or you can simply forget about Fighter at all and go Barbarian and Rogue all together. Start as a Barb for better HP, get one level of Rogue for expertise (I recommend Athletics) and then straight Barbarian to level 5. After that, you can get more Rogue for better SA damage and Cunning Action.
I'm currently playing a Barbarian5/Fighter7, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd go Rogue 1/Barb4/Fighter7, or even Barb4/Fighter8. Here's what I'd do:
1) Start with 1 level of Rogue. The extra skills and the Expertise benefits (Sneak Attack is just gravy) will grant you more options down the road, options that you cannot get from Barbarian or Fighter. But see the very last comment, way at the bottom.
2) 4 levels of Barbarian. That may be more levels than you were thinking, but 3 levels gives you the option to take the Totem of the Bear, which grants all resistances to damage except Psychic. There's a reason why it's the most popular Barby subclass. And one more level gets you your first ASI at overall 5th level, which I'd use for Polearm Master or Great Weapon Master.
3) Then Fighter all the way from there. You'll get the subclass options at Fighter 3rd/8th overall, and a great addition would be the Battlemaster subclass. Adding a d8 for Precision attacks to GWM makes those Reckless attacks land almost every single time, and with your high Strength and a Glaive, you can deal an average of 20-ish damage per hit (using GWM for -5 to hit/+10 damage) out to ten feet. Combined with 2nd attack at Fighter 5th level, pus the Bonus Action attacks from PAM, and Action Surge, and you too could be a blender of destruction, doing 4 attacks on one round, 5 if you have PAM and use the BA option, which gets that same +10 damage from PAM and GWM combined. My barbie/Fighter with a +2 Glaive is averaging around 90 damage first round. You also get a BA full melee attack if you crit or drop an enemy to 0 hp with GWM alone, if you don't yet have PAM, which is why that Feat usually gets chosen earlier.But I could see going with PAM first, too.
Fighter also gives you an extra ASI at Fighter 6th, then another at 8th.
I was able to start with a bonus Feat at level 1 (which you can also get with Variant Human), got a second ASI/Feat at Barb 4, then continued to Barbarian 5 to get an early Second Attack, rather than wait five levels of Fighter. But if I had to do it over again, I might have been willing to risk waiting to get the Second Attack option from Fighter 5, though that would mean waiting all the way until 9th or 10th level overall. I felt, and still feel, it's better to have 3 levels of Barbarian to gain the Totem of the Bear resistance advantage ASAP. And it makes sense then to go one more Barbarian level to get that ASI, rather than again waiting 4 levels of Fighter to get it. But if you're slogging your way through encounter after encounter from level 1 on up, it is tempting to get Second Attack from Barbarian 5. An optimized build starting at higher levels would probably skip that option.
Right now, at 12th overall, I have one Stat increase (2 points in Strength) and three Feats: GWM, PAM and Lucky (used almost exclusively to reroll missed Wis/Int Saves, or for that final strike against a tough opponent). My next ASI, rather than being the expected Sentinel Feat, will instead be Resilience in Wisdom. The DMs I've faced have seen how impossible it is to hit him with any sort of melee attacks, and Dex saves aren't much better, since Barbies get advantage on most of those, and if they're raging, still only take half damage at worst. I'm seeing more spells cast at him, and as Wisdom is the second most-often-used magic save (after Dex, and just ahead of Con, both of which benefit from a Barbarian build), I believe giving him proficiency in Wisdom saves will do more to keep him alive in the long run, as well as prevent him from being turned via Command spell against his own comrades.
BTW: If the last paragraph sounded like the DMs are "out to get him," realize that DMs play smart enemies, many of whom have by now heard of the Barbarian-Fighter with the shining glaive and the long trail of defeated enemies. I would expect nothing less than for some of the BBEGs that have survived his onslaughts to do their best to try and stop him, as he has put a significant dent in their plans (and in the ranks of their minions). So at this point (level 12-13), just staying alive is a major accomplishment, rather than simply doing more damage or battlefield control.
For level 13 and his fourth Feat, I gave serious consideration to both Sentinel (battlefield control) and Alert (to better ensure he rages before being attacked), and minor consideration to Observant. But Resilient seems by far to be one of the better defenses against the most common attacks against fighter/tanks, especially when Con and Dex fails will usually only do damage, which they can more easily absorb. I downgraded Sentinel primarily because by now, the enemies he faces have learned to give him a wide berth. Sentinel works best against smaller numbers of less coordinated attackers, and with only one Reaction per turn, larger numbers and smarter opponents can make that Feat much less useful. And while Alert is a great feat, it came down to a choice between going first in combat, or surviving spells targeted specifically at him, and I chose the latter.
Note: If you choose to avoid the Rogue class altogether, there is a little-known advantage to taking the Haunted One for your background: it grants proficiency in two additional skills, which include the very useful Investigation and Survival. That goes a long way to offsetting the more advanced Rogue skill set, and doing a straight barbarian/Fighter build means gaining those useful Fighter ASIs one level earlier.
I'm currently playing a Barbarian5/Fighter7, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd go Rogue 1/Barb4/Fighter7, or even Barb4/Fighter8. Here's what I'd do:
1) Start with 1 level of Rogue. The extra skills and the Expertise benefits (Sneak Attack is just gravy) will grant you more options down the road, options that you cannot get from Barbarian or Fighter. But see the very last comment, way at the bottom.
2) 4 levels of Barbarian. That may be more levels than you were thinking, but 3 levels gives you the option to take the Totem of the Bear, which grants all resistances to damage except Psychic. There's a reason why it's the most popular Barby subclass. And one more level gets you your first ASI at overall 5th level, which I'd use for Polearm Master or Great Weapon Master.
3) Then Fighter all the way from there. You'll get the subclass options at Fighter 3rd/8th overall, and a great addition would be the Battlemaster subclass. Adding a d8 for Precision attacks to GWM makes those Reckless attacks land almost every single time, and with your high Strength and a Glaive, you can deal an average of 20-ish damage per hit (using GWM for -5 to hit/+10 damage) out to ten feet. Combined with 2nd attack at Fighter 5th level, pus the Bonus Action attacks from PAM, and Action Surge, and you too could be a blender of destruction, doing 4 attacks on one round, 5 if you have PAM and use the BA option, which gets that same +10 damage from PAM and GWM combined. My barbie/Fighter with a +2 Glaive is averaging around 90 damage first round. You also get a BA full melee attack if you crit or drop an enemy to 0 hp with GWM alone, if you don't yet have PAM, which is why that Feat usually gets chosen earlier.But I could see going with PAM first, too.
Fighter also gives you an extra ASI at Fighter 6th, then another at 8th.
I was able to start with a bonus Feat at level 1 (which you can also get with Variant Human), got a second ASI/Feat at Barb 4, then continued to Barbarian 5 to get an early Second Attack, rather than wait five levels of Fighter. But if I had to do it over again, I might have been willing to risk waiting to get the Second Attack option from Fighter 5, though that would mean waiting all the way until 9th or 10th level overall. I felt, and still feel, it's better to have 3 levels of Barbarian to gain the Totem of the Bear resistance advantage ASAP. And it makes sense then to go one more Barbarian level to get that ASI, rather than again waiting 4 levels of Fighter to get it. But if you're slogging your way through encounter after encounter from level 1 on up, it is tempting to get Second Attack from Barbarian 5. An optimized build starting at higher levels would probably skip that option.
Right now, at 12th overall, I have one Stat increase (2 points in Strength) and three Feats: GWM, PAM and Lucky (used almost exclusively to reroll missed Wis/Int Saves, or for that final strike against a tough opponent). My next ASI, rather than being the expected Sentinel Feat, will instead be Resilience in Wisdom. The DMs I've faced have seen how impossible it is to hit him with any sort of melee attacks, and Dex saves aren't much better, since Barbies get advantage on most of those, and if they're raging, still only take half damage at worst. I'm seeing more spells cast at him, and as Wisdom is the second most-often-used magic save (after Dex, and just ahead of Con, both of which benefit from a Barbarian build), I believe giving him proficiency in Wisdom saves will do more to keep him alive in the long run, as well as prevent him from being turned via Command spell against his own comrades.
BTW: If the last paragraph sounded like the DMs are "out to get him," realize that DMs play smart enemies, many of whom have by now heard of the Barbarian-Fighter with the shining glaive and the long trail of defeated enemies. I would expect nothing less than for some of the BBEGs that have survived his onslaughts to do their best to try and stop him, as he has put a significant dent in their plans (and in the ranks of their minions). So at this point (level 12-13), just staying alive is a major accomplishment, rather than simply doing more damage or battlefield control.
For level 13 and his fourth Feat, I gave serious consideration to both Sentinel (battlefield control) and Alert (to better ensure he rages before being attacked), and minor consideration to Observant. But Resilient seems by far to be one of the better defenses against the most common attacks against fighter/tanks, especially when Con and Dex fails will usually only do damage, which they can more easily absorb. I downgraded Sentinel primarily because by now, the enemies he faces have learned to give him a wide berth. Sentinel works best against smaller numbers of less coordinated attackers, and with only one Reaction per turn, larger numbers and smarter opponents can make that Feat much less useful. And while Alert is a great feat, it came down to a choice between going first in combat, or surviving spells targeted specifically at him, and I chose the latter.
Note: If you choose to avoid the Rogue class altogether, there is a little-known advantage to taking the Haunted One for your background: it grants proficiency in two additional skills, which include the very useful Investigation and Survival. That goes a long way to offsetting the more advanced Rogue skill set, and doing a straight barbarian/Fighter build means gaining those useful Fighter ASIs one level earlier.
Hope this helps!
Every background offers 2, Haunted One only offers you 2 of a selection of 4.
To the OP, I wouldn't worry about the rogue level until later. You'll be giving up a skill proficiency by waiting to later and you'll have to pick up a thieves tools instead of getting it outright. However, strength and constitution saves will be better than dex and intelligence saves, since you'll get advantage on many dex saves from Barb 2. The sneak attack damage will only be 1d6 which is an average of 3.5 damage. You'll have to drop to 1d6 or 1d8 weapons to trigger it. That means that you are replacing your big weapon with a smaller weapon and a sneak attack. 1d8+1d6+strength mod or 1d6 +1d6+strength mod+1d6 (+strength mod if you go two weapon fighting style. That's 4.5+3.5+3 =11 damage with a rapier or 3.5×3+3=13.5 dual wielding shortswords or scimitars (16.5 with TWFS). A 2d6 weapon would be 10 damage and could combine with GWM to get a -5 +10 attack to go to 20 damage or get a bonus attack on a crit or an enemy brought to 0 for another 10-20. Once extra attack kicks in, the big weapons will apply the full damage 2d6 while you'll be limited to 1d8 or 1d6 from the smaller weapons. If you go PAM, you'll have 1d10+3=8.5 plus 1d4+3=5.5 for 14. Neither great weapon has included a fighting style, meaning that you can add another point or so on average from Great Weapon Fighting (Defensive Fighting Style only works with armor, meaning you'd have to go with medium armor to take advantage of it and rage, which would probably still be a net loss in AC). You could take Archery fighting style to give you a better ranged option than barbs get or if you want sword and board, dueling will start to outpace a maxed attack stat with a third attack that could come from a bonus action, but neither of those will be better damage for your main attacks (at least not for a while).
There are better ways to get skills and you can always take it later for expertise. Nothing is stopping you from being an effective face with a 16 charisma and proficiency in persuasion, intimidation, or deception. You can always come back to rogue later if you feel that you need the thieves tools and expertise.
So I recently started an Eberron campaign and I rolled very well for stats. After racial bonuses (mark of passage human) I have 17, 19, 18, 12, 14, 16. Originally my plan was to play Fighter (echo knight) with a 4 level dip into barbarian (zealot). It tied well into my plan for the character where they were resurrected at a young age and now their soul is "split".
However, recently I was thinking about starting out as a rogue (my background is smuggler) for the extra proficiencies, expertise, and sneak attack. This could help my party as we don't have much of a "face". Additionally, I could dual wield daggers using strength (so both rage and sneak attack would apply) and take the dual wield fighting style. I could also reckless attack and give myself sneak attack on demand. I'm just trying to decide if the 1 level dip is worth putting off my subclass features. Note, we are starting at level 3 so I would likely go either Fighter (2)/ Barbarian (1) or Rogue/Barbarian/Fighter.
Any thoughts or advice would be helpful.
better yet, go scimitars or shortswords (bigger damage dice)
Getting all three now would be a bad idea in my opinion. Rogue is not a bad idea; just make sure you have enough HP for hits from reckless attack
Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
Solid point with the scimitars and shortswords. I totally forgot they were finesse too.
Yeah, I figured most people would be hesitant to suggest it was a good idea. I will have an unarmored AC of 18 to start and there is another melee fighter so hopefully I won't have to be reckless too often.
This would delay your extra attack a lot, I recommend start as a Barbarian for better HP, move full in up to Fighter 5 and then get some levels of Rogue.
Or you can simply forget about Fighter at all and go Barbarian and Rogue all together. Start as a Barb for better HP, get one level of Rogue for expertise (I recommend Athletics) and then straight Barbarian to level 5. After that, you can get more Rogue for better SA damage and Cunning Action.
I'm currently playing a Barbarian5/Fighter7, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd go Rogue 1/Barb4/Fighter7, or even Barb4/Fighter8. Here's what I'd do:
1) Start with 1 level of Rogue. The extra skills and the Expertise benefits (Sneak Attack is just gravy) will grant you more options down the road, options that you cannot get from Barbarian or Fighter. But see the very last comment, way at the bottom.
2) 4 levels of Barbarian. That may be more levels than you were thinking, but 3 levels gives you the option to take the Totem of the Bear, which grants all resistances to damage except Psychic. There's a reason why it's the most popular Barby subclass. And one more level gets you your first ASI at overall 5th level, which I'd use for Polearm Master or Great Weapon Master.
3) Then Fighter all the way from there. You'll get the subclass options at Fighter 3rd/8th overall, and a great addition would be the Battlemaster subclass. Adding a d8 for Precision attacks to GWM makes those Reckless attacks land almost every single time, and with your high Strength and a Glaive, you can deal an average of 20-ish damage per hit (using GWM for -5 to hit/+10 damage) out to ten feet. Combined with 2nd attack at Fighter 5th level, pus the Bonus Action attacks from PAM, and Action Surge, and you too could be a blender of destruction, doing 4 attacks on one round, 5 if you have PAM and use the BA option, which gets that same +10 damage from PAM and GWM combined. My barbie/Fighter with a +2 Glaive is averaging around 90 damage first round. You also get a BA full melee attack if you crit or drop an enemy to 0 hp with GWM alone, if you don't yet have PAM, which is why that Feat usually gets chosen earlier.But I could see going with PAM first, too.
Fighter also gives you an extra ASI at Fighter 6th, then another at 8th.
I was able to start with a bonus Feat at level 1 (which you can also get with Variant Human), got a second ASI/Feat at Barb 4, then continued to Barbarian 5 to get an early Second Attack, rather than wait five levels of Fighter. But if I had to do it over again, I might have been willing to risk waiting to get the Second Attack option from Fighter 5, though that would mean waiting all the way until 9th or 10th level overall. I felt, and still feel, it's better to have 3 levels of Barbarian to gain the Totem of the Bear resistance advantage ASAP. And it makes sense then to go one more Barbarian level to get that ASI, rather than again waiting 4 levels of Fighter to get it. But if you're slogging your way through encounter after encounter from level 1 on up, it is tempting to get Second Attack from Barbarian 5. An optimized build starting at higher levels would probably skip that option.
Right now, at 12th overall, I have one Stat increase (2 points in Strength) and three Feats: GWM, PAM and Lucky (used almost exclusively to reroll missed Wis/Int Saves, or for that final strike against a tough opponent). My next ASI, rather than being the expected Sentinel Feat, will instead be Resilience in Wisdom. The DMs I've faced have seen how impossible it is to hit him with any sort of melee attacks, and Dex saves aren't much better, since Barbies get advantage on most of those, and if they're raging, still only take half damage at worst. I'm seeing more spells cast at him, and as Wisdom is the second most-often-used magic save (after Dex, and just ahead of Con, both of which benefit from a Barbarian build), I believe giving him proficiency in Wisdom saves will do more to keep him alive in the long run, as well as prevent him from being turned via Command spell against his own comrades.
BTW: If the last paragraph sounded like the DMs are "out to get him," realize that DMs play smart enemies, many of whom have by now heard of the Barbarian-Fighter with the shining glaive and the long trail of defeated enemies. I would expect nothing less than for some of the BBEGs that have survived his onslaughts to do their best to try and stop him, as he has put a significant dent in their plans (and in the ranks of their minions). So at this point (level 12-13), just staying alive is a major accomplishment, rather than simply doing more damage or battlefield control.
For level 13 and his fourth Feat, I gave serious consideration to both Sentinel (battlefield control) and Alert (to better ensure he rages before being attacked), and minor consideration to Observant. But Resilient seems by far to be one of the better defenses against the most common attacks against fighter/tanks, especially when Con and Dex fails will usually only do damage, which they can more easily absorb. I downgraded Sentinel primarily because by now, the enemies he faces have learned to give him a wide berth. Sentinel works best against smaller numbers of less coordinated attackers, and with only one Reaction per turn, larger numbers and smarter opponents can make that Feat much less useful. And while Alert is a great feat, it came down to a choice between going first in combat, or surviving spells targeted specifically at him, and I chose the latter.
Note: If you choose to avoid the Rogue class altogether, there is a little-known advantage to taking the Haunted One for your background: it grants proficiency in two additional skills, which include the very useful Investigation and Survival. That goes a long way to offsetting the more advanced Rogue skill set, and doing a straight barbarian/Fighter build means gaining those useful Fighter ASIs one level earlier.
Hope this helps!
Every background offers 2, Haunted One only offers you 2 of a selection of 4.
To the OP, I wouldn't worry about the rogue level until later. You'll be giving up a skill proficiency by waiting to later and you'll have to pick up a thieves tools instead of getting it outright. However, strength and constitution saves will be better than dex and intelligence saves, since you'll get advantage on many dex saves from Barb 2. The sneak attack damage will only be 1d6 which is an average of 3.5 damage. You'll have to drop to 1d6 or 1d8 weapons to trigger it. That means that you are replacing your big weapon with a smaller weapon and a sneak attack. 1d8+1d6+strength mod or 1d6 +1d6+strength mod+1d6 (+strength mod if you go two weapon fighting style. That's 4.5+3.5+3 =11 damage with a rapier or 3.5×3+3=13.5 dual wielding shortswords or scimitars (16.5 with TWFS). A 2d6 weapon would be 10 damage and could combine with GWM to get a -5 +10 attack to go to 20 damage or get a bonus attack on a crit or an enemy brought to 0 for another 10-20. Once extra attack kicks in, the big weapons will apply the full damage 2d6 while you'll be limited to 1d8 or 1d6 from the smaller weapons. If you go PAM, you'll have 1d10+3=8.5 plus 1d4+3=5.5 for 14. Neither great weapon has included a fighting style, meaning that you can add another point or so on average from Great Weapon Fighting (Defensive Fighting Style only works with armor, meaning you'd have to go with medium armor to take advantage of it and rage, which would probably still be a net loss in AC). You could take Archery fighting style to give you a better ranged option than barbs get or if you want sword and board, dueling will start to outpace a maxed attack stat with a third attack that could come from a bonus action, but neither of those will be better damage for your main attacks (at least not for a while).
There are better ways to get skills and you can always take it later for expertise. Nothing is stopping you from being an effective face with a 16 charisma and proficiency in persuasion, intimidation, or deception. You can always come back to rogue later if you feel that you need the thieves tools and expertise.
Not sure why barbarian is needed. Ecko knight + arcane trickster is already a superb combination