Eldritch Knight with Sentinel (and possibly Warcaster) feat, Booming Blade, hold person (great synergy with Sentinel - cast on your turn, but locking down one enemy whilst moving into melee range and using your opportunity attack to Sentinel another), protection from evil and good, shield, blur if you feel like it, and defence fighting style makes for a very strong tank, especially if you're playing a module like Curse of Strahd where Prot Good and Evil works on basically everything. Depending on how much you want AC over damage is then up to you, and there's no reason you can't carry around a Halberd (for reach) as well as a Battleaxe and Shield for when you want the AC. Plate+shield+defence+Shield+[/spell]protection from evil and good[/spell] is somewhat like having AC31 by 7th level, and if the enemy ignores you so you don't have to burn spell slots on shield you can use your Hold Person to even more potent effect. Ignore the EK at your peril!
Warding Wind can also help in deflecting damage from your party or if you get up in the enemy's face you can slow them down.
This would also work really well with a vengeance paladin as they get most of these spells if you take magic initiate for shield + booming blade, and they get all their single target abilities. Add on the flying speed at level 20 and no one can escape.
Dex Barb is pretty hard to stop. All the average tankiness of a barb + High AC and strong dex saving throws for aoe spells.
If you miss damage, go 4 levels of barb and then the rest rogue. You'll still have high AC, a decent amount of hit points, 3 rages... but you'll also pick up things like uncanny dodge, bonus action dash, sneak attack, expertise in athletics for better athletics checks than a strength based barb, and you'll be one level away from evasion, meaning you'll basically never take damage from a dex save again with danger sense.
Also, you could sacrifice a few points worth of accuracy to use reckless attack to proc sneak attacks using strength, if you do not otherwise have the requirements fulfilled.
Zealot barb will give you some more damage, and Warrior of the Gods can be useful if you have a party member who can cast Raise Dead.
Otherwise, Totem Bear is pretty good for damage resistance. And Ancestral guardians is kind of broken when you have 20 AC, rage, and uncanny dodge while giving the target disadvantage on attacks against anyone buy you.
Dex Barb is pretty hard to stop. All the average tankiness of a barb + High AC and strong dex saving throws for aoe spells.
If you miss damage, go 4 levels of barb and then the rest rogue. You'll still have high AC, a decent amount of hit points, 3 rages... but you'll also pick up things like uncanny dodge, bonus action dash, sneak attack, expertise in athletics for better athletics checks than a strength based barb, and you'll be one level away from evasion, meaning you'll basically never take damage from a dex save again with danger sense.
Also, you could sacrifice a few points worth of accuracy to use reckless attack to proc sneak attacks using strength, if you do not otherwise have the requirements fulfilled.
Zealot barb will give you some more damage, and Warrior of the Gods can be useful if you have a party member who can cast Raise Dead.
Otherwise, Totem Bear is pretty good for damage resistance. And Ancestral guardians is kind of broken when you have 20 AC, rage, and uncanny dodge while giving the target disadvantage on attacks against anyone buy you.
A dexterity ancestral guardian is interesting since it synergizes with the Ancestral Protectors feature. The ancestral protectors feature states that it takes affect once per turn if you hit with an attack, but doesn’t limit what type of attack needs to be used or a distance limitation. This means a raging ancestral guardian who lands an attack with a ranged weapon like a longbow would still apply the effect.
Dex Barb is pretty hard to stop. All the average tankiness of a barb + High AC and strong dex saving throws for aoe spells.
If you miss damage, go 4 levels of barb and then the rest rogue. You'll still have high AC, a decent amount of hit points, 3 rages... but you'll also pick up things like uncanny dodge, bonus action dash, sneak attack, expertise in athletics for better athletics checks than a strength based barb, and you'll be one level away from evasion, meaning you'll basically never take damage from a dex save again with danger sense.
Also, you could sacrifice a few points worth of accuracy to use reckless attack to proc sneak attacks using strength, if you do not otherwise have the requirements fulfilled.
Zealot barb will give you some more damage, and Warrior of the Gods can be useful if you have a party member who can cast Raise Dead.
Otherwise, Totem Bear is pretty good for damage resistance. And Ancestral guardians is kind of broken when you have 20 AC, rage, and uncanny dodge while giving the target disadvantage on attacks against anyone buy you.
For a Dex Barb, how do you get around losing the bonus damage on attack rolls from Rage and your lack of Reckless Attack? Since the barbarian is dealing a lot lower damage than a Strength based barbarian, its tanking ability is significantly reduced - the tank needs to either immobilise targets or deal strong damage to keep targets engaged so how do you get enemies to focus on you? Sure, you get Rage like all barbarians, but apart from a slightly better Dexterity saving throw I can't see how this can be beneficial, and enemies can ignore the barbarian and run past them to go for the squishies. Am I missing something about how a Dex Barbarian can function that overcomes this?
Also Dex barb may be able to impose DIS on a single creature but if you are far away you do not really provide a barrier for multiple creatures. So its good for big bag single creature fights....but those are also the easiest fights for parties already IMO as the action economy is in your favor.
As a DM I rarely have a fight with one single big bad....I have minons and what not to swarm.
This is where a STR barb will be better as they are more likely to be able to take out a minion after hitting the big bad or at least being a physical barrier to the backline.
The build is an ancestrial barb/moon druid. You can wildshape as an action becoming a Dire Wolf then BA rage. A dire wolf has 37 hp which with rage resistances will likely be more like 74 HP. Once they get through your wildshape HP they then have to get through 98 druid hit points (while still raging) so another 198 effective HP thanks to resistance. That is 270 they have to burn through to get you to 0. You can then simply wildshape again when low on HP to regain 74 effective THP again.
2. Damage mitigation
As mentioned for the ancestral barb before you can impose DIV on the first creature you hit. This helps mitigate damage from your friends to you. I also have Sentinel on this build so that once you get next to a creature you can lock it down in one area. You can also Conjure Animals and put a line of wolves between the backline and the minion swarm/big bad. They then have to take several AoO to even get to the backline folks.
3. Debuffs
Druid spell list lets you cast some area control/debuffs before you wildshape if you want and with the CON save prof. you will have an easy time keeping the spells up even when you wild shape. Granted you cannot hold concentration and rage but this gives you options beyond just pure meat. Also as a dire wolf with extra attack you can bite twice and get two free attempts to prone the target which holds them in place even more.
Dex Barb is pretty hard to stop. All the average tankiness of a barb + High AC and strong dex saving throws for aoe spells.
If you miss damage, go 4 levels of barb and then the rest rogue. You'll still have high AC, a decent amount of hit points, 3 rages... but you'll also pick up things like uncanny dodge, bonus action dash, sneak attack, expertise in athletics for better athletics checks than a strength based barb, and you'll be one level away from evasion, meaning you'll basically never take damage from a dex save again with danger sense.
Also, you could sacrifice a few points worth of accuracy to use reckless attack to proc sneak attacks using strength, if you do not otherwise have the requirements fulfilled.
Zealot barb will give you some more damage, and Warrior of the Gods can be useful if you have a party member who can cast Raise Dead.
Otherwise, Totem Bear is pretty good for damage resistance. And Ancestral guardians is kind of broken when you have 20 AC, rage, and uncanny dodge while giving the target disadvantage on attacks against anyone buy you.
For a Dex Barb, how do you get around losing the bonus damage on attack rolls from Rage and your lack of Reckless Attack? Since the barbarian is dealing a lot lower damage than a Strength based barbarian, its tanking ability is significantly reduced - the tank needs to either immobilise targets or deal strong damage to keep targets engaged so how do you get enemies to focus on you? Sure, you get Rage like all barbarians, but apart from a slightly better Dexterity saving throw I can't see how this can be beneficial, and enemies can ignore the barbarian and run past them to go for the squishies. Am I missing something about how a Dex Barbarian can function that overcomes this?
90% of my comment dealt with how one could multiclass into rogue for more damage pretty successfully.
As for immobilizing targets, I am a bit confused by that role for a tank. Sure, death is the best status effect to inflict on an enemy, but that is about the only specific immobilizing feature for a barbarian. If the enemy is going to run past you, you can take a reaction attack; that is it though. There isn't really any barbarian with a feature that would just block a bunch of enemies like a taunt mechanic in a video game.
If shutting down one enemy from attacking your allies to focus on others isn't enough, you can just go zealot barbarian for damage and mastermind rogue to spam the ranged help action for your friends. That will increase the entire team's damage output.
And the point of a dex barb is heavy armor levels of AC, not just a better dex saving throw. I thought that would be obvious.
Dex Barb is pretty hard to stop. All the average tankiness of a barb + High AC and strong dex saving throws for aoe spells.
If you miss damage, go 4 levels of barb and then the rest rogue. You'll still have high AC, a decent amount of hit points, 3 rages... but you'll also pick up things like uncanny dodge, bonus action dash, sneak attack, expertise in athletics for better athletics checks than a strength based barb, and you'll be one level away from evasion, meaning you'll basically never take damage from a dex save again with danger sense.
Also, you could sacrifice a few points worth of accuracy to use reckless attack to proc sneak attacks using strength, if you do not otherwise have the requirements fulfilled.
Zealot barb will give you some more damage, and Warrior of the Gods can be useful if you have a party member who can cast Raise Dead.
Otherwise, Totem Bear is pretty good for damage resistance. And Ancestral guardians is kind of broken when you have 20 AC, rage, and uncanny dodge while giving the target disadvantage on attacks against anyone buy you.
A dexterity ancestral guardian is interesting since it synergizes with the Ancestral Protectors feature. The ancestral protectors feature states that it takes affect once per turn if you hit with an attack, but doesn’t limit what type of attack needs to be used or a distance limitation. This means a raging ancestral guardian who lands an attack with a ranged weapon like a longbow would still apply the effect.
I had not considered that interaction, and now my disappointment with the Arcane Archer has grown a bit lol.
But also, you could combine this with a thrown dagger or dart and reckless attack to still proc sneak attack.
Edit: it would be a very good strategy for a barb/rogue to run up and engage the enemy, let one pass by to the rest of the party, and keep nailing it with a thrown dagger each turn so it is fighting everyone else at disadvantage.
I think a real strength of the ancestral guardian is to be able potentially make more use of the entire party’s hitpoints and AC. Limiting an ancestral guardians play to melee range frankly doesn’t seem much different than playing a barbarian with no subclass features. Imposing disadvantage/resistance on a single dangerous creatures attacks to funnel attacks toward the barbarian doesn’t seem to change the outcome of most encounters anymore than a standard barbarian choosing to attack recklessly. Seems to me that the majority of the time I’ve played with barbarians, they definitely get targeted quite a bit and go down often.
Having an ancestral guardian with ranged or reach options , which are available using strength or dexterity, allows for the party to more effectively select who might need to tank when necessary.
This depends quite a bit on party composition and encounter variables, but ancestral guardian can really open up battlefield options. Let’s say the big bad creature runs past you to attack a squishy, the squishy defense is still quite high against that onslaught on attacks. And on the squishes turn, they may opt to chance an attack of opportunity since the likelihood of a hit is diminished and the damage is also reduced. For a caster this may conserve a misty step use, the spell-slot to use it, and keep their action casting for leveled spells. There are probably many more examples of how this might transform an encounter.
I'll have to disagree but sounds like the stretch strategy works for you so that's good.
Alright so you disagree.
what benefit does a ancestral guardian bring to the party if the creature attacks the barbarian?
It will want to anyway because it doesn't have DIS to do so.
Or better yet you reckless and give them ADV making you even more appealing.
Also the Barb can take the hit better than anyone.... Why not let the d12 hit dice, high AC (yes barbs can use shields), b/p/s resistance guy take the hit?
I'll have to disagree but sounds like the stretch strategy works for you so that's good.
Alright so you disagree.
what benefit does a ancestral guardian bring to the party if the creature attacks the barbarian?
It will want to anyway because it doesn't have DIS to do so.
Or better yet you reckless and give them ADV making you even more appealing.
Also the Barb can take the hit better than anyone.... Why not let the d12 hit dice, high AC (yes barbs can use shields), b/p/s resistance guy take the hit?
Exactly. And a dex barb can have 20 AC pretty early in the campaign with a shield. They could even consider taking the defensive duelist feat to be brokenly hard to kill.
I'll have to disagree but sounds like the stretch strategy works for you so that's good.
Alright so you disagree.
what benefit does a ancestral guardian bring to the party if the creature attacks the barbarian?
It will want to anyway because it doesn't have DIS to do so.
Or better yet you reckless and give them ADV making you even more appealing.
Also the Barb can take the hit better than anyone.... Why not let the d12 hit dice, high AC (yes barbs can use shields), b/p/s resistance guy take the hit?
Those examples highlight my point. If the creature attacks you, you’re not actually using any of your subclass features.
The damage reduction you grant your party with with the disadvantage combined with resistance to ALL damage types makes your party more tanky than you.
the damage reduction reaction only effects other creatures, and it’s effect is more pronounced when you’re reducing damage that has already been resisted. An ancestral guardian with half plate and a shield for 19 AC actually takes more damage from its target than a caster with 15AC from mage armor and 14 Dex. This is interesting as it’s probably the lowest AC comparison most players will come across, and that means that other characters will be even better.
that’s not even taking into account various elemental damage riders that can happen often that bypasses the barbarians base resistances.
I'll have to disagree but sounds like the stretch strategy works for you so that's good.
Alright so you disagree.
what benefit does a ancestral guardian bring to the party if the creature attacks the barbarian?
It will want to anyway because it doesn't have DIS to do so.
Or better yet you reckless and give them ADV making you even more appealing.
Also the Barb can take the hit better than anyone.... Why not let the d12 hit dice, high AC (yes barbs can use shields), b/p/s resistance guy take the hit?
Exactly. And a dex barb can have 20 AC pretty early in the campaign with a shield. They could even consider taking the defensive duelist feat to be brokenly hard to kill.
STR would likely have 1 less AC (Half plate + shield = 19 AC)
And you would do a ton more damage with STR so honestly I wouldn't do DEX myself but glad it works for you.
I'll have to disagree but sounds like the stretch strategy works for you so that's good.
Alright so you disagree.
what benefit does a ancestral guardian bring to the party if the creature attacks the barbarian?
It will want to anyway because it doesn't have DIS to do so.
Or better yet you reckless and give them ADV making you even more appealing.
Also the Barb can take the hit better than anyone.... Why not let the d12 hit dice, high AC (yes barbs can use shields), b/p/s resistance guy take the hit?
Those examples highlight my point. If the creature attacks you, you’re not actually using any of your subclass features.
The damage reduction you grant your party with with the disadvantage combined with resistance to ALL damage types makes your party more tanky than you.
the damage reduction reaction only effects other creatures, and it’s effect is more pronounced when you’re reducing damage that has already been resisted. An ancestral guardian with half plate and a shield for 19 AC actually takes more damage from its target than a caster with 15AC from mage armor and 14 Dex. This is interesting as it’s probably the lowest AC comparison most players will come across, and that means that other characters will be even better.
that’s not even taking into account various elemental damage riders that can happen often that bypasses the barbarians base resistances.
You are tho because you drove the attack to you by making yourself the easier target.
They are actively hindered from attacking the others but you present yourself on a plate.
I'll have to disagree but sounds like the stretch strategy works for you so that's good.
Alright so you disagree.
what benefit does a ancestral guardian bring to the party if the creature attacks the barbarian?
It will want to anyway because it doesn't have DIS to do so.
Or better yet you reckless and give them ADV making you even more appealing.
Also the Barb can take the hit better than anyone.... Why not let the d12 hit dice, high AC (yes barbs can use shields), b/p/s resistance guy take the hit?
Those examples highlight my point. If the creature attacks you, you’re not actually using any of your subclass features.
The damage reduction you grant your party with with the disadvantage combined with resistance to ALL damage types makes your party more tanky than you.
the damage reduction reaction only effects other creatures, and it’s effect is more pronounced when you’re reducing damage that has already been resisted. An ancestral guardian with half plate and a shield for 19 AC actually takes more damage from its target than a caster with 15AC from mage armor and 14 Dex. This is interesting as it’s probably the lowest AC comparison most players will come across, and that means that other characters will be even better.
that’s not even taking into account various elemental damage riders that can happen often that bypasses the barbarians base resistances.
You are tho because you drove the attack to you by making yourself the easier target.
They are actively hindered from attacking the others but you present yourself on a plate.
Are you actually “driving” them to attack you if they were highly likely to attack you when you attack recklessly anyways?
I'll have to disagree but sounds like the stretch strategy works for you so that's good.
Alright so you disagree.
what benefit does a ancestral guardian bring to the party if the creature attacks the barbarian?
It will want to anyway because it doesn't have DIS to do so.
Or better yet you reckless and give them ADV making you even more appealing.
Also the Barb can take the hit better than anyone.... Why not let the d12 hit dice, high AC (yes barbs can use shields), b/p/s resistance guy take the hit?
Those examples highlight my point. If the creature attacks you, you’re not actually using any of your subclass features.
The damage reduction you grant your party with with the disadvantage combined with resistance to ALL damage types makes your party more tanky than you.
the damage reduction reaction only effects other creatures, and it’s effect is more pronounced when you’re reducing damage that has already been resisted. An ancestral guardian with half plate and a shield for 19 AC actually takes more damage from its target than a caster with 15AC from mage armor and 14 Dex. This is interesting as it’s probably the lowest AC comparison most players will come across, and that means that other characters will be even better.
that’s not even taking into account various elemental damage riders that can happen often that bypasses the barbarians base resistances.
You are tho because you drove the attack to you by making yourself the easier target.
They are actively hindered from attacking the others but you present yourself on a plate.
Are you actually “driving” them to attack you if they were highly likely to attack you when you attack recklessly anyways?
Yeah it's synergy with the base barb features is my point.
Dex sounds like fun but I did see a STR ancestors barb in action for 40 sessions or so and it did phenomenal at tanking.
Both probably work well I guess.
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Play a character with 20 DEX, CON, and INT.
Take 3 levels barbarian (totem warrior, bear totem).
Take 3 levels wizard (bladesinger)
Wear no armor.
Your AC is 25 and you halve all non-psychic damage taken.
I've only really played one campaign and it had a lot of multiclassing
Eldritch Knight with Sentinel (and possibly Warcaster) feat, Booming Blade, hold person (great synergy with Sentinel - cast on your turn, but locking down one enemy whilst moving into melee range and using your opportunity attack to Sentinel another), protection from evil and good, shield, blur if you feel like it, and defence fighting style makes for a very strong tank, especially if you're playing a module like Curse of Strahd where Prot Good and Evil works on basically everything. Depending on how much you want AC over damage is then up to you, and there's no reason you can't carry around a Halberd (for reach) as well as a Battleaxe and Shield for when you want the AC. Plate+shield+defence+Shield+[/spell]protection from evil and good[/spell] is somewhat like having AC31 by 7th level, and if the enemy ignores you so you don't have to burn spell slots on shield you can use your Hold Person to even more potent effect. Ignore the EK at your peril!
Warding Wind can also help in deflecting damage from your party or if you get up in the enemy's face you can slow them down.
This would also work really well with a vengeance paladin as they get most of these spells if you take magic initiate for shield + booming blade, and they get all their single target abilities. Add on the flying speed at level 20 and no one can escape.
Dex Barb is pretty hard to stop. All the average tankiness of a barb + High AC and strong dex saving throws for aoe spells.
If you miss damage, go 4 levels of barb and then the rest rogue. You'll still have high AC, a decent amount of hit points, 3 rages... but you'll also pick up things like uncanny dodge, bonus action dash, sneak attack, expertise in athletics for better athletics checks than a strength based barb, and you'll be one level away from evasion, meaning you'll basically never take damage from a dex save again with danger sense.
Also, you could sacrifice a few points worth of accuracy to use reckless attack to proc sneak attacks using strength, if you do not otherwise have the requirements fulfilled.
Zealot barb will give you some more damage, and Warrior of the Gods can be useful if you have a party member who can cast Raise Dead.
Otherwise, Totem Bear is pretty good for damage resistance. And Ancestral guardians is kind of broken when you have 20 AC, rage, and uncanny dodge while giving the target disadvantage on attacks against anyone buy you.
A dexterity ancestral guardian is interesting since it synergizes with the Ancestral Protectors feature. The ancestral protectors feature states that it takes affect once per turn if you hit with an attack, but doesn’t limit what type of attack needs to be used or a distance limitation. This means a raging ancestral guardian who lands an attack with a ranged weapon like a longbow would still apply the effect.
For a Dex Barb, how do you get around losing the bonus damage on attack rolls from Rage and your lack of Reckless Attack? Since the barbarian is dealing a lot lower damage than a Strength based barbarian, its tanking ability is significantly reduced - the tank needs to either immobilise targets or deal strong damage to keep targets engaged so how do you get enemies to focus on you? Sure, you get Rage like all barbarians, but apart from a slightly better Dexterity saving throw I can't see how this can be beneficial, and enemies can ignore the barbarian and run past them to go for the squishies. Am I missing something about how a Dex Barbarian can function that overcomes this?
Also Dex barb may be able to impose DIS on a single creature but if you are far away you do not really provide a barrier for multiple creatures. So its good for big bag single creature fights....but those are also the easiest fights for parties already IMO as the action economy is in your favor.
As a DM I rarely have a fight with one single big bad....I have minons and what not to swarm.
This is where a STR barb will be better as they are more likely to be able to take out a minion after hitting the big bad or at least being a physical barrier to the backline.
My build for consideration:
https://ddb.ac/characters/57065715/jm5n5B
Why is it a good tank:
1. Meaty
The build is an ancestrial barb/moon druid. You can wildshape as an action becoming a Dire Wolf then BA rage. A dire wolf has 37 hp which with rage resistances will likely be more like 74 HP. Once they get through your wildshape HP they then have to get through 98 druid hit points (while still raging) so another 198 effective HP thanks to resistance. That is 270 they have to burn through to get you to 0. You can then simply wildshape again when low on HP to regain 74 effective THP again.
2. Damage mitigation
As mentioned for the ancestral barb before you can impose DIV on the first creature you hit. This helps mitigate damage from your friends to you. I also have Sentinel on this build so that once you get next to a creature you can lock it down in one area. You can also Conjure Animals and put a line of wolves between the backline and the minion swarm/big bad. They then have to take several AoO to even get to the backline folks.
3. Debuffs
Druid spell list lets you cast some area control/debuffs before you wildshape if you want and with the CON save prof. you will have an easy time keeping the spells up even when you wild shape. Granted you cannot hold concentration and rage but this gives you options beyond just pure meat. Also as a dire wolf with extra attack you can bite twice and get two free attempts to prone the target which holds them in place even more.
90% of my comment dealt with how one could multiclass into rogue for more damage pretty successfully.
As for immobilizing targets, I am a bit confused by that role for a tank. Sure, death is the best status effect to inflict on an enemy, but that is about the only specific immobilizing feature for a barbarian. If the enemy is going to run past you, you can take a reaction attack; that is it though. There isn't really any barbarian with a feature that would just block a bunch of enemies like a taunt mechanic in a video game.
If shutting down one enemy from attacking your allies to focus on others isn't enough, you can just go zealot barbarian for damage and mastermind rogue to spam the ranged help action for your friends. That will increase the entire team's damage output.
And the point of a dex barb is heavy armor levels of AC, not just a better dex saving throw. I thought that would be obvious.
I had not considered that interaction, and now my disappointment with the Arcane Archer has grown a bit lol.
But also, you could combine this with a thrown dagger or dart and reckless attack to still proc sneak attack.
Edit: it would be a very good strategy for a barb/rogue to run up and engage the enemy, let one pass by to the rest of the party, and keep nailing it with a thrown dagger each turn so it is fighting everyone else at disadvantage.
I think a real strength of the ancestral guardian is to be able potentially make more use of the entire party’s hitpoints and AC. Limiting an ancestral guardians play to melee range frankly doesn’t seem much different than playing a barbarian with no subclass features. Imposing disadvantage/resistance on a single dangerous creatures attacks to funnel attacks toward the barbarian doesn’t seem to change the outcome of most encounters anymore than a standard barbarian choosing to attack recklessly. Seems to me that the majority of the time I’ve played with barbarians, they definitely get targeted quite a bit and go down often.
Having an ancestral guardian with ranged or reach options , which are available using strength or dexterity, allows for the party to more effectively select who might need to tank when necessary.
This depends quite a bit on party composition and encounter variables, but ancestral guardian can really open up battlefield options. Let’s say the big bad creature runs past you to attack a squishy, the squishy defense is still quite high against that onslaught on attacks. And on the squishes turn, they may opt to chance an attack of opportunity since the likelihood of a hit is diminished and the damage is also reduced. For a caster this may conserve a misty step use, the spell-slot to use it, and keep their action casting for leveled spells. There are probably many more examples of how this might transform an encounter.
I'll have to disagree but sounds like the stretch strategy works for you so that's good.
Alright so you disagree.
what benefit does a ancestral guardian bring to the party if the creature attacks the barbarian?
It will want to anyway because it doesn't have DIS to do so.
Or better yet you reckless and give them ADV making you even more appealing.
Also the Barb can take the hit better than anyone.... Why not let the d12 hit dice, high AC (yes barbs can use shields), b/p/s resistance guy take the hit?
Exactly. And a dex barb can have 20 AC pretty early in the campaign with a shield. They could even consider taking the defensive duelist feat to be brokenly hard to kill.
Those examples highlight my point. If the creature attacks you, you’re not actually using any of your subclass features.
The damage reduction you grant your party with with the disadvantage combined with resistance to ALL damage types makes your party more tanky than you.
the damage reduction reaction only effects other creatures, and it’s effect is more pronounced when you’re reducing damage that has already been resisted. An ancestral guardian with half plate and a shield for 19 AC actually takes more damage from its target than a caster with 15AC from mage armor and 14 Dex. This is interesting as it’s probably the lowest AC comparison most players will come across, and that means that other characters will be even better.
that’s not even taking into account various elemental damage riders that can happen often that bypasses the barbarians base resistances.
STR would likely have 1 less AC (Half plate + shield = 19 AC)
And you would do a ton more damage with STR so honestly I wouldn't do DEX myself but glad it works for you.
You are tho because you drove the attack to you by making yourself the easier target.
They are actively hindered from attacking the others but you present yourself on a plate.
Are you actually “driving” them to attack you if they were highly likely to attack you when you attack recklessly anyways?
Yeah it's synergy with the base barb features is my point.
Dex sounds like fun but I did see a STR ancestors barb in action for 40 sessions or so and it did phenomenal at tanking.
Both probably work well I guess.