On any D&D battlefield, the barbarian is a force to be reckoned with. The combination of brutal attacks, a deep well of hit points, and primordial rage can alter the course of a battle. But what if your barbarian also yearns to be a poet? Or wishes they were just a tad bit quicker on their feet? Or what if they find themselves agreeing to serve a dark patron in exchange for a couple of new abilities?

Today, we’re going to look at some of the ways you can enhance your barbarian by taking advantage of multiclassing to add a few levels of another class. Here are some of what we think are the best secondary class options for your barbarian multiclass, and why.

• Fighter
• Rogue
• Druid
• Paladin
• Bard
• Warlock

Multiclassing Requirements

Each class has prerequisite requirements for multiclassing into them. If you want to play a barbarian and multiclass as a bard, for example, you’d need to have 13 Charisma. The Multiclassing Prerequisites table found in the Basic Rules is a quick and easy guide to helping you prepare your ability scores for the multiclass you want to pursue.

Fighter

Artist: Caio Monteiro

Combine brute strength with formal training for a delightful martial combo.

Multiclass prerequisite: Strength or Dexterity 13

The appeal of combining the game's two toughest martial classes together is pretty high. For one thing, you’ll almost certainly have the prerequisite ability scores for the multiclass, but also, you won’t be taking a big hit to your hit point maximum by dropping from a barbarian’s d12 to a fighter’s d10 for a few levels. Flavor-wise, taking a few levels in fighter might reflect a character learning a few more formal styles of fighting as a supplement to the rough and tumble style they’ve been working on their whole life.

The first two levels of fighter are chock-full of class features that supplement a barbarian well. When it comes to Fighting Styles, Dueling, Great Weapon Fighting, or Two-Weapon Fighting will serve a barbarian best without conflicting with your core classes’ special requirements. Since Reckless Attack can often leave you open to extra damage, being able to heal a little with Second Wind could mean the difference between staying on your feet and falling flat on your face. And, last but not least, a well-timed Action Surge, when combined with some Rage bonuses and a Fighting Style, could make quick work of your enemies.

If you end up taking a third level of fighter, the Champion subclass is a simple but strong pairing, with the Improved Critical feature boosting your odds of landing a critical hit. That’s a pretty solid combo as you work your way into higher barbarian levels and get to add dice to critical hits via Brutal Critical. Echo Knight from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is also a worthy option since it offers maneuverability via a teleport effect and the ability to make additional melee attacks through your echo.

Rogue

A strong combatant who can avoid attacks swiftly.

Multiclass prerequisite: Dexterity 13

Light on your feet but tough with your weapons is a combo that can keep many enemies on their toes. It makes sense that an experienced warrior might learn to be a little more precise in their attacks, especially if other members of your adventuring party are rubbing off on them. Slipping into a few levels of rogue is a fairly easy move to make as a barbarian; you’ll likely already have put some points in Dexterity to boost your Armor Class (AC) with Unarmored Defense.

A single-level dip into rogue offers a skill proficiency and Expertise to boost what your barbarian can do out of combat. You'll also snag Sneak Attack (which we talk about below) and the fun roleplay tool Thieves' Cant.

Sneak Attack, the feather in the rogue’s cap, is the early rogue feature that might not be as useful for a barbarian. Due to weapon requirements on Sneak Attack, you’ll likely find that you’ll do more damage utilizing heavy Strength-based weapons that have higher damage dice. But, if you’re playing a Path of the Zealot barbarian, you can add 1d6 + half your barbarian level to the first creature you hit on your turn using Divine Fury. The combination of a Rage attack, with Sneak Attack damage, made possible by Reckless Attack, and striking with Divine Fury could certainly deal a lot of damage in one swipe.

The real hero of the barbarian-rogue multiclass, though, is Cunning Action, at 2nd level. By dipping five levels into barbarian and two levels into rogue, you can take two attacks on your turn, with the possibility of extra Rage damage, then Disengage as a bonus action to move away. This combo comes in handy after you’ve used Reckless Attack. You can move away without prompting an opportunity attack, making it harder for enemies to strike back at you with advantage.

Most likely, you won’t put much more than two levels into rogue, but if you do end up going with three, the Swashbuckler subclass is the strongest pairing with barbarian, because Fancy Footwork lets you avoid opportunity attacks without spending your bonus action, allowing you to use Cunning Action to dash away to avoid reprisals on a Reckless Attack. In addition, Rakish Audacity offers a potential bonus to your initiative roll, which is useful for a martial character. Swashbuckler also makes it easier to trigger Sneak Attack when you're in a one-on-one fight, a situation that you might often find yourself in if you’re the party tank.

Druid

Become the epitome of a wild animal.

Multiclass prerequisite: Wisdom 13

A barbarian-druid multiclass is a pairing that takes at least two levels of investment to pay off. At your first druid level, you get access to a few healing and utility spells, and you get to speak Druidic so, well done there. But your second druid level is where you’ll gain access to Wild Shape, opening up the possibility of turning into a beast with rage issues, which is the appeal of this combo.

Since you do get your Druid Circle at 2nd level, the subclass selection is going to be the key here in this pairing. Circle of the Moon is your best bet if you want to pair Rage with Wild Shape, as you get access to CR 1 beasts as a 2nd-level Circle of the Moon druid. By raging before or after entering Wild Shape, you’ll gain all the benefits of Rage, combined with the attack abilities of the beast you transformed into. You'll also get access to the bonus hit point pool granted by the Wild Shape, which, combined with your damage resistances from Rage, can turn you into a big old bag of hit points. Because Circle of the Moon grants Wild Shape access as a bonus action, you don’t have to risk losing your Rage by using Wild Shape in place of dealing damage. You’ll just need to plan out your moves, deciding which round you want to use Rage and which round you want to use Wild Shape.

Barbarian First, Spellcaster Second

When multiclassing into a spellcasting class as a barbarian, it's good to keep in mind that your spells will often be reserved for out-of-combat use. Consider choosing spells that benefit you or your party outside of combat, such as comprehend languages, disguise self, enhance ability, pass without trace, and speak with animals.

Paladin

Artist: Aaron Miller

What’s more intimidating than a barbarian who takes up a cause?

Multiclass prerequisite: Strength 13 and Charisma 13

Spellcasting and barbarians often don’t mix as well as we want them to because we’re often faced with the choice of using a spell or maintaining Rage. A barbarian-paladin multiclass, however, can make pretty good use of Divine Smite to add 2d8 of radiant damage to their already powerful attacks. Though this feature uses a spell slot, it’s activated on a melee attack and not through spellcasting.

Adding a paladin multiclass to your barbarian carries with it several of the same benefits as a fighter dip. You can snag either Dueling or Great Weapon Fighting from the Fighting Style list. Either one will mesh well with a barbarian’s fighting abilities. Also, similar to the fighter, you’ll still stay pretty close in hit points with a d10 Hit Die.

If you take enough paladin levels to choose a subclass, the Oath of Conquest adds armor of Agathys to your spell list, adding temporary hit points and doing cold damage to creatures who hit you in melee while you have them. Since this is not a concentration spell, you can cast it before going into Rage, giving yourself the benefit without the spellcasting conflict. This Oath also lets you use your Channel Divinity to add a +10 bonus to an attack roll using Guided Strike, and I’ve never met a barbarian who didn’t want a bigger chance to score a hit.

For reasons why a barbarian might become a paladin, perhaps they chose to take an oath out of a desire to atone for their past. Or they may wish to work in service of a deity that’s become significant in the adventure.

Bard

Sing the tales of your own glory.

Multiclass prerequisite: Charisma 13

Of all the full caster classes to multiclass into, the bard has some of the most non-spell-specific options to sweeten the pot. Being able to toss your party members a few d6 of Bardic Inspiration never hurt anyone, and being able to add a d6 to everyone’s Hit Dice pool during a short rest is a nice little buff as well. But where the bard shines in a barbarian-bard multiclass, or any multiclass, is Jack of All Trades, which can boost all of your skills by at least half of your proficiency bonus. Jack of All Trades is a feature that scales as you level up even if you don’t take any more bard levels, so if you’re someone who plans to make a lot of ability checks, that’s worth the multiclass alone.

The bard spell list is a good smorgasbord of magic options for a character who won’t be casting as a primary function in combat. You’ve got a few healing spells to supplement other support characters in the party, and you’ve got a few powerful 1st-level spells for dealing damage, like dissonant whispers and thunderwave to fall back on for causing some decent damage when you’ve got no uses of Rage left.

As far as subclasses go, College of Swords fits well with a barbarian, because of the benefit of complementary Fighting Styles and because the Blade Flourish options can boost your damage or AC or push an enemy away so you don’t need to Disengage to avoid a counterattack. College of Eloquence also provides some excellent offbeat boosts for the barbarian-bard. Silver Tongue lets you turn a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10 on Charisma (Persuasion) or Charisma (Deception) checks which could turn your barbarian into the party’s face.

Warlock

Artist: Nikki Dawes

Make a deal and deal more damage.

Multiclass prerequisite: Charisma 13

The warlock class works well as a dip. Narratively, your character could be forced into a pact during their adventures. Mechanically, the appeal of the warlock is that you gain the features of your subclass at 1st level, including a 1st-level spell slot which replenishes after a short or long rest. This spell slot could be reserved for armor of Agathys to protect your hit points and get an extra source of damage. If you're dipping into warlock, you may as well snag the eldritch blast cantrip to give yourself an ammo-free ranged weapon that scales as you level up.

For a barbarian-warlock multiclass, two subclass options will give you a nice boost of damage for the cost of a single-level dip: The Genie and The Hexblade. Both have a subclass feature at the first warlock level that allows you to add your proficiency bonus to your damage rolls. With The Genie, you can use the Genie’s Wrath feature once per turn, with the bonus damage dependent on your patron. For the Hexblade, you can use Hexblade’s Curse once per short or long rest on a specific target; on top of dealing extra damage to that target, you score a critical hit on a 19 or 20 against them, and you regain hit points when they die.

Start Crafting Your Barbarian

The best way to truly get a sense of how a multiclass is going to come together is to play around with combos yourself. Head over to our character builder and create a barbarian, or start with one of our premade character options. Once you have your barbarian set up how you want them, start experimenting with adding different levels of other classes on the management page to see what features complement each other.

Remember, the truly best multiclass option for a barbarian is the one you have the most fun with!

Riley Silverman (@rileyjsilverman) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond, Nerdist, and SYFY Wire. She DMs the Theros-set Dice Ex Machina for the Saving Throw Show, and has been a player on the Wizards of the Coast-sponsored The Broken Pact. Riley also played as Braga in the official tabletop adaptation of the Rat Queens comic for HyperRPG, and currently plays as The Doctor on the Doctor Who RPG podcast The Game of Rassilon. She currently lives in Los Angeles.