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Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons  > Character Builds  > Multi-Class Character Builds in Dungeons & Dragons 5e (The Barbarian)

Multi-Class Character Builds in Dungeons & Dragons 5e (The Barbarian)

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Optional Warforged Builds
Multi-Class Character Builds in Dungeons & Dragons 5e (The Bard)

Dungeons & DragonsHello fellow Nerdarchists, some of you might know me from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel, my name is Art Wood. I’ve been privileged enough to have been asked by the guys to write a few articles for you regarding multi-class character builds in Dungeons & Dragons 5e.

Now, I don’t claim to be an expert by any means, but I do know what’s worked for me as far as helping my friends build awesome characters and other players as well. I’m going to address this series by doing one article at a time focusing on each character class one by one as they appear in the Player’s Guide. I also want to point out I will not be focusing on character race or backgrounds, as I feel those are more for a “role-play” choice, however I do know that some races lend themselves to be a bit more potent with certain builds. Backgrounds however are mostly a player and role-play decision.

So, let’s get started with… The Barbarian

Now most of you know the typical barbarian as a sort of Conan type or the A-typical half-orc you meet in a tavern, dungeons & dragonsbut what makes the barbarian an opposing force on the battle field? In my humble opinion it is their ability to fly into a battle fueled rage and decimate their opponents. So, with this we’ll take a look at a few popular builds that not only enhance the rage and combat prowess of the barbarian, but also keep within the thematic feel of the class.

First well delve into the class feature of the classical berserker style barbarian. With this type of barbarian I feel the combat would lean towards the ability to dish out as much damage as possible, so for a multi-class option I think we can dip into two classes. The Fighter with its Champion archetype and the Ranger with its Hunter archetype. I know you may also want to include the Paladin for the ability to smite, but in all honesty it really doesn’t fit the barbarian’s style in my opinion however it could be argued and done.

Lets take a look at the Fighter/Champion first. I think with fighter/champion’s Improved Critical and the Barbarian Berserker’s Frenzy abilities you can take advantage of the fighter/champion’s Improved critical by only taking four levels into fighter and still retain most of your barbarian abilities. This would also give you the ability to gain a fighting style witch I recommend as taking the Two-Weapon Fighting along with the feat Dual Wielder . This allowing the barbarian to swing (while enraged) multiple times using their Frezy ability and having more of a chances to gain critical strikes. Thus making him or her a force to be reckoned with.

Next let’s take a look at the barbarian with levels in Ranger/Hunter archetype.

Here we find a barbarian who is more at home in his or hers’ natural environment.

He has learned to hate certain types of enemies and has honed their abilities to fight such enemies. Also the Ranger class allows the barbarian to be at home in a particular type of chosen environment, be it forests or even deserts. With this the barbarian also gains a fighting style of their choice. For this particular build I would go with Two-Weapon Fighter as well for the same reasons as before but with this you have a more consistent high damage output. Once you reach level three as a Ranger and take the Hunter variant you’ll want to take Colossus Slayer as your Hunter’s Prey that deals an additional 1d8 points of damage to any creature that is below their hit-point maximum. With three attacks from your rage and off-hand attack you will quickly destroy most enemies! The first attack dropping them below their HP max and one will deal the additional 1d8 damage plus your strength or dexterity modifier. These abilities will make your barbarian a force of nature for sure!

barbarianThe next type of barbarian is what most people now days refer to as the tank. I like to call them as a DM “the first ones to die” (just kidding).  Any way, these are barbarians who are notoriously hard to drop or kill and are my personal favorite to play.

The first build I want to cover is the strangest one by far in that it actually includes a class that isn’t normally thought of as “tanky” and that is the Sorcerer. Adding four levels of Sorcerer with the Draconic Bloodline feature and taking the rest in levels of the Totem Warrior Barbarian and selecting the totem of the bear can give you an exceptionally high armor class. The one thing to note about adding the Unarmored Defense and Draconic Resilience is the fact the 13 AC from the sorcerer isn’t a form of unarmored defense, so after you get the three point boost in armor class then you would add your constitution modifier and dexterity modifier to get your total armor class. Combine these with a shield and you can get around AC: 21 at level four on this character. Then factor in the rage ability of the bear totem you become not only hard to hit but can absorb damage pretty well also.

With the spell slots from the sorcerer you can also cast things like shield during the beginning of a fight to make attacks miss you and False Life to gain even more hit-points to drag the fight out even more. All in all I think this is a very unique way to play a tank-like barbarian. The spells themselves give the barbarian other ways to be effective without using rage.

The next build I want to shed some light on is the Totem Barbarian again mixed with levels of the Circle of the Moon Druid. This is particularly interesting in that the shape-shifting ability allows the rage abilities from the barbarian to still function, and gaining the massive beast hit-point pool allows the barbarian to stay in the fight as well as spending spell slots to heal in a fight keeps them in the fight for quite a long time in my own personally experience. I have both played and ran games with players who played this combination. The only drawback with this build is yes the druid beast forms do gain benefits from  the barbarian’s unarmored defense, but it still is lower on armor class than the sorcerer + barbarian build and as the famous Bruce Lee once said, “The best way to not get hurt in a fight is to not be there when the punch is thrown!”. In other words, DON’T get hit!

Feel free to comment and we can all discus this in the comment section below.

Well that’s all I have for you this week. Catch my second installment in the series next week where I’ll sing along with the Bard… So until next time… “Stay Nerdy!”                                                                                                                                                                 ~ Art Wood

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Art Wood

I'm a nerd from the days of OLD! Nuff Said!

5 Comments

  • Martin Manev
    October 27, 2015 at 12:51 am

    Barbarian's Unarmored Defense and sorcerer's Draconic Resilience do not stack together. Also , while raging, you cannot cast or concentrate on any spells. I don't think multiclassing into sorcerer works at all. The other suggestions seem plausible. While dual wielding gets the most out of the rage damage, so does using polearms with the Polearm Master feat.
    For spellcasting it's generally better to look for out of combat spells, because you won't be able to provide material or somatic components if you don't have a free hand, your spellcasting ability score won't be high enough and you'll probably be raging anyways.

  • Joshua Fyfe
    October 30, 2015 at 5:21 am

    I admire your approach to multiple classing in the way you look at the characteristics and pair them with imagery of the movement

  • Brian Lynn
    October 30, 2015 at 6:09 pm

    Martin is right based on RAW, which says on page 14 of the PHB, "Some spells and class features give you a different way to calculate your AC. If you have multiple features that give you different ways to calculate your AC, you choose which one to use." The same text is on Page 9 of the BasicRules_Playerv3.4_PF.pdf from Wizard's web-site.

  • David Friant
    November 11, 2015 at 9:06 pm

    We made that mistake pretty early on when we were covering the 5e classes. WOTC has done a pretty good job of avoiding the 3.x pit falls. Druid barbarian makes for an interesting combo, becuase the way wild shape interacts with the barb features.
    -Nerdarchist Dave

  • Dan Dannington
    May 24, 2016 at 9:28 pm

    Barbarian frenzy extra attack uses a bonus action, two weapon fighting also uses a bonus attack. i would suggest going with the great weapon fighting style over two weapon for a berzerker.

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