@@brettmajeske3525 sure - good call, though of course I sort of arbitrarily stop at 17 - were you to continue on you might get more out of the 15th level Rune Knight feature, for example.
@@DnDDeepDive I wasn't thinking of that. I know when a build stops matters. I enjoy Treantmonk, but sometimes his builds do not come online until too late to be useful.
Don’t take this as an insult because it isn’t. You could knock a lot of time off these videos if you just reduced the verbal pauses. I know it’s difficult and I don’t think reading a script is the best answer but trying to eliminate umm and uh and unnecessary uses of “and” will make it easier to follow you and reduce the time on these videos by a good bit
In Baldurs Gate III, there are a number of changes that have been made to both classes. Notably, the berserker subclass no longer gives you exhaustion. How do you think that influences the discussion? Is berserker strictly better than battle master now? Or do you think a multiclass (battle master 11 / berserker 3) is ideal? Ar least when the full game comes out, I would very much be interested in your opinion :)
At level 20 with a 3 level dip in assasin rogue you can solo an ancient dragon. This is because you have 7 attacks in round one all hit with crits if you go first.
Polearm master helps add more damage per ROUND. The reaction trigger is usually more of a reason to choose it like Sentinel getting to again have a reaction attack. The added attack in the character's turn is something GWM can give often, but likely not every round. So PAM adds more significantly to the damage per Round. Barbaians are better per encounter but taper off in the day since they also need lots of healing for all those hit points. Fighters have the armor so they take less hits.
Rage gives resistance to magical piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage too. Also zealot barbarians Divine fury feature is only applicable on your turn, not neither creatures turn. So it doesn’t happen on opportunity attacks or reaction attacks on another creatures turn. Also divine fury’s description doesn’t specify which attack you can put it on vs a creature, but that if it is used, it has to be against the first creature you hit on your turn. Weird but different than “the first time you hit a creature... once per your turn...” or “when you hit a creature you can... once per your turn”
Had a bear barbarian to level 8, which I know is no dip lol, and the rest of the way I went battle master fighter and oh my god. I'd do it again. So fun
I counted 96 UM's. You have improved so much from this episode! Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed this! BTW, I wrote this episode up in text format, if you want it Colby.
The weakness of this build is very clear: Ranged oponents and big maps. I played a build like that in a table where my DM would throw archers, fireball mages and flying enemies at us all the time. In tight spots and chokepoints it was really good tho.
Character concept: the debilitation Elf, elven accuracy feat, two weapon fighting, slasher feat, champion fighter, 1 level dip warlock genie Dao for proficiency bludgeon damage once on hit, crushed feat. Basic build comes online at level 7. fighter 6 for 2 feats for slasher/crusher and 1 level warlock for bludgeon if crit fishing. Not super damaging, but any regular round without advantage on attacks in combat has a 27% chance to “debilitate” 1 target. The creature has disadvantage with ALL attacks until your turn starts again. ALL attacks have advantage against the creature until the start of your turn. 46% chance if you have advantage on your attacks. Dex combines well with remarkable athlete, as they both improve initiative. +6 initiative at total level 8. Pretty great chance to debilitate a creature before it acts. Great Synergy as you get to do “respectable” damage while making another creature wildly ineffective in almost every way. Bypasses high AC, legendary resistance, and condition immunities. Gets substantially better with elven accuracy, another attack at fighter level 11, and another extended crit range at 15 fighter.
@@phantomzero2413 If I'm not mistaken, that would mean you would lose the rage damage. Since Rage needs the attack to use Strength. The extra damage wouldn't be a huge loss, especially since you would get the Hexblades's Curse, but still something to consider.
One of my current campaign characters is 3 Ancestral Guaridan, 9 Rune Knight. It is alot of fun. Love being a tank that can consistently do 100damge a round and still have lots of Utility. Great weapons master + Polearm master ftw.
Colby, I am astounded at how much better and smoother your later videos are over this one. The content of all your videos is exceptional, but your execution is so much more professional and smooth over this one (as an example). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this video a lot and watched it more than once!
Having played it for about 5 sessions now at levels 9 and 10 I can tell you... it's a little heady. "Ok, rolling a d4 for damage on that bonus action... I got a 3 so that's... 22 damage." :)
Nice, I'm playing a Tortle Barbarian and mixing in Fighter levels is gonna feel so good with action surge. I hope the changes to Rune Knight in Tasha's Cauldron are good, cuz I think its a perfect fit for a lot of Barbarians that want to be BIIIIG.
I’m starting my first campaign soon with some more experienced friends. I’ve been really enjoying learning more about DND, and this was a really enjoyable and interesting video! I hadn’t realized you could even combine Barbarian and Fighter classes, I was actually trying to learn about their differences so I could choose between them lol, but I am stoked to have learned all these cool combos you can do as the game continues. Thank you for the video!
So, one of my favorite builds is using a spear and shield on a minotaur with polearm master, and sentinel feats. What that allows me to do is make an opportunity attack of one enemy when they enter my reach to make them stand still, and then on my turn I can attack another creature to push them back with the hammering horns feature.
But the spear doesn't have reach so hitting them with polearm when they are 5 feet away I don't understand. Then when you go to attack another creature you might be giving up an opportunity attack on yourself.
Creating Quick Monster Stat - DMG pg. 274 The "vanilla" monsters in the Monster Manual have gotta be tuned up ;) CR 14 would be able to have CR 15 HP (295) "vanilla" Adult Black Dragon is avg. 195 ;) Always tune your monsters up, DMs :D
For a better overall performance (optimizing for our Offence: Damage and to hit, our Defense especially our HP and AC) I suggest the following changes (I have compiled vs different monsters): 1. Fighting style: defensive, since the +1AC makes your Fighter so much stronger on all future levels 2. Fight with Spear and Shield until you pick the GWM feat, since your Fighter can overcome bigger creature with +2AC for shield even with less damage per turn with a spear. 3. Pick +2 str on 4 lvl and wait with GWM. It is much better vs mid and higher AC monsters and we yet don't have enough "to hit" to pick GWM. We risk getting no advantage with our feat vs many monsters. The Yellow boxes in the Spreadsheet indicates also when GWL have literally no advantage over a +2 str. 4. Then progress like Fighter lvl 5, Barbar lvl 1, Fighter lvl 6 and take GWM and switch to Halbert, Fighter lvl 7, Barbar lvl 2, Barbar lvl 3, and rest in fighter. In my view you get a Fighter with slightly less early damage but much better survivability in the early levels and almost the same if not al little better after lvl 10.
Great build, an oldschool badass muscle character. When thinking about the perfect big guy, I always have dilemma between Fighter/Barb multiclass and Paladin with Champion dip.
@@TheRobversion1 Great subclass for sure, however, very "magical" also. Does not fit the classic fighter archetype like the Lord of The Rings or Dragonlance Characters. Sometimes when I want to be a big guy fighter/barb, I don't want any magical abilities other than cool magic sword :)
@@jakubkucharczyk5255 you could always reflavor the runes to make it non-magical. i had a party member who reflavored runes as extensions of chi so when he'd do an attack and activate a rune the rune symbols would float in the air much like special attacks in some japanese anime.
I just finished making a fightarian before looking at this build. I made an echo knight with an ancestral guardian dip. The reason this works is because reckless attack only gives advantage to hit me, not the echo. Ancestral guardian actually makes it so that the enemy I hit with advantage through the echo has disadvantage to attack the echo. I then took sentinel, so that the enemy can't just run from the echo to the real me, they have to try and attack it first with disadvantage, or take the sentinel opportunity attack from the echo and be stuck. It's not often you get to protect yourself using sentinel. The echo can be resummoned with a bonus action as many times as you want. Since my bonus action is being utilised already, and the echo doesn't work very well with polearms due to RAW, I opted to use a greatsword instead. With great weapon fighting affecting both D6's, it has a great average roll. You can also make extra attacks with the echo during your action, so at lvl14 you can hit 8 times with advantage in a single round using action surge(all with the rerolled 2d6 damage dice)
I'd push the envelope further here at tier 2+ and add gloomstalker 3 for dread ambusher. that's 8 attacks at tier 2. and 10 attacks once you hit echo 11, ancestral 3, gloomstalker 3.
@@TheRobversion1 might delay that 3rd attack from fighter a little late for my liking, but I could definitely look at investing in gloom stalker after fighter 11 to get that insane burst damage at lvl17
@@GrrumpyPants imo its theoretical it this point. it really depends on what levels your campaign is ending. I'd also prefer burst over sustained as that is also good defense (enemy is dead on round 1. no need to sustain or to worry about the enemy hurting your party). so levels wise: i think echo 5, barb 2 is the core. if i'm theorycrafting for level 10-12, i'm adding the 3 levels of gloomstalker in. if i'm theory crafting for level 13-15, i'm delaying gloomstalker and going for echo 11. then picking up ranger at 14.
@@TheRobversion1 I built this specifically for a campaign that's going to 20, so I think picking it up later will work best for me. Outside of that, I think the burst is already good enough that the cost every round afterwards would feel too punishing for the benefit you get out of rushing gloomstalker. At the end of the day this class is about creating a lose/lose situation with the echo, if we wanted to focus solely on burst I would probably not even bother with barbarian since gloomstalker already provides advantage on turn 1.
@@GrrumpyPants yup if you're theorycrafting for 20 then rushing to fighter 11 is best. the advantage generation of gloomstalkers are situational and more reliable at ranged. melee attackers (like echo knights) may have more situations that they aren't in shadows. i do agree though that i might drop barbarian and simply go with another advantage generator if i was gloomstalker for the times i won't be in shadows like picking up some sorc/metamagic adept for quicken spell so i can quicken fog cloud + blind fighting style.
I love this! Giving me some great ideas where to take my lv4 half-elf strength fighter! PS, love this channel. New to 5e but I played 1 session of AD&D years ago and ended up rolling up 100's of characters, even though never got to play them.
I would add another dip after fighter 11, to look like this: variant human, fighter 1-5, barbarian 1-3, fighter 6-11, ranger swarmkeeper 1-3 (for favored foe and some spells when you're out of rage, plus the extra d6 of the subclass feature and the defence fighting style, then your final levels are barb 4, ranger 4, and fighter 12. This gives you three ASIs to bump stats or round out your feats (Alert? Sentinel? Crusher/piercer/slasher?). Like you said, fighter doesn't give you much after level 11.
Another option is conquest paladin instead of ranger. Once per short rest you get a +10 to hit, so you can use great weapon master even on high AC enemies.
Barb to level 5 then three levels of rogue (thief) for the extra bonus action. Build is online faster 8th you are set, anything past the is icing all barbarian. You get more rages and the bonus action is up every fight no need for a rest like action surge. If you only have 1-2 combats a day yeah fighter with barb dip is better, but once you starting having 3+ or more combats that bonus action adds up it also gives alot more battle field choices moving engaging or extra bonus polearm attack.
For the primal path on level 3 barbarian, would you consider the bear totem instead of zealot? I never tried any of them, but wonder if the bear rage makes a huge difference to your survivability when with rage. Trading it with the extra 1d6 + 1 damage per round and resurrecting without needing the diamonds.
I had the same idea 🤔 to me it seems easier to make sure to be the last to fall rather than except others to resurrect me (hopefully once they dealt with the combat encounter without their main frontline beat down)
Tiny thing you will know anyway ^^ EAcc: "Whenever you have advantage on an attack roll using Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, you can reroll one of the dice once." No Strength there. So yea Hexblades are the only ones abusing this with PAM + GWM :) I like totem warrior for the B3F17 variant. but i overall prefer just 2 barb levels - due to getting the third attack earlier :)
An elven or half elven champion fighter/barbarian(maybe bear, but you can still with just 2 levels) is honestly one of the best sustained damage builds in the game. Reckless gives you super advantage with elven accuracy. Champion crits on a 19 or 20(later 18). With super advantage you have a very good chance to crit on every attack. Bear totem gets you the all important resistance to everything, so you neednt worry too much about opponents getting advantage on you. If your DM wants to give you a magic item just ask for something that grants resistance to psychic damage. And your sweet. You basically have the double the health you should be. Combine this with gwm+pwm to plough through the enemy lines.
This also gives me a build idea for you. How about a bare bones build? When you are only using the free version of Beyond. So no feats, only the basic sub classes... wonder what the best build you could make is! Restrictions breed creativity!
you don't need the barbarian deep, rune knight is just the best barbarian out there, just pick up the hill rune ar lv 7, you gain the resistances when in "rage" + poison resistance, and that is just one of the 3 runes you have at lv 7, and whit the size augment you use the oversize weapons, transforming that 1d10 of your Halberd to +1d10 on each size augment, that means at lv 18 you are doing 3d10 per attack + 1d10 on one attack per round, if one ally cast enlarge on you we're adding another 1d10 per attack + 1d4 from the enlarge, and i didn't even add the other 4 runes you have at lv 15, you realy don't need the barbarian deep, you are now dealing 4d10+1d4+strength per attack + great weapon master if you think you can hit + 1d10 bonus on one attack, that's 4 attacks at lv 20 asuming you didn't multiclass + bonus every turn + 2 action surge, so is not worth the deep, just max your constitution and you will be fine whit 15 reach and gargantual size to cover your allys from enemies attacks, had fun destroying every thing
ACTION SURGE Starting at 2nd leveI, Yotlcan push yourself beyond yotlr normallimits for a momento On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action.
Do you take into account ramp up time for this build? For example, Battlemaster/Zealot only takes one bonus action to start rage. While Rune Knight/Zealot takes two bonus actions for rage and Giant’s Might to kick in. That’s 1 less round of GWM damage.
True! And no, it's something I typically talk about but the number crunching only happens when everything is "on." Definitely something to keep in mind and will have a bigger impact the shorter your encounters are.
Another char build I'm working on but not exactly sure how best to go is abjurer deep gnome with svirfneblin magic feat. I was thinking 1 or 2 lvls of hex warlock for access to armor of agathas. After that just straight abjur wizard. The concept is the enemy has to break through the abjurer shield before even touching your temp hitpoints. So enemies take alot of damage when attacking you. And you can keep your abjurer shield maxed out via at will casting of nondetection. Side note if you can find a char to cast warding bond on you it's amazing. Anyways if you looking for a build to optimize would love to hear your thoughts on this one as well.
So, the damage bump of the great weapon fighting style is so small that I typically take the defense fighting style instead because the +1 AC will help you way more than the insignificant increase in damage. If you wanna reroll damage dice get the savage attacker feat.
If you're thinking to forgo GWF for Defense style and spend a feat to get savage attacker, why not instead take GWF, which is better than savage attacker with extra attacks and two dice weapons, and take a defensive ASI like Dex+2 which nets other bonuses as well, Resilient which can shore up Wis or Dex saves, or Tough which gets double value with rage resistance. I feel like those options are much more impactful than a simple +1 AC
I almost always carry a back up shield and one handed weapon on barbarians, paladins, and fighters for dealing with mooks with low HP because you don't need the additional damage from a larger weapon or GWM making the additional AC more useful as it prevents you from being worn down and accuracy is more important that damage since enemies will die in one or two hits anyways.
Elven Accuracy doesn't work with strength based attacks, so don't go elf, if you can start at higher levels. Otherwise brutal build. The fight against the black dragon at 14th level would still probably go to the dragon, if your dungeon master runs it smart (as they should), because this character is not very good at range. So the dragon can just stay in the sky and dodge until its breath weapon recharges. (If the dragon starts in melee for some reason and you took Sentinel that is a different story.)
Right - someone else had pointed that out and I totally forgot about the elven accuracy thing. Ha ha - I think the dragon would win regardless, between legendarios and lair actions... it was more a thought experiment than anything :).
Yep - The Polearm master feat lets you make a bonus action attack with the same weapon you use for your action, you're just using the blunt end of it. Great Weapon Master simply says that the weapon must be Heavy to benefit, not that we have to hit with the pointy end :).
Thanks for this! (Although, as many have pointed out, I made a mistake re: Elven Accuracy - you can't benefit from it if it's a Strength-based Attack :) )
You can play an elf or half elf or any other race with gm permission.. to use a double bladed scimitar. It does the same thing as polearm master.. but doesn't need a feat. And you can get Elven acciracy
Ah, but there is a possible kink! GWM specifies that it refers to "heavy" weapons, and the Double-Bladed scimitar is specifically "two-handed" but not heavy... you might be able to convince your DM to let the feat apply anyway, but it has a *very* minor drawback of doing 5 damage on average instead of 5.5 :P. Ha ha. It makes up for it in coolness factor though! And also, you probably *would* want to take an extra feat to get the most out of it... Revenant Blade for the +1 to Str and the +1 to AC... hmmmm.... I like it!
@@DnDDeepDiveHowever with a damage dice of 2d4 you roll ones and twos alot more often than on a d10 allowing the Great weapon fighting style to come into effect more often
“Could solo a dragon”. Except for the fact that a dragon can fly and this character only uses melee meaning they’ll never reach the dragon. There’s always a way in D&D to level the playing field
i dunno man. i solo dragons on the regular as a melee character. it's only really an issue in tier 1. in tier 2, it's really just for cinematic effect/dynamic combat as the pcs get access to flight, control spells to bring a flying enemy down or melee folks weaving artificer contacts/i know a guy into their backstory. at that point, flight is more of an issue for the dm and not the players. the only issue with flying opponents i've really encountered are flying enemies who are trying to run away and have superior speed to ours but at that point it's not really a combat anymore but a chase encounter.
@@Almighty_Mage yeah its doable. i've done it multiple times with melee characters. melee characters who have this issue usually have these problems: 1. they aren't optimized enough/have enough tools in their kit (most likely someone who straight classed without magic items or party help) 2. they are too low level for the fight anyway and aren't dealing enough dmg 3. are not thinking creatively (like shooting an unbreakable arrow with rope tied on it and to the melee character and using that to climb onto the dragon so you can melee it while it's in flight-and possibly avoid it's attacks as well)
Yeah, the flight seems like something that shouldn't be ignored. The Sentinel feat would stop the dragon from attacking and then flying up 40 feet, but if you don't have that you have to deal with it another way. Boots of Levitation aren't good enough: you can fly 20 feet, the dragon flies 80. Tripping attack doesn't work on huge creatures. Sure there are ways to get flying for your "Fightarian" but it shouldn't just be assumed. You don't have anything built into this character to deal with it, it would have to be additional magical equipment allowed by the DM. Either that or you stand there throwing javelins at disadvantage for long range without your GWM or PAM feats working and think about a tactical retreat.
I’m making this for a campaign and I am instead going echo knight and ancestral guardian same levels because it makes more sense for roleplay and the major weakness with this build (range attacks) could only be solved with levels into rogue for bonus action dash which would ruin some major damage or echo Knight and I chose echo knight because you can make an extra attack proficiency bonus times per day and that is a significant damage increase
You should look into barbarian multiclass around reckless attack and the Shifter Wildhunt race. With tashas out and the ability to switch around attributes, this race would supplement barbarian dips perfectly. Shifting as a bonus action gives you your level player level + Con mod in temporary hitpoints and recharges in a short rest. Wild hunt subrace gives proficiency in survival, which is nice. Wild hunts shifter ability gives advantage on all wisdom checks, and no creature within 30ft of you can half advantage against you for any reason. The temp hp and benefit lasts for a minute or until you’re incapacitated. Also the champion barbarian build requires full investment into bonus damage dice, and the fact that barbarian die starts at level 9 means it may take too long to be effective. But as you probably know half or is necessary for the extra crit dice. This has been further augmented by the addition of the piercer feat. You should be using a pike to take advantage of the greatweapon master feat and piercer feat. You can still take the polearm master feat for the opportunity attack, but it’s important to not that the bonus action does not include pikes, and also that reckless attacks advantage ends after your turn is over. Piercer is kind of like if the savage attacker feat was useful. Battle rager may be worth looking into since it provides a consistent bonus action that during play that would also benefit from the piercer feats extra crit die. It won’t benefit from the greatweapon feat, but it would perhaps be more consistent damage than the 1d6+1 from a 3 level dip in zealot with the other features boosting it.
@@jonathanmorphew6786 Ahhh... the Wildhunt Subrace: "Shifting Feature While shifted, you have advantage on Wisdom checks, and no creature within 30 feet of you can make an attack roll with advantage against you, unless you’re incapacitated." That's fascinating! If it were a player at my table, I suppose I'd let that negate the downside to Reckless Attacks. That's very strong! It *does* take a bonus action and can only be used once per short rest, but still, it would *vastly* improve the character's survivability (especially since it comes with some nice temporary HP). Nice find!
Why not dip just two levels in barbarian so you can still get your Fighter Archetype ability at 18? Also toying with the idea of an Echo Knight 17 / Ancestral Guardian 3 with the flavor that the ancestors are his echos. Opinions?
flavor sounds good though mechanically the build is going in different directions. I think there's no need to consider the level 18 ability as most games don't get to that point. Plus most fighter cap stones are meh. IMO optimizing for a level 10-12 spread is better as that's where most campaigns tend to finish. if it goes past that, people can just pick up levels of whichever adds more benefits to the build.
Thanks for that infos! I already played my halforc totem warrior to lvl 5 (all barbarian lvl with great weapon master) and i want to multiclass with figther.what should i continue with? Should i put all next 15 levels into figther?
Have you thought about a Bladesinger that starts out as a Fighter for the Two-Weapon Fighting Style and Con save Proficiency, as well as a potential second level in Fighter for Action Surge? :3 It's my favorite way to play the Class, and with the Errata to Bladesinger you can sadly no longer use Booming Blade with Shadow Blade, but you can use a Cantrip attack with a Weapon then attack with Extra Attack and meet the Condition for Two-Weapon Fighting, to attack again with a Bonus Action. Potentially with a Shadow Blade, you have in the off-hand.
It is very hard to resist a one level dip into fighter. I typically don’t because I just hate delaying the higher level spells and extra attack, +int to weapon damage etc that are so big. If I started at level 7+ though, I’d probably do it anyway :).
Here is how I would do this build. For the fighter subclass u take echo knight and then for the primal path u wanna take bear totem for the resistance to everything. This combo is will be slightly less dmg from not taking zelot but that resistance will give you basically double HP which is amazing. Then you go fighter for everything else. Why not take barb up to 4 for that ASI that’s right there?
The build is strong but what about mental saves? The adult dragon would cause fear which would greatly decrease the damage. Tashes hidious laughter would take this guy out. And it is a first level spell. If I was a dm I would let him have some fun but would hit him hard with mental saves to keep him inline.
@@DnDDeepDive No worries! To even work in Elven Accuracy to the build, you'd have to invest 3 levels into Hexblade in order to get Pact of the Blade, but the trade-off is since you're now using CHA to fuel your attacks, you lose out on the flat damage modifier from Rage.
@@Sygriffe yeah, if i were to do a elven accuracy GWM build, then probably Oathbreaker pally 8/Hexblade 12, using Shadow of moil to trigger the supper advantage, and adding your charisma modifier twice on top of the attack's regular damage and GWM's damage (also because a renegade paladin corrupted by a demonic weapon is badass). For the build on the video though, i think is best as it is.
Glad you're enjoying! If I were going primarily Barbarian, I'd probably start Barb 5 to get Extra Attack, then take 4 levels of Fighter for Fighting Style, Action Surge, the Sub Class, and the ASI, then back to Barb the rest of the way.
In the campaign I was just in I basically never got to really attack much in melee. The fighter polearm master felt underwhelming due to this. Make sure to be in a campaign which supports melee damage builds. Also don't play this build if you're unable to make natural 20s. I personally have terrible luck with natural 20s and I didn't crit more than once or twice from level 1 to level 6 with pure fighter.
wait a second, the Rage doesnt specify if the B/S/P damage if it is magical or non magical They resist any kind of bludgeoning/piercing and slashing damage, unless its from something like the ability of a sword of answering Thats the best part about barbar It doesnt care if its magical or not
How does straight fighter with the samurai subclass stack up? I feel later it'd just be unloading so many attacks at advantage and action surge it'd out pace most other builds.
The problems with the Samurai, imo, are two-fold. 1: Fighting Spirit gives you advantage, but at the cost of a bonus action, and since PAM gives us an attack on our bonus action, it's a net loss outside of very high enemy AC. 2: You can only use Fighting Spirit 3 times per day (until level 10 when you get "one more time" every fight). So yes, even though at level 15 you gain back the attack you lost by sacrificing the bonus action, it's just breaking even on # of attacks (albeit with advantage). If you didn't have limited uses, it'd be a clear upgrade, but as is, I'd rather invest 2 levels into Barbarian to just get permanent advantage on *all* of my attacks without limited use (granted, at the cost of giving your enemy advantage against you, which is obviously dangerous), plus some nice bonus rage damage per attack to boot, and resistance to all non-magical weapon attacks (somewhat making up for the whole "they have advantage against you" deal).
@@DnDDeepDive Well the fighter would still scale to have more attacks and while limited use you would get advantage on more attacks as you got into higher levels, and as you said eventually you have advantage on your opening salvo of attacks which tbh is when most fights are decided anyways.
In your analysis, have you also considered the number of rages you get? Ultimately, at level 20, it's unlimited, but until then, you have a limited amount of rages. Certainly, it depends on the campaign and maybe it doesn't make that much of a difference, but it certainly something to keep in mind since the number of attacks fighters get is not a limited resource. Also, have you considered how a Champion Fighter with GWM and Crusher would compare? It's a bit unreliable, but the increased crit chance combined with the chance to make another 7 attacks with advantage (if the crit occurs on the first hit and Action Surge is used) can surely make an impact. Given the crit chance of 15%, we can expect a crit every fourth round for the Fighter and then every member of the party has advantage until the start of the next turn which - depending on party composition - can really make a difference as well. Or would that more fall under burst damage?
Let's drive up the View Count and Comments to feed the Algorithm. How about a Tiny Servant focused build. It has a lot in common with your necromancer but the Tiny Servant are size tiny (duh) so four can fit into one 5 foot square. So that means one enemy can have 32 attack on one creature as opposed to 8 zombies.
Great episode! With so many abilities requiring a bonus action can you provide a walk through of optimal 1st 2 rounds of combat? Do we rage first, or use giants might, do we use the bonus action to attack again with the butt of the polearm? Thank you!
Probably! I'm actually working on updating this build (and all the others I've done thus far) post-Tasha's... the first half got done a couple of weeks ago (episode 18) and I hope to have the second half next week! (episode 21)
Hmm. That has me thinking about reckless attacks from barbarian and sneak attack from rogue. Instant sneak attack whenever sounds good. Not sure if there are any finese polearms though. Haven't kept up with the last few supplements.
@@GOAToatoat But keep in mind the Double-Bladed sword isn't qualified as "heavy" so not technically applicable for the GWM feat (a kind GM might be persuaded to look the other way). I've always found it fairly easy to get sneak attack damage off as a rogue myself, since you always get it if the target is within 5 feet of one of your allies, but if that's a concern, you could always go swashbuckler and get it anyway...
Reckelss attack: Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn Sneak attack: The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon. No finesse polearms. It would be very difficult to do.
For starting high level (like a one shot) Samurai what do you think about Samurai. Rapid Strike gives you another attack (without advantage but still) so that could be nice
I like it, but I'd probably want to do it when multi-classed as a Barbarian with Reckless attack; I know Fighting Spirit can give you guaranteed advantage, but A: only 3 times a day and B: at the cost of your bonus action feels a little underwhelming to me. Reckless attack is a little dangerous, but always having advantage is just so huge, and not having to sacrifice our bonus action is superb - take PAM/GWM and you're talking 5 attacks in a round without Action Surge? Very nice. Admittedly, attacking Recklessly with Rage feels a little ... Un-Samurai, but hey, if nothing else it's different than the stereotype so that could be interesting :).
I'm not exactly sure how this fighter / barbarian is going to keep a black dragon from flying out of its range, especially with an 80ft fly speed. Many of the high CR monsters are dangerous for reasons other than their direct damage output. That being said, with some support this build looks insanely good at sustained damage. Might have to try it out sometime~
Dumb question I know with zealot while raging you can't drop. Why not go barb 15 for that persistent rage feature so you literally can't die? With the fighter dip? I suppose the tankier version?
As a DM who had a player do this, I can tell everyone exactly what happens. 1. Game #1 the player felt awesome, he was killing everything. 2. I scaled encounters to make them harder. For the next several levels the character would run in and try to kill everything. Each time he would get killed. Eventually enemies started cursing him leaving nasty side effects…. He committed suicide, and rolled a new character. It’s way better to work with others in your party and find character synergies than to go for DPR.
Who says this character can't work together with others in the team? It's not character but the player in this instance. Also, scaling enemies to match his power? Then what is the point of making a powerful character? And why did enemies start cursing him? Did the character gain a reputation that made everyone know about him?
@@KanedaSyndrome thanks for the questions, it was an older addition of dnd, and level drains, lycanthropy, and other nasty features and curses were part of the game as the monsters got more challenging. In this case it could be that this player wanted to rush in, or it could be that the other players didn’t want to rush in. Either way, as a DM you need to scale the encounter so that one player can’t solo it without the rest of the party. Of course I let him do it a couple times, and he felt awesome those times, but there is always another angle, always a need to keep the game challenging. Players can’t just min max their character and expect to steamroll the game. Of course if he had wanted to work with his teammates it would have been totally different!
Just curiously. Typically the powerhouse subclass for fighter is battle master. How it it stack up compared to the rune knight if you ended up going battle master zealot? Or does it lag behind a lot ?
I think the BM has a very slight edge while they have maneuvers available to them. Once they run out though, the RK fares better. So it really depends on how long your combat encounters last and how many of them you get between rests :).
@@DnDDeepDive Agreed on this. I'd put battlemaster ahead due to higher nova burst (now that rune has been nerfed) along with the mutitude of control/debuff effects you can add as riders per attack. I'd posit if you get about just 3-4 combats per long rest (assuming 1 short rest and someone's packing catnap), battlemaster should remain ahead as you can technically have all your short rest abilities on every fight (maneuvers, action surge, etc). Once you get to 4-5+ combats per long rest and the DM doesn't increase the # of short rests allowed (which IMO is unfair of the DM and gears the game towards long rest classes and hampers short rest classes like the warlock) then the rune knight starts to catch up or pull ahead (depending on difficulty of encounters). Though imo 5+ combats per long rest is a bit too excessive already and i'd rather have non-combat encounters already (social/traps/exploration) to break the monotony. Moreover, it doesn't seem realistic for a party fighting 5+ times in one day and only resting once.
Nice channel! Totally agree with the Rune Knight love, playing one in a campaign now, lots of fun. I’d probably lean to the Bear totem and just hope for luck on the damage, or skip the third lvl of Barbarian to get to the third attack faster. :) How do the numbers change if you flip the fighter to the Echo Knight and can pop the Unleash Incarnation twice in the round with action surge? That’s 9 attacks in the round when you hit Fighter 11, you’d be missing the Rune Knight bonus. Plus, you get the bonus option if you take Sentinel, you leave your echo next to the target, you stay away at a distance, and keep them tethered away from you, minimizing the Reckless Attack disadvantage a bit.
Path of the Zealot's ability actually works differently that Colossus Slayer and other abilities that say "once per turn add bonus damage". "While you’re raging, the first creature you hit on each of your turns with a weapon attack takes 1d6 + half your Barbarian level necrotic or radiant damage." Its not "The first weapon attack deals 1D6+X to a creature" but "the first creature you hit with a weapon". This implies that if you were to hit the creature multiple times each weapon hit would deal an additional 1D6+X damage, making this build even more ridiculous.
wow! this is a pretty excellent point. i always read it as the the first attack that hits so you can only get that dmg bonus once. if it's the first creature you hit that takes this dmg and you can hit multiple times (action surge, gloomstalker) this makes rage a better dmg boost than your typical spirit shroud/hex/hunter's mark. though most of the discussion on this seems to center on it gets applied once as its the feature that deals the dmg and not your actual attack.
@@humanmale02 i think this would still need DM ruling as there's lots of conflicting discussion on this online. what you've pointed out though is also a valid reading. it would be nice if JC stepped in and cleared it up.
I'm about to start a new Strahd Campaign (lvl 1 - 10) and i want to play this build or your PAM hexblade, which of those two do you think Tashas benefits more?
Hm... I haven't taken a close look at the "Fightarian" yet but, off the top of my head... it seems like that one mostly just gets nerfs thanks to the changes to Rune Knight, whereas the Hexblade got a bump due to being able to get both an 18 Cha and Elven Accuracy all by level 8. (or 9 if you start with 1 level in fighter). Be sure to check out Ep 18 if you haven't to see how I update the Hexblade build if you go that route. If you decide to go Fighter/Barb and are playing Strahd... consider maybe going Barb with a Fighter dip. Strahd usually ends around level 11, and the Fighter with Barb dip doesn't really take that "head and shoulders better than everything" route until level 14 (when it hits Fighter 11). Before that, the Barb has the edge. Of course, playing what fits your character and is most fun is what is actually important :). Enjoy!