Playing with DnD5 Characters – 6th level Barbarian Pirate

Mountain Dwarf Barbarian Pirate

The racial adds and the one attribute boost I took make his final stats quite nice:

STR 18 (+4); DEX 14 (+2); CON 18 (+4); INT 13 (+1); WIS 14 (+2); CHA 11 (+0)

Saves:
STR +7; DEX +2; CON +7; INT +1; WIS +2; CHA +0

AC 18; Hit Points: 71

Animal Handling +5; Athletics +7; Perception +5; Survival +5

Battleaxe: 1d20+7; Damage 1d8+4; 1d8+6 while raging
Armor: none; Shield: Yes.

Attacks: 2; 3 with Frenzy (lasts 10 rounds/1 minute)

 RACE: Mountain Dwarf
• +2 Constitution, +2 Strength
• Size: Medium
• Speed: 25ft, speed not reduced when wearing heavy armor
• Darkvision 60ft
• Dwarven Resilience: advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance against poison damage
• Dwarven Combat Training: proficient with battleaxe, handaxe, light hammer and warhammer
• Tool Proficiency: gain proficiency with either smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies or mason’s tools
• Stonecunning: add double proficiency bonus to Intelligence (History) check on any stonework.
• Dwarven Armor Training: proficient with light and medium armor
• Languages: Common, Dwarvish

BACKGROUND: Pirate
• Feature: Bad Reputation No matter where you go, people are afraid of you due to your reputation. When you are in a civilized settlement, you can get away with minor criminal offenses, such as refusing to pay for food at a tavern or breaking down doors at a local shop, since most people will not report you to the authorities.
• Skills: Athletics, Perception
• Tools: Navigator’s tools, vehicles (water)
• Languages: none

CLASS: Barbarian
• Armor: Light & medium armor, shields
• Weapons: Simple & martial weapons
• Tools: none
• Saves: Strength, Constitution
• Skills: Choose 2 from Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Survival
• Rage (4 times) Enter a rage as a bonus action gaining the following benefits if you are not wearing heavy armor: – Advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws – When making a melee weapon attack using Strength, gain a +2 bonus to the damage roll – Resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage Rage ends early if knocked unconscious or your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can end your rage on your turn as a bonus action
• Unarmoured Defense (AC 14)
• Reckless Attack When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly gaining advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during that turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.
• Danger Sense Advantage on Dexterity saving throws against effects that you can see
• Primal Path (Beserker)
• Primal Path Feature (Frenzy) For the duration of rage, make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each turn after this one. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion
• Ability Score Improvement / Feat: Level 4
• Extra Attack, Fast Movement (+10ft)
• Primal Path Feature (Mindless Rage) Immune to charm and fear effects while raging. If charmed or frightened when entering rage, the effect is suspended

Parting Shot

Not bad. The rage thing and ridiculous HP (even with an average roll of 7 every time, he’s got a lot of HP) make him quite nasty. He’ll average two or three hits at 1d8+6 each, for 21-42 points per round under Frenzy not including criticals. For most mundane damage, he also effectively has the equivalent of 140 HP due to his resistance to pretty much all damage types dealt by dudes with hand weapons.

His armor class is respectable at AC 18 thanks to Unarmored Defense, a high CON, and a shield. With the right choices (an extra +2 to STR and CON to hit 20 in each is reasonable at higher levels) or some magical help (a ring of protection or something like it) AC 20 isn’t crazy-talk. Heck, magical shield.

The thing that’s interesting about this is that all of his powers can pretty much be on all the time. “When raging” isn’t exactly a limit, and he can range 4 times per long rest (basically per day). 

Since rage lasts for 10 rounds, at 6th level that’s up to 40 points of extra damage per rage, and he could, theoretically, do that four times in a row in a particularly desperate fight. 60 points more if he goes Frenzy (but he’ll be courting massive exhaustion there). Contrast with the paladin, who can expend (at 6th level) a spell slot to do +1d4 per attack, 20 attacks worth (20-80 extra damage, average 50). In a short fight there’s another 12d8 (12-96, average 54) to be had by expending spell slots.

So Bless is as good as Rage, really – a bit better – from a damage perspective at 6th level. The paladin’s Armor Class will likely be higher than the Barbarian’s. The Barbarian, owing to a predisposition to higher CON and a bit higher HP per roll, will have inherently more staying power in a fight, and while raging will be very hard to drop with weapons (even a magical sword does slashing damage, so your 1d8+6 just became a max of 7 HP instead of 7 HP minimum!).

If the barbarian elects to go all-offense, with a great axe (2d6) and goes STR 20 right away (or with just a darn good roll), even at 6th level that’s 2d6+7, three times per round with Frenzy. That’s 27-57 without a critical hit, and if you get lucky (punk), 4d6+7 per blow ain’t nothing to sneeze at, 11-31 HP. That means that Marcus, for example, can expect to go down in 3-5 hits, even accounting for 30HP of Lay on Hands.

Feels like the staying power of the Barbarian is what makes him dangerous, plus the extra attack while Frenzy is active. 

Of course, spending Bless on the Barbarian just seems like the right kind of overkill.

Finally, they’d be even more dangerous if they could trade HP for damage, as I suggested in my post on playing Marcus the Paladin. I’ll just repeat it here:

Toe to toe with a melee expert should be a bad idea
This is really what I’m getting at here, and something +Peter V. Dell’Orto has remarked on before. Going face-to-face with Sir Cuisinart should really be scary. Granted, with plate and a shield, AC 20 (more with magic) is nothing to sneeze at, so they’re harder to hit. But the per-turn damage ability of fighters is really second to a lot of characters that are second-rankers. 

I was thinking that it might be interesting to allow something like a fighter to spend his own actual Hit Points for more damage. Say, 2d4 to a blow for every 5 HP you spend. You probably don’t have to limit it other than not being able to spend below 10 HP plus your CON bonus times your level – those are mostly physical toughness, not skill or grit or honed combat instinct. So Marcus could exchange HP for extra damage dice as long as he’s above 28 HP (3 for CON x 6th level + 10 HP). 

If you did want to limit it, perhaps you can only do it a number of times equal to, say, half your level plus some attribute score. Not STR, because that double-dips. CON might work, but that seems odd since those are physical HP, and this bonus damage is from skill. DEX might be fun, since honestly for heavy fighters there’s not much reason to do DEX. Well, unless you’re an archer. WIS might be a good one, as it’s the ability to notice an opening (tied to Perception). CHA makes no sense, nor does INT. Half level plus WIS? That would allow Marcus to do this five times, trading 25 HP for 10d4 damage to his foes.

I’d make you select whether or not to spend HP before you roll to hit, because I would double these damage dice on a critical hit (if you miss you don’t lose the HP, I’d think?). So Marcus might announce that he’s spending 5 HP. On a hit he would do 1d8+2d4 + 5 (8-21 HP), but on a critical hit the dice would double: 2d8+4d4+5, for 11-37 HP range. 

This would leverage a fighter’s higher HP for something other than a damage sink and pincushion, and make it quite risky to stand face-to-face with a fighter type. For that reason (and since Hunter’s Mark and Colossus Slayer stack already for archers, and give plenty of extra damage from a distance where the archer can’t get hit back) I’d make it melee only. 

Hrm. That might be a good Feat, actually. Or even a Fighting Style? Class feature for combatives, and Feat for those that might want it.