Dwarvin Polearm build--HELP PLEASE

RulesJD said:

Disregard the prior builds, if you want to go full powergaming goodness with Polearm, here's how you do it.

For your ASIs, in order, you take Polearm Mastery, GWM, then Sentinel. Only after that do you boost STR.

For class, go BM Fighter. Get Trip, Menacing, and Precision strike as your first 3. Add Pushing and Disarming after that.

Use the Opp Attack from Polearm to lock enemies 10ft away from you with Sentinel. That's one enemy turn removed. Use a Trip attack on that Opp Attack to knock the target prone. Sentinel prevents them from standing back up, so you just granted everyone advantage for an entire turn.

Use GWM on almost all your strikes, and use Precision attacks to make up for the lack of boosting STR. Combined with advantage from Trip attacks you'll hit reliably.

Take 1 level of War Cleric to pick up Bless + Divine Favor, if your party doesn't have a Bless bot yet. You aren't concentrating on anything anyways, so might as well use Bless to make those GWM strikes hit even more reliably. Use Divine Favor when you don't need Bless to really boost your damage, because you'll be getting 4 attacks per round almost all the time (2 from Extra Attack, 1 Bonus, 1 Reaction (Sentinel or PAM triggering) and don't want to be using your Bonus action to shift Hex around or whatever.

If/after you get to level 11 Fighter, there isn't much else there for you. Maybe another level for an ASI, but meh. For true power gaming goodness, dip 3 levels into Barbarian and take the Bear Totem. Congrats, you can now generate advantage at will (GWM for daaaaays), are basically an uber tank, and get to add even more Rage damage to each of those now 5 attacks per round. Switch between Cleric buffs and Raging depending on the need.

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Most of this has already been talked about and discussed...
The cleric thing is new to the thread but honestly not that exciting, 1d4 to hit is meh at best :/ it also means you need wis to be good(or at least 13)
The barbarian thing is a good choice, and one I've done. Not being able to use Heavy armor is pretty rough. I'm still trying to figure out how to remedy this for my character. You need at least a 14 in dex to get close to the same ac, a 16 and another feat to get to the same ac.
What you put together is great for dps, the issue is that you will go down, a lot. Unless you just have godlike stats you can't have a great str, ok-good dex, great con, ok int/cha and a good-great wis. 4-good-great stats is pretty unreasonable.

Also after level 11 there is plenty in fighter, 2 action surges and more dice is great for battlemaster.

Kithas said:

Most of this has already been talked about and discussed...
The cleric thing is new to the thread but honestly not that exciting, 1d4 to hit is meh at best :/ it also means you need wis to be good(or at least 13)
The barbarian thing is a good choice, and one I've done. Not being able to use Heavy armor is pretty rough. I'm still trying to figure out how to remedy this for my character. You need at least a 14 in dex to get close to the same ac, a 16 and another feat to get to the same ac.
What you put together is great for dps, the issue is that you will go down, a lot. Unless you just have godlike stats you can't have a great str, ok-good dex, great con, ok int/cha and a good-great wis. 4-good-great stats is pretty unreasonable.

Also after level 11 there is plenty in fighter, 2 action surges and more dice is great for battlemaster.

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He's a Dwarf so assuming 27 point buy:

Str: 14 (+2)
Dex: 14
Con 14 (+2)
Int: 8
Wis: 13
Cha: 9

Take Resiliency (Wisdom) for your 4th ASI to bump you up to 14 Wis. Doesn't really matter though because all you want is Bless, Healing Word, and Divine Favor.

Barbarian can use medium armor so 14 Dex is all you need to hit 17 AC with a Polearm.

Divine Favor, assuming 4 attacks per round after level 5, = 10 extra damage per round. With Action Surge it's even more. It doesn't require using up your Bonus action more than once, so it's the best damage addition for a PAM Build. Over the course of 4 rounds of combat, assuming 60% hit rate, is 10d4 or 25 extra damage. For a level 1 spell, and that's radiant damage so it also burns through resistances. Obviously Bless is generally going to be better all things considered.

Survivability: You'll have 17 AC and can trigger 1/2 damage resistance. You can stop enemies before they can get close enough to hit you. You'll be tanky as hell while dishing out disgusting amounts of damage.

after lvl 11 you can be sorcerer too, quick spell after (or before) 3 attacks is amazing, booming blade of GFB can add lot of damage in that attack and sorc have lot of buff spells you even need high Cha and can twin with your friend.
Wild magic can let you get advantage many times a day and debuff enemy ST, what is preatty rare (but this would be better with lvl 10 Eldritch knight). And wild magic is too cool

Lore bard can give you expertise, healing, jack of all trades, cutting words (this can avoid more damage than lvl 3 barbarian), and any spell up to lvl 3 (look in cleric, pali and haste). But in that case, is works better with high Cha.

RulesJD said:

He's a Dwarf so assuming 27 point buy:

Str: 14 (+2)
Dex: 14
Con 14 (+2)
Int: 8
Wis: 13
Cha: 9

Take Resiliency (Wisdom) for your 4th ASI to bump you up to 14 Wis. Doesn't really matter though because all you want is Bless, Healing Word, and Divine Favor.

Barbarian can use medium armor so 14 Dex is all you need to hit 17 AC with a Polearm.

Divine Favor, assuming 4 attacks per round after level 5, = 10 extra damage per round. With Action Surge it's even more. It doesn't require using up your Bonus action more than once, so it's the best damage addition for a PAM Build. Over the course of 4 rounds of combat, assuming 60% hit rate, is 10d4 or 25 extra damage. For a level 1 spell, and that's radiant damage so it also burns through resistances. Obviously Bless is generally going to be better all things considered.

Survivability: You'll have 17 AC and can trigger 1/2 damage resistance. You can stop enemies before they can get close enough to hit you. You'll be tanky as hell while dishing out disgusting amounts of damage.

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I guess if youre ok with two -1s then yeah it can be ok, your con being only a 16 is a concern, you need 4 asi's to get those both up to 20. That plus gwm and polearm master means you cannot multiclass and still max out your str and con.

Divine favor is good, A whole level for it may be too much but it is nice, personally I would just ask the paladin/war cleric to do Crusader's mantle instead but I don't like triple multiclassing, I do it but I like to avoid it.

Also a 17 ac and 2 rages per day with a 16-18 con is not what i would call hard as hell to kill. My level 19(17/2) fighter/barbarian has an ac of 19(or 21 with my shield/sword) and I routinely go down in combat, multiple times a day. "Hard to drop," for me is closer to 20+ac and 18-20 con, ideally with the tough feat. Lower than that and you won't last super long when it matters. The Sentinel+polearm master combo is nice, it's useful, but it only stops one enemy. That enemy also has to not itself have reach(most of the big bads do). If you only have one enemy that doesn't have range or reach then yeah you'll be fine, anyone would be fine in that situation though, it's really not a good test of survivability.

I also usually assume rolled stats, it's harder to get 4 decent rolls ime. It is easier to get one or two great ones.

When raging you cant concentrate or cast spells. So the cleric level cant overlap with rage benefits. Also that many classes loses out on feats and battle master dice, a big trade. Really a fighter is pretty complete, the bonus feats quickly add up.

AC17 isn't very good for a fighter, especially as you level up. You can start with 16 at first level with chainmail, get to 18 at 4th and 3 dmg reduction against B/S/P all the time with Heavy Armor Master (and +1 to strength score.) That goes higher with magical armor. The 3 dmg reduction loses it value as you go higher, but is still effective. Getting hit 10 times saves 30 dmg, with AC of 17 you might get 10 times in 2 rounds.

The cantrips in SCAG all take an action, so you cant use an Attack action to get multiple attacks. If you make them a bonus action, the cantrip only works on that bonus action, not on the subsequent attack action you take for multiple attacks. You also need to be 3rd level to quicken it, so its now not a "dip" into being a sorcerer.

Remember also that entering rage is a bonus action, as is casting a quickened spell and other things. Using your bonus action prevents you from using the bonus action granted by PAM. You need to be careful action economy.

I wish they would bring back Hafted Defense. I would actually like the PAM feat more if the bonus action was replaced with an AC buff. Also some type of feat to replicate Thicket of Blades, although multiple attacks sort of does that.

Remember that the bonus attack by PAM is affected by the Great Weapon feats. If using Great Weapon Master that means the end attack is 10+str+d4, that's not bad at all for a bonus action.

Being prone only grants advantage if you are within 5', so not everyone gets advantage. The one enemy is stuck there however. What happens in reality is your DM will have the bad guy send a minion in to absorb the attack and then rush you. Isn't that what BBEG do? You know this so will have to decide which enemy to stop. So when you use Trip make sure you move next to them to get all those attacks in.

Also, for multiple attacks you can choose which ones to use Great Weapon Mastery on, you do not have to use it on all of them. So use Trip first, without GWM to get the hit in, then with advantage switch over to GWM.

Don't forget to use Know Thy Enemy at 7th level to check what a creatures AC is. That can let you do the math to decide whether or not to use GWM.

If you want to multiclass into a Fighter/Barb, then try the 2 weapon fighting option. The rage bonus is absolute, so you get in on the off hand attack also. The Dual Weapon feat gives you full size weapons and an AC bonus. Unarmored defense helps out with the ac also, with a breastplate you can get AC 19 by level 4 with the feat, which is good with the rage damage reduction. There isn't too much pressure on the bonus actions either.

Kithas said:

I guess if youre ok with two -1s then yeah it can be ok, your con being only a 16 is a concern, you need 4 asi's to get those both up to 20. That plus gwm and polearm master means you cannot multiclass and still max out your str and con.

Divine favor is good, A whole level for it may be too much but it is nice, personally I would just ask the paladin/war cleric to do Crusader's mantle instead but I don't like triple multiclassing, I do it but I like to avoid it.

Also a 17 ac and 2 rages per day with a 16-18 con is not what i would call hard as hell to kill. My level 19(17/2) fighter/barbarian has an ac of 19(or 21 with my shield/sword) and I routinely go down in combat, multiple times a day. "Hard to drop," for me is closer to 20+ac and 18-20 con, ideally with the tough feat. Lower than that and you won't last super long when it matters. The Sentinel+polearm master combo is nice, it's useful, but it only stops one enemy. That enemy also has to not itself have reach(most of the big bads do). If you only have one enemy that doesn't have range or reach then yeah you'll be fine, anyone would be fine in that situation though, it's really not a good test of survivability.

I also usually assume rolled stats, it's harder to get 4 decent rolls ime. It is easier to get one or two great ones.

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1. Assuming rolled stats is bad. Just bad. For the purposes of maximizing discussion, you can't use them because its an unknown variable that can greatly impact the outcome. Yay pointbuy.

2. You being bad at tanking doesn't mean having "only" 16 Con is bad. For starts, you take 3 levels of barbarian, not just 2. That gives you 3 rages per day (3 "hard fights" which is most every adventuring day) and 1/2 damage from almost everything, not just b/p/s. That's a maaaaaaasive difference in survivability.

3. You went too many levels into Fighter, imho. That's hurting your tankiness. Anything above 11 (or 12 if you really want that ASI for Toughness/stat bump) is losing you better options. For level 19 I would be 12 Fighter/1 Cleric/4 Barbarian/2 Rogue. Cunning Action for free Dashing/Disengaging when you don't feel like using the Polearm butt end. Plus Expertise in Stealth (or Perception) & Athletics.
This build yields 1 feat at creation (Variant H) and 5 ASIs.
In order, PAM, GWM, Sent, Res (Wis), Tough, +2 either Str or Con, your pick. With the option of having Bless up, you can face down spell casters pretty well since you have STR/CON/WIS proficiency + Bless. For brawler fights, you have a 1/2 damage from everything and can do 3 attacks, disengage for free, and force PAM/Sent triggering attacks every round, potentially locking enemies out of range. If they have 15ft or less of reach, hit them with a Pushing attack when they trigger PAM AoO to lock them out of range (if Large or smaller).

smbakeresq said:

When raging you cant concentrate or cast spells. So the cleric level cant overlap with rage benefits. Also that many classes loses out on feats and battle master dice, a big trade. Really a fighter is pretty complete, the bonus feats quickly add up.

AC17 isn't very good for a fighter, especially as you level up. You can start with 16 at first level with chainmail, get to 18 at 4th and 3 dmg reduction against B/S/P all the time with Heavy Armor Master (and +1 to strength score.) That goes higher with magical armor. The 3 dmg reduction loses it value as you go higher, but is still effective. Getting hit 10 times saves 30 dmg, with AC of 17 you might get 10 times in 2 rounds.

*snip*

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1. I know that Cleric spells don't overlap with Rage. You know what does? Guidance before a fight you can see coming for +1d4 to initiative. More importantly, see where I specifically wrote that you use Bless when you aren't raging. My build gets 3 rages/day. For every other fight, either Divine Favor or Bless. You want versatility at higher levels and nothing is better than Bless.

2. 17 AC is plenty fine at higher levels considering anything but the highest level of ACs (23+) will be getting smacked regularly anyways. You get 17 AC to shrug off the trash mobs while you use the 1/2 damage from EVERYTHING for the BBEG. Heavy Armor mastery is a terrible choice. Never, ever take it unless you don't plan on going beyond level 5+. Bear Totem can absorb 30 damage from one blow alone, regardless of if it comes from a dragon's breath or a storm giant club. Combine that with locking enemies 10ft away from you (a surprising amount don't have reach) and that's an entire round of 0 damage from that enemy.

Heavy Armor Mastery is very good, I have no idea what you are talking about. It is incredible at lower levels, and still useful later against the multiple attacks and multi attacks you will see. Any human variant build in heavy armor should look at taking at first level. While resist 3 to damage from B/S/P non-magical falls off at later levels, it never goes away, there are plenty of creatures you will fight that have "mundane" attacks at all levels. The War Priest gets resistance to B/S/P non-magical as a capstone at level 17, you can get a lesser (much lesser sometimes) version either 16 or 13 levels sooner. You get +1 strength also.

I guess you are level 3 barb, level 11 fighter, lvl 1 war cleric. You get 3 attacks per round. If you don't get to use your bonus for something else you get 4. If your DM lets you use it you get 5 with an opportunity attack.

A regular fighter gets the same. He will also be at 15th level, so will have the same BM dice and the ability to use them with Relentless. He will also have an extra feat. The feat could be in Res(wis) to stop some of the nastiest effects in the game. You also lose a second use of indomitable, which at higher levels means a second chance at the save or we are really screwed effect.

You get advantage with barbarian reckless attack, but they give up advantage. AC17 wont hold up then at all when giving up advantage, neither will resistance. At that level you will get just get mauled and dropped my multiple foes or multi-attacks with reach. You said you will be super tanky then just said you get hit anyway. I don't get that. AC 18 wont really hold up either, but then you wont be giving advantage at all. Resistance doesn't scale as well as missing does, and giving advantage with AC 17 makes your effective AC about 13 (the math varies and is in another thread.) It also give the enemy more chances to crit you or apply an effect. Half damage wont be enough to save you. You will never be an uber tank.

You are only locking ONE ENEMY away from you, mostly likely a minion of some sort. The rest will get to you or just use reach or some other attack that has range. You wont lock the BBEG away from you in any effective manner, that's why they are the BBEG. Maybe your DM is like mine and just sent a dragon in on me from above, the sentinel attack dropped its speed to zero, so it just fell the rest of the way on top of me. I hope your DM's are not like that, but older players remember the dragons crush attacks. He was nice enough to buy my argument that my attack should be an auto crit as I set the halberd against the attack from above, another old rule.

Also remember TRIP only grants advantage if you succeed and then attack them at 5' (the prone condition.) When you move to attack them you might just lock yourself in, if you move away they get an OppAtt, but with disadvantage though. In most cases though you want to just stand there and hit them till they die.

Guidance should be abused constantly in any build that can. In this case you do it yourself, so you always have it on, and your cleric can use it on someone else. BTW at the table with any build using guidance put a d4 over your initiative space on your character sheet so you remember to use it whenever possible. Use of any concentration spells on this build is very chancy, you will be making multiple concentration checks each round against half the damage you take for each attack and will fail one, even with constitution being a good save. The war priest feature for bonus action attacks and weapons and armor is wasted, you have it anyway.

I doubt this build has been played at high level. I have played a Barbarian and fighter through level 20. Barbarian is great, but it is high risk high reward feature Reckless attack doesn't scale well up, you must be very judicious in its use. Its great to get advantage, giving advantage at higher levels will result in multiple hits with crits thrown in that resistance wont stack up against. The resistance is god like at lower levels and scales better but not enough. You will be playing a barbarian without the barbarian hit dice. Also, 3 rages per day wont last 3 encounters either, your DM will freeze it out with an effect that's common at those levels.

I think the build could be viable, but requires a well played party to cover. It could work with a large party.


Regardless, it has derailed the OP intentions. So lets end it here and get back on point.

You will have at most a str stat of 16 for most of your career, that's +3 to hit compared to +4 or 5. That's a huge difference. Later you combine this with -5 to hit from GWF, that's just wont work.

If you use variant human for the feat at first, then your stats will be less since only +1 at first for racial. If you take variant human heavy armor mastery you can get +2 in strength at first level, but you want barbarian so that's off the table. It also means 15 at point buy in str and con, so a 14 and a 13 wont happen with a 27 point buy. You can get a 13 and 12 with 2 8's. Your ac will now be lower and you can't multiclass into a cleric unless you bump the score, which burns a feat. You could go with 15, 14, 13, 13 to cover the multi-classing requirements early.

You will have the lowest AC of the people on the front line so will be getting hit so counting on bless past the first round is assuming you will pass multiple concentration checks. Plus Bless is an action, so you give up a round of attacks in most cases unless you get a "prep" round. A cleric giving up an attack for a bless spell is in most cases a no-brainer, a fighter type giving up multiple attacks isn't.

With those feats your base stats never move. They will always be behind and be a constant drag. Your AC wont move either with no CON or DEX bumps. Bless (which cant be counted on round after round if you cast it and fight) and reckless attack wont cover this. Constant advantage is a reach, and you give up advantage to get it with the barbarian features.

The more I see this the more I am convinced this is a book build and not a build that has ever been played.