D&D 5E Barbarian Race Decisions/Optimization

Logan McFarland · Oct 1, 2017

I hate to post again in such a short time, but I can't make up my mind here... I'm making a barbarian TWF build focused on crits, and I can't decide on what to take as the race.
My top two picks as of now, are Halfling and Half-Orc and here are the pros and cons as to why I'm struggling with my decision.

[Stout Halfling]

PRO's
-Decent Stat placement, dex will help with +1 to AC and +1 Con is also nice.
-Lucky is VERY nice, it's like having a free extended crit range. On 1's you can reroll, rerolls = possible crits or successful saves/checks.
-Brave is an extra save/resistance and could add flavor.
-Halfling Nimbleness isn't bad, could be situational though.
-Stout Resilience is another extra save/resistance, could also add flavor.

CON's
-No Darkvision, which can be annoying at night.
-Drops faster, if you take more than your total HP in damage.
-Small size, no 2H optimization if I decided on it at the last second. (Although my DM mentioned possibly waiving this.)
-Less movement

[Half-Orc]

PRO's
-Darkvision
-Average movement speed.
-Extra Crit rolls (2H is good, 1H's could be somewhat alright.)
-Relentless Endurance I could take an extra hit before dropping to zero.
-Great stat placement, could leave me with 16-20 Str and decent health.

CON's
-Rolling 1's can suck a lot.
-Less save's if you get surprised with poison damage. The last character died to a dragon, that outright killed my character from poison damage. >=|
-No advantage to being frightened.

I've got a decent list going as of now, there's still a lot more that I could add. Please give me some helpful input on the better choice, and why.

neogod22 · Oct 2, 2017

Logan McFarland said:
I hate to post again in such a short time, but I can't make up my mind here... I'm making a barbarian TWF build focused on crits, and I can't decide on what to take as the race.
My top two picks as of now, are Halfling and Half-Orc and here are the pros and cons as to why I'm struggling with my decision.

[Stout Halfling]

PRO's
-Decent Stat placement, dex will help with +1 to AC and +1 Con is also nice.
-Lucky is VERY nice, it's like having a free extended crit range. On 1's you can reroll, rerolls = possible crits or successful saves/checks.
-Brave is an extra save/resistance and could add flavor.
-Halfling Nimbleness isn't bad, could be situational though.
-Stout Resilience is another extra save/resistance, could also add flavor.

CON's
-No Darkvision, which can be annoying at night.
-Drops faster, if you take more than your total HP in damage.
-Small size, no 2H optimization if I decided on it at the last second. (Although my DM mentioned possibly waiving this.)
-Less movement

[Half-Orc]

PRO's
-Darkvision
-Average movement speed.
-Extra Crit rolls (2H is good, 1H's could be somewhat alright.)
-Relentless Endurance I could take an extra hit before dropping to zero.
-Great stat placement, could leave me with 16-20 Str and decent health.

CON's
-Rolling 1's can suck a lot.
-Less save's if you get surprised with poison damage. The last character died to a dragon, that outright killed my character from poison damage. >=|
-No advantage to being frightened.

I've got a decent list going as of now, there's still a lot more that I could add. Please give me some helpful input on the better choice, and why.

Assuming you're gonna play a berserker, you won't have to worry about being frightened past level 6 anyway. I would go with half-orc

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Blue · Oct 3, 2017

Just curious, why TWF. It's at a rather large disadvantage for barb crit fishing. Sure, three attacks vs. two gives you 50% more chances to get a crit, but d12s instead of d8s give you 50% more effect from a crit which evens out - until you add in the barbarian (and half-orc) extra dice on crit, in which case the bigger die is a large advantage. And even to get d8s I'm assumign you have the feat, and if instead you have the GWM feat you can get an extra attack on a crit, and if you have the polearm master feat you are d10s, but you are back up to three attacks. And if you don't have the feat then it's d6 vs. d12s and it's not even close. Remember that you'll be fighting a lot more without rage then with rage until you hit the higher levels.

Oh, if you are going full-out crit fishing, are you also planning on taking fighter to pick up champion? Adding 19-20 to your advantage from Reckless has you critting on 19% of your attacks.

Logan McFarland · Oct 7, 2017

I did the math noticing that the damage output is much more even if you're still cursed by those 1's it kind of equals out. I've been running through the numbers and the effective builds at levels 6-10, using just AL rules as I doubt my group will get much higher than that.

We play twice a month if we're lucky and usually, lasts for about 4-8 hours on average. (I get that for AL, min-max isn't meant to be played this way but, I enjoy the number crunching part just as much. I want the most optimization for what little time we do get to play.)

I've kind of worked out 2 Barb/6 Fighter and unsure what to go after that. This gives you 2 feats (3 V. Human), Reckless Attack, GWF, Polearm Master and if you went human (Sentinel) plus two attacks, and Battlemaster seems to work out better, as it adds overall more damage per round at lower levels.

Logan McFarland · Oct 7, 2017

Logan McFarland said:
I've kind of worked out 2 Barb/6 Fighter and unsure what to go after that. This gives you 2 feats (3 V. Human), Reckless Attack, GWF, Polearm Master and if you went human (Sentinel) plus two attacks, and Battlemaster seems to work out better, as it adds overall more damage per round at lower levels.

Still working this build around, wondering if it's worth it to get all three feats or to only take two and get a +2.

neogod22 · Oct 8, 2017

If you're going to use polearms, why take sentinel?

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Logan McFarland · Oct 9, 2017

neogod22 said:
If you're going to use polearms, why take sentinel?

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Thought it might be a good addition, but was looking at it earlier to see if it was actually worth it. If not then I can always change races, even if the level 1 feat helps the stats might be better from another class plus a possible dark vision.