D&D 5E Build Help - Dex Based Fighter/Barbarian - Want to do it all

[Noctem]

I would just stick with fighter tbh. Not having STR, you lose the main draws of low level barbarism: rage damage bonus + reckless attack. By going pure fighter you can grab medium armor, a shield and a good dex mod to make your AC a solid number. 10 base + 2-3 armor + 3 dex + 2 shield = 17-18 AC at level 1. Maneuvers from Battle Master will more than make up for any problem you could have. Knocking targets prone and a bonus to accuracy are the big ones. Duelist style for a +2 damage bonus. Solid initiative is also a nice thing to have.

Imo, the only reason to ever go STR as your attack stat is if you're using 2 handed weapons or you're a barbarian and want to benefit from the rage damage bonus and/or reckless attack. Outside of that, STR is not worth investing in from a mechanical standpoint.

As for ranged options, if you're using a shield you're basically screwed. The recent clarification for hand crossbows requiring a free hand to reload means that currently there is no 1 handed ranged weapon that you can use at the same time as a shield. So you would have to spend an action to get rid of the shield before being able to reload. However, I like some other DM's I know hand waive that free hand requirement for 1 handed ranged weapons. Ask your DM, maybe you can work out something with him/her to make it work? If you do manage to get an agreement in place, then the hand crossbow would become a very useful ranged weapon with the Crossbow Expert feat.

 

[Kithas]

I would just stick with fighter tbh. Not having STR, you lose the main draws of low level barbarism: rage damage bonus + reckless attack. By going pure fighter you can grab medium armor, a shield and a good dex mod to make your AC a solid number. 10 base + 2-3 armor + 3 dex + 2 shield = 17-18 AC at level 1. Maneuvers from Battle Master will more than make up for any problem you could have. Knocking targets prone and a bonus to accuracy are the big ones. Duelist style for a +2 damage bonus. Solid initiative is also a nice thing to have.

Your ac at level one part has me confused. +3 dex implies that he has medium armor mastery, which is fine but wasn't mentioned. +2-3 for the armor implies that that is the max you can get at level 1, you can probably afford up to scale if you aren't worried about stealth, and that is 14+dex max 2. So you're looking at a max ac at level one of 19 (14+2,+2 for shield, +1 for defensive)

Imo, the only reason to ever go STR as your attack stat is if you're using 2 handed weapons or you're a barbarian and want to benefit from the rage damage bonus and/or reckless attack. Outside of that, STR is not worth investing in from a mechanical standpoint.

Being easily shoved, grappled, and knocked prone in melee is a big weakness. Also using heavy armor is the best way to get a good ac, and it doesn't care about your dex. While I usually agree that dex is great, str is not awful. Especially with things like shield master that give you pseudo evasion and danger sense that give you advantage. Also your encumbrance starts to really become an issue, I know most dms handwave this but it is part of the game.

As for ranged options, if you're using a shield you're basically screwed. The recent clarification for hand crossbows requiring a free hand to reload means that currently there is no 1 handed ranged weapon that you can use at the same time as a shield. So you would have to spend an action to get rid of the shield before being able to reload. However, I like some other DM's I know hand waive that free hand requirement for 1 handed ranged weapons. Ask your DM, maybe you can work out something with him/her to make it work? If you do manage to get an agreement in place, then the hand crossbow would become a very useful ranged weapon with the Crossbow Expert feat.

The reason this isn't allowed and shouldn't be is that it immediately invalidates any other option, your damage is on par with two handed weapons, you don't get disadvantage in melee, you are more accurate and you get the bonus defense from a shield? There wouldn't be a reason to pick anything else.

My suggestion for ranged options; Thrown weapons. Using a javelin instead of a battle axe all the time only costs you on average 1 damage per swing and you always have the option of chucking it if you want to. You would only get one attack that turn but it honestly beats the hell out of the alternative of dropping your shield. Another thing to consider is cantrips, if you go the sorcerer route you get access to frostbite and firebolt as long as you can snag a decent(+2) cha you'll be in business.

 

[Noctem]

Your ac at level one part has me confused. +3 dex implies that he has medium armor mastery, which is fine but wasn't mentioned. +2-3 for the armor implies that that is the max you can get at level 1, you can probably afford up to scale if you aren't worried about stealth, and that is 14+dex max 2. So you're looking at a max ac at level one of 19 (14+2,+2 for shield, +1 for defensive)


Being easily shoved, grappled, and knocked prone in melee is a big weakness. Also using heavy armor is the best way to get a good ac, and it doesn't care about your dex. While I usually agree that dex is great, str is not awful. Especially with things like shield master that give you pseudo evasion and danger sense that give you advantage. Also your encumbrance starts to really become an issue, I know most dms handwave this but it is part of the game.


The reason this isn't allowed and shouldn't be is that it immediately invalidates any other option, your damage is on par with two handed weapons, you don't get disadvantage in melee, you are more accurate and you get the bonus defense from a shield? There wouldn't be a reason to pick anything else.

My suggestion for ranged options; Thrown weapons. Using a javelin instead of a battle axe all the time only costs you on average 1 damage per swing and you always have the option of chucking it if you want to. You would only get one attack that turn but it honestly beats the hell out of the alternative of dropping your shield. Another thing to consider is cantrips, if you go the sorcerer route you get access to frostbite and firebolt as long as you can snag a decent(+2) cha you'll be in business.

I was going off of basic armors available to level 1 characters in character creation as per the PHB guidelines. If you have a DM which is allowing you to buy different starting equipment go for it I also missed to specify armor being as 2-3 as well since you can easily just pick up leather armor and get the full +3 dex mod or grab medium armor master as you note and get the full +3 with medium armor. However, human variants aren't always allowed.

As for shoving and grappling, the victim of the shove / grapple can choose to use Acrobatics to defend itself, so that's not really a good argument for why you should grab STR. No weakness there.

Using heavy armor is a good way to get AC at low levels. Once you get into the mid-high tiers, having heavy armor is actually not a good thing unless you dumped DEX and INT. But as noted, there's no reason to ever do that except for a 2 handed weapon build or a barbarian wanting to get the extra damage bonus from Rage + Reckless attack.

The only thing that sucks about not having STR as a primary for Shield Master is that your shoving bonus action has lower accuracy. The other benefits don't require any STR at all. Carry weight is something I've never seen a DM actually care about, but even if you did, it's your STR score x15. 10 STR gives 150 carry weight which is more than enough to carry all your weapons, armor, random gear and whatever. And if you have problems, having a horse to carry some of the burden or an ally willing to help out shouldn't be a problem.

There's always going to be a more powerful option. Crossbows have their own feat which gives very powerful bonuses, but it's also the only reason to use crossbows as a main weapon. You need the feat, it's a tax. That shouldn't be used to justify saying no to an option however just because it's good. You have to be a human variant, you have to grab a feat and you have to allow it with the DM. Multiple hoops to jump.

 

[Kithas]

As for shoving and grappling, the victim of the shove / grapple can choose to use Acrobatics to defend itself, so that's not really a good argument for why you should grab STR. No weakness there.

It does remove the option for you to shove/grapple as your check will be very low.
Also a lot of spells/abilites that shove/restrain do not allow the dex substitution ex; pushing, tripping, and disarming attacks, Way of the open hand's shove, Fist of unbroken air, Earth tremor, Ensnaring strike etc. are all common spells/abilities that will give you a hard time. There are a myriad of things that do dex saves too but most of those are just to avoid damage, these are to avoid damage and and extra effect that ranges from restrained to shoved.

Using heavy armor is a good way to get AC at low levels. Once you get into the mid-high tiers, having heavy armor is actually not a good thing unless you dumped DEX and INT. But as noted, there's no reason to ever do that except for a 2 handed weapon build or a barbarian wanting to get the extra damage bonus from Rage + Reckless attack.

I'm not sure what your reference to Int here is, unless you mean bladesinger and that is only twice/day so I don't even consider it something to rely on at all. Without
the Medium armor master feat you cannot match Plate mail with medium or light armor. Even with the feat, Heavy armor master gives you a much better defensive bonus. So as far as ac goes heavy armor is equal to medium only with MAM, whereas without medium armor can only get to 17. Plus you get a feat that lets you reduce incoming damage, that seems much more viable defensively to me.

Carry weight is something I've never seen a DM actually care about, but even if you did, it's your STR score x15. 10 STR gives 150 carry weight which is more than enough to carry all your weapons, armor, random gear and whatever. And if you have problems, having a horse to carry some of the burden or an ally willing to help out shouldn't be a problem.

The first time we started having people using str as a dump stat my dm started checking in on our inventory weights occasionally, only really for the low str characters. It usually isn't an issue but it does make treasure rooms a pain because hauling all that heavy loot out is really hard when you only have 15~lbs to spare per person, gold coins are heavy!

There's always going to be a more powerful option. Crossbows have their own feat which gives very powerful bonuses, but it's also the only reason to use crossbows as a main weapon. You need the feat, it's a tax. That shouldn't be used to justify saying no to an option however just because it's good. You have to be a human variant, you have to grab a feat and you have to allow it with the DM. Multiple hoops to jump.

The issue is there isn't a more powerful option than this, even with feat investments. Your damage is easily on par with heavy weapons with gwm and even polearm mastery users, let alone when you add sharpshooter on top of crossbow expert. I'm fine with those existing but letting you do it and get the defense bonus from a shield just seems irresponsible.

 

[Noctem]

lol ooook. I'm getting the feeling that we're just gonna have to agree to disagree on this because you're just not getting what I'm explaining and you're shifting the goal posts of the discussion as you're going along. GL HF to you.

And btw, if your DM is going to give you a room full of treasure as a reward for doing a quest or something and then looks at the only character in the party with low STR and says "shucks, guess you can't carry as much as everyone else low str guy", that DM is violating wheaton's law imo and should be told as much. Why not just give high value gems that match the value of the rewards if you're going to be a dunce about carry weight for one character. @_@

 

[Kithas]

I'm not trying to be argumentative or unyielding to your side. I apologize if I've come across that way.
Dex-based builds can definitely be good in melee and I have/will continue to make characters meant for melee with low str. The main point I think we are disagreeing on is that to you str is only a dump stat. Unless you want rage damage or you want a 2 handed weapon. I personally think str vs dex is pretty balanced, dex is the more common/important save and is usually tied to your ac as well. While str gives you more options in melee and can keep some nasty things from coming your way. Both options are completely viable.

For the crossbow thing, honestly it is up to the dm and the players. Personally I like a system with multiple viable options to build around. I don't want one option to be clearly the best choice in any situation and if I'm not using it I am missing out. Any modification to the game that makes things more like this I am going to be opposed to :/

For the treasure room scenario, usually with dragons lairs and vampire keeps this is what we've run into. Also we split the loot evenly, or as best we can, so this isn't the low str guy's problem, it's everyone's. It does give a significant drawback to being a light-weight and makes a more interesting choice in my opinion at character creation. There are, of course, spells and other options that help get around this limitation. But there should always be a real cost to dumping a stat. Otherwise your choices don't really matter...

 

[Tidomann]

I've never understood the pull to dex in barbarian, so much of the good barbarian stuff outright requires str, Rage damage and reckless attacks being big ones.

If you want to be really tanky and mix range with melee my advice would be fighter/ranger. Ranger is a lot more defensive than it usually gets credit for. Multiattack defense, horde breaker and picking up the defensive style will definitely help. They also get good hp and have no problem dealing with groups.

On the other hand fighter/sorcerer could be rather good as well. It is really hard to get hit if you are concentrating on Blur, and cast Shield whenever something manages to hit you. You could try this with EK but the lack of spell slots will hurt a lot. Draconic ancestry sorc gives you the best light armor(13+dex) and +1hp/level too, so it hp wise acts like a d8 class.

That said tankiness really depends on 2 things, hp and ac. If you get a high con and dex you should be ok.

Edit;
As far as BM vs Champ, BM would definitely be my choice in this situation, the options you get like pushing, menacing and tripping from range are awesome.

Thanks for the input. I'll have to start taking a look at ranger now. And here I thought I was almost decided haha. I think sorcerer has interesting mechanical bonuses and I want to thank you for bringing it up, but it doesn't fit the flavour of my character sadly.

I'm imagining that since he's basically making a "tank" he will have higher con than wis and be increasing con before wis with ASI's so he'd get a higher AC out of barb than monk, in addition to the higher hit dice for barb levels and the better con giving a few hit points, as well as rage halving the damage he takes. As for my suggestions, OP, only take 3 levels of barb if you end up taking barb. You'll have more damage potential with fighter 17/barb 3 than barb 19/fighter 1 due to Extra Attack and Action Surge, as well as Maneuvers giving you more damage and more options.

Yeah it slowly devolved from being able to do just dish out consistent damage from wherever to position myself to help my group into just seeing how ridiculously sturdy and mobile the character could be.

I was originally thinking barb 17 fighter 3 but the additional action surge and having than two extra attacks by far does more damage to make any of the totemic bonuses really be worth it, as much as I love them for the flavour.. I'll have to look at the ranger idea and see how it stacks up. Maybe I'll just end up sticking to straight class fighter and having to re-evaluate everything.

Also- there were a few points raised about monks- which as stated works really well for wood elf. Maybe I'll play around with a few builds for them. The only issue I see is the discrepancy between fighting style and the monks restriction on monk weapons causing a few issues to weight what the benefits ultimately are.

I want to thank everyone for their input. I went in semi-blind and I thought there was going to be a barbarian and a fighter, so I wanted to keep my character flexible which is why I chose dex. I think there is definitely merit to sticking to strength, and I might use some of the points raised in this thread for my next character.