D&D 5E Which way to go with pole arm build?

Sacrosanct · Feb 14, 2020

Knowing most campaigns won’t go past level 12 or so, how would you lean?

* bugbear fighter to get the extra 5ft reach on melee attacks (15ft reach with a halberd + polearm mastery at level 4?), but at the cost of being a bugbear in a human centric world (RP issues)

* human fighter to get the trio of feats by level 6?

* human paladin to get feats and smite?

* other.

Optimizing not necessary to get most DPR. But what sounds most appealing if you were to build a polearm based PC?

Zardnaar · Feb 14, 2020

Myself I would probably look at the fighter or nature cleric with staff.

Paladin's a bit MAD unless you rolled well. The fighter can mix it with sentinel and/or great weapon Master.

Kurotowa · Feb 14, 2020

The bugbear sounds like overkill. What will 15ft reach do that 10ft reach won't? I'd only do it if I had a really solid idea for a bugbear PC. Between Fighter and Paladin, it's a toss up. Given how short my recent campaigns have been I might lean towards the Fighter just to have a hope of playing the full build, but that's personal circumstances.

houser2112 · Feb 14, 2020

I'm currently playing a 4th level human battlemaster with a glaive and it's a lot of fun. I took GWM at 1st level, but I probably should have gone with PAM instead. PAM allows you to use your bonus action to attack every turn, and the Riposte maneuver allows you to use your reactions as well. Precision maneuver allows you to make up for the inevitable misses that using GWM will incur.

I agree that a 15ft reach is overkill, and not worth giving up the opportunity to have a feat at 1st level.