D&D 5E Race/Class combinations that were cool but you avoided due to mechanics?

[TwoSix]

Rage still works perfectly. You get all the benefits of rage except the weapon damage bonus. The extra damge is the only thing you miss by going finesse melee, and that damage is significant, but it is hardly an entire chunk of the class design. With extra attack, advantage and brutal critical you are still doing reliable, substantial, damage with a finesse weapon. Other things like damage resistance, extra movement, advantage on dexterity saves, ferrell instinct - they all still work the same and unarmored defense (another key barbarian class feature) works better than it does with a high strength.

A sword and board plate fighter with dueling at level 8 is doing 17 DPR on average vs AC 15 foe. A finesse Barbarian built as above with a shield has the same AC and is doing 18DPR with advantage. Additionally he has advantage on dex saves, a lot more mobility, more hps, more skill proficiencies and can rage for half damage and comparable strength-athletics checks. A basic 1d8 Rogue is doing 17DPR if he is getting sneak every turn but is not getting advantage. Drive AC above 15 and that swings even more in the Barbarian's favor.

If you go archer you miss out on a bit more damage, and you can't keep up with a fighter in damage, because you don't get the fighting style. You will be about 2 DPR behind at 8th level (more if the fighter took sharpshooter) . But you still have all those other perks and not only does rage works fine, in addition it is easier to stay in rage because you don't have to worry about not having an enemy within movement to get in an attack in. As long as there is an enemy somewhere on the battlefield you can shoot at him and stay in rage.

Reckless Attack only works on melee weapon attacks that use Strength. So no advantage for an archer barbarian. Considering the only benefit to rage that works for a Dex-based barbarian is the half damage, and an archer should be taking far less hits in general, there's really not a lot of positive synergy there.

There are ways to make Dex based barbarian work, but it's generally better as a dip to get Unarmored Defense and Rage 2/day, and then focus on a better Dex class (like Rogue or Fighter).

 

[ECMO3]

Reckless Attack only works on melee weapon attacks that use Strength. So no advantage for an archer barbarian. Considering the only benefit to rage that works for a Dex-based barbarian is the half damage, and an archer should be taking far less hits in general, there's really not a lot of positive synergy there.

There are ways to make Dex based barbarian work, but it's generally better as a dip to get Unarmored Defense and Rage 2/day, and then focus on a better Dex class (like Rogue or Fighter).

Thanks for the correction on reckless attack, I knew it applied for the rage damage, but I did not realize it applied for reckless attack. There are other subclass abilities that also work with rage though. For an archer - zealot or ancestral guardian would still both work with rage, I think ancesteral guardian would actually work better with a ranged Barbarian because the enemy would not easily be able to get to and attack the Barbarian. This basically imposes disadvantage with no save if you hit him while after 6the level also reducing 7 DPR on other party members. Frenzy would theoretically work for a finesse melee Barbarian but that is an awful subclass for anyone.

It is not just the Rage though, it is the mobility, the hps, the extra skills, being able to run a high AC and still have good stealth, the Barbarian is a lot more flexible than other martial classes and things like the extra movement work better if you are not pinned down in melee.

I like multiclassing in general, but I don't particularly like the idea of multiclassing a dex-based Barbarian because the strength has to be 13 to multiclass. I think I would go with a completely different class if that is the case.

I think the way to go for an archer would be either a wood elf (assuming TCE) or a Goblin with the ancesteral guardian subclass. For a dex melee I think I would go with TCE halfling, human or custom and the Eagle totem. With the custom you could start with an 18Dex and piercer feat which would be a pretty good head start on damage. I would also take the urchin, criminal or spy background. I have not played such a character, but I think it would be pretty effective.

 

[d24454_modern]

Responding to the OP... Well, this is not exactly your question, but what made me house rule racial scores (in a similar way that tasha's did later) was when a player of mine wanted to make a sailor air genasi storm sorcerer, but when he built the character he got very underwhelmed by his stats (ended up with a 15 in charisma). So I changed his stats, because we both felt he was punished by his fun character choices, the made sense to was (Why wouldn't an air genasi be a good storm sorcerer?).

There's something really irritating about 15 being treated as a low ability score. Especially, if I'm assuming that this is a level 1 character.

 

[Bolares]

There's something really irritating about 15 being treated as a low ability score. Especially, if I'm assuming that this is a level 1 character.

In a game with 20 being the max, and +1 to your spell DC matters it is a low score for your main stat.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

There's something really irritating about 15 being treated as a low ability score. Especially, if I'm assuming that this is a level 1 character.

Really makes me twitchy as well. More due to the real-life elitism/feelings of inadequacy that it mirrors than the game results.
But even so, a +2 rather than +3 is hardly a "low score" on a scale that goes down to -1. The only scale in which "not the absolute highest" score is a "low" score is binary.

 

[jmartkdr2]

There's something really irritating about 15 being treated as a low ability score. Especially, if I'm assuming that this is a level 1 character.

It's not the number, it's the fact that you could have had a 16, and you know you could have had a 16 so you can't just forget it once you've noticed it. If your concept doesn't require a feat it's mechanically unimportant, but it's leaving money on the table, so to speak.

Which is why I went with floating mods a few years ago - it's an edge case where it matters, but when it does it's always a negative effect.

 

[guachi]

I've made one simple change to racial ability scores to open up options for non-standard characters:

If a race increases an ability score by 2, you may instead increase that score by 1 and increase another ability score of your choice by 1.

My games always use point-buy for character creation so being able to put a +1 in a stat of your choice helps a TON.

I made this change myself about five years ago. Never regretted it. I also added the reverse for basic humans. Instead of 6 +1 scores you decrease one score by 1 and increase another by 1 for 1 +2, 4 +1, and 1 score at 0.