Aasimar Bardbarian opinions

[77IM]

Spells: Remember that when raging you can't cast spells but may continue to concentrate on them (which you will be excellent at, because of your great Con save). So I'd pick mostly non-combat utility spells (charm person, disguise self, speak with animals, and maybe a couple of good concentration spells (bane, faerie fire, Tasha's). Actually heroism is usually a kinda weak spell, but it would be excellent for you, if you can spare the action to cast it on round 1. For rituals, the most useful are detect magic, identify, and speak with animals.

Based on your character description, my final spell picks would be: charm person, cure wounds, detect magic, and then speak with animals for kind of a Disney-princes vibe. I'm thinking here of the scene in Shrek 3 where Snow White summons cute and deadly woodland creatures.

I'd go for only 1 bard level for now. You can pick up more later if you want -- you don't have to decide now. I definitely think aasimar Noble barbarian/bard nice-person-with-anger-issues is a great character concept, so much so, that you shouldn't worry too much about being ineffective.

Skills: Unless you're scrupulously honest, Deception is a must-have. Lying to your enemies is just too useful (and if you get away with it, it's also tremendously fun). Performance is useless but it makes so much sense for your character that I'd take it. And Persuasion Expertise is just perfect for your concept, making Diplomat feat sound like a really good pick.

Weapons: TWF is not great for this build, because it uses up bonus actions. It's also much better at low levels than high levels. However you would get to apply rage damage twice so it's not terrible. I'm a huge fan of Polearm Mastery, which also uses bonus actions, but is still good because it also gives a reaction attack. Plus polearms look cool (there are like a zillion glaives to choose from). That said, if you want to be a classic tanky barbarian, sword+board is quite good. Boring, but good. If I were you I'd definitely go polearm because it gives you a bit of extra battlefield control, mobility, and with the feat, extra attacks. But really this choice doesn't matter quite so much. I'd argue that your skill and spell choices matter more.

 

[CTurbo]

Spells: Remember that when raging you can't cast spells but may continue to concentrate on them (which you will be excellent at, because of your great Con save). So I'd pick mostly non-combat utility spells (charm person, disguise self, speak with animals, and maybe a couple of good concentration spells (bane, faerie fire, Tasha's). Actually heroism is usually a kinda weak spell, but it would be excellent for you, if you can spare the action to cast it on round 1. For rituals, the most useful are detect magic, identify, and speak with animals.

Based on your character description, my final spell picks would be: charm person, cure wounds, detect magic, and then speak with animals for kind of a Disney-princes vibe. I'm thinking here of the scene in Shrek 3 where Snow White summons cute and deadly woodland creatures.

I'd go for only 1 bard level for now. You can pick up more later if you want -- you don't have to decide now. I definitely think aasimar Noble barbarian/bard nice-person-with-anger-issues is a great character concept, so much so, that you shouldn't worry too much about being ineffective.

Skills: Unless you're scrupulously honest, Deception is a must-have. Lying to your enemies is just too useful (and if you get away with it, it's also tremendously fun). Performance is useless but it makes so much sense for your character that I'd take it. And Persuasion Expertise is just perfect for your concept, making Diplomat feat sound like a really good pick.

Weapons: TWF is not great for this build, because it uses up bonus actions. It's also much better at low levels than high levels. However you would get to apply rage damage twice so it's not terrible. I'm a huge fan of Polearm Mastery, which also uses bonus actions, but is still good because it also gives a reaction attack. Plus polearms look cool (there are like a zillion glaives to choose from). That said, if you want to be a classic tanky barbarian, sword+board is quite good. Boring, but good. If I were you I'd definitely go polearm because it gives you a bit of extra battlefield control, mobility, and with the feat, extra attacks. But really this choice doesn't matter quite so much. I'd argue that your skill and spell choices matter more.

Hey thanks for answering.

I don't really see this character being a big spell caster. That's why I was thinking about Cure Wounds plus a bunch of out of combat rituals. Cure Wounds can be refluffed as Divine rather than just casting it as a "spell."

You bring up a good point about Heroism, and I'll look into it, but I really don't like Charm Person for her. Even the charm from the Diplomat feat would be refluffed as accidental if the DM would allow it. I just don't see her intentionally charming or deceiving anybody ever. I think she would be a more straight up brutally honest person.

As far as skills, like I said, I don't see her needing Deception to deceive, but would she need it to make Deception checks like defensively? I don't want her to be easily deceived. I guess that would be an Insight check though right?

As far as fighting styles, if I went with TWF I would take Swords Bard at Bard 3 and get the Fighting Style. I'd take Dueling Style if I went S&B.

 

[77IM]

If she's honest, then don't take Deception, take Insight instead. Deception CAN be used defensively (making you "inscrutable") but it's very rarely used that way against PCs (at least, I often forget to have NPCs use Insight against PCs this way). But Insight could be really useful especially with a mediocre Wis.

I only suggested charm person for those situations where stupendous Persuasion isn't enough -- you could refluff it as "celestial beauty" or something. But, I can understand not wanting it on a very honest character. In that case I'd recommend identify instead because that's very useful to the party, and castable as a ritual; although comprehend languages is pretty good too. So my top 4 spells then become cure wounds, detect magic, identify, and speak with animals. Those are all things that I think you could reasonably re-flavor as "divine special abilities" rather than spells. Really, I think the only ritual spell that doesn't make sense to re-flavorable this way is illusory script; even unseen servant could be an invisible celestial spirit or something.

This is a really fun-sounding character concept and I am thinking of stealing it at some point.