D&D 5E Barbarians: Why not multiclass?

[Weathercock]

Boy do I ever disagree with that! As far as I'm concerned, resistance is there to let the barbarian reckless attack, and reckless attack is there to let them abuse Great Weapon Master and/or Polearm Master. Barbarian with GWM + PAM is the top melee damage build in the game at pretty much every level. (As it should be, IMHO.)

Except it's not, and in a competent party, it shouldn't be. Reckless Attack is great, and a fantastic tool to ensure high, consistent damage. But advantage is easy to get in 5e, and other classes have very little trouble outdoing Barbarian's damage if they actually make competent use of their resources.
Barbarian's strength as a class, as with Reckless Attack, is high, consistent damage, and the durability to keep kicking long enough to ensure that they get it done. Their actual damage ceilings are very low compared to the other frontline classes. With a Barbarian, it's all about winning the marathon, not the sprint.

As for Barbarians and multiclassing, I wouldn't recommend it unless you have something very specific in mind. Barbarian has one of the best capstone abilities in the game, and you don't usually want to slow down progression to each archetype's level 14 ability, which tend to be quite potent.

In order to optimize your options, you'll want to pick up a halberd weapon with the Great Weapon Mastery and Polearm Godmode feats, while going Totem Warrior. In doing so, you'll be able to reliably do more damage than anything a Frenzying Berserker Barbarian can do for most of the game, and still manage to keep up quite well with one even after he passes you by level 14. And unlike the Frenzying Berserker, the Polearm Totem Warrior is able to keep up with that all day long, every day, no breaks inbetween, along with the Totem Warrior's own incredibly potent abilities (if you aren't getting the hint, Berserker is a horrible, horrible archetype, and should never be taken as it is in the PHB under any circumstance, ever).

If you are interested in the Berserker archetype, and the fact that it is complete, utter garbage does not deter you, you may want to consider trying out the homebrew variant for it that I recently wrote up. Even with the changes that I've made, the Polearm Godemode Totem Warrior is still a bit better overall in my opinion, especially with the new options that SCAG presents, but it presents an option for an offensive archetype variant that isn't as awful as the RAW Berserker (or Battlerager, which looks almost as disappointing, just with a different flavour).
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ter-Berserker-Barbarian&p=6744355#post6744355

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[jgsugden]

If you follow the designer recommendations for the game, you'll have more encounters per long rest and need those extra rages. If you don't.... then Barbarians have extraneous rages that are factored into their power levels and other classes with once per long rest abilities get boosts in power levels relative to a pure barby.

In the end, you don't need to be optimized. As such, you're going to have more fun playing a character design that matches the concept of the character you want to play. My 6th level dwarven barbarian is a frenzied berserker. He is all about the offense and does just fine...

 

[Minsc]

Half Orc Barbarian with (at least) 3 levels of Champion is a crit machine. Reckless attack and crits on 19's make them happen a lot.

Half Orcs loooove crits.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Xeviat]

I'm the DM, and the player is just wondering why he wouldn't multiclass. But I think he wasn't under the impression that there would be so many encounters per day. I'm wondering how things will go without Polearm Master, as he's going with a Great Axe (He does have GWM, though).

We do allow feats and we do allow multiclassing. He was just looking over his character and the fighter (EK) in the group and wondering what his role was going to be. On paper, he's worried that he's going to be the tank where the fighter is going to be the damage dealer, when he thought he was going to be a damage dealer primarily. I'll let him know that reckless attack nearly cancels out the resistance to damage, as he'll get hit quite a lot more even if he's taking less damage, that we're going to shoot for a large number of encounters between each short rest, and that advantage should help him get more crits. If he ends up wanting to multiclass, that's no problem.

Mostly, I'm trying to make sure he enjoys the system. I don't want to go back to DMing 3.5 or Pathfinder, and he doesn't like 4E, so 5E is my best bet to get him to happily play in my games still.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I think a barb with GWM +10 is going to do insane damage with reckless attack. Insane. He has nothing to worry about.

 

[Weathercock]

I'm the DM, and the player is just wondering why he wouldn't multiclass. But I think he wasn't under the impression that there would be so many encounters per day. I'm wondering how things will go without Polearm Master, as he's going with a Great Axe (He does have GWM, though).

We do allow feats and we do allow multiclassing. He was just looking over his character and the fighter (EK) in the group and wondering what his role was going to be. On paper, he's worried that he's going to be the tank where the fighter is going to be the damage dealer, when he thought he was going to be a damage dealer primarily. I'll let him know that reckless attack nearly cancels out the resistance to damage, as he'll get hit quite a lot more even if he's taking less damage, that we're going to shoot for a large number of encounters between each short rest, and that advantage should help him get more crits. If he ends up wanting to multiclass, that's no problem.

Mechanically speaking, if damage is the route you want to go as a Barbarian (or just about any other melee fighter), Polearm is simply far and above anything you'll ever do with any other weapon. The free, guaranteed bonus attack that functions with GWM's power attack, as well as the ability to get really easy attacks of opportunity just send it through the roof, and nothing else really competes with that.

Barbarian raging, reckless attack DPR with great weapon mastery

Level 5 v AC 13: 39.2 (Str +4) <-- 113.6 per 3 rounds, 270.4 per 7 rounds (Greatsword)
Level 11 v AC 15: 42.9 (Str +5) <-- 128.1 per 3 rounds, 299.7 per 7 rounds (Greataxe)
Level 20 v AC 19: 50.6 (Str +7) <-- 147.6 per 3 rounds, 350.0 per 7 rounds (Greataxe)

Barbarian raging, reckless attack DPR with great weapon mastery (Halberd), polearm mastery

Level 5 v AC 13: 42.6 (Str +3) <-- 112.9 per 3 rounds, 283.4 per 7 rounds (1 turn setup)
Level 11 v AC 15: 48.1 (Str +4) <-- 129.7 per 3 rounds, 322.1 per 7 rounds (1 turn setup)
Level 20 v AC 19: 62.9 (Str +7) <-- 169.8 per 3 rounds, 421.4 per 7 rounds (1 turn setup)

Barbarian raging, reckless attack DPR with great weapon mastery (Halberd), polearm mastery, reaction included

Level 5 v AC 13: 57.4 (Str +3) <-- 159.3 per 3 rounds, 388.9 per 7 rounds (1 turn setup)
Level 11 v AC 15: 64.9 (Str +4) <-- 180.2 per 3 rounds, 439.8 per 7 rounds (1 turn setup)
Level 20 v AC 19: 80.4 (Str +7) <-- 219.3 per 3 rounds, 540.9 per 7 rounds (1 turn setup)

The problem with multiclassing as a Barbarian is that no matter where you take it, what you're doing isn't exactly getting more damage output, but sacrificing your consistent damage potential (and rate of progression in Barbarian) in exchange for some burst damage. Overall, you'll never simply get "more" with multiclassing as a Barbarian, you'll always be making that tradeoff (and generally, not one that I'd really consider favourable). Speaking in the long (loooooooong) term, losing that capstone is huge. Keep in mind that the extra +2 strength modifier doesn't just increase the damage of your attacks by a bit, but also your accuracy. And when you want to be power attacking as much as possible, that +2 to hit is absolutely massive for your damage output.

As a damage dealer, a Polearm Godmode Totem Warrior (or, as I noted above, my improved Berserker variant, which does present a more damage-oriented option that also presents the added benefit of not tying you down to a polearm) will end up doing less damage than what a fighter is going to be capable of. That's just how the class works, and there's not a lot of ways around that. But that doesn't mean that the damage Barbarian deals will be inconsequential either. You can still pump out some reasonably meaningful numbers while playing to the Barbarian's strengths.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Minsc]

There's only one slight problem with your analysis. Real Barbarian don't use halberds.

I mean, sure, if they are weaponless and they are forced to pick up the weapon of their enemies for a short period of time in order to slaughter them and hear the lamentations of the townsfolk said halberd-wielding enemies are guarding, why not?

But what self-respecting Barbarian is gallivanting around, lopping off heads and praising Crom for the gift of Wine, Women, and good, um, pole-arms? I mean, the jokes write themselves.

IDK man, this looks kinda like a glaive. I can see a Barbarian with a polearm.