D&D 5E Beware the barbarian in the chainmail bikini! Or, check out the max Barbarian AC!

[Quartz]

A barbarian doesn't need a particularly high Str to start off with because when raging she gets bonus damage.

 

[Gladius Legis]

You only need to bump Dex and Con. Start with Str 14, Dex 16, Con 16 (after racial mods) and you end up with Str 20, Dex 20, Con 24.

But why would you want to do that? The whole purpose of the capstone is to have a STR of 24. So you're hitting +2 better than everybody else at Lv. 20.

 

[Gladius Legis]

A barbarian doesn't need a particularly high Str to start off with because when raging she gets bonus damage.

Lower strength = Lower chance of hitting FOR that bonus damage. STR is VERY important.

 

[fanboy2000]

You only need to bump Dex and Con. Start with Str 14, Dex 16, Con 16 (after racial mods) and you end up with Str 20, Dex 20, Con 24.

Good point. I was thinking that, before the level 20 bump, you're not going to be able to have 20s in all the physical stats. Thus giving the barbarian 20 STR, 24 DEX, and 24 CON. Personally, I'd give stat bumping to STR, then CON and lastly DEX.

Man, talk about multiple ability score dependancy. They really did base the barbarian on Conan.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Good point. I was thinking that, before the level 20 bump, you're not going to be able to have 20s in all the physical stats. Thus giving the barbarian 20 STR, 24 DEX, and 24 CON. Personally, I'd give stat bumping to STR, then CON and lastly DEX.

Man, talk about multiple ability score dependancy. They really did base the barbarian on Conan.

Eh. Even with STR 24, CON 24, DEX 14 at Lv. 20 your AC is 19, which is only 1 less than Plate. Plus with unlimited rages you're always going to have resistance to the usual physical damage types.

 

[Quartz]

Granted it's bringing magic into the game but there's also the possibility of using Wishes to increase stats so Str 24, Dex 20, Con 24 is not unreasonable. Note that at level 20 your Str and Con increase by 4 each AND your max for those stats becomes 24, so you can get to level 20, get the boost, and then use Wishes to increase them to the max.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Barbarians can't cast Wish, though? So that's pretty irrelevant.

 

[BASHMAN]

As a Dexbarian (I was hawk totem during the playtest, and contemplated scrapping the character or changing classes when dex based options were removed from the final product) I definitely am going this route. My dex is maxed, con is next. 

Yes you lose out on STR to hit with melee... Use a finesse weapon and hit with dex instead. Yes you cannot attack with advantage when you do that. So what. You also don't give the enemy near automatic hits on you by giving them advantage and you also take half damage on the rare occasions they hit your much higher AC. 

In essence the difference between a STR vs DEX based barbarian is the latter is defense focused. You still hit for good damage (a 20 dex giving +5 to hit and damage) just not as much as someone with maxed strength.