D&D 5E Desperately need help, trying to catch up to party.

[jbear]

A level 8 frenzied barbarian with GWM and Str20 will do 2d6+17 per attack.
Since missing once is more likely than critting once, I'd be surprised if it reaches 72 damage per turn.

You might have rounded up his best round, but considering you managed to get expertise in athletics I'm not surprised the numbers don't match reality. You really are deep in la la land.

NOt saying that something isn't off with the numbers of the OP's group but fwiw my level 8 half orc berserker barbarian/fighter who wields a flametongue axe (+2d6 fire dmg on a hit) easily deals between 70 -100 dmg per round while raging and crits on a 19-20 (add in half orc cit dmg dice). Add Action surge into one of those rounds, and reckless attack for advantage on all rolls ... well, the berserker barbarian can be totally mental. But exhaustion limits how often you can be that epic, so really 2/day is really all you will ever be that crazy deadly. And then you will need some serious rest. If you are using frenzy 3/day you will have 3 levels of exhaustion at the end of it ... bad news!

NB: the aforementioned character uses the 27 point buy system

 

[acorn_stasis]

Oh yeah. I love my point buy Barbarian/Fighter/Ranger that has no stat above 14 and as many feats as possible.

You'd be surprise how much Advantage and Lucky make up for not having a 20 attack stat. And Mobile works great for defense.

This sounds fascinating. Could you please give us some more in depth info on this, maybe level by level progression and thinking behind the build, tactics etc... ?

 

[Satyrn]

Continuing with the snide comments. I understand it makes you feel 'superior' when you make these types comments.

So you weren't playing along. Here, I thought the whole little conversation was intended to be playful teasing.

But now you're saying that comment you described as "mean" before you made it was indeed intended to be an attack, an insult, against some of us here. If I was Santa, you'd be getting coal in your stocking.

 

[BookBarbarian]

This sounds fascinating. Could you please give us some more in depth info on this, maybe level by level progression and thinking behind the build, tactics etc... ?

Sure. I was thinking about how Advantage works out to be about equivalent to a +5 (but also doubles crit chance) and since that +5 is more than the +2 you would get going from 16 to 20 in a main Stat or even the +3 between 14 and 20. So ultimately I was thinking about the value of re-rolls or extra rolls versus static modifiers.

There are a lot of ways to get some extra rolls in this game, but I wanted to focus on how best to use them on a character I would like. Somebody who is good with a Longsword or Greatsword but also decent a Longbow.

I get three sources of re-rolls with this guy, Reckless attack, Lucky, and Stalker's flurry.

Starting V Human with Lucky. Point buy and Human bonuses get me 14, 14, 14, 11, 14, 8.

At first I took Ranger Gloomstalker to 5 for Extra Attack grabbing Mobile at 4, then 2 in Barb for Reckless Attack. So already he's got advantage on all melee attacks, and Gloomstalker gives you one extra attack in the first round of each combat . If he does miss he has Lucky to give him another chance at hitting (and critting).

But enemies having advantage against you is bad, so you want to mitigate that. I decide that using Mobile I could use the extra movement from Mobile, Gloomstalker, and potentially Longstrider (hopefully caster before combat begins) to get into combat, Recklessly smack people with my Greatsword, then move out of their range with mobile. They can't attack me with AoOs and if I can move far enough not attack me at all. Completely mitigating the negative of Reckless Attack thus saving me a use of my limited Rages.

At this point I could have stayed with Ranger to 11 for Stalker's Flurry which could turn one miss per turn into another re-roll, but I decided to start getting more out of that Greatsword, so 4 levels in Fighter got me Action Surge, Expanded Crit chance (Champion) and a Feat (GWM)

And that's pretty much it so far. Assuming the campaign goes far enough 6 more levels in Ranger will get me Stalkers Flurry. One more in Barb will get me Bear Totem or Zealot, I haven't decided yet. Probably going to grab Observant to round out that odd Int score and up Perception.

It's not optimized by any means. There's no doubt it would work better with 20 Strength, but I don't find it "necessary" for the character. It's playable and fun.

Also it's fairly decent at Range too. +2 from Dex and Proficiency is not that bad, and Lucky and Stalker's Flurry both will help out with misses. Alternatively I could have gone Samurai of Champion for Advantage that will work at Range instead of expanded crit range, but I just love combining Reckless Attack with 19-20 Crits.

Oh and one more note. This was using PHB Ranger. It would be much better if I were using Revised Ranger. Advantage on the first round of combat would save me from using Reckless Attack on those Rounds. And Revised Rangers getting Bonus Action Dash works even better with Mobile. I like what I have, but I can't wait to see what alternate Ranger Rules come out of the whole Revised discussion.

 

[Yardiff]

So you weren't playing along. Here, I thought the whole little conversation was intended to be playful teasing.

But now you're saying that comment you described as "mean" before you made it was indeed intended to be an attack, an insult, against some of us here. If I was Santa, you'd be getting coal in your stocking.

Yes I was being mean that's why I said I was. In my opinion, several of the posts here were shooting down not playing 'by the book' with 27-point buy or standard array and even saying that some players in the OP game were playing the game wrong by healing in combat. So I decided to mean to all those I saw as being kind of 'elitist' (at least somewhat). At least that's the way I saw some of the posts. Coal is cool by me I can use it to heat the house.

 

[acorn_stasis]

Sure.

Thanks! That was an enjoyable read and an interesting, feature rich approach to character building. I like these kinds of builds that move away from mechanistic damage ideas and more towards flavour and tactics. Very nice...

 

[BookBarbarian]

Thanks! That was an enjoyable read and an interesting, feature rich approach to character building. I like these kinds of builds that move away from mechanistic damage ideas and more towards flavour and tactics. Very nice...

Thank you!

What I find interesting, is despite all that it has going for it in Melee, like reckless Attack, one more Attack and movement in the first round of combat, it's still sometimes better to use that first round of combat to cast Spike Growth and Hunter' Mark, and subsequent rounds firing arrows at things as they get torn up in the Growth. Heck I might grab Prodigy for expertise in Athletics just so I can grapple and drag things around in the Spike Growth.

The choice of which tactic to use is part of what makes it fun.