Optimization help

[FrogReaver]

No, but uncanny dodge does. And especially with two uses per round, it's likely that you're taking half damage on those, making resistance worth only half what it would be.

with +2 or +3 dex and no proficiency in dex saves.. 8+caster stat + prof. Enemies will probably have a save in the range of 13 to 16. You will have a 2-3 bonus. You’ll need about a 12 to succeed. That means you fail 60% of the time. Even with advantage You only have a 56% chance of success. I’d call that a coin flip. Not really likely.

 

[Esker]

there’s plenty of non poison non weapon damage that’s not occurring on a dex save.

The other main damage category besides attacks and DEX saves is CON saves. Many of those are poison. And the rest you have a good chance of saving against anyway between high CON and proficiency, so again we're usually talking about preventing 1/4 of the total damage.

 

[FrogReaver]

The other main damage category besides attacks and DEX saves is CON saves. Many of those are poison. And the rest you have a good chance of saving against anyway between high CON and proficiency, so again we're usually talking about preventing 1/4 of the total damage.

you will have about a 60% chance to save against a con save provided you don’t max con.

that’s more of a coin flip imo. Pretty close to half the time you take full damage

 

[Esker]

with +2 or +3 dex and no proficiency in dex saves.. 8+caster stat + prof. Enemies will probably have a save in the range of 13 to 16. You will have a 2-3 bonus. You’ll need about a 12 to succeed. That means you fail 60% of the time. Even with advantage You only have a 56% chance of success. I’d call that a coin flip. Not really likely.

Your calculations are off there. If you need a 12 to succeed that's a 55% base fail rate without advantage, and a 30% fail rate with advantage.

 

[Salthorae]

1. keep gaining levels in barbarian to gain reckless attack, bear totem and eventually two attacks/round.

2. add a 1 level dip in fighter to gain two weapon fighting as I’d be doing d6+7 with my off hand while raging and then another 3 levels in rogue.

3. Go all rogue to 9th

4. Some combo of fighter 3 (champion) with an additional level of Barbarian. Or barb1/rogue5/fighter2/rogue 2.

I'd Focus on Barbarian to Barbarian 5 for all the things you mentioned: bear totem, reckless attack, Extra attack, Danger sense, Fast Movement, +1 rage/long rest

Then get Rogue to 7-8 if you have more levels for another two Expertise skills, Evasion, +1d6 sneak attack, and maybe another ASI at Rogue 8 if you get there.

 

[Esker]

you will have about a 60% chance to save against a con save provided you don’t max con.

that’s more of a coin flip imo. Pretty close to half the time you take full damage

If using your same reference of a 14 or 15 DC, at level 8, when we're first considering Barbarian 3, he'll have a +6, so will have a 60-65% chance of success; at level 9 that goes up to +7 for 65-70% (I know, DCs are going up too, but that was your reference). But suppose it's 50%. That means half the time resistance is preventing half the base damage, and half the time you're preventing 1/4 of the base damage; on average, you're preventing 37.5% of the base damage.

Against DEX saves, let's also suppose you need a natural 15, giving you a 50/50 chance with advantage. With neither evasion nor bear totem, therefore, you expect to take 75% of the base damage. With evasion, you'll take no damage half the time, and half damage half the time; overall 25% of the base damage, so evasion is preventing 50% of the base. With bear totem, you'll take half damage half the time and a quarter of the damage half the time; overall 37.5% of the damage, so it's preventing 37.5% of the base.

Except bear totem resistance only applies when you're raging. If you have six encounters a day (which may be high, I grant), you can be raging half the time. Now if you're strategic you're using it during the biggest fights, so the damage won't be evenly distributed, so let's suppose 2/3 of damage effects occur while you're raging. That means you're preventing about 1/4 of all save damage due to bear totem resistance.

Let's also suppose that 2/3 of non-poison save-effect damage is DEX-based (I have no idea if that's accurate, but it feels reasonable). Evasion prevents half of that and none of CON save damage, so 1/3 of all non-poison save-effect damage.

Granted, bear totem resistance will sometimes prevent attack damage too, so I'm willing to say that if you were going to choose between the two, it's overall more valuable, despite preventing a smaller portion of save-based damage. If, however, you are choosing between Barb 2 / Rogue X and Barb 3 / Rogue X, then at some point you'll get evasion regardless. In that case, assuming Barb 2 / Rogue 5 as the starting point, the marginal benefit of bear totem for damage prevention is about 25% damage prevention at level 8, roughly even at level 9, and about 15% damage prevention after that, while also delaying expertise, two ASIs, and sneak attack progression by one level each.

If you're not planning to stop at Barbarian 3, then it's a different discussion, and it really comes down to extra attack vs the other rogue features (including that extra ASI at level 12). And that's more of an apples-to-oranges comparison unless we can be more specific about priorities.

 

[Spartan_MD]

My big concern is other characters outpacing my character as far as Melee output. Other martial characters are getting two attacks per round while my character is only getting one and possibly a second to a bonus attack. The bonus attack damage is pretty weak hence I thought about picking up a level in fighter for the fighting style. So my off hand attack would get +7 while raging.

 

[FrogReaver]

My big concern is other characters outpacing my character as far as Melee output. Other martial characters are getting two attacks per round while my character is only getting one and possibly a second to a bonus attack. The bonus attack damage is pretty weak hence I thought about picking up a level in fighter for the fighting style. So my off hand attack would get +7 while raging.

Other characters don't have +3d6 sneak attack damage
Other characters don't get advantage on all their attacks

Unless they really optimized for damage or can go all out nova every fight then your damage output should be comparable to any of theirs.

 

[Esker]

My big concern is other characters outpacing my character as far as Melee output. Other martial characters are getting two attacks per round while my character is only getting one and possibly a second to a bonus attack. The bonus attack damage is pretty weak hence I thought about picking up a level in fighter for the fighting style. So my off hand attack would get +7 while raging.

As @FrogReaver points out, a rogue's damage is driven by sneak attack; they pack in lots of damage on one attack (or in some cases a regular attack and an off-hand attack). They will typically not be at the very top of the heap for damage output, particularly once feats are brought in to the discussion, but they hold their own, particularly if the DM follows the 6-8 encounters per day guideline (in many campaigns there is less combat than that, in which case rogues don't have as much capacity to concentrate their power in those fewer fights as many other classes, since most of their abilities are at-will). They generally offer more to the party outside combat than fighters and barbarians do as well.

In your specific case you have a lot of potential to be a tank character, where a big part of your value to the party in combat is soaking attacks and keeping the heat off of your less resilient allies. If you lean into that role, you want to do enough damage that the enemies see you as a threat so they engage with you, but you don't have to be carrying the party with your damage. In 5e, rogues can do quite well as tanks, particularly with a dip in fighter or barbarian, because (a) they have a lot of ways to mitigate incoming damage, (b) they have good mobility to get into advantageous positions, and (c) because they concentrate their damage in one attack, their opportunity attacks are among the most deadly, making them relatively "sticky" if they want to be.

Your potential as a tank is one reason I suggested taking just the second level of barbarian and the rest rogue: ASIs and feats are a big deal, and the more rogue you have the more dangerous your opportunity attacks are. You may not do as much damage as if you took Barbarian 5 (though depending on how often Sentinel provides you with opportunity attacks, you might), but you might be more effective as a tank, and IMO you'll have a character that's more fun to play (subjective, obviously, but expertise is fun, and feats are fun).

 

[Salthorae]

So long as you have other people fighting up with you, Sneak Attack is often not an issue to trigger. If you want to have more attacks happening while you're up in melee you can add a second weapon to use on your bonus action to get it. Normally when you're up in melee you won't be doing much with your bonus action really.