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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Esker" data-source="post: 7904990" data-attributes="member: 6966824">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.</blockquote>

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