Player asked for a favour: MC Barbarian-Warlock

[Sadras]

I have a player who wishes to run with the theme of a Barbarian believing his totem animal is guiding him (i.e Warlock Patron). I have no issue with the theme, in fact I'm very much a fan of it.

However he would like to modify two class features of the Barbarian and it is this request which is causing me concern, so I'd like to get the collective's input on the matter.

He would like the Barbarian's Rage and Reckless Attack to be powered via emotion (Charisma) and not brute Strength (refer underlined). He is wanting to MC into a Warlock, specifically the Hexblade (refer Xanathar's page 55) because of the below power, so he'd like to synergise the two.

HEX WARRIOR
Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that lacks the two -handed property. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls.

RAGE (refer PHB)
When you make a melee weapon Attack using Strength, you gain a +2 bonus to the damage roll. This bonus increases as you level.

RECKLESS ATTACK (refer PHB)
Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defense to Attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first Attack on Your Turn, you can decide to Attack recklessly. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon Attack rolls using Strength during this turn, but Attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.

This I think is a big thing for this character, the wildness/raw emotions of his attacks is important to the concept. I propose for Charisma to replace the Strength requirement in the Rage and Reckless Attack. I understand what the game designers were after implementing this limitation, since if they opened it up to Dexterity it would reflect more on a calculated action. With Charisma it can be viewed as raw-based emotion and perhaps this idea was not considered an option at the time.

Playing it without the change would feel like I had to play the warlock part for a bit and then the play the Barbie part for the other bit, ignoring the other class while I do so. I don't think the design was taken into consideration by the designers due to the chronological order of the material.

Would you allow it at your table?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Using one ability score is just like using any other. So I find absolutely no reason not to let two classes that usually don't have the same ability score focus be allowed to do so. It would also be a wonderful change of pace to see Warlocks multiclass to classes OTHER than Paladin and Sorcerer every freaking time. The only reason we get so many of those goddamn things is not because we have so many paladin/warlock and sorcerer/warlock character stories and backgrounds running around that need to be represented... but merely because "Hey game mechanics work really well together in those combos, so let me try and barely tie these two disparate stories into one just so I can use all these kewl powers together since they're CHA-based and the rules let me!"

So sure... let Rage and Reckless attack work with Charisma. Or... if the player wants to focus on his physical power in this combo, let the player use STR for all their Warlock abilities. Or, if there's just a specific Hexblade ability or two that they want... just do a class feature swap for them. Mix and match to your and their hearts content to get the mechanics they want to exemplify the character's history and actionability that they are looking for. You're never going to really blow anything up because most of the features are fairly well balanced, and you're going to be keeping your eyes on them anyway.

 

[jaelis]

I probably wouldn't allow it at my table. I can't say it would be overpowered (though it might be), just seems too cheap and easy. Instead I'd probably try to houserule a barb primal path that enables the character concept.

 

[Dausuul]

Hmm. I would be cautious about this.

As a hexblade player myself, I can see one issue right off the bat: A hexblade can learn Eldritch Smite, which lets you burn spell slots for damage, and the damage is doubled on a crit. When I cast shadow of moil, I have advantage on attacks, crit on 19-20 from Hexblade's Curse, and three attacks per round from Polearm Mastery. This gives me a high chance of scoring a crit and getting a 10d8 damage blast with my other spell slot (plus, of course, a highly effective regular attack routine).

However, I have to use a spell slot and an action to get there, and if I get hit, I can lose concentration on shadow of moil. If I had Reckless Attack, I could use both spell slots, generating a total of 20d8 damage per short rest as a 7th-level PC.

I think it's okay to allow rage to key off Charisma, but I would not allow Reckless Attack to do so.

 

[5ekyu]

I have a player who wishes to run with the theme of a Barbarian believing his totem animal is guiding him (i.e Warlock Patron). I have no issue with the theme, in fact I'm very much a fan of it.

However he would like to modify two class features of the Barbarian and it is this request which is causing me concern, so I'd like to get the collective's input on the matter.

He would like the Barbarian's Rage and Reckless Attack to be powered via emotion (Charisma) and not brute Strength (refer underlined). He is wanting to MC into a Warlock, specifically the Hexblade (refer Xanathar's page 55) because of the below power, so he'd like to synergise the two.

HEX WARRIOR
Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that lacks the two -handed property. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls.

RAGE (refer PHB)
When you make a melee weapon Attack using Strength, you gain a +2 bonus to the damage roll. This bonus increases as you level.

RECKLESS ATTACK (refer PHB)
Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defense to Attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first Attack on Your Turn, you can decide to Attack recklessly. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon Attack rolls using Strength during this turn, but Attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.



Would you allow it at your table?

Probably no to the stat fusion. The hexblade got that benefit to help its class gain decent melee capability without strength. Throwing in the barbarian stuff swaperoo seems over the line to me. Whats next, Warlock cleric using cha for his cleric spells and thief-cleric using wisdom to pick locks so that every mc combo gets to need only one primary stat?

I can be liberal about mc but not about chg up stats to make mc stronger.

 

[Seramus]

Why would he have different emotions? Does he think barbarians are emotionally stunted? They just kinda-sorta rage? They are just half-arsing their rage and his rage is way more ragey?

 

[Guest 6801328]

I wouldn't allow it. It's a MAD build; those exist. It will work fine putting points into both Str and Wis.

On a related note, it seems like a "Totem Spirit" patron could be a great subclass.

 

[posineg]

Hex Warrior says "you can"... just use your Str/dex stat.

Was the character a Barb first or a Warlock first? By your title, it looks like barb first. At what level did the MC start?

If a Barb first, then str is the main stat from the beginning and to make a change part way through would take some doing, RP wise... maybe a generic feat to show training to use emotion(chr) as power rather than str.

 

[Jester David]

My concern is simple: Strength is a weak ability score. Dex is better for most attackers, being tied to more skills, ranged weapons, AC, and more monster's saving throws. Which is why barbarians are limited to Strength rather than just weapon attacks.

In this case, Charisma is a really good score already, being tied to all the social skills. And attacks with pact weapons.
Getting a Charisma barbarian is a big bonus and allows some strong synergies.

I'd try and split the difference. The character needs to have a reason not to dump Strength but also not to dump Charisma. Perhaps instead of changing the barbarian features, you could change the warlock's. Instead of using Charisma for attack and damage, you add half-Charisma to damage when you make an attack with your pact weapon. So the character gets a damage boost at the cost of spell save DC, or can keep their spell saves/ attacks high and suffer less weapon accuracy but comparable damage. And after a couple ability score boosts it evens out.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I would have no problem with this. As [MENTION=7006]DEFCON 1[/MENTION] said, every ability is like any other. There are already tons of ways for other classes to substitute in their prefered modifier for attack and damage. Additionally, this multiclass slows down the spellcasting and invocation progression, as well as prevent him from getting the barbarian capstone while also slowing his access to brutal critical.

The sacrifices seem to balance with the gains.

What I would be curious about are:

1) Will this player also want to cast spells or canteips while raging?

2) How, if at all, would this affect the advantage the player gains on Strength checks and saves while raging?