The Barbarian from HELL!: D&D Build #147

if you love playing spellswords gishes in DND D or balers Gate 3 for that matter especially of the Warlock variety but you're sick of hex blades then you are especially going to love this one welcome to [Music] D4 hey everybody so here at D4 each week we take a deep dive into character builds for our favorite role playing games I like to crunch numbers about about them and Theory craft about them not so that I can tell you like the right way or the best way to play a certain character but to explore one potential way to build something that is both fun but also really powerful to play so if you enjoy creating characters for your role playing games almost as much as you enjoy playing the actual game itself or if you're just looking for tips or ideas on how to build something that you are thinking about playing then welcome home this is where you belong and I am so glad you're here so thanks for watching my name's Colby I put out character build videos every Tuesday so if you enjoy what you see I hope that you will like the video and subscribe to the channel and even ring that uh notifications Bell so that you never miss an episode all right it is time for another dungeon dudes inspired build today woohoo I'm actually a little sad because after today I only have one more left Kelly and Monty uh check him out here have been such a great source of inspiration for builds for me now for months well actually if I'm being honest for years but I have loved especially their multiclass tier ranking videos so much now for some reason they decided to put the Warlock video out before the sorcerer one even though they'd been going in alphabetical order otherwise so this response today to that warlock video feels really old by now curse you bothers Gate 3 and how much fun I'm having building characters for you but yes today it's finally time to do the Warlock now in that dungeon d dude's video Kelly and Monty had a lot of fun wrestling with this question can you make an effective warlock Gish that is not a hex blade I mean to be fair and I think Monty acknowledges this actually at one point people were building warlock gishes long before hex blade even was a thing right whether by using Packa of the blade or by being a Packa of the toome Warlock and getting the shalele can trip and then still being able to make weapon attacks with their Charisma modifier so long as you were using a club or a Quarter Staff right we actually did this uh in my warlock tank build a few months ago but anyway ever since hexblade came along it's really just totally overshadowed any other warlock subclass for those who want to be weapon using warlocks or for that matter any Bard or Paladin or sorcerer who wants to be weapon users as well since a single dip into hex blade lets you use Charisma for both your spells and your weapon attacks right it's so juicy it's very hard to pass up but but what if you didn't really care all that much about your charisma score or maybe more to the point what if you might be better off using say your strength to make attacks I can think of at least one class who would much rather not use Charisma for their weapon attacks the Barbarian since the barbarian's best features require that you be making attacks with strength right would a barbarian warlock work though I mean I have done at least one on my Channel that I can think of anyway the um barbarians support build that Shaman build but yeah that was definitely not built for damage they weren't particularly gishy the big challenge of course is that you can't concentrate on or cast spells while raging so is this just too wonky to work not at all in fact I think you could argue that combining the two might make for a better weapon using damage dealer than either a straight Barbarian or even maybe a straight hex blade and I mean in the video itself Kelly totally called me out at the end when he said I want to see some some pack of the blade builds from you kby so so that's your next challenge and I just have yet to find Within Myself the ability to refuse that man when he makes a request and actually full disclosure as an aside Kelly actually reached out to me via Discord after they recorded that warlock video a couple months ago to kind of theorycraft the idea with me a little bit and we had a very Lively back and forth as we kind of ping-ponged ideas off each other so I have to give them some credit here for helping me come up with the build today and yes for those of you interested in knowing how to build this character for balers Gate 3 stay tuned and I'll go over it in the final thoughts anyways I am super excited to share with you guys DND build number 147 the war Barian the barbal loock the Flaming elephant the eldrich rager maybe I should just keep it simple and boring like the non-hex blade Gish loock I don't like any of those Monty gave me the actual title the barbarian from hell oh that's so much better huge thanks to my good friend Randall Hampton for the Fantastic artwork that he created for this character he does this every week he's such a fantastic artist if you'd be interested in following him on social media or potentially reaching out to him to see if he can commission some art for your character or maybe even your entire party I will put links in the video description as always so that you can do that and before we jump into the build you guys lunch break Heroes upcoming 5e compatible book of of horror Adventures libas nocturnum just passed their funding goal at the time of this recording anyway thanks in no small part to some of you so huge thank you and shout out to those of you who have already backed it so yeah this Kickstarter is green lit it will be published and it is time now to help them hit their stretch goals and take advantage of all the goodies you get when you back a project in Kickstarter so for those who don't know the object of Libras nocturnum is to provide DND horror enthusiasts with highquality Adventures that their entire table will enjoy you can run these Adventures individually or together in a longer running campaign so potentially it could make a really fantastic Halloween themed mini campaign once the book's published think of it in a similar vein as like other recent releases by Wizards of the Coast wild beond the witch light candle keep Mysteries Etc the world of libas nocturnum is a land beset by evil where nightmares roam free your characters are among a handful who dare Brave the darkness will you push back the night or join the countless others who have been consumed by evil in each Adventure Libras nocturnum tackles a new facet of the horror genre from Gothic horror to body horror to Cosmic horror and more the adventures held within will always give dungeon Masters something new fresh and most importantly terrifying so yeah inside the book you will find over 200 Pages filled with 13 horror Adventures made for characters levels 1- 12 where you will attempt to survive a zombie apocalypse solve bloody Mysteries and break dark curses there are 13 new settlements towns and cities to explore over 30 new creatures and NPCs beautiful custom art by a variety of talented artists honestly the art in this book is among the best that I've seen in third party 5e compatible stuff and there are even some really great highly detailed maps and yes as I've said there are fantastic goodies available to those who back it now things like a custom dice set Foundry VT modules for the specific campaigns themselves and more with stretch goals that will lead to additional Adventures art prints and special editions of the book so if you love thirdparty content creators and or horror settings in your role playing games guys do yourself a favor go back this project you've only got until Halloween October 31st so do not delay I am putting a link in the video description on how to get get to the kickstarter and I would really appreciate it if you would use that link so they know I sent you big thanks to everyone at lunch break Heroes huge congrats on hitting that funding goal I cannot wait to see the finished product here all right let's jump into the build all right at level one forour starting class I know that the dungeon dudes rules are that you've got to start with and primarily be a warlock in this case if we're going to call it a warlock dipping Barbarian but we're going to be a lot better off mechanically starting Barbarian you certainly wouldn't have to you could kind of muddle your way through the first couple of levels and just try to survive but starting Barbarian gives us both medium armor proficiency and Marshal weapon proficiency and if we're truly going to be focused on using weapons for this character and not being a hex play we're just a lot better starting off Barbarian and so when we first meet our champion they originate from a tribe of Barbarians yes but I think that it is perhaps part of this particular tribe's spiritual practice to actively seek out and receive help and guidance from other worldly beings not necessarily deities but in our case powerful Elemental beings potentially from other Plains of existence I definitely see this as maybe more akin to like a shamanistic practice where the practitioners are trying to be in tune with the elemental forces of nature that are actually embodied in these powerful intelligent beings as for our race we're going to go loxodon yes that elephant likee bipedal race that excels above all at one thing and that is the use of their trunk because sure while loxodons get advantage against being Charmed or frightened and have some natural armor that benefits from our constitution actually that'll be nice the real reason we want to be a loxodon for this build is because the trunk not only lets you perform simple tasks like manipulate an object or make an unarmed strike or even act as a snorkel but above all it can grapple and this means that if you want to both grapple and do lots of damage with a the big heavy weapon and we do then loxodons are in my opinion the best race to go with sure simic hybrids can also grapple and use two hands but they have more restrictions on how they can use those appendages for grappling it requires an action it can be a little wonky thri cream can dual wield but not wield a two-hander in grapple so locks it on it is as for our ability scores I'm going to say we need to go with a 14 strength plus two from our racial a 15 con stitution plus one and then a 14 Charisma and a 12 dexterity part of me would love to get that dexterity to 14 to maximize our armor class while wearing medium armor but even if I lowered the Charisma to 13 I wouldn't have the points for it I'd have to bring Constitution down to 14 and assuming we're going Point by right as always and on Barbarians in general and especially on this build Constitution is going to be much more important than dexterity in fact part of me is tempted to lower my decks even further just to to ensure that I get hit more often but I digress for starting equipment all we really need here is a great sword or a maul or a battle axe to start off you might want to get a hird or a pull arm to stash for later but yeah like I said we're going as a heavy weapon user here and the math says you'll get a little more damage out of a great sword or a maul but if you're ultimate Barbarian fantasy is to use a great Axe go for it the difference between 2d6 and 1 D12 is next to nothing and yeah we're going to be switching to a pole arm later anyway as for armor we don't need it not because of the barbarians unarmored defense which we get at level one here this tells us that when unarmored our AC equals 10 plus our dexterity and our constitution modifiers but we're not going to be using that for one thing with our dexterity of 12 or plus one that would put us at a 14 Armor class with the plus three from our constitution but because of the ladon's natural armor of 12 12 plus our constitution modifier we'd be at a 15 going that route if we wanted to wear armor scale male the only medium armor we'd be able to afford right now would give us a 14 plus one from our dexterity so same difference might as well go naked of course that will change as soon as we can afford like a breastplate or a half plate or get some magical medium armor but for now might as well save some money also at Barbarian 1 of course we get Rage which tells us that twice per long rest for now as a bonus action we can enter a state of raging Fury that gives us for 1 minute resistance to all bludgeoning piercing and slashing damage which accounts for most of the damage that we'll be taking in our character's career by far and also lets us do an extra two damage per attack so long as we're using strength to attack with a melee weapon we also have advantage on strength checks and saves which means yes advantage on grapple checks which is a strength-based Athletics check right as well as shoves Etc rage is a really fantastic ability with yes one big drawback we can't cast or concentrate on spells while raging as we mentioned earlier that said there are still plenty of spells that last for a decent length of time but don't require our concentration unfortunately for us warlocks can get some of the best ones that fall into that category creating some really fantastic Synergy for this build but level two as badly as I want Reckless attack I have a damage report at level six that I've got to keep my eye on and the only way I get to extra attack by level six is to start beining warlock now so that's what I'm going to do for those of you who are not beholden to the spreadsheet feel free to take Barbarian 2 first before you start your warlock levels as for us yes at this point in our hero's journey they've gone through the right of passage in their tribe that connects them to that Elemental entity and causes them to be at one with one of Nature's Elemental forces because at warlock 1 we get our subclass our otherworldly Patron and we are taking my favorite of all yes not hex blade but the genie now I will say this if you wanted to build this character to be a little more defensive a bit more of a tank you could instead go with the fiend Patron doing so would get us some temporary hit points when we land a killing blow on an enemy among other things and that's something that we'll probably be doing a fair bit of with this build honestly but even though this character would actually make a pretty good tank-like character trying to get enemies to focus on attacking us instead of our allies and then being able to take quite a punch when doing so I'm not actually building them with their survivability in mind necessarily if I were if you want to yes fiend is really great but since I'm going to be comparing them to other sustained damage dealers and honestly because I kind of like the character's story a little better this way and just think that Genie is overall a stronger subclass I'm going with Genie so as a genie lock the first thing we have to do is choose our Genie kind a dow a Jin a merid or an ATI and we are going with the ATI representing the element of fire this gives us access to an expanded spell list and later will give us resistance to that damage type as well my favorite Genie feature however is the genie vessel which first up tells us that we can just jump into our Genie's vessel whether it's a magic lamp a ring a bottle a statue once per day as a bonus action for a number of hours equal to two times our proficiency bonus not quite enough for a long rest at the moment but a great short rest no doubt as well as a potential Safe Haven a free bag of holding or a way to get smuggled inside of an area that you are not supposed to be in ETC what's more we can also now once per turn when we hit with an attack deal extra damage of our Genies type so fire for us equal to our proficiency bonus not a bad little sustained damage bump as for these spells that we would get as warlock one just keep in mind that our Charisma is never going to be great on this character so I'd probably pick things that just work regardless of that fact what's more we're not going to be casting spells when we're raging right so pick stuff that has more utility outside of combat friends create bonfire maybe comprehend languages charm person might work but the most important one for us for this build is going to be yes armor of agius agathis is that a Canadian thing survey says agius anyways I love this spell and it is perfect for us it lasts for an hour but doesn't require concentration as an aside one of my favorite things about balers Gate 3 compared to D and D the Spells seem to last like either a minute or just all day until your next long rest thank you there's nothing worse than those spells that last like 10 minutes or an hour or whatever and you're just kind of like is combat about to break out I don't know I think so I hope so wait I cast Mage Armor at 8:00 a.m. this morning what time is it now 3:52 okay I still have it for 8 morees minutes wait 405 crap anyway I just really like the simplified design of this lasts for either like one combat encounter or just all day to keep from having to like keep track of the minutes and the hours right maybe that's too powerful but I like it right so armor of agius what does it actually do it gives us five temporary hit points and then when an enemy hits us with a melee attack they receive five cold damage so long as we have at least one of those temporary hit points left when hit us it's a pretty efficient spell and the best part is it scales very nicely increasing by five more hit points and damage for every level we upcast it it is especially nice on Raging barbarians who are only taking half damage on most things so the temporary hit points can last a lot longer meaning we should get more instances of damage as a result so in case it wasn't yet obvious our plan with this character is a little bit similar to The Thorn lock build that I did many moons ago which is by the way one of my favorite builds of all time though it was really weird today's build fortunately maybe is going to be a lot less Niche and a lot more reliable damage wise but yes we are both going to be actively attacking to bring the pain but also actively trying to encourage our enemies to hit us both by attacking recklessly eventually so the enemies have advantage against us right and by grappling them which we will be really great at doing with our trunk our high strength score and our advantage on strength checks while raging if you recall or for those new to D andd that are coming here from Boulder's Gate let's say to Grapple an enemy you take the attack action but instead of swinging or firing a weapon you make an Athletics check against their Athletics or acrobatics check their choice and if you roll higher you grapple them so long as you have one free hand or in our case trunk when the enem is grappled they just can't move you could also drag them around at half of their move speed they're not otherwise impeded however so if you had them grappled they could still attack you without like suffering disadvantage or anything and that's fine since like I've said we're going to kind of want them to hit us as doing so won't hurt us that bad but will deal some decent damage back to them thanks to armor of agius and other things that we'll get later on grappling is a super potent thing to do in combat that I sorely Miss in bg3 as it controls an enemy and forces them to either waste their turn trying to get away or attack you instead of your more vulnerable allies it is a great tank and control move and in our case should help increase our damage as well which is fantastic at level three we would be a warlock 2 and that means we get invocations and I'm going to say pick your favorite I mean at this level at least there are a ton of great fun useful options but we're not going to be using any of those invocations to increase our damage yet so sure grab devil sight to see in regular and magical Darkness or gaze of two minds to see through another creature's eyes Beast speech to just talk with animals for free whenever you want it eldrich sight for free detect magic just know that whatever we pick we will eventually be swapping both of them out for other invocations which yes we can do when we gain a level in warlock thankfully at level four we would be a warlock 3 and that means we get our packed Boon and yes as I've said we are taking packed of the the blade which lets us either summon a packed weapon or turns an existing weapon we've already got into our packed weapon we can dismiss and resummon our packed weapon which is cool and it is also considered magical for the sake of overcoming resistance and better yet now that we have this packed we can swap out one of our invocations for the improved packed weapon invocation which is going to give the weapon a plus one to hit and damage and also allows it to be a spell focus for us though that shouldn't really be necessary when you're attacking with a two-handed weapon right you can always let go with one hand to use materials or sematic components right we also get second level spells here and I'd be sure to grab Misty step for some on demand teleportation and then another one worth considering would probably be Mirror Image it summons three elusory duplicates of us that an enemy might accidentally hit instead of us now if and when they do I don't think they're going to be taking armor of agius damage unfortunately but it's still a nice little survivability option that doesn't require concentration if you feel like you're taking a little too much punishment to be fair the spell only lasts for a minute so you might have to start combat by casting this before you Rage which could potentially be not awesome but again pull it out if you're worried about your survivability at level five we would be a warlock 4 and that means we get our first ability score increase or feat and I think we kind of have to take polearm Master here sure I'd love to take great weapon Master instead against low Armor class enemies it would do more damage but until we have advantage on our attacks which is not going to come until Barbarian 2 the numbers say that we'd be better off getting a bonus action attack from po arm Master than the + 10 damage minus 5 to hit from great weapon Master on anything higher than a 12 enemy armor class and most stuff you fight at this level is going to be higher than a 12 Armor class sure if you went two levels of Barbarian before Warlock then you might want to grab great weapon Master here no regts but know that at level six since you wouldn't have extra attack yet if we went Barbarian 2 first right that one single attack per turn with great weapon Master is going to pale in comparison damage wise to what will be three attacks per turn if we delay Barbarian 2 so that we can get warlock 5 by level six right so yes polar arm Master one of my favorite Feats in D and D though it's fairly lackluster in balers gate at the moment it tells us that when we're using a pole arm in our case a halber or a glaive so switch to one of those weapons at this point obviously when someone enters our reach we can make an opportunity attack against them not just when they leave our reach right which is especially great since now we will have a 10-ft reach if we're using one of those weapons and even better when we take the attack action with one of those weapons we can use our bonus action to make a butt action attack right with the blunt end now this does a D4 instead of the usual d10 for us but otherwise since it's the same weapon any other damage bonuses we get from using that weapon including our strength modifier our rage bonus and also even the plus one to hit and damage from it being our improved Packa weapon right and later of course the bonus damage from great weapon Master once we get it all of those things are added to the attack making us not actually care very much about whether it's a D4 or a d10 but at level six we would be a warlock 5 and first of all that means we get a third invocation and since we have pack of the blade that means we qualify for yes the thirsting blade invocation which lets us make two attack with our packed weapon instead of one when we take the attack action with it so now we will be getting three attacks with that pull arm every single turn so long as we've got our bonus action available anyways I would also consider swapping out the other invocation that we took at level two for cloak of flies here personally it's a little more flavor and fun than it is Big damage with cloak of flies you use a bonus action to surround yourself with a magical aura that does your charisma modifier in damage each round to anyone who starts their turn within 5 ft of you yes including allies so be careful you can dismiss it with a bonus action and there's no like duration to it it just blasts until you turn it off or you're incapacitated since we're not focused on Charisma here yeah that's only two damage a turn so nothing major but since we are trying to explore the limits of what's possible damage wise for this character I'll assume that we're using it we also get third level spells here of course and I mean if Frey Genies get fireball not typically available to warlock so sure feel free to like open combat with a fireball if you've got lots of enemies kind of grouped together and then rage if the situation calls for it but otherwise I'm probably looking here to things like dispel magic which is used outside of combat as often as not fly always works even if it does require concentration I mean if you're up against flying enemies in a fight it'll be more important to have flight than rage right remove curse is nice when you need it thunderstep provides a big teleport tongues is another one of those great when you really need it utility spells but I'd honestly be planning on using my spell slots just for armor of agius upcast at the third level it would give us 15 temporary hit points and return 15 hit points of damage one hit not bad at all all right so at level six it is time for our first damage report let's talk about what I think combat should look like for us here I'm going to assume that when combat starts we've got armor of agius active and our cloak of flies active as well on round one I think we should rage and then run in and grapple the nearest or deadliest enemy remember we've got advantage on that grapple check and then with our second attack make a weapon attack now brief pause here while the thirsting blade invocation acts essentially like extra attack technically it's different extra attack says that we can make two attacks when we take the attack action thirsting blade says we can attack twice instead of once with our packed weapon so strictly speaking rules is written thirsting blade isn't just giving you two attacks that you can use for whatever you want right a weapon attack a grapple check trying to shove an enemy Etc it's specifically giving you two attacks with your weapon that said I have to believe that the vast majority of DMS would just look at this and be like yeah you've got extra attack it's fine but not all of them will definitely talk it over with your DM before you even build this character if they're not going to allow you to Grapple with one attack and then make a packed weapon attack on the same turn then you're either just forgoing some damage on round one or you might want to build this character down differently don't worry about grappling maybe and just pick a different race that will give you a damage bump custom lineage or variant human would let us have both pull arm master and great weapon Master by this level so you'd actually probably be doing more damage here going that route than if you were trying to Grapple but I love grappling on this build for two primary reasons one it does a great job of controlling an enemy and as a result helping to protect your allies and two it helps ensure that our enemy actually tries to attack us which we want since if and when they hit us which they'll have a decent chance of doing they're going to take a lot of damage in return now the question is what is the likelihood of an enemy hitting us here that's kind of impossible to calculate since it depends so much on who you're fighting and what kind of armor you're wearing right we don't have Reckless attack yet so I'm just going to assume that there's a 50% chance that we're getting hit returning 15 damage when we do is this damage sustainable kind of I mean we are raging so we're probably taking half damage damage on that hit at level six how much is that going to be 5 7 10 it all depends on what we're fighting right so we armor of agius last two rounds three four probably somewhere in that range I would think and that might be all your team needs to finish the combat encounter so yeah obviously we have to make a lot of assumptions here feel free to lower my damage calculation slightly if you want to air on the side of caution but anyways assuming that the enemy is taking armor of agius damage 50% of the time after round one we're simply making three attacks against our grappled Target two with the sharp end of the weapon one with the butt each attack adds three damage for strength two for rage and one for our improved Packa weapon with the first hit adding three more from Genie right we're also dealing two damage every round for cloak of flies and then yeah when our enemy dies we just grab another Target and rinse repeat so on those rounds where we're just making three attacks against an enemy who's hitting us 50% of the time and taking a little cloak of flies damage each round against enemies with a 10 Armor class we would on average do 42 DPR and against a 15 armor class it would be 34 damage per round and compared to other sustained damage builds that I've done to date that's not bad call it middle of tier 2 at this level so pretty solid and potentially offering some really nice Battlefield control and protection while being pretty dang tanky at the same time and of course it's going to get a lot better from here because at level s we can finally now that we have thirsting blade go back to Barbarian making us a barbarian 2o and picking up that long awaited for danger sense wait what no sorry danger sense is great basically giving us advantage on dexterity saving throws but no what we are super excited about is reckless attack which tells us that when we make our first attack on a turn we can decide to attack recklessly giving us advantage on all of our attacks this turn at the cost of giving our enemies advantage on their attacks against us which we are totally okay with with since we have armor of agius and resistance to most damage as an aside I really love how bg3 handles this ability letting you decide after you make your attack if you want to attack recklessly since you missed something I'd love to see wizards incorporate into 1 D and D actually regardless this increases our hit chance our crit chance since now we get two shots at rolling a Nat 20 right and while it also means that we are going to be getting hit more often thus triggering armor of agius more reliably getting hit more often is also going to mean that those temporary hit points go away quicker and since if we're raging we can't reapply armor of agius I'm just going to stick with the assumption that 50% of the time we're doing armor of agius damage though in reality that will probably mean that we return the damage to or three times early on in the fight and then it's just gone for the rest of it right but yes at this point I kind of feel like the core of the build is fairly complete so let's find some nice ways to augment it at level eight as as much as I'd love to get back to warlock I think it would be worth investing a bit more into Barbarian here we don't have to but grabbing a subass another use of Rage per long rest we only have two right now but one more level of Barbarian gets us to three and that feels like a big difference to me making me feel a lot more comfortable that we're going to actually be able to rage every combat encounter or nearly so and then yeah that ability score increase or feet that will be right there for the taking it feels a lot better of an investment for these next couple of levels than getting to warlock 7 w would for me personally anyway so let's stay on the Barbarian path for a minute because yeah speaking of paths at Barbarian 3 we get our Primal path our subass and man am I torn on what to take here I mean first of all the easy and obvious answer here is the shiny new path of the Giant from the new glory of the Giants book right first and foremost because it lets you grow to large size and that means we could grapple enemies who were huge or smaller remember you can only grapple enemies one size larger than you or smaller right and running into huge creatures can happen with some regularity depending on your campaign so if grappling is an important part of this character for you and especially if your campaign is going to end sometime between now and level 16 I'd probably go that route here but for the purpose of our exercise today with this build I'm not going to for us the growing to large size thing will be redundant eventually and being hyperfocused on damage numbers like I am it's not the optimal path mostly though I'm not taking giant because the first time I do giant Barbarian I want it to be like the main focus of the build I don't want to kind of just accidentally back up into this shiny new toy anyway go that route if you want and enjoy it I almost almost went battle rager here I've never used battle rager in a build and with our focus on grappling it seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so but the reality is yeah the subass is just bad mechanically and technically you have to be a dwarf too we just get so much more mileage out of going a different race and using that pull arm for our bonus action attack instead of a little extra damage from some spiked armor you could use battle rager and it would work okay especially if your DM lets you be a loxodon and still be a battle rager and I did a poll a couple of weeks ago and seem to indicate that this would be fine for the vast majority of you at your tables in that case you'd just skip pull arm master and go straight for great weapon Master save yourself a feat letting you bump your strength sooner but yeah overall damage output would be worse no question a third option ancestral Guardian it's the best subclass for tanking on a Barbarian so again if you're focus with this character is really to try and keep your ally safe above all else enjoy the little soft taunt that ancestral Guardians get which will encourage those enemies even more to attack you and coincidentally make it more likely that they take that armor of Agatha damage right but no in the end I decided to go with my favorite Barbarian subass of all the path of the Zealot our Barbarian is so totally devoted to their Patron that they burn both literally and figuratively with fiery Zeal and those Flames regularly leap out to consume their foes who dare oppose them yeah I think Zealot kind of works best from a thematic standpoint with the whole fire thing but but it also looks best on the spreadsheets so win-win as a zealot Barbarian then we get two features Divine Fury lets us do an extra D6 plus half of our Barbarian Level rounded down in damage once per turn when we are raging and hit with a weapon attack the damage can be either necrotic or radiant so that's nice and then we also get the pretty fantastic Warrior of the Gods which tells us that we can be resurrected via a revivify or similar spell without the Caster having to spend the very expensive components to do so that's a minimum of 300 gold worth of diamonds that you're saving right bg3 players are like what are these components that you speak of that's actually really pretty awesome it just like lets you be even more of a consequences be damned I must kill all who oppose me and mine caution to the wind kind of character and that can be pretty freeing and really fun at level nine we would be a barbarian 4 and that means we get another ability score increase our feet and so we finally get to pick up great weapon Master which lets us add 10 10 damage to our heavy weapon attacks at the cost of a minus5 penalty to hit and now that we have easy reliable Advantage with Reckless attack that is going to do great things for our numbers don't forget we also get to make a bonus action attack with great weapon Master if we land a killing blow on an enemy and if bg3 has taught me anything it's this that free bonus action attack from great weapon Master triggers a lot more often than I realize and as a result it kind of actually lowers the value of polar master so since we're often getting a free bonus action attack anyway so with that in mind feel free to skip polar Master if you really want to get this first and you know see if you can live with the less frequent but maybe still frequent enough bonus action attacks if nothing else we can make that bonus action attack with the sharp end when we land a killing blow so it'll do a little more damage regardless so long as we remember to use it when it triggers instead of our butt action right all right time for a damage report at level 9 since last check we've made some really great additions to our damage first and foremost Reckless attack but great weapon Master is a huge bump too and divine Fury is a small bump our tactics haven't really changed though we're just hitting harder and more frequently and so at this level against an enemy with a 10 Armor class we would on average do 77 damage per round and against a 16 AC it would be 60 DPR and that is a nice increase putting us squarely in like the top half of tier one compared to other DPR builds that I've done to date at this level now sure you might not be doing this much damage every single round right especially if you're taking time to Grapple new enemies when your current Target dies but let's not devalue how valuable doing that is going to be for the rest of your party right right all right at level 10 there is actually a third class that I would like to dip into on this build but I think we might be better served by getting a few more warlock levels first there's another spell I really want to grab and frankly just increasing our spell slot levels so that we can upcast armor of agius does a ton both for our damage and our survivability so let's do that thus we would be a warlock 6 and as a genie lock that means we get elemental gift the best level six feature of all warlock subclasses no question because it lets us fly proficiency bonus times per day with a bonus action we can now give our ourselves a fly speed of 30 ft for 10 whole minutes I really don't know how that one slipped through the cracks during play testing but I'm not complaining about it oh also because free flight isn't good enough we now also have resistance to fire damage as an a freti a very common damage type in the game helping to stretch those temporary hit points from armor of agius even further at level 11 we would be a warlock 7 and that means we get a fourth invocation and I'm not quite sure what to tell you to get here honestly Tom of listus is a fun oh crap I'm about to die card to play to encase yourself in ice ghostly gaze lets you see through walls tricksters Escape lets you put the fourth level freedom of movement spell on yourself without spending a spell slot and that spell lasts for an hour it doesn't require concentration so it's perfect for us lets us be unaffected by difficult terrain prevents us from being paralyzed or restrained I'd probably go that route personally but part of me does want to say take eldrich Smite here some of you may be wondering why we didn't take that last time instead of cloak of flies you could it's nice it does a big burst of damage with a spell slot and an attack very similar to the Paladin's Divine Smite but this one also knocks the enemy prone the only problem is we only have two spell slots as a warlock right one of them is getting used for armor of agius and the other one well that's kind of spoken for now too because we also get fourth level Spells at this level and that means we get access to the spell that I've been salivating over this entire time and is the reason we needed to be either a Genie or a fiend warlock in the first place because unlike other warlocks we get the incredible fire Shield spell here and this is absolutely the perfect pairing for us with armor of agius now fire Shield only lasts for 10 minutes unfortunately so it might be a little tougher to get this off before combat begins but it doesn't require concentration it gives us resistance to either cold or fire damage we should make a warm Shield to get cold resistance most of the time naturally since we already have fire resistance now right but then whenever a creature within 5 ft of us hits us with a melee attack yep they take 2 d8 fire damage or cold if we make a warm shield and just like with armor of agius they don't get to save against this damage or anything but unlike armor of agius the damage return Isn't based on having temporary hit points they just take it every time they hit us and considering our relatively low AC and the fact that we're going to be recklessly attacking most or all of the time I'm going to go ahead and assume that the enemies are getting hit with this like 75% of the time the truth is it might happen a lot more frequently at this level lots of monsters are going to have multi-attack right and also plenty of times we're going to have more than one enemy trying to hit us so 75% might be a little conservative here but that's fine I don't mind working in estimates and ballparks at level 12 we would be a warlock 8 and that means we get another ability score increase or feet and yeah we've been sitting at a 16 strength this whole time I really hope you have a generous DM that's giv you like a belt of giant strength or at least some Oger strength gaunlet right anyways now we get to bump it to an 18 at least helping not only our damage but our grapple checks of course at level 13 we would be a warlock n and that means a fifth invocation and again I don't really have a super strong recommendation here but I honestly kind of love this you know it lets us take things like ascendant step so you could cast levitate on yourself at will without spending a spell slot that's so cool and I never get to take that invocation on my warlock builds sure levitate requires concentration and we do already have some limited flight so maybe something different for this build but yeah find something cool and fun and useful and have a blast with it the main reason that I wanted to get to warlock 9 was so that we could get our spell slots up to fifth level honestly since that will mean now armor of agius gives us 25 temporary hit points and 25 points of damage return turned and that's just fantastic unfortunately fire Shield doesn't scale when upcast I don't know why bit of a bummer there but I still think that we should use it most of the time for that second spell slot other than that fifth level spells to consider you know pick your favorite keep in mind again we only have a 15 Charisma so far step might be best in that case for a Teleport every single turn as a bonus action though it does require concentration scrying can give some nice outof combat utility synaptic static is probably what I would pick for good area of effect damage and a really nice debuff sure enemies get to save against it but it's an intelligent save so there is still a really high likelihood that lots of enemies in DND d5e are going to fail that save regardless of our pretty mediocre DC in the end again we're probably using these spell slots for armor of agius and fire Shield but it's nice to have options for our level 13 damage report since last check we have bumped our strength finally increased armor of agius to 25 picked up the really great fire Shield which again I'll assume is doing damage 50% of the time and even grabbed some fantastic utility via flight and more invocations we are definitely living our best war Barian barbock lives right now and so against enemies with a 10 Armor class here we would on average do 95 DPR and against a 17 AC it would be 78 damage per round so close to that century mark and yes while we have seen a nice increase we've slipped just a little bit when compared to other builds at this level putting us more like bottom of tier one still super solid and we're bringing a healthy heaping of control utility and tankiness with us to boot so at level 14 here's the thing if we didn't go with the giant subass then we've still got this issue with not being able to Grapple huge creatures which can be somewhat common in this game particularly as we get higher and higher level now sure someone could cast the enlarg redu spell on us and make us bigger right that's kind of asking a lot since that spell requires concentration thus yeah I want to get run Knight you certainly could have solved this problem with the giant subclass But Not only would that have caed us a little damage there's actually something really kind of cool and even a little hilarious that I want to do with run Knight here in addition to growing large if you went giant Barbarian I'd probably just stick with warlock from this point on in the build getting to those sixth and seventh level spells which unfortunately as Mystic arcum for warlock don't come with spell slots right and thus we couldn't use them to upcast armor of agius for example even if we wanted to but then yeah you also get some really great Genie features like letting your friends go inside your magic lamp with you taking a short rest in only 10 minutes right once a day anyways and eventually even with Genie getting to limited wish which is awesome but for us no we are going to explore what happens when we take some fighter levels here so we'd be a fighter one we get second wind which lets us heal for a d10 plus our fighter level as a bonus action once per short rest and then we get a fighting style and while I don't love it great weapon fighting would add a little damage letting us roll ones and twos for our weapon damage and yeah in this game it's only our weapon damage unlike in bg3 which seems to roll any ones and twos that we did with an attack right anyway feel free to take a different fighting style go defense or protection maybe or even Superior technique if you wanted we'll eek out a teeny bit more sustained damage per round from great weapon fighting so I'm going to take it at level 15 we would be a fighter 2 and that means yes the almighty action surge which just has so much use here really for any build so yeah once per short rest we can take two actions on our turn instead of one and yeah this could mean burst damage right more attacks but also I mean maybe if we don't have fire Shield up when combat starts since it only lasts for 10 minutes well now we could get a get it going and then still do what we want or maybe our DM doesn't let thirsting blade allow for a grapple and a weapon attack well now we could grapple action Surge and then make two weapon attacks right it just makes the beginning of combat especially so much more powerful and or efficient and that's always a good thing at level 16 we would be a fighter 3 and that means we get our Marshall archetype our fighter subass and yes as I've said we're going R KN it's just so good for this build first of all yes it gives us Giants might which lets us proficiency bonus times per day grow to large size with a bonus action for 1 minute and while we're large we do an extra D6 of damage once per turn with an attack so a nice little bump that yes lets us grapple huge creatures now as an aside one of the nice things about the giant Barbarian subass is that it just makes us large when we rage so we don't have to spend more bonus actions to get there right but the thing that kind of convinced me to go this route instead of the Giant subass on the Barbarian honestly was the Rune Carver feature that we get at this level this lets us choose two runes we carve them into our armor or our weapons it gives us a really great list to choose from but I would take Frost I think first which gives us a plus two bonus to all ability checks using strength or Constitution so that'll be great for our grapple checks among other things yeah it takes a bonus action to give ourselves this buff we can only use it once per short rest but it does last for 10 minutes but best of all for this build especially is my favorite the cloud Rune this tells us that when any creature we can see within 30 ft of us is hit by an attack roll we can use our reaction and this Rune once per short rest to cause that attack to hit a different creature and usually yeah that's supposed to mean that you make bad guy number one hit bad guy number two right but for this build come on hit me I mean we have built this character with the express intent to be hit here's a perfect opportunity to ensure that happens I just love the idea of taking a hit that was meant for your friend and making it hit you instead because doing so is going to cause the enemy who hits you to take a ton of damage 25 from armor of agius plus 2 d8 from fire Shield that's a hefty sum even at this level and I don't know it's just too cool and fun to pass up you might think I'm crazy and that's okay take giant Barbarian instead your damage will be a little less but you can grapple huge creatures a lot earlier and with fewer bonus actions spent right anyway assuming we went this route at level 17 we may as well go one more level of fighter here to grab that ability score increase or feat so that we can finally here at last cap our strength score at 20 for our final damage report then since last check we have capped our strength added a little more damage via giant might and a fighting style and really just increased our quality of life and our grappling capabilities through these fighter and run Knight levels right plus the really amazing you have to hit me fun from cloud run but against enemies with a 10 armor class here we would on average do 109 DPR and against an 18 AC it would be 92 damage per round and that is a pretty small increase since last check to be fair Landing us back in kind of the middle of tier 2 territory when compared with other sustained DPR builds which I've done to date at this level which make no mistake is still a really fantastic place to be but but let's break it all down in the final thoughts the tier score for this build if you take the damage that they do at each of the enemy armor classes that we calculate for at each of the four damage reports and just average them all into one big number we end with a 62 and that means We snuck our way into kind of the bottom half of Tier 1 with a barbarian warlock really that's awesome in fact yeah we're like above the uh dive bomber build which was fun and hilarious and just barely below the hex blade blade singer I'm not going to lie I'm surprised at how well this performed but of course the real question as always with these dungeon dudes inspired builds is is this stronger than a straight warlock would be and the answer as always is it depends in this case I mean yeah what do you want out of your warlock an eldrich blast machine gun well then no a spellslinging blaster or like fear andp natic gazer no so in that case I guess the comparison needs to be this is this character better than a straight hex blade well as most of you know my very first build that I ever did on this channel was a pure 100% unadulterated hex blade so I do have something to compare it to the tier score for that character 64 so practically the same of course there are major differences right I mean the first several levels of that build's existence relied on the darkness Devil's sight tactic and as many of you know that tactic can be super problematic for the rest of your table and even later on when we got to shadow of Mo on that character we still had to take the first round of combat every single time to set up our advantage right whereas this barbock can kind of just rage and start swinging or grappling to lock an enemy down now the straight hex blade did have a lot better spell casting of course they got to higher spell slots more quickly more powerful spell options and yeah that's a big Mark in their favor I want to qualify that though because with that hex blade build we were concentrating all the time on either Darkness or shadow of Mo so while going straight hex blade sure would give you better spell options no question when we think of like the best most powerful spells in the game that those hex blades would have access to most of them require concentration right fear hypnotic pattern banishment hold monster those all require concentration now there are exceptions to the rule of course uh you could get at six level Mass suggestion which is amazing but but generally yeah if we want to as a hex blade do damage above all then the fact that we have better more powerful spells doesn't really come into play all that much when you're considering how powerful how potent is this character you know what I mean because if we give up our concentration on Shadow of moil at those higher levels it it very well may be the better thing to do for your entire party but your damage is definitely going to go way down and this barbal loock gets to both control and do damage it might not be as powerful a control but they don't really have to choose between one or the other quite so much right that said this build is a lot tankier with more hit points and big damage resistances and probably more importantly would be a lot better at consistently locking down one enemy at least on the battlefield while doing comparable damage to help keep their allies safe too so I don't know that I can unequivocally say that one build is better or stronger than the other I'm thrilled that the damage is pretty much the same and beyond that it kind of depends on what you're looking for in your gishy warlock right one thing I do feel confident about though I think the barbock would be more fun to play I could be wrong but I did play a mostly hex playay in a long almost 2-year campaign and it was a ton of fun but admittedly combat got a little rote a little samsy a little boring you cast Darkness or shadow of moil you wait around and then you move in and basically murder hobo everything don't get me wrong I love to murder hobo as much as if not more than most DND players but mixing it up on this build with some control via grapples and maybe best of all doing all that you can to actively encourage enemies to hit you and just cackling with Glee every time they do that's just gameplay gold right there so yeah I think this is going to be my next warlock if I ever get to play one in D and D again crap I totally forgot to um talk about how I would build this character in bg3 it works really well and you don't need to change much fiend warlock obviously and for the Barbarian subass you know I'd probably go wildart bear so that you can just have resistance to all damage and really stretch that armor of agathys but Berserker would work well too you know if you did that you could actually skip pull arm master and while yeah the minus one penalty to hit that you take um when you use that bonus action attack from Berserker is painful with as often as we might need our bonus actions on this character to rage to get a free attack anyway from great weapon Master right I don't know that we'd necessarily necessarily be needing to do a like a frenzied attack right all that often obviously we're not grappling so this is just more of a straight up like barbarian from Hell Gish that's just putting armor of agius on themselves fire Shield eventually raging and just hitting stuff right but it would hit stuff really hard and getting fire shield and armor of agius on yourself kind of more consistently and reliably would be easier I think in bg3 since most of the time you've got a pretty good idea when combat's about to happen and with armor of agius it lasts all day and I hope that you enjoyed hearing about it as much as I enjoyed making it if you like what I do on this channel I'd really appreciate it if you'd consider joining as a member there's a little button down there that says join it's a great way to lend some additional financial support to me but also for a couple of bucks a month it gets you access to the library of writeups that I create for each one of these builds so that you can recreate the character yourself in game without having to go back and re-watch the video or take notes I'd appreciate it if you consider it and a huge shout out to all my channel members you guys are amazing couldn't do this without you but regardless of whether you're a member or not I love you guys thank you so much for all that you do for me for the channel I hope you have a really great day and a fantastic week and if you don't please hang in there you can do it I hope that you stay safe and kind and that I see you again very soon but until then take [Music] maybe I just refuse to be here for you maybe that's who I am underneath my official plan we die for easy pearls and leave the rest forgotten we leave the best of worlds on the [Music] B I've told you guys about girly man before right I know I have oh they're so good prettiest harmonies in the world and like I don't know their best stuff is like their mellow Melancholy stuff it's so pretty but also a little I don't know what would you say nostalgic or not even nostalgic more like yeah Melancholy I suppose is a good word but in a like a happy warm fuzzy cathartic way I don't know they broke up a while ago I wish that they were still together making music cuz I love them but a warlock but a level don't say that I didn't add listen to The Numbers hold please well just don't say that oops

Channel: d4: D&D Deep Dive

Views: 100,038

Keywords: D&D, dnd, dungeons & dragons, bg3, baldur's gate 3, warlock, gish, spell sword, barbarian, genie, hexblade, giant, grapple, zealot, damage, dpr, dungeon dudes, how to, guide, tips, tricks, character, creation, build, min max

Id: UmiNKz9TXvw

Length: 58min 18sec (3498 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2023