Building a Barbarian

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Waldo52
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Building a Barbarian

Post by Waldo52 » Mon Sep 06, 2021 4:36 pm

I see some builds posted on the wiki for the barbarian and some look interesting but I was wondering if there are any other viable ways to play the class.

I'm interested in Barb 27/DC or BG 3 for divine goodies. Does this work? Does anyone have any cool ideas for how to play a barb that weren't covered by the wiki?

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Gwenneth_Corvain » Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:01 pm

I have a very fun Brb21 / CT6 / Ro3
Level-order:
1-21 Barbarian
22-24: CT
25-27: rogue (take 30 tumble on level 27)
28-30: CT

You need 19 constitution before level 23 to take EDR I, II, III on the CT bonus feats.
This leaves you with 4 regular feats to use on Mighty, Thundering and Terrifying rage.

You end up with a very strong rager. Rogue and barbarian levels stack for uncanny dodge II so you are immune to flanking from almost anything.
Your poor willsaves are mitigated by the fact you can rage to break CC.
You will be terrible at range, but you get to stun enemies with your aura, and then sneak-attack them for extra-damage if you can get close to them.

Leveling this build up to ~16 is abit of a pain, then it becomes progressively more unstoppable in epic levels.
I do exclusively PvE so i am sure it is crap in PvP, but i got lost in the Deep Wells on him for 3 hours without any preparation and basically murdered the whole of it.

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Nurel
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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Nurel » Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:29 am

I like simple stuff

There's the 26/4 barb fighter with EDR III and 3 rage feats. Its really fun and tanky but not optimal for PVP nor able to solo endgame stuff PVE. But imho its the "cleanest" one and I love it

Barb23 fi 4 rog 3 is also very nice, EDRIII is optional on this since it has nice-ish AC with iexpertise so can opt for armorskin and other feats instead of EDR III. 3 rages ofc and EWS. Do not underestimate EWS on a barb, it destroys.

Then there are the Wm variants (NO EDR) which were nerfed kind-of, after Barb20 requirement was added for rage feats
Can go Barb 20 WM 7 fighter 3 or Barb20 WM 5 fighter 5 with a 18/20 weapon

I dont like the CoT barb anymore now that 20 barb levels are required to get all of the rage feats. CoT nets less feats than fighter so its a lose-lose as you get less feats, no EWS and are unable to make a noticeable difference saves-wise as you can only take too few CoT levels now.

I did make some extravagant builds with 5% races like mino and tiefling which are nice, like 23/4fi/3rog mino EDR tanky boi (halberd + runewall max DI) and a nice BarbWM with EDR III tiefling but both these lack enough feats so do not take intimidating rage. And they cost a major award

Divine feats dont sit well with barbarian, as you need high STR and high CON as well. Mighty rage and thundering rage are too good to pass on, swapping either of those for high Cha divine dip is counter productive IMO.

Can always do a Paladin/WM or CoT base shotgun if divine feats are your thing. Also many other things heh, divine dip with div feats is very hot nowadays and theres many builds to choose from

PS: Most builds on the wiki look outdated. The Barb20 Cav 10 is a very solid one and can reach very high AB. Make sure that your PC gets the Intimidate ability if you choose this though, mine was bugged out of it so I had to abandon the barb/cav and go barb/fighter instead for the sake of Intimidate ability. But I am 99% sure newly created PCs will not get this bug so consider this build, its nice and can probably do well in PVP

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by godhand- » Tue Sep 07, 2021 10:53 pm

I would argue the 26/4 is one of the better for pvp.

take it on a half-orc with a dire mace/bloodsword/double axe and you have a literal blender of a build.
Cortex wrote: Addendum, the immediate above post by godhand is wrong in about every aspect, as were most of his other posts.

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Nurel
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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Nurel » Wed Sep 08, 2021 7:13 am

godhand- wrote:
Tue Sep 07, 2021 10:53 pm
I would argue the 26/4 is one of the better for pvp.

take it on a half-orc with a dire mace/bloodsword/double axe and you have a literal blender of a build.
Its great! Especially since the addition of Intimidate ability and extra skillpoints for Taunt, it has become even better! I only said "not optimal" because eh, its not a "tier1" pvp build afaik. Still I enjoy it very much and can definately recommend.

Doublesword 8APR is juicy but I am playing a dorf so went with DI Halberd. But ofc a horc or orog would be the best choice for an optimal barbarian. That bonus ambidex feat and 5 physical DI are just too good

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Waldo52 » Wed Sep 08, 2021 4:12 pm

When you say 26/4 do you mean barbarian/fighter?

The two weapon fighting thing seems too cool. But aren't the dex requirements too steep for these feats on a barbarian? Unless the dex barb is actually viable... How the hell do you build such a thing?

Regarding the APR (attacks per round, yes?) I don't know how you get to 8. My system Knowledge is a hair limited but I assumed that the number of attacks from BaB was capped at 4, +2 for TWF and improved TWF, +1 for haste for an upper limit of 7 on non monk two weapon builds.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Eyeliner » Wed Sep 08, 2021 5:52 pm

Thundering Rage gives 1 more attack. Half-orcs get ambidexterity for free so they can disregard dexterity requirements. For others the Ambi. dexterity requirement is lowered to 13 from 15 now so that's a little more doable, but I think it's mostly a half-orc niche.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Good Character » Wed Sep 08, 2021 5:57 pm

Waldo52 wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 4:12 pm
When you say 26/4 do you mean barbarian/fighter?

The two weapon fighting thing seems too cool. But aren't the dex requirements too steep for these feats on a barbarian? Unless the dex barb is actually viable... How the hell do you build such a thing?

Regarding the APR (attacks per round, yes?) I don't know how you get to 8. My system Knowledge is a hair limited but I assumed that the number of attacks from BaB was capped at 4, +2 for TWF and improved TWF, +1 for haste for an upper limit of 7 on non monk two weapon builds.
Yeah, 26 barb/4 fighter. 4 fighter to get your damage up by 6 and access to some free epic-feats.

Half-orcs get Ambidexterity, the only feat you need requiring DEX, for free and have higher strength.

8 APR: 4 from base AB + 1 from off-hand + 1 Improved Two-Weapon Fighting + 1 Thudering Rage + 1 Haste.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by godhand- » Wed Sep 08, 2021 10:55 pm

Nurel wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 7:13 am
Its great! Especially since the addition of Intimidate ability and extra skillpoints for Taunt, it has become even better! I only said "not optimal" because eh, its not a "tier1" pvp build afaik. Still I enjoy it very much and can definately recommend.
Its not a tier1 build but i've seen that exact build clean up plenty of people with T1 builds. In fact, i distinctly remember watching it tear apart the old 27/3 spellmonk with a Qstaff in the cordor arena, with the help of consumeables of course.

As they say, a good player with an average build is better than a crap player with the best build. and the 26-4 is MORE than capable.
Cortex wrote: Addendum, the immediate above post by godhand is wrong in about every aspect, as were most of his other posts.

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Waldo52
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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Waldo52 » Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:09 pm

I'm still stunned by the ambidexterity/TWF thing.

It's like a Mandela effect, I could have absolutely sworn you needed 17ish dexterity for the chain of feats and I remember reading that but now the relevant sources are telling me otherwise.

Now that I know a half-orc can run around with 8 dexterity and get all the feats I'm gonna do just that. This will be funny.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by MRFTW » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:09 am

Waldo52 wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:09 pm
I'm still stunned by the ambidexterity/TWF thing.

It's like a Mandela effect, I could have absolutely sworn you needed 17ish dexterity for the chain of feats and I remember reading that but now the relevant sources are telling me otherwise.

Now that I know a half-orc can run around with 8 dexterity and get all the feats I'm gonna do just that. This will be funny.
In vanilla ambidexterity needed 15 Dex. Here it only needs 13, and half orcs get it for free.

Now if only the Berenstein effect was so simple to solve!

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by ltlukoziuz » Mon Sep 13, 2021 3:05 pm

Waldo52 wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:09 pm
I'm still stunned by the ambidexterity/TWF thing.

It's like a Mandela effect, I could have absolutely sworn you needed 17ish dexterity for the chain of feats and I remember reading that but now the relevant sources are telling me otherwise.

Now that I know a half-orc can run around with 8 dexterity and get all the feats I'm gonna do just that. This will be funny.
Or the lesser known effect of "have played 3.5e in the past" - Image


Currently playing: Sabina Paultier

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Waldo52
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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Waldo52 » Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:31 pm

Hah!

There's also a player created feat called Greater Improved Two Weapon Fighting that's only used on certain servers. I found it on the Neverwinter wiki and assumed it was standard neverwinter. There was a requirement of like 17 Dex.

So for the longest time I thought that was real for us too. Between that and the change of ambidexterity from 15-13 my memory of these feats and prerequisites was all kinds of weird.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Waldo52 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:09 am

One more question: Is a dex based barbarian viable? One funny concept I had in mind was a barb/invisible blade who just sort of tanks with gis solid HP and decent AC and pumps bleed effects onto enemies.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Good Character » Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:13 pm

Waldo52 wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:09 am
One more question: Is a dex based barbarian viable? One funny concept I had in mind was a barb/invisible blade who just sort of tanks with gis solid HP and decent AC and pumps bleed effects onto enemies.
Tried that. It's terrible. Your AC is actually not that high in the end and you don't do enough damage.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Ping14 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:25 pm

Nurel wrote:
Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:29 am
I dont like the CoT barb anymore now that 20 barb levels are required to get all of the rage feats. CoT nets less feats than fighter so its a lose-lose as you get less feats, no EWS and are unable to make a noticeable difference saves-wise as you can only take too few CoT levels now.
TLDR, does this mean no more 15Barb for Terrifying rage?
Sorry, couldn't not find it in the wiki. Only saw level 20 barb needed for thundering rage.
http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Barbarian

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Good Character » Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:48 pm

Ping14 wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:25 pm
Nurel wrote:
Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:29 am
I dont like the CoT barb anymore now that 20 barb levels are required to get all of the rage feats. CoT nets less feats than fighter so its a lose-lose as you get less feats, no EWS and are unable to make a noticeable difference saves-wise as you can only take too few CoT levels now.
TLDR, does this mean no more 15Barb for Terrifying rage?
Sorry, couldn't not find it in the wiki. Only saw level 20 barb needed for thundering rage.
http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Barbarian
Terrifying Rage technically can only be taken as early as 22 due to the 25 intimidate it requires. However, it won't be available till 24 since that's the next feat-giving-level.

You may be thinking of Thundering Rage, which was available to characters with at least 21 total character levels but at least 15 of those being barbarian levels.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Waldo52 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:33 pm

Good Character wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:13 pm
Waldo52 wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:09 am
One more question: Is a dex based barbarian viable? One funny concept I had in mind was a barb/invisible blade who just sort of tanks with gis solid HP and decent AC and pumps bleed effects onto enemies.
Tried that. It's terrible. Your AC is actually not that high in the end and you don't do enough damage.
Makes sense

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Nurel » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:59 am

Ping14 wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:25 pm
TLDR, does this mean no more 15Barb for Terrifying rage?
Sorry, couldn't not find it in the wiki. Only saw level 20 barb needed for thundering rage.
http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Barbarian
You can get Terrifying Rage as long as you have 25 ranks in Intimidate and 21 character levels, but the other two rages do require -at least- 20 lvls of barbarian.

This means that you can opt for Terrifying Rage with just 15 of Barb yes, since the base class gets Greater Rage x4 at 15 and this is listed as a req for terrifying rage. Since Arelith is not using the rage/day mechanic, it could even be possible to get Terry rage with just 3 levels of barb dip? Not sure about that, a PGCC test should reveal the answer :)

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Ork » Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:16 am

Here ya go, compliments of papi

Code: Select all

Half- Orc 26 Barbarian 4 Fighter

19 (21) str, 9 dex, 18 (20) con, 8 int, 6 cha

1 barb 1 wf 2h
2 barb 2 
3 barb 3 knockdown
4 barb 4
5 barb 5
6 barb 6 wep prof exotic
7 barb 7
8 barb 8
9 barb 9 imp crit 2h
10 barb 10
11 barb 11
12 barb 12 blind fight 
13 barb 13
14 barb 14
15 barb 15 toughness
16 barb 16
17 barb 17
18 barb 18 skill focus: disc
19 barb 19
20 barb 20
21 ftr 1 ewf 2h; EDR1
22 ftr 2 EDR3
23 ftr 3
24 ftr 4 wep; epic Wep spec 2h
25 barb 21
26 barb 22
27 barb 23 thunder + terror rage
28 barb 24
29 barb 25
30 barb 26 EDR3; mighty rage 

ab = 50 | 25 bab, 15 str, 3 focus, 3 falchion, 2 2h, 2 rage

ac = :SMOrc: 

728 hp, 868 raging hp

average hit = 65, average crit = 130

165 skillpoints, 33 discipline, 33 intimidate, 33 lore, 32 (16) spellcraft, 30 craft mastery, 2 (1) open lock, 2 (1) disable trap

You can take 1 out of con and get int to 12 at the cost of 30 hp and 1 con damage. Also the RP opportunities of ME SMASH!!
Probably the best barb build we got at the moment.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by godhand- » Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:41 am

Ork wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:16 am
Here ya go, compliments of papi

Code: Select all

Half- Orc 26 Barbarian 4 Fighter

19 (21) str, 9 dex, 18 (20) con, 8 int, 6 cha

1 barb 1 wf 2h
2 barb 2 
3 barb 3 knockdown
4 barb 4
5 barb 5
6 barb 6 wep prof exotic
7 barb 7
8 barb 8
9 barb 9 imp crit 2h
10 barb 10
11 barb 11
12 barb 12 blind fight 
13 barb 13
14 barb 14
15 barb 15 toughness
16 barb 16
17 barb 17
18 barb 18 skill focus: disc
19 barb 19
20 barb 20
21 ftr 1 ewf 2h; EDR1
22 ftr 2 EDR3
23 ftr 3
24 ftr 4 wep; epic Wep spec 2h
25 barb 21
26 barb 22
27 barb 23 thunder + terror rage
28 barb 24
29 barb 25
30 barb 26 EDR3; mighty rage 

ab = 50 | 25 bab, 15 str, 3 focus, 3 falchion, 2 2h, 2 rage

ac = :SMOrc: 

728 hp, 868 raging hp

average hit = 65, average crit = 130

165 skillpoints, 33 discipline, 33 intimidate, 33 lore, 32 (16) spellcraft, 30 craft mastery, 2 (1) open lock, 2 (1) disable trap

You can take 1 out of con and get int to 12 at the cost of 30 hp and 1 con damage. Also the RP opportunities of ME SMASH!!
Probably the best barb build we got at the moment.
Substitute (Toughness + SF Discipline) for (2weapon fighting + imp 2 weaponfighting) - Take a blood sword and you're spot on the money.
Cortex wrote: Addendum, the immediate above post by godhand is wrong in about every aspect, as were most of his other posts.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by TurningLeaf » Tue Sep 21, 2021 9:14 pm

Waldo52 wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:09 am
One more question: Is a dex based barbarian viable? One funny concept I had in mind was a barb/invisible blade who just sort of tanks with gis solid HP and decent AC and pumps bleed effects onto enemies.
I started a rogue 13/barb 17 that I think is going to be good. But it's more of a hybrid than a true barbarian build. Not sure if the damage will be enough but with 26 base dex, shield, epic dodge, and imp expertise the defense should be viable.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Waldo52 » Wed Sep 22, 2021 4:16 pm

TurningLeaf wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 9:14 pm
Waldo52 wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:09 am
One more question: Is a dex based barbarian viable? One funny concept I had in mind was a barb/invisible blade who just sort of tanks with gis solid HP and decent AC and pumps bleed effects onto enemies.
I started a rogue 13/barb 17 that I think is going to be good. But it's more of a hybrid than a true barbarian build. Not sure if the damage will be enough but with 26 base dex, shield, epic dodge, and imp expertise the defense should be viable.
I'm super curious about how this pans out. What kind of equipment are you going for?

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by TurningLeaf » Wed Sep 22, 2021 6:25 pm

Waldo52 wrote:
Wed Sep 22, 2021 4:16 pm
TurningLeaf wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 9:14 pm
Waldo52 wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:09 am
One more question: Is a dex based barbarian viable? One funny concept I had in mind was a barb/invisible blade who just sort of tanks with gis solid HP and decent AC and pumps bleed effects onto enemies.
I started a rogue 13/barb 17 that I think is going to be good. But it's more of a hybrid than a true barbarian build. Not sure if the damage will be enough but with 26 base dex, shield, epic dodge, and imp expertise the defense should be viable.
I'm super curious about how this pans out. What kind of equipment are you going for?
Was thinking katana for the weapon.

Otherwise... what do you think, would you rather have epic weap focus (in which case likely ditch regular weap focus for toughness) or epic skill focus UMD?

I'm pretty new here and I see all kinds of custom UMD DCs on the crafting wiki that seem like they're trying to make UMD users pay a feat tax. But I don't know if this extends out to all the dungeon loot- if chest loot ends up comparable to crafted gear or is worse or better or what.

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Re: Building a Barbarian

Post by Eyeliner » Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:20 pm

Don't give up weapon focuses for UMD. Don't spend any feats on UMD at all unless you're really hyperfocused on one special weapon like Elder Spear and even then ask a professional before attempting this at home.

If I was doing what you're attempting I'd probably either use a rogue weapon like a handaxe or I'd consider making it a throwing axes build. Katana is just going to waste an exotic weapons feat and most of your damage will be barb bonus & sneak attack anyway. There are a lot of attractive special weapons but in most cases a fully rune enchanted masterly damask will suffice.

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