D&D 5E Basic Build Series: Barbarian

Author: Everice

The Barbarian is most effectively built as a high-output melee damage build. Barbarians can put out more than enough damage to contribute meaningfully in the vast majority of games. However, being limited to melee is a big drawback, and the Barbarian class scales poorly at higher levels. If your party is entirely ranged or your campaign will go to high levels, you may want to consider a different build, such as a ranged Fighter, which puts out similar damage without these drawbacks. Otherwise, a properly built Barbarian can be a great asset to a party. This build, part of our Basic Build Series, uses the Path of the Zealot and the Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master feats to pile on as much damage as it can.

Race: Human (Variant) 

Ability Score Increases – +1 Str, +1 Con.
Feat – Polearm Master. This is the greatest damage increase option we have at level 1, outclassing Great Weapon Master for now and synergizing with it when we pick it up at level 4. 
Skill – Insight. A useful social skill.
Languages – Common and Dwarvish. The language choice doesn’t really matter, as it is campaign dependent and should be discussed with the DM. It can be useful to speak different languages from the rest of the party, or to have one obscure non-Common language that the entire party shares, so you can converse without the NPCs knowing what you’re talking about.

Class: Barbarian

Skills – Athletics, Perception. Athletics allows us to grapple if we want, to resist an opponent’s grapple, and for other Strength-based activities. Perception is the most used skill in the game and important on every character.
Rage – Two uses of this feature per long rest means that we will be going without this in roughly 50% of our combats, if not more. Figuring out when to Rage is a difficult science and will likely rely on reading our DM’s design habits (or the habits of the adventure). If your DM likes to have a “boss” encounter at the end of each adventure, then it is likely a good idea to save a use of your Rage for it.
Unarmoured Defense – This feature means we start out with 15 AC instead of 12, but it’s still worse than wearing scale mail for 16 AC. It helps us when we are naked bairns, if we should come across a great number of Dexterity or Constitution boosting items, or if we rolled amazing stats, but in usual play this ability has negligible impact.

Ability Scores

15+1 Str, 14 Dex, 15+1 Con, 8 Int, 10 Wis, 8 Cha

Background (Custom)

Skills – Intimidation, Stealth. Stealth is frequently used by many optimized parties to achieve surprise in a combat encounter. If your DM is generous about alternate ability scores for skill checks, frame your Intimidation checks as forms of physical violence to try to make them Strength-based. 
Tools – Herbalism kit, smith’s tools.
Feature – Ship’s Passage. This is situational, but being able to secure free passage on a ship can be a boon in some campaigns.
Creator’s Note – Making a custom background is RAW, the PHB on page 125 states, “The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions…To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.” Using this, we are making a custom background and using the Sailor feature.

Equipment

Barbarian Starting Equipment

• A glaive 
• Two handaxes
• An explorer’s pack
• Four javelins

Sailor Background Starting Equipment

• Belaying pin (club)
• 50 feet of silk rope
• Random Trinket
• A set of common clothes 
• 10 Gold

Purchasing Goals

• Scale mail, then half-plate armor.
• Smith’s tools. We should be collecting weapons and armor from fallen monsters so we can repair them during downtime. Prioritise weapons and armour with the highest value per pound of weight, but otherwise collect as much as you and your party can carry once you’ve snagged all the other valuables. For reference, a scimitar is worth 25gp and sells for 12gp and 5sp, which means you will be making 12.5gp per goblin you kill. You will need a party member with tinker’s tools if you want to repair nonmetal items like bows and crossbows, unfortunately.
• Herbalism kit. For 25gp and 1 day of downtime you can create a single potion of healing. If your DM allows you to create these while travelling, then you can make a lot of them over the course of the campaign. 
• More javelins (10 should be sufficient).
• A cart and ox. Even if you can’t find a bag of holding, or have a friendly Wizard cast Tenser’s floating disk, a cart and ox is still a great way to increase the number of weapons you can bring back to town. 

Level 1 Strategy

When combat starts, we should evaluate the position of ourselves and our allies in relation to the enemy. If we are fighting a melee-exclusive enemy that has no ranged attacks (for example, a troll) then we should position in such a way as to force the creature to have to Dash towards us instead of taking an offensive action – in such cases, throw a javelin at the enemy. Bear in mind that this strategy is ineffective if the troll can simply walk 30 feet to another party member and multiattack them instead. Once melee combat becomes acceptable, we can feel free to close and attack using our action and Polearm Master bonus action for maximum damage. It is also important to play around the Polearm Master reaction attack that we can make when enemies enter our 10 feet reach, securing this extra attack every round is more than a 33% increase in damage at our current level, though securing it once or twice per combat is a more reasonable expectation.

When we are in melee, there is another option available to us: grapples and shoves. As a high Strength character with Athletics proficiency, we are probably the best grappler in the party. Grappling an enemy and then shoving them prone takes two actions (or, at level 5 and beyond, our entire attack action) but renders them unable to stand from prone. This strategy is supremely useful against enemy spellcasters if you have a party member capable of casting silence as an action. The spellcaster will be unable to use verbal components, shutting down most of their spellcasting (if not all).

Level 2 Barbarian

Danger Sense – This will just work when we need to make a Dexterity save. Keep it in the back of your mind and remind your DM that you have it.
Reckless Attack – This feature grants us advantage on all our melee attack rolls, which is an enormous boost in power. The tradeoff is that enemies will have advantage on attacks against us. Regardless, we should be using this whenever we are in melee to ensure we can remove priority threats as fast as possible – damage is the goal of the build. We probably don’t have to tell you this, but don’t use Reckless Attack when you have advantage from another source.

Level 3 Barbarian

We gain another use of our Rage feature per long rest.
Primal Path – Path of the Zealot.
Divine Fury (Path of the Zealot feature) – 1d6+half Barbarian level of damage per turn while Raging is a significant bump in our damage per round. We can choose whether this damage is radiant or necrotic, so we are choosing radiant as it is less widely resisted by monsters (and some monsters are even vulnerable to it!)
Warrior of the Gods (Path of the Zealot feature) – This is mostly a ribbon feature that can help to mitigate some of the risk that comes with frontlining in melee. Look at the revival magic your party has available and plan accordingly. Avoid being disintegrated until you can give your Cleric a body part for resurrection at 13th level. Another potential use is convincing the party Cleric to cast ceremony and marry our entire party to one-another for a week long +2 AC. At the end of the week, we can kill ourselves, get revived for free, and then remarry. It should be clear that this is something to clear with your table and DM, as a weekly polygamous marriage ending in assisted suicide might not be appropriate for your games.
Primal Knowledge (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional feature) – Survival. As a totally free bonus skill proficiency, we’ll take it.

Level 4 Barbarian

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Great Weapon Master. With Great Weapon Master in play, every melee attack with a heavy weapon brings the calculation on whether or not to use its -5/+10 component. Do not use the -5/+10 on things that would die to a normal hit (i.e. a 5 HP kobold when you are raging). In other scenarios, the answer depends on the AC of the enemy.

Level 5 Barbarian

Extra Attack – Now we can attack twice with our attack action, for a total of three attacks per round when we use Polearm Master.
Fast Movement – An extra 10 feet of movement means we can more easily position around melee enemies. We are an efficient killer; if we can throw javelins and run away from something to defeat them without anyone in the party taking damage, take that win! We’re good at taking damage, but don’t do it if there is no reason. 

Level 6 Barbarian

We gain another use of our Rage feature per long rest.
Fanatical Focus (Path of the Zealot feature) – We can reroll one failed saving throw per Rage. Look at what the enemy has available (or make educated guesses) and reserve your reroll for the most debilitating effects. If you fight an Adult Dragon, for instance, reserve your reroll for the Wisdom save against Frightful Presence, since you will be unable to contribute your usual damage if you can’t approach the dragon. If the dragon is Young, however, then it lacks a Frightful Presence feature and you can simply reroll your save against the breath weapon without worry.

Level 7 Barbarian

Feral Instinct – Advantage on initiative is a nice goody. We can also avoid being surprised at the start of combat by Raging on our first turn. If you can close into melee and wipe out a priority target (such as a spellcaster) or if you can avoid significant damage by raging, throwing a javelin, and running away, then you should use this option.
Feral Pounce (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional feature) – Extra movement when we Rage can be helpful, especially in the above scenario of “Rage, throw javelin, run away.”

Level 8 Barbarian

Ability Score Improvement – +2 Str raises our Strength score to 18.

Level 9 Barbarian

Our bonus Rage damage increases to +3.
Brutal Critical (one die) – An extra d10 (or d4) of damage when we crit with our glaive means that we effectively gain a bonus 0.675 damage per round when we make three attacks, or plus 1.31625 DPR when we have advantage on all our attacks. Huzzah!

Level 10 Barbarian

Zealous Presence (Path of the Zealot feature) – Zealous Presence is a powerful round 1 nova ability, both offensively and defensively. Damage dealt on round 1 is the most valuable, since it can be focused on high priority targets. Additionally, advantage on saving throws for round 1 will protect you from nova plays made by enemies such as mind flayer Mind Blast, dragon breath weapons, spellcaster area of effect spells, etc. The offensive applications of this feature depend on how many attack rolls your party are making and how much damage they deal, but the defensive applications are quite universal.
Primal Knowledge (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional feature) – Animal Handling and Nature are our only options here, and Animal Handling is the one we don’t have a negative modifier in.

Level 11 Barbarian

Relentless Rage – Ideally we never have to use this, and we certainly shouldn’t be relying on it, but it’s nice to have until we get our level 14 Path Feature. We’re currently sitting on a +7 Con save (+4 proficiency, 16 Con) so we can reasonably expect to pass the first DC 10 save. If we have saving throw boosting effects like bless or a Paladin with Aura of Protection available, then the DC 15 save is also reasonable to achieve.

Level 12 Barbarian

We gain another use of our Rage feature per long rest.
Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Resilient (Wis). Resilient (Wisdom) affords us protection against the most debilitating and common conditions in the game, such as charm and frightened, and makes us significantly better suited to dealing with enemy spellcasters without getting shut down by spells like hold person. These effects become more common in later levels, so now is the time to grab this feat.

Level 13 Barbarian

Brutal Critical (two dice) – Another 1.31625 DPR increase. Pay no attention to the 7th level spells the spellcasters could be getting at this point.

Level 14 Barbarian

Rage Beyond Death (Path of the Zealot feature) – This is the Path of the Zealot capstone, and it’s a fun one. We need to remember to keep potions of healing on our person so we can heal up before our Rage ends, otherwise we’re likely to drop dead. Be careful of spellcasters or creatures who can hit us with effects that incapacitate or immobilise, since this can force our Rage to end and lead to our demise. With our herbalism kit proficiency, we can easily craft the healing potions to keep on our person.

Level 15 Barbarian

Persistent Rage – This feature significantly helps with mitigating the previous concern, since we will no longer be forced to end Rage if we cannot attack an enemy. This means the major threat to us when we are raging at 0 HP is now the sleep spell, as well as effects that would kill us immediately at 0 HP such as disintegrate. In general, this feature gives us a lot more freedom when Raging.

Level 16 Barbarian

Ability Score Improvement – +2 Str brings our Strength to a mighty 20.

Level 17 Barbarian

Our bonus Rage damage increases to +4.
We gain another use of our Rage feature per long rest.
Brutal Critical (three dice) – Yet another 1.31625 DPR increase for a total boost of less than 4 damage per round from the Brutal Critical feature. Feels bad, man.

Level 18 Barbarian

Indomitable Might – Makes our Strength (Athletics) checks nice and reliable, which is something.

Level 19 Barbarian

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Lucky. A classic feat for tacking on to the end of a build. This is mostly useful for saving throws, but if we really need to hit something, we can close our eyes, swing our glaive with disadvantage, and then use Lucky so we can pick our result from the three dice rolled. Bear in mind that Reckless Attack can only be activated on the first attack we make on our turn so this gambit prevents Reckless from being used on any other attacks we make on the same turn.

Level 20 Barbarian

We gain Unlimited use of our Rage feature per long rest. Rage constantly out of combat so you don’t have to use a bonus action in-combat to Rage.
Primal Champion – This is our capstone feature, and it feels pretty good. 20 Constitution, another 40 HP. 24 Strength, too. Barbarian has a pretty rough progression in the high levels, but it ends with a bang.