Barbarian 5e: DnD 5th Edition Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)

Introduction

Barbarians are all about getting angry, dealing damage, and shrugging off enemy’s attacks. They have a ton of hit points, resistance to weapon damage while raging, and Rage gives a nice bonus to damage. Barbarians don’t get much in the way of skills unless you add Optional Class Features, so generally they’re stuck as combat monsters, but they function equally well as a Defender and a Striker, and certain character options can even expand them into a limited Support role.

Because their tactics are frequently very simple (rage, smash the nearest enemy, repeat), some players find the Barbarian unappealing compared to classes that have more diverse and complex options. But don’t let the simplicity deter you: charging into melee, turning Reckless Attack, and shrugging off paltry amounts of damage while you carve through your enemies is a ton of fun.

Barbarians don’t deal consistently huge amounts of damage without serious optimization, but they do enough to be a threat, and their high Strength and easy access to Advantage on Strength checks means that the grapple/shove combo is always available to you, and leaning on that capability offers a great option that other charactes can’t easily match without spending precious resources like feats.

After reading this handbook, I encourage you to read our other supportingarticles:

• Barbarian Subclasses Breakdown
• Barbarian Races Breakdown

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Barbarian Class Features
  • Optional Class Features
• Ability Scores
• Barbarian Races
• Barbarian Skills
• Barbarian Backgrounds
• Barbarian Feats
• Barbarian Weapons
• Barbarian Armor
• Multiclassing
• Barbarian Magic Items
  • Common Magic Items
  • Uncommon Magic Items
  • Rare Magic Items
  • Very Rare Magic Items
  • Legendary Magic Items
• Example Barbarian Build – Half-Orc Barbarian (Berserker)
  • Abilities
  • Race
  • Skills and Tools
  • Background
  • Levels
• Barbarian FAQ

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Barbarian Class Features

Optional Class Features are detailed below under Optional Class Features.

Hit Points: d12 is the biggest hit dieavailable.

Saves: Strength saves are fairly rare, butConstitution saves are common and typically very problematic.

Proficiencies: Medium armor and martialweapons will get you a long way, but you get no tool proficiencies, and onlytwo skills.

Rage: Rage is the Barbarian’s defining classfeature. The bonus damage isn’t huge, but it’s reliable and consistent. Theresistance to damage makes Barbarians exceptionally durable. You can ragemultiple times in the same encounter if you absolutely need to, but yournumber of rages per day is limited, so try not to do so if you can avoidit.

Unarmored Defense: This is great flavorfor the Barbarian, but won’t do much good for you unless your ability scores arevery high. Your Dexterity and Constitution modifiers need to total +7 to matchthe total AC bonus provided by half plate armor. That’s generally achievableby level 8 unless you rolled for ability scores, and assuming that you startedwith 14 Dexterity and largely ignored Strength. More realistically, you shouldexpect to hit 20 Constitution by 12th level, and even then Unarmored Defensewill only break even with Half plate. If magic armor is an option you’ll needto put an ability increase into Dexterity before you have a good reason todrop your armor.

Reckless Attack: Rage makes you resistant todamage from normal weapons (Magical weapons which do weird damage types stillwork fine), so advantage on attacks against you doesn’t matter as much. Gocrazy. Kill all of the things. Reckless Attack also makes usingoversized weaponsviable under some circ*mstances.

Danger Sense: In medium armor your dexterityprobably isn’t fantastic, but advantage on any save is fantastic.

Primal Path: Barbarian subclasses are briefly summarizedbelow. See myBarbarian Subclasses Breakdownfor help selecting your subclass.

• Ancestral Guardian: Conjure up the spirits of your ancestors to defend yourself and yourallies in battle.
• Battlerager: Dwarf barbarians who specialize in fighting in spiked armor.
• Beast:Manifest teeth, claws, and other fantastic bodily features, and tear yourenemies to shreds.
• Berserker: Adds the ability to go into a Frenzy while raging, making you even moredangerous at the cost of levels of Fatigue.
• Storm Herald: A nature-themed Barbarian, adding features thematically tied to yourchoice of “Environment”, which you can change every time you gain alevel.
• Totem Warrior: Choose from Animal-themed benefits at several points, allowing you tocustomize your barbarian to fill several roles in combat.
• Zealot:A great option for reckless players, or for players who tend to diefrequently, the Zealot is exceptionally difficult to kill and can be raisedfrom the dead without the expensive material components usually required todo so.
• Wild Magic: Throw unpredictable magic into the mix, gaining a randomly-selected buffevery time you rage, allowing you to do fantastic things like teleporting incombat.

Extra Attack: Two attacks means potentiallytwice as much damage in a turn, and twice as much opportunity to apply yourrage bonus to damage.

Fast Movement: Amusing, but notgame-changing.

Feral Instinct: You are basically immune tosurprise attacks. Advantage on initiative will allow you to go firstfrequently, so be sure to get into position to keep enemies from reaching yoursquishy allies.

Brutal Critical: This feature has severalproblems. The intent is to make critical hits the Barbarian’s source ofadditional damage at high levels where fighters get a third attack andpaladins get Improved Divine Smite. Unfortunately, the math just doesn’t workout. Reckless Attack allows you score a critical hit roughly 9.75% of thetime, which is more than average but not so often that they’re consistent.Brutal Critical also mandates that you use a greataxe to maximize thebenefits, which discourages you from using weapons like a greatsword or amaul. Even then, each Brutal Critical die adds just 1.2 damage per round onaverage with a greataxe (assuming 2 attacks and Reckless Attack). You need allthree of those dice to match Improved Divine Smite, and you don’t get thethird die until level 17.

To summarize: Brutal Critical feels very satisfying, but the math is notgood.

Relentless Rage: This will keep youconscious for a long time if you get hit with a low number of high-damageattacks, but lots of small attacks will raise the DC too quickly for this toremain effective. Be sure to eliminate weak but numerous enemies before yourHP starts getting scary.

Persistent Rage: There are very feweffects which can end your rage prematurely without knocking youunconscious.

Indomitable Might: By now you might veryeasily have 20 Strength, so you’re guaranteed to get a ridiculously high rollon any Strength check. Remember that saves and attacks aren’t checks, so youstill need to roll high on those.

Primal Champion: The equivalent of 4 abilityincreases all at once. Your abilities should be absurd by this point, so nowmay be a good time to abandon your armor in face of running around slayingmonsters in your undergarments.

Optional Class Features

Introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Optional Class Features offer ways to add additional features or replace existing ones. These rules are optional, and you should not assume that your DM will allow these features without consulting them first.

Assessments and suggestions for specific Optional Class Features are presented here, but for more information on handling Optional Class Features in general, see my Practical Guide to Optional Class Features.

Primal Knowledge (Addition): The Barbarianis notoriously useless outside of combat because their class features arealmost exclusively dedicated to acts of violence. The one tiny sliver ofnon-combat functionality which they get is their skills, and while they getthe standard 2 class skills their skill options are often only situationallyuseful so most barbarians are locked into Athletics and Perception becausethose are the only consistently useful choices. Adding 2 more skillproficiencies does a lot to improve the Barbarian’s non-combat capabilities,and granting them past level 1 means that the barbarian can grow and developas a character, learning new skills in addition to new and exciting ways tohurt stuff.

I recommend granting Primal Knowledge to all characters who take barbarian astheir primary class and whose race doesn’t provide additional skillproficiencies. Even for races which do provide skill proficiencies, it’sprobably still a good choice to grant this but consider how your player feelsabout their character’s capabilities outside of combat before you make adecision.

I recommend considering it on a case-by-case basis for class dips. Mostmulticlassed barbarians will go to level 3 to get Reckless Attack, and theadditional skill may be an unneeded benefit for what may already be a verypowerful character.

Instinctive Pounce (Addition): At thislevel the Barbarian has Fast Movement, so many barbarians will have either 35ft. or 40 ft. speed. Moving half of that speed when you begin a rage allowsthe Barbarian to get into melee faster, which is essential since the Barbarianis essentially a melee-only class.

I recommend allowing Instinctive Pounce on all barbarians whose subclassesdon’t add a complicated secondary effect when they rage (such as the Path ofWild Magic’s roll on the Wild Magic Table). The amount of extra movement isn’tgoing to break the game and it won’t be helpful in every fight, but it makesthe Bonus Action to Rage feel less like a tax and more like an actual tacticaldecision point. It also allows the DM to set encounters in larger areaswithout accidently punishing the Barbarian, thereby offering the DM moreoptions for encounter design.

Ability Scores

Barbarians are all about their physical ability scores. If your scores aregood enough you can forgo armor, so it’s nice to have adequate Dexterity andConstitution to beat the AC bonus provided by half plate.

Str: Barbarians are all about lots ofStrength and big weapons, so Strength should almost always be your bestability.

Dex: 14 Dexterity is great to boost yourAC with half plate. If you prefer to go armor-less, look for an item to boostyour Dexterity so that you can spend your ability increases on Strength andConstitution.

Con: Second only to Strength. Barbarianstake a lot of damage, so you need all the hit points you can get. Constituionalso powers Unarmored Defense.

Int: Dump stat. Intelligence saves are veryrare, and Barbarians don’t get any Intelligence-based skills.

Wis: Wisdom saves are common, so don’tdump it, but don’t put a ton of effort into improving it.

Cha: Charisma only matters for a couple ofthe Barbarian’s skills, and for the Berserker’s Intimidating Presence. If youwent for Totem Warrior and didn’t pick up Intimidation, you can dump Charismaand use the points to boost your Wisdom.

Barbarian Races

Look for bonuses to Strength, Constitutions, and medium size so that you caneffectively use big weapons like a Greataxe and survive your relatively poorAC compared to a fighter or a paladin. Damage resistances and other thingswhich improve your durability are great, and things like Darkvision and extraskills can help outside of combat. Avoid innate spellcasting.

For a classic barbarian feel, the Half-Orc and the Mountain Dwarf are goodchoices. For a durable barbarian, the Goliath and the Yuan-Ti are greatchoices. For high damage, go for variant human and consider the Great WeaponMaster feat at first level.

For help selecting a race, see ourBarbarian Races Breakdown.

Barbarian Skills

• Animal Handling (Wis): Not really helpfulfor the function of the Barbarian, but the flavor makes sense.
• Athletics (Str): The only Strength-basedskill, Athletics is more than climbing and swimming. You use Athletics forgrappling and for pushing enemies, both of which can be excellent optionsfor Barbarians.
• Intimidation (Cha): If you’re built witha bit of Charisma for the Berserker’s Intimidating Presence, you can be goodat Intimidate. Otherwise, skip it.
• Nature (Int): Intelligence is a dumpstat for Barbarians, but if no one in the party has access to Nature it’snot an awful choice.
• Perception (Wis): One of the mostimportant skills in the game. At least two people in the party should haveit, but more is always better.
• Survival (Wis): Adventuring tends toinvolve a lot of wandering around in untamed wilderness, so Survival can bevery helpful to your party.

Barbarian Backgrounds

This section does not address every published background, as doing so would result in an ever-growing list of options which don’t cater to the class. Instead, this section will cover the options which I think work especially well for the class, or which might be tempting but poor choices. Racial feats are discussed in the Races section, above.

Barbarians don’t do a lot with skills, and the skills you generally want areon the Barbarian’s class skill list. When looking for a Background, try topick up skills which complement your existing skill proficiencies and whichcapitalize on your ability scores.

If you’re having trouble deciding, here are some suggestions:

• City Watch^SCAG: Athletics is great, Insight may be a hard choice and you won’t get muchfrom the ability to speak two languages with your garbage Charisma.
• Criminal^PHB: This might work for a Wolf Totem Barbarian, especially if you have aRogue in the party who can be stealthy with you.
• Folk Hero^PHB: Two skills from the Barbarian skill list, and a couple of toolproficiencies. Artisan’s Tools are probably a waste, but proficiency withland vehicles covers things like wagons which adventurers frequently travelin until long-distance magical travel becomes available. The theme worksreally well for a Barbarian who made a name for themself among their tribe,then set out to do some more heroics.
• Hermit^PHB: Medicine and herbalism can be useful for a Barbarian, especially if youdon’t have a healer in the party, but they’re still not fantasticoptions.
• Outlander^PHB: The go-to option for Barbarians, you get two skills from the Barbarianlist, but the other proficiencies are largely wasted.
• Sailor^PHB: Great for aquatic campaigns. Two good skills from the Barbarian list, andboats!
• Soldier^PHB: Somewhere between the Folk Hero and the Outlander. Two good skills fromthe Barbarian skill list, and some fun tool proficiencies which likely won’tbe very impactful but you still have a decent chance of actually using themsuccessfully.
• Uthgardt Tribe Member^SCAG: Two important Barbarian skills, but instruments, artisan’s tools, andlanguages are generally wasted on the Barbarian.

Barbarian Feats

Thissectiondoesnotaddresseverypublishedfeat,asdoingsowouldresultinanever-growinglistofoptionswhichdon’tcatertotheclass.Instead,thissectionwillcoverfeatswhichIthinkworkespeciallywellfortheclassorwhichmightbetemptingbutpoorchoices.

• Alert^PHB: Feral Instinct does plenty on its own, so you shouldn’t need this.
• Charger^PHB: Great for closing to melee, but situational. If you can’t get into meleerange with your movement it may be better to use your action to throw somejavelins.
• Crusher^TCoE: At a glance this looks like it’s a great fit for the Barbarian, but it’snot as useful as it looks. The ability increases are great, but knockingenemies away you is usually a bad choice for the Barbarian, and since youhave Reckless Attack it’s unlikely that you’ll benefit from grantingAdvantage after a critical hit. Your allies will benefit from the Advantageeffect, but if that’s something you want you should consider Path of theTotem Warrior’s Totem Spirit (Wolf) feature.
• Chef^TCoE: Potentially more impactful than Tough or a +2 Constitution increase(unless you’re using Unarmored Defense), Chef provides a lot that theBarbarian can benefit from. The Constitution increase is obviously great,and the bonus healing on a Short Rest is helpful since the Barbarian tendsto take a lot of damage and relies heavily on natural healing. The snacks,despite being small in number, provide an easy way to quickly acquiretemporary hit points which can further stretch your party’s limited healingresources. The snacks are eaten as a Bonus Action, so if your subclassdoes’t lean heavily on your Bonus Action you can shovel snacks into yourmouth while raging to mitigate whatever damage you’re taking. The damageresistance provided by Rage will make the temporary hit points moreimpactful, too.
• Dual Wielder^PHB: Two-Weapon Fighting can be a good way to bring your bonus Rage damageinto play more frequently, but since Two-Weapon Fighting uses your bonusaction, this is a bad option for barbarians subclasses which use their BonusAction heavily. If your Bonus Action isn’t doing much, combining DualWeilder with Brutal Critical could be effective, though the smaller damagedie between a d8 weapon and a d12 weapon makes the math complicated becauseyou need to weigh the improve likelihood of scoring a critical hit againstrolling bigger dice on a critical hit.

  If you’re considering two-weapon fighting, be sure to consider takingFighting Initiate for Fighting Style (Two-Weapon Fighting). The numericbonus to damage is more effective offensively than upgrading from d6 to d8damage dice. However, Dual Wielder provides an AC bonus and the largerdamage dice synergize nicely with Brutal Critical.

• Durable^PHB: Rage gives you resistance to weapon damage types, but you’ll still faceproblems from spells, and with only medium armor the Barbarian’s hit pointstypically rise and fall very far very quickly. Magical healing goes a longway, but much of your healing will come from your Hit Dice. Ideally yourConstitution will be high enough to give you a big pool of hit points, sothe Durable feat can go a really long way to keep your hit points highthroughout the day.
• Fighting Initiate^TCoE: Very few options will be more consistently effective than increasing oneof your ability scores. High-level barbarians who are fishing for criticalhits might enjoy Fighting Style (Great Weapon Fighting), but the math stillisn’t great. Blind Fighting is tempting since barbarians don’t have a way tohandle invisibility, and Interception/Protection are tempting for barbarianswithout a feature that uses their Reaction consistently.
• Gift of the Chromatic Dragon^FToD: The damage bonus is decent, and Reactive Resistance protects you frommost of the damage which Rage doesn’t protect you from, dramaticallyimproving your durability.
• Grappler^PHB: Just a terrible feat in general. You don’t need it to grapplesuccessfully.
• Great Weapon Master^PHB: Barbarians are all about two-handed weapons, and Great Weapon Masteroffers some great options. Berserker Barbarians will find the extra attackbenefit useful in fights with numerous weak enemies, allowing them toreserve their Frenzy for fights with large single enemies.
• Heavily Armored^PHB: Rage doesn’t function while you’re wearing heavy armor.
• Heavy Armor Master^PHB: Rage doesn’t function while you’re wearing heavy armor.
• Inspiring Leader^PHB: This is generally better for more charismatic characters like Bards orPaladins, but temporary hit points are great for Barbarians. If you’rebuilding to utilize Frightful Presence, this might be worthy ofconsideration.
• Mage Slayer^PHB: Only useful in games which feature an abnormally large number ofspellcasters.
• Martial Adept^PHB: One superiority die means that you might get to use your maneuvers two orthree times a day at most. Feats should be more consistently useful.
• Medium Armor Master^PHB: You won’t be doing much stealth unless you went for Wolf Totem and haveother stealthy people in your party, and the potential bonus to AC isn’tenough to justify this feat on its own.
• Mobile^PHB: You already get a speed boost, and Eagle totem will provide similarbenefits.
• Mounted Combat^PHB: Fighting while mounted can be a great option for Barbarians, and you haveplenty of hit points to absorb any attacks which might target yourmount.
• Piercer^TCoE: The only weapon which you’re likely to use this with is the Pike. Iwouldn’t consider this a go-to combination, but if you’re building aroundcritical hits the additional damage die stacks with Brutal Critical and alsoprovides the reroll benefit of Savage Attacker. It might work if you canspare a feat for it, which is slightly easier since you also get a +1Strength increase.
• Polearm Master^PHB: The Barbarian has very few options which require you to be within 5 ft.of a target. The Berserker offers Retaliation, and the Totem Warrior has acouple options (Totem Spirit (Wolf) and Totemic Attunement (Bear)), but ifyou’re fine not relying on those options, a reach weapon and Polearm Mastercan be tempting. The bonus attack provided by the feat is especiallyinteresting since you can get the damage of a two-handed weapon while stillgetting as many attacks as though you were using two-weapon fighting.However, there are some Barbarian subclass features which use your BonusAction, and Rage is activated as a Bonus Action, so you may find that thebonus polearm attack frequently goes unused. The ability to make an attackwhen something enters your reach is nice, but considering barbarians usuallyhandle threats by charging them first, you’ll likely find that this benefitalso rarely applies.
• Resilient^PHB: I probably would not take this before you have hit your maximum inStrength and possibly Constitution, but Resilient (Wisdom) can protect youfrom magic which is frequently used to incapacitate characters likebarbarians who typically have poor mental stats.
• Savage Attacker^PHB: This is a bad feat. The largest damage die (d12), yields an average of 2extra damage per turn. The absolute best case scenario is a half-orcberserker with Brutal Critical critting with a greataxe, but even then it’sstill only around 4.45 extra damage at the absolute most, and it’s stilllimited to once per turn.
• Sentinel^PHB: This is fantastic for Defender builds, and solves the “Tank Fallacy”issues faced by many barbarian subclasses, including the the Totem Warrior(bear totem) and the Path of the Zealot. Forcing enemies to remain in meleewith you prevents them from running away from you in order to attack yourallies.
• Shield Master^PHB: The best part of this is probably the ability to shove enemies (possiblyshoving them prone) as a bonus action. Wolf totem provides a similarbenefit.
• Skill Expert^TCoE: Barbarians have frustratingly few options outside of combat, and addingan extra skill can diversify your capabilities. Expertise in Athletics canmake you nearly unstoppable at Grappling and Shoving, especially once youadd the Advantage on Strength checks from Rage.
• Skilled^PHB: Helpful if your party has large skill gaps, but Barbarians aren’t verygood at skills, so your utility is severely limited.
• Skulker^PHB: Even if you are in a sneaky party, you should be leaping from hiding tomurder things.
• Slasher^TCoE: The speed reduction is a great way to keep enemies from escaping you.Most creatures have a speed around 30 feet, and between Fast Movement andthe speed penalty on your target, you’re very hard to escape even if thetarget Dashes. The critical hit benefit is great, too, but you can’t counton critical hits so you need to consider the ability increase and the speedreduction as the core of the feat. Like Sentinel, this is a great way toaddress the “Tank Fallacy” because it makes it so much more difficult forenemies to simply ignore you and walk past you to attack your allies.
• Tavern Brawler^PHB: If you want to go for Grappler, this feat complements it nicely.
• Tough^PHB: You need too many ability increases to make room for this feat unlessyou’re playing a Variant Human. Instead, boost your Constitution. If you’replaying a Variant Human and this is the feat you plan to take, consider aHill Dwarf instead.

Barbarian Weapons

This section covers weapons which specifically appeal to the Barbarian. For more advice on choosing weapons, including those not addressed here, see our Practical Guide to Weapons.

• Handaxe: Your go-to option for two-weaponfighting.
• Javelin: A great disposable ranged optionwhen you’re too far away to move into melee in one turn.
• Greataxe: Brutal Critical means that abigger damage die is better for you.
• Greatsword: More reliable damage than theGreataxe, but not as useful with Brutal Critical.
• Maul: Basically a blunt greatsword.

Barbarian Armor

See also: “Unarmored Defense”, above.

• Half plate: Half plate will provide moreAC than your Unarmored Defense until your total modifiers in Dexterity andConstitution equal +7. Expect to spend most of your career in half plateunless you need to be stealth.
• Shield: Barbarians generally work bestwith two-handed weapons.

Multiclassing

This section briefly details some obvious and enticing multiclass options, but doesn’t fully explore the broad range of multiclassing combinations. For more on multiclassing, see our Practical Guide to Multiclassing.

• Fighter: The Fighter’s Fighting Styleability is decent if you go for two-weapon fighting, but Two-Weapon Fightingis hard since Barbarians already have several options which allow them toattack as a bonus action, allowing them to match TWF number of attacks whileusing a two-handed weapon. 2nd level brings Action Surge, which is fantasticon any character. At 3rd level consider the Champion archetype to pick upImproved Critical, which will double how often you get to use BrutalCritical.
• Monk: Unarmored Defense abilities don’tstack. You use whichever you got first, according to the official FAQ.
• Rogue: A dip into Rogue for Expertise inAthletics will go a long way if you plan to use Shove or Grapple, butwithout the Fighter’s big number of attacks Shove isn’t always a greatoption. Cunning Action isn’t always helpful for a Barbarian and conflictswith the numerous class features which use a bonus action (Rage, etc.), somost builds shouldn’t go past level 1.
• Wizard: Barbarians have almost exactlyopposite abilities to Wizards, so there isn’t a lot of room forcompatibility.

Barbarian Magic Items

Common Magic Items

• Moon-Touched Sword^XGtE: This solves two problems for the martial characters. First, the swordglows almost as brightly as a torch, allowing you to see in dark placeswithout devoting a hand to a torch and without asking your allies to castlight or something. Second, and more important, it allows you to overcomedamage resistance to non-magic attacks. Resistances like this are common asyou gain levels, and the Moon-Touched Sword is an inexpensive way toovercome them until a better weapon comes along.

Uncommon Magic Items

• Adamantine Armor^DMG: The protection against critical hits is nice since Reckless Attack grantsenemies Advantage against you, doubling the likelihood that you’ll suffer acritical hit.
• Bloodrage Greataxe^BoMT: Basically tailor-made for barbarians. Hanging out below half of your hit pointmaximum is easy with d12 hit points and easily-accessible damage resistance, so getting the +2 bonusconsisently is easy. It’s tempting to build around this by taking Tough and raising Constitution insteadof Strength, but if you’re likely to find better magic weapons later, don’t fall into that trap.
• Boomerang, +1^DMG: Helpful for thrown weapon for Strength-based builds that need anoccasional ranged option, but javelins are cheaper and you won’t feel theneed to rush to recover them.
• Boomerang Shield^BoMT: An interesting solution to range weaponry, providing the benefits of a returning weapon while also providing the benefit of a shield. You don’t get a bonus to attack and damage, so this only better than a non-magic javelin in that you don’t need to juggle items and that it’s magical. It’s not a perfectsolution for a thrown weapon build, but those are few and far between without an artificer in the party.
• Cloak of Protection^DMG: Good on any character, but it requires Attunement and it’s not veryinteresting.
• Eyes of the Eagle^DMG: Perception is the most frequently rolled skill in the game, and while theBarbarian isn’t fantastic with skills Perception is still one of your betterskill options. Pass this off to someone with a better bonus if you can, butyou may still find this helpful if that’s not an option.
• Gloves of Missile Snaring^DMG: Similar to the Monk’s Deflect Missiles feature, this is an interestingdefensive option for melee characters. However, ranged missile attacks arerelatively rare since so many monsters can’t fight at range and many rangedenemies will be spellcasters, so this is situational by nature.
• Lantern of Revealing^DMG: An excellent counter to invisible enemies for a class without a built-inway to handle them.
• Mithral Armor^DMG: Negate the Disadvantage on stealth checks imposed by half plate. Just aseffective as +1 Breastplate, and it’s one rarity lower.
• Periapt of Wound Closure^DMG: Barbarians have poor AC and huge hit dice, so spending hit dice is acrucial part of how you stay alive. Doubling the efficiency of those hitdice will keep you from becoming a constant tax on your party’s healingresources.
• Stone of Good Luck^DMG: Excellent on literally any character, but if you just want better defensea Cloak of Protection may be more effective. Stone of Good Luck shines ifyou’re heavily reliant on skills and ability checks.
• Weapon, +1^DMG: Barbarians are all about weapon attacks, so a numeric bonus to attack anddamage is hard to beat. As you gain levels weapons more interesting than a+X bonus to attack/damage may be more interesting and more effective, but atthe Uncommon rarity nothing can compete with a +1 Weapon for your offensiveneeds.
• Winged Boots^DMG: Excellent on its own, but Winged Boots are more limited in use than abroom of flying, and they require Attunement.

Rare Magic Items

• Amulet of Health^DMG: Setting your Constitution to 19 means that you don’t need to put AbilityScore Increases into it unless you’re really certain that you want 20Constitution. Less ASI’s into Constitution means more room for feats, but ifyou want to use Unarmored Defense or if you ever reach level 20 you’llprobably want your Constitution at 20.
• Armor of Resistance^DMG: Excellent, but unpredictable in most games since you can’t perfectlypredict what sort of damage you’ll face. Fire and poison are safechoices.
• Armor, +1^DMG: +1 AC, no attunement. Nothing fancy, but very effective.
• Belt of Dwarvenkind^DMG: For non-dwarves, Darkvision and resistance to poison is extremely usefulsince most barbarians don’t get a way to provide them on your own. Theincreased Constitution is nice, too, especially if you’re planning to sit at18 Constitution for a long time. Barbarians approaching level 20 may considerraising their un-improved Constitution to 20 to enjoy their new 24Constitution, but until level 20 that +2 bonus is really nice.
• Belt of Giant Strength (Hill)^DMG: The fact that this item exists makes putting ability score increases intoStrength feel a bit silly. Imagine rushing to get to 20 Strength thenfinding an item that raises your Strength to 21 (more with higher rarities).Still, if you can get one you absolutely should.
• Bracers of Defense^DMG: As much AC as a shield. If you’re relying on Unarmored Defense, these arefantastic and can easily make up the difference between +X armor andUnarmored Defence’s AC bonus. Given the choice, you might prefer a Cloak orRing of Protection.
• Cloak of Displacement^DMG: Among the best defensive items in the game. Taking damage from any source(spells, etc.) suppresses the effect temporarily, so make a point to killanything that can damage you without an attack roll.
• Crown of the Wrathbringer^GotG: I would only take this on a barbarian, and even then it’s not especiallygood. The damage is worded by very specifically so that you don’t get tomultiply the damage on a critical hit, so it’s just a straight conversion ofhit dice into damage, one die at a time.
• Flametongue^DMG: Mathematically the +2 bonus to attack rolls from a +2 weapon will be amore consistent improvement to your damage output (especially with thegrowing damage bonus from Rage), but the Flametongue is way more fun. The2d6 damage is multiplied on critical hits, too, and since barbarians scorecritical hits frequently thanks to Reckless Attack, multiplying the damagefrom Flametongue can provide a significant source of damage output.
• Periapt of Proof Against Poison^DMG: Poison damage is very common across the full level range, so immunity toit is a significant improvement in your durability.
• Ring of Evasion^DMG: A great way to mitigate damage from AOE spells and things like breathweapons which can often be problems from front-line martial characters.
• Ring of Protection^DMG: Cloak of Protection is lower rarity and has the same effect.
• Ring of Resistance^DMG: Most of the time you’ll want something common like fire, but getresistance to psychic damage if you can, and a bear totem barbarian hasresistance to all damage.
• Ring of Spell Storing^DMG: You can’t cast spells while raging, so my usual Absorb Elements+Shieldrecommendation doesn’t work.
• Sword of Life Stealing^DMG: Between Extra Attack and Reckless Attack, you’re unusually likely to rollnatural 20’s on your attacks, making the Sword of Life Stealing veryappealing. The extra damage is great, and the temporary hit points willmitigate Reckless Attack’s drawback.
• Sword of Wounding^DMG: Persistent damage that stacks with itself. It’s only 1d4 and only onceper turn, but it stacks with itself and “once per turn” means that if youcan attack again outside of your own turn (Opportunity Attacks, etc.) youcan get additional dice very quickly.
• Vicious Weapon^DMG: Mathematically this is worse than a +2 weapon in every way. If you reallylike the natural 20 effect for some reason, go for a Sword of LifeStealing.
• Warrior’s Passkey^BoMT: +1 sword, does force damage, casts Knock at will. Arguably better than a +2 weapon,though it can’t be every type of weapon and the action economy to draw it could cause you trouble.
• Weapon, +2^DMG: Mathematically spectacular. It’s difficult to beat the math here.

Very Rare Magic Items

• Animated Shield^DMG: Tempting for anyone not fighting with a one-handed weapon, but a Cloak ofProtection is two rarities lower, works persistently, and arguably providesa better numeric bonus.
• Armor, +2^DMG: +2 AC, no attunement. Nothing fancy, but very effective.
• Armor of Safeguarding^GotG: A bunch of extra HP plus Beacon of Hope once per day. +2 armor willlikely mitigate much more damage over an extended adventuring day. Beacon ofHope is neat, but it’s not consistently useful and you can’t concentrate onit during Rage so you effectively can’t use it in combat.
• Belt of Giant Strength (Frost, Stone, Fire)^DMG: Much like a +X weapon, it’s hard to beat the math here. Raising yourStrength above 20 is a massive benefit, and going up as high as 25 isspectacular. Between that and Reckless Attack you hit so reliably that youalmost can’t miss.
• Bloodshed Blade^GotG: Adding your Constitution modifier to damage can be a huge boost for theBarbarian since your modifier can be as high as +7, but these days mostbarbarians don’t got for max Constitution because feats are so much moreimpactful. This competes for space with a +3 weapon, and with any otherdamage boosts on the table (Rage bonus, Great Weapon Master, etc.), the +3weapon’s multiplicative damage boost (attack bonuses add DPR mulilicativelyrather than linearly), the +3 weapon is going to be more effective than theBloodshed Blade while also not requiring Attunement. Invoking the rune onBloodshed Blade lets you perform a once-per-day nuke which should nicelyeliminate whatever thing ou drop all of your hit dice on top of.
• Dancing Sword^DMG: A great way to spend you Bonus Action if you don’t have many uses for it,but the sword only uses your attack and damage modifiers, so it can’tbenefit from feats, class features, etc.
• Frost Brand^DMG: Less damage than the Flame Tongue, but higher rarity and it requiresattunement. Yes, you get resistance to force damage, but you can get thatfrom dozens of other sources by this level.
• Manual of Bodily Health^DMG: Permanent Constitution bonus and raises your cap by 2. Unless you’reusing a magic item that fixes your Constitution as a specific score, this isexcellent.
• Manual of Gainful Exercise^DMG: If you reach level 20 and get the +4 Strength increase, you can hit 26Strength and exceed the Strength provided by a Belt of Giant’s Strength ofthe same rarity.
• Manual of Quickness of Action^DMG: Unless you’re worried about the cap on attuned items, a Cloak or Ring ofProtection will be more effective.
• Mistral Mantle^GotG: Cold resistance and you can knock an enemy prone just my moving near them. The save DC isn’t especially high, but considering this doesn’t eat into your action economy, it’s still very good.
• Ring of Regeneration^DMG: Short Rests exist for a reason. If you want this, consider a Periapt ofWound Closure instead.
• Sword of Sharpness^DMG: Basically a Vicious Weapon with a damage boost. The limb removal is neat,but only occurs on average once every 400 attacks (more often with RecklessAttack, but still not enough to make this good). A +3 weapon is massivelymore reliable and effective.
• Weapon, +3^DMG: Mathematically spectacular. It’s difficult to beat the math here.

Legendary Magic Items

• Belt of Giant Strength (Cloud, Storm)^DMG: As good as a +4 weapon for Strength-based character, and that doesn’teven consider Athletics checks or saves.
• Blood Fury Tattoo^TCoE: The first ability provides a great damage boost which also heals you, andsince it’s “extra damage” the damage is multiplied on a critical hit. Thesecond ability provides a way to counterattack using your Reaction, and withAdvantage on that attack it’s an easy and reliable boost to your damageoutput.
• Ioun Stone (Mastery)^DMG: Proficiency Bonuses apply to a lot of things and a +1 bonus goes a longway. Attacks, saves, skills, etc. all benefit.
• Luck Blade^DMG: Bonuses to attacks and saves, a once per day reroll, and it can cast Wisha few times (maybe. 1d4-1 could be zero).Green if it can’t cast Wish.
• Ring of Spell Turning^DMG: Given the choice, I would much rather haqve a Mantle of Spell Resistancesimply because the Ring of Spell Turning doesn’t provide any protectionagainst area effect spells. Otherwise, this is a really fun item, and if itprovided Advantage on saves against area of effect spells it would shootstraight up to blue.
• Ring of Three Wishes^DMG: Use this to do one of the things that risks permanently removing theability to cast Wish, such as granting 10 creatures permanent resistance toonce damage type. If you lose the ability to cast Wish, pass this off toanother ally who will never be able to cast Wish by any other means. Repeatuntil the last charge is used.

  For more help with Wish, see myPractical Guide to Wish.

• Rod of Lordly Might^DMG: Allows you to easily change your weapon damage type, and provides threepowerful offensive abilities which work in a variety of situations.Unfortunately all of the weapon types (with the exception of theFlametongue) are one-handed, which is hard for many barbarians.
• Scarab of Protection^DMG: An upgrade from the Mantle of Spell Resistance, the Scarab of Protectionadds a limited benefit against necromancy and undead creatures, and doesn’ttake up your cloak slot, leaving you free to take items like a Cloak ofProtection or Cloak of Invisibility instead.
• Vorpal Sword^DMG: Mostly useful as a +3 weapon, but thanks to Reckless Attack you’ll rollnatural 20’s fairly often.

Example Barbarian Build – Half-Orc Barbarian (Berserker)

Gnarg the Half-Orc Berserker

The pronounced muscles of his broad shoulders and back ripple with thesimple action of brushing a whetstone along the blade of his greataxe. Hewears no armor, a practice that has resulted in many scars from what musthave been dozens of battles. He lifts his head from his task, turning itslightly to reveal a tusked mouth and heavy brow. The half-orc knows you’relooking.

— Boxed text provided by dScryb^{(affiliate link)}

Thisisa“StapleBuild”.Thisbuildissimple,andreliesonoptionsfromtheSRDandtheBasicRuleswhereverpossible.Ifyouneedafunctionalbuildwithnothingfancyorcomplicated,thisisagreatplacetostart.

This is a very simple build. Barbarians have very few decision points, andthe biggest tactical decision they require in an encounter is whether or notto rage. Berserker adds the additional choice of potentially entering aFrenzy, but even that shouldn’t be especially stressful.

Abilities

We’ll mostly use the example ability scores described above, but we’ll switchthe Strength and Constitution so that we can get 16 in both after theHalf-orc’s racial ability score increases.

Race

Half-Orc. Savage Attacks works great with greataxes, and I can’t think of aweapon that says “barbarian” more than a greataxe. It also stacks with BrutalCritical, so you get to roll big piles of d12’s at high levels.

Skills and Tools

Half-orcs get Intimidation for free, so we’ll pick up Nature andPerception.

Background

Soldier. Of the limited number of options in the basic rules, Soldier is oneof the best options for us. Since we already get Intimidation proficiency, wecan replace the redundant proficiency with something else. We’ll keepAthletics, and you can use the replacement proficiency to get Survival.

Folk Hero works equally well in terms of skills, and you can use your classskill proficiencies to get Animal Handling and Survival to turn both into openskill proficiency slots if you want something not on the Barbarian skilllist.

Levels

Barbarian FAQ