I’m commenting not having seen this video yet but I just saw your q & a. I have to tell you, I as a content consumer, appreciate the time you spend each week on these optimized builds. I’m just a small part of your community but I have to say this.
I know im asking randomly but does someone know a trick to get back into an Instagram account? I was dumb forgot the login password. I love any tricks you can give me
@Brodie Russell I really appreciate your reply. I found the site on google and Im trying it out now. Takes quite some time so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
Wait, what just happened, did Colby just make a well rounded character who didn't specialize hard in favor of being pretty good in multiple areas? No way
@@DnDDeepDive Nah colby. I disagree here. I think most of your other builds while specializing in a certain aspect, doesn't mean they weren't well rounded. As you said in your vids, you're just glossing over the aspects not essential to the build. Anyone watching can take that as a signal that they can make a well rounded character with a specialization with those aspects you just glossed over.
He has made well rounded characters multiple times in the past. He just glossed over those aspects in his vids and left it up to the audience to decide how they want to proceed in those non-essential to the build options/selections.
For those of you who want less martial attacks and more spell casting, try 6 levels of Way of Mercy monk instead! You maintain the ability to make four attacks a turn (occasionally, at the cost of ki) and you'll be freed up to cast spells more often. You also maintain magical attacks for overcoming resistance with ki-empowered strikes. Your results may very, but if you prefer to be a dodge tank and not stretch your ability scores out as much, its a good alternative!
Beast barbarian also interacts really interestingly with monks, because the beast form weapons (being simple melee weapons) count as monk weapons. Eventually, you can get 1d8 or 1d10 claws, provided you can hold off on getting Extra Attack from monk.
Spores I think just fits so thematically with beast barbarian. I went hunter conclave ranger after 6 in my way of mercy build. Same extra damage every attack but its not tied to temp hp and you can be a monk who's now hunting a group of monk defectors turned extremist or something
I just realized, echo fighter is the perfect martial multiclass for spore druid. More extra attacks, action surge to set up symbiotic entity and still attack, and you can make melee attacks without putting the temp hp at risk
the fighter 2 is the perfect martial multiclass for any build period. i even use them with my caster builds. action surge is that useful. the con save prof and fighting style is just gravy. and yes echo knight is great subclass choice for the spore druid. another way to protect that temp hp is to ask your dm for a mount (ride an elephant) and use a reach weapon. place yourself in the middle of those 9 squares and any opponent without reach would have to attack the elephant instead of you while you can safely attack them. if you want to protect the elephant pick cavalier/battlemaster as the subclass. granted this is a different build altogether from what's in the vid.
and since it comes back on a short rest, let's not forget a monk can make 4 attacks a round for 5 rounds every short rest, most fights are only about 5 rounds and if you can manage a short rest between each fight, that's pretty sustainable.
@@faisalhussain2270 Level 15 Rapid Strike Starting at 15th level, you learn to trade accuracy for swift strikes. If you take the Attack action on your turn and have advantage on an attack roll against against one of the targets, you can forgo the advantage for that roll to make an additional weapon attack against that target, as part of the same action. You can do so no more than once per turn.
Longtooth Shifter for the race gives you a bonus attack (that gets str damage bonus, unlike dual wielding!!) and lots of other goodies. Take one level of fighter or (gasp!) fighting initiate feat at level 4 for dueling style and hold a shield so your off hand isn’t counted as holding a weapon, and now your 3 claw attacks each get another +2 damage. Your temp HP from symbiotic entity now last longer because you have an additional +1 AC (you lost the +1 from dual wielder, but gained +2 from the shield). Or, for more survivability, take Wildhunt Shifter so melee enemies don’t have advantage when you reckless attack. Shifter of any type is also so on point for this build.
A way to add a little bit more DPR is to keep using the axe in one hand. The Extra Attack feature doesn't impose any limitations on which hand or weapon you are using to make each Attack (there is a sage advice about this) so you can attack like this: Attack action: attack with axe + attack with claw + attack with claw (all with +mod to damage since you are using your attack action) Bonus action (if your DM allow two weapons fighting with your claws): attack with axe (since you attacked with your claws with you action and your axe is in the "other hand") It's not a lot more damage, but it's a little thing that usually goes unnoticed and can be useful to some builds.
Just a quick tidbit, the Spiked Armor from SCAG is a medium armor that provides 14+dex and is not by RAW only "usually" made of metal so can be druid friendly. Only battleragers can use it as a weapon, but anyone with medium armor proficiency can use it as armor. Essentially a more expensive scalemail that is druid-friendly.
I've always liked the idea of a beast barbarian that gets their power from a venom symbiote like being. The claws and teeth and tail (tentacle?) are all made of the black symbiote goo, and the druid spells and abilities could be flavored as coming from the symbiote.
Although the zombie has 1 hit point, it is a zombie. So it has undead fortitude. So there is always the potential that it survives a hit as long as the hit is 18* points of damage or less. *Edit: They have a +3 to the con save, so they could possibly save with a DC=23 which is 18 points of damage.
I recently came up with this character concept independently. Thank you so much for your suggestions - they will really help me in focusing my decisions while leveling.
A brilliant and highly enjoyable video! Before coming across this video I was creating a W.I.P. character that was multi-classing in exactly Barbarian (Path of the Beast) and Druid (Circle of Spores) and I was shocked to see that someone had made a video about it. Not only does this video exist, but it is genius and I'm incredibly thankful, as someone who could not figure out exactly how to approach melding these two classes/sub-classes, that this video was so incredibly thorough and understandable. Thank you!
I've got a beast barb concept that multis into moon druid instead. They heavily utilize the features of the Hadozee race from unearthed arcana. Start by taking 6 levels into barb, use any weapon you want it doesn't really matter. Choose the 6th level feature that lets you add an athletics check's result to your leap. Your leap height, assuming you have 18 STR is now 1d20+14(minimum of 15 feet, which is enough for our purposes). Next, take a level into druid for longstrider(generally useful for a barb) and leap(which triples leap distance, meaning a minimum of 45ft jump height). Then put levels into moon druid like normal. Leap is only worth casting if you can do it before combat or hold an action to cast it on initiative. From here, we can reliable force people to make a dex save(15dc) of they take half the fall damage and are prone when you leap on them(thanks to the 'landing on a creature' rules from Tasha's), but you can reduce the damage you take to 0 with your Hadozee feature and a reaction. You can get higher damage by getting higher, which is easy enough with climb speed, longstrider and glide. Once you force them prone you do barbarian things. From here, keep levelling druid so you can turn into different animals and such, at level 2 druid you can become a female steeder, which lets you grab someone, then jump 90feet in the air(halved movement while grappling doesn't apply to the steeder ability), drop them(9d6 bludgening+prone) and then land on them(1/2 of 9d6 on failed dex save), and still reduce your own damage to 0(racial abilities still apply to wildshape). More druid levels just make you stronger, better shapeshifts, better spells(darkvision most importantly) and better flavour. Once you're high enough level to awaken a tree(or any huge beast) you have a permanent 15ft tall object that you can climb up, or start combat mounted on(to then leap off of). And you also get the feature that all hadozee have access to, which can have nifty uses on the frontline. Bonus action use item. So you can put a hunting trap at someone's feet, lock someone in manacles if they're incapacitated, spread caltrops or ball bearings to stop the enemy running away(which they will), use a flint and tinder to light a cigar mid-combat which you can then drop into a pool of oil you poured as a bonus action on your next turn. If your gm allows for creative combat items(eg pocket sand) then you've got even more options. And yes, this does basically make you Sun Wukong.
I absolutely LOVE this idea. It's really fun watching you get creative with these builds. I might not agree with some choices sometimes, but not here. This is sooooo much fun. Also, I think I mentioned this before, your voice is lovely and your manner of speaking is very soothing.
Bro, never apologize for needing to take a break, everybody deserves rest and relaxation! Love your videos, take it easy and always remember that family is the most important thing, put them first!
if you want to save a feat for dual wielder without houseruling, there is a loophole to the claw thing. Just dual wield 2 short swords -> attack with main hand (first attack of attack action) -> use bonus action to attack with other hand -> drop a short sword -> make 2 claw attacks with empty hand (1 as the second attack of your attack action, and 1 extra enabled by the fact that you just made a claw attack) -> pick up short sword as free object interaction and half your movement.
@@crimsonmarshmallow9093 Oh, it's quite complicated, but it doesn't break any rules, nice~ and if you still pick variant human, you can get two-weapon fighting early.
Fantastic to see another str build highlighted -i have something similar w/ drunken master monk (1lv. Dip fighter blindfight) and spore druid but your build feels like what I imagine the Battlerager SHOULD have felt like!!
Omg, you already did the Circle of spores I requested a week ago?! That's totally insane man! thanks for that!! I liked enjoyed your take on it and I will try out this build at some point, since I'm already playing a different kind of idea behind my circle of spores char! Keep it up man and happy springbreak!
The ''no metal armor'' part of druid was meant for flavor more then actual gameplay. It was explained in a Sage Advice back in march of 2016. Also, there are rules for crafting armor with other material (such as a scale mail made of dragon scales or from other animal scales). I really enjoyed the build and even had a player trying a similar build before Tasha came out (went 2 barbarian and then mostly druid, so it didn't go well). Keep those video coming, it's always a blast to hear you come up with cool and strong idea for builds.
Ankheg Plate is a thing from previous editions, and the Baldur's gate games. It could be fun to have a Druid in full plate, if you are willing to sacrifice an ASI to get access to it.
@@FallstarFL yeah barbarian druids love plate mail. Then they can’t cast spells or get half damage taken, extra damage dealt and adv strength checks or the extra movement 😂
One thing about Spreading Spores: normally that extra damage requires your reaction for 1 creature to be damaged. With Spreading Spores, it now becomes any creature, when they enter or start their turn there, which could lead to some fun grappling / shoving shenanigans.
Hey Colby! Great video as always. Loved the character concept and it fits a critical role (not the show! haha) in the party in a very unique way! Only a thing that i noticed in the video is that the timers are misplaced, like when we get to 7th level at 23:17, and in the description its saying 29:49. Here's an updated version of the timers: Character Concept:(0:00) Level 1:(5:41) Levels 2-6:(10:02) Levels 7-9:(23:17) Levels 10-13:(35:07) Levels 14-17:(43:08) Final Thoughts:(53:26) I don't even need to say but, thanks for everything you're doing for this community, it means a lot! (Especially us optimizers that like big numbers hahaha).
I really like the fact that this character would also be very good at grappling. Since you always have empty hands, you could grapple (with rage's advantage), sacrificing "only" the offhand attack, and that is a super cool thing to have for a kinda tank character.
@@TheRobversion1 Fair point. If the enemy is huge or larger the character will have to go full wolverine. But still a good grappler when you take in consideration that the character wasn't build for that. And when fighting large or smaller creatures you can also use the bite option from the beast barbarian, so you could grapple two enemy while still bitting the hell out of them.
Thank you so much! This helped so much with my druid fighter build. Not doing everything the same, but you have definitely paved the road. Thank you again
heres a combo that no one seems to talk about...Barbarian / wizard (war mage)..you only need 2 levels in wizard..as warmages Tactical Wit + arcane deflection both work great while Raging. Then with your spells, you can pick up out of combat utility spells, or even Find Familiar.
Artificer also has some interesting things. Another interesting combo is 10 bladesong wizard/10 bear barb. It's very MAD but you get 3 ability scores on AC and you can spend spell slots to reduce damage as a reaction. Also I can picture it. Take spell sniper and pelt them from afar. They get close to you and start laughing as they think you're weak up close. In response you rage
I’m thinking of playing this character and his beast is a Scorpion. The claws will be his pincers and his cloud of spores is like a veil of venomous breath or something. I think it’s gonna be cool
For the 10k Gauntlet: I know it's not as exciting, and I know it would be HELL to DM, but a part of me really wants to see an exorbitant number of kobolds. Just regular kobolds.
Does anyone know how he’s maintaining rage on the turn he’s activating his temp hp as he’s not making an attack on that turn and would have to rely on an enemy to target him? I also don’t think the reaction with the spores counts as an attack.
Watching this video after the new Sliding Into My DMs with the Halo of Spores discussion is interesting. Immediately noticed that Halo of Spores says it increases damage at "level" and the connected Symbiotic Entity feature upgrades per "level you have in this class." Combined with the Halo basically acting like a cantrip, I gotta be team power-up on character level. But I'm almost always willing to rule in favor of features / characters being as cool as possible. (Also, lots of love for the Beast Barbarian here, one of the main Tasha subclasses to immediately spark my imagination. I'm playing one now in a short Level 10 adventure - multiclass Artificer 4 / Barbarian 6 - leaning into the Jekyll & Hyde thing where his backstory is experimenting to infuse himself with draconic power. Not particularly optimized, but some nice synergies still.)
As someone who has only played characters who hit stuff inside of combat, it's best to have variety in how you hit stuff. I played a fighter who had a glaive, a crossbow, some longswords and always had fun with deciding what weapon he should use.
Hey Colby have you considered a barbarian and artificer multiclass? Sounds bad on at first glance but if you have the protector turret giving Int+1d8 temp HP every turn as a bonus action and you’re raging it gets really good. Maybe even go rogue for uncanny dodge.
Barbarian multiclasses are actually pretty interesting when you realize that you don't really need to do a str build to make a good barbarian you can simply have your str be 13 and keep it there for multiclassing purposes a dex build barbarian with a rapier still does pretty ok damage (it's essentially the damage you'd be doing if you were a small race because they can't use heavy weapons reliably) so while you'll have ok damage you'll have amazing defense especially against dex saves since you'll have advantage on them, then we mix together the utility of artificer and the damage and durability buff from artillerist to get a great combination For an example let's make a simple character we'll make them a warforged (maybe flavor it as a cyborg and have your turret built into yourself and be capable of deployment off from yourself but would need to be able to recharge over time. Mechanically nothing changes since that's all flavor from how the subclass and race works) Either have your starting level in artificer for useful save proficiencies and tools or starting level in barbarian for the purposes of having a base 12+con starting hp, cash from selling expensive weapons, and rage to start up our overall endurance and survivability, grab a rapier and a shield for a weapon and to raise your ac, we will never use reckless attack because one it won't work with the build and two because it's simply an ability that gets characters killed, pick whatever subclass you perfer as long as it isn't berserker or beast because we can't use its 3rd level feature without str and berserker because it fights for our bonus action and also sucks, we then jump to artificer and pick up utility spells and non concentration buffs since we don't plan to cast spells during combat we then go artillerist and nkw have access to temp hp, a flamethrower, and a force Ballista (temp hp if you know your going into a big fight, flamethrower if you're fighting a bunch of enemies, and force Ballista for if you have either spread out enemies or flying enemies) we then take the rest of our levels in barbarian Now go be a terror on the battlefield
With the release of the new Astral Adventure Guide, I'm planning a Plasmoid (ooze) Beast Path barbarian. A proto-shoggoth that spontaneously grows whatever body parts it needs in combat, and re-absorbs them when done.
If you choose simic hybrid at level 5 you'll get your 2 claw attacks from from action a tentacle attack as your second action and can use your bonus action to grapple. no need to take the duel wielder feat and sometimes the grapple might actually be more beneficial than a 4th attack.
I'm excited for this one broski! I'll edit this once I finish the video :) Also, have fun on your vacation! Btw, with point buy at level 1 with custom lineage having +2 in strength and taking 14 str, 14, dex, 14 con, and 13 wiz, I still have 1 point left over. Just fyi.
Wouldn't it be better to save your reaction for other things, like opportunity attacks? Can your beast form throw a javelin? (I read ahead) I would choose a bear as berserker came from the Viking belief that they would become a bear. Why can't you be descended from two arch druids and then your clan's name would be McDonald. Don't forget dragon hide armor! Goodberry! Wouldn't it be better to save your reaction for other things, like opportunity attack? Immune to non-magic attacks 23, resistant 102. If you can get your claws silvered, Immune is 7 and resistant is 32. this is out of 818 monsters.
Variant tiefling (bat wings) rune knight/ sorcerer. Make yourself large, cast enlarge on yourself. You are now a huge sized monster, go grapple someone (no movement penalty when they are 2 sizes smaller than you) fly up and beat them up in the air before dropping them.
Not sure if this came up yet but long claw Shifters can bonus action attack with a fang attack 1d6+str mod. Gets around the whole off hand attack penalty...though I doubt it would be considered magical
I think the answer to the problem of duel wielding is to change the wording on the light property. The most classic and historical duel wielding was done with a rapier and a dagger, and there's no real mechanical reason that you should have to have both weapons be light. When you're holding a light weapon, you can make one attack with it as a bonus action.
Thanks for the inspiration! Not RAW but in my games the natural weapons are counted as unarmed strikes. My barbarian just has to multiclass with the monk so at my current lvl 8 I can first turn rage and attack 3 times, and round 2 I can attack 5 times for 1 Ki point. I just love this blender of a beast fantasy :D Oh and of course I'm a shadow elf so elven accuracy can support all reckless attacks
HAHAH A well rounded character!!! WHAT HAS HAPPENED!!! have a good week off. Looking forward to the write up on this guy. I will say i did miss that the claws get an extra attack. Nice build!
Astral Self Monk X/Beast Barbarian 3. Nets you the most Ki, Barb subclass, minimizes MAD (focus on Wis), and allows for better saves and you can grapple with wisdom with advantage while raging.
Couldn’t you use a melee weapon in the off hand for a d8 instead of the claws d6 for more damage while having just the claws in the other hand so you can keep the extra attack? Maybe I misheard but it seemed phrased that you’d just use the claws alone whenever you can.
23:02 Isn't reckless only for the first attack of the round? So only 1st first would get advantage. So the DPR 35 after the 1st level of Druid is wrong? Edit: I forgot how to read and was therefore wrong 🙃
Reckless Attack Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defense to attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. *Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn*, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.
By RAW, it is that you WON'T wear metal armor, not that you CAN'T. Slight difference, but still a difference. This build is similar to my Kalashtar Spore Druid Barbarian. Being able to still communicate in Wild Shape, and having the resistance to Psychic Damage in a Mind Flayer heavy campaign helped. Free Feat at level 1 was Mobile. Magic Stone for my Range Attack Option Longstrider to increase my speed giving me more mobility and doesn't require concentration. Fire Shield which doesn't require concentration either, and gives some elemental resistance, and also hits back, the shield AUTOMATICALLY, without using your reaction hits back with fire or cold damage.
Working on a Venom build. beast barbarian with a dip in warlock of the deep. The transformation of the beast barb in a character is so fun build with. thoughts on going to barb 10 for infectious fury?
I like the way it buffs your whole party, and considered trying to get there, but leaving me with much fewer Spore levels made it feel like I just wasn't going to be able to hold on to those Temp HP for long enough. I think if you want to go deeper into Barb you probably just skip Druid altogether, maybe picking up some Fighter levels instead.
@@DnDDeepDive True you have to commit to those golden shackles. Funny to see a druid build with such trash wisdom. Thanks for the build, love the new background
@@MrOwen817 Hey thanks! I decided to record from home as it felt less... sterile :). Problem is trying to get it done when the kids aren't around... >.>
I’ve been sitting at my desk trying to find a way to make a spores druid build that takes good advantage of their melee weapon buff and my girlfriend suggested i look to see if your channel has a video about it so thank goodness this exists, I never would have thought of coupling with the beast barb, very clever!
So I really like this build and I think that if your DM isn’t a stickler for the duel Wielder for claws thing then the better race is actually Tortle you get +2 str +1 wis so you can go 15str 10 dex 14 con 15 wis 8 int&cha giving you a 17str and 16wis so your Druid spell save is better and biggest thing is you have a natural 17AC from level 1 and at level 4 you can take slasher to give you a 18str and you get all the slasher benefits. All which seem like a great way to manage all the weaknesses of the build.
i love this build! its so cool, so well rounded. so... terrifying XD Suggestion, what if instead of dual wielding custom lineage you were a longtooth shifter with a greatsword? at level 1-2 you do 1 sword attack and 1 bite. At level 3 and 4 you do two claw attacks and one bite. and from 5 and onwards you do 1 sword, 2 claw, 1 bite. :D
This class combination does expend resources. Rage is a long rest limited resource. 2 per long rest til level 3 barbarian. 3 per longrest from level 3 barb to level 5 barb. And it takes a bonus action to activate. Limited resources and first turn damage is made with one less attack as this is activated at all levels. The spore druid feature is limited by temp HP, but is indeed offset by the rage. A good combination. The problem is that it takes an action to activate, so there’s a very real possibility you lose that rage if you activate it to preserve the temp HP. You can’t make an attack on that turn, and you may not take damage. Mechanics seem a little problematic. Seems a lot like a DBZ character powering up since it takes a while to get the features up. Since actual resources are limited, I wouldn’t consider that sustained. It also potentially takes multiple actions or turns to set up, and the first round/turn is the most important round to unleash abilities. The more creatures/adversaries you take out in the beginning the less of an impact the entire encounter takes total.
Spores also last 10 minutes, that should be a decent window to know when a fight is coming. And even if you don't rage, you can still dual wield any d8 weapons you find and reckless attack for 3 attacks a round for as long as you're standing.
Hey Colby, my buddy is playing a Druid (moon) and Paladin (oath of ancients). It’s a really cool build that he and I like but I was wondering if you could put your spin on it. He’s focused on utility, being able to do dang near anything in a given situation, I know hard to quantify on a Spreadsheet, while also able to drop a mighty smite and pop up the volume. He wildshapes into a Deinonychus (dinosaur) and gets multiattack and is typically flanking so all at advantage, then drops smites to quickly deal with enemies. It’s a quite versatile nova build that I think can go for miles but I’d love to see what you can do with it.
So I've been banging around with a idea for a barbarian spore druid combination for a little while. And when I saw the claws feature for path of the beast, I was like "ooh, that could be really neat" But what catches me for that particular barbarian type is the option that you have to instead take bear totem warrior, and be resistant to almost all damage, there by making those early levels in druid a little less punishing when you try and use your spores feature, because you'll only have at 7th level eight temporary hit points. Specifically, this is the scenario running around in my head: -party attacked by several goblins **Round one** -You move in, you rage, you attack (because this is 7th level, at which point you should have 5 Barbar, and just enough druid to get spores). **Round Two** -you activate your spores, you attack with advantage, you do oodles of damage, but not as much as you could be doing, because you don't get your bonus action attack -goblins turn on you because advantage, unless you have a particularly high AC, or they get really unlucky, if you're being attacked by more than three goblins, your spore points are done, and you haven't even gotten in a full round of pure attacks And that's if you're facing goblins, which at seventh level you'll be facing more than three Whereas, instead of taking beast, you take bear totem, and now you do 1d8 less damage per round, *but* unless you're facing a bunch of mind flayers those eight hit points are effectively 16 hit points. And then, at druid 3 those 12, are really 24 Combine that with pole arm master and you're getting about as many attacks, but with larger weapons, and you're using spores about half as often Don't get me wrong, the spore beast is absolutely a cool idea, and I don't think that you're going to run into that problem as readily the more points you put into druid, I'm just pointing out a hitch with it
Keep in mind that *all* Barbarians get resistance to slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage while raging. So unless those goblins are hitting you with spells or something, you're still going to be resistant to their attacks as a Beast Barbarian :).
@@adamkaris Yup. so you can't activate rage 1st round. you activate spores on round 1. do something else with your bonus action. Rage and attack on round 2.
If u reflavour the path of the beast as also an unkown symbiote that inhabits u, then there's just total thematic symmetry. The symbiote explains why u might grow a tail or have class or fangs, can swim or climb etc. The Druidic effects just being reflective of the growing symmetry between host and symbiote
Awesome, I love reflavoring abilities. I definitely think it would be fun to make a Venom build sometime too, tough this one would work pretty darn well.
maybe You can think of claws not being light due to the extra to the explosive and beastial strikes you make with them, and dual wielding feat allows you to fight with more efficiency and finess than before
Seems like the spore druid side would pair up well with someone with interceptor fighting style or psiwarrior that can outright prevent damage there by protecting the temp HP
I have noticed that mixing shifter qualities into the beastliness of the beast barbarian is fine, but the moment anything else adds to the beast barbarian beastliness your character goes from wild man to horror monster.
A question about this build; you mentioned if your DM would just consider the claws as light, you would choose Slasher instead. Would this be a a damage loss as you’d now have higher STR but you would be attacking once at level 2, then twice at level 3 instead of 3 times. Leveling back out at lvl 5 with four attacks. Thoughts? Would you not infact get 5 attacks at level 5 with a dual Wielder? Thanks!
For race I think Wildhunt Shifter would also make a great option, while your spores temp hp would override the shifter temp hp, the fact that while shifter attacks can not have advantage against you which means reckless has no downsides. Also 1 level hexblade warlock dip is huge for increasing damage, hexblade's curse adding your proficiency mod to damage really ups your damage against single target enemies. Furthermore, three into echo knight means we get action surge and can make an additional attack each turn a number of times equal to our con mod, so early on that's five attacks per turn for 2d6+11 damage per attack, taking levels in monk to make 2 attacks as a bonus action ups that damage even more, not to mention buff spells cast on you like haste or enlarge/reduce.
The easy answer is Colossus slayer from ranger as it isn't tied to temp hp but the out of combat utility (and flavor) of the spore beast takes it for me. 10 minutes is a long time you can pretty reliably get your beast shape out before combat
LOOOVE spore druid multiclassing! Probably my favorite character I ever played was a high-level one shot where I played an open-hand monk 4/Spore Druid 8 who was SO FUN
@@TheRobversion1 Hell yea man and the flavor is 😚👌. I also love the fact that as Colby says it is one of the only ways to add base damage to your attacks.
@@ajmacewan7285 yup. There's just a few out there really if your goal is to add to multiple attacks and it isn't concentration to natural weapons. Divine smite, maneuvers are the others off the top of my head.
Love all of these builds on your channel and your creativity with all of them! Would you be able to compose a character build that revolves around teleportation and how to best maximize the uses of teleportation within the limits of action economy? Thanks Colby!
Question about Dual Wielder feat when it say "You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one handed melee weapons you are wielding aren’t light." Does the fact that it says "one handed" mean that even though the light property is removed that you still can't use your claws since they are "natural weapons" for the purposes of two weapon fighting?
yup. natural weapons and TWF by RAW don't mix. you aren't holding or wielding them like unarmed strikes. basically you have to have lenient DM to let them work.
@@humanfighter2096 yup agreed with michael. what i meant is just like unarmed, natural weapons don't work with 2wf. you aren't holding/wielding natural weapons. nor are they tagged as light or one-handed. therefore they won't work with 2wf.
New subscriber here! I’m really looking forward to the University series. My GF wants to start DMing so it will me great for her. And hopefully teach her how to deal with my powergamer self when she takes the big chair at the head of the table. P.S. your into with the strong electric guitar then the soothing voice or yours. It’s fantastic!
Of note here, the double bladed scimitar is just perfect for the beast barbarian: it has an innate bonus action that adds both the RAGE and strength modifier (thus outpacing TWF without the fighting style) and you can temporarily hold it with 1 hand to use the other for your claw attacks before using Extra Attack. And if Revenant blade is available to you, it completely SMASHES the Dual Wielder feat with the same bonus to AC, but extra strength score to round out 18 at level 4.
Utilize the double bladed scimitar for all the reasons listed. Ignore revenant blade, take slasher feat. -Get the same +1 to strength to increase damage and accuracy. -Reduce the speed of one creature you attack by 10ft to help keep them away from your party members. -recklessly attacking drastically increases your chance for scoring a critical hit with the 4 attacks. Have a 33.6% chance to crit at least once per turn. This offsets your ac loss from not choosing dual wielder feat by imposing disadvantage on the attacks from that creature. This disadvantage applies to all attacks, not just those made against you. -gain the modifier on that bonus action attack. If you ever get a magical weapon you only have to deal with finding the one, so it eases pressure on the DM a bit.
I'd be really curious to see how you would build a 4e Warlord type character. I know battlemaster has some of the features, and the inspiring leader feat is in the same vein. I'm also partial to the glamour bards 3rd lvl feature to give temp hp and repositioning. So how would you create a very supportive leader type character?
I would love a sword bard/battle master build. I feel there is great synergy with these two subclasses that can add a large amount of battle field control and tankieness.
Hey Colby, thanks for your incredible videos, spreadsheets, and encouragement to share build requests! I hope you have a phenomenal spring break with the family! Your mention of this Spore Beast having a split-personality spawned a potential idea for a wild character with multiple personalities. I’m wondering about your perspective in optimizing a build with all the bells and whistles multiclassing into Sorcerer, Bard, Wizard, and Warlock.
I relate with the desire to mix things up in combat as my first character that I’ve played for the last two years has been a 100% Barbarian. Fortunately, the path of the Ancestral Guardian has given me more to think about in combat beyond, “I just hit stuff” :)
I’m still hungry, however, to explore the fun side of evaluating sorcery points, spell slots, portent, and enjoying the impact of giving inspiration to mix things up in combat as well as have a blast role playing. I could use your perspective to still be helpful to my party in combat while playing a character who’s different personalities pursue different interests and skill sets (Class).
I bet you could do wonders to optimize for best results but I’ll share my idea as in case it’s helpful as a potential starting point:
1st level Sorcerer, then 2 levels each at a time in Bard, Wizard, and Warlock. Levels 8-11 dive back into Sorcerer. Levels 12-13 dip back in for 2 more levels of Bard. Finally finish up most likely with Sorcerer the rest of the way.
The result is a Sorcerer 12, Bard 4, Warlock 2, and Wizard 2. My thoughts would be to have the respective subclasses/tradition of Wild Magic, College of Glamour, The Great Old One, and School of Divination.
Some extra “flavor” might be to have the Bard pick up a feat like Chef. I’m also thinking of a changeling charlatan who creates other identities and masquerades as them for his own means until a sudden surge of untamed magic fractures his identity into 4 parts. As a changeling he’d take the form of each of those identities automatically when they are in control.
For some extra wild moments, I’ve considered allowing chance play a role in mixing things up for each game session as to which personality wakes up at the time by rolling a d4.
@@DnDDeepDive Hey Colby! Thanks again for the continued content which continues to amaze! I wanted to check in to see if my request might still be on the list for an optimized build? The April Fools episode from Cory provided a great taste of chaos but I'm curious for your perspective on optimizing it further. I'd imagine the request list is quite long so perhaps it's pretty far down on the list for a build for lots of bells and whistles / features & traits that are fun to role play but optimized to still add to the party in combat.
I’m commenting not having seen this video yet but I just saw your q & a. I have to tell you, I as a content consumer, appreciate the time you spend each week on these optimized builds. I’m just a small part of your community but I have to say this.
Thank you! Glad you enjoy :)
I know im asking randomly but does someone know a trick to get back into an Instagram account?
I was dumb forgot the login password. I love any tricks you can give me
@Will Duncan instablaster :)
@Brodie Russell I really appreciate your reply. I found the site on google and Im trying it out now.
Takes quite some time so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
@Brodie Russell it did the trick and I actually got access to my account again. I am so happy:D
Thanks so much, you saved my account!
Wait, what just happened, did Colby just make a well rounded character who didn't specialize hard in favor of being pretty good in multiple areas? No way
Don't worry, I won't make it a habit :P
@@DnDDeepDive Nah colby. I disagree here. I think most of your other builds while specializing in a certain aspect, doesn't mean they weren't well rounded. As you said in your vids, you're just glossing over the aspects not essential to the build. Anyone watching can take that as a signal that they can make a well rounded character with a specialization with those aspects you just glossed over.
He has made well rounded characters multiple times in the past. He just glossed over those aspects in his vids and left it up to the audience to decide how they want to proceed in those non-essential to the build options/selections.
@@DnDDeepDive T_T
That's what the rest of your party is for
The spore Beast; When you want to be trippin on shrooms and are in to puppy play.
lol
"Death is the ultimate status effect"
For those of you who want less martial attacks and more spell casting, try 6 levels of Way of Mercy monk instead! You maintain the ability to make four attacks a turn (occasionally, at the cost of ki) and you'll be freed up to cast spells more often. You also maintain magical attacks for overcoming resistance with ki-empowered strikes.
Your results may very, but if you prefer to be a dodge tank and not stretch your ability scores out as much, its a good alternative!
If you take a feat you can add hunter’s mark/hex. Since those spells are BA then you can use them alongside the Symbiotic Entity.
Beast barbarian also interacts really interestingly with monks, because the beast form weapons (being simple melee weapons) count as monk weapons. Eventually, you can get 1d8 or 1d10 claws, provided you can hold off on getting Extra Attack from monk.
@@SamFinklestein 6 mercy/beast Barb 3/Mercy X is great tbh.
Spores I think just fits so thematically with beast barbarian. I went hunter conclave ranger after 6 in my way of mercy build. Same extra damage every attack but its not tied to temp hp and you can be a monk who's now hunting a group of monk defectors turned extremist or something
I just realized, echo fighter is the perfect martial multiclass for spore druid. More extra attacks, action surge to set up symbiotic entity and still attack, and you can make melee attacks without putting the temp hp at risk
the fighter 2 is the perfect martial multiclass for any build period. i even use them with my caster builds. action surge is that useful. the con save prof and fighting style is just gravy. and yes echo knight is great subclass choice for the spore druid.
another way to protect that temp hp is to ask your dm for a mount (ride an elephant) and use a reach weapon. place yourself in the middle of those 9 squares and any opponent without reach would have to attack the elephant instead of you while you can safely attack them. if you want to protect the elephant pick cavalier/battlemaster as the subclass. granted this is a different build altogether from what's in the vid.
"At level 5 you get 4 attacks using no resources" technically rage is a resource
and since it comes back on a short rest, let's not forget a monk can make 4 attacks a round for 5 rounds every short rest, most fights are only about 5 rounds and if you can manage a short rest between each fight, that's pretty sustainable.
@@GunnarWahl rage renews on a long rest only sadly
@@perrinaybara8048 not really sure why i started with "And Since" but i was comparing rage to fury of blows in monk. so i was talking about monks.
@@GunnarWahl sorry I misunderstood that. Would be lovely for my path of the beast goliath if it was on a short rest though
Technically you still get the 4 attacks without rage.
Wildhunt shifter from eberron: no creature within 30 feet of you can make an attack roll with advantage.
Combined with reckless attack...
I did this in a Chult campaign with a wolf totem Barbarian. It was so fun.
Then combine with samurai. Free extra attack by converting advantage into another attack, and with no downsides. Doesn't use a bonus action either.
This would be great with any barbarian and with the new MOM, would likely be even better at most tables due to more shifting.
@@SoI_Badguy how do you convert advantage into an extra attack? What does samurai have to do with it?
@@faisalhussain2270 Level 15 Rapid Strike
Starting at 15th level, you learn to trade accuracy for swift strikes. If you take the Attack action on your turn and have advantage on an attack roll against against one of the targets, you can forgo the advantage for that roll to make an additional weapon attack against that target, as part of the same action. You can do so no more than once per turn.
Could flavor raising the skeletons as the spores eating the corpse and controlling it, that would help with roleplay.
Longtooth Shifter for the race gives you a bonus attack (that gets str damage bonus, unlike dual wielding!!) and lots of other goodies. Take one level of fighter or (gasp!) fighting initiate feat at level 4 for dueling style and hold a shield so your off hand isn’t counted as holding a weapon, and now your 3 claw attacks each get another +2 damage. Your temp HP from symbiotic entity now last longer because you have an additional +1 AC (you lost the +1 from dual wielder, but gained +2 from the shield). Or, for more survivability, take Wildhunt Shifter so melee enemies don’t have advantage when you reckless attack. Shifter of any type is also so on point for this build.
Was waiting for this! And enjoy that vacation. Hmm a Colby that has no numbers outlet for 2 weeks? The return should be grand!
Will he survive? Does excel work on his watch? Only time will tell 😁😂 enjoy it colby!
A way to add a little bit more DPR is to keep using the axe in one hand. The Extra Attack feature doesn't impose any limitations on which hand or weapon you are using to make each Attack (there is a sage advice about this) so you can attack like this:
Attack action: attack with axe + attack with claw + attack with claw (all with +mod to damage since you are using your attack action)
Bonus action (if your DM allow two weapons fighting with your claws): attack with axe (since you attacked with your claws with you action and your axe is in the "other hand")
It's not a lot more damage, but it's a little thing that usually goes unnoticed and can be useful to some builds.
Just a quick tidbit, the Spiked Armor from SCAG is a medium armor that provides 14+dex and is not by RAW only "usually" made of metal so can be druid friendly. Only battleragers can use it as a weapon, but anyone with medium armor proficiency can use it as armor. Essentially a more expensive scalemail that is druid-friendly.
I've always liked the idea of a beast barbarian that gets their power from a venom symbiote like being. The claws and teeth and tail (tentacle?) are all made of the black symbiote goo, and the druid spells and abilities could be flavored as coming from the symbiote.
Oh man!!! Wolvy with the venom suit!!!
Although the zombie has 1 hit point, it is a zombie. So it has undead fortitude. So there is always the potential that it survives a hit as long as the hit is 18* points of damage or less. *Edit: They have a +3 to the con save, so they could possibly save with a DC=23 which is 18 points of damage.
I recently came up with this character concept independently. Thank you so much for your suggestions - they will really help me in focusing my decisions while leveling.
A brilliant and highly enjoyable video! Before coming across this video I was creating a W.I.P. character that was multi-classing in exactly Barbarian (Path of the Beast) and Druid (Circle of Spores) and I was shocked to see that someone had made a video about it. Not only does this video exist, but it is genius and I'm incredibly thankful, as someone who could not figure out exactly how to approach melding these two classes/sub-classes, that this video was so incredibly thorough and understandable. Thank you!
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed :)
I've got a beast barb concept that multis into moon druid instead. They heavily utilize the features of the Hadozee race from unearthed arcana.
Start by taking 6 levels into barb, use any weapon you want it doesn't really matter. Choose the 6th level feature that lets you add an athletics check's result to your leap. Your leap height, assuming you have 18 STR is now 1d20+14(minimum of 15 feet, which is enough for our purposes). Next, take a level into druid for longstrider(generally useful for a barb) and leap(which triples leap distance, meaning a minimum of 45ft jump height). Then put levels into moon druid like normal.
Leap is only worth casting if you can do it before combat or hold an action to cast it on initiative. From here, we can reliable force people to make a dex save(15dc) of they take half the fall damage and are prone when you leap on them(thanks to the 'landing on a creature' rules from Tasha's), but you can reduce the damage you take to 0 with your Hadozee feature and a reaction. You can get higher damage by getting higher, which is easy enough with climb speed, longstrider and glide. Once you force them prone you do barbarian things.
From here, keep levelling druid so you can turn into different animals and such, at level 2 druid you can become a female steeder, which lets you grab someone, then jump 90feet in the air(halved movement while grappling doesn't apply to the steeder ability), drop them(9d6 bludgening+prone) and then land on them(1/2 of 9d6 on failed dex save), and still reduce your own damage to 0(racial abilities still apply to wildshape).
More druid levels just make you stronger, better shapeshifts, better spells(darkvision most importantly) and better flavour. Once you're high enough level to awaken a tree(or any huge beast) you have a permanent 15ft tall object that you can climb up, or start combat mounted on(to then leap off of).
And you also get the feature that all hadozee have access to, which can have nifty uses on the frontline. Bonus action use item. So you can put a hunting trap at someone's feet, lock someone in manacles if they're incapacitated, spread caltrops or ball bearings to stop the enemy running away(which they will), use a flint and tinder to light a cigar mid-combat which you can then drop into a pool of oil you poured as a bonus action on your next turn. If your gm allows for creative combat items(eg pocket sand) then you've got even more options.
And yes, this does basically make you Sun Wukong.
Death by height. Reminds me of Spider-Man 2 for the PS2. Used to drop people off the Empire State building
The cheapest 1-handed d8's are warpicks. For those who didn't get lucky enough rolling for gold.
Or for those that want a thematic sword and board weapon for kobolds or dwarves.
I absolutely LOVE this idea. It's really fun watching you get creative with these builds. I might not agree with some choices sometimes, but not here. This is sooooo much fun. Also, I think I mentioned this before, your voice is lovely and your manner of speaking is very soothing.
Thank you, and glad you're enjoying! :)
Bro, never apologize for needing to take a break, everybody deserves rest and relaxation! Love your videos, take it easy and always remember that family is the most important thing, put them first!
if you want to save a feat for dual wielder without houseruling, there is a loophole to the claw thing. Just dual wield 2 short swords -> attack with main hand (first attack of attack action) -> use bonus action to attack with other hand -> drop a short sword -> make 2 claw attacks with empty hand (1 as the second attack of your attack action, and 1 extra enabled by the fact that you just made a claw attack) -> pick up short sword as free object interaction and half your movement.
nice
@@crimsonmarshmallow9093 Oh, it's quite complicated, but it doesn't break any rules, nice~
and if you still pick variant human, you can get two-weapon fighting early.
@@sinlaire_art you don't even need the feat with this loophole, just get 2 light weapons.
Super flavorful and pretty straight forward. Awesome video!
Always happy for a new video from my new favorite channel
Fantastic to see another str build highlighted -i have something similar w/ drunken master monk (1lv. Dip fighter blindfight) and spore druid but your build feels like what I imagine the Battlerager SHOULD have felt like!!
Omg, you already did the Circle of spores I requested a week ago?!
That's totally insane man! thanks for that!!
I liked enjoyed your take on it and I will try out this build at some point, since I'm already playing a different kind of idea behind my circle of spores char!
Keep it up man and happy springbreak!
This build is incredibly fun. Thanks for putting it together!
The ''no metal armor'' part of druid was meant for flavor more then actual gameplay. It was explained in a Sage Advice back in march of 2016. Also, there are rules for crafting armor with other material (such as a scale mail made of dragon scales or from other animal scales).
I really enjoyed the build and even had a player trying a similar build before Tasha came out (went 2 barbarian and then mostly druid, so it didn't go well). Keep those video coming, it's always a blast to hear you come up with cool and strong idea for builds.
Ankheg Plate is a thing from previous editions, and the Baldur's gate games.
It could be fun to have a Druid in full plate, if you are willing to sacrifice an ASI to get access to it.
@@FallstarFL yeah barbarian druids love plate mail. Then they can’t cast spells or get half damage taken, extra damage dealt and adv strength checks or the extra movement 😂
One thing about Spreading Spores: normally that extra damage requires your reaction for 1 creature to be damaged. With Spreading Spores, it now becomes any creature, when they enter or start their turn there, which could lead to some fun grappling / shoving shenanigans.
Hey Colby! Great video as always. Loved the character concept and it fits a critical role (not the show! haha) in the party in a very unique way! Only a thing that i noticed in the video is that the timers are misplaced, like when we get to 7th level at 23:17, and in the description its saying 29:49. Here's an updated version of the timers:
Character Concept:(0:00)
Level 1:(5:41)
Levels 2-6:(10:02)
Levels 7-9:(23:17)
Levels 10-13:(35:07)
Levels 14-17:(43:08)
Final Thoughts:(53:26)
I don't even need to say but, thanks for everything you're doing for this community, it means a lot! (Especially us optimizers that like big numbers hahaha).
Thank you, you're welcome, and oh snap, forgot to update these and just copy+pasted from the last video ha ha! Thanks, updating now.
I really like the fact that this character would also be very good at grappling. Since you always have empty hands, you could grapple (with rage's advantage), sacrificing "only" the offhand attack, and that is a super cool thing to have for a kinda tank character.
Nah. Size limitations. He isnt a rune knight nor have access to enlarge.
@@TheRobversion1 Fair point. If the enemy is huge or larger the character will have to go full wolverine. But still a good grappler when you take in consideration that the character wasn't build for that.
And when fighting large or smaller creatures you can also use the bite option from the beast barbarian, so you could grapple two enemy while still bitting the hell out of them.
@@hericn i'd say venom over wolverine.
Thank you so much! This helped so much with my druid fighter build. Not doing everything the same, but you have definitely paved the road. Thank you again
YW! Glad you enjoyed :).
Truely did. I'll post some art on this guy for you when I'm done.
This channel is incredible. thanks Homelander!
Thank *you*! Glad you're here :)
Don't count out the zombie entirely. It gets undead resilience, so it may stay at 1 hp for quite a while.
Edit: corrected autocorrect.
heres a combo that no one seems to talk about...Barbarian / wizard (war mage)..you only need 2 levels in wizard..as warmages Tactical Wit + arcane deflection both work great while Raging. Then with your spells, you can pick up out of combat utility spells, or even Find Familiar.
Artificer also has some interesting things. Another interesting combo is 10 bladesong wizard/10 bear barb. It's very MAD but you get 3 ability scores on AC and you can spend spell slots to reduce damage as a reaction. Also I can picture it. Take spell sniper and pelt them from afar. They get close to you and start laughing as they think you're weak up close. In response you rage
I’m thinking of playing this character and his beast is a Scorpion. The claws will be his pincers and his cloud of spores is like a veil of venomous breath or something. I think it’s gonna be cool
Dope
Ooo I was considering something like this! I’m excited to see your version! :) Hope you have a good vacation!
Watching this so much after it was released, but love you taking breaks!
22:00 your content is evolving and I am here for it lol
For the 10k Gauntlet: I know it's not as exciting, and I know it would be HELL to DM, but a part of me really wants to see an exorbitant number of kobolds.
Just regular kobolds.
I thought about it for sure. In the end I didn't want to see so many of the little buggers die.
I LOVE the flavor/RP potential of this build and the previous "Batman" build. Keep 'em coming!
Which one is the Batman build
@@bencorbett8605 episode 33. The blood hunter mutant
Enjoy the vacation! Looking forward to all the new content!
Thanks Colby! Happy to be here too!
Kick ass music opening. But not going to lie I listen to your vids to go to sleep at night. Nice calming voice.
Does anyone know how he’s maintaining rage on the turn he’s activating his temp hp as he’s not making an attack on that turn and would have to rely on an enemy to target him? I also don’t think the reaction with the spores counts as an attack.
Yes! I love spore druid since I'm such a fan of Golgari in MTG/Ravnica, but I found the subclass by itself lacking.
Watching this video after the new Sliding Into My DMs with the Halo of Spores discussion is interesting. Immediately noticed that Halo of Spores says it increases damage at "level" and the connected Symbiotic Entity feature upgrades per "level you have in this class." Combined with the Halo basically acting like a cantrip, I gotta be team power-up on character level. But I'm almost always willing to rule in favor of features / characters being as cool as possible. (Also, lots of love for the Beast Barbarian here, one of the main Tasha subclasses to immediately spark my imagination. I'm playing one now in a short Level 10 adventure - multiclass Artificer 4 / Barbarian 6 - leaning into the Jekyll & Hyde thing where his backstory is experimenting to infuse himself with draconic power. Not particularly optimized, but some nice synergies still.)
As someone who has only played characters who hit stuff inside of combat, it's best to have variety in how you hit stuff. I played a fighter who had a glaive, a crossbow, some longswords and always had fun with deciding what weapon he should use.
Have a good break bud, no need for appologies, enjoy 👍
Hey Colby have you considered a barbarian and artificer multiclass? Sounds bad on at first glance but if you have the protector turret giving Int+1d8 temp HP every turn as a bonus action and you’re raging it gets really good. Maybe even go rogue for uncanny dodge.
Will put it on the list!
Barbarian multiclasses are actually pretty interesting when you realize that you don't really need to do a str build to make a good barbarian you can simply have your str be 13 and keep it there for multiclassing purposes a dex build barbarian with a rapier still does pretty ok damage (it's essentially the damage you'd be doing if you were a small race because they can't use heavy weapons reliably) so while you'll have ok damage you'll have amazing defense especially against dex saves since you'll have advantage on them, then we mix together the utility of artificer and the damage and durability buff from artillerist to get a great combination
For an example let's make a simple character we'll make them a warforged (maybe flavor it as a cyborg and have your turret built into yourself and be capable of deployment off from yourself but would need to be able to recharge over time. Mechanically nothing changes since that's all flavor from how the subclass and race works)
Either have your starting level in artificer for useful save proficiencies and tools or starting level in barbarian for the purposes of having a base 12+con starting hp, cash from selling expensive weapons, and rage to start up our overall endurance and survivability, grab a rapier and a shield for a weapon and to raise your ac, we will never use reckless attack because one it won't work with the build and two because it's simply an ability that gets characters killed, pick whatever subclass you perfer as long as it isn't berserker or beast because we can't use its 3rd level feature without str and berserker because it fights for our bonus action and also sucks, we then jump to artificer and pick up utility spells and non concentration buffs since we don't plan to cast spells during combat we then go artillerist and nkw have access to temp hp, a flamethrower, and a force Ballista (temp hp if you know your going into a big fight, flamethrower if you're fighting a bunch of enemies, and force Ballista for if you have either spread out enemies or flying enemies) we then take the rest of our levels in barbarian
Now go be a terror on the battlefield
With the release of the new Astral Adventure Guide, I'm planning a Plasmoid (ooze) Beast Path barbarian. A proto-shoggoth that spontaneously grows whatever body parts it needs in combat, and re-absorbs them when done.
If you choose simic hybrid at level 5 you'll get your 2 claw attacks from from action a tentacle attack as your second action and can use your bonus action to grapple. no need to take the duel wielder feat and sometimes the grapple might actually be more beneficial than a 4th attack.
"Pet treant risking life and limb"?
Limb!
Ha ha. Brilliant!
Loving this build btw. Simple and deadly and packed w variety
Wait is this going to be a beast barbarian?!
I'm excited for this one broski! I'll edit this once I finish the video :) Also, have fun on your vacation! Btw, with point buy at level 1 with custom lineage having +2 in strength and taking 14 str, 14, dex, 14 con, and 13 wiz, I still have 1 point left over. Just fyi.
Ah, I miscalculated - thanks!
@@DnDDeepDive No prob! Always here to help man!
@@DnDDeepDive Also, what should I put that extra point in? con? str? wiz?
@@chacepassmore6474 Those all take 2 points (13-14 and 14-15 take 2 points instead of 1) so none of those are an option.
@@GaiusTulliusCatallusXXC word i guess charisma lol
Wouldn't it be better to save your reaction for other things, like opportunity attacks?
Can your beast form throw a javelin? (I read ahead)
I would choose a bear as berserker came from the Viking belief that they would become a bear.
Why can't you be descended from two arch druids and then your clan's name would be McDonald.
Don't forget dragon hide armor!
Goodberry!
Wouldn't it be better to save your reaction for other things, like opportunity attack?
Immune to non-magic attacks 23, resistant 102. If you can get your claws silvered, Immune is 7 and resistant is 32. this is out of 818 monsters.
Variant tiefling (bat wings) rune knight/ sorcerer. Make yourself large, cast enlarge on yourself. You are now a huge sized monster, go grapple someone (no movement penalty when they are 2 sizes smaller than you) fly up and beat them up in the air before dropping them.
Not sure if this came up yet but long claw Shifters can bonus action attack with a fang attack 1d6+str mod. Gets around the whole off hand attack penalty...though I doubt it would be considered magical
I think the answer to the problem of duel wielding is to change the wording on the light property. The most classic and historical duel wielding was done with a rapier and a dagger, and there's no real mechanical reason that you should have to have both weapons be light. When you're holding a light weapon, you can make one attack with it as a bonus action.
Thanks for the inspiration! Not RAW but in my games the natural weapons are counted as unarmed strikes. My barbarian just has to multiclass with the monk so at my current lvl 8 I can first turn rage and attack 3 times, and round 2 I can attack 5 times for 1 Ki point. I just love this blender of a beast fantasy :D Oh and of course I'm a shadow elf so elven accuracy can support all reckless attacks
I’ve been meaning to try a barbarian at some point and I’ll be honest, this is one of the coolest themes for a barbarian I’ve seen
HAHAH A well rounded character!!! WHAT HAS HAPPENED!!! have a good week off. Looking forward to the write up on this guy. I will say i did miss that the claws get an extra attack. Nice build!
Astral Self Monk X/Beast Barbarian 3. Nets you the most Ki, Barb subclass, minimizes MAD (focus on Wis), and allows for better saves and you can grapple with wisdom with advantage while raging.
Looking back at this for a 5.24 Spore Druid!
5:30 the character concept start :)
Couldn’t you use a melee weapon in the off hand for a d8 instead of the claws d6 for more damage while having just the claws in the other hand so you can keep the extra attack?
Maybe I misheard but it seemed phrased that you’d just use the claws alone whenever you can.
23:02 Isn't reckless only for the first attack of the round? So only 1st first would get advantage. So the DPR 35 after the 1st level of Druid is wrong?
Edit: I forgot how to read and was therefore wrong 🙃
Reckless Attack
Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defense to attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. *Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn*, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn.
No, you have to decide if you're going to use reckless attack when you make your first attack, but it affects all of your attacks for the turn.
Ok thanks! I read too fast Reckless Attack then 🙂
Also all your builds are amazing. Keep up the excellent work!
@@runnexplorer Thank you!
Enjoy your vacation Colby!
By RAW, it is that you WON'T wear metal armor, not that you CAN'T. Slight difference, but still a difference.
This build is similar to my Kalashtar Spore Druid Barbarian. Being able to still communicate in Wild Shape, and having the resistance to Psychic Damage in a Mind Flayer heavy campaign helped. Free Feat at level 1 was Mobile.
Magic Stone for my Range Attack Option
Longstrider to increase my speed giving me more mobility and doesn't require concentration.
Fire Shield which doesn't require concentration either, and gives some elemental resistance, and also hits back, the shield AUTOMATICALLY, without using your reaction hits back with fire or cold damage.
I'm definetly going to use this idea. Keep up the great work
Awesome! Thanks!
Working on a Venom build. beast barbarian with a dip in warlock of the deep. The transformation of the beast barb in a character is so fun build with. thoughts on going to barb 10 for infectious fury?
I like the way it buffs your whole party, and considered trying to get there, but leaving me with much fewer Spore levels made it feel like I just wasn't going to be able to hold on to those Temp HP for long enough. I think if you want to go deeper into Barb you probably just skip Druid altogether, maybe picking up some Fighter levels instead.
@@DnDDeepDive True you have to commit to those golden shackles. Funny to see a druid build with such trash wisdom. Thanks for the build, love the new background
@@MrOwen817 Hey thanks! I decided to record from home as it felt less... sterile :). Problem is trying to get it done when the kids aren't around... >.>
Instead or in addition to the bracers of defence I suggest an Amulet of Health till you increase your constitution.
I’ve been sitting at my desk trying to find a way to make a spores druid build that takes good advantage of their melee weapon buff and my girlfriend suggested i look to see if your channel has a video about it so thank goodness this exists, I never would have thought of coupling with the beast barb, very clever!
Yay!
So I really like this build and I think that if your DM isn’t a stickler for the duel Wielder for claws thing then the better race is actually Tortle you get +2 str +1 wis so you can go 15str 10 dex 14 con 15 wis 8 int&cha giving you a 17str and 16wis so your Druid spell save is better and biggest thing is you have a natural 17AC from level 1 and at level 4 you can take slasher to give you a 18str and you get all the slasher benefits. All which seem like a great way to manage all the weaknesses of the build.
i love this build! its so cool, so well rounded. so... terrifying XD Suggestion, what if instead of dual wielding custom lineage you were a longtooth shifter with a greatsword? at level 1-2 you do 1 sword attack and 1 bite. At level 3 and 4 you do two claw attacks and one bite. and from 5 and onwards you do 1 sword, 2 claw, 1 bite. :D
This class combination does expend resources.
Rage is a long rest limited resource. 2 per long rest til level 3 barbarian.
3 per longrest from level 3 barb to level 5 barb.
And it takes a bonus action to activate.
Limited resources and first turn damage is made with one less attack as this is activated at all levels.
The spore druid feature is limited by temp HP, but is indeed offset by the rage. A good combination.
The problem is that it takes an action to activate, so there’s a very real possibility you lose that rage if you activate it to preserve the temp HP. You can’t make an attack on that turn, and you may not take damage.
Mechanics seem a little problematic. Seems a lot like a DBZ character powering up since it takes a while to get the features up.
Since actual resources are limited, I wouldn’t consider that sustained. It also potentially takes multiple actions or turns to set up, and the first round/turn is the most important round to unleash abilities. The more creatures/adversaries you take out in the beginning the less of an impact the entire encounter takes total.
Spores also last 10 minutes, that should be a decent window to know when a fight is coming.
And even if you don't rage, you can still dual wield any d8 weapons you find and reckless attack for 3 attacks a round for as long as you're standing.
Cool to see that someone else had the same exact idea for a multiclass build
Have a great spring break!
Hey Colby, my buddy is playing a Druid (moon) and Paladin (oath of ancients). It’s a really cool build that he and I like but I was wondering if you could put your spin on it. He’s focused on utility, being able to do dang near anything in a given situation, I know hard to quantify on a Spreadsheet, while also able to drop a mighty smite and pop up the volume. He wildshapes into a Deinonychus (dinosaur) and gets multiattack and is typically flanking so all at advantage, then drops smites to quickly deal with enemies. It’s a quite versatile nova build that I think can go for miles but I’d love to see what you can do with it.
So I've been banging around with a idea for a barbarian spore druid combination for a little while. And when I saw the claws feature for path of the beast, I was like "ooh, that could be really neat"
But what catches me for that particular barbarian type is the option that you have to instead take bear totem warrior, and be resistant to almost all damage, there by making those early levels in druid a little less punishing when you try and use your spores feature, because you'll only have at 7th level eight temporary hit points.
Specifically, this is the scenario running around in my head:
-party attacked by several goblins
**Round one**
-You move in, you rage, you attack (because this is 7th level, at which point you should have 5 Barbar, and just enough druid to get spores).
**Round Two**
-you activate your spores, you attack with advantage, you do oodles of damage, but not as much as you could be doing, because you don't get your bonus action attack
-goblins turn on you because advantage, unless you have a particularly high AC, or they get really unlucky, if you're being attacked by more than three goblins, your spore points are done, and you haven't even gotten in a full round of pure attacks
And that's if you're facing goblins, which at seventh level you'll be facing more than three
Whereas, instead of taking beast, you take bear totem, and now you do 1d8 less damage per round, *but* unless you're facing a bunch of mind flayers those eight hit points are effectively 16 hit points. And then, at druid 3 those 12, are really 24
Combine that with pole arm master and you're getting about as many attacks, but with larger weapons, and you're using spores about half as often
Don't get me wrong, the spore beast is absolutely a cool idea, and I don't think that you're going to run into that problem as readily the more points you put into druid, I'm just pointing out a hitch with it
Keep in mind that *all* Barbarians get resistance to slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage while raging. So unless those goblins are hitting you with spells or something, you're still going to be resistant to their attacks as a Beast Barbarian :).
@@DnDDeepDive yeah i think he forgot the main draw of rage.
Keep in mind it's an action to start the spores.
So whatever turn you use that one, you won't be attacking.
@@adamkaris Yup. so you can't activate rage 1st round. you activate spores on round 1. do something else with your bonus action. Rage and attack on round 2.
If u reflavour the path of the beast as also an unkown symbiote that inhabits u, then there's just total thematic symmetry. The symbiote explains why u might grow a tail or have class or fangs, can swim or climb etc. The Druidic effects just being reflective of the growing symmetry between host and symbiote
ooo, i like this...
Awesome, I love reflavoring abilities. I definitely think it would be fun to make a Venom build sometime too, tough this one would work pretty darn well.
@@danasheik3786 imo this build IS venom.
maybe You can think of claws not being light due to the extra to the explosive and beastial strikes you make with them, and dual wielding feat allows you to fight with more efficiency and finess than before
@47:32 Treant pet risks life and LIMB, lolol
/groan. ;)
Seems like the spore druid side would pair up well with someone with interceptor fighting style or psiwarrior that can outright prevent damage there by protecting the temp HP
I have noticed that mixing shifter qualities into the beastliness of the beast barbarian is fine, but the moment anything else adds to the beast barbarian beastliness your character goes from wild man to horror monster.
A question about this build; you mentioned if your DM would just consider the claws as light, you would choose Slasher instead. Would this be a a damage loss as you’d now have higher STR but you would be attacking once at level 2, then twice at level 3 instead of 3 times. Leveling back out at lvl 5 with four attacks.
Thoughts?
Would you not infact get 5 attacks at level 5 with a dual Wielder?
Thanks!
For race I think Wildhunt Shifter would also make a great option, while your spores temp hp would override the shifter temp hp, the fact that while shifter attacks can not have advantage against you which means reckless has no downsides. Also 1 level hexblade warlock dip is huge for increasing damage, hexblade's curse adding your proficiency mod to damage really ups your damage against single target enemies. Furthermore, three into echo knight means we get action surge and can make an additional attack each turn a number of times equal to our con mod, so early on that's five attacks per turn for 2d6+11 damage per attack, taking levels in monk to make 2 attacks as a bonus action ups that damage even more, not to mention buff spells cast on you like haste or enlarge/reduce.
The easy answer is Colossus slayer from ranger as it isn't tied to temp hp but the out of combat utility (and flavor) of the spore beast takes it for me. 10 minutes is a long time you can pretty reliably get your beast shape out before combat
LOOOVE spore druid multiclassing! Probably my favorite character I ever played was a high-level one shot where I played an open-hand monk 4/Spore Druid 8 who was SO FUN
Imo spore druid is the best non-moon druid. easiest to multiclass and excellent spell list.
@@TheRobversion1 Hell yea man and the flavor is 😚👌. I also love the fact that as Colby says it is one of the only ways to add base damage to your attacks.
@@ajmacewan7285 yup. There's just a few out there really if your goal is to add to multiple attacks and it isn't concentration to natural weapons. Divine smite, maneuvers are the others off the top of my head.
Love all of these builds on your channel and your creativity with all of them! Would you be able to compose a character build that revolves around teleportation and how to best maximize the uses of teleportation within the limits of action economy?
Thanks Colby!
Thanks! Will put it on the list.
Question about Dual Wielder feat when it say "You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one handed melee weapons you are wielding aren’t light." Does the fact that it says "one handed" mean that even though the light property is removed that you still can't use your claws since they are "natural weapons" for the purposes of two weapon fighting?
yup. natural weapons and TWF by RAW don't mix. you aren't holding or wielding them like unarmed strikes. basically you have to have lenient DM to let them work.
It’s says for the Beast Barbarian that Claws and the other weapons are “simple weapons” not unarmed strikes. Therefore qualifying it for the feat
@@humanfighter2096 but the feat say it needs a "one-handed" weapon .
@@humanfighter2096 yup agreed with michael. what i meant is just like unarmed, natural weapons don't work with 2wf. you aren't holding/wielding natural weapons. nor are they tagged as light or one-handed. therefore they won't work with 2wf.
@@TheRobversion1 They're one handed simple weapons. They're tagged as simple weapons.
Thanks to Colby and the rest of the Wayward Watch for your work.
New subscriber here! I’m really looking forward to the University series. My GF wants to start DMing so it will me great for her. And hopefully teach her how to deal with my powergamer self when she takes the big chair at the head of the table.
P.S. your into with the strong electric guitar then the soothing voice or yours. It’s fantastic!
horray! Thanks!
Of note here, the double bladed scimitar is just perfect for the beast barbarian: it has an innate bonus action that adds both the RAGE and strength modifier (thus outpacing TWF without the fighting style) and you can temporarily hold it with 1 hand to use the other for your claw attacks before using Extra Attack. And if Revenant blade is available to you, it completely SMASHES the Dual Wielder feat with the same bonus to AC, but extra strength score to round out 18 at level 4.
Utilize the double bladed scimitar for all the reasons listed.
Ignore revenant blade, take slasher feat. -Get the same +1 to strength to increase damage and accuracy.
-Reduce the speed of one creature you attack by 10ft to help keep them away from your party members.
-recklessly attacking drastically increases your chance for scoring a critical hit with the 4 attacks. Have a 33.6% chance to crit at least once per turn. This offsets your ac loss from not choosing dual wielder feat by imposing disadvantage on the attacks from that creature. This disadvantage applies to all attacks, not just those made against you.
-gain the modifier on that bonus action attack.
If you ever get a magical weapon you only have to deal with finding the one, so it eases pressure on the DM a bit.
I'd be really curious to see how you would build a 4e Warlord type character. I know battlemaster has some of the features, and the inspiring leader feat is in the same vein. I'm also partial to the glamour bards 3rd lvl feature to give temp hp and repositioning. So how would you create a very supportive leader type character?
Currently starting a campaign at level 1 and I’m going for this build, wish me luck!
Good luck! Let me know how it goes :).
I would love a sword bard/battle master build. I feel there is great synergy with these two subclasses that can add a large amount of battle field control and tankieness.
I agree. Plus you can replace the fighting styles of swords once you have 4 fighter if you wanted to use ranged attacks or heavy weapons.
ok, on the list!
Cool and creative build! Love it!
Hey Colby, thanks for your incredible videos, spreadsheets, and encouragement to share build requests! I hope you have a phenomenal spring break with the family!
Your mention of this Spore Beast having a split-personality spawned a potential idea for a wild character with multiple personalities. I’m wondering about your perspective in optimizing a build with all the bells and whistles multiclassing into Sorcerer, Bard, Wizard, and Warlock.
I relate with the desire to mix things up in combat as my first character that I’ve played for the last two years has been a 100% Barbarian. Fortunately, the path of the Ancestral Guardian has given me more to think about in combat beyond, “I just hit stuff” :)
I’m still hungry, however, to explore the fun side of evaluating sorcery points, spell slots, portent, and enjoying the impact of giving inspiration to mix things up in combat as well as have a blast role playing. I could use your perspective to still be helpful to my party in combat while playing a character who’s different personalities pursue different interests and skill sets (Class).
I bet you could do wonders to optimize for best results but I’ll share my idea as in case it’s helpful as a potential starting point:
1st level Sorcerer,
then 2 levels each at a time in Bard, Wizard, and Warlock.
Levels 8-11 dive back into Sorcerer.
Levels 12-13 dip back in for 2 more levels of Bard.
Finally finish up most likely with Sorcerer the rest of the way.
The result is a Sorcerer 12, Bard 4, Warlock 2, and Wizard 2.
My thoughts would be to have the respective subclasses/tradition of Wild Magic, College of Glamour, The Great Old One, and School of Divination.
Some extra “flavor” might be to have the Bard pick up a feat like Chef. I’m also thinking of a changeling charlatan who creates other identities and masquerades as them for his own means until a sudden surge of untamed magic fractures his identity into 4 parts. As a changeling he’d take the form of each of those identities automatically when they are in control.
For some extra wild moments, I’ve considered allowing chance play a role in mixing things up for each game session as to which personality wakes up at the time by rolling a d4.
I’d love to get your perspective!
Thanks! Ok I've got this one added to the list!
@@DnDDeepDive Hey Colby! Thanks again for the continued content which continues to amaze! I wanted to check in to see if my request might still be on the list for an optimized build? The April Fools episode from Cory provided a great taste of chaos but I'm curious for your perspective on optimizing it further. I'd imagine the request list is quite long so perhaps it's pretty far down on the list for a build for lots of bells and whistles / features & traits that are fun to role play but optimized to still add to the party in combat.
Not trying to be picky, but if you have a chapter start that says character concept at 0:00, don't have announcements until 3:39