Errata: Brutal Critical adds one (or later, two) more weapon dice. In my excitement, I was thinking about it like "add one more of each of your weapon's damage dice" and not just "add one more damage die from your weapon, and if your weapon has two different damage dice, pick which one to add" but the latter is surely the correct reading. It's a small difference to the numbers: at level 17 we're talking 2 or 3 points of damage, total, but still. Hopefully, the DMs of the world will acknowledge how bad Brutal Critical is and allow the extra d6 as well ;).
Did you know that Jeremy Crawford basically insulted anyone who thinks that Brutal critical isn’t good because Reckless attack sets it up, in the latest playtest video?
@@AtelierGod I did hear him talk about that and kinda rolled my eyes a bit. It’s like, no, Jeremy, we didn’t think it was good because… it’s not. We weren’t missing anything. Still, as long as they buff it, I don’t care too much :).
If a player told me “I’m thinking of playing a raging thunder loxodon that throws battle axes with their trunk if you let reckless attack apply.” I’d give them whatever they needed to make it happen
While, rules as written, the Loxodon's trunk can't be used to wield a weapon or shield, I'd probably rule it to be able to wield Light weapons. It can do unarmed strikes, but if you're not using the Unarmed Fighting style or being a Monk, that doesn't do a whole lot.
I played a one shot about a week ago when I was a dragonborn path of the giant barbarian, dm gave us some magic items for the session, and I took a potion of growth and a potion of flying. I was a gargantuan dragon flying around the battlefield, bashing foes with my tail and raining down fire with my breath attacks. Most fun I've had in a long time in dnd
The Giant Barb is great to combo with Rogue. Take Bugbear as your race and whip as your weapon. You have 15 ft reach. Make it 20 ft when you rage and become Large. This means that you are quite far away from your target when you use reckless attack + sneak attack, and a lot of movement to flee afterwards.
I don’t really get Colby’s criticism of this one… “purely from a damage perspective you’re better of taking PAM / GWM” yeah true, but that’s the case with 99% of martial builds. I don’t think a build has to out-spreadsheet the most meta combos in order to be awesome. Either way, I LOVE this new subclass and yeah it’s freaking awesome with PAM/GWM but also awesome as just a Hulk w/ Mjolnir build
Best part of this subclass is you can use the small races without losing out because it doesn't increase your size category by 1, but sets it to Large.
I'm currently playing this with a small sized fairy and having a barbarian flying around throwing greataxes while being in the air out of reach and having them return has been super fun.
@@tjrawesomeKinda thinking of getting a kobold with a maul, but he stays the same size. The large creature category space would be from him flailing around that maul in such a crazy way that he makes it impossible to get close to him
Played a Bugbear Giant Barbarian in a one shot recently. Took one level of GOO Warlock to flavor it as mutant Intellect Devourer in a Bugbear, and when raging tentacles contributed to it's insane 20 foot reach, dripping with acid damage. Felt like a resident evil monster
I'm starting to see comments pop up on this so let's discuss: What about Oversized weapons? Yes, the DMG has rules for weapons doing more damage if they're made for larger creatures. However, those rules specifically talk about Monsters. Not PCs. I think the game has made it pretty clear that when *you* grow, your weapons grow, and additional damage is thus accounted for (an extra d4 with the enlarge/reduce spell, an extra d6 here, etc.) - I don't think the oversized weapons stuff from the DMG applies to characters, RAW; certainly your DM may rule otherwise in which case, knock yourself out!
They don't apply RAW. However, everyone saying that is coming from the video Pack Tactics made about oversized weapons and this subclass. He does some rhetoric justification about how PCs are also monsters to make it work. Hey, maybe that'll work on a few DMs but I certainly won't allow it at my table.
"I need all the damage I can get" Elemental Cleaver changes the weapon damage to lighting. A dip into storm Cleric lets you max out that damage on a critical hit. "Tell me in the comments below if your barbarian has gone down" This campaign with my Path of the Giant / Storm Cleric it has been every session but my party members are not optimized and I'm trying to keep them from dying.
I actually made my own house rules regarding oversized weapons just for the sheer fact that the rules for monsters vs PCs don’t make sense. Why do weapons that are manufactured for large creatures / monsters get double the damage dice vs a just an additional d4 for players and their gear that “grow” to a large size? Lack of experience being that size? Balance? Design flaw? Who knows the reason (though I would say balance)? Regardless - I am the DM. I disagreed with the RAW and wrote my own. The players loved them. And I still appreciate the designers for, overall, making a really great game.
I at least wish I could use my two handed weapons with one hand while embiggened. It'll let me keep a hand free for grappling and still hammer away with a maul.
Echo knight with giant barbarian is cool because you get 2 large or huge creatures and an extra attack (con mod per day) every time you take the Attack action. So you get the reach from 2 big areas and can make 2 attacks normal action 1 per bonus action 1 from echo from attack action and then 2-3 more with action surge. Level 20 you're pretty consistently doing over 200 damage during you're nova round or over 100 damage per round after that.
Could you not also throw an enemy upwards, have your echo 30 feet above you (which is 40 ft high if you are huge), let the echo attack them a bunch of times after you throw the enemy at it, then they fall to the floor prone. That seems fun
In the playtest Barbarians can apply reckless attack to thrown weapons so hopefully when the new core books are released that sticks and the Giant Barbarian will fill the fantasy concept.
@@DnDDeepDive My playgroup is allowing this and it is awesome. With the weapon masteries thrown in, I'm planning on multiclassing into rogue and fully diving into the throwing abilities with thrown weapon fighting style.
@@wallapi1188 I mentioned tempest cleric primarily for the subclass features here (Thinking God of War Thor as opposed to MCU Thor here) Unfortunately a lot of their spells require concentration, so Paladin might be the better pick here. Or maybe even sorcerer for those non conc spells.
I’m currently playing a fairy path of the giant! It’s flavored as a magical girl transformation ala sailor moon. So her rage has her pull out an axe like a magical staff and do a fun call out before transforming in a shimmer of light. It’s been great having a very strong girly girl character flying around who can’t use her heavy weapons until she changes over.
I have a build ready like this but aiming to use a Lance with the fairy, as this might be the best way to counter the lance downside of disadvantage within 5 ft.
Oh yeah, I had the same idea. Multiclass with the Genie Warlock, some fringe concept on Glyph of Warding Enlarge in the Vessel. Reflavor the vessel as a transformation device and boom, Ultraman
Really really fun build!! Love this subclass, and I actually came up with a way to make the thrown weapon thing work: Take 3 levels of armorer artificer to literally throw hands, soft taunting multiple different enemies from a range with your thunder gauntlets
I was recently working on an adjacent concept. It wasn’t giant but still barbarian mixed with artificer. The problem I had is with armorer you’re wanting to use your intelligence for your attacks, and if you’re using Int you don’t get the rage bonuses and that felt bad to me. You can still use your strength but then you won’t be able to have as high of an Int score and that felt bad too. The benefit though is you can use heavy armor so you can go with a lower Dex. What I landed on was two options for my concept, both use Reborn as the race and Undead Warlock. One build would use Armorer and the other would would use either Zealot or Giant Barbarian
Of course if your DM is ok with bending the rules a little then that doesn’t matter. Another concept I had,(actually where the other concept started) was basically Dr Jekyll. But it starts with convincing the DM to let Alchemist Elixirs be administered to conscious characters. My concept is a Homunculus that has an injector and it can use its action to inject someone with an elixir. That’s also where the rages come from, he’s injected with a special serum that only works on him. If that all works out I would try to convince the DM to let me swap Str and Int when entering a rage 😂 so they’re normally scrawny and super intelligent, but when raging they become a hulking dumb brute. Maybe a trade off is he can’t end rages early, so they’re just stuck like that till it wears off
According to sage advice, Brutal Critical would not add both a d10 and a d6, as Brutal Critical only adds one of the weapon damage dice (this is stemming the post about greatswords only being able to add one D6 to its critical dice). Also, the new damage report transitions just don’t do it for me, as they seem to clash pretty hard with your otherwise laidback and nonchalant style. The old way is much better suited to your cadence and general tone of the videos.
I love this subclass so much, ever since it came out, I've been dying to play a halfling path of giant barbarian. Maybe take a few battlemaster levels. I'm glad this build came out. Might give it a whirl in an upcoming high level one shot.
So unironically the best barbarian for a tier 3+ campaign is berserker, as its the only one that addresses barbarians weaknesses, saving throws. A zealots insane dpr, bear totems endurance, beasts maneuverability all mean shit when you're stuck in dragons fear, or worse charmed by the enemy. Berserker in not as optimal on combat, but its 100% more relevant than a frightened barb and even more than that than a charmed one.
Were you using the polearm master reaction in the damage calculation? With 15 to 20 ft of reach it's almost guaranteed to go off. Sentinel would be disgusting on this subclass.
Im playing a giant barb in a RAW westmarch discord server and I’ve found that using a double bladed scimitar actually out damages the greatsword and the greataxe from level 6 onward
The best "Giant Barbarian" build unfortunately is 3 levels In any other Barb Sub Class and then Taking the rest of your levels in Rune Knight. I was so pumped for this Sub Class but was sorely disappointed. The Build above is actually my current campaign PC. And it's alot of fun. But would have been cool to get that sane feeling of power and strength from a single class build. Oh well. 🤷♂️
I want to multiclass giant barbarian with an artillerist artificer so I can use the protector cannon to get temp hit points every turn. Growing into a giant seems like it should get a damage increase and temp hit points.
Okay, I REALLY wanna see you cover a Strength-based dart build with this subclass now. Since darts are throwing and ranged AND finesse, they would let you benefit from the Giant barbarian throwing-weapon rage damage (so long as you use Strength) as well as the Archery and thrown-weapon fighting styles and, of course, Sharpshooter. By taking some Battlemaster Fighter levels (which you would want for the fighting styles anyway), you can pick up Quick toss, letting you spend a Menuver die to make a bonus action dart throw (with some extra damage to boot). Not sure how this stacks up damage-wise to a standard GWM build (I know you lose Reckless attack, but you do get Archery to compensate), but I still think it would be potent in its own right, and very fun! Alright, rant over lol. Love the build as always, thanks for the amazing content 😁
@DnDDeepDive Yeah, I was definitely bummed when I saw that too. I suppose it might not look as pretty on the spreadsheet, I just like the tactical advantage of a Barbarian with a reliable 60 ft. of range. Plus the idea of a large creature standing in the center of the battlefield throwing toothpicks is endlessly amusing to me lol
@geoffreypincus-brimble875 one of the best parts of a dart build for me is that there's nothing stopping you from using a shield with it. Obviously, being harder to hit doesn't exactly encourage enemies to attack your tanky barbarian, but I'm a big selfish player who likes a high AC lol
Saw a shirt from this: haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but in response to the short about Barbarian scaling etc- Path of the Giant was written with 5 Revised/1DND in mind. So look at that 10 minute Rage and recovering 1/SR in addition to your normal daily limits, and Giant Barb may be leagues beyond what it is even now. Particularly at L14.
Been a while since I learnt something COMPLETELY new from these videos, feels like coming home and putting on a warm blanket. Great stuff!! Should clarify, been watching since either ep1 or ep2 and you taught me literally everything I know about building characters in 5e. Been watching less as I've been playing less DnD and BG3 in recent months. This new subclass reminded me of the days when every one of your videos would blow my mind, as opposed to the (albeit still amazing) "comfort food" they are now. Much love, as always ❤
The Genie Warlock also adds extra damage with every attack. It's less then a d6 until you get your prof bonus to 4 but it's IMO the only other one that does it.
I thought a cool build for this subclass would be to get Barb to 10 like you have here but take 2 lvls of Paladin for Smites and the rest as a Tempest Domain Cleric for some of that Thor action. That channel divinity could be real nice@@DnDDeepDive
I had a fun Barbarian Giant/Monk Simic Hybrid that just does unarmed attacks with tentacles and turns into a kaiju later. Pretty much the best fun I've had with a theorycraft
Plus the thrown feature only gives 20/60 range which means that, with 15 feet of reach you are pretty much ALWAYS going to be throwing with disadvantage without being able to use Reckless Attack. Sadly with this character, the ranged option is virtually irrelevant.
Flavor your polearm as a giant spatula. Take Battle Master instead of Champ. Trip attack to knock prone. Bonus action to slide the spatula underneath and pop the enemy 30 feet up. Pushing attack when he lands to knock him 15 feet forward. You must shout "Order up!" as your battle cry when you do this. Maybe call the build Lobs Burgers.
My DM knows he's dealing with players who know how to play. Ironically, our Barbarian goes down the 2nd most in the party (2nd only to our Artificer who keeps trying to 1v1 people.) Our Barb is heavily invested in his build and gets tunnel visioned a lot from it (It's PAM just incase you were curious.) He is actually one of the only 3 people who died in game. Unfortunately, his was permanent.
I have done incredible things with my winged Tiefling giant barbarian genie warlock. The ability to be large or huge that can fly has made grappling so fun. I dropped an umber hulk from 200 feet the other day. Oh and the genie stuff is nice too. I grow large, pick up large things and bring them into my genie vessel just to drop them from the sky as an airborne bombardment.
Bear Totem Barbarian, level 3, first combat of the campaign: Narrowly looses initiative and gets one-shotted by a crit from a Giant Shark. Gets yo-yo healed but is right after the shark in initiative so never gets to rage nor attack in the longest slugfest of a fight, where the Bard and Druid slowly chops away at the shark while using Healing Word to bring the Barbarian back up as bait. Barb got some scars.
Thanks for the video & the warm & kindly vibes, Colby! I think you could prolly convince your DM that letting Reckless Attack apply to thrown melee weapons wouldn't be a big stretch for an additional subclass feature, especially if it wasn't playtested as such... then subsequently removed for balance purposes. With how WotC is... you could infer that it's likely an oversight. Anyways... Happy Thanksgiving!
If you could find a way to get consistent advantage instead of reckless (hopefully from an ally instead of yourself) then the throwing downside kinda disappears, let me know if im missing another downside
It's become an injoke in our spelljammer campaign (for the characters as well as for the players) that our barbarian is immortal. The reason for this is we were trying to get to a desert temple and didn't want to do the overland travel, so instead our party of six jumped out of the spelljammer at 33,000 feet, five of us used a feather fall, and our Minotaur barbarian survived the fall using relentless endurance, and finished his short rest before we landed to have 65 hp when we got there. So to answer your question, no: he has never gone down.
I like the idea of a moon druid giant barbarian multiclass. Just imagining a guy turning into a grizzly charging at someone while growing in size and having Raiden eyes or flaming eyes (and maybe claws)
I love this subclass! I paired it with Sharpshooter and Thrown Arms Master (Tal'Dorei Reborn) to get truly impressive range out of thrown weapons. As far as I can tell, it makes Giant the only ranged barbarian out there, which means it's an automatic A+ in my book.
33:18 our barbarian constantly goes unconcous. We are a large party so we regular fight stuff that should be wayy past our level, like fighting a glitch at lvl 6.
HI! thanks for another awesome video! Just a quick question as i can't wrap my head around this hole: (sorry in advance, but not having bold option i used caps lock just to emphasize, not to "shout", so please forgive me) ENLARGE /REDUCE explicitly states that equipment changes size and CONSEQUENTLY weapons do +/-1d4 damage and armor still fits you. BUT GIANT STATURE gives +5 reach, go to large size "ALONG ANYTHING YOU ARE WEARING" so armor still fits you perfectly.. but WHY then weapons shouldn't increase in size/damage? because holding them in hand is not wearing? so in this case, backpack and armor resize, but potions inside the backpack don't.. and now good luck using them with your huge hands @14th level. my take, excluding getting weapons double die numbers (as DMM says for large monsters etc...): could it be similar to what happened in old 3rd edition? if you get a weapon one size larger, increase the die one step, so 1d10->1d12, 1d4->1d6 and so on... this way, the damage increase is on average only +1 per attack, which is less than ENLARGE that gives +2.5 (+1d4), WAY less than DMM large monstrous weapons, but still something "tangible".. or at the very least, WITHOUT homebrewing new things: a longsword is versatile 1d8/1d10. but if you become large, your halberd heavy-reach-two handed IF IT DOESN/T GROW.. it could work as the versatile longsword.. so 1d10 in one hand, 1d12 in two hands, because it's not growing in size/weight, BUT YOU ARE! any thoughts?
Colby, there’s a question after my story for you, promise 😂 Just started a campaign from level one, and plan to go path of the giant. My party is a GO1 warlock, GloomStlkr rogue, and an eloquence bard, so I’m obviously the fitter and the meat shield. MY DM IS LETTING ME USE RECKLESS ATTACK WITH THROWN WEAPONS! I went with Minotaur for flavor and the push ability from horns to possibly gain a 5 foot push and avoid OA. Rolled incredible stats: Str18+2>Dex18>Con17+1>Wis13>Chr12>Int10 I do have the Giant Foundling background, but we imposed a 3rd level kick in because we both agreed it’s potentially over powered at low levels due to my stats. My question is: What feat should I take at 4 and 8? Besides PAM and GWM? Feels like bumping stats is virtually unnecessary unless it’s a half feats. Giant feats are allowed, especially since I have the foundling background. Slasher would make my great axe reduce them to 0 movement with the possibility to knock them 5 ft back with my horns, leaving them out of range on average, and having zero movement. Also, in my position, would you stick with barbarian for the full campaign? It’s LVL 1-12. I want 2 levels of fighter, but barb 7-10 are pretty enticing thanks to my stats…though I’d lose my lvl 12 ASI/3rd feat (if you recommend I take fighter levels, what fighting style would you suggest?)
Doesn't size increase, increase your weapon damage by one die. Your barb goes from medium to large. So greatsword is now 3d6. Plus 1d6 from elemental damage. For my build i took 4 levels of rune knight and the strike of giants feat (stone). That adds another 1d6 force damage +10ft knock back. I took fire rune and stone rune. I could burn a use of firey shackles. Thats an extra 2d6 fire and target is now restrained for remainder of attacks..... Thats 8d6+5+10+3...throw a flaming greatsword on the build and now its 10d6+5(str)+10(GWM)+3(rage)...avg 48dam first attack plus some battlefield maneuverability and control. Throw tavern brawler in the mix. Then say you drop the first guy, throw weapon at another target with action surge, 4d6+10+5+5. Damage, better berserker then berserker, ranged damage, little bit of battle field control... Sounds fun to me
Sorry I’m late! Great video! Couple questions for you (if you don’t mind, or can post links to where I can find the answers): Why stop before level 20 for the build? Nothing wrong with that, of course! I’m just a fan of going all the way to 20 with builds, personally. When it comes to Enlarge Person, does that confer a damage increase? I think BG3 gives +1d4? How much better is that? Sorry, I’m new, I assume you normally only consider what 1 character can do for these. Third, just for fun: If you play a Dragonborn and get to the largest size category doing this, how much fun could you have at the table, basically being a raging Dragon Elemental? Especially if you have Fire Breath and Lightning Damage, letting you just do some visually terrifying things. Or, is that just not mechanically viable enough to explore, do you think? Thanks so much! Think I’ll go watch a few more of these!
Im building one that looks like this: Human Variant (grab polearm master) 3lvl barb giant X Fighter Rune knight (grab Sentinel and GWP) -> for fighting style i've taken Tunnel Fight from U.A. so i can have infinite Attacks of Opportunnity.
Don't stop complaining. Embrace your inner barbarian. Rage. Give in to your anger.😅 If the Bob Ross of DND is complaining about a class, then WotC should make a change.
Rune knight can get to huge (so gargantuan with the spell) but not till level 18 (ugh). Regardless, Amazing build! I hadn't considered the implications of Elemental Cleaver...yikes! 😮
About what you talk in 15:30 for me the Rune knight is a better grappler, both subclasses get large/huge and get advantage on athletic checks, but with a fighter you get more attacks and that means more chances to do grapple+shove and also get more feats so it's easier to get skill expert, tavern brawler or other useful feats for grappling. I Think Rune knight being better at grapple+shove and with all the runes it is better at controlling the battlefield and protecting the party, but the Giant barbarian is much better on damage output. Anyway, I would love to see a party with a Rune knight and a path of the giant barbarian, I think it would be totally hilarious having 2 giant dudes ripping enemies apart.
Sorry for the late post but I am slowly trying to recreate my AL characters using OneD&D and am now working on my Giant Barbarian. Reckless now works with all attacks rolls. (Pending release)
If you take it up to 20, take 6 levels of champion fighter. Get more ASI's so you can take Ember of the Fire Giant instead of a strength ASI and then pick up Slasher as well to get STR up to 20. With your last ASI at fighter 6, pick up Savage Attacker to reroll any damage dice you don't like again?
I really enjoy these videos a lot. I've become a consistent waycher, sometimes watching a video multiple times. But, I hope the extra sound effects don't become a thing. I found them jarring and unpleasant. Otherwise, this rocked! I really want to do this with a lox!!
The mention of potential fighter subclasses for when you take a 3rd level there in this build made me think of samurai…. Then I realized not only would that be flavorful if you want to be an Oni giant barbarian, you’d be able to get advantage on three thrown weapon attacks per rest, which helps elevate some of that issue. (Plus temp hp to be even tankier)
Now that there is third party stuff on dnd beyond, you could use the thrown weapon master feat from Taldorei Reborn and make this an excellent thrown weapon build
Typical inconsistent WOTG Zealot 1d6 once per turn, same with Rune Knight, Giant barbarian 1d6 every time, I'm for scaling the other two to match but do they even look at what they've done before?
This build made me sad. Every cool thing about this subclass is poor strategy to actually use. I swear when they balance martial classes they forget that PAM/GWM exists. With all the extra dice on crit, i wish this subclass got a crit at 19 or 20 to make that happen more WITHOUT needing to multiclass for it.
I just wrapped a campaign using this class. Guile of the Cloud Giant saved my bacon many, many times. Also I got to drop an iron golem off a cliff with Mighty Impel.
I am currently playing a bear totem barbarin9/rune knight fighter10 and I have died once since in the beginning to a kobold who used fireball. I have gone down a total of 3 times and two were when I was level 10 and getting jumped by like 5 slaads. Currently, I have a total HP of 300 and rarely get below 80 HP. Call it Dm favoritism of sheer bulk but I feel like the Barbarian lvl 11 features is not worth it.
Maybe I'm reading brutal critical wrong, but doesn't it only give you a single extra die on a crit and not rolling all the weapons damage dice one additional time? Brutal critical states: "Beginning at 9th level, you can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee attack." (PHB pg 46) Like if you're using a greatsword (2d6 damage) and score crit without brutal critical, it would be 4d6 rolled, but with it, it would be 5d6 rolled would it not? So by the same logic, if you crit with a weapon that does multiple types of dice (like d10+d6 in this example) you would choose one of the dice to roll one additional time (making the damage 3d10+2d6 cause why would you choose to roll the d6 when you can get another d10?) Am I missing something here? I haven't read the new subclass so is there something in there that indicates it also gains the full extra die from brutal critical?
Great episode again! The thing i think you may have forgotten is that the 30ft up in the air is just a measurement of the height/distance a thrown person would travel if thrown straight up. It is the force distance you would throw them. Throwing that same person into a brick wall would still do the 3D6 because that is the force at which you can throw that person/monster. The distance thrown is the calculation of force applied from your STR stat and thus throwing into a wall does the same damage out our D&D table! THX
I have been looking into how best to build the thrown weapon barbarian. Just found Treantmonk mentioned that the Dueler and thrown weapon fighting styles stack. Hadn't realised this before but apparently Crawford confirmed it. I wonder if this could be used to good effect with say, a battle axe in a fighter/ giant barbarian build. Also.. My beloved Barbarian actually died!
Go bugbear. Get that 25 foot melee range with a polearm. PAM+GWM+Sentinel. You are now absolutely shutting down any attempt by the enemy to get past you. Especially if you can find a place that forces the enemy inside your range.
I'm annoyed with this subclass. It feels like they looked at Rune knight and thought: let's do this but for barbarian. And in doing so partially tarnished Rune Knight. And they also messed up the abilities!! They should have focused on abilities to do with reach and grappling and done that right! OR focused on abilities to do with throwing (so forced movement) and done that right! 😡😡😡
This might be the angriest we've ever seen Colby get. Given it's a Barbarian it feels on point! Love hearing your thoughts on the game design elements of the game!
Actually Im playing a 16 Giant 4 Rune knight (Group wanted to do a short campaign as level 20 characters) The rune knight isnt that redundant in terms of role pay as it adds a ton more out of combat things that giant bar was lacking. The Rune Knights giant form while weaker, its perfect for out of combat interactions and great way to inject more giantiness for roleplaying.
My girlfriend is playing a Gnome giant barbarian and I, as the DM absolutely allow her to attack recklessly with her throwing greathammer 🤣 it's just more fun, and honestly just feels like an oversight from Wizards that she wouldn't be able to
My current Barbarian is a Goblin going Path of the Giant, just because I like the idea of a 4 foot tall Goblin, becoming taller than an Ogre (he's a Giant Foundling, adopted by Stone Giants and thus grew up tallet and brawnier than most Goblins)
Errata: Brutal Critical adds one (or later, two) more weapon dice. In my excitement, I was thinking about it like "add one more of each of your weapon's damage dice" and not just "add one more damage die from your weapon, and if your weapon has two different damage dice, pick which one to add" but the latter is surely the correct reading. It's a small difference to the numbers: at level 17 we're talking 2 or 3 points of damage, total, but still. Hopefully, the DMs of the world will acknowledge how bad Brutal Critical is and allow the extra d6 as well ;).
> Hopefully, the DMs of the world will acknowledge how bad Brutal Critical is
Hi, I'm from the future. I have good news for you.
@@life-destiny1196 😂
Monkey DM did a good homebrew subclass to make it worht it@@life-destiny1196
Did you know that Jeremy Crawford basically insulted anyone who thinks that Brutal critical isn’t good because Reckless attack sets it up, in the latest playtest video?
@@AtelierGod I did hear him talk about that and kinda rolled my eyes a bit. It’s like, no, Jeremy, we didn’t think it was good because… it’s not. We weren’t missing anything. Still, as long as they buff it, I don’t care too much :).
If a player told me “I’m thinking of playing a raging thunder loxodon that throws battle axes with their trunk if you let reckless attack apply.” I’d give them whatever they needed to make it happen
While, rules as written, the Loxodon's trunk can't be used to wield a weapon or shield, I'd probably rule it to be able to wield Light weapons. It can do unarmed strikes, but if you're not using the Unarmed Fighting style or being a Monk, that doesn't do a whole lot.
100% agree.
I played a one shot about a week ago when I was a dragonborn path of the giant barbarian, dm gave us some magic items for the session, and I took a potion of growth and a potion of flying. I was a gargantuan dragon flying around the battlefield, bashing foes with my tail and raining down fire with my breath attacks. Most fun I've had in a long time in dnd
I'd let that man have the world
ME TOOOOO!!!
The Giant Barb is great to combo with Rogue.
Take Bugbear as your race and whip as your weapon. You have 15 ft reach.
Make it 20 ft when you rage and become Large.
This means that you are quite far away from your target when you use reckless attack + sneak attack, and a lot of movement to flee afterwards.
I played a barbarian that was a Zealot and was the champion of The Storm Lord. I dropped using that feature like 5 times in a single fight.
Could you be a Minotaur that tosses the enemy up then jump and grab the enemy in the air to throw them even higher for more fall damage?
I mean the good news this is something they are aware of as it was something they added for one dnd so maybe this will be updated at some point.
I don’t really get Colby’s criticism of this one… “purely from a damage perspective you’re better of taking PAM / GWM” yeah true, but that’s the case with 99% of martial builds. I don’t think a build has to out-spreadsheet the most meta combos in order to be awesome. Either way, I LOVE this new subclass and yeah it’s freaking awesome with PAM/GWM but also awesome as just a Hulk w/ Mjolnir build
Damn you nailed the pronounciation Of hygge!
Best part of this subclass is you can use the small races without losing out because it doesn't increase your size category by 1, but sets it to Large.
I'm currently playing this with a small sized fairy and having a barbarian flying around throwing greataxes while being in the air out of reach and having them return has been super fun.
@@tjrawesomeAntman?
@@tjrawesomeKinda thinking of getting a kobold with a maul, but he stays the same size. The large creature category space would be from him flailing around that maul in such a crazy way that he makes it impossible to get close to him
Maybe the thrown property works better for crowd control? Throw enemy A into enemy B, and both take damage and are prone.
I've got a player in one of my games combining small Tortle, with monk and path of giants barbarian. Super fun 🎉
Played a Bugbear Giant Barbarian in a one shot recently. Took one level of GOO Warlock to flavor it as mutant Intellect Devourer in a Bugbear, and when raging tentacles contributed to it's insane 20 foot reach, dripping with acid damage. Felt like a resident evil monster
I'm starting to see comments pop up on this so let's discuss: What about Oversized weapons? Yes, the DMG has rules for weapons doing more damage if they're made for larger creatures. However, those rules specifically talk about Monsters. Not PCs. I think the game has made it pretty clear that when *you* grow, your weapons grow, and additional damage is thus accounted for (an extra d4 with the enlarge/reduce spell, an extra d6 here, etc.) - I don't think the oversized weapons stuff from the DMG applies to characters, RAW; certainly your DM may rule otherwise in which case, knock yourself out!
They don't apply RAW. However, everyone saying that is coming from the video Pack Tactics made about oversized weapons and this subclass. He does some rhetoric justification about how PCs are also monsters to make it work. Hey, maybe that'll work on a few DMs but I certainly won't allow it at my table.
"I need all the damage I can get"
Elemental Cleaver changes the weapon damage to lighting. A dip into storm Cleric lets you max out that damage on a critical hit.
"Tell me in the comments below if your barbarian has gone down"
This campaign with my Path of the Giant / Storm Cleric it has been every session but my party members are not optimized and I'm trying to keep them from dying.
I actually made my own house rules regarding oversized weapons just for the sheer fact that the rules for monsters vs PCs don’t make sense.
Why do weapons that are manufactured for large creatures / monsters get double the damage dice vs a just an additional d4 for players and their gear that “grow” to a large size?
Lack of experience being that size? Balance? Design flaw?
Who knows the reason (though I would say balance)?
Regardless - I am the DM. I disagreed with the RAW and wrote my own. The players loved them.
And I still appreciate the designers for, overall, making a really great game.
@@JohnDoe-nj4gx2 levels in cleric so your 1d6 guarantees a 6 once per rest? Bruh you get an extra 2.5 damage average once per rest.
I at least wish I could use my two handed weapons with one hand while embiggened. It'll let me keep a hand free for grappling and still hammer away with a maul.
Came for the build. Stayed for the singing. Didn't expect you to go so far into barbarian... Nice to see that every once in a while.
Given this is build 150, next build needs to be an update to the Pokémon Trainer
Lmao perfect
I'm legit angry I understand that as a reference to there being 151 pokemon in the original pokedex.
Echo knight with giant barbarian is cool because you get 2 large or huge creatures and an extra attack (con mod per day) every time you take the Attack action. So you get the reach from 2 big areas and can make 2 attacks normal action 1 per bonus action 1 from echo from attack action and then 2-3 more with action surge. Level 20 you're pretty consistently doing over 200 damage during you're nova round or over 100 damage per round after that.
Could you not also throw an enemy upwards, have your echo 30 feet above you (which is 40 ft high if you are huge), let the echo attack them a bunch of times after you throw the enemy at it, then they fall to the floor prone.
That seems fun
In the playtest Barbarians can apply reckless attack to thrown weapons so hopefully when the new core books are released that sticks and the Giant Barbarian will fill the fantasy concept.
Absolutely!
I came here to say this, of course Chris already said it lol!
@@DnDDeepDive My playgroup is allowing this and it is awesome. With the weapon masteries thrown in, I'm planning on multiclassing into rogue and fully diving into the throwing abilities with thrown weapon fighting style.
No one has realized you could probably multiclass a Thor build from this subclass
Like, maybe mark of the storm half elf with tempest cleric?
I'm thinking paladin would be the better multiclass here. Smites, auras, paladin goodies, and it'll come off as Thor
@@wallapi1188tru but smites dont work on thrown weapons sadly :/
I built an Arificer Barb with the Returning Infusion on Light Hammers once before. Was a lot of fun
@@wallapi1188 I mentioned tempest cleric primarily for the subclass features here (Thinking God of War Thor as opposed to MCU Thor here)
Unfortunately a lot of their spells require concentration, so Paladin might be the better pick here. Or maybe even sorcerer for those non conc spells.
Maybe Storm Sorcerer too?
Congratulations on 150. Can't wait to watch the next 150.
I still have confused feelings about yt shorts, but I have to admit the way you used one as a teaser for this video, got me for real excited to watch
I hadn't even heard of this subclass!! When did it come out?? I'm so pumped to learn about it!!
AND see what Colby has come up with!!!!
Bigby's Glory of the Giants book is a few months old now, actually :). Just took me awhile to get to it...
I’m currently playing a fairy path of the giant! It’s flavored as a magical girl transformation ala sailor moon. So her rage has her pull out an axe like a magical staff and do a fun call out before transforming in a shimmer of light. It’s been great having a very strong girly girl character flying around who can’t use her heavy weapons until she changes over.
I have a build ready like this but aiming to use a Lance with the fairy, as this might be the best way to counter the lance downside of disadvantage within 5 ft.
Oh yeah, I had the same idea. Multiclass with the Genie Warlock, some fringe concept on Glyph of Warding Enlarge in the Vessel.
Reflavor the vessel as a transformation device and boom, Ultraman
So...monstergirl?
Really really fun build!! Love this subclass, and I actually came up with a way to make the thrown weapon thing work: Take 3 levels of armorer artificer to literally throw hands, soft taunting multiple different enemies from a range with your thunder gauntlets
Had a similar one with Armorer + Rune Knight all because I just want to play a giant mech pilot goblin. Not really good but does it feels good
I’d like to see Colby run this the next time he plays a one shot with Monty and Kelly.
I was recently working on an adjacent concept. It wasn’t giant but still barbarian mixed with artificer. The problem I had is with armorer you’re wanting to use your intelligence for your attacks, and if you’re using Int you don’t get the rage bonuses and that felt bad to me.
You can still use your strength but then you won’t be able to have as high of an Int score and that felt bad too. The benefit though is you can use heavy armor so you can go with a lower Dex.
What I landed on was two options for my concept, both use Reborn as the race and Undead Warlock. One build would use Armorer and the other would would use either Zealot or Giant Barbarian
Of course if your DM is ok with bending the rules a little then that doesn’t matter.
Another concept I had,(actually where the other concept started) was basically Dr Jekyll. But it starts with convincing the DM to let Alchemist Elixirs be administered to conscious characters. My concept is a Homunculus that has an injector and it can use its action to inject someone with an elixir. That’s also where the rages come from, he’s injected with a special serum that only works on him.
If that all works out I would try to convince the DM to let me swap Str and Int when entering a rage 😂 so they’re normally scrawny and super intelligent, but when raging they become a hulking dumb brute. Maybe a trade off is he can’t end rages early, so they’re just stuck like that till it wears off
Another Tuesday, another great build! Happy Thanksgiving Colby and the d4 army
And happy Wednesday for those affected by the powerful, but imaginary, International Date Line!
According to sage advice, Brutal Critical would not add both a d10 and a d6, as Brutal Critical only adds one of the weapon damage dice (this is stemming the post about greatswords only being able to add one D6 to its critical dice).
Also, the new damage report transitions just don’t do it for me, as they seem to clash pretty hard with your otherwise laidback and nonchalant style. The old way is much better suited to your cadence and general tone of the videos.
The Giant Barbarian: D&D Build #150
Level 1 (see above) [barbarian 1, race & feat]
Level 2 (see above) [barbarian 2]
Level 3 (@13:23) [barbarian 3]
Level 4 (@17:22) [barbarian 4 & ASI]
Level 5 (@18:11) [barbarian 5]
Level 6 (@18:29) [barbarian 6]
Level 7 (see above) [barbarian 7]
Level 8 (@23:27) [barbarian 8 & ASI]
Level 9 (@26:26) [barbarian 9]
Level 10 (see above) [barbarian 10]
Level 11 (@32:11) [barbarian 11]
Level 12 (@33:25) [barbarian 12 & ASI]
Level 13 (@33:46) [fighter 1]
Level 14 (see above) [barbarian 13]
Level 15 (@36:54) [barbarian 14]
Level 16 (@38:29) [fighter 2]
Level 17 (@39:06) [fighter 3 & subclass]
Not certain why you didn't go straight barbarian until 15th level then switch.
I love this subclass so much, ever since it came out, I've been dying to play a halfling path of giant barbarian. Maybe take a few battlemaster levels. I'm glad this build came out. Might give it a whirl in an upcoming high level one shot.
So unironically the best barbarian for a tier 3+ campaign is berserker, as its the only one that addresses barbarians weaknesses, saving throws.
A zealots insane dpr, bear totems endurance, beasts maneuverability all mean shit when you're stuck in dragons fear, or worse charmed by the enemy. Berserker in not as optimal on combat, but its 100% more relevant than a frightened barb and even more than that than a charmed one.
Were you using the polearm master reaction in the damage calculation? With 15 to 20 ft of reach it's almost guaranteed to go off. Sentinel would be disgusting on this subclass.
1:12 ‘Nothing says "hygge" like Barbarians, am I right?' 😂🇩🇰
Im playing a giant barb in a RAW westmarch discord server and I’ve found that using a double bladed scimitar actually out damages the greatsword and the greataxe from level 6 onward
Thought I should add it’s because of the extra bonus action attack every turn combined with the elemental clever ability
The best "Giant Barbarian" build unfortunately is 3 levels In any other Barb Sub Class and then Taking the rest of your levels in Rune Knight.
I was so pumped for this Sub Class but was sorely disappointed. The Build above is actually my current campaign PC. And it's alot of fun. But would have been cool to get that sane feeling of power and strength from a single class build. Oh well. 🤷♂️
I want to multiclass giant barbarian with an artillerist artificer so I can use the protector cannon to get temp hit points every turn. Growing into a giant seems like it should get a damage increase and temp hit points.
Aww any chance of halfling character? Maybe Archer or slinger ? Only asked x3 times
.. pretty please
Built a path of the Giants autognome. Basically a transformer when it rages and transforms from small to large.
Coby what about fairy rune knight to what 14ish that giagantic then enlarge with fairy to what colossus largest playsble character on the table
Bugbear barbarian for all the reach
I was JUST looking to see if your video this week was posted, and i got the note that it was JUST posted at the same time! Woo! Haha
Yes, so many new subclasses to play with from Glory of the Giants and El Tadorei 🎉🎉
Okay, I REALLY wanna see you cover a Strength-based dart build with this subclass now.
Since darts are throwing and ranged AND finesse, they would let you benefit from the Giant barbarian throwing-weapon rage damage (so long as you use Strength) as well as the Archery and thrown-weapon fighting styles and, of course, Sharpshooter. By taking some Battlemaster Fighter levels (which you would want for the fighting styles anyway), you can pick up Quick toss, letting you spend a Menuver die to make a bonus action dart throw (with some extra damage to boot).
Not sure how this stacks up damage-wise to a standard GWM build (I know you lose Reckless attack, but you do get Archery to compensate), but I still think it would be potent in its own right, and very fun!
Alright, rant over lol. Love the build as always, thanks for the amazing content 😁
This was honestly my original plan - I just got so mad about reckless attack I scrapped it :). One day!
I played around a bit with that idea of a build based on The Needler. It has its ups and downs, but I do wish you could Reckless Attack.
@DnDDeepDive Yeah, I was definitely bummed when I saw that too. I suppose it might not look as pretty on the spreadsheet, I just like the tactical advantage of a Barbarian with a reliable 60 ft. of range.
Plus the idea of a large creature standing in the center of the battlefield throwing toothpicks is endlessly amusing to me lol
@geoffreypincus-brimble875 one of the best parts of a dart build for me is that there's nothing stopping you from using a shield with it. Obviously, being harder to hit doesn't exactly encourage enemies to attack your tanky barbarian, but I'm a big selfish player who likes a high AC lol
Wizards knows about the reckless attack but the unpaid intern writing this shit doesnt
Saw a shirt from this: haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but in response to the short about Barbarian scaling etc- Path of the Giant was written with 5 Revised/1DND in mind. So look at that 10 minute Rage and recovering 1/SR in addition to your normal daily limits, and Giant Barb may be leagues beyond what it is even now. Particularly at L14.
Been a while since I learnt something COMPLETELY new from these videos, feels like coming home and putting on a warm blanket. Great stuff!!
Should clarify, been watching since either ep1 or ep2 and you taught me literally everything I know about building characters in 5e. Been watching less as I've been playing less DnD and BG3 in recent months. This new subclass reminded me of the days when every one of your videos would blow my mind, as opposed to the (albeit still amazing) "comfort food" they are now. Much love, as always ❤
Barbarians are my comfort class for sure.
Completely agree!
Could you make a blade-singer paladin happen?
"Great Weapon Master" is "GWEM" at my table. Good ol PAM and GWEM.
I don't think it should be that hard to talk your GM into making an exception for this one build (especially if they've seen this video)
Yay for the blooper beeps being gone!
Giant barbarian + doublesided scimitar = both good mechanics and style
OMG GUYS HE SAID HYGGE! IM A DANE!
The Genie Warlock also adds extra damage with every attack. It's less then a d6 until you get your prof bonus to 4 but it's IMO the only other one that does it.
Only once per turn 😉
ohhhh right lol@@DnDDeepDive
I thought a cool build for this subclass would be to get Barb to 10 like you have here but take 2 lvls of Paladin for Smites and the rest as a Tempest Domain Cleric for some of that Thor action. That channel divinity could be real nice@@DnDDeepDive
The product placement was summing stone but the link says "WorldAnvil save 40% in the description"
fixed!
@DnDDeepDive aw man, it is Apple store only. Too bad. Thanks for fixing though. Really appreciate the channel and efforts
I had a fun Barbarian Giant/Monk Simic Hybrid that just does unarmed attacks with tentacles and turns into a kaiju later. Pretty much the best fun I've had with a theorycraft
Plus the thrown feature only gives 20/60 range which means that, with 15 feet of reach you are pretty much ALWAYS going to be throwing with disadvantage without being able to use Reckless Attack. Sadly with this character, the ranged option is virtually irrelevant.
Flavor your polearm as a giant spatula. Take Battle Master instead of Champ. Trip attack to knock prone. Bonus action to slide the spatula underneath and pop the enemy 30 feet up. Pushing attack when he lands to knock him 15 feet forward. You must shout "Order up!" as your battle cry when you do this. Maybe call the build Lobs Burgers.
My DM knows he's dealing with players who know how to play. Ironically, our Barbarian goes down the 2nd most in the party (2nd only to our Artificer who keeps trying to 1v1 people.) Our Barb is heavily invested in his build and gets tunnel visioned a lot from it (It's PAM just incase you were curious.) He is actually one of the only 3 people who died in game. Unfortunately, his was permanent.
I have done incredible things with my winged Tiefling giant barbarian genie warlock. The ability to be large or huge that can fly has made grappling so fun. I dropped an umber hulk from 200 feet the other day.
Oh and the genie stuff is nice too. I grow large, pick up large things and bring them into my genie vessel just to drop them from the sky as an airborne bombardment.
Bear Totem Barbarian, level 3, first combat of the campaign: Narrowly looses initiative and gets one-shotted by a crit from a Giant Shark. Gets yo-yo healed but is right after the shark in initiative so never gets to rage nor attack in the longest slugfest of a fight, where the Bard and Druid slowly chops away at the shark while using Healing Word to bring the Barbarian back up as bait. Barb got some scars.
Thanks for the video & the warm & kindly vibes, Colby!
I think you could prolly convince your DM that letting Reckless Attack apply to thrown melee weapons wouldn't be a big stretch for an additional subclass feature, especially if it wasn't playtested as such... then subsequently removed for balance purposes.
With how WotC is... you could infer that it's likely an oversight.
Anyways... Happy Thanksgiving!
If you could find a way to get consistent advantage instead of reckless (hopefully from an ally instead of yourself) then the throwing downside kinda disappears, let me know if im missing another downside
It's become an injoke in our spelljammer campaign (for the characters as well as for the players) that our barbarian is immortal. The reason for this is we were trying to get to a desert temple and didn't want to do the overland travel, so instead our party of six jumped out of the spelljammer at 33,000 feet, five of us used a feather fall, and our Minotaur barbarian survived the fall using relentless endurance, and finished his short rest before we landed to have 65 hp when we got there.
So to answer your question, no: he has never gone down.
lol!
I like the idea of a moon druid giant barbarian multiclass. Just imagining a guy turning into a grizzly charging at someone while growing in size and having Raiden eyes or flaming eyes (and maybe claws)
I love this subclass! I paired it with Sharpshooter and Thrown Arms Master (Tal'Dorei Reborn) to get truly impressive range out of thrown weapons. As far as I can tell, it makes Giant the only ranged barbarian out there, which means it's an automatic A+ in my book.
You might be majorly undervaluing the idea of battlefield control and throwing enemies around to disadvantagous positions
33:18 our barbarian constantly goes unconcous. We are a large party so we regular fight stuff that should be wayy past our level, like fighting a glitch at lvl 6.
HI!
thanks for another awesome video!
Just a quick question as i can't wrap my head around this hole:
(sorry in advance, but not having bold option i used caps lock just to emphasize, not to "shout", so please forgive me)
ENLARGE /REDUCE explicitly states that equipment changes size and CONSEQUENTLY weapons do +/-1d4 damage and armor still fits you.
BUT
GIANT STATURE gives +5 reach, go to large size "ALONG ANYTHING YOU ARE WEARING" so armor still fits you perfectly.. but WHY then weapons shouldn't increase in size/damage? because holding them in hand is not wearing?
so in this case, backpack and armor resize, but potions inside the backpack don't.. and now good luck using them with your huge hands @14th level.
my take, excluding getting weapons double die numbers (as DMM says for large monsters etc...):
could it be similar to what happened in old 3rd edition? if you get a weapon one size larger, increase the die one step, so 1d10->1d12, 1d4->1d6 and so on...
this way, the damage increase is on average only +1 per attack, which is less than ENLARGE that gives +2.5 (+1d4), WAY less than DMM large monstrous weapons, but still something "tangible"..
or at the very least, WITHOUT homebrewing new things:
a longsword is versatile 1d8/1d10.
but if you become large, your halberd heavy-reach-two handed IF IT DOESN/T GROW.. it could work as the versatile longsword..
so 1d10 in one hand, 1d12 in two hands, because it's not growing in size/weight, BUT YOU ARE!
any thoughts?
Hey Cody. Got the build for you!
May I introduce you to:
THE YEETUS DELETUS
race: bugbear
+2 str +1 con
type: humanoid (goblinoid)
size: Medium
speed: 30
dark vision 60ft
Fey ancestry: adv vs charmed
long limbed: +5ft reach
powerful build
sneaky: stealth profiencie
surprise attack: +2d6
languages: common +1
point buy:
str 17 (+2)
dex 14
con 16 (+1)
int 6
wis 13
cha 7
back ground: giant foundling
feat: strike of the giants
(cloud) prof/LR
DC 8 + prof + str (or con)
prof: intimidation + survival
languages: giant +1
classes:
barbarian giant 14
fighter battlemaster 4
cleric tempest 2
feats: 4
1 guile of the cloud giant
2 sharpshooter
3 piercer
4 +2asi
(or gwm for melee)
***can melee pike 30ft
***can throw 90ft & ignore cover
levels:
1 barbarian 1- rage
2 barbarian 2- reckless
3 barbarian 3- path of giants feature 1
4 barbarian 4- F1 guile of the cloud giant (+1 str)
5 barbarian 5- extra attack
6 barbarian 6- path of giants feature 2
7 fighter 1- style (quick toss)
8 fighter 2- action surge
9 fighter 3- battlemaster 1
10 fighter 4- F2 sharpshooter
11 cleric 1- tempest 1
12 cleric 2- channel divinity
13 barbarian 7- feral + pounce
14 barbarian 8- F3 piercer
15 barbarian 9- brutal crit +1
16 barbarian 10- path of giants feature 3
17 barbarian 11- relentless rage
18 barbarian 12- F4 ASI
19 barbarian 13- brutal crit +2
20 barbarian 14- path of giant feature 4
initive:
feral (advantage) + ambush (d8)
Nova:
BA rage + pounce
action toss x2
action surge toss x2
damage:
----------------------
throw norm- (all thunder damage)
3d10+2d6+2d6+1d4+3+5+10
pike-cleaver-suprise-cloud-rage-str-SS
(makes invisible for advantage)
throw !!crit!! (all thunder damage)
6d10+4d6+4d6+2d8+1d10+2d10+3+5+10=172 (destructive wrath)
pike-cleaver-suprise-menacing-piercer-brutal-rage-str-SS.
sustained:
2 attack throw + BA quick toss with 5d8 & 1d6 battlemaster dice
items to shoot for:
1 ascendant dragon wrath pike (thunder)
2 cloak of invisibility
3 boots of haste
*potion of giants strength
*storm girdle (alternative)
item effects:
double movement speed
+2 ac
+3 to attack and damage
all throws made with advantage
throws on nova go to 6 from 4
normal throw +3d6
crit throw +6d6
potion: +4 to hit and damage
sage: (weapon damage for size)
Double the weapon dice if the creature is Large, triple the weapon dice if it's Huge, and quadruple the weapon dice if it's Gargantuan. For example, a Huge giant wielding an appropriately sized greataxe deals 3d12 slashing damage (plus its Strength bonus), instead of the normal 1d12.
Giant barbarian can throw heavy crossbows which is a ranged weapon thus qualifying for sharpshooter...
Colby, there’s a question after my story for you, promise 😂
Just started a campaign from level one, and plan to go path of the giant. My party is a GO1 warlock, GloomStlkr rogue, and an eloquence bard, so I’m obviously the fitter and the meat shield. MY DM IS LETTING ME USE RECKLESS ATTACK WITH THROWN WEAPONS! I went with Minotaur for flavor and the push ability from horns to possibly gain a 5 foot push and avoid OA. Rolled incredible stats: Str18+2>Dex18>Con17+1>Wis13>Chr12>Int10 I do have the Giant Foundling background, but we imposed a 3rd level kick in because we both agreed it’s potentially over powered at low levels due to my stats. My question is: What feat should I take at 4 and 8? Besides PAM and GWM? Feels like bumping stats is virtually unnecessary unless it’s a half feats. Giant feats are allowed, especially since I have the foundling background. Slasher would make my great axe reduce them to 0 movement with the possibility to knock them 5 ft back with my horns, leaving them out of range on average, and having zero movement. Also, in my position, would you stick with barbarian for the full campaign? It’s LVL 1-12. I want 2 levels of fighter, but barb 7-10 are pretty enticing thanks to my stats…though I’d lose my lvl 12 ASI/3rd feat (if you recommend I take fighter levels, what fighting style would you suggest?)
Goliath Barbarian Path of the Giant 14/Fighter 3(unarmed fighting)
Punch for 3d8 +str bonus + elemental cleaver
Oversized weapon rules are awesome.
Thanks Colby, love your D&D builds! ❤
Doesn't size increase, increase your weapon damage by one die. Your barb goes from medium to large. So greatsword is now 3d6. Plus 1d6 from elemental damage. For my build i took 4 levels of rune knight and the strike of giants feat (stone). That adds another 1d6 force damage +10ft knock back. I took fire rune and stone rune. I could burn a use of firey shackles. Thats an extra 2d6 fire and target is now restrained for remainder of attacks..... Thats 8d6+5+10+3...throw a flaming greatsword on the build and now its 10d6+5(str)+10(GWM)+3(rage)...avg 48dam first attack plus some battlefield maneuverability and control.
Throw tavern brawler in the mix. Then say you drop the first guy, throw weapon at another target with action surge, 4d6+10+5+5.
Damage, better berserker then berserker, ranged damage, little bit of battle field control... Sounds fun to me
Absolutely the next character I will play at the table 💪
Sorry I’m late! Great video!
Couple questions for you (if you don’t mind, or can post links to where I can find the answers):
Why stop before level 20 for the build? Nothing wrong with that, of course! I’m just a fan of going all the way to 20 with builds, personally.
When it comes to Enlarge Person, does that confer a damage increase? I think BG3 gives +1d4? How much better is that? Sorry, I’m new, I assume you normally only consider what 1 character can do for these.
Third, just for fun: If you play a Dragonborn and get to the largest size category doing this, how much fun could you have at the table, basically being a raging Dragon Elemental? Especially if you have Fire Breath and Lightning Damage, letting you just do some visually terrifying things. Or, is that just not mechanically viable enough to explore, do you think?
Thanks so much! Think I’ll go watch a few more of these!
Im building one that looks like this:
Human Variant (grab polearm master)
3lvl barb giant
X Fighter Rune knight (grab Sentinel and GWP)
-> for fighting style i've taken Tunnel Fight from U.A. so i can have infinite Attacks of Opportunnity.
Don't stop complaining. Embrace your inner barbarian. Rage. Give in to your anger.😅
If the Bob Ross of DND is complaining about a class, then WotC should make a change.
Rune knight can get to huge (so gargantuan with the spell) but not till level 18 (ugh). Regardless, Amazing build! I hadn't considered the implications of Elemental Cleaver...yikes! 😮
About what you talk in 15:30 for me the Rune knight is a better grappler, both subclasses get large/huge and get advantage on athletic checks, but with a fighter you get more attacks and that means more chances to do grapple+shove and also get more feats so it's easier to get skill expert, tavern brawler or other useful feats for grappling.
I Think Rune knight being better at grapple+shove and with all the runes it is better at controlling the battlefield and protecting the party, but the Giant barbarian is much better on damage output.
Anyway, I would love to see a party with a Rune knight and a path of the giant barbarian, I think it would be totally hilarious having 2 giant dudes ripping enemies apart.
Goliath Giant Barbarian/Rune Knight multi-class. Grappling dragons or a Terrasque sounds like a hoot.
Anyone take the giant foundling background? Flavor plus a damage boost with the free feat.
Sorry for the late post but I am slowly trying to recreate my AL characters using OneD&D and am now working on my Giant Barbarian. Reckless now works with all attacks rolls. (Pending release)
If you take it up to 20, take 6 levels of champion fighter. Get more ASI's so you can take Ember of the Fire Giant instead of a strength ASI and then pick up Slasher as well to get STR up to 20. With your last ASI at fighter 6, pick up Savage Attacker to reroll any damage dice you don't like again?
I was hoping this subclass would unlock BG3 style enemy throwing. It doesn't, not quite. Sad.
I really enjoy these videos a lot. I've become a consistent waycher, sometimes watching a video multiple times.
But, I hope the extra sound effects don't become a thing. I found them jarring and unpleasant.
Otherwise, this rocked! I really want to do this with a lox!!
The mention of potential fighter subclasses for when you take a 3rd level there in this build made me think of samurai….
Then I realized not only would that be flavorful if you want to be an Oni giant barbarian, you’d be able to get advantage on three thrown weapon attacks per rest, which helps elevate some of that issue. (Plus temp hp to be even tankier)
Now that there is third party stuff on dnd beyond, you could use the thrown weapon master feat from Taldorei Reborn and make this an excellent thrown weapon build
Typical inconsistent WOTG Zealot 1d6 once per turn, same with Rune Knight, Giant barbarian 1d6 every time, I'm for scaling the other two to match but do they even look at what they've done before?
This build made me sad. Every cool thing about this subclass is poor strategy to actually use. I swear when they balance martial classes they forget that PAM/GWM exists.
With all the extra dice on crit, i wish this subclass got a crit at 19 or 20 to make that happen more WITHOUT needing to multiclass for it.
I just wrapped a campaign using this class. Guile of the Cloud Giant saved my bacon many, many times. Also I got to drop an iron golem off a cliff with Mighty Impel.
I am currently playing a bear totem barbarin9/rune knight fighter10 and I have died once since in the beginning to a kobold who used fireball. I have gone down a total of 3 times and two were when I was level 10 and getting jumped by like 5 slaads. Currently, I have a total HP of 300 and rarely get below 80 HP. Call it Dm favoritism of sheer bulk but I feel like the Barbarian lvl 11 features is not worth it.
Maybe I'm reading brutal critical wrong, but doesn't it only give you a single extra die on a crit and not rolling all the weapons damage dice one additional time?
Brutal critical states: "Beginning at 9th level, you can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee attack." (PHB pg 46)
Like if you're using a greatsword (2d6 damage) and score crit without brutal critical, it would be 4d6 rolled, but with it, it would be 5d6 rolled would it not? So by the same logic, if you crit with a weapon that does multiple types of dice (like d10+d6 in this example) you would choose one of the dice to roll one additional time (making the damage 3d10+2d6 cause why would you choose to roll the d6 when you can get another d10?) Am I missing something here? I haven't read the new subclass so is there something in there that indicates it also gains the full extra die from brutal critical?
Great episode again! The thing i think you may have forgotten is that the 30ft up in the air is just a measurement of the height/distance a thrown person would travel if thrown straight up. It is the force distance you would throw them. Throwing that same person into a brick wall would still do the 3D6 because that is the force at which you can throw that person/monster. The distance thrown is the calculation of force applied from your STR stat and thus throwing into a wall does the same damage out our D&D table! THX
I have been looking into how best to build the thrown weapon barbarian. Just found Treantmonk mentioned that the Dueler and thrown weapon fighting styles stack. Hadn't realised this before but apparently Crawford confirmed it.
I wonder if this could be used to good effect with say, a battle axe in a fighter/ giant barbarian build.
Also.. My beloved Barbarian actually died!
Go bugbear. Get that 25 foot melee range with a polearm. PAM+GWM+Sentinel. You are now absolutely shutting down any attempt by the enemy to get past you. Especially if you can find a place that forces the enemy inside your range.
I'm annoyed with this subclass.
It feels like they looked at Rune knight and thought: let's do this but for barbarian.
And in doing so partially tarnished Rune Knight.
And they also messed up the abilities!! They should have focused on abilities to do with reach and grappling and done that right!
OR focused on abilities to do with throwing (so forced movement) and done that right!
😡😡😡
This might be the angriest we've ever seen Colby get. Given it's a Barbarian it feels on point!
Love hearing your thoughts on the game design elements of the game!
Doesn't throwing a hand crossbow make it numerically good when you take crossbow expert and sharpshooter?
Just had a moment of disappointment when checking Mage Slayer- "within 5ft", not within reach.
Actually Im playing a 16 Giant 4 Rune knight (Group wanted to do a short campaign as level 20 characters) The rune knight isnt that redundant in terms of role pay as it adds a ton more out of combat things that giant bar was lacking. The Rune Knights giant form while weaker, its perfect for out of combat interactions and great way to inject more giantiness for roleplaying.
My girlfriend is playing a Gnome giant barbarian and I, as the DM absolutely allow her to attack recklessly with her throwing greathammer 🤣 it's just more fun, and honestly just feels like an oversight from Wizards that she wouldn't be able to
My current Barbarian is a Goblin going Path of the Giant, just because I like the idea of a 4 foot tall Goblin, becoming taller than an Ogre (he's a Giant Foundling, adopted by Stone Giants and thus grew up tallet and brawnier than most Goblins)
Colby, you throw them 30' from you, if you are huge 20', you can throw them 50' straight up.