Talk:Bar-bear-ian: Wildshape+Rage (5e Optimized Character Build)

While you say any race will do, I'd like to argue the ghost wise halfling as the best option. You get a WIS bonus, which is perfect, and you can use telepathy while wildshaped. Now, you've overcome the worst part about being in bear form.

Rerolling 1's is amazing, at least with my luck! 😜

Edit History

Background

Anonedit1: You could also go for City Watch here from SCAG. It gives you Insight & Athletics, both useful, and 2 languages, also very useful, making your language total an impressive 5. This is more suited to the town & city heavy campaigns though as the background feature is useless in the wild.

GsgComment: It also allows for role playing of a great forest defender.

Leveling

AnonEdit:If you realy want to power build this max out wisdom to 20 and take one monk lvl, as wisdom mod carries over from your characters stats so you gain a +5 to ac from monks unarmored defence. In addition to this you will be able to make a bonus action attack, because all requirements for monks martial art feat are met. And last as soon as you get the multiattack feat from lvl 5 Barbarian switch to Dire Wolf --> slightly more hitpoints, AC is 14 or 10+DEX+WIS witch is 17 with 20 wisdom; deal 2d6+3+Ragebonus for each attack + DC 13 Knockdown; get advantage from flanking enemies.

AnonEdit2: Worth noting about the Martial Arts class feature and Wildshape is, that while a beast can definitely perform unarmed strikes, the actual attack listed in a creatures statblock are nearly always considered natural weapons. Using a natural weapon for your attack will not qualify for the bonus unarmed strike granted by Martial Arts. If you're using unarmored strike in your beast form, the damage die will still be tied to your Martial Arts die gained by your levels in monk. With one level, that will a be 1d4, and upgrade to a d6 by level 5.

This is thus a correction of the first AnonEdit.

AnonEdit3: AnonEdit1 is correct about the bears attacks meeting the martial art feat requirements as the Brown Bear's attacks are actually listed as Melee Weapon Attacks, therefore, they qualify for the extra attacks. But this one could be ruled either way, so you might want to speak with your DM about. Currently RAW though Monks Martial Arts feat does combine with the bears attacks.

AnonEdit4: AnonEdit1 is also wrong about the bonus to AC from monk. When calculating armor, you must select one calculation. Unarmored defense from barbarian and monk do not stack you must choose between adding you constitution or your wisdom.

AnonEdit5: AnonEdit4 didn't read well, AnonEdit1 didn't say those two stacked. Just that you could pump your wisdom, as it it your spellcasting ability and use that to your CA instead of con if it's higher by getting the monk level dip. Which can be a good thing since your physical stats change when you Wild Shape.

AnonEdit6: You can take the Shifter Race to be even more bearlike.

AnonComment: This doesn't feel very sustainable as you're limited to the bear's HP (34) which eventually, even with damage reduction, will pretty much just be a 1 shot kill. At which point do you have to start taking more Druid levels and pick a different creature to make this work at higher levels?

GsgComment: There is some benefit to start off as Barbarian 1, Dru-1, Dru-2, Barbarian-2+. This gives you the benefit of having the max hp at 1st level coming from Barbarian vs Druid.

Also, in response to AnonComment above about limited sustainability, this build is really playable from 5-10, but only requires lvl 5 to finish. This means that you have another 15 lvls to get to 20 to build other options, like more lvls of druid (for better wild shapes), or pretty much any other class as well (Barb/Dru/Pally/Rogue) all work equally well for builds.

Action Economy

Whoever added this combo guide, thank you!

Best Wildshapes

Deleted Crag Cat, it's a monstrosity, not a beast, so without a permissive DM/homebrew you can't Wild Shape into it.

Its Barbearian

Race- Highly recommend Forest Gnome. Just because the only physical stat you need is dex to get the initiation. Plus free minor illusion is a god send.

Stats- you need a 13 in str and a 13 in wis to multiclass into druid/barbarian. Otherwise you need some dex to have good initiation and the rest should just be wis, int, and cha. Probably prioritizing wis cause spells. Though spells aren't too huge in this build.

leveling up- Start barbarian. The extra health and better proficiencies are very worth. Next 2 levels into druid to get moon druid. next get to barbarian up to level 3 or 4. (get 4 if you want the stats earlier). Next get druid to level 6. You get the best bear in the game (cave bear) and extra spells to have infinite health. From there you have 3 options.

bar 14/ druid 6- Totem 3 bear makes you an excellent tank. Just realize that once you get level 5 in barbarian you'll likely be going SaberTooth tiger instead of any bears. Cause the bear's multiattack doesn't work with extra attack. And Sabertooth is just better in every other way.

bar 4/ druid 16- Max usage of stats. Get more animals that aren't bears... aw

bar 5/ druid 15- terrible for stats but now you get extra attack and fast movement along with huge beasts like the giant Crocodile

bar 3/ druid 17- get that 9th level spell if you like

Other animals to look at Dire wolf- knocks people prone Giant Hyena- Eats small hordes alive (rampage) War horse- if ya gotta go fast

With Rage+ bonus health from 2 transformations+ massive self healing that can be done during rage= Have fun never dying!

You might have been thinking "Badgerbarian"...

Pardon my noobishness, but according to the Druid class page, at 2nd Druid level you can only choose a Beast Shape that has Max CR of 1/4. Looking at the 5e SRD:Miscellaneous Creatures, we can see that the mentioned Brown Bear is CR 1 which would require 8 Druid levels. Looking through all of the 0, 1/8, and 1/4 CR creatures, the Giant Badger was the only creature I saw that has multiattack (I might have missed others, but you get my point).

This leads to my next question: if you are only putting 2 levels into the Druid Class, and therefore not unlocking any stronger creatures, won't this leave your beast form woefully underpowered when you reach higher levels? Unless I am misunderstanding, the bear/badger doesn't level up with your overall level, nor does it gain additional hp. So while early on (i.e. level 3 after you have acquired the Barbarian Rage) this will be a nice "onioning" effect as the OP called it, wouldn't it become more of a weak shield that only causes a slight annoyance to enemies? I'm picturing a PC whose total level is in the teens and might now have 100HP turn into a badger with 13HP...

Moon druid.--Blackbando (talk) 21:37, 24 February 2017 (MST)

Ah yes. So that explains being able to become a bear, but I'm still curious about my second point: does the bear level with your character or stay stagnant? On the 5e SRD:Brown_Bear page it says 34(4d10+12) Hit Points and with multiattack doing 1d8+4 and 2d6+4 would be amazing at lower levels, but I'm still unsure of whether or not it gains additional HP as your character levels. Would your bear form be permanently locked in at 34 HP, or would it grow stronger as you do?

It stays at the 34 HP, and does not level up. However, depending on the DM, you should be allowed for your Rage damage to level up, and considering you have resistance to weapon damage, that can (depending on the foe) make your hit points essentially 68. However, you must remember this; You don't automatically hit 0 in your humanoid form after your Wild Shape does. You're essentially adding 34 (or 68 if you're using both uses of Wild Shape) temporary hit points. --Blackbando (talk) 18:22, 26 February 2017 (MST)

Note

In regards to the mama bear variant about their spells. You can get any spell that you have spell slots for, not from that class but in total. So you can get 7th level spells, you’re not limited to 5th and 2nd level spells for your paladin and Druid spells.

New variant concept

Here is a crazy combo that can be done and that is with the Dwarven Fortitude feat. This feat lets you use one Hit Dice to heal when you dodge and when you Wild Shape, you get the onioning effect with Hit Dice just like with Hit Points. Add in Monk’s patient defence to dodge as a bonus action and you can heal even more while having disadvantage on attacks against you and still attack. Also if you have like a minute break between two fights you can just spam dodge to fully heal and since you’re just using the animals Hit Dice you can do this each Wild Shape and also in your natural form. Plus Monk’s Ki recharges on a short rest so you do that and you get more emergency dodge and heal. Plus if you pick the way of the sanctuary, you get healing hands which is like an extra 10HP per monk level and when you’re finally close to being dead or losing a wild shape you cast sanctuary to give yourself a breather. You end up being a tanky mother f*cker.