Unfortunately, I am a "Min Maxer."

[Fabezo]

Hey folks, like the title suggests, I'm a bit of a min-maxer, and it's hard for me to enjoy the game when I know I could have made better choices, haha! I'm not too fond of this aspect of myself, but that's just how it goes.

With that in mind, I'm curious about the ideal race combination for a barbarian. I plan to stick with the barbarian class throughout my entire playthrough, so any advice on optimizing the race selection would be much appreciated! Cheers!

[TheNasky]

Shield dwarf

[Bastila Shan]

Just be thankful youre not a save scummer who cant enjoy the game without reloading every dice roll for success

[sevensided]

half orc. extra damage on crit.

or wood elf for extra movement range.

Otherwise- whatever. All races get +2/+1 to whatever.

[badvillain666]

🙄 another Stat Monger. You know you can re spec at any time? And again I ask what's the point? Other than ENTITLEMENT 😂

[stalker57]

Half Orc could be good you have the racial feature where I believe once per long rest if you hit 0 hit points it will instead drop to 1 since you will be right in peoples faces.

[badvillain666]

Originally posted by Bastila Shan:

Just be thankful youre not a save scummer who cant enjoy the game without reloading every dice roll for success

You know I hate that word save scumming. There is nothing wrong with the loading a save especially if you don't want to replay the entire game just to see a different outcome. However I agree you should let the chips fall and leave it at that.

[Fabezo]

Originally posted by badvillain666:

🙄 another Stat Monger. You know you can re spec at any time? And again I ask what's the point? Other than ENTITLEMENT 😂

Haha, the countless years of progress raiding in MMOs have left their mark on me! 😄 I've even attempted to play games without min-maxing, but I quickly realized that it just doesn't bring me the same level of enjoyment.

[cyberpunk]

i can totally understand how you feel about min maxing, but just consider you might possibly make the game too easy! I always tell myself the same excuse when I make a wrong decision "i purposely handicapped myself because I'm too OP"

[Zoid13]

use BG3 as a platform to get over your min maxing illness and just play :P

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by abcdefgh:

Originally posted by badvillain666:

🙄 another Stat Monger. You know you can re spec at any time? And again I ask what's the point? Other than ENTITLEMENT 😂

Haha, the countless years of progress raiding in MMOs have left their mark on me! 😄 I've even attempted to play games without min-maxing, but I quickly realized that it just doesn't bring me the same level of enjoyment.

They can't seem to understand that fun can be had multiple ways I know crazy right! Lol

[Kyutaru]

Be a Wood Elf so you can get extra movement speed. It's a LOT of extra movement speed and as a melee class you want to spend as little time as possible Dashing around instead of attacking.

[zhihong0321]

1. Mod the Party Size to 6
2. Create Specialized Character.
3. Just enjoy the game.
4. You gonna replay this few round.
5. There is a Respec option
6. There will be multi-classing

There is no point of min-maxing. Honestly.
And this game is not design to be "hard"

[Marcos_DS]

The traits that help most for combat for barbarians (imo)
* extra speed (Wood Elf, Halfelf) to get into melee
* extra crit damage (Half-Orc)
* reroll your 1s (Halfling)

[Fabezo]

Originally posted by sevensided:

half orc. extra damage on crit.

or wood elf for extra movement range.

Otherwise- whatever. All races get +2/+1 to whatever.

Absolutely loving the idea of extra DMG on crit! I think I'll opt for the Half-Orc for my first playthrough. From what I gather, stat-wise, the race choice doesn't make a significant difference since the stats are pretty much on par across the board, right?

[Dragon Master]

Half-Orc is the 100% best race in the game for any martial, hands down. The half-orc makes the absolute best barbarian because every single one of their racial traits is not only usable by the barbarian class but will be optimal.

They get dark vision (can see in the dark) so you won't need to unequip a heavy weapon to hold a torch or have a caster waste a spell to light things up. When a half-orc gets a critical hit they not only roll double the damage they also add an additional damage die based on the weapon you are using so effectively their critical hits get criticals.

Barbarians while raging take half-damage from most attacks and they are the class with the highest hit points so they already are very tanky and can deal massive damage. A half-orc also gets the ability to just stay standing if they get knocked down to 0 hp because once per long rest a half-orc just goes "no, I"m still standing" and has 1 hp instead.

When putting points in stats, your two strongest attributes will be strength and constitution, with dexterity being your third highest.

You can wear medium armor if you want to as a barbarian so if that's your plan then you won't need Dexterity higher than 14 (as that is the limit that medium armor allows to aid with armor class). As a barbarian you won't have to though because if you wear no armor you can add your dexterity and constitution modifiers together.

The modifier is +1 for ever even number above 10, with a maximum of +5 at 20 (unless a magic item or spell increases it higher than that). So a barbarian with 16 dex and 18 constitution will have 17 AC. Most medium armor gives you 13+dex, often to a max of 15 unless it is magical armor. 14 dex and 18 Con would be 16 AC, and therefore better than having nonmagical medium armor, but if you find magical medium armor that fits the barbarian then that would likely be better than not having armor.

It gives you options on how to build yourself.

As for weapon, I'd go greatsword or greataxe and great weapon master as a fighting style. A greataxe does 1d12 damage (1 twelve sided dice is rolled to determine damage) + your strength modifier. A greatsword does 2d6 (2 six sided dice) + strength modifier. You'll have an equal chance of rolling high damage with the axe as you will have low damage while the sword will do more reliable damage with the two dice adding together so less chances of getting high but also less chances of getting low damage.

Great Weapon Master as a fighting style means you can choose to take -5 on your chances to hit in exchange for +10 to the damage when you hit, and barbarians can attack recklessly, which lets them attack with advantage so they will often hit even with the penalty to accuracy.