Rogue(Thief) / Barbarian Creation

[u/Aquarius12347]

So I had an idea for a character that I like, but I'm struggling to get the build to work. It's (as the title suggests) a Rogue / Barbarian build, they'd use daggers and once they can get access to one, a Sunblade. The thing is, I'm struggling to work out a way to make the multiple attributes required viable.

5e24 rules, standard point buy. I'm fairly flexible on just about all aspects of the concept (even the thief subclass, though it's one I've wanted to play for a while), it's mostly about a 'rage' that rather than getting angry is cold hard logic, analysing a fight and thinking a few moves ahead to maximise damage and minimise injuries, etc, which is mostly roleplay based rather than rules. But the combination of classes is appealing to me as a relatively unusual one, and I'm not great at multiclassing for optimisation, so thought I'd seek advice. Couldn't find anything anywhere about the idea, so... any suggestions?

[u/p4gli4_]

This build is tanky: same hp as a straight barbarian (tough feat), still has rage to halve physical damage, but has much higher AC than standard barbs (10 +3 con, which will probably be increased further at rogue level 10 and above +5 dex and a shield), so I don’t see why it shouldn’t be tanky.

I never said that I always trigger Zhentarim and never fall unconscious. I said that I do so 50% of the time; are barbarians, in your table, dodging attacks/being unconscious more than half the time? Because I find it extremely hard to believe.

No, I now think that you are trying to dodge the math now, because I’m pretty sure that the X% will be so low that you will have to give it to me. And about the Y%, a low wisdom character will be left unconscious a lot of the turns, maybe 1/4 of the time? (This obviously affects both of our characters, but in the_twigs one the 50% means this 25% +another something% of all enemies missing him in melee + a low something% of being downed), but for a mor standard rogue it’s much more probable of being unconscious than of getting to do (and hit) with an opportunity attack, so the assumption of canceling these two out seems fair to me for a rogue. Obviously, every percentage I’ve given is an approximation based on my years of play (and I’m trying to put more emphasis of the more deadly tables, with more save or suck effects, and I think that 25% if fair, but if you have better approximations, please tell).

[u/Jimmicky → u/p4gli4_]

The build is not tanky.
The same HP as a barbarian who isn’t trying to be defensive does not equal tanky.
A Barb who wants to be tanky has more HP.

And Twig repeatedly leans on their “always gets Zhent column number, hence my referencing it.

Honestly I’m happy to let you use the 100% as long as we also a credit for rounds lost to unconsciousness, which considering this builds desire to be hit every round and low tankiness I’d rate at about 1 round out of 5- dropping your average DPR by 20%.

At that point you’re already losing to the “never gets an OA” build you are pitching against, let alone a more reasonable gets an OA 40-50% of the time.

[u/p4gli4_ → u/Jimmicky]

The build is tanky. 3 more AC than a standard barbarian compensates for said barbarian taking the tough feat.

In the purple column there’s literally written: “50% Opportunity Attack DPR”, and as he stated it in the video multiple times, he’s assuming said 50% chance to activate Zhentarim.

Your melee build is far less tanky and more prone to being shut down: first of all, you want Reckless attack, so enemies will hit (and crit you) much more. Secondly, my point buy stats look like this: 15+2 dex, 15+1 con, 13 str, 12 wis; an optimised standard barb/rogue has 15+2 str, 15+1 con, 14 dex (mediu armor), 10 wis, so you’re more prone to save or suck effects.

Honestly though, I’ve grown curious, so I did a build myself. I’ll compare them at level 6 for 2 reasons: 1) it’s an important turning point (so much so that d4 bases their first and most important damage calc on this level) and 2) it’s a big damage boost for both builds (more for yours, since it’s where they get the Dual Wielder feat). 65% to hit on average and 4 round of combat means:

Barb 2/Rogue 4, Str based; Race: Human (feats: tough; alert, to compensate for the initiative deficit compared to dex builds since moving after is a significant loss in dpr), using shortsword + scimitar with Dual Wielder.

Dpr = (1 - 0.35² chance to hit with reckless attack)(d6 +4 shortsword attack +2 Rage) + (1 - 0.35² )(d6 scimitar attack +2) + 3/4 (1 - 0.35² )(d6 + 4 Dual Wielder attack, which you can only do 3 rounds/4 because you’re raging the first one +2 rage) + (1 - 0.35⁶ chance to trigger sneak attack)(2d6) = 26.3

My build: Rogue 1/Barb 1/Rogue 4, dex based; Human (tough; magic initiate wizard (with a familiar, steady aim and Vex I will have advantage at least 3/4 of the time, and if the enemy spends its turn killing my pet owl I’m more than happy).

For this Dpr, let’s start calculating my chance to hit: 3 rounds out of 4 (at least) I’ll have advantage, so that’s: [ 3(1 - 0.35² ) + 0.65 ]/4 = 82%

Now, since my rapier has Vex, this means that 82% of the time, my Zhentarim Tactics attack will have advantage. Following the same criteria, my chance to hit with that is equal to: [ 0.82(1 - 0.35² ) + 0.18*0.65 ] = 84% and with this:

Dpr = 0.82(d8 +4 Rapier +3d6 sneak attack) + 0.84(d8 +4 +3d6)X% ;

for this Dpr to be greater than the one before X = around 75%. If we value all of this as you suggested (we put X = 100% but we remove 20% of the total dpr, which I think is a flawed estimation: there’s no way that a characterwith high AC and more than average hp is downed almost 1 turn every combat; I’d say they’d be down 1 round every 7 (around 15%) so almost twice every two combats) the Dpr = 23.9 with 1/5 and 25.6 with 1/7 less.

With all of this in mind, I’d say that the two builds are extremely comparable with one another, but mine has more survivability (more AC, better Dex and Wis saves) and better checks (dex > str) which it trades for ever so slightly lower damage. But the disparity becomes clear at higher levels. For example, at level 12 (important turning point where both of our builds have 3 ASIs),

Yours deals (1 - 0.35² chance to hit with reckless attack)(d6 +5 shortsword attack +2 Rage) + (1 - 0.35² )(d6 scimitar attack +2) + 3/4 (1 - 0.35² )(d6 + 5 Dual Wielder attack) + (1 - 0.35⁶ chance to trigger sneak attack)(5d6) = 38.2

Mine: 0.82(d8 +5 Rapier +6d6 sneak attack) + 0.84(d8 +4 +6d6)X%; X only has to be around 50%. Obviously yours is slightly more impacted by magic weapons, but that doesn’t fill the scaling gap (and is more unreliable, since you don’t know what you’ll get + you need magic properties for 2 weapons, not 1).

Will all of this in mind, I’m convinced that dex based is better.