In Dungeons and Dragons, there are many ways to customize and optimize one’s character. One of the ways to do this is by choosing feats, which imbue characters with certain abilities and skills depending on the feat chosen. For instance, some can increase a character’s ability scores while others can grant magical abilities to even non-casting classes. By their nature, different feats can be better suited to certain character builds over others.
When selecting feats to benefit class builds, it’s important to choose feats that benefit that class’ usual role and purpose in a party’s dynamic. For a barbarian’s typical role, the best feats add to their skill in combat and their ability to take hits without going down.
10 Savage Attacker Can Increase Damage
The Savage Attacker feat allows players to re-roll the damage dice on a melee attack and choose from either total once per turn. Since it is specific to melee attacks, this feat is an excellent choice for barbarians, who choose melee over ranged weapons more often than not. The drawback of this feat, however, is that it only enables a straight re-roll, as opposed to re-rolling the lowest dice specifically. With the feat as it is currently written, the re-rolled damage could end up being a smaller amount than the previous roll. While the player could then opt for the original amount of damage that they had rolled, this then leaves the re-roll having been an unhelpful use of a feat.
9 Martial Adept Opens Up Strategic Options
When a player selects the Martial Adept feat, it allows their character to learn two of the maneuvers listed in the Battle Master archetype for the fighter class and provides them with one superiority die to fuel those maneuvers. These maneuvers use superiority dice to empower their attacks and instill them with various abilities, making the barbarian in question an even more capable warrior than before.
An example of the maneuvers players can choose from is Menacing Attack, which not only adds the superiority die to the damage roll but also requires the target of the attack to make a Wisdom saving throw and, if they fail, they become frightened of their attacker until the end of their next turn.
8 Fighting Initiate Gives Bonuses Based On Fighting Style
Similar to the Martial Adept feat, Fighting Initiate allows a player to grant their character aspects from the fighter class. This feat provides a character with one of the fighting styles that fighters acquire at first level. Options like Great Weapon Fighting and Two-Weapon Fighting can be great enhancements to a barbarian’s prowess on the battlefield, while Unarmed Fighting and Blind Fighting can provide advantages in circumstances that would usually limit a barbarian’s efficacy.
7 Crusher Is Great For Bludgeoning Weapons
The Crusher feat has several effects: players can increase their character’s Strength or Constitution by one, to a maximum of 20. Additionally, once per turn, any bludgeoning attack that hits can also move the target five feet away to any unoccupied space finally, any critical hits that do bludgeoning damage also provide advantage on attacks against the target until the start of the player’s next turn. For any barbarian with a bludgeoning weapon, such as a hammer, mace, or maul, this feat offers strategic options in a fight.
6 Charger Increases Turn Efficiency
After using the Dash action, barbarians with the Charger feat can use their bonus action to either make a melee attack or shove one creature. Additionally, if the movement prior to use of this bonus action was at least ten feet, they can either add five to the attack’s damage roll, or push the target up to ten feet away with the shove. With this feat, a barbarian can attack those who would normally be too far out of their range without having to wait for their turn to come around again after using the Dash action.
5 Tough Keeps Characters Standing
The Tough feat provides characters with two extra hit points per level. While this may not seem like a lot of hit points to add, it can add up to a significant amount over time.
With a barbarian’s usual build centering around dealing out and enduring damage, those extra points can mean the difference between landing a finishing blow or making death saving throws.
4 Sentinel Enhances Attacks Of Opportunity
As a feat, Sentinel has three effects: successfully hitting a target with an attack of opportunity renders their movement to zero for the rest of their turn, enemies provoke attacks of opportunity even when using the Disengage action, and the holder of the feat can use a reaction to attempt a melee attack on any creature within five feet that attacks an ally. With barbarians being a primarily damage-dealing class, assuring that those they are fighting cannot escape provides a significant advantage in combat encounters.
3 Great Weapon Master Increases Weapon Efficiency
When a character becomes a Great Weapon Master with this feat, not only do they earn an extra attack as a bonus action after any critical hits, but they can also choose to take a -5 on an attack roll to increase damage by +10 if the attack hits. Increased attacks and increased damage are a barbarian’s bread and butter, making this feat doubly effective for their build. While the second ability can only be used with a heavy weapon that the character is proficient with, barbarians often reach for heavy weapons. Even if they aren’t using a heavy weapon at all times, an extra attack with each critical hit is a definite benefit.
2 Durable Helps Tank Damage
Even better than the Tough feat, the Durable feat assists with both a character’s base hit points and their healing. Durable adds a +1 to the character’s Constitution stat and assures that when a character uses their hit dice to heal, they gain back at least twice their Constitution modifier in hit points.
Both of these augmentations increase access to hit points, and the second one allows for healing that doesn’t impact any player’s spell slots or item inventory, helping the barbarian to take more damage more often.
1 Alert Lets Players Hit First
When taking the Alert feat, players give their characters several advantages. the first of these is that they have an automatic +5 to initiative rolls, helping them to jump into the action as quickly as possible. The others are that they cannot be surprised and that enemies do not gain advantage on attack rolls against them due to being unseen. When a character is built to do lots of damage and outlast intense encounters, as barbarians generally are, taking away opponents’ advantages such as early initiative placement or surprise rounds makes the character more powerful than ever.
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