The Hurlcules – Barbarian/Fighter Multiclass Build Guide
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For all D&D guides on Nat1gaming, they only use the main sourcebooks (Player’s Handbook, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything) as well as Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos (mostly for Silvery Barbs) as those tend to be the most commonly used books at tables. Always be sure that if you’re following a guide that you’re adhering to your tables rules about what sourcebooks you are allowed to follow.
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For the purposes of this guide, it will be assumed that you would not be multiclassing. While multiclassing can be excellent for many of these, this is for those who want to play the build all the way through in the same class. Guides that use multiclassing will be separate from these.
For spellcasters, you may notice substantial overlap between the spell lists of builds with the same base class. This is due to each guide utilizing a generically good spell list and not considering extenuating factors that will influence how you particularly sculpt your spell list. When creating your own spell list, you should take into account the campaign setting, what spells any other party members are capable of casting, potential overlap (ritual spells tend to overlap so it’s rare you need multiple people capable of casting them), or potential shortcomings in the parties total spell list. While this guide can definitely help point you in the right direction for crafting a spell list, you should use your judgement and preferences to figure out what spells make the most sense for your character.
To that end, please refer to the Spell List and Spell Tier list for any substitutions you’d want to make to the build.
Why Hurlcules?
If you want to play a ranged character, you would functionally always have to play with some sort of bow or as a Warlock using Eldritch Blast. However, this is a very unique twist to the ranged attacker as you get to throw weapons at enemies! Depending on how your DM interprets certain rules/runes their games (more on this at level 8 so check that out), this can be a very strong ranged build that can somewhat rival the damage of the 5e Sharpshooter builds.
Quick Level Up Guide
| Level | Class Features/Feat |
| 1 – 1 Fighter | Fighting Style (Thrown Weapon Fighting), Second Wind, Weapon Mastery |
| 2 – 2 Fighter | Action Surge (x1) |
| 3 – 3 Fighter (Champion) | Improved Critical Remarkable Athlete |
| 4 – 4 Fighter | Feat: Dual Wielder (STR) |
| 5 – 5 Fighter | Extra Attack, Tactical Shift |
| 6 – 1 Barbarian 5 Fighter | Rage, Unarmored Defense, Weapon Mastery |
| 7 – 2 Barbarian 5 Fighter | Danger Sense, Reckless Attack |
| 8 – 3 Barbarian (Giant) 5 Fighter | Giant’s Power, Giant’s Havoc Primal Knowledge – Intimidation |
| 9 – 3 Barbarian 6 Fighter | Feat: Piercer (STR) |
| 10 – 3 Barbarian 7 Fighter | Additional Fighting Style (Two Weapon Fighting) |
| 11 – 3 Barbarian 8 Fighter | Feat: Mage Slayer (STR) |
| 12 – 3 Barbarian 9 Fighter | Indomitable (x1), Tactical Master |
| 13 – 3 Barbarian 10 Fighter | Heroic Warrior |
| 14 – 3 Barbarian 11 Fighter | Extra Attack (x2) |
| 15 – 3 Barbarian 12 Fighter | Feat: Resilient (WIS) |
| 16 – 3 Barbarian 13 Fighter | Indomitable (x2), Studied Attacks |
| 17 – 3 Barbarian 14 Fighter | Feat: Constitution to 18 |
| 18 – 3 Barbarian 15 Fighter | Superior Critical |
| 19 – 4 Barbarian 15 Fighter | Epic Boon: Boon of Combat Prowess (STR) |
| 20 – 4 Barbarian 16 Fighter | Epic Boon: Boon of Irresistible Offense (STR) |
Questions About Multiclassing?
Not every inherent interaction here is going to be mentioned in the guide, so check out the multiclassing guide to help answer any additional questions you may have!
What’s The Game Plan Of The Hurlcules?
While there are some complications with the build itself you might run into (read more about it at level 8), the game plan is super simple. Rage, than toss weapons at your enemies until they stop moving. Easy, clean, and can be extremely effective depending on your DM!
Important Notes For The Build
- If your DM allows you to use oversized weapons, remember you will have disadvantage attacking with them if you are regular sized but you’ll be back at neutral if you are large yourself. That said, if you really want to maximize your damage, you can try to get sets of Medium, Large, and Huge weapons (to throw when you’re large) for extra damage. Disadvantage can be brutal, but it’s not as bad statistically as many players believe.
- Remember to functionally always use Reckless Attack as you’ll have advantage while your opponents will likely not even have the chance to touch you! You should be using it nearly every turn.
Level One Build
Species: Goliath (Hill Giant)
Attributes:
| POINT BUY | |
| STRENGTH | 15 (+2 background) = 17 |
| DEXTERITY | 10 |
| CONSTITUTION | 15 (+1 background) = 16 |
| INTELLIGENCE | 8 |
| WISDOM | 14 |
| CHARISMA | 8 |
Class: Fighter
Class Features: Fighting Style, Second Wind, Weapon Mastery
Skill Proficiencies: Insight and Perception
Background: Farmer (Tough)
Starting Equipment: Warhammer, 20 Javelins, Chain Mail, Shield, Dungeoneer’s Pack, and 33 gp + 50 gp from background
Species: Goliath (Fire Giant)
While I would normally go Hill Giant if I’m picking Goliath, Fire Giant does work well if you’re going for a “crit fishing” build to get additional damage.
Attributes
| POINT BUY | |
| STRENGTH | 15 (+2 background) = 17 |
| DEXTERITY | 10 |
| CONSTITUTION | 15 (+1 background) = 16 |
| INTELLIGENCE | 8 |
| WISDOM | 14 |
| CHARISMA | 8 |
This is the standard stat distribution for Strength based Fighters as you have maxed out Strength and Constitution, good Wisdom for saving throws, and 10 Dexterity for no AC penalties.
Proficiencies: Insight and Perception
Just excellent skill proficiencies for any character.
Background: Farmer
The best attributes with the best feat for martial characters that care about Strength.
Starting Equipment – Warhammer, 20 Javelins, Chain Mail, Shield, Dungeoneer’s Pack, and 33 gp + 50 gp from background
For the classic “sword and board” fighter, I would take the starting gold and buy this. Any of the one handed d8 weapons would work. but Warhammer has the Push property which is pretty potent and opens up the possibility to take the Crusher feat for even more pushing.
Class – Fighter
Rangers get three abilities to start off with in Fighting Style, Second Wind, and Weapon Mastery.
Your Fighting Style is an easy choice as you’re going for a thrown weapons build, so you have to pick Thrown Weapon Fighting! Adding +2 damage per hit helps make your thrown weapons that much scarier!
Second Wind is a cool feature where, for a bonus action, you can heal yourself a bit. This is obviously great for tough fights when you are running low on health and this not only scales with level, but also gets additional features later on.
Weapon Mastery gives you the Mastery property of three weapons, and I would recommend the Warhammer, Javelin, and any weapon of your choice. While you will get more and more weapon masteries as you level up, you will realistically only ever need a few to make your build work.
The Build Level 2 Onward
Level 2-5
Level 2
Class: 2 Fighter
Class Features: Action Surge, Tactical Mind
Level 2 brings two new features with Action Surge and Tactical Mind.
The Fighter is one of the most popular multiclass options in D&D, and Action Surge is a huge reason why. While you can only use this once every short or long rest (twice at 17), getting an additional action almost always means a whole new slew of attacks. Even at level 2, this is a powerful ability, but once you get multiple Extra Attacks, this becomes an extremely powerful feature that can dole out an obscene amount of damage. In a pinch, this can be used for other actions such as Dash as well which adds to the power and utility of this ability.
Tactical Mind is a neat new feature that allows you to use a Second Wind charge to reroll a failed ability check with a bit of a bonus. While this won’t come up too often, this is a nice feature to have for particularly important ability checks.
Level 3
Class: 3 Fighter (Champion)
Class Features: Improved Critical, Remarkable Athlete
Level 3 brings your subclass, and for this guide, it’s Champion. Champion brings two abilities to the table immediately with Improved Critical and Remarkable Athlete!
Improved Critical increases your critical range from just 20 to 19-20. While this may not seem particularly impactful, this does literally double your critical hit chance and incentives you to make as many attacks as you possibly can (preferably from advantage), hence why this build is going with Two Weapon Fighting. As you get more attacks, this is going to get more and more dangerous for your enemies!
Remarkable Athlete gives you advantage on Athletics checks (boo) and advantage on Initiative rolls! Obviously advantage on Initiative is really strong, and mathematically, advantage gives you a +4 to rolls
Level 4
Class: 4 Fighter
Feat: Dual Wielder (STR)
Class Features: None
Level 4 brings your first feat, and you definitely want to get to 18 Strength so you may as well grab a feat first. Since you’re going to be using throwing multiple weapons, you have to pick up the Dual Wielder feat! In short, between this and the Nick property, you can now get three attacks a turn with your action and bonus action and each Extra Attack you pick up is just more weapons thrown the enemies way.
Level 5
Class: 5 Fighter
Class Features: Extra Attack, Tactical Shift
Easily the most exciting feature for martial characters, level 5 brings your Extra Attack! Being able to double your damage output is obviously really strong, but since you’re a Fighter, you’ll eventually get even more attacks on top of this!
Level 5 also brings a new feature with Tactical Shift. Now when you use Second Wind, you can move up to half your speed without provoking an opportunity attack. A heal, disengage, and extra movement? Sign me up!
Level 6-10
Level 6
Class: Barbarian 1 Fighter 5
Class Features: Rage, Unarmored Defense, Weapon Mastery
Barbarians come with three inherent features that is emblematic of Barbarians in general – Rage, Unarmored Defense, and Weapon Mastery.
Rage is a bonus action activated ability that gives you a big boon in combat a few times a day (that will incrementally climb as you level up). While Raging, you have advantage on all Strength checks and saving throws, you gain bonuses to your Weapon damage, and you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. You can maintain this powerful state for 10 minutes as long as you keep attacking, force an enemy to make a saving throw, or you use your bonus action to actively maintain it. You start with 2 Rage charges per day, but once per day after a short rest, you get one charge back which is a nice change from 5e. An absolutely excellent ability overall.
Unarmored Defense is easy, your AC is 10 + CON modifier + DEX modifier which is irrelevant for this build except if you happen to be fighting without your armor (which can happen in overnight encounters, so not completely irrelevant).
Weapon Masteries are the new feature coming in One D&D that gives you a weapon’s mastery property when you select it. Obviously you aren’t hurting for more mastery properties at this point so you can pick whatever.
Level 7
Class: 2 Barbarian 5 Fighter
Class Features: Danger Sense, Reckless Attack
Now you have access to Danger Sense and Reckless Attack!
It’s hard to know how often Danger Sense will come into play, but it is an excellent class feature as traps can be very dangerous in lower levels.
Reckless Attack is generally a bit of a risky proposition because, while you get advantage on all attacks, all enemies also have advantage against you. However, as a ranged attacker, this is nearly a free and extremely powerful feature as it’s really easy to stay out of enemies range and just rain Javelins from the heavens.
Level 8
Class: 3 Barbarian (Giant) 5 Fighter
Class Features: Giant’s Power, Giant’s Havoc, Primal Knowledge
Now that you get your subclass, you get two new subclass abilities to work with as well as a base class ability.
Giant’s Power, while a cool name, is functionally just flavor. It doesn’t matter which spell you pick here and the odds of this coming up often are extremely unlikely.
Giant’s Havoc, on the other hand, is the whole reason we bother going Barbarian as this ability has two really important halves (that does require some DM interpretation).
So in 5e, you only got the Rage damage bonus on melee attacks, but in One D&D, it’s any Strength based weapon attack. Since Giant’s Havoc lets you add your Rage damage bonus, it is unclear on how this interacts with new Rage. I will admit that the intended rule was to probably let you get Rage damage and these wouldn’t stack. However, rules as written, I do believe that these would stack as there really isn’t a reason why these wouldn’t be able to work together and it’s how I would rule it at my table (even with this interpretation, this is far from broken).
The second half of the ability is that you grow one size larger to Large (presuming you aren’t already Large) along with anything that you are wearing. While only the most charitable interpretations of this would let you grow your weapon as well (I don’t believe this is the case), you could hypothetically get “oversized” throwing weapons to use when you are raging that will deal double the damage on hit (so an oversized Light Hammer would deal 2d4 instead of 1d4 per the DMG on oversized weapons).
If your DM doesn’t agree with letting you use oversized weapons, you still have the first half of the ability to make this a worthwhile subclass choice. If your DM disagrees with both though, then there’s definitely no reason to go Giant Barbarian and you should instead opt for Berserker or Zealot which will both still be great options for this build, just less good. However, if your DM lets both halves of this ability shine, you will have a really powerful build on your hands as hitting with just one thrown weapon (let’s say a Javelin), would be 2d6 (oversized) + 2 (Thrown Weapon Fighting) + 4 (Rage and Crushing Throw) + 4 (STR) + a potential 1d10 from Fire Giant. All in all, that’s an average of 22.5 damage on one hit which is definitely solid for a ranged build.
For your base class feature, Primal Knowledge gives you more proficiencies from the base Barbarian class, and this is a solid time to pick up Intimidation, but it’s really up to you what you want at this point.
As a final note, you should be looking to use a Javelin in your main hand and a Light Hammer in your off hand as the Light Hammer has the Nick property giving you a functional free attack with it.
Level 9
Class: 3 Barbarian 6 Fighter
Class Features: None
Feat: Piercer (STR)
Since the Javelin is going to be your primary weapon, making the damage on them a bit better and a bonus when you nab a critical hit is definitely nice.
Level 10
Class: 3 Barbarian 7 Fighter
Class Features: Additional Fighting Style (Two Weapon Fighting)
7 levels in Fighter brings a new subclass ability which is simply an Additional Fighting Style, which in this case, is Two Weapon Fighting! Now all of your throws, whether it’s your main hand or off hand, will get the Strength damage bonus which is obviously huge for your overall damage.
Level 11-15
Level 11
Class: 3 Barbarian 8 Fighter
Class Features: None
Feat: Mage Slayer (STR)
You get yet another feat this level, and you can finally get 20 STR with Mage Slayer. Being able to really mess with casters is nice as a martial character, and getting a functional charge of Legendary Resistance? Incredible! A really strong feat that I have most of my martial characters taking.
Level 12
Class: 3 Barbarian 9 Fighter
Class Feature: Indomitable (x1), Tactical Master
9 levels in Fighter brings a new base feature – Indomitable! You can reroll a saving throw that you fail and add your Fighter level on top of it which is extremely powerful. As you climb in levels, this will almost be like a player’s version of Legendary Resistance which is super cool.
Tactical Master is a new ability lets you replace a weapon mastery property when you attack with Push, Sap, or Slow. This is yet another great feature as you may not always want the mastery property on the weapon you happen to be using, so having options is always welcome.
Level 13
Class: 3 Barbarian 10 Fighter
Class Features: Heroic Warrior
Now every turn you can gain a charge of Heroic Inspiration if you don’t have it! This gives you one bout of advantage every turn of combat. That is really powerful and should be used very liberally.
Level 14
Class: 3 Barbarian 11 Fighter
Class Features: Extra Attack (x2)
You finally get another Extra Attack which is obviously incredibly good.
Level 15
Class: 3 Barbarian 12 Fighter
Feat: Resilient (WIS)
Class Features: None
Wisdom saving throws can be brutal, so getting proficiency in them is a huge step to not blowing through your Indomitable and Mage Slayer charges quickly!
Level 16-20
Level 16
Class: 3 Barbarian 13 Fighter
Class Feature: Indomitable (x2), Studied Attacks
13 levels in Fighter brings another charge of Indomitable and a powerful new feature, Studied Attack!
Studied Attack is a super cool feature that, if you miss with one of your attacks against one enemy, you have advantage on your next attack against that same target! Anything that helps you connect with your enemy is always exciting!
Level 17
Class: 3 Barbarian 14 Fighter
Feat: Constitution to 18
Class Features: None
You get another feat and it’s time to start buffing your Constitution! More health and better saving throws is always a good investment.
Level 18
Class: 3 Barbarian 15 Fighter
Class Features: Superior Critical
15 levels in Fighter brings your next subclass feature which is another improvement to your critical hit range! Getting a critical hit on 15% of all attack rolls is really strong, especially when you’re going to see a lot of attack rolls with this class.
Level 19
Class: 4 Barbarian 15 Fighter
Epic Boon: Boon of Combat Prowess (STR)
Class Features: None
Your Epic Boon choice, as I will pick for every martial character, is the Boon of Combat Prowess. Converting a miss into a hit is functionally getting an Extra Attack, but better, and I will take an additional attack every day of the week.
Level 20
Class: 4 Barbarian 16 Fighter
Epic Boon: Boon of Irresistible Offense (STR)
For your final level up, you can pick up another Epic Boon and I like Irresistible Offense! Ignoring damage resistances is definitely nice, and if you manage to nat 20 a roll, you get an additional 22 damage for free which is always nice!
