The Natural Weapon – Barbarian/Fighter/Monk Build Guide

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Why Natural Weapon?

Quick Level Up Guide

Questions About Multiclassing?

What’s The Game Plan Of The Natural Weapon?

Important Notes For The Build

Level One Build

Species: Goliath (Hill Giant)

Attributes:

	POINT BUY
STRENGTH	15 (+1 background) = 16
DEXTERITY	13
CONSTITUTION	15 (+1 background) = 16
INTELLIGENCE	8
WISDOM	12 (+1 background) = 13
CHARISMA	8

Class: Barbarian

Class Features: Rage, Unarmored Defense

Skill Proficiencies: Athletics and Perception

Background: Farmer (Tough)

Starting Equipment: Scimitar, Short Sword, 10 Javelins, Explorer’s Pack, and 10gp + 50gp from background

Species: Goliath (Hill Giant)

For any martial character, it’s hard to justify not going for Goliath as the Hill Giant topple is so incredibly good to get advantage on attacks. There are other solid options for species as well like Human for an additional origin feat or Aasimar as they are just generally strong, but Goliath is generally going to be my choice.

Attributes

	POINT BUY
STRENGTH	15 (+1 background) = 16
DEXTERITY	13
CONSTITUTION	15 (+1 background) = 16
INTELLIGENCE	8
WISDOM	12 (+1 background) = 13
CHARISMA	8

This stat distribution is definitely a bit of a mess, but for this build, this is probably the best you’re going to get.

Proficiencies – Athletics and Perception

The classic proficiency choices for Barbarians.

Background – Farmer

This is the only background that gives you Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom, but thankfully this is a great choice normally as well.

Starting Equipment – Greataxe, 10 Javelins, Explorer’s Pack, and 15gp + 50gp from background

This is going to be a dual wielding Barbarian/Rogue so you’re going to be needing some Finesse weapons!

Starting Class – Barbarian

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. So for level 1, your AC will be 15 which is solid, but nothing special.

Weapon Masteries are the new feature coming in One D&D that gives you a weapon’s mastery property when you select it. I would pick Greataxe and Javelin initially, but you should change them as you find new weapons.

The Build Level 2 Onward

Level 2-5

Level 2

Class: 2 Barbarian

Class Features: Danger Sense, Reckless Attack

Equipment: Try to pick up some Medium Armor at this point or sometime soon, Scale Mail being your cheapest option.

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.

While Reckless Attack is definitely still a bit of a risk, once you get access to Sneak Attack, this will be a common offensive tool when you can’t get advantage any other way (which is unlikely to happen) to ensure your damage remains consistent. Until then, this will be a high risk/high reward offensive option for you to use when needed.

Level 3

Class: 3 Barbarian (Beast)

Class Features: Form of the Beast, Primal Knowledge (Intimidation)

Now that you get your subclass, you get a new subclass ability to work with as well as a base class ability.

You get a pretty unique feature with Form of the Beast which gives you a new attack option every time you Rage.

Bite is an alright attack option that gets you a smidge of healing, but is likely the weakest of the options as the healing is pretty pitiful, even at lower levels.

Claws is what you’re going to be using most of the time as it’s functionally the best base one handed weapon in the game with a second free attack once per turn, but of course, these don’t scale so they’ll be harder to use in later levels (but as your Martial Arts die increases, these will as well as they are natural weapons).

The Tail is the final choice that’s a solid reach weapon that can make solid use of your reaction to give a little bit more AC for an attack. This ability is decent early, but does get worse as levels progress where more attacks are common or in fights with a lot of smaller enemies. That said, once you stop using your Claws when you presumably find a better weapon, this will likely be your main choice.

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.

Level 4

Class: 4 Barbarian

Feat: Strength to 18

You get your first feat, and since your Strength is an even ability score, you need to take a flat ASI to get it to 18! As a Strength based build, you want this to get to 20 as soon as possible!

Level 5

Class: 5 Barbarian

Class Features: Extra Attack, Fast Movement

Extra Attack literally doubles your potential damage and is the best feature that any martial class could pick up.

Fast Movement is a nice movement boost to help you navigate the battlefield, something martial characters would always be happy to have.

Both are obviously awesome.

Level 6-10

Level 6

Class: 5 Barbarian 1 Monk

Class Feature: Unarmored Defense, Martial Arts

For Monk you get two abilities to work with immediately – Unarmored Defense and Martial Arts.

Unarmored Defense is simple, if you’re not wearing armor your AC is 10 + DEX + WIS which will give you a reasonable AC to work with (for this build of course, just worse than the Barbarian’s Unarmored Defense).

Martial Arts is the classic feature of Monks that are really multiple abilities in one. First, you get to use Dexterity instead of Strength for unarmed attacks. Second, your unarmed strikes or monk weapon get to deal an inherent d6 of damage that will scale up as you gain levels. Finally, when you attack with a monk weapon or unarmed strike, you can use your bonus action to make an unarmed strike. Overall an excellent feature that lets Monks deal solid damage.

Now that you have a level in Monk, you actually get four attacks now as you get two attacks from your Claws, one additional attack with your Claw/Martial Arts, and a bonus action attack with your martial arts. This is obviously great, especially with the Rage damage bonus applying to each hit!

Level 7

Class: 5 Barbarian 2 Monk

Class Features: Monk’s Focus, Unarmored Movement, Uncanny Metabolism

2 levels for Monk brings not one, not two, but three new features!

Monk’s Focus is yet another standout ability of the monk which is extremely similar to the fifth edition, Ki, but with a few updated features. First off you get Flurry of Blows which means you can make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action if you spend a Focus point. Second, you get Patient Defense which lets you Dodge as a bonus action, but if you spend a Focus point, you can Dodge and Disengage as the same bonus action. Finally, you get Step of the Wind which means you can Dash as a bonus action, or if you spend a focus point, Dash and Disengage as the same bonus action. Overall, these abilities are very good, and although they are somewhat limited by your Focus points, they are pretty powerful.

Your next ability is Unarmored Movement which gives you an additional 10 feet of movement speed if you aren’t wearing armor or a shield. Definitely a great ability that combines with your Barbarian unarmored movement to help you weave in and out of combat.

Finally, you get Uncanny Metabolism which, once a day, lets you refresh your Focus points and gain some health when you enter a combat. This is a very strong ability and much needed for Monks to not feel like they are useless after the first fight or two.

Level 8

Class: 5 Barbarian 3 Monk (Shadow)

Class Features: Shadow Arts, Deflect Attacks

3 levels in Monk brings your subclass, Warrior of Shadow, with a new subclass feature as well as a new Monk feature.

You get Shadow Arts to start out with that gives you a bit of magic, Minor Illusion and Darkness to be precise. Furthermore, the Darkness you cast you can see into which is an extremely powerful feature as your attacks will have advantage where all opposing attacks will have disadvantage, an extremely potent ability at level 3 all the way to level 20, especially with your AC being somewhat low!

Your classic Monk feature, Deflect Attacks, is much more exciting by comparison. You can trade your reaction to reduce the damage dealt to you by an attack by 1d10 + DEX + your Monk level which will be really high impact in the earlier levels. Then if you reduce this damage to 0, you can spend a Focus point to redirect the attack which is both a great and super thematic ability. Definitely one of the Monks better features as well as a really good use of your reaction.

Level 9

Class: 5 Barbarian 4 Monk

Feat: Strength to 20

Class Features: None

You want 20 Strength, so you can just pump your Strength straight to 20 with this feat!

Level 10

Class: 5 Barbarian 5 Monk

Class Features: Extra Attack, Stunning Strike, Martial Arts Die to 1d8

Unfortunately, getting Extra Attack again does nothing for this class as you already have it but what can you do?

Second, you gain access to the redesigned Stunning Strike! This iteration of Stunning Strike only gives you one attempt per turn to stun them until the beginning of your next turn, but now even if they pass their save, they lose a bunch of speed and your next attack is at advantage! This is still quite a strong ability and getting value out of it no matter what is really nice.

Level 11-15

Level 11

Class: 5 Barbarian 6 Monk

Class Features: Shadow Step, Empowered Strikes, +15 feet Unarmored Movement

6 levels in Monk brings your next subclass ability and your next base class ability!

Shadow Step gives you a solid teleportation option when you’re in dim light or darkness giving you a lot of maneuverability options which is always very welcome on martial characters who may not have the best movement (although Monks already have the best movement out of all the martial classes).

Empowered Strikes is a simple ability to let you ignore all damage resistances with your unarmed strikes which is definitely nice!

Level 12

Class: 5 Barbarian 7 Monk

Class Features: Evasion

This level you get just one feature with Evasion!

Evasion is a really solid ability that makes any effects that forces Dexterity based saving throws way worse against you as you naturally mitigate half of their effect and potentially the whole effect if you pass the save. This combines really well with the Barbarian’s Danger Sense to make it much easier to pass DEX saves!

Level 13

Class: 5 Barbarian 8 Monk

Feat: Constitution to 18

Now that your Strength is maxed out, you can start working on your Constitution as well! This will give you additional health, but also a better unarmored AC which is really important for this build.

Level 14

Class: 5 Barbarian 9 Monk

Class Features: Unarmored Movement Improvement

Now you can pretend you’re in the Matrix by running up walls and running across water on your turn. This is excellent for travel, less needed for combat, super cool regardless.

Level 15

Class: 5 Barbarian 10 Monk

Class Features: Heightened Focus, Self Restoration, +20 feet Unarmored Movement

You get one and a half abilities with this level – Heightened Focus and Self Restoration.

Heightened Focus is the half ability as it’s not an ability itself, but upgrades to your base Focus abilities. First, your Flurry of Blows now go up to 3 unarmed attacks which is awesome, your Patient Defense gives you temporary health to help you stay alive even better, and Step of the Wind lets you bring an ally along with you. All great upgrades and very welcome.

Your second ability is Self Restoration which is similar to the old Timeless Body ability from 5e, but also lets you end charmed, frightened, and the poisoned condition on yourself which makes failing those saving throws way less crippling.

Level 16-20

Level 16

Class: 5 Barbarian 11 Monk

Class Features: Improved Shadow Step, Martial Arts Die to 1d10

You get your penultimate subclass ability – Improved Shadow Step.

Shadow Step was already good, but now you don’t even need dim light or darkness to use it and you get a free unarmed strike right after you use it! While the free unarmed strike is nice, that does heavily incentivize you to teleport next to an enemy which you may want to do anyway, but that’s definitely not something you always want to do. That said, this does make Shadow Step the ultimate pursuit ability if you’re far from the enemy you’re trying to bonk.

Level 17

Class: 5 Barbarian 1 Fighter 11 Monk

Class Features: Fighting Style (Blind Fighting), Second Wind, Weapon Mastery

Fighters get three abilities to start off with in Fighting Style, Second Wind, and Weapon Mastery.

You get to pick your Fighting Style and unfortunately most of them don’t do anything for this build. You could pick Unarmed Fighting, but just getting an additional 1d4 against a grappled opponent, but that kind of sucks. To that end, I like Blind Fighting as that may come up a non-negligible amount of the time.

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 which is probably not going to be particularly relevant for you.

Level 18

Class: 5 Barbarian 2 Fighter 11 Monk

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, getting an additional action almost always means a whole new slew of attacks, especially for a build that specializes in attacking a bunch.

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 19

Class: 5 Barbarian 2 Fighter 12 Monk

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: 5 Barbarian 3 (Rune Knight) Fighter 12 Monk

Class Features: Bonus Proficiencies, Rune Carver (Fire, Stone), Giant Might

You now have to ascertain where you get the most power for your level, and funny enough, I believe it’s in Fighter to get a subclass. While no subclass is going to be super high impact at this level, I think the one that offers the most for this build is the Rune Knight Fighter.

With that, the Rune Knight gets three abilities immediately with Bonus Proficiencies, Rune Carver, and Giant’s Might.

Bonus Proficiencies are mostly flavor here as you get proficiency with smith’s tools (not bad with the new crafting system) and you’re fluent in Giant.

Rune Carver is the real reason anyone picks this class. You are able to imbue runes onto your equipment that grant passive effects on top of having a strong activated abilities that you get every short or long rest. While nearly all the runes are really strong, you do only get two to start with and you should pick the best ones in Fire and Stone.

The Fire Rune’s passive effect isn’t that great (double your PB when doing checks with a tool), but the activated is really strong. When you hit an enemy, you can invoke the rune to get bonus damage, potentially restrain them, and they take additional damage each round if they are restrained. This is a really powerful effect for any enemy you need to lock down, whether it’s to prevent them from escaping, keeping them in a CC area, or otherwise.

The Stone Rune has a much stronger passive ability with you having permanent advantage on Insight checks and 120 feet of Darkvision. The activated ability is even stronger than the Fire Rune as you can use your reaction to put an enemy within 30 feet of you into a stupor. While they get a lot of checks to escape it, this is functionally a free chance for strong CC making this excellent for tougher fights where you need to split enemies up.

Your final ability is Giant Might, which as a Bonus Action, gives you a few abilities: you grow to the Large size, you have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, and one attack each turn deals an additional 1d6. In 2014, this meant that grappling was a more appealing option, but since it’s been changed to a flat DC for your target, this ability is substantially worse and is really only useful for the excess damage.

Level	Class Features/Feat	Notes
1 – 1 Barbarian	Rage, Unarmored Defense, Weapon Mastery	Rages Per Day: 2 Rage Damage Bonus: +2
2 – 2 Barbarian	Danger Sense, Reckless Attack	Rages Per Day: 2 Rage Damage Bonus: +2
3 – 3 Barbarian (Beast)	Form of the Beast Primal Knowledge – Intimidation	Rages Per Day: 3 Rage Damage Bonus: +2
4 – 4 Barbarian	Feat: Strength to 18	Rages Per Day: 3 Rage Damage Bonus: +2
5 – 5 Barbarian	Extra Attack, Fast Movement	Rages Per Day: 3 Rage Damage Bonus: +2 (This is the final amount of Rages and Rage Damage Bonus you’re getting)
6 – 5 Barbarian 1 Monk	Martial Arts Unarmored Defense	Martial Arts Die 1d6 1 Ki Point
7 – 5 Barbarian 2 Monk	Monk’s Focus Unarmored Movement Uncanny Metabolism	2 Ki Points
8 – 5 Barbarian 3 Monk (Shadow)	Shadow Arts Deflect Attacks	3 Ki Points
9 – 5 Barbarian 4 Monk	Feat: Strength to 20 Slow Fall	4 Ki Points
10 – 5 Barbarian 5 Monk	Extra Attack Stunning Strike	Martial Arts Die to 1d8 5 Ki Points
11 – 5 Barbarian 6 Monk	Shadow Step Empowered Strikes	6 Ki Points +15 feet Unarmored Movement
12 – 5 Barbarian 7 Monk	Evasion	7 Ki Points
13 – 5 Barbarian 8 Monk	Feat: Constitution to 18	8 Ki Points
14 – 5 Barbarian 9 Monk	Unarmored Movement Improvement	9 Ki Points
15 – 5 Barbarian 10 Monk	Heightened Focus Self Restoration	10 Ki Points 20 feet Unarmored Movement-
16 -5 Barbarian 11 Monk	Improved Shadow Step	Martial Arts Die to 1d10 11 Ki Points
17 – 5 Barbarian 1 Fighter 11 Monk	Fighting Style (Blind Fighting), Second Wind, Weapon Mastery	–
18 – 5 Barbarian 2 Fighter 11 Monk	Action Surge, Tactical Mind	–
19 -5 Barbarian 2 Fighter 12 Monk	Epic Boon: Boon of Combat Prowess	–
20 – 5 Barbarian 3 Fighter (Rune Knight) 15 Monk	Bonus Proficiencies Rune Carver (Fire Rune, Stone Rune) Giant’s Might	–