Whirling Dervish Character Build Guide- bit.ly/2RtYFQU Join the Nerdarchy Adventuring Party Patreon: www.patreon.com/Nerdarchy Nerdarchy's favorite places to shop for D&D goodies (Affiliate Links)- Amazon- amzn.to/2jf0boA Nerdarchy the Store- goo.gl/M4YZEQ Drive Thru RPG- goo.gl/6nf5zh Easy Roller Dice- goo.gl/1n0M1r 1x Coupon Code for 20% Off: New2DnD

The opening skits have been gradually improving since you first introduced them. Keep doing what you love!

"WHAT IF WE DID BOTH!?" The best

This NPC can just be used as a guide, very easily. He speaks your language, looks like you but dresses like the natives and has a really deep tan. He is willing to guide you through the territory but is very protective of the people.

I'd like to point out that the "job" of an anthropologist (or ethnologer) is not to spread their own culture. Quite the opposite, they usually take great pains to not do that. The word literally means "the study of humans" (anthropology) or "the study of ethnicities/cultures" (ethnology). They go out and study, document and try to understand. Many take pride in "going native." One of my brother's friends and fellow ethnology students went to the steppes of Kyrgyzstan and lived in a tent and rode a horse every day and learned to live like a local woman while studying the importance of horses in the culture today. While my brother was in Bishkek (the capital) observing how post-soviet, post-nomadic Kyrgyzstan works. They learned the local languages, ate local food, lived and travelled and worked like the locals. This is the work of an anthropologist. What you are thinking of is a missionary or a colonist gone native. They do set out to spread their own culture. Just wanted to clear that up, my brother would be very disappointed in me if I didn't.

Listening to your descriptions of the theme, the name "Red Mist" came to mind.

I clicked on this one out of curiosity, as I had a great dervish in 3.5 - a cross between Nasir from "Robin of Sherwood" and of course, the world famous character he inspired, Drizzt. At the start of your build, I scoffed. But as it went on, I saw some interesting possibilities. By the end, I was at my laptop on D&D Beyond specing out my own version of this build and, let me tell you, it looks fantastic. Thanks for the inspiration for a great build I would not have thought up on my own!

Reeeaaally liked this concept ! Gonna try it in the next adventure !

I love this idea! I play for honor religiously and you made the shaman! I love it

this is beautiful, i love when you guys theory craft characters. character creation is probably my favorite part of the game. keep going

Have tried this before and couldnt get it blend well, great job guys and now you can yell sneak attack

I like to think of rage as being potentially similar to "the void" from the Wheel of Time series.

Triple class threat! I like this. Being able to use your imagination and come up with a concept to play whatever style of character and class combination is awesome. I have so many ideas but this is definitely a new and amazing idea to me. Also thirteenth warrior is a top ten movie for me lol.

Thanks for this. I hav been pondering at various points how I might build this kind of "sword-dancing" character and this gives a solid framework for a future game.

Crazy timing, I was just throwing together the idea of a dervish character using college of swords bard

Historically, people rarely used double rapiers because they're very uncomfortable to use. They used rapier and dagger.

Hello and thanks for the good video. I made a tabaxi wolf totem barbarian 5/swashbuckler 4 with alert and sentinel feats plus sentinel shield(adv.initiative). Character's name is Cottontop of temple Querlan AKA Fluff. Fluff has been trying to restore the artifacts of the temple of Querlan for last 15 years. This duty has ran in his family for generations. Expertise to athletics and intimidation. This build works really well IMHO. Fancy footwork, rogues bonus action dash and tabaxi's feline agility makes you zip around the battlefield without provoking opportunity attacks. Amazing grappler/proner as well. And you will basically always hit :) Tabaxi just makes this multiclass make sense in my opinion :)

Been playing around with a character idea for a LONG time. Could never decide how I wanted to split it. But I knew Barbarian, Rogue, and scimitars would be involved. And now I've found the missing link. Y'all are way better at this than me. X3. And I LOVE it

Barbarian raging with ranged weapons? I humbly submit for your consideration: the Netflix Punisher.

Im really really happy for more AL legal character builds alot of us can only play AL as we dont have home groups thanks!!

great video guys :)

I have just yesterday started playing a Roman-like Gladiator themes character who is 5lvls Barb and 1lvl Rogue, I made him to be more of a grappler with the tavern brawler feat but this video really helped with some planning for the future. It is loads of fun specially cus I rarely get to play such characters. As a background I picked Gladiator ofc and as my exotic special weapon i chose a spike shield and re-flavored it to be a combination of a shortsword and a shield only without the finess property to it. I cant wait for the other barbarian ( storm ) in the group to challenge me to a brawl only to realize that i have a +11 to Athletics xD

You guys brought up scout, just remember for skirmisher (I somehow missed this when i made one) the enemy has to END HIS TURN within 5 feet of you before you can use your reaction to move away. I thought if they just moved up next to you that you can do it, but doesn't work that way.

I loved dervish prestige in 3.5. Also played the cheese master dervish dancer magus in pathfinder for like 2 years

From everything I've heard, the preferred weapon to accompany a rapier as a dual wielding style was the dagger. Bonus points if it is a parrying dagger.

You forgot to mark one of the scimitars in D&D Beyond as off-hand. As such, the build is missing a +1 to AC from the Dual Wielder feat and the attack listed under Bonus Actions.

I had a similar idea, inspired by Laura Kinney as she is portrayed in the movie Logan. I gave her homebrew claw gauntlets which were basically scimitars, and flavored her rage and reckless sneak attack to be the style of the character in the movie, just getting right on top of the enemy and slashing at throats and other vulnerable spots.

Barbarian Rogue, raging with twin Rapiers, and Sneak attack would really hurt on a critical hit, while making that Rogue more easily survivable.

Any chance you could put up some visuals on level by level character builds for those of us visual peoples? Thanks guys, keep up the great work!

Rogue/Barbarian is such a fun multiclass. I've been building a fun Bugbear character who I'm gonna play as an urban assassin. Zealot barb and assassin rogue pack a big punch together

I use a similar build for a Viking Marauder. Differences are: Goliath, small for a Goliath, still real big for a human so kind of huge Dane Viking flavor, with axe short sword combo. When I get there, I'm going battle master for maneuvers to really run home the rogue utility role. Greatly looking forward to the first asi (dial wielder) on my build, as I've been running an "injured" backstory and using a shield in my main hand instead of an axe. When I start making two attacks and off hand sneak attack my GM might cry.

Your back story concept reminds me of The Last Samurai kind of base.

I have never had any interest in multiclassing much, as I love the subclasses. But I want to try this

lol Duel rapier was a thing. I used to be part of a nonprifit group that would do historical lessons and choreographing for plays on renaissance sword fighting. Mainly regarding the rapier and the many options that paired with it. Honestly, I preferred rapier and dagger and had a blast sparing against the guys getting wore out with duel rapiers. Even though the blades are more narrow, they are still heavy lol.

The storm herald barbarian features let you form a dust storm around you when you rage if you choose the desert option and I think it would fit if you are going for the Arabian theme!

I WOULD LIKE TO rage *charges up and then into the shadows*

In several of your videos I’ve heard you mention that barbarians must make strength based attacks in order to maintain rage. I’m not seeing anything in the PHB or errata that mentions a requirement that attacks are strength based. Reckless attack and the rage damage bonus both require strength based attacks but the attack requirement only states that rage ends early if you haven’t attacked a hostile enemy since your last turn. In theory this attack could be anything up to and including a ranged attack unless I’m missing something.

Double rapiers I am also iffy on. A rapier and short sword combo I am more easily inclined to.

Since rage uses a bonus action to activate, and using your offhand weapon uses a bonus action you can only use 1 weapon that first turn of combat, even if you had both in your hands.

Also adding ranger to rogue barbarian can be fun or 2 levels of fighter can be nasty addition too

thumbs up for the 13th warrior reference

In D&D 3.0 I had a Halfling Rogue/Barbarian. He was epic.

Bloodbraid Elf: wood elf barbarian. Totem eagle, wolf, wolf. Mobile feat and if you can, gwm. If you find a magic d12 weapon that has finesse then maybe elven accuracy.

I'm picturing this character like one of the Spartans in the slo-mo to quick time battle scenes of 300

wow you out nerded me, sword dancing lol a trance

i know this build is for AL, but kobold press has a good dervish called a sword dancer. strait fighter. its great!.

In my mind, this trance state that replaces the rage makes the character the shaman of the barbarian tribe. It kind of has this religious theme going for it, but at the same time, it justifies the exceptional physical prowess.

Very interesting build. You might even need numbers on the screen. Numbers and stats where flying around this one like a whirling dervish...lol

I made a build similar to this but with very different flavour. :)

A half orc that just say “only dreams now” with assassin rogue 😜. Lots of extra dice

I need that hoodie in my life...

You don't need to make a melee, strength-based attack to maintain your rage, you just need to make an attack (or have taken damage). The melee attack with strength is for the damage bonus that rage grants.

the dervish was an interesting class in gw1. i never managed to make a good dervish. i did make the best possible healer build for fort aspenwood....about 2 weeks before gw2 came out and basically killed gw1.....

If you dump the Sneak Attack, you can just go Barbarian/Fighter. You get More Feats faster, more attacks from Fighter faster, and Maneuvers. Mobility would be an appropriate Feat, but I'm not sure how good it is. Even time I read Feats, it seems like they are not as good as I thought at first.

So I accidentally created one of these in a game I'm playing now the challenge was for me to create a blind swordsman. I went with human varent lvl 5 zealot barbarian and the rest will be assassin rouge had to take the alert feat to keep from getting hit to much also took mobile for great hit and run with dual short swords. Gotta say even blind he absolutely delivers. Probably one of the best characters iv gotten to play

I actually made a dervish subclass of bard and it's on Dnd beyond. College of the Dervish

Now I wanna make my Argonian warrior (Veeraza) from Skyrim. He has a beefy lizardman who dual wielded curved swords and loved getting brutal with sneak attacks. I actually based him a little bit on Conan, since he also uses stealth and cunning when it's wiser than just running and yelling "die!" from a mile away.

This sounds a lot like Conan. In the stories, he was always described as moving soundlessly like a stalking panther before lunging into battle with lightning fast attacks and whirling agility.

Level 8 character build: Race, Tabaxi. Class, 5 levels gloomstalker ranger, 3 levels swashbuckler rogue. Feat, dual wielding. 1st round of combat you have: buff to intiiative, 80ft movement and 4 attacks with additional damage from sneak attack and a +D8 from gloomstalker. Also you can move away from someone you have attacked without causing an opportunity attack EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T HIT. Puss in boots on speed!!

As much as what I love what the Rogue levels bring, I feel like they don’t bring much in the build. The Whirling Dervish is all about Mobility and a ton of attacks while Sneak Attack only applies to one. I do like Champion on this but Battlemaster has a whirling Attack Battle Manuevers. Also why didn’t you mention the Storm Barbarian for the Desert one?

Given the background you wanted to develop and the additional skills you get I would have started with Rouge. The would have fit with the academic beginning of an anthropologist and gotten all the skills. Once the character gets sucked into the culture and pick up 'barbarian' and get the weapon proficiency needed for scimitar.

Artemis Do'Urden!

Everybody forgets the 'hand axe' and a die 6 damage!

Sure some people may have fought with two rapiers at some point in history but someone has also fought with a gun/blade/shield/bullseye lantern. I can show you the picture of that as well and it's as gloriously ridiculous and steampunk looking as you'd expect but it doesn't mean it was a commonplace thing that was effective on the battlefield. Remember people just because it's a finesse weapon doesn't mean it's light, a rapier weighs about as much as a one handed sword in both 5E and real life.

ever tried the best grappler? i've been playing Rappanatuk, and i have found out the best grappler i could possibly make. The build looks like this at lv 20: 4 lvls barbarian, 4 lvls rogue, 12 lvls monk. Now keep in mind that this works superbly cuz my DM actually conceeded to our party that the monk weapons actually have finesse(cuz of the way that it's phrased in the players handbook). I went mountain dwarf for the race; starting stats i went like this: 18, 14, 14, 8, 13, 10; levels in the classes would look like this: lv 1 rogue, lv 2 barbarian, 3 to 8 monk, 9 to 11 barbarian, 12 to 14 rogue, 15 to 20 monk. For archetypes, i chose way of the shadow for the monk, since we are constantly in a dungeon it's teleporting is awesome and lets me get into melee super fast. Totem barbarian, going for that bear barbarian to get basically double HP, and thief for the rogue, so that u get extra utility with that bonus action u get with the cunning action. Keep in my too that we have an extra feat at lv 1, which makes this build faster before your extra attack, since i took tavern brawler to get that grapple check with the bonus action. Basically you take athletics with the rogue mastery and take that strength up to 20 whenever you can. So after you get your extra attack, you just go rage with the bonus action, walk up to your target and just grapple with the 1st attack. With the second attack you go shove. Now consider this: it's basically impossible for almost anyone to get away from your grapple: you will have advantage on the grapple and shove checks and, since you are a rogue, you will reach an awesome +17 in athletics. Your weapons will be your fists since you are a monk, and they will do quite a nice amount of dmg, since they can do up to 1d8+ strength mod dmg. Then you will have a lovely advantage on your target, so you will proc sneak attack on every turn of yours. So you will have that nice imobile guy that will just have to get your attacks... And your poor little target will have disadvantage against you with attacks, while you have that nice resistance to every dmg type except of psychic ... Level 20 your stats would be like this: 20 strength, 16 dexterity, 20 constitution, 8 intelligence, 13 wisdom, 10 charisma. Also you will keep a shield, so you will be grappling with a +17 and advantage, with an awesome amount of hp and a nice AC, since you will have that unarmored defence from barbarian with a shield, reaching a nice 20 AC... You will be able even to use potions with the rogue's cunning action, so you will be able to get back some hp if you have potions and you are in a pinch

I WANT THAT HOODY!!!!!!!

I think l would drop either the fighter or the rogue. In AL almost all your playing time will be T1 and T2, a character that gets really good at tenth is like winning the lottery at 60. It is great but it should would have been nice to have some of that when you could really enjoy it.

I think I would take 6 levels in fighter and 4 in barbarian. You get the extra ASI and still get extra attack.

So like Drizzt when he is the *Hunter*

This seems like a solid build but I would personally wait until later in the game to take the fighter levels, your fighting style only give you +3 damage at tier 1 and action surge doesn’t really start getting good until you have extra attack. I get that a level 4 character who can get off three attacks in a single round is impressive but seeing as action surge is a short rest ability you can only reliably do that a few times per day.

Just to point out, the background "Anthropologist" is from Tomb of Annihilation, not XGtE, so technically not AL legal as i have to EGtE purchased on DnD beyond, and cannot choose it

I don't know if you guys take requests for these, but I've always wanted to figure out how to build a "Rage-Mage" - a barbarian spellcaster who buffs up on spells before entering their rage.

First, the Scout's reaction skill happens when an enemy ends its turn within 5 feet of you, so it won't prevent it from attacking you on its turn. Second, Zealot is good, but I still prefer totem warrior for that Elk totem, +15 movement speed whilst raging bumps you up to 75 movement speed. The level 6 for totem warrior is flavor so it's kind of a dump level, so I'd recommend that level 11 of rogue to give you reliable talent (which is overpowered with this build) and an extra d6 sneak attack, which in the end makes up for the d6 you lost when you didn't pick zealot.

I did the same with my DEX Zealot barbarian i don't call it Rage but more of a cold battle focus. But he was a noble (knigth) of a small new village formed by a couple, a young disturbed male drow elf and a young female human after some years of adventuring together, the reason was a cliche Romeo and Juliet history, she was exiled from the Tribe and the same happened with the elf and they both fight to maintain it. After decades the mix of both styles created a focused frenzy, sword shield or dual wield scimitar fight "dance" style, with was teach by one the creator the elf with was the gran-gran~father of my character under the blessing of Tempus and weirdly enough Eilistraee, people always end up putting the fault of bad crops and attacks on the village on the elf for putting both under the same blessing and bring jealousy of Bashada over the village XD

Two rapiers does look goofy, but unlike every other combination of two weapons except for (the much more common and generally much more effective) rapier and dagger, it was an actual fighting style that actual people used in actual history. Dual wielding was otherwise not a real thing (a few prominent showoffs excepted). What is really goofy is that D&D requires a feat to dual wield with a rapier, the only type of dual wielding that ever saw substantial historical usage. The feat is also required to draw two weapons at once (something that requires no particular skill for, say, daggers) and to get a defensive bonus from the second weapon (the main thing the second one was used for was defense).

I came here in search of treasure, and found it, just not the one I originally was looking for. Task failed successfully? I had an idea for a "sanddervish". Has anyone of you seen Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, where the Hassansins (assassins) ride inside a whirlwind of Sand to hide their traces? Something like that. I was looking for a character idea for an earth genasi when I had the idea for a dervish type character. As of now, I think I'll go for a Sand type earth genasi with Entertainer background as bladesinger wizard wielding scimitars with the two weapon fighting feat, maybe also the warcaster feat.

Also, does Ranger still get Two Weapon Style? Wouldn't Ranger fit the anthropologist idea better?

You can use ranged weapons with steength as a barbarian and get sneak just won't get the bonus rage damage, but you still would get sneak damage and maintain your rage. This barbarian hurls darts abd daggers instead of javelins. Lol

Wouldn't the build be closer to the Dervish Idea using a Rogue Swashbuckler mixed with College of Sword and a pinch of Barbarian to get the rage and the reckless attack?

New Character build idea - Backpack spell caster The idea behind this character is to be hidden away inside another PC's backpack while utilising their familiar as eyes and ears on the battlefield. Popping out to sling spells on occasion or casting from the depth of the backpack. Ideally the caster would be a small character of minimal weight so that their larger companion won't be encumbered by them. I'd love to see you guys take on this concept for a character and see what spells, races, familiars and such you would pick to take on this task.

6 minutes in. Me : So, Drizzt... you're making Drizzt :P

I thought Skirmisher was AFTER the opponents turn. So you get hit, then you move away

Can't you get sneak attack with thrown daggers because finesse? No rage damage but still sneaky sneaky.

I have the build off of dm guild and have watched the video twice. What is the feat that you took at level 1 for the human veraint, it appears to be Mobile but the build in the document shows that was a feat taking at level 13?

Sounds a bit like you've created a DnD version of Lawerence of Arabia. :-)

A side comment on this build, but could you reconsider using the term "offhand" for the bonus action attack from two-weapon fighting? There is no primary or secondary hand, the bonus action attack just has to come from a weapon not used in one of the attacks from your Attack action. Once you have 2 attacks (Extra Attack) those can come from either hand. The bonus action attack will be from the opposite hand of *one* of those. The term "offhand" can lead to people thinking you actually have to use just the right (or left) hand for all Attack action attacks forever.

Maybe since level one he's seen his rogue buddy do more damage at level five and decided it's time to change the game

If i was to create a character with this idea in mind would i be able to use Whips (Dual-Wield)?

Dance fighting in college? If Matt Mercer is the 'world's greatest DM' then you are the world's greatest NERD!

Can you rage and blade dance at once?

Ultra Instinct

Anthropologists don't commonly share their own culture. Kind of Trekkian moral code about that. It's actually common for them to 'go native' as it were. Doesn't make much sense for the character to have a 10 intelligence, as an Anthropologist. Especially if Combat Expertise is in 5e and it requires int.

Barbarian Monk next? Punching extra hard?

Me and my friends made this but better a few months before this came out

11:03 Falchions?

Hey what skill is the skill that covers monsters? The one that let's you know what that thing is that's eating the wizard and how to kill it.

wouldn't Samurai work better at third level you can give advantage to your attacks too

Mongol pirates! I have a cursed band of barbarians that merged with pirates

This concept might work better as a slave child kidnapped from their tribe and trained in a religious cult but who was too good natured and scatter brained for the cult's darker practices. They actually reach the point that the cult trainer kicks them out in exasperation. They join the party because one of the members feeds them and now the party can't get rid of them. I'd make them an anime style cat girl/boy to emphasize the stray cat vibe.

who wants to put a sharp edge on the Shield spell? buzz saw shredder maw