Example Character: Barbarian / Ranger / Guardian

As part of our continuing preview of the Guardian prestige class from Legends of Prestige and Prowess, we’re showing another build that can be used to replicate one of the sometimes-beloved defender classes from 4th edition: The Warden. This character is a noble sentinel of the wooded and natural parts of the world. Not a hunter or a shaman, this warrior is a guardian of the wildlands, a steward of the border between nature and civilization, and the final terrifying thing seen by those who would harm the wilds or those the Warden cares about.

This example character, the Warden, is a level 10 character, with the levels divided as barbarian 5 / ranger 2 / guardian 3. Importantly, the Warden’s barbarian subclass is the Path of the Woods Warden, since it gives the PC the ability to transform into a tree-like form just like the wardens of 4th edition. If you prefer the “Wildblood” build of 4th edition wardens, you can accomplish that feeling by using this same build but choosing the Path of the Were-Beast to transform into a feral war form. We’ll start the Warden as a Barbarian, since it gives them the fastest access to their themes when they reach level 3 and take their subclass, and because we’re planning on bringing it to level 5 to get Extra Attack as soon as possible. While a similar build could be achieved by combining not the ranger class but the Oath of Ancients paladin with the barbarian and could make use of Divine Smite, it would require more levels before the theme became complete and it would be harder to fit together in some of the early levels, so we’ll eschew that choice to show a simpler, cleaner build. So how is the Warden built?

The first five levels of the Warden’s game life will begin as a pure barbarian, with the theme of wilderness defender being granted largely by the subclass, and the feeling of vengeful defense of those in need being granted by the barbarian rage alone. To make the desired multiclass work, the Warden will require a hefty multi-attribute dependency: at least 13 Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom, along with at least 15 Constitution for guardian. The easiest way to accomplish this is to be a human and apply your +1 to all ability scores to a spread of 15, 13, 15, 8, 12, and 8. The +2 Dexterity mod isn’t wasted because it factors into the Warden’s AC (even wearing medium armor) and can be used for ranged weapons when needed as well, and both the Dexterity and the Wisdom modifier contribute to good saving throw as part of a balanced defense setup. Other races can make this build work, though, from barbarian stalwarts like half-orcs and goliaths, to those with tertiary benefits like wood elves. So the Warden makes their 6th level into their 1st ranger level, gaining one skill proficiency and both the Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy features.

While wearing a shield and half-plate, the Warden can easily reach 19 AC, and can choose from the potent options of +2 to weapon damage or +1 to AC when they put their 7th level into ranger to reach ranger 2, gaining 1st-level spell slots in the process. They can’t be used while raging, but it won’t be hard to find other times to use them with only two to use per day. With only two spells known, its easy to make use of, say, longstrider and jump, or detect poison and disease and goodberry, even if you can’t use them in most combats. Then the Warden reaches level 8, and finally decides to take a level in guardian, gaining both the in- and out-of-combat benefits of Guardian’s Calling as well as the prestige class’s defining feature, the Guardian’s Mark:

Guardian's Mark
When you gain your first level in this prestige class, you also learn how to excel at foiling attacks and protecting your allies by menacing your foes. When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can mark the creature until the end of your next turn.
Also, when you deal damage to a creature using a spell, an effect that replicates a spell, or a channel divinity feature, you can choose to mark that creature if it is within 30 feet of you and can see or hear you. The mark lasts until the end of your next turn. You can't mark more creatures in a turn in this way than the number determined by your guardian level, as shown in the "Ability Marks" column of the class table on the previous page.
A creature marked by you has disadvantage on any attack roll that doesn't target you while it is within your reach. Your mark ends early if you are incapacitated or you die, or if someone else marks the creature. There is no limit to the number of creatures you can have marked at once.
In addition, if a creature marked by you deals damage to anyone other than you, you can make one melee weapon attack against it using your reaction. This attack counts as an opportunity attack. You can make this special attack up to a number of times as shown in the "Mark Attacks" column of the class table on the previous page, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

With this, the Warden can already live the dream of the 4th edition warden: transforming into shapes enhanced by nature magic, then menacing enemies and protecting allies with their hammer and shield. But the Warden still has room to grow. The 2nd level of the guardian prestige class grants the choice of a protective option from Protection Specialty, and since the Warden doesn’t have 2nd-level spell slots, won’t have them for some time, and can’t cast them while raging, shield other doesn’t seem very useful. So we’ll take Sacrificial Dive to go with the critical defensive feature Withstand Pain:

Sacrificial Dive
When a creature within 5 feet of you is hit by an attack, you can use your reaction to force the attack to hit you instead. The attack hits you regardless of your AC or other abilities.

Withstand Pain
At 2nd level, your resolve grows, and you become able to steel yourself against injuries that would fell a lesser warrior. As a bonus action on your turn, or as a reaction before you take damage from a creature that is marked by you, you can focus your will and gain temporary hit points equal to 1d4 + your guardian level + half your total level. These temporary hit points disappear after 1 minute.
You can use this ability up to a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

The Warden will often have bonus actions to spare, so they don’t always have to use their reaction for Withstand Pain, which they can use to punish enemies for violating their mark and use Sacrificial Dive more regularly. The ability to take hits for your allies can be very powerful when your character has the resistances granted by a barbarian rage, and the same is true for the ability to gain temporary hit points at-will!

Finally, the Warden reaches level 10, and takes their 3rd guardian level to gain access to Unwavering for the boost to toughness it provides and Powerful Reprisal so they can punish foes who manage to violate their mark from out of melee range. They select Furious Reprisal because of the obvious synergy with their barbarian rage, and they also select Threatening Reprisal for when offensive power isn’t what’s needed:

Furious Reprisal
When you use this technique, you become furious at the triggering enemy until the end of your next turn. While furious, your speed increases by 10 feet and you have advantage on weapon attacks made against the triggering enemy. If they are melee weapon attacks, they also count as opportunity attacks. If you have the Rage class feature, you can enter your rage when you use this technique, consuming a use as normal. If you are raging and furious when you make a melee weapon attack against the triggering enemy, you score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20.

Threatening Reprisal
When you use this technique, you glare and shout at the creature fiercely. If the triggering enemy can see and hear you, it must make a Wisdom saving throw. The DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier. On a failed saving throw, the creature is frightened until the end of your next turn. While frightened in this way, the creature can't take actions, reactions, or bonus actions, and it can't make attacks unless the attack is granted by a legendary action.

Because of their barbarian subclass, the ability to rage as a reaction also means not only the ability to prepare for unexpected attackers by gaining resistance or save a bonus action from the next turn: it also means transforming into a battlefield-altering tree form from the Path of the Woods Warden and potentially protecting allies from further harm by bursting into swaying branches or ground-shaking roots.

Now the Warden has reached the endpoint for our example, but the character’s growth along these same themes is hardly done. As they continue to gain levels, they could choose to pursue more levels in the barbarian subclass, increasing their offensive power and defensive power at the same time by strengthening their rage and increasing the number of uses, and also developing their transformation into a tree and tree-based abilities through their subclass (or transformation into an animal and animal-based abilities if they’re Path of the Were-Beast). If the Warden’s player wants to focus more on nature magic and the skills of an explorer, they could also put more levels into ranger, gaining access to not only higher level spell slots and buff spells, but a subclass’s abilities like the bonuses to weapon attacks granted by the Hunter, an animal companion from the Beastmaster, a different kind of transformation using the or the ensnaring and slowing techniques of the Wrangler (which work very well as part of a tough-and-taunting build like this one). If they want to hone their protective abilities to their limit and achieve the feeling of a dauntless and unyielding sentinel, they could put two more levels into guardian to reach the capstone feature Relentless Vindicator. They could even put levels into a fourth multiclass, like paladin or fighter to gain the Protection or Armored fighting styles, or even another prestige class like the Leader.

And there are a number of other ways this kind of character theme could be built. If you’re using the big class feature playtest options from Unearthed Arcana, you can make very good use of the ranger options at levels 1 and 2. Hunter’s mark without concentration means you can keep it going even after you enter a barbarian rage, and the Tireless option’s temporary hit points is buffed by bonus from the guardian’s Unwavering feature. Even simply having access to the entangle spell as a ranger lets the Warden seriously consider the Spell Reprisal option in place of Threatening Reprisal, enabling the Warden to restrain an enemy with magical vines when it violates their mark, even from afar (like the 4th edition wardens could). We left that out of the main example because those rules are still being playtested. Another build with a lot of flavor swaps the 2 ranger levels with 3 paladin levels and gains a bit more ability score flexibility, selecting the Oath of the Ancients, and taking Divine Reprisal as one of the guardian’s reprisals so this build can also restrain dangerous foes from afar as a reaction. We eschewed that build for this example because it takes longer to put the theme of nature magic together, and the first 2 levels of paladin without a subclass can struggle to feel nature-oriented. Combining both ranger and paladin with guardian instead of taking levels in barbarian also produces an interesting but flavorful build, largely lacking in the transformation abilities that Wardens traditionally had access to (if you aren’t using the UA Primevial Guardian subclass from long ago) unless you can learn 4th-level spells and can cast guardian of nature, but this build does benefit from being able to cast many more spells, and as a guardian you can choose Warding Magic instead of Sacrificial Dive to make good use of shield other. You could even take 2 levels in druid and choose the Circle of the Hybrid to achieve the Wildblood transformations, gaining access to the utility of wild shape and more spellcasting power in the process.

Our example character fits together cleanly and levels smoothly, however, into a recognizable rendition of these classic defenders of the wilds. The Warden is a level 10 character, but only a level 5 barbarian. Those 5 missing barbarian levels would grant Feral Instinct, Brutal Critical, an ability score improvement, the 6th level and 10th level subclass features (usually focusing on exploration and interaction), and not only an additional rage use per day, but an increase in bonus rage damage as well. They’re also missing a small handful of hit points, since guardian and ranger both have only d10 hit dice instead of the barbarian’s d12. For those multiclassed levels, however, the Warden gains access to even more interaction and exploration using the ranger’s class features and spells, a potent fighting style, and the guardian’s many defensive tools, such as its all-important mark and reaction-attacks, the ability to take hits in place of allies, and enough added toughness from Withstand Pain to make up for the missing hit points. You can really see how the flexibility added by both the new subclasses and the versatile prestige classes in D&D Unleashed enables you to recreate those character archetypes and classes from previous editions that you might be missing!