Conan's Fighter Levels and Feats for 5e

A lot of the 5e Builds I've seen for a "Conan" character seem to either be pure Barbarian, or a multiclass that is predominately fighter. I think this is the result of designing the character from an optimization stand point under 5e mechanics, instead of actually trying to capture Howard's Conan for a 5e adventure.

Given the abilities my Conan gets from his 12 levels of Barbarian, the remaining 3 levels of Fighter are all that is needed to round out his abilities. You don't need a lot more levels of Fighter to make Conan a deadly melee fighter. You just need enough to get what I consider an essential archtype to create the warleader aspect of Conan's later career.

Hit Points: 33

Hit Dice: 3d10

Red = Ability Necessary to capture the ultimate feel of Howard's depiction of Conan
Orange = Ability useful in a 5e mechanics
Light Blue = Ability not really necessary to capture Howard's Conan

Class Abilities:

Great Weapon Fighting Style

Second Wind

Action Surge

Battle Master Archtype Abilities:

Student of War

Pushing Attack

Riposte

Maneuvering Attack

Great Weapon Fighting Style - Conan wields a variety of weapons in Howard's stories, but most frequently a longsword or an axe. Mechanically, this is a useful ability to help make the character a little more dangerous under 5e rules.

Second Wind - This ability is pretty useful for a Conan character, but with all his other abilities in his Barbarian core class levels, it isn't essential to the playstyle.

Action Surge - In Howard's stories, Conan is pretty much a direct actionist. If he enters combat, he is going to go all out in the first round and wreak as much havoc as he can. Action surge will give him plenty of opportunity in that first round to deal out as much damage as possible, and is essential to capturing Conan's attack style from the stories.

Battle Master Archtype

Consensus is split for a true Conan build. From an optimization standpoint, Champion Archtype, with its increased critical range, is very much a key to optimizing a barbarian fighter hybrid build. However, I always side with the flavor build, trying to give a player the ability to play Conan as Conan should play. That being said, I went with Battle Master for thee essential maneuvers.

Pushing Attack - Howard describes Conan raining blows on an opponent and driving them back all the time in his stories. It is probably one of his most common maneuvers whenever Conan is fighting an opponent.

Riposte - Read any of the battles in Howard's Conan stories and you will see at least one character swing, miss, and find himself on the business end of Conan's sword. Truly essential to the character.

Maneuvering Attack - This is probably a maneuver that most would overlook, but in most Conan stories he ends up paired in fights with other characters on his side. Another common tactic used by Howard is for Conan to attack and direct that character to move to safety. This is another essential maneuver for a Conan build.

With three levels of fighter we have completed our level 20 Conan build. Next we should round out his abilities with some feats.