Best Magic Items for Barbarian 5E | Must Find Items

With a roar like thunder, a Barbarian leaps into battle and stays there until all of their foes are dead. The cleaving strikes of these anger-driven marauders are known across the land. None know their minds, including themselves. But, to get to the point where you can uppercut gods… You’re going to need a bit of help. Our Best D&D 5E Barbarian Magic Items will give you some ideas about what to build to best tank your way through all opponents.

D&D 5E Barbarian Magic Items

Barbarians want three things from magic items; Dealing with long-ranged opponents, improving their already ridiculous durability, and making their hits count. Out of these options, prioritize dealing with long-ranged opponents. You already hit hard enough (and your healthpool is big enough), so handling your non-existent ranged potential is crucial. Also, remember to keep up with your +1, +2, and +3 Weapons!

Combat Magic Items

Winged Boots

This item is so important for the Barbarian that it comes first and foremost. The Barbarian has very little access to Ranged damage, so you need to be able to close the gap whenever you can. Don’t let a mage casting Fly screw you out of your highest damage options. Just click your heels and chase after them!

Adamantine Armor

Reckless Attack is an incredibly strong ability… Until you get crit. Critical hits are brutal for your health pool, especially against mages. With Adamantine, at least you might be able to sneak away without just exploding into flames. Then, your insane bulkiness will have almost no weaknesses!

Animated Shield

If you have time to set up, a Barbarian can use the Animated Shield like a Shield of Faith. A permanent Shield of Faith on your two-handed Barbarian? That’s nice! Barbarians also don’t have too many Bonus Actions after they rage, so this can be a good thing to use your Bonus Actions while you rush into battle. Do make sure you and your DM knows that drawing a new weapon takes an action, usually.

Anti-Magic Defensive Item

Just find 1 magic item to help you defend against magic. The Mantle of Spell Resistance is excellent, the Cloak of Protection gives you AC as well, and a Ring of Spell Turning can make a situation become hilariously in your favor. These items will help you defend against a caster using Wisdom-saving throw based magic to turn you on your allies… Which is terrifying for your team! Give your team an extra shot at avoiding these big problems.

Bracers of Defense

At some point, your Constitution may be so high that you no longer need standard armor. If that’s the case, Bracers of Defense boosts your AC by 2, as long as you’re unarmored. This works best on two-handed Barbarians, since you can’t use a shield with these bracers. However, until you get insane Constitution and decent Dexterity, keep to your Medium Armor.

Dragon Scale Mail

This Scale Mail has different colors based on the dragon it is made from. If you’re planning on fighting a dragon or a wizard (and you’re not a Bear Totem), then you should pick up a set of Scale Mail that fits your situation. Help your durability out! The scale mail also comes with some anti-fear effects and dragon-targeting boons.

Sentinel Shield

For Barbarians that want to use their Shield proficiency, this will be useful. It gives advantage on initiative checks, which might be enough to get your butt into combat before your enemies swing at your squishier mages. It also will let you rage earlier in the fight, reducing your chance of getting overwhelmed by fast melee enemies.

Vorpal Weapon

As a Barbarian, you are extremely good at fishing for critical hits. Reckless Attack gives you two chances to crit; super nice for any weapon that increases your chance to crit! Vorpal Weapons are extremely high-tier, but there are other weapons, such as a Vicious Weapon or a Nine Lives Stealer, that you can get beforehand. A Sword of Sharpness is another good example.

Other Magic Items

Belt of Giant Strength

Until you can beat the Belts, you’re going to want to find one of these high-tier items. These increase your strength to a maximum of 29 with the Storm Giant Strength belt. That’s a gigantic boost to attack, damage, and athletics checks… Perfect for a Barbarian! You rely on Strength too much to let others have these.

Boots of Speed

Barbarians can get out-ran by a few classes or creatures in the game. Boots of Speed solves that problem… But, you’ll need another method to fly with, such as the Wings of Flying. A 60 ft speed Barbarian is well worth it, though.

Broom of Flying

A super-temporary solution to the Barbarian problem. No doubt, your barbarian will be embarrassed for a while; they are holding a greataxe and riding a broom into battle. They won’t be laughing when you drop off of the broom to power-dunk on them, though.

Horn of Valhalla

It’s too cool to blow a horn to summon a few of your Boys from Ysgard. Bring the Barbarians to war! This isn’t the most useful on Barbarians, but Barbarians can use the Iron Horn with no punishment… And up to 25 Berserkers is a massive problem for your enemies.

Ring of Jumping

With magical items, a Barbarian can reach over 26 Strength or more. That’s quite potent! So, with a Ring of Jumping, you can actually get some fantastic distance on your jumps and surprise the heck out of any enemy you leap at. This can be extremely scary for your enemies, and a good replacement for Flight until you can find Winged Boots.

Conclusions

The Barbarian’s magical items are important… Though it’s mostly just to allow you to melee whoever you want. Getting close to your enemy is very, very important as this class… Especially if you take Sentinel or other tanking feats. Try to get your hands on melee-centric stuff as soon as you can, so your swings matter!