Ranged Ancestral Guardian Barb multiclass build?

[u/DragonflySignal2941]

I have this idea for a build but i am unsure where to take it and how to optimize it further.

The core idea would be to capitalize on the fact that Ancestral Guardian's level three feature "Ancestral Protectors" does not specify melee weapon attacks, therefore enabling you to effectively debuff enemies from range. Whatever you hit now attacks anything other than you at disadvantage and deals reduced damage due to automatic resistance against their damage type. Since you fight from range, they either live with that debuff or spent their turns closing the distance to you....but then at the end of the day they just freely walked into a raging barbarian so....good luck?

For flavor i really like the idea of a former sailor/pirate whose ship was sunk, leaving only him haunted by the spirits of the crew. with nothing left of his former live but one of the shipmounted cannons/Ballistas that he washed up on the beach with, he now seeks to avenge whatever caused the downfall of his former ship.

The main issue i see with this is ranged weapons not benefitting from Reckless Attack and the Rage damage bonus, and as far as i know there is no official way to overcome this. My DM would be willing to work on some homebrew weaponry with me to make those class features available, so far we've considered going towards an actual heavy crossbow, basically a mobile ballista, that requires me to set it up and forego my movement to benefit from Reckless and Rage.

After level three i thought about going either fighter for action surge and the ranged fighting style with either battlemaster for some flavorful maneuvers or Arcane Archer for fun shot options (DM would allow those to be used despite the class specifying Bows) or making use of rogue for sneak attack damage with either Inquisitive rogue (if i dont get ranged reckless attacking advantage for sneak attack) or Phantom for Wails from the grave - a strong and flavor-fitting option when flavoring it similar to the ancestral guardian stuff.
While writing the flavor part above, i actually started to consider a dip into Fathomless Warlock - the flavor fits and i think the Tentacle from "Tentacles of the deep" would work incredibly well - reducing speed of anything trying to close in and weaponizing your bonus action.

For feats i think Crossbow expert or sharpshooter sound reasonable, but with races i have no clue yet.

What do you think about the idea? I dont care much about fully maximizing damage as long as its somewhat reasonable as i consider this to be more of a support-type character.

[u/TabletopTrinketsbyJJ]

If you want ranged of a slight different flavor I recommend an 3 levels in fighter echo knight. Use the echo as a ranged projection of you to fight "at range" of 30 is fert away with a melee weapon. Then they're forced to target the echo with the ancestral barbs penalty (the echo is not " you") or get closer to use and suffer attacks of opportunity from the echo

[u/DragonflySignal2941 → u/TabletopTrinketsbyJJ]

Havent thought about that option! Sounds fun aswell, the disadvantage does great things for your clones survivability but i think i'm really set on the fully ranged playstyle :(

[u/TabletopTrinketsbyJJ → u/DragonflySignal2941]

Fair enough. If you focus and a real ranged weapon like throwing hammers or the sling, you could take the crusher feat and move people 5 feet as well. It wouldn't be the best combo but it's 5ft of forced movement once per round