Character Concept rogue\barbarian for "Hardcore" game.

[Kasz]

my friends and i are going to be playing hardcore dnd game; with the gritty realism rest variant and other optional rules such as lingering injuries, healing kit dependency and massive damage.

it's going to be a detective noir style game. we have one private detective who will be a single classed divination wizard. 1 private detective that will be either a warlock or eldritch knight. And my character concept is a little mike from breaking bad meets marv from sin city, tough gritty ex cop who was suspended for alcoholism on top of his numerous complaints of police brutality... Although in this corrupt town I see myself as one of the few good cops, despite my evidence tampering ways, staged crime scenes and other nefarious weapons because I see it as the only way to fight the real, corrupt, bad guys and system.

I had settled on Dex rogue assassin, variant human with the alert feat. Sneak attacking through brass knuckles, finesse, 1 damage, and grappling with expertise althletics, using dex if possible. With the alert feat showing off my deadly QuickDraw (assassinate). I was going to be big and covered in old injuries, and my party mates said Marv and the image works.

Then they released Goliath... Now I'd love to pull off a Goliath Rogue and Goliath seems perfect for Marv... But I'm not sure if it works. Also I am tempted to Rogue Barbarian multi class... But again unsure. Any ideas?

Between damage resistance, uncanny dodge and Goliath reduction, he could really be an unstoppable force. Although I can't remember if the last two use up your reaction.

We're starting at level 3, its RP heavy but my character is there for his cop expertise (mostly RP) and muscle.

[Nunkuruji]

Unarmored Dex/Con Barb can get impressive AC results if you are focusing on those stats.

With the DMG out a while back, I should go update some assumed values in this post
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=14704.0

[awaken_D_M_golem]

I've seen Barb 5 / Rogue 15 and Barb 8 / RogAss 12 claimed to be good.

I like the Barb 6 Eagle ability, 3 Bear is right out of Marv's playbook.
Barb 7 is juicy enough, and might make Alert feat unnecessary.
Rogue 11 is quite delicious in a skill build, even delayed to semi-equal caster 9s.
6 / 11 builds have popped up all over the place.

Maybe the character fluff goes:  I was hired as a Goon, but I adapted.
Barb 1 / Rogue 1 / Barb 2-8 / RogAss the rest of the way.

Grapple guide at wotc, wants Str.
Not a lot of action on the wotc Barb guide.
You'll have to have an Str of 13 to multiclass in or out of Barb.
Dump Int and Cha, maybe get Friends for all the intimidating he does.
( I forget to take my medicine ; and why hasn't he banged Nancy yet ? )

[Arz]

I'd go Rog 3/Barb 17 to really focus on those criticals with a greataxe. Its almost like full SA progression, but with d12s. Be exciting and roll many d12s!

[sambojin]

Plenty of assassin rogue (11), a bit of bard (3, lore or valour is fine), barbarian (7, choose your flavour).

Level in whatever order.

Meaty, hits hard, smart of mind and quick with fists, not a mouth yet at the forefront, can tell people how to do stuff right with his grizzled experience, a bit of a grab-bag of stuff he can do properly as well (butter them up (charm), knock them around (damage spells), tell them that they're crap (vicious mockery), gets along with dogs and big pussycats fine (animal spells), sends mooks into sleepyville (sleep)), whatever you want.

Not super heavy, but quicker than he looks, with a few smooth moves to put one over someone at a pinch. Reliable, solid muscle, that knows enough of the game to give some insightful advice to anyone.