Hmmm, the two of you make a good case for the Bar/Rog. I had tried avoiding multi-classing during the planning stage since I do not know which rules the DM is going to allow (however, SCAG and Volo's have been defined as available but under DM discretion). I will look into the abilities mentioned such as those of the Thief (which I had honestly just been ignoring). If I can sneak it past him, I will likely go Bugbear since that was actually one of the races I was interested in playing when I first started thinking of a character. Just the extra reach on the offence is one of those abilities that potentially have surprisingly extensive effects on the space of possibilities available to the character.

I had also forgotten how funny the fact that you *can* use Str with Finesse weapons to get both the benefit of Sneak Attack and Reckless Attack is. I will have to think of the Barbarian Path (since I will likely at least try to go 5 levels deep for the extra attack) I want most, since I know how good the Bear Totem is but I do not enjoy the fact that it is just obviously the best choice to the extent that no matter what the rest of your build looks like, the rest will be unable to compete.

Thanks for the ideas.