Tabletop games

I've started a campaign at the end of 2023 with my friends after we stopped another because of group drama, and a friend of mine decided he wanted to play as a gorilla man. I didn't see anything weird about it since he always favored half animal races, and saw no problem as he asked to do a custom lineage for it, taking Tavern Brawler as the feat.

Playing as a barbarian that was taken from his tribe to perform at a freak show in a circus lead by an slaver, I really enjoyed his roleplaying as he took iniciative in social encounters and built a nice relationship with the rogue that had a similar background to his, even giving him inspiration for it sometimes because he never were much of a roleplayer.

As the party leveled up, he went 3 levels into Barbarian for the Totem Warrior subclass, then 3 levels of fighter for Rune Knight, saying he was playing a grappling build, so I didn't see anything weird about it until he started triple classing into Paladin, but as he roleplayed well each part of his build, giving attention to the shamanistic nature of his totem and runes motif and reflecting well his Oath of the Ancients, I didn't pay much attention to it, he knew well that I enjoyed when players tried to put sense into their unusual builds instead of just doing them for the mechanics.

It was only in the last session that I found out his plan. As the party fought some type of mafia boss that was causing problems for them for a long while, a final fight against a villain that had been a pain in their asses for a long time, after the gorilla man set up his rage and rune knight feature, and our mage cast Enlarge/Reduce on him, he described as his character simply took his hand to his behind, then made a fart noise with his mouth before declaring to hit the boss with a hand full of poop.

So, not simply a dung pie, but a raging, divinely smiting, huge-sized dung pie hits the face of the cocky criminal mastermind that players had expressed their hatred of many times before, dealing 2d4 + 2d8 + 1d6 + 5 to him, if I'm not mistaken. Not much for the current level, but the message was the true power of such attack.

A bit baffled by the scene, I tried giving my best description as the players were amazed and laughed, and the rest of the session was amazing as the upbeat feeling carried along. Chatting with that player after the session, he said that the whole idea for this character came from the desire to attack an enemy with poop, from the race to the classes. One might consider a handful of poop to be an unarmed attack instead of an improvised weapon as he intended, but that didn't matter now and I wouldn't ruin his moment because of rule checking.

I'm just a bit awed until now, currently writing this to express how amazed I am that he waited months and months to play the joke at the right time. It's not even a silly, poop slinging crazy ape that only has that going for him, but a fully fleshed out character that does not ruin the mood of my campaign, dare I say the best of this player, that has expressed sometimes before that he didn't like much the characters he played and thought he didn't roleplay well, yet seems plenty satisfied now. All for a poop joke.

Maybe it's how the class is supposed to feel, but am I supposed to be this battered after every fight? I understand that rage halves incoming non-magical damage, my character has a ring that resists cold, storm herald resists lightning and aasimar resists necrotic/radiant and I'm still coming out of fights with single digit health.

I am absolutely attacking recklessly to ensure I hit/fish for crits which is obviously opening myself up for hits coming my way.

I've invested in scale mail so my AC is up to 15 (Dex mod is +1)

I can see the high risk/high reward being part of the build and the resist is the only thing keeping me alive but suggestions are welcome in terms of avoiding having to be a drain on my healers. Thank you!