If we keep the "known spells not learned remember" restriction even though it isn't in the OP, why would you not pick Bard? More skills, and importantly, access to Expertise. Expertise in Nature, Survival, & whatever else helps to cover the Ranger class abilities goes a lot farther than anything a Sorcerer can provide. If you pick a martial subclass for the Bard, you might also switch from Fighter to Rogue for more skills/expertise & the Scout subclass.
The better option IMO is Fighter/Druid. Lots of nature spells, & a better thematic fit from the class. And you have access to more martial vs caster variety as you move from a Fighter/Moon Druid thru to EK/Land Druid.
Couldn't disagree more with the thread premise. Half casters have consistently been some of the best and most interesting characters at my tables. Having spells makes them feel less same-y in combat than characters like Barbarians or non-BM Fighters and having a toolkit of abilities makes them a lot more interesting out of combat too.
Slight asterisks there because Paladin is sort of an exception here, most paladins I see spam Smite and end up mostly feeling like they don't actually have spells anyways. Ranger/EK/AT/Artificers however are generally more well designed.
How is that different than a half-Fighter, half-Cleric/Druid instead of a Paladin or Ranger? Or a 2/3 Fighter/Rogue, 1/3 Wizard vs a EK/AT? Not saying you're right or wrong, just asking you to spell it out a bit more. The character concept & RP would be pretty much the same with either design, yes?
Couldn't disagree more with the thread premise. Half casters have consistently been some of the best and most interesting characters at my tables. Having spells makes them feel less same-y in combat than characters like Barbarians or non-BM Fighters and having a toolkit of abilities makes them a lot more interesting out of combat too.
Slight asterisks there because Paladin is sort of an exception here, most paladins I see spam Smite and end up mostly feeling like they don't actually have spells anyways. Ranger/EK/AT/Artificers however are generally more well designed.
How is that different than a half-Fighter, half-Cleric/Druid instead of a Paladin or Ranger? Or a 2/3 Fighter/Rogue, 1/3 Wizard vs a EK/AT? Not saying you're right or wrong, just asking you to spell it out a bit more. The character concept & RP would be pretty much the same with either design, yes?
Well, the half Fighter / half Druid has one less skill proficiency and no access to Stealth proficiency unless via a background or feat, to name one thing. Skills tend to matter for a lot of Ranger builds and Stealth is kind of a big one for most of them. That aside, Rangers get their Extra Attack at the same level as Fighters (5th) so if your multiclass combo wants to get that feature anywhere close to the singleclass you're going to be playing a pure or near-pure Fighter for half a dozen levels while the Ranger gets some spellcasting. I suppose you could try to make up for that with the right feat choices based on the quicker ASI progression, but to actually be meaningfully faster in that regard you'll again need to near singleclass into Fighter. Roleplay is what it is, you can make a woodsy pure Fighter with the right background too, and character concept is maybe an approximation in theory, but in practice the characters wouldn't have the same type of qualities.
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If we keep the "known spells not learned remember" restriction even though it isn't in the OP, why would you not pick Bard? More skills, and importantly, access to Expertise. Expertise in Nature, Survival, & whatever else helps to cover the Ranger class abilities goes a lot farther than anything a Sorcerer can provide. If you pick a martial subclass for the Bard, you might also switch from Fighter to Rogue for more skills/expertise & the Scout subclass.
The better option IMO is Fighter/Druid. Lots of nature spells, & a better thematic fit from the class. And you have access to more martial vs caster variety as you move from a Fighter/Moon Druid thru to EK/Land Druid.
Mechanically bard works, thematically it doesn’t. Bards are social - the only real time they spend outside of cities and towns is when they are traveling (on roads) between them. Rangers are outdoorsmen who occasionally/rarely come into town to blow off steam or resupply. trying to combine them thematically just doesn’t work. Druid is a better choice but only it’s cantrips are “known”, level 1+ spells can be switched in and out from the full list as desired - much more useful. But either way you are at best a 10/10 split that is in reality better off either going full fighter or full Druid. The ranger as a class gives you something that is better than the sum of its “parts”.
I like playing multiclass characters - in part because they are “real life characters” to me they start as one thing, something happens and it points them in a new direction, they try that for a while find it doesn’t fit and move on, maybe back , maybe to something new. Are they as good at any of the things they do as a single class “expert”? No! But their mix of multi classes makes them uniquely suited to take on complex problems that no one class can solve on their own. What makes half casters (and third casters) so special is that they have turned that concept into whole new areas of expertise. Level by level there is no combination of classes that is better in the wilderness than a ranger. Fighting Demons/devils? You want plenty of Paladins, you need something weird and wild designed, built and field tested? Bring on the Artificer! You need someone that can sling some spells from the middle of combat? Say hello to the Eldritch Knight. Sneaking into a magically defended location to quietly get something important? Where are the Arcane Tricksters? Can you make something similar by multiclassing? Almost but it’s never really as full on good as the pro. The closest you come to the sort of ability progression of the half caster is by alternating classes and that means things like ASI’s and multiple attacks come way late in the game.
edit: Oh, and I hope your rolling for stats and rolling really well as trying to create a multiclass “clone” of a half caster it’s prolly going to be MADness.
I think the large issue with Rangers and Paladins (and Eldritch Knights) is that not normal for Artificers (who are half-casters), Warlocks (who are an extremely unmistakable sort of caster that positively isn't full), and Wizards (who are full casters), they have no real way to determine the essential disengage between Extra Attack and improving at spells. Warlocks can quit EA completely and the two Artificers and Wizards just get EA from explicit subclasses (and the Wizard with EA gets an answer for joining projecting with assaulting). On the off chance that classes with EA been able to take another redesign all things being equal, as Warlocks do, it is simpler to legitimize half caster status.
I’m not sure what you mean about a disengage between extra attack and spells, could you elaborate please.
Extra Attack only works with the Attack action, while spells universally require the [Tooltip Not Found] action. The disconnect is that you cannot ever do both at once, and because Extra Attack is the core, key, most critical possible way of improving your weapon damage in 5e, not taking your extra swings is an enormous penalty in combat to classes built to do so. Any improvements you make to your spells and spellcasting are improvements not made to weapon attacks, and vice versa.
Because of the way the game works, half-and-halfing usually ends up just leaving you weaker overall than someone who specialized. The game doesn't offer enough situations where being able to switch between moderately-decent weapons work and moderately-decent casting on demand is useful to outweigh the drawbacks of not being Fantastically Awesome at weapons work or Fantastically Awesome at spellcasting. Generally, the game instead gives people who go all-in on one of those things ways to mitigate their weaknesses, such that the half-and-half guy's approach just leaves him sucking rocks. Because you cannot ever employ attacks and spells in tandem, it's almost always better to simply focus heavily on either attacks or spells, not both.
I’m not sure what you mean about a disengage between extra attack and spells, could you elaborate please.
Extra Attack only works with the Attack action, while spells universally require the Cast a Spell action. The disconnect is that you cannot ever do both at once, and because Extra Attack is the core, key, most critical possible way of improving your weapon damage in 5e, not taking your extra swings is an enormous penalty in combat to classes built to do so. Any improvements you make to your spells and spellcasting are improvements not made to weapon attacks, and vice versa.
Because of the way the game works, half-and-halfing usually ends up just leaving you weaker overall than someone who specialized. The game doesn't offer enough situations where being able to switch between moderately-decent weapons work and moderately-decent casting on demand is useful to outweigh the drawbacks of not being Fantastically Awesome at weapons work or Fantastically Awesome at spellcasting. Generally, the game instead gives people who go all-in on one of those things ways to mitigate their weaknesses, such that the half-and-half guy's approach just leaves him sucking rocks. Because you cannot ever employ attacks and spells in tandem, it's almost always better to simply focus heavily on either attacks or spells, not both.
Yeah, the Half this and Half that builds sound great, but really fall apart in practice. I like multi-classed characters, but is mostly just little dips into a secondary class to expand the character's tool kit in a way that not only fits the character's goals but the narrative of the game. I can see the appeal of a Half Fighter Half Wizard character, but like you said, that character only ends up being really bad at both of the things they are attempting to do. That is why I like half caster classes, I only wish that there were a true arcane half caster for Fighter/Wizards instead of just having the Eldritch Knight and Hexblade subclasses.
Edit: As side note, Artificer is not really a Fighter/Wizard but are more of a Crafting Class. They really do fill a very unique space in the game.
I’m not sure what you mean about a disengage between extra attack and spells, could you elaborate please.
Extra Attack only works with the Attack action, while spells universally require the Cast a Spell action. The disconnect is that you cannot ever do both at once, and because Extra Attack is the core, key, most critical possible way of improving your weapon damage in 5e, not taking your extra swings is an enormous penalty in combat to classes built to do so. Any improvements you make to your spells and spellcasting are improvements not made to weapon attacks, and vice versa.
Because of the way the game works, half-and-halfing usually ends up just leaving you weaker overall than someone who specialized. The game doesn't offer enough situations where being able to switch between moderately-decent weapons work and moderately-decent casting on demand is useful to outweigh the drawbacks of not being Fantastically Awesome at weapons work or Fantastically Awesome at spellcasting. Generally, the game instead gives people who go all-in on one of those things ways to mitigate their weaknesses, such that the half-and-half guy's approach just leaves him sucking rocks. Because you cannot ever employ attacks and spells in tandem, it's almost always better to simply focus heavily on either attacks or spells, not both.
I mean, the idea of someone who goes half and half is fairly neat, but it's not really the design space artificers, paladins or rangers exist in in the first place. So it feels weird, imo, to single it out as a failing on their part.
The point really is that unlike a multiclass character that really is a half and half ,rangers and paladins as well as Eldritch knights and arcane tricksters to a somewhat lesser extent, aren’t half and half. The Ranger and Paladin have different but similar abilities to fighters up through level 10 and beyond PLUS the ability to caste spells that have significant impacts an their actions/maneuvers/abilities in and out of combat. Even at L11 where a fighter gets his third attack per round the ranger (and Paladin I think) get subclass abilities that grant an extra attack in most cases. If what your looking for is a way to be both a L10 fighter and a L10 caster at L10 it’s not happening same with both weapon attack and spell attack in a round. That would be OP and break game balance what the ranger (and Paladin) does is give you a Lx fighter that can cast useful ( not OP) L1/2x spells when they want. Which, if you think about it, is pretty OP by itself. AND, because a significant number of those spells are bonus action spells they actually can both cast and attack in the same round - again pretty OP.
I think it comes down to how well the spell casting synergize with their martial side. Paladins seem to handle it better than Rangers because they have unique smite spells as a bonus action (compelled duel, thundering smite etc). Or they can just use up spell slots with divine smite. You can argue that the spells need some work if it’s better off just using divine smite. But at least the attempt is there for synergy.
Rangers are a little different (and excuse me if I miss a lot as I haven’t played one). A lot of focus seems to be on hunters mark. So much so they made Favored Foe (a hunters mark lite ability). But you can’t do both and you can’t use other spells that have concentration with either hunters mark or favored foe. So it’s seems it would almost be better if they got rid of hunters mark altogether, made favored foe a non-concentration ability that is usable proficiency bonus times per long rest or by expending a spell slot of 1st level or higher (higher level spell slots increase damage). And possibly up the damage die since you can’t transfer your mark like you could with hunters mark. This would allow you to use spells like ensnaring strike or hail of thorns, which are BA concentration spells to augment your attacks along with marking your target.
I’m not sure what you mean about a disengage between extra attack and spells, could you elaborate please.
Extra Attack only works with the Attack action, while spells universally require the Cast a Spell action. The disconnect is that you cannot ever do both at once,
Well that’s patently not true. There are multiple ways of casting a spell and attacking with a weapon in the same round. “I cast shield of faith, then move into melee combat and hit him twice”, “I cast xx smite and then attack twice” and so on.
you caste a bonus action spell and you can still attack just as a caster can caste a bonus action spell and still caste a cantrip. Shield of Faith and the various smite spells are, like Hunter's mark and Magic weapon bonus action spells. this and these are one of the great advantages of a half casters over most multiclassed characters. they can actually do the same but often don't have the spells to use till much higher level. A L5 Ranger has 2 attacks and can use their bonus action to cast the L2 bonus action spelll Magic Weapon granting them a +1 weapon as long as they keep concentration, for a multiclass to do the same they must be at least L8.
I think it was obvious that he was talking about the main action, not bonus actions. Of course, you can take a bonus action on top, but you are limited; Yurei was saying that you generally can't cast fireball or any other spell that takes an action to cast as well as getting the second attack action.
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of course if you really want to max this out try multiclassing a half caster with a full caster take the same L5 Ranger and add 1 level of Sorceror so they now get cantrips and a couple of L1 spells but they use the multiclass table and get spell slots as a L3 caster (4L1, 2L2 (same as a L5 ranger) ) rather than as a L1 sorceror (2L1) and they have the option of upcasting their sorceror spells as L2s. are you as powerful a caster as a L6/7 sorceror - no, but you are as powerful as a L7 fighter mixing it up in combat with L2 spells adding to the damage & confusion. Try leading off a battle with a trail/hall full of orcs or goblins (or low level drow) with a L2 Thunderwave doing 3D8 damage and driving them back 10' if they fail their saves as a way to break thru a shield wall, kill or injure 2-6 of them, disrupt their formation and set yourself up to step in with 3 attacks your next round as they recover.
personaly i can see where their coming from with paladin and ranger even though paladin is one of my favourite classes its very similar to cleric and ranger is just pure garbage so while i dont think they need to be cut paladins should really be a bit more different than clerics and rangers have got to be buffed
personaly i can see where their coming from with paladin and ranger even though paladin is one of my favourite classes its very similar to cleric and ranger is just pure garbage so while i dont think they need to be cut paladins should really be a bit more different than clerics and rangers have got to be buffed
I kind of feel like paladins do stand out enough from clerics.
There are some similarities. Paladins are often religious types in armor, clerics are strictly religious types in armor. But the paladin despite some overlap in themeing, especially with the martial cleric subclasses that get heavy armor and martial weapons, they stand out.
Mechanically, paladins have a smite focus both on divine smite and slew of unique smite based spells. Paladins have auras to buff nearby allies. They have the unique lay on hands system that clerics do not get. They get divine sense and divine health. While they do get channel divinity similar to clerics, they're all unique based on subclass. Ultimately, mechanically, if you have one paladin and one fighter/cleric multiclass, they're going to have very different tools available to them.
In terms of flavor and lore, paladins also stick out from having their subclasses centered not around gods, but around oaths. This gives them a similar set of principles to choose from. Clerics would follow the teachings of their god general, paladins follow the tenets of an oath. But the paladin oaths still feel distinct and different flavor wise.
The origins of the paladin might be in crossing a fighter with a cleric, regardless of how literal that was back in earlier editions (no idea if that's true or not but for sake of arguement) paladins definitely have their own identity mechanically and flavor wise NOW.
Ranger I could probably make much the same arguement comparing fighter/druid to ranger, but I'm not as famliar with the ranger class.
I think it was obvious that he was talking about the main action, not bonus actions. Of course, you can take a bonus action on top, but you are limited; Yurei was saying that you generally can't cast fireball or any other spell that takes an action to cast as well as getting the second attack action.
There are still abilities that allow you to cast a non bonus action spell and attack, a fighters action surge, an eldritch knight’s level 7 ability and a blade dancer’s level 6 ability are just 3 off the top of my head.
I have very little to offer on the topic of paladins, since I have yet to play one, but I have played in campaigns with them twice. Both times I was a cleric and both times my clerics were vastly different from the paladins. Granted, these were campaigns that were below level 10, but I really did not get the sense at all that the paladins were stepping into my lane. In fact, between both campaigns, I believe the paladins had healed only a handful of times between them, usually during short rests too.
If we keep the "known spells not learned remember" restriction even though it isn't in the OP, why would you not pick Bard? More skills, and importantly, access to Expertise. Expertise in Nature, Survival, & whatever else helps to cover the Ranger class abilities goes a lot farther than anything a Sorcerer can provide. If you pick a martial subclass for the Bard, you might also switch from Fighter to Rogue for more skills/expertise & the Scout subclass.
The better option IMO is Fighter/Druid. Lots of nature spells, & a better thematic fit from the class. And you have access to more martial vs caster variety as you move from a Fighter/Moon Druid thru to EK/Land Druid.
How is that different than a half-Fighter, half-Cleric/Druid instead of a Paladin or Ranger? Or a 2/3 Fighter/Rogue, 1/3 Wizard vs a EK/AT? Not saying you're right or wrong, just asking you to spell it out a bit more. The character concept & RP would be pretty much the same with either design, yes?
Well, the half Fighter / half Druid has one less skill proficiency and no access to Stealth proficiency unless via a background or feat, to name one thing. Skills tend to matter for a lot of Ranger builds and Stealth is kind of a big one for most of them. That aside, Rangers get their Extra Attack at the same level as Fighters (5th) so if your multiclass combo wants to get that feature anywhere close to the singleclass you're going to be playing a pure or near-pure Fighter for half a dozen levels while the Ranger gets some spellcasting. I suppose you could try to make up for that with the right feat choices based on the quicker ASI progression, but to actually be meaningfully faster in that regard you'll again need to near singleclass into Fighter. Roleplay is what it is, you can make a woodsy pure Fighter with the right background too, and character concept is maybe an approximation in theory, but in practice the characters wouldn't have the same type of qualities.
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Mechanically bard works, thematically it doesn’t. Bards are social - the only real time they spend outside of cities and towns is when they are traveling (on roads) between them. Rangers are outdoorsmen who occasionally/rarely come into town to blow off steam or resupply. trying to combine them thematically just doesn’t work.
Druid is a better choice but only it’s cantrips are “known”, level 1+ spells can be switched in and out from the full list as desired - much more useful. But either way you are at best a 10/10 split that is in reality better off either going full fighter or full Druid. The ranger as a class gives you something that is better than the sum of its “parts”.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I like playing multiclass characters - in part because they are “real life characters” to me they start as one thing, something happens and it points them in a new direction, they try that for a while find it doesn’t fit and move on, maybe back , maybe to something new. Are they as good at any of the things they do as a single class “expert”? No! But their mix of multi classes makes them uniquely suited to take on complex problems that no one class can solve on their own. What makes half casters (and third casters) so special is that they have turned that concept into whole new areas of expertise. Level by level there is no combination of classes that is better in the wilderness than a ranger. Fighting Demons/devils? You want plenty of Paladins, you need something weird and wild designed, built and field tested? Bring on the Artificer! You need someone that can sling some spells from the middle of combat? Say hello to the Eldritch Knight. Sneaking into a magically defended location to quietly get something important? Where are the Arcane Tricksters? Can you make something similar by multiclassing? Almost but it’s never really as full on good as the pro. The closest you come to the sort of ability progression of the half caster is by alternating classes and that means things like ASI’s and multiple attacks come way late in the game.
edit: Oh, and I hope your rolling for stats and rolling really well as trying to create a multiclass “clone” of a half caster it’s prolly going to be MADness.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I think the large issue with Rangers and Paladins (and Eldritch Knights) is that not normal for Artificers (who are half-casters), Warlocks (who are an extremely unmistakable sort of caster that positively isn't full), and Wizards (who are full casters), they have no real way to determine the essential disengage between Extra Attack and improving at spells. Warlocks can quit EA completely and the two Artificers and Wizards just get EA from explicit subclasses (and the Wizard with EA gets an answer for joining projecting with assaulting). On the off chance that classes with EA been able to take another redesign all things being equal, as Warlocks do, it is simpler to legitimize half caster status.
I’m not sure what you mean about a disengage between extra attack and spells, could you elaborate please.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Extra Attack only works with the Attack action, while spells universally require the [Tooltip Not Found] action. The disconnect is that you cannot ever do both at once, and because Extra Attack is the core, key, most critical possible way of improving your weapon damage in 5e, not taking your extra swings is an enormous penalty in combat to classes built to do so. Any improvements you make to your spells and spellcasting are improvements not made to weapon attacks, and vice versa.
Because of the way the game works, half-and-halfing usually ends up just leaving you weaker overall than someone who specialized. The game doesn't offer enough situations where being able to switch between moderately-decent weapons work and moderately-decent casting on demand is useful to outweigh the drawbacks of not being Fantastically Awesome at weapons work or Fantastically Awesome at spellcasting. Generally, the game instead gives people who go all-in on one of those things ways to mitigate their weaknesses, such that the half-and-half guy's approach just leaves him sucking rocks. Because you cannot ever employ attacks and spells in tandem, it's almost always better to simply focus heavily on either attacks or spells, not both.
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Yeah, the Half this and Half that builds sound great, but really fall apart in practice. I like multi-classed characters, but is mostly just little dips into a secondary class to expand the character's tool kit in a way that not only fits the character's goals but the narrative of the game. I can see the appeal of a Half Fighter Half Wizard character, but like you said, that character only ends up being really bad at both of the things they are attempting to do. That is why I like half caster classes, I only wish that there were a true arcane half caster for Fighter/Wizards instead of just having the Eldritch Knight and Hexblade subclasses.
Edit: As side note, Artificer is not really a Fighter/Wizard but are more of a Crafting Class. They really do fill a very unique space in the game.
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I mean, the idea of someone who goes half and half is fairly neat, but it's not really the design space artificers, paladins or rangers exist in in the first place. So it feels weird, imo, to single it out as a failing on their part.
The point really is that unlike a multiclass character that really is a half and half ,rangers and paladins as well as Eldritch knights and arcane tricksters to a somewhat lesser extent, aren’t half and half. The Ranger and Paladin have different but similar abilities to fighters up through level 10 and beyond PLUS the ability to caste spells that have significant impacts an their actions/maneuvers/abilities in and out of combat. Even at L11 where a fighter gets his third attack per round the ranger (and Paladin I think) get subclass abilities that grant an extra attack in most cases. If what your looking for is a way to be both a L10 fighter and a L10 caster at L10 it’s not happening same with both weapon attack and spell attack in a round. That would be OP and break game balance what the ranger (and Paladin) does is give you a Lx fighter that can cast useful ( not OP) L1/2x spells when they want. Which, if you think about it, is pretty OP by itself. AND, because a significant number of those spells are bonus action spells they actually can both cast and attack in the same round - again pretty OP.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I think it comes down to how well the spell casting synergize with their martial side. Paladins seem to handle it better than Rangers because they have unique smite spells as a bonus action (compelled duel, thundering smite etc). Or they can just use up spell slots with divine smite. You can argue that the spells need some work if it’s better off just using divine smite. But at least the attempt is there for synergy.
Rangers are a little different (and excuse me if I miss a lot as I haven’t played one). A lot of focus seems to be on hunters mark. So much so they made Favored Foe (a hunters mark lite ability). But you can’t do both and you can’t use other spells that have concentration with either hunters mark or favored foe. So it’s seems it would almost be better if they got rid of hunters mark altogether, made favored foe a non-concentration ability that is usable proficiency bonus times per long rest or by expending a spell slot of 1st level or higher (higher level spell slots increase damage). And possibly up the damage die since you can’t transfer your mark like you could with hunters mark. This would allow you to use spells like ensnaring strike or hail of thorns, which are BA concentration spells to augment your attacks along with marking your target.
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Well that’s patently not true. There are multiple ways of casting a spell and attacking with a weapon in the same round. “I cast shield of faith, then move into melee combat and hit him twice”, “I cast xx smite and then attack twice” and so on.
you caste a bonus action spell and you can still attack just as a caster can caste a bonus action spell and still caste a cantrip. Shield of Faith and the various smite spells are, like Hunter's mark and Magic weapon bonus action spells. this and these are one of the great advantages of a half casters over most multiclassed characters. they can actually do the same but often don't have the spells to use till much higher level. A L5 Ranger has 2 attacks and can use their bonus action to cast the L2 bonus action spelll Magic Weapon granting them a +1 weapon as long as they keep concentration, for a multiclass to do the same they must be at least L8.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I think it was obvious that he was talking about the main action, not bonus actions. Of course, you can take a bonus action on top, but you are limited; Yurei was saying that you generally can't cast fireball or any other spell that takes an action to cast as well as getting the second attack action.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
of course if you really want to max this out try multiclassing a half caster with a full caster take the same L5 Ranger and add 1 level of Sorceror so they now get cantrips and a couple of L1 spells but they use the multiclass table and get spell slots as a L3 caster (4L1, 2L2 (same as a L5 ranger) ) rather than as a L1 sorceror (2L1) and they have the option of upcasting their sorceror spells as L2s. are you as powerful a caster as a L6/7 sorceror - no, but you are as powerful as a L7 fighter mixing it up in combat with L2 spells adding to the damage & confusion. Try leading off a battle with a trail/hall full of orcs or goblins (or low level drow) with a L2 Thunderwave doing 3D8 damage and driving them back 10' if they fail their saves as a way to break thru a shield wall, kill or injure 2-6 of them, disrupt their formation and set yourself up to step in with 3 attacks your next round as they recover.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
personaly i can see where their coming from with paladin and ranger even though paladin is one of my favourite classes its very similar to cleric and ranger is just pure garbage so while i dont think they need to be cut paladins should really be a bit more different than clerics and rangers have got to be buffed
I kind of feel like paladins do stand out enough from clerics.
There are some similarities. Paladins are often religious types in armor, clerics are strictly religious types in armor. But the paladin despite some overlap in themeing, especially with the martial cleric subclasses that get heavy armor and martial weapons, they stand out.
Mechanically, paladins have a smite focus both on divine smite and slew of unique smite based spells. Paladins have auras to buff nearby allies. They have the unique lay on hands system that clerics do not get. They get divine sense and divine health. While they do get channel divinity similar to clerics, they're all unique based on subclass. Ultimately, mechanically, if you have one paladin and one fighter/cleric multiclass, they're going to have very different tools available to them.
In terms of flavor and lore, paladins also stick out from having their subclasses centered not around gods, but around oaths. This gives them a similar set of principles to choose from. Clerics would follow the teachings of their god general, paladins follow the tenets of an oath. But the paladin oaths still feel distinct and different flavor wise.
The origins of the paladin might be in crossing a fighter with a cleric, regardless of how literal that was back in earlier editions (no idea if that's true or not but for sake of arguement) paladins definitely have their own identity mechanically and flavor wise NOW.
Ranger I could probably make much the same arguement comparing fighter/druid to ranger, but I'm not as famliar with the ranger class.
There are still abilities that allow you to cast a non bonus action spell and attack, a fighters action surge, an eldritch knight’s level 7 ability and a blade dancer’s level 6 ability are just 3 off the top of my head.
I have very little to offer on the topic of paladins, since I have yet to play one, but I have played in campaigns with them twice. Both times I was a cleric and both times my clerics were vastly different from the paladins. Granted, these were campaigns that were below level 10, but I really did not get the sense at all that the paladins were stepping into my lane. In fact, between both campaigns, I believe the paladins had healed only a handful of times between them, usually during short rests too.
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