I'd say my favorite is Bard / Warlock / College of Lore / The Great Old One. Useful if your group is lacking a spellcaster, face, or thief. The Half-Elf race, while being a little bland, compliments this combination perfectly. You can rival a wizard in offensive spell power / crowd control, with some spell versatility (the Wizard's spellbook) traded in for the ability to heal, but that can be more-or-less negated with some planning and creative thought (Magical Secrets is game-changing, Additional Magical Secrets even more-so; additional proficiencies, cutting words, and peerless skill are also great). The Great Old One is fantastic as a 2 level dip, as it gives you some well needed charisma-scaled blasting power (get rid of that crossbow, grab an Eldritch Blast) and enjoy Awakened Mind (basically free permanent Tongues combined with Telepathic Link), which is IDEAL for a bard who likes to use persuasion or suggestion-charms; corresponding spells to TGOO compliment a Bard's skillset nicely and Invocations can completely change your style.
Although I often play Cleric or Druid, this is a great substitute for a "roguish wizard" with a lot of flavor.
Ranger hunter / Rouge assassin, if you can get a surprise round, advantage on surprised creatures, advantage triggers sneak attack damage, volley deals damage to many creatures. You can potentially end combat on the first turn.
Glamour Bard 6 levels and Paladin of Ancients to level 11 has been amazing so far. The bard's 6th level ability to cast command as a bonus action is great and both subclasses being fey related are cool. I will say a paladin of conquest instead could also be fun commanding enemies to grovel every turn fits nicely there as well.
Bladesong Wizard 17 and Battle Smith Artificer 3. The Artificer really enhances the bladesong with a magic weapon and magic armor. Allows them to use their intelligence as their attack modifier. And gives the Bladesong access to faere fire which works will with the Elven accuracy racial trait and some healing magic. Also the defender has reflected blow with imposes disadvantage to one attack and can be an extra attack as a bonus. Finally the Artificer gives the bladesong some additional tool proficiency that they normally do not have.
Variant Human Paladin 5, Barbarian 3, Fighter 12. Have a Glaive or Halberd. Now you can kill anything. Here's how:
As Variant Human take Polearm Master. Your Strength score should start out as a 17 if you can get it there. Start out as either fighter or paladin, I recommend paladin. At level 2 choose the Fighting Style: Great Weapon Fighting, your 1's and 2's on your glaive or halberd now can be re-rolled. Minor boost for a d10, but still useful. You also get Divine Smite, which is your main ability, at level 5, you get 2nd level spell slots to use for divine smite, you be Oath of Vengeance paladin, Oath of Conquest works as well. At level 4, use your ASI to increase your Strength score to 19. You also get Extra Attack at level 5. Now become barbarian, you now have rage, so +2 damage to all your attacks, which is great, and have reckless attack, which you should do every round, and when you become level 3, choose zealot barbarian, which gives you an extra 1d6 radiant damage on your first attack on each turn, and you have advantage against all weapon attack damage. Now be Fighter up to level 12, you should be Battle Master, but Champion can be good, Eldritch Knight is good if you want more spell slots for smiting. Your main abilities will be Extra Attack at level 11 which gives you 3 attacks as part of the attack action. At level 2 fighter, you have Action Surge, which will come in handy, and another Fighting Style, I'd choose Defense or the new one from UA that gives you a Superiority Dice and some Battle Master Maneuvers. At level 3 choose any maneuvers that allow you to add the damage after you hit, such as Pushing Attack, Tripping Attack, Maneuvering Attack, Disarming Attack, and there are a few others. Your Superiority Dice are d10s. At level 4, increase your Strength up to 20, you may use a feat for this, such as Athlete or Resilient. At level 6, choose the Great Weapon Fighting feat. Level 8, I'd choose Sentinel or increase your Constitution Score. At level 10, again increase your Constitution, or take a feat, such as Lucky, Martial Adept would also work, Savage Attacker also would be great. At level 12, take another feat or ASI.
Now, lets get into how much damage you can do. You can attack 3 times each attack action, and once as a bonus action with a lesser damage dice, or if you get a critical hit on one of your attacks or killed a creature, you can attack with your blade instead of the minor attack. You also will always make your attacks with reckless attack, and if you have any magic items or abilities that allow you to crit on a 19-20, I would use it all the time. If you attack 4 times each round all at advantage, during your turn you have a 40% chance of getting a critical hit, or 80% if you crit on 19-20. I am assuming at level 20 your character has a +3 glaive or halberd. Your first attack on your turn will be 1d10+20+1d6 radiant. Your average damage for this will be 29 damage. Your second and third attacks will do 1d10+20 damage your average damage will be 25.5 damage. Your fourth attack if you didn't kill or crit during your first 3 attacks will be 1d4+20 damage, with an average of 22.5 damage, but if you did kill or crit on your first 3 attacks, your 4th attack will be identical to your 2nd and 3rd attacks. This is an average 110 damage each round, with no crits, at most 128 damage in a round, assuming you don't smite, crit, use a maneuver, or get your better bonus action attack.
Now, this is when it gets crazy, those first 4 attacks are good, so you already do a lot of damage, now if you crit on one of your first 3 attacks this is what happens. If you crit on your first attack you will deal 2d10+20+2d6 radiant damage, and you should use a maneuver, and you should use a 2nd level divine smite. The total damage dice from this would be 4d10+2d6 radiant damage+6d8 radiant damage+20. The average damage on this is 42 piercing or slashing + 34 radiant. If you crit and roll as much damage as possible on this attack, you deal 60 piercing or slashing damage + 60 radiant damage. So your average 1st attack crit does 76 damage, at most 120 damage. This is on one attack. If it is your second or third attack you deal 4d10+6d8+20 damage, an average of 69 damage, at most 108 damage. If you crit on your last minor attack, you deal 2d4+2d10+6d8+20 damage, an average of 63 damage, at most 98 damage.
What if you used Action Surge, crit on each attack, expending all spell slots and all 7 superiority dice while raging? Your average damage would be 431 damage, at most 688 damage. This is insane. 688 damage in one round! This is clearly the most powerful multiclass ever!
Convince me I'm wrong. Double check my math, if you would.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I like a War Magic Wizard and Battle Smith Artificer multiclass. There's the obvious INT spellcasting ability shared between them. Right off the bat, Battle Smith gives armor proficiencies, weapon proficiencies, allows magical weapon attacks to be keyed off of INT rather than STR or DEX, and gives you the Steel Defender with all of its abilities. War Magic gives a reaction to boost AC or a saving throw at the cost of casting spells higher than cantrips until the end of your next turn, and allows you to add your INT modifier to your initiative. Higher initiative and more combat survivability, and it gets better as it grows. If I've done my theorizing correctly, then there are several level splits that work well depending on the path you want to take. I believe I've covered the highlights, but I'll update this if I think of something I missed.
I’ve been partial to Ranger/Cleric combinations. Now that Artificer is out, though I’m looking to try and mix that with Wizard and Arcane Archer for a gadget crossbow man
Barbarian and Druid go so well together!! Totem War Barb , Circle Moon Druid. Wild shape that has dmg res, and barbs multi attack adds with say a bears multi attack. Currently lvl 12 6 in each, with my one action attack I had 4 attack to make all hit and one crit, 60 dmg with one attack action. also half dmg on all dmg but physic is rather tasty.
A buddy of mine went with Warlock 5 and Sorcerer 5 for lots of eldritch blasts with quickened spell for a bonus action and a standard action. We did a little PvP tournament and it was fun but more than half of us went barbarian for the rage damage reduction.
I like to multiclass 2-3 levels of another spellcaster into my warlocks to get them some first and sometimes second level slots to play with for things like shield and hex. I do not generally like delaying my magic for non-pact magic casters to add warlock however.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
If you attack 4 times each round all at advantage, during your turn you have a 40% chance of getting a critical hit, or 80% if you crit on 19-20.
If you attack 4 times with advantage, you're rolling a d20 8 times. Your math is wrong. To find out if you crit just once in 8 rolls, the math should be:
Crit on a 20: 1 - (19/20)^8 = 0.336 = 34%
Crit on a 19 or 20: 1 - (18/20)^8 = 0.569 = 57%
Even then... you're attacking 4 times, rolling twice for each attack. If you miss twice but crit twice, you're just doing a bit less damage than 4 non-crit attacks (since modifiers aren't doubled, just dice).
To wrap your head around this, keep in mind a nat 1 is an automatic miss, and has the same probability as rolling a Nat 20. So in the case where you can only crit on a 20 (34% when rolling 8 die), there is also a 34% chance you automatically miss...
Im pretty sure Kratos from God of War (especially the 2018 game) would be a Barbarian/Monk. Probably Berserker barbarian and Way of open hand monk. Most likely would forego putting stats into Wisdom in favor of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. If starting at level 1 I would go 5 levels of barbarian then go monk ultimately would end up probably Barb 11/ Monk 9 with these subclasses. If I started at level 5 I'd start Barb 3/ Monk 2. And of course grab Unarmed fighting style. The monk levels are mostly there for the "Spartan Rage" feature that the 2018 God of War had. The character would probably use a battleaxe primarily with or without a shield.
Im more favorable to Barb 14/Monk 6 going Path of the Zealot to grab Rage after Death and Way of Long Death Monk. The ultimate I'm not dying your dying class.
I like assassin Rogue and vengeance Paladin because first round advantage and auto crit on divine smite and sneak attack is a lot of damage and you just throw everything out on the first round
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I'd say my favorite is Bard / Warlock / College of Lore / The Great Old One. Useful if your group is lacking a spellcaster, face, or thief. The Half-Elf race, while being a little bland, compliments this combination perfectly. You can rival a wizard in offensive spell power / crowd control, with some spell versatility (the Wizard's spellbook) traded in for the ability to heal, but that can be more-or-less negated with some planning and creative thought (Magical Secrets is game-changing, Additional Magical Secrets even more-so; additional proficiencies, cutting words, and peerless skill are also great). The Great Old One is fantastic as a 2 level dip, as it gives you some well needed charisma-scaled blasting power (get rid of that crossbow, grab an Eldritch Blast) and enjoy Awakened Mind (basically free permanent Tongues combined with Telepathic Link), which is IDEAL for a bard who likes to use persuasion or suggestion-charms; corresponding spells to TGOO compliment a Bard's skillset nicely and Invocations can completely change your style.
Although I often play Cleric or Druid, this is a great substitute for a "roguish wizard" with a lot of flavor.
Absolutely if you go with college of valor or college of swords but I do recommend college of swords
Ranger hunter / Rouge assassin, if you can get a surprise round, advantage on surprised creatures, advantage triggers sneak attack damage, volley deals damage to many creatures.
You can potentially end combat on the first turn.
Battle master fighter 15 and Bard college of swords 5 is insanely fun to play. Its pretty much the best peerless swordsman type you can build in 5e.
Glamour Bard 6 levels and Paladin of Ancients to level 11 has been amazing so far. The bard's 6th level ability to cast command as a bonus action is great and both subclasses being fey related are cool. I will say a paladin of conquest instead could also be fun commanding enemies to grovel every turn fits nicely there as well.
Bladesong Wizard 17 and Battle Smith Artificer 3. The Artificer really enhances the bladesong with a magic weapon and magic armor. Allows them to use their intelligence as their attack modifier. And gives the Bladesong access to faere fire which works will with the Elven accuracy racial trait and some healing magic. Also the defender has reflected blow with imposes disadvantage to one attack and can be an extra attack as a bonus. Finally the Artificer gives the bladesong some additional tool proficiency that they normally do not have.
Variant Human Paladin 5, Barbarian 3, Fighter 12. Have a Glaive or Halberd. Now you can kill anything. Here's how:
As Variant Human take Polearm Master. Your Strength score should start out as a 17 if you can get it there. Start out as either fighter or paladin, I recommend paladin. At level 2 choose the Fighting Style: Great Weapon Fighting, your 1's and 2's on your glaive or halberd now can be re-rolled. Minor boost for a d10, but still useful. You also get Divine Smite, which is your main ability, at level 5, you get 2nd level spell slots to use for divine smite, you be Oath of Vengeance paladin, Oath of Conquest works as well. At level 4, use your ASI to increase your Strength score to 19. You also get Extra Attack at level 5. Now become barbarian, you now have rage, so +2 damage to all your attacks, which is great, and have reckless attack, which you should do every round, and when you become level 3, choose zealot barbarian, which gives you an extra 1d6 radiant damage on your first attack on each turn, and you have advantage against all weapon attack damage. Now be Fighter up to level 12, you should be Battle Master, but Champion can be good, Eldritch Knight is good if you want more spell slots for smiting. Your main abilities will be Extra Attack at level 11 which gives you 3 attacks as part of the attack action. At level 2 fighter, you have Action Surge, which will come in handy, and another Fighting Style, I'd choose Defense or the new one from UA that gives you a Superiority Dice and some Battle Master Maneuvers. At level 3 choose any maneuvers that allow you to add the damage after you hit, such as Pushing Attack, Tripping Attack, Maneuvering Attack, Disarming Attack, and there are a few others. Your Superiority Dice are d10s. At level 4, increase your Strength up to 20, you may use a feat for this, such as Athlete or Resilient. At level 6, choose the Great Weapon Fighting feat. Level 8, I'd choose Sentinel or increase your Constitution Score. At level 10, again increase your Constitution, or take a feat, such as Lucky, Martial Adept would also work, Savage Attacker also would be great. At level 12, take another feat or ASI.
Now, lets get into how much damage you can do. You can attack 3 times each attack action, and once as a bonus action with a lesser damage dice, or if you get a critical hit on one of your attacks or killed a creature, you can attack with your blade instead of the minor attack. You also will always make your attacks with reckless attack, and if you have any magic items or abilities that allow you to crit on a 19-20, I would use it all the time. If you attack 4 times each round all at advantage, during your turn you have a 40% chance of getting a critical hit, or 80% if you crit on 19-20. I am assuming at level 20 your character has a +3 glaive or halberd. Your first attack on your turn will be 1d10+20+1d6 radiant. Your average damage for this will be 29 damage. Your second and third attacks will do 1d10+20 damage your average damage will be 25.5 damage. Your fourth attack if you didn't kill or crit during your first 3 attacks will be 1d4+20 damage, with an average of 22.5 damage, but if you did kill or crit on your first 3 attacks, your 4th attack will be identical to your 2nd and 3rd attacks. This is an average 110 damage each round, with no crits, at most 128 damage in a round, assuming you don't smite, crit, use a maneuver, or get your better bonus action attack.
Now, this is when it gets crazy, those first 4 attacks are good, so you already do a lot of damage, now if you crit on one of your first 3 attacks this is what happens. If you crit on your first attack you will deal 2d10+20+2d6 radiant damage, and you should use a maneuver, and you should use a 2nd level divine smite. The total damage dice from this would be 4d10+2d6 radiant damage+6d8 radiant damage+20. The average damage on this is 42 piercing or slashing + 34 radiant. If you crit and roll as much damage as possible on this attack, you deal 60 piercing or slashing damage + 60 radiant damage. So your average 1st attack crit does 76 damage, at most 120 damage. This is on one attack. If it is your second or third attack you deal 4d10+6d8+20 damage, an average of 69 damage, at most 108 damage. If you crit on your last minor attack, you deal 2d4+2d10+6d8+20 damage, an average of 63 damage, at most 98 damage.
What if you used Action Surge, crit on each attack, expending all spell slots and all 7 superiority dice while raging? Your average damage would be 431 damage, at most 688 damage. This is insane. 688 damage in one round! This is clearly the most powerful multiclass ever!
Convince me I'm wrong. Double check my math, if you would.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I like a War Magic Wizard and Battle Smith Artificer multiclass. There's the obvious INT spellcasting ability shared between them. Right off the bat, Battle Smith gives armor proficiencies, weapon proficiencies, allows magical weapon attacks to be keyed off of INT rather than STR or DEX, and gives you the Steel Defender with all of its abilities. War Magic gives a reaction to boost AC or a saving throw at the cost of casting spells higher than cantrips until the end of your next turn, and allows you to add your INT modifier to your initiative. Higher initiative and more combat survivability, and it gets better as it grows. If I've done my theorizing correctly, then there are several level splits that work well depending on the path you want to take. I believe I've covered the highlights, but I'll update this if I think of something I missed.
I’ve been partial to Ranger/Cleric combinations. Now that Artificer is out, though I’m looking to try and mix that with Wizard and Arcane Archer for a gadget crossbow man
Druid/barbarian, you will never die.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Barbarian and Druid go so well together!! Totem War Barb , Circle Moon Druid. Wild shape that has dmg res, and barbs multi attack adds with say a bears multi attack.
Currently lvl 12 6 in each, with my one action attack I had 4 attack to make all hit and one crit, 60 dmg with one attack action. also half dmg on all dmg but physic is rather tasty.
A buddy of mine went with Warlock 5 and Sorcerer 5 for lots of eldritch blasts with quickened spell for a bonus action and a standard action. We did a little PvP tournament and it was fun but more than half of us went barbarian for the rage damage reduction.
Wizard/fighter or eldritch knight or vice versa is pretty good if you love-hate the eldritch knight...
Go divination, abjuration, or evocation wiz
Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
I like to multiclass 2-3 levels of another spellcaster into my warlocks to get them some first and sometimes second level slots to play with for things like shield and hex. I do not generally like delaying my magic for non-pact magic casters to add warlock however.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
If you attack 4 times with advantage, you're rolling a d20 8 times. Your math is wrong. To find out if you crit just once in 8 rolls, the math should be:
Even then... you're attacking 4 times, rolling twice for each attack. If you miss twice but crit twice, you're just doing a bit less damage than 4 non-crit attacks (since modifiers aren't doubled, just dice).
To wrap your head around this, keep in mind a nat 1 is an automatic miss, and has the same probability as rolling a Nat 20. So in the case where you can only crit on a 20 (34% when rolling 8 die), there is also a 34% chance you automatically miss...
Currently playing an EK with a few levels of abjuror for the extra slots and the ward. He basically regenerates HP during fights.
I really want to try either an ancestral path barbarian/echo knight or a rogue/echo knight.
Eldritch Knight 12/ Any sorcerer 8 - three attacks and then cast a spell with bonus action - enemies will do saving throws with disadvantages
I'm playing Curse of Strahd with friends and I'm thinking of playing a 5th level fighter with a 1st level warlock. Does that sound alright??
Im pretty sure Kratos from God of War (especially the 2018 game) would be a Barbarian/Monk. Probably Berserker barbarian and Way of open hand monk. Most likely would forego putting stats into Wisdom in favor of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. If starting at level 1 I would go 5 levels of barbarian then go monk ultimately would end up probably Barb 11/ Monk 9 with these subclasses. If I started at level 5 I'd start Barb 3/ Monk 2. And of course grab Unarmed fighting style. The monk levels are mostly there for the "Spartan Rage" feature that the 2018 God of War had. The character would probably use a battleaxe primarily with or without a shield.
Im more favorable to Barb 14/Monk 6 going Path of the Zealot to grab Rage after Death and Way of Long Death Monk. The ultimate I'm not dying your dying class.
I like assassin Rogue and vengeance Paladin because first round advantage and auto crit on divine smite and sneak attack is a lot of damage and you just throw everything out on the first round