I'm still relatively new to D&D, but the one thing I've seen that remains almost consistent amongst the community so far is if ever multiclassing, stick to something that shares the same ability type (Monk with Rogue/Druid because shared Dexterity/Wisdom, Sorlock combo, etc). While I can understand the want for something like this in a player character, why is going against this so strongly discouraged? I know it's to make the character in question still viable, but are there any good ways to make an "impractical" multiclassed character a viable option? I wanna try out some wacky and thematically cool ideas, but I'd like some advice on the wisdom and nuances of multiclassing before I poke a stick at a character sheet again. 

Here is an example of what I mean by "impractical", in that neither of the classes chosen share a common main stat with each other, but would thematically be cool (at least, in my opinion):

Bard of the Collage of Eloquence (TCoE) cross a Wizard of the Order of Scribes (Also TCoE) with the Silverquill Student background (SCOC). Bard focuses on Charisma and Dexterity, whereas Wizards require a high Intelligence and ideally decent Constitution. While this already sounds like it's going to turn out to be a MAD set-up, consider this: the Silverquill Student gives Proficiency in Intimidation and Persuasion, which are basically a Bard's bread and butter. The Bard's large variety of proficiencies help out with the typical problem of a Wizard's squishiness while also granting you a variety of spells that would majorly benefit your party, even if you take a two level dip to pick up Order of Scribes or Collage of Eloquence (depending on which class you start as). 

Silverquill Student's spell list does have some overlap with the Bard's spell list, but the ability to cast a 1st level spell without using a spell slot is pretty broken (especially if you choose Silvery Barbs), not to mention learning two of the following cantrips for free: Vicious Mockery, Sacred Flame or Thaumaturgy (Vicious Mockery is an obvious pick). Plus, with the ability to choose the spellcasting ability for the spell from either Wisdom, Intelligence or Charisma slightly compensates for any lacking skill. 

Not only is the idea for the combo thematically cool, the Awakened Spellbook feature of the Order of Scribes makes for some insane utility right off the bat, not to mention the incredible teamplay opportunities the Collage of Eloquence grants through its higher tier features. My assessment would be to level the Bard as a priority given the Wizard's lacklustre proficiencies and the Bard's insane utility, but with the spell list of both a Wizard and a Bard at your fingertips, some really great utility, and a character concept that gels really well, it might just be worth it going for that slight dip, even if just to pick up that cool spellbook. I understand that you might have a somewhat MAD character on your hands here, what with ideally having good Intelligence, Charisma and Dexterity rolls, but I'd be willing to give this a whirl.

One of my all time favorite characters was an unconventional Hexblade Warlock Bladesinger Wizard multiclass.  I primarily played him as a ranged damage dealer by utilizing Hex with Eldritch Blast.  With my Wizard levels I focused on utility spells as I did not have a very high INT score with picks such as Invisibility, Fly and various useful Ritual spells like Floating Disc and Comprehend Languages.  This allowed the other spell casters in my party to focus on damage and control spells and the aforementioned Hex + Eldritch Blast meant I was pulling my weight in combats as well.  The campaign ended at Level 12 and I finished with a Hexblade 5 Bladesinger 7 split.

My advice on going unconventional multiclassing is to make sure you know what role your character needs to play and figuring out how the multiclass class can achieve it despite one of the classes abilities being slightly weaker due to stats constraints.

This is the kind of stuff I was talking about! Warlock and Wizard, two completely different ends of the magical spectrum, and yet you made it work. With great results, it would appear! And thanks for the tip, I'll definitely take that into consideration!

The Strixhaven Backgrounds are FAR more powerful than the other backgrounds. If players are free to choose any background as written they will nearly always choose a stixhaven one. IIn reality games are either Strixhaven themed (Strixhaven background expected), have Strixhaven backgrounds banned or have some compensation for not having a strixhaven background (for example a feat).  A lot of your arguments for the power of the characrter were based on Silverquill being powerful.

You talk a lot about "proficiencies" and the context seems to be skill proficiencies. If you want a lot of sklll proficiencies then take mainly (or exclusivly) Bard but wizard has other strengths and most people believe wizards are the strongest class overall.

Multiclass with two classes with different primary abilities can certainly be viable but (unless you roll insanely well in stats) you need to concentrate on one class and take advantage of other dip in things fore which the abilty score doesn't matter.

Both Bards and Wizards have Con and Dex as their 2nd and 3rd stat (in either order depending on build), for a bard to take an wizard dip they need 13 in intelligence that will affect teir Dex and/or Con. The advantages might be worth it but you don't want ot go higher than that and that means int based features will be very weak. Getting more cantrips and first level spells known is great though you would need a reason not to do that with Sorcerer or Warlock (the wizard sepll list is more diverse but it is not worth picking spell tat rely on Intelligence).

Scribes is however not a good subclass to bit into, I'm not sure what "insane utility you are referring to.  Being able ot switch damage of wizard spells only works if you are casting wizard spells that damage and with your low int those spells will likely miss. With a two level did it will only apply to 1st level spells (cantrips are not in your spellbook) and damaging 1st level spells quickly become irrelevent (at level 5 cantrips will often do as much damage). Faster "ritual" casting might be useful it depends how often your DM has bad things happen is you pause for 10 minutes while the wizard casts detect magic. Obviously you will only have 1st level spels in your book for this

In more general terms such build often do work. A one level dip in cleric or hexblade can be good for wizards and sorcerers to get access to medium (or heavy) armor and shields for a big boost in AC.  In fact hexblade dip goes with a lot of classes for example I could see a monk taking it for hexblades curse (with all the attacks they make the bonuses really add up) and eldritch blast (a ranged option if they can not or do not want to get into melee.  Casters often take 2 levels of fighter so they can get actions surge and cast two levels spells on their turn.

The ability score issue is easy to fix, simply roll and hope you get multiple good scores. 

The bigger issues, to my mind, with multiclassing are outside of the scores. There are lots of combinations that really don’t work, where you have subclass abilities that actively work against each other. Or you have too many things competing for your bonus action (as an example) so you only really get to use a small part of your suite of abilities. Or another classic is how the extra attack ability doesn’t stack. There can be a lot of things that sound cool, but in practice don’t work. 

Or people multiclass spell casters without fully understanding how the m/c rules impact their spell progression. So they hit a point where they might have 3rd level spell slots, but can’t actually learn/prepare any 3rd level spells (I know they can upcast, that’s not the point). Or a caster and non-caster without realizing they are delaying their spells.

And with newer players, it seems like they sometimes look at the cool lower level powers they get from the m/c, but they don’t consider the higher level powers they’re locking themselves out from getting.

I usually suggest new players don’t multiclass until they have a better grasp on how the various progressions work and interact. It’s hard to make a really ineffective character in this edition, but a bad multiclass is a sure way to to do it. 

Quote from Jegpeg >>

The Strixhaven Backgrounds are FAR more powerful than the other backgrounds. If players are free to choose any background as written they will nearly always choose a stixhaven one. IIn reality games are either Strixhaven themed (Strixhaven background expected), have Strixhaven backgrounds banned or have some compensation for not having a strixhaven background (for example a feat).  A lot of your arguments for the power of the characrter were based on Silverquill being powerful. 

 

 

 Strixhaven backgrounds are great for spellcasters but there are some other good ones out there like Dimir Operative for rogues (or others who want those sneaky free spells), and Wildspacer (tough) and Astral Drifter (magic initiate) for the feats.  And, yes, those are all from specific settings and may be banned elsewhere.

*writing all this down*

Very helpful, thanks guys!

Quote from Jegpeg >>

 

Scribes is however not a good subclass to bit into, I'm not sure what "insane utility you are referring to.  

 Keep in mind that when I said this, I was pretty sleep deprived lol

I was referring to the ability to swap out damage types, thinking that this pretty much gave you the ability to negate damage resistances while using a powerful spell with higher damage numbers than the alternative that would be in your spellbook, i.e. the spell of the same level that you were copying the damage type from. My original thought was stuff like being able to cast Fireball but with different damage types like psychic and force, of which are the best in the game because very few creatures except for higher level encounters and BBEGs actually have resistance/immunity to these.

However, I have realized that if you're pouring levels into Wizard to get their spells while also trying to balance Bard levels in a campaign that ideally won't last longer than 15th level, this is impractical and, in most cases, you might as well be better off using the spell you were copying the damage type from for the additional effects of that spell.

Quote from Xalthu >>

And with newer players, it seems like they sometimes look at the cool lower level powers they get from the m/c, but they don’t consider the higher level powers they’re locking themselves out from getting.

I usually suggest new players don’t multiclass until they have a better grasp on how the various progressions work and interact. It’s hard to make a really ineffective character in this edition, but a bad multiclass is a sure way to do it. 

 That is definitely part of what was going through my mind at night when I posted that lol

I just thought that having a Bard/Wizard with a magic spellbook that wielded some impressive magic that basically controlled the outcome of saving throws, damage rolls, etc, would be really powerful and thematically cool. But I definitely have taken this into consideration, and as cool as my concept sounds, it's impractical at best and a hindrance at worst.

Quote from Jegpeg >>

The Strixhaven Backgrounds are FAR more powerful than the other backgrounds. If players are free to choose any background as written they will nearly always choose a stixhaven one. IIn reality games are either Strixhaven themed (Strixhaven background expected), have Strixhaven backgrounds banned or have some compensation for not having a strixhaven background (for example a feat).  A lot of your arguments for the power of the characrter were based on Silverquill being powerful.

 Imma be honest, I was only really thinking of the theme when I wrote that description XD

I didn't really consider that the spells given by Silverquill Student were already in both the Wizard and the Bard's spell lists, and that there wasn't really much practical choice there. As for Strixhaven backgrounds being OP, I can definitely see that. Personally, I'm the kind of guy to choose a background because it's cool and suits my character, not whether it's powerful or not. My thought process was "Silverquill: argumentative and manipulation based school. Mascot: ink. Scribes: Have a feather quill with unlimited ink and a really cool spellbook (in concept). Eloquence Collage: all about what Silverquill basically has as a concept, except practical with Bards. Combine it all to get a really cool sounding idea."

Quote from Sirocco745 >>

Quote from Jegpeg >>

 

Scribes is however not a good subclass to bit into, I'm not sure what "insane utility you are referring to.  

 Keep in mind that when I said this, I was pretty sleep deprived lol

I was referring to the ability to swap out damage types, thinking that this pretty much gave you the ability to negate damage resistances while using a powerful spell with higher damage numbers than the alternative that would be in your spellbook, i.e. the spell of the same level that you were copying the damage type from. My original thought was stuff like being able to cast Fireball but with different damage types like psychic and force, of which are the best in the game because very few creatures except for higher level encounters and BBEGs actually have resistance/immunity to these.

However, I have realized that if you're pouring levels into Wizard to get their spells while also trying to balance Bard levels in a campaign that ideally won't last longer than 15th level, this is impractical and, in most cases, you might as well be better off using the spell you were copying the damage type from for the additional effects of that spell.

 Also, the damage type needs to be the same level spell of the spell you're casting. So, in the fireball example, if you have lightning bolt, you could make it lightning damage. But there are no third level spells that do force damage, so your out of luck there. You could upcast the fireball to a different level, and use a damage source from that level (is how I read it) but it's not giving you near the flexibility you are seeking.

If you're worried about overcoming resistance, just take the elemental adept feat, and go crazy with fire spells. it doesn't help you with immunity, but that's pretty uncommon.

Quote from Xalthu >>

 Also, the damage type needs to be the same level spell of the spell you're casting. So, in the fireball example, if you have lightning bolt, you could make it lightning damage. But there are no third level spells that do force damage, so your out of luck there. You could upcast the fireball to a different level, and use a damage source from that level (is how I read it) but it's not giving you near the flexibility you are seeking.

If you're worried about overcoming resistance, just take the elemental adept feat, and go crazy with fire spells. it doesn't help you with immunity, but that's pretty uncommon.

 I knew about the level restrictions, which is part of the reason I made the statement about "pouring levels into Wizard to get their spells", because you'd (obviously in hindsight) need to pump levels into the Wizard if you wanted to learn a large enough repertoire to actually make this feature useful in every situation, because you'd need spells of each level, 1st through to 9th, each with a different damage type, in order to make full use of the Scribes feature. While this is obviously a futile quest unless you have way too much time on your hands, it will definitely be a pain to collect enough variety in spells to sustain the feature's usefulness. Let's face it, Wizards aren't the jack-of-all-trades to do everything with one type of spell. You learn everything you can, then you choose the most powerful, and then you throw all that bullshit at the nearest unfortunate soul while trying not to die.

Honestly, damage resistance is a bit of an overrated concern in 5e. Obviously you want to diversify your damage types as a caster, but it's fairly uncommon for a creature to resist more than two types of magic damage until you get further into the game.

There are two points to be made here

1. You SHOULDN’T do this because you’re spreading yourself to thin- most classes need 2-3 stats. 4+ is stretching it as you won’t have any great stats, just more good stats.

2. You SHOULD do this because it’s fun and can still work. I’ve played a Bard/Wizard who seeks out knowledge- if you can play something fun, that’s the important part.

So basically, you have to choose between optimizing stats and abilities and creating a fun character to rp and an interesting, but potentially less useful, character to fight with.

Quote from Bluepanther512 >>

There are two points to be made here

1. You SHOULDN’T do this because you’re spreading yourself to thin- most classes need 2-3 stats. 4+ is stretching it as you won’t have any great stats, just more good stats.

 

2. You SHOULD do this because it’s fun and can still work. I’ve played a Bard/Wizard who seeks out knowledge- if you can play something fun, that’s the important part.

 

So basically, you have to choose between optimizing stats and abilities and creating a fun character to rp and an interesting, but potentially less useful, character to fight with.

 This right here was exactly my thought process when making this lol

I knew that the concept would be too MAD to actually have any combat practicality, but hey, at least it's cool! 

An idea struck me while writing this, and I have to say, why didn't I think of this before? You could just as easily turn this concept into an NPC! Multiclass NPCs might be a weird concept to think about at first, but in reality you can dumb it down to a few base features of the classes and a summary that fits their lore. 

The biggest issue I see with non-meshing MC combos is exactly that, not being overly useful in combat.  By the time you reach 8th or so, you likely still don't have a decent to-hit or spell save, meaning many of your turns in combat consist of rolling to hit, and NOT, or having enemies easily making the save, giving you half damage at best, or nothing at worst.

Sure, having a cool concept sounds like fun and for a while, it is.  After a handful of combats where your turns are most effectively used by others, planning THEIR turn, you start to realize you have little to nothing to really offer and regret your choices.  In combat light campaigns, where you might use a lot of utility spells and stuff, these odd mixes might be somewhat feasible, but being "meh" at your profession wears thin a lot faster than many folks realize.

Non-meshing MC combos can work, IF your game uses unrestricted MCing - i.e. you don't need to meet the ability score requirements in order to multiclass, AND you have a plan for what you want to get out of the MC beyond "the flavour/theme of this is really cool". Here's some examples of unconventional MC builds:

The Divine Singer : Bladesinger Wizard X + 2 Paladin - Max out your INT, take Warcaster as a feat, cast Haste on yourself for your first turn then go to town using Booming Blade / Green Flame Blade + Smite for huge damage.

The Commander : Conquest Paladin 6 + Order Cleric X + 1-Hexblade - focus on CHA, go sword & board, use BA to cast support spells that give your party member extra attacks.

The Party Magnet : Ancients Paladin 7 + Twilight Cleric X

Celestial Harmony : Starry Druid 2 + Eloquence Bard - focus on CHA, using Eloquence to land a powerful battlefield control spell, and then use Dragon Constellation to protect your concentration. Alternatively swap to Chalice Constellation to powerful your Healing Word to keep the party alive.

Irrepressible Fool : Swords/Valor Bard X + War Wizard 2 - War wizard boosts your AC and gives access to Absorb Elements, Mage Armour, and Shield making you one tough cookie on the battlefield.

Quote from Sirocco745 >>

I'm still relatively new to D&D, but the one thing I've seen that remains almost consistent amongst the community so far is if ever multiclassing, stick to something that shares the same ability type (Monk with Rogue/Druid because shared Dexterity/Wisdom, Sorlock combo, etc). While I can understand the want for something like this in a player character, why is going against this so strongly discouraged? I know it's to make the character in question still viable, but are there any good ways to make an "impractical" multiclassed character a viable option? I wanna try out some wacky and thematically cool ideas, but I'd like some advice on the wisdom and nuances of multiclassing before I poke a stick at a character sheet again. 

From a personal point of view I think the bulk of the community gets caught up in the idea of multi classing and trying to min max a character.  

However if you have a party where all characters are the same cumulative level you may find that the single class character is by far the most powerful.  

But if you are going to multi class take the second that either uses the same main stat or another stat that you have bumped up. 

Now your talking ranger, monk, rogue. it will take you a lot longer to get strong in each of the classes.

Try this. Use the character building and create a Level 9 Druid, Monk, or Rogue. and fully flesh it out.

Then using the same stats create a Druid/Monk/Rogue level 3 each and fully flesh it out. 

then have them fight each other. Says it is a Druid, kills you in the second round, reincarnates you can does it again.  

Quote from LilithFairen >>

A thing to keep in mind as well is that while the end result of multiclassing may be potent, getting there can take several levels of sub-efficiency before you get the feature or spell level that ties a concept together.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you multiclass casters that use different casting stats, you can always choose spells that don't rely on DCs or attack rolls for your class with lesser stats. If your Bard/Wizard has 20 CHA but only 14 INT, put spells like Shield or Mirror Image on your prepared Wizard spell list and lean your Bard casting towards offense.

 Very true indeed. At the time I gave my initial example, I was only thinking about the cool synergy concept of the theme and not how well it'd actually work. I totally agree with you there, gotta take into consideration spellcasting abilities and levels.