I decided that I'm going to try an every class character at least once in my life, and I want to take it seriously.
As such this won't just be a joke character for a level 12 one shot or something, this will be a genuinely attempted character that will go from 1-20.
With that, I won't be forcing myself to take 1 level in each class as I level from 1-12, so I'm fully "allowed" to level up (a) given class(es) a bit before taking others.
What I already know:
- I want to take my first Rogue level early to get expertise, and I want to get Bard to level 3 to get Jack of all Trades and more expertise. - I'm thinking I might start with Sorcerer for backstory reasons (since it's often something you have by birth, not something you can just choose to learn), but I'm not committed to that as of yet. - I must have 1 level in everything by level 20, beyond that I'm forcing nothing, so there's leeway all the way there. - I'm using the human race to get that +1 to every stat.- I think I'll focus on physical combat rather than spells for damage, and my spell choice will be utility or concentration spells.
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What I'm hoping to get outside help with is deciding which classes go over 1 level, what level they go to, what order to take my levels in, and what background to take. Naturally you are also free to tell me to reconsider the parts I already decided.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Well, first you are going to need really mediocre stats. This is impossible in standard array. You need a 13 in everything except CON. I recommend 14 in DEX if able.
Starting rogue gets you the most skills, after that it really doesn't matter what order you go in. I recommend getting 2 levels in the half casting classes, which leaves you with 4 levels to play with (assuming you don't include blood hunter, and they add a new base class before you finish) which I suggest using to try to get extra attack (paladin, ranger, battle smith, or fighter).
Variant human is probably the way to go with race (since you will only get 1 ASI the whole game). War caster can help juggling your components or skilled/prodigy could give you more use out of combat.
Your equipment should be medium armor, shield, and a rapier which you can switch for your component pouch for casting.
For spells, focus on one's that do something regardless of save and that can be up casted. Go ahead an grab healing word and bless, and either Hunter's mark or hex.
Honestly, the build will probably be pretty useless on its own and only barely pass as a support/gish.
Before getting too carried away, have you talked about any of this with your DM?
Mechanically, Abserd builds are a terrible idea. In fact, they just might be the absolute worst build you could possibly make. Neither your DM nor your fellow players are guaranteed or required to be okay with this.
If, however, your DM and your fellow players are somehow okay with this pitch, then what you need to do next is have a good long talk with the DM about how exactly you two intend to make this Abserd multiclassing sequence plausible in the context of your campaign's plot. If I was a DM and I wanted to make this happen for some reason, I think my entire campaign would have to be structured around making this kind of wild multiclassing plausible: Level one we help the paladins of the great wall, but then we hear that the clergy is in danger. By level three we learn that the wizard college is under attack by drow rogues and we need the great bards of the north to help. etc. etc. In short, a serious take on Abserd will not be just your own burden; it will also be demanding on the DM to set up.
Notice how I haven't even mentioned any kind of leveling plans yet. That's because a leveling plan is the least of your concern. What you really want to worry about is winning over the support of your DM and your fellow players. That will be the hardest part of all this.
I recently played a Tabaxi Rogue/Bard/Cleric/Ranger/Warlock/Monk, in a quest to pick up every skill and as many tools as possible. It was playable! But it felt like strapping on any more classes would not have been a burden.
Have you asked yourself why your character is doing this? Going abserd would be personality defining to say the least. What is your ideal, bond and flaw? Perhaps "curiosity", "to try everything and see everything", and "I never learn anything well enough to be proficient at it"?
Then let their personality guide your choices somewhat.
Fighter and Warlock are some of the strongest at low levels; I'd definitely take at least 2 levels in Fighter (Action Surge) and Rogue (Cunning Action). And definitely level a martial class to 5 for Extra Attack (Paladin is probably the strongest but hard to say).
What is an every-class character going to have? 1.) An ungodly huge pile of cantrips. You will, eventually, have access to most every utility cantrip of any worth in the game. Do not take any more combat cantrips than you have to - grab stuff like Mage Hand, Mending, Guidance, and other stat-independent support/utility cantrips and provide yourself and your party with a very deep magical toolbelt. 2.) Similarly, you will have a wide swath of first-level spells. Rather than selecting a small handful of the better buff/support spells, you'll be able to get most anything of worth in 1st level and provide some more magical toolbelt. Again, emphasize stuff without saves to get around your piss-poor attributes.
What is an every-class character not going to have? 1.) Any offensive combat presence, at all. Your weapon combat will suck johnson. Your magical combat/cantrips will be character level-dependent so will be your primary tool, but because of #2, they'll still suck, and you won't be able to crank out spike damage whatsoever. 2.) Stats. Yours are going to be miserable. Like, super donkey. Unless you roll Greek Hero Myth-level stats, the requirements for hitting what you need to hit to multiclass into everything is going to prevent you from being good at anything.
What this means: -You're going to be useless in fights. Understand it, accept it, make it part of your game plan. If you'e throwing an offensive spell or attack in a fight, you're probably doing it wrong. About the only thing you should be attacking are weenies and adds, trying to burn down weak nuisance targets to keep the pressure off of the actual combatants in your party. Instead, use your stupid huge cantrip list and heavy allotment of first-level buffs to augment the abilities of everyone else.
Start Rogue, for the extra skills and skill Expertises. Expertise points are going to be the only things you're good at; choose wisely. If there's a real rogue in your party, let her do thieves' tools expertise; take skills instead. Then take a level of Cleric and select Life Domain. That gets you heavy armor proficiency (though you'll be too weak to wear anything but chainmail until you get magic items), your first set of cantrips, and access to the Bless spell. Bless is probably going to be the best use of your concentration for quite some time, letting you turn a stat-neutral spell you hold into very useful buffs for other members of your team. Between Bless and Guidance, you can partially make up for your own weakness by enhancing the ability of other characters to do their jobs.
Life domain also grants you a bonus whenever you use a spell slot to heal someone. This helps counteract the low casting modifier bonus to your healing and would make you an at least moderately mediocre backup healer.
Then take Bard at third and fourth, also possibly fifth, levels. First-level Bard gets you your first couple of arcane utility cantrips and four additional supporty spells, of which the bard has a nice selection, as well as Bardic Inspiration to go along with our theme of "I suck, but my friends suck a lot less when I'm around". Second level gets you Jack of All Trades, which helps patch your extremely poor ability checks, as well as an extra bardic spell.
At fifth level you have a choice between taking a third level of Bard or splitting off again. Bard gets you College of Lore for three extra skill proficiencies, Cutting Words as a means of protecting yourself without expending spells or depending on your crappy stats, and two more Expertise selections. This should happen at some point regardless. However, at this point you have the bones of being a semi-decent backline statbuff boi and could choose to diverge into another class instead.
I would likely recommend Sorcerer, to maximize your early cantrip count, with either Divine Soul for the Fortune of the Gods ability to try and help save one crappy throw (never use it to force an attack unless you are truly desperate) per short rest, or Storm Sorcery for Tempestuous Magic. Tempestuous Magic doesn't specify sorcerer spells of 1st or higher, so it can be used with all the other spells you cast to get you out of a tight spot. With this sort of build, you will be in tight spots a lot.
Note that this is all from a mechanical standpoint. Storywise, this character will never make the slightest degree of sense and will likely frustrate the hell out of both your DM and your fellow players. I would honestly advise treating the concept as a curse - your character was touched by a chaotic divinity or the like somewhere in their past, and it throws their own abilities into chaos. They're making the best of what they've got, but yeah. Every-class characters are never good, and Abserding your party is generally done only for one-shots because it proves so much less fun/amusing/different than people think it does once they actually start playing it.
EDIT: ADDENDUM - Magic Items
There's a couple magic items that may - may - salvage this to some degree for you. The first is a Headband of Intellect. Setting your Intelligence to 19 gives you decent INT skills, saves, and most importantly allows you to have somewhat serviceable INT-based combat spells. Try and take your combat cantrips/spells from the Wizard or Artificer spell list when you take those classes, so that if you're ever fortunate enough to find a headband of Intellect, it will drive your fighty stuff for you.
The second would be either Gauntlets of Ogre Power or, if you're lucky, mithral heavy armor. Mithral splint or plate is the ideal endgame, as mithral armor has no Strength requirement (and also no stealth penalty), so you can wear it even with dooky Strength. Ogre gauntlets require attunement, but they'd let you wear normal heavy armor without incurring the nasty movement penalties from low Strength. Heavy armor is going to be important for you; if and when you take Fighter, I'd take Defense as your fighting style and pick up a shield to go with it, crank that metalboi AC as high as you can get it to try and avoid interruptions to your concentration. And also getting smacked in your face.
You might want to take at least 2 levels of warlock - eldritch blast and the right invocations might help stop you being terrible in combat, especially with action surge.
I'd argue that if your stats suck (and they will), then Evocation Wizard is a good class to get to 6. First, headband of intellect is a theoretically findable item. But more importantly... Evocation spells like Fireball do guaranteed damage even when you miss. And at sixth level, so do your cantrips. With that ability, you can plug away in combat with a 13 intelligence without feeling like a total loser, and still contribute with some utility spells out of combats that don't require attacks saves, and half-damage explosions in combat that you can cut an ally or two out of the radius.
Six levels in one class isn't really going to happen for this sort of character. You're lucky to get three levels in one, even if you're not giving yourself a strict limit of "no level 2 until I have level 1 in everything". Six levels of wizard will come in so late in the game that by the time you pick it up, you're past the point where it'll help. Same reason why warlock is still not going to stop this character from sucking - outside of items like the Headband of Intellect, you're never going to have more than a +2 in any of your ability modifiers, which means the usual Eldritch Blast shenanery is not going to fix your combat.
Give up on being an effective offensive combatant, focus on support and general out-of-combat utility - and on not being an active liability in fights due to heavy armor and defensive spells making you a tough enough nut that cracking you isn't generally worth the effort.
I forgot artificers are the only half caster that uses different spellcasting progression from half casters, so you actually have 5 levels to play with after getting all spellcasting features.
The second level in bard isn't a bad idea, but I don't think going deeper than that gets as much benefit.
A second level of warlock would not be worth it.
I still think 6 levels of paladin are one of the better uses of those extra levels (and it leaves 1 level for bard). I think I'll put level 6 evoker as a little better than it in terms of salvaging combat (because headband), it also has more spell utility. I also still think medium armor is the way to go unless your DM does grant you with one of those magic items.
Life domain still a good idea, healing is one of the things you can still do effectively.
If we're desperate to try and salvage combat, I'd probably favor five/six levels of Artificer Battlesmith, instead. That way weapon combat also keys off of Intelligence, and you gain the benefit of the Steel Defender that can handle some minor combat functions for you independently of your own crappy stats. Now admittedly, the defender also has crappy stats, but they're going to generally be slightly less crappy than yours, and anything that can get between you and a punch is all to the good. Paladin stuff is cool, but it generally needs stats to run. Battlesmith can get you a small handful of Infusions, which could help patch some of the innumerable holes in the character if selected carefully.
Now at this point, you're basically building the entire character on the assumption that you'll find a Headband of Intellect, but honestly? There's not many other ways I can think of to get around the weaknesses of an Every Class build.
There are a lot of words here, mostly from the quoted person (snipped) saying I should basically become a support caster, which is throwing me off because the first part of research I did for this found a youtube video (not Abserd) saying that for an all-classes build you should focus on melee combat.
I can't watch that video right now, sorry Song. I'm...super confused as to how anyone can recommend an everyclass build should focus on melee combat, though.
Melee combat pretty much requires you get Extra Attack somewhere unless you're a rogue utilizing high Sneak Attack damage, and even those like hedging their bets if they can. Everyclass builds can do neither unless they get to an absurdly high character level. Melee also wants solid Constitution scores more than backliners because you're GOING to take hits up in the fracas. The stat requirements for Everyclassing mostly precludes high scores in anything. With low Strength, Dex, or any other stat you'd care to attack with, your hit chances are going to suffer badly, and getting only a single attack to any other melee character's two - with low hit chances, lower damage, and no support from combat feats, to boot - means you're going to deal absolutely rubbish damage compared to just about any other even remotely competent melee build.
The strengths of an Everyclass build are acces to a colossal number of cantrips and a wide swath of basic spellcasting. The weaknesses of an Everyclass build are...basically everything else.
Also oiy cut me some slack I like words q_q. Besides, this is a forum! Words are the order of the day! See if I try and help again!
Holy HELL do I just absolutely despise what muhfuggin' Reddit has done to forums and forum-users T_T...
The reason I've been suggesting a paladin 6/bard 2/ranger 2/else 1 is for the extra attack and smite, but can also load up on support spells (mostly level 1, but slots to level 6, and over a dozen cantrips) and be a mediocre gish.
I decided that I'm going to try an every class character at least once in my life, and I want to take it seriously.
As such this won't just be a joke character for a level 12 one shot or something, this will be a genuinely attempted character that will go from 1-20.
With that, I won't be forcing myself to take 1 level in each class as I level from 1-12, so I'm fully "allowed" to level up (a) given class(es) a bit before taking others.
What I already know:
- I want to take my first Rogue level early to get expertise, and I want to get Bard to level 3 to get Jack of all Trades and more expertise. - I'm thinking I might start with Sorcerer for backstory reasons (since it's often something you have by birth, not something you can just choose to learn), but I'm not committed to that as of yet. - I must have 1 level in everything by level 20, beyond that I'm forcing nothing, so there's leeway all the way there. - I'm using the human race to get that +1 to every stat.- I think I'll focus on physical combat rather than spells for damage, and my spell choice will be utility or concentration spells.
--------
What I'm hoping to get outside help with is deciding which classes go over 1 level, what level they go to, what order to take my levels in, and what background to take. Naturally you are also free to tell me to reconsider the parts I already decided.
I can't watch that video right now, sorry Song. I'm...super confused as to how anyone can recommend an everyclass build should focus on melee combat, though.
Melee combat pretty much requires you get Extra Attack somewhere unless you're a rogue utilizing high Sneak Attack damage, and even those like hedging their bets if they can. Everyclass builds can do neither unless they get to an absurdly high character level. Melee also wants solid Constitution scores more than backliners because you're GOING to take hits up in the fracas. The stat requirements for Everyclassing mostly precludes high scores in anything. With low Strength, Dex, or any other stat you'd care to attack with, your hit chances are going to suffer badly, and getting only a single attack to any other melee character's two - with low hit chances, lower damage, and no support from combat feats, to boot - means you're going to deal absolutely rubbish damage compared to just about any other even remotely competent melee build.
The strengths of an Everyclass build are acces to a colossal number of cantrips and a wide swath of basic spellcasting. The weaknesses of an Everyclass build are...basically everything else.
Also oiy cut me some slack I like words q_q. Besides, this is a forum! Words are the order of the day! See if I try and help again!
Holy HELL do I just absolutely despise what muhfuggin' Reddit has done to forums and forum-users T_T...
Erm, I wasn't bother by your amount of words or anything, I was just stating that the stance of "go support caster" was being pushed.
As for that video, they put most of their levels in Paladin, getting extra attack and the ASI.
I kinda hate reddit too sometimes, but because it's terrible formatting
Gotcha - but how does he land the attacks to smite with, when any attacking stat he uses is going to be 14 tops? Okay, Gauntlets of Ogre Power could address that the same way the Headband of Intellect does for Intelligence casting, but you've still got mediocre HP and are now dependent on finding a powerful weapon as well as the Gauntlets. yeah, you can technically Rage to gain bonus toughness, but that turns half the character off for the duration since you get no casting. Even with three fighting styles, you just can't fix attacking with a 14 in your attack stat much past fifth level.
If there was a "Set Stat: 19" item for Charisma, this would be an entirely different conversation, but there is unfortunately(?) no such item, so we can't bork Hexblade to hell and back to make all the Charisma-keyed stuff turn on. We're stuck with INT from the Headband or STR from the Gauntlets, and I just don't see smites being impactful enough to outweigh turning on combat spells from Wizard and Artificer with Intelligence.
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I decided that I'm going to try an every class character at least once in my life, and I want to take it seriously.
As such this won't just be a joke character for a level 12 one shot or something, this will be a genuinely attempted character that will go from 1-20.
With that, I won't be forcing myself to take 1 level in each class as I level from 1-12, so I'm fully "allowed" to level up (a) given class(es) a bit before taking others.
What I already know:
- I want to take my first Rogue level early to get expertise, and I want to get Bard to level 3 to get Jack of all Trades and more expertise.
- I'm thinking I might start with Sorcerer for backstory reasons (since it's often something you have by birth, not something you can just choose to learn), but I'm not committed to that as of yet.
- I must have 1 level in everything by level 20, beyond that I'm forcing nothing, so there's leeway all the way there.
- I'm using the human race to get that +1 to every stat.- I think I'll focus on physical combat rather than spells for damage, and my spell choice will be utility or concentration spells.
--------
What I'm hoping to get outside help with is deciding which classes go over 1 level, what level they go to, what order to take my levels in, and what background to take. Naturally you are also free to tell me to reconsider the parts I already decided.
Criminal and Urchin backgrounds are always good.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
What an Abserd idea.
Well, first you are going to need really mediocre stats. This is impossible in standard array. You need a 13 in everything except CON. I recommend 14 in DEX if able.
Starting rogue gets you the most skills, after that it really doesn't matter what order you go in. I recommend getting 2 levels in the half casting classes, which leaves you with 4 levels to play with (assuming you don't include blood hunter, and they add a new base class before you finish) which I suggest using to try to get extra attack (paladin, ranger, battle smith, or fighter).
Variant human is probably the way to go with race (since you will only get 1 ASI the whole game). War caster can help juggling your components or skilled/prodigy could give you more use out of combat.
Your equipment should be medium armor, shield, and a rapier which you can switch for your component pouch for casting.
For spells, focus on one's that do something regardless of save and that can be up casted. Go ahead an grab healing word and bless, and either Hunter's mark or hex.
Honestly, the build will probably be pretty useless on its own and only barely pass as a support/gish.
lol watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZCIh_3b5K8
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Before getting too carried away, have you talked about any of this with your DM?
Mechanically, Abserd builds are a terrible idea. In fact, they just might be the absolute worst build you could possibly make. Neither your DM nor your fellow players are guaranteed or required to be okay with this.
If, however, your DM and your fellow players are somehow okay with this pitch, then what you need to do next is have a good long talk with the DM about how exactly you two intend to make this Abserd multiclassing sequence plausible in the context of your campaign's plot.
If I was a DM and I wanted to make this happen for some reason, I think my entire campaign would have to be structured around making this kind of wild multiclassing plausible: Level one we help the paladins of the great wall, but then we hear that the clergy is in danger. By level three we learn that the wizard college is under attack by drow rogues and we need the great bards of the north to help. etc. etc.
In short, a serious take on Abserd will not be just your own burden; it will also be demanding on the DM to set up.
Notice how I haven't even mentioned any kind of leveling plans yet. That's because a leveling plan is the least of your concern. What you really want to worry about is winning over the support of your DM and your fellow players. That will be the hardest part of all this.
I recently played a Tabaxi Rogue/Bard/Cleric/Ranger/Warlock/Monk, in a quest to pick up every skill and as many tools as possible. It was playable! But it felt like strapping on any more classes would not have been a burden.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Have you asked yourself why your character is doing this? Going abserd would be personality defining to say the least. What is your ideal, bond and flaw? Perhaps "curiosity", "to try everything and see everything", and "I never learn anything well enough to be proficient at it"?
Then let their personality guide your choices somewhat.
Fighter and Warlock are some of the strongest at low levels; I'd definitely take at least 2 levels in Fighter (Action Surge) and Rogue (Cunning Action). And definitely level a martial class to 5 for Extra Attack (Paladin is probably the strongest but hard to say).
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
OKAY. So. Break this down.
What is an every-class character going to have?
1.) An ungodly huge pile of cantrips. You will, eventually, have access to most every utility cantrip of any worth in the game. Do not take any more combat cantrips than you have to - grab stuff like Mage Hand, Mending, Guidance, and other stat-independent support/utility cantrips and provide yourself and your party with a very deep magical toolbelt.
2.) Similarly, you will have a wide swath of first-level spells. Rather than selecting a small handful of the better buff/support spells, you'll be able to get most anything of worth in 1st level and provide some more magical toolbelt. Again, emphasize stuff without saves to get around your piss-poor attributes.
What is an every-class character not going to have?
1.) Any offensive combat presence, at all. Your weapon combat will suck johnson. Your magical combat/cantrips will be character level-dependent so will be your primary tool, but because of #2, they'll still suck, and you won't be able to crank out spike damage whatsoever.
2.) Stats. Yours are going to be miserable. Like, super donkey. Unless you roll Greek Hero Myth-level stats, the requirements for hitting what you need to hit to multiclass into everything is going to prevent you from being good at anything.
What this means:
-You're going to be useless in fights. Understand it, accept it, make it part of your game plan. If you'e throwing an offensive spell or attack in a fight, you're probably doing it wrong. About the only thing you should be attacking are weenies and adds, trying to burn down weak nuisance targets to keep the pressure off of the actual combatants in your party. Instead, use your stupid huge cantrip list and heavy allotment of first-level buffs to augment the abilities of everyone else.
Start Rogue, for the extra skills and skill Expertises. Expertise points are going to be the only things you're good at; choose wisely. If there's a real rogue in your party, let her do thieves' tools expertise; take skills instead. Then take a level of Cleric and select Life Domain. That gets you heavy armor proficiency (though you'll be too weak to wear anything but chainmail until you get magic items), your first set of cantrips, and access to the Bless spell. Bless is probably going to be the best use of your concentration for quite some time, letting you turn a stat-neutral spell you hold into very useful buffs for other members of your team. Between Bless and Guidance, you can partially make up for your own weakness by enhancing the ability of other characters to do their jobs.
Life domain also grants you a bonus whenever you use a spell slot to heal someone. This helps counteract the low casting modifier bonus to your healing and would make you an at least moderately mediocre backup healer.
Then take Bard at third and fourth, also possibly fifth, levels. First-level Bard gets you your first couple of arcane utility cantrips and four additional supporty spells, of which the bard has a nice selection, as well as Bardic Inspiration to go along with our theme of "I suck, but my friends suck a lot less when I'm around". Second level gets you Jack of All Trades, which helps patch your extremely poor ability checks, as well as an extra bardic spell.
At fifth level you have a choice between taking a third level of Bard or splitting off again. Bard gets you College of Lore for three extra skill proficiencies, Cutting Words as a means of protecting yourself without expending spells or depending on your crappy stats, and two more Expertise selections. This should happen at some point regardless. However, at this point you have the bones of being a semi-decent backline statbuff boi and could choose to diverge into another class instead.
I would likely recommend Sorcerer, to maximize your early cantrip count, with either Divine Soul for the Fortune of the Gods ability to try and help save one crappy throw (never use it to force an attack unless you are truly desperate) per short rest, or Storm Sorcery for Tempestuous Magic. Tempestuous Magic doesn't specify sorcerer spells of 1st or higher, so it can be used with all the other spells you cast to get you out of a tight spot. With this sort of build, you will be in tight spots a lot.
Note that this is all from a mechanical standpoint. Storywise, this character will never make the slightest degree of sense and will likely frustrate the hell out of both your DM and your fellow players. I would honestly advise treating the concept as a curse - your character was touched by a chaotic divinity or the like somewhere in their past, and it throws their own abilities into chaos. They're making the best of what they've got, but yeah. Every-class characters are never good, and Abserding your party is generally done only for one-shots because it proves so much less fun/amusing/different than people think it does once they actually start playing it.
EDIT:
ADDENDUM - Magic Items
There's a couple magic items that may - may - salvage this to some degree for you. The first is a Headband of Intellect. Setting your Intelligence to 19 gives you decent INT skills, saves, and most importantly allows you to have somewhat serviceable INT-based combat spells. Try and take your combat cantrips/spells from the Wizard or Artificer spell list when you take those classes, so that if you're ever fortunate enough to find a headband of Intellect, it will drive your fighty stuff for you.
The second would be either Gauntlets of Ogre Power or, if you're lucky, mithral heavy armor. Mithral splint or plate is the ideal endgame, as mithral armor has no Strength requirement (and also no stealth penalty), so you can wear it even with dooky Strength. Ogre gauntlets require attunement, but they'd let you wear normal heavy armor without incurring the nasty movement penalties from low Strength. Heavy armor is going to be important for you; if and when you take Fighter, I'd take Defense as your fighting style and pick up a shield to go with it, crank that metalboi AC as high as you can get it to try and avoid interruptions to your concentration. And also getting smacked in your face.
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You might want to take at least 2 levels of warlock - eldritch blast and the right invocations might help stop you being terrible in combat, especially with action surge.
I'd argue that if your stats suck (and they will), then Evocation Wizard is a good class to get to 6. First, headband of intellect is a theoretically findable item. But more importantly... Evocation spells like Fireball do guaranteed damage even when you miss. And at sixth level, so do your cantrips. With that ability, you can plug away in combat with a 13 intelligence without feeling like a total loser, and still contribute with some utility spells out of combats that don't require attacks saves, and half-damage explosions in combat that you can cut an ally or two out of the radius.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Six levels in one class isn't really going to happen for this sort of character. You're lucky to get three levels in one, even if you're not giving yourself a strict limit of "no level 2 until I have level 1 in everything". Six levels of wizard will come in so late in the game that by the time you pick it up, you're past the point where it'll help. Same reason why warlock is still not going to stop this character from sucking - outside of items like the Headband of Intellect, you're never going to have more than a +2 in any of your ability modifiers, which means the usual Eldritch Blast shenanery is not going to fix your combat.
Give up on being an effective offensive combatant, focus on support and general out-of-combat utility - and on not being an active liability in fights due to heavy armor and defensive spells making you a tough enough nut that cracking you isn't generally worth the effort.
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6 levels evocation Wizard could work.
I forgot artificers are the only half caster that uses different spellcasting progression from half casters, so you actually have 5 levels to play with after getting all spellcasting features.
The second level in bard isn't a bad idea, but I don't think going deeper than that gets as much benefit.
A second level of warlock would not be worth it.
I still think 6 levels of paladin are one of the better uses of those extra levels (and it leaves 1 level for bard). I think I'll put level 6 evoker as a little better than it in terms of salvaging combat (because headband), it also has more spell utility. I also still think medium armor is the way to go unless your DM does grant you with one of those magic items.
Life domain still a good idea, healing is one of the things you can still do effectively.
Hm.
If we're desperate to try and salvage combat, I'd probably favor five/six levels of Artificer Battlesmith, instead. That way weapon combat also keys off of Intelligence, and you gain the benefit of the Steel Defender that can handle some minor combat functions for you independently of your own crappy stats. Now admittedly, the defender also has crappy stats, but they're going to generally be slightly less crappy than yours, and anything that can get between you and a punch is all to the good. Paladin stuff is cool, but it generally needs stats to run. Battlesmith can get you a small handful of Infusions, which could help patch some of the innumerable holes in the character if selected carefully.
Now at this point, you're basically building the entire character on the assumption that you'll find a Headband of Intellect, but honestly? There's not many other ways I can think of to get around the weaknesses of an Every Class build.
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There are a lot of words here, mostly from the quoted person (snipped) saying I should basically become a support caster, which is throwing me off because the first part of research I did for this found a youtube video (not Abserd) saying that for an all-classes build you should focus on melee combat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhYPxSlTSlI&t=762s
Sidenote: I do know exactly I will handle the characters story motivation/reason for doing this, so we're past that question.
I can't watch that video right now, sorry Song. I'm...super confused as to how anyone can recommend an everyclass build should focus on melee combat, though.
Melee combat pretty much requires you get Extra Attack somewhere unless you're a rogue utilizing high Sneak Attack damage, and even those like hedging their bets if they can. Everyclass builds can do neither unless they get to an absurdly high character level. Melee also wants solid Constitution scores more than backliners because you're GOING to take hits up in the fracas. The stat requirements for Everyclassing mostly precludes high scores in anything. With low Strength, Dex, or any other stat you'd care to attack with, your hit chances are going to suffer badly, and getting only a single attack to any other melee character's two - with low hit chances, lower damage, and no support from combat feats, to boot - means you're going to deal absolutely rubbish damage compared to just about any other even remotely competent melee build.
The strengths of an Everyclass build are acces to a colossal number of cantrips and a wide swath of basic spellcasting. The weaknesses of an Everyclass build are...basically everything else.
Also oiy cut me some slack I like words q_q. Besides, this is a forum! Words are the order of the day! See if I try and help again!
Holy HELL do I just absolutely despise what muhfuggin' Reddit has done to forums and forum-users T_T...
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The reason I've been suggesting a paladin 6/bard 2/ranger 2/else 1 is for the extra attack and smite, but can also load up on support spells (mostly level 1, but slots to level 6, and over a dozen cantrips) and be a mediocre gish.
Check out Puffin Forrest’s character Abserd.
Erm, I wasn't bother by your amount of words or anything, I was just stating that the stance of "go support caster" was being pushed.
As for that video, they put most of their levels in Paladin, getting extra attack and the ASI.
I kinda hate reddit too sometimes, but because it's terrible formatting
@DxJxC
Gotcha - but how does he land the attacks to smite with, when any attacking stat he uses is going to be 14 tops? Okay, Gauntlets of Ogre Power could address that the same way the Headband of Intellect does for Intelligence casting, but you've still got mediocre HP and are now dependent on finding a powerful weapon as well as the Gauntlets. yeah, you can technically Rage to gain bonus toughness, but that turns half the character off for the duration since you get no casting. Even with three fighting styles, you just can't fix attacking with a 14 in your attack stat much past fifth level.
If there was a "Set Stat: 19" item for Charisma, this would be an entirely different conversation, but there is unfortunately(?) no such item, so we can't bork Hexblade to hell and back to make all the Charisma-keyed stuff turn on. We're stuck with INT from the Headband or STR from the Gauntlets, and I just don't see smites being impactful enough to outweigh turning on combat spells from Wizard and Artificer with Intelligence.
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