My suggestions: - Play as a variant human. You'll need that feat and the extra skill is also helpful.
- Start as Rogue for the Expertise which will make you useful for the group, Paladin or Fighter for high starting HP and Heavy Armour profiency. Spell slinging in Chainmail is pretty darn good.
- For me, other mandatory levels would be Bard 2 for Jack of All Trades and probably as many fighter levels as possible for hit points and ASIs. If you roll for stats and rolled well this becomes less important. A third level of bard would net you a bunch more proficiences and two more skills with Expertise. Fighter also seem like a logical reason to start, every society has people that punch other people for a living.
All in all, even though I would focus on Fighter levels I probably wouldn't play this as a very combat oriented character but rather more like a literal "jack of all trades". It's a person who has dabbled in a little bit of everything but can't be bothered to focus on one thing. I wouldn't mind this character using metal armour despite the level in druid with the motivation that "well, that's one of the reasons I'm not a druid anymore". In combat I would focus mainly on supporting others with guidance and maybe chucking a sacred flame or Eldritch bla-est or two. Outside of combat you can be pretty darn good thanks to your many proficiences and at least two skills with Expertise.
With point buy I would make something like this: Variant Human. Starting Feat Obersvant (+1 Wisdom). STR 13 DEX 13+1 CON 10 INT 13 WIS 13 (+1 from Observant) CHA 13+ 1
My first ASI would go towards getting the "Tough" feat (you gotta be tough to survive what you've gone through to end up where you are), the second one would either go into Dex or Charisma (to make you better in combat) or Strength and Charisma to round of your skills. if you go with 8 levels of fighter to get a third ASI I would pick whichever I didn't pick for the second ASI.
I definitely agree with the fighter for more HP aspect. The trade off of starting rogue versus Fighter: 2 extra skills (instead of the 1 you get by multiclassing into rogue) along with dexterity and intelligence saves for 2 more hit points to start, all weapon and armor proficiencies, and constitution and strength saves. You get better starting weapon and armor options from Fighter while you get thieves' tools and can pick the burglar's pack along with the options that fighter has. You'll still get the thieves' tools proficiency after multiclassing into rogue.
Depending on what you do with cleric and your desire to spend gold, that works out to 1 extra skill or 2 extra HP and the save swap. Normally, I'd say that the fighter saves were better over all, but rogue's might just be better for this character. This is particularly true if you go Resilient (Con) or Warcaster.
PS: you've short changed your character on stats. Without going for 14s or 15s, you have 3 13s and 3 12s. With the bonuses that you've added, your constitution would be 13 otherwise you'd have 14s from the racial/feat stat boosts.
I definitely agree with the fighter for more HP aspect. The trade off of starting rogue versus Fighter: 2 extra skills (instead of the 1 you get by multiclassing into rogue) along with dexterity and intelligence saves for 2 more hit points to start, all weapon and armor proficiencies, and constitution and strength saves. You get better starting weapon and armor options from Fighter while you get thieves' tools and can pick the burglar's pack along with the options that fighter has. You'll still get the thieves' tools proficiency after multiclassing into rogue.
Depending on what you do with cleric and your desire to spend gold, that works out to 1 extra skill or 2 extra HP and the save swap. Normally, I'd say that the fighter saves were better over all, but rogue's might just be better for this character. This is particularly true if you go Resilient (Con) or Warcaster.
PS: you've short changed your character on stats. Without going for 14s or 15s, you have 3 13s and 3 12s. With the bonuses that you've added, your constitution would be 13 otherwise you'd have 14s from the racial/feat stat boosts.
Get proficiency in Con saves from lvl 1 help with concentration and opens up for better casting.
And no, I did not shortchange anything. I bought those stats on purpose for min-maxing reasons. :) You need 13 in every stat except Con to multiclass into every class. getting a pair of 14s makes a better all-round character. The Tough feat more then enough makes up for hit points. :)
I definitely agree with the fighter for more HP aspect. The trade off of starting rogue versus Fighter: 2 extra skills (instead of the 1 you get by multiclassing into rogue) along with dexterity and intelligence saves for 2 more hit points to start, all weapon and armor proficiencies, and constitution and strength saves. You get better starting weapon and armor options from Fighter while you get thieves' tools and can pick the burglar's pack along with the options that fighter has. You'll still get the thieves' tools proficiency after multiclassing into rogue.
Depending on what you do with cleric and your desire to spend gold, that works out to 1 extra skill or 2 extra HP and the save swap. Normally, I'd say that the fighter saves were better over all, but rogue's might just be better for this character. This is particularly true if you go Resilient (Con) or Warcaster.
PS: you've short changed your character on stats. Without going for 14s or 15s, you have 3 13s and 3 12s. With the bonuses that you've added, your constitution would be 13 otherwise you'd have 14s from the racial/feat stat boosts.
Get proficiency in Con saves from lvl 1 help with concentration and opens up for better casting.
And no, I did not shortchange anything. I bought those stats on purpose for min-maxing reasons. :) You need 13 in every stat except Con to multiclass into every class. getting a pair of 14s makes a better all-round character. The Tough feat more then enough makes up for hit points. :)
I'm not discounting con saves making a better caster, but having poor AC and Dex saves means a dead character fast. That was my thinking there.
As for the stats, I was reading it that you got the 13s after the +1s. I'll stand corrected if you meant that you had 13s on everything except Constituiton, and the racial/feat bonuses bump you up to 14, particularly if you've edited your post to say as much.
Edit: acknowledging that 16 AC for chainmail if starting Fighter isn't bad. I'd forgot to factor that into my thinking, particularly since I was washing the heavy armor proficiency with some Cleric options giving it and figuring on going with it. If your cleric choice adds more proficiencies and doesn't have heavy armor, Fighter is the clear winner, regardless of how you value the saves since the strength of the saves are pretty close to a wash when probable playstyle is factored in.
My group probably averages 50 hours of gameplay per level across the levels, so that's roughly 1,000 hours. For us that would be 111 x 9 hour sessions. Assuming you play twice a month, in order to get this character to level 20, you are going to have to be an enormous burden on your party for like... 5 years?
I'm sorry, your group only levels *once* every fifty hours of gameplay? Dude that's just ridiculous, you should be leveling faster than that. You tell me to think really carefully before making a character like this, but I'd recommend thinking even more carefully before joining a group that's going to advance that slow.
So I feel like a good way to optimize a character that uses every class is too focus on one of the CHA casters and try to get a decent CHA. You will have 13 levels of just level one classes. Some of those classes will be dead weight. A few classes give a lot for one or two level dip. So hexblade 1 is really good as you become SAD. Rogue is great as first level to take thanks to all the skills and the expertise. Cleric 1 can give you a useful feature and I suggest order domain as you can help support your allies allowing them to attack when you cast low commitment spells like bless. I think taking 2 levels of paladin gives you divine smite and at level 14 if you had one level of each class and two levels of paladin you would have the spell slots of a 7th level caster with two short rest warlock 1st level slots. At this point I would take 6 levels of bard for a few reasons. First you are progressing your spell caster level. Secondly you become more of a skill monkey especially if you take college of lore. College of lore would add great support abilities like cutting words. And you can steal two spells at level 20 one can be a smite, you could take spirit guardians or spiritual weapon which scales well, or counterspell for obvious reasons.
Alternatively instead of 6 levels of bard you could take 6 levels of fighter eldritch knight to get an extra ASI, progress your spell caster level, get action surge, and finally second attack. If you took two levels paladin then you can smite more often on your turns.
EDIT: Your six levels of fighter/bard can come at any point not just the end of the build. Same thing for Paladin. The two paladin levels I suggest taking early.
I'm sure their are other optimal ways to build this character.
No problem, I was just looking at it and had to double check. I agree that some of the classes are dead weight classes, particularly monk1. Unless you have a scenario where you are without arms and armor, these abilities do nothing and you gain no proficiencies that aren't duplicated elsewhere. At least it's a d8 hit die class and isn't losing you an HP. Barbarian is almost as bad if you aren't using strength melee attacks, but rage does give you a panic button for slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage in addition to that lively D12 that's making up for Wizard and Sorcerer only being d6s. Of course, you could replace barb and monk with 2 levels of some combination of fighter, ranger, and paladin and have the same HP with more goodies, including the potential to become an 8th or 9th level caster with just those levels and the 1st levels of all the classes less barbarian and monk. But then it wouldn't really be an every class character.
@Shaylic: Combining EK and warlock isn't really that good since you then become reliant on both Int and Charisma. Either or is probably favourable.
You've already got Wizard and Artificer as part of the every class build. How is adding EK any different? The key to this build is to take all of your attack spells from classes with the same spellcasting ability and taking utility spells with everything else. Further, you'll be hard pressed to get any ability much higher than 16, particularly if you don't invest most or all of your extra 7 levels in fighter, and especially if you don't dump constitution. Dumping constitution leaves you low on HP and leaves your con saves reliant on proficiency bonus meaning you have to start fighter, barbarian, or sorcerer or use one of those precious few ASIs or the human variant feat on Resilient (Con) and/or Warcaster if you want concentration spells to be reliable. If magic items are in play and you can guarantee a Amulet of Health that also mitigates the problem. Otherwise, your better off taking some Constitution and forgetting about attack spells unless you can get a Headband of Intellect or a similar item for wisdom or charisma. I believe those would have to be homebrewed and you've got attunement limits to deal with to boot.
A Belt of Dwarvenkind can help con as well. There are several items that boost strength.
@Shaylic: Combining EK and warlock isn't really that good since you then become reliant on both Int and Charisma. Either or is probably favourable.
You've already got Wizard and Artificer as part of the every class build. How is adding EK any different?
Because if you're making the build realiant on casting from those classes, you are no longer SAD, which was the point of the comment I was replying to.
@Shaylic: Combining EK and warlock isn't really that good since you then become reliant on both Int and Charisma. Either or is probably favourable.
I stated two builds one that focused on bard and one that focused on EK. The only thing about warlock I mentioned is that Hexblade helps alot since their are so many CHA casters you are mixing into the build that it can be an easy focal point. Even if you went EK for six levels the benefits is that it still progresses spell levels, and you get fighter features to help with smiting. You still will want to primarily cast spells from the CHA classes, but that EK helps since I suggested two levels of Paladin.
For a build where you are multiclassing all the classes you need at least a 13 across the board in your stats. With Hexblade you can focus on CHA to up your spell casting on low level spells like Dissonant whispers and you can use the stat for your weapon meaning the levels in Paladin won't be wasted. going fighter instead of bard gives you an extra ASI as well.
@Shaylic: Combining EK and warlock isn't really that good since you then become reliant on both Int and Charisma. Either or is probably favourable.
I stated two builds one that focused on bard and one that focused on EK. The only thing about warlock I mentioned is that Hexblade helps alot since their are so many CHA casters you are mixing into the build that it can be an easy focal point. Even if you went EK for six levels the benefits is that it still progresses spell levels, and you get fighter features to help with smiting. You still will want to primarily cast spells from the CHA classes, but that EK helps since I suggested two levels of Paladin.
For a build where you are multiclassing all the classes you need at least a 13 across the board in your stats. With Hexblade you can focus on CHA to up your spell casting on low level spells like Dissonant whispers and you can use the stat for your weapon meaning the levels in Paladin won't be wasted. going fighter instead of bard gives you an extra ASI as well.
If you're going 2 levels of Paladin, there's enough utility between the prepared caster list (ups the spells known and number prepared), the extra spellcaster level (probably more slots), and potentially the fighting style (depending on what you did with the fighter fighting style, whether the UA styles are available, and whether you're also going ranger 2) to make the 2nd level not a complete waste, even if you're not able to take advantage of the smites. Getting those online simply adds value for me, particularly since I don't see a great way to get smiting online for every class and haven't had time to theorycraft it yet. It's such a departure from the normal paladin outlook that I can understand the sentiment though.
My group probably averages 50 hours of gameplay per level across the levels, so that's roughly 1,000 hours. For us that would be 111 x 9 hour sessions. Assuming you play twice a month, in order to get this character to level 20, you are going to have to be an enormous burden on your party for like... 5 years?
I'm sorry, your group only levels *once* every fifty hours of gameplay? Dude that's just ridiculous, you should be leveling faster than that. You tell me to think really carefully before making a character like this, but I'd recommend thinking even more carefully before joining a group that's going to advance that slow.
If your DM is tossing levels at you like they're candy, then I guess it doesn't matter if you play a character capable of doing nothing useful. If you're levelling up a lot faster than that then either you do no RP or you just milestone level whenever the DM feels like it. Either way, I love the campaign I play in. We develop characters and allows them to have personal storylines. I appreciate that you're not really interested in that aspect of the game, but 8 hours of gameplay per character per level is about right for a campaign that isn't just World of Warcraft on a tabletop.
My group probably averages 50 hours of gameplay per level across the levels, so that's roughly 1,000 hours. For us that would be 111 x 9 hour sessions. Assuming you play twice a month, in order to get this character to level 20, you are going to have to be an enormous burden on your party for like... 5 years?
I'm sorry, your group only levels *once* every fifty hours of gameplay? Dude that's just ridiculous, you should be leveling faster than that. You tell me to think really carefully before making a character like this, but I'd recommend thinking even more carefully before joining a group that's going to advance that slow.
If your DM is tossing levels at you like they're candy, then I guess it doesn't matter if you play a character capable of doing nothing useful. If you're levelling up a lot faster than that then either you do no RP or you just milestone level whenever the DM feels like it. Either way, I love the campaign I play in. We develop characters and allows them to have personal storylines. I appreciate that you're not really interested in that aspect of the game, but 8 hours of gameplay per character per level is about right for a campaign that isn't just World of Warcraft on a tabletop.
Everyone we play with is no longer a beginner so we tend to start campaigns at level 3 or 5 depending. Levels 1 through 5 goes pretty quick anyway. After that then it usually takes between 8 to 12 sessions to level.
If your DM is tossing levels at you like they're candy, then I guess it doesn't matter if you play a character capable of doing nothing useful. If you're levelling up a lot faster than that then either you do no RP or you just milestone level whenever the DM feels like it. Either way, I love the campaign I play in. We develop characters and allows them to have personal storylines. I appreciate that you're not really interested in that aspect of the game, but 8 hours of gameplay per character per level is about right for a campaign that isn't just World of Warcraft on a tabletop.
See you now said 1 per 8. Before it was 1 per 50. Using your newly stated standard, you'd gain 6 levels in the time it takes that other hypothetical group to gain 1 level. Neither of us want levels to be candy, but we *do* want to level up.
He said 1 level per 8 hours per character. If they've got 6 characters, that's 48 hours. If it's mostly role play, the mechanical weakness of your character won't come into play as often. If it's skills, you'll likely have a few opportunities there with expertise and proficiencies galore. If high damage means combat success to you, you'll likely not enjoy the character. However, if you can find joy in supporting the party with the myriad options that you have without dealing much direct damage, this type of character could be quite fun.
Warlock 2 solves all your offensive issues(eldritch blast with charisma on every ray, scales with character level), and combines well with bard 3. Furthermore, beeing the party face (charismaperson) doesnt require a class so you will excel at it with expertise.
I definitely agree with the fighter for more HP aspect. The trade off of starting rogue versus Fighter: 2 extra skills (instead of the 1 you get by multiclassing into rogue) along with dexterity and intelligence saves for 2 more hit points to start, all weapon and armor proficiencies, and constitution and strength saves. You get better starting weapon and armor options from Fighter while you get thieves' tools and can pick the burglar's pack along with the options that fighter has. You'll still get the thieves' tools proficiency after multiclassing into rogue.
Depending on what you do with cleric and your desire to spend gold, that works out to 1 extra skill or 2 extra HP and the save swap. Normally, I'd say that the fighter saves were better over all, but rogue's might just be better for this character. This is particularly true if you go Resilient (Con) or Warcaster.
PS: you've short changed your character on stats. Without going for 14s or 15s, you have 3 13s and 3 12s. With the bonuses that you've added, your constitution would be 13 otherwise you'd have 14s from the racial/feat stat boosts.
Get proficiency in Con saves from lvl 1 help with concentration and opens up for better casting.
And no, I did not shortchange anything. I bought those stats on purpose for min-maxing reasons. :)
You need 13 in every stat except Con to multiclass into every class. getting a pair of 14s makes a better all-round character. The Tough feat more then enough makes up for hit points. :)
I'm not discounting con saves making a better caster, but having poor AC and Dex saves means a dead character fast. That was my thinking there.
As for the stats, I was reading it that you got the 13s after the +1s. I'll stand corrected if you meant that you had 13s on everything except Constituiton, and the racial/feat bonuses bump you up to 14, particularly if you've edited your post to say as much.
Edit: acknowledging that 16 AC for chainmail if starting Fighter isn't bad. I'd forgot to factor that into my thinking, particularly since I was washing the heavy armor proficiency with some Cleric options giving it and figuring on going with it. If your cleric choice adds more proficiencies and doesn't have heavy armor, Fighter is the clear winner, regardless of how you value the saves since the strength of the saves are pretty close to a wash when probable playstyle is factored in.
I'm sorry, your group only levels *once* every fifty hours of gameplay?
Dude that's just ridiculous, you should be leveling faster than that.
You tell me to think really carefully before making a character like this, but I'd recommend thinking even more carefully before joining a group that's going to advance that slow.
So I feel like a good way to optimize a character that uses every class is too focus on one of the CHA casters and try to get a decent CHA. You will have 13 levels of just level one classes. Some of those classes will be dead weight. A few classes give a lot for one or two level dip. So hexblade 1 is really good as you become SAD. Rogue is great as first level to take thanks to all the skills and the expertise. Cleric 1 can give you a useful feature and I suggest order domain as you can help support your allies allowing them to attack when you cast low commitment spells like bless. I think taking 2 levels of paladin gives you divine smite and at level 14 if you had one level of each class and two levels of paladin you would have the spell slots of a 7th level caster with two short rest warlock 1st level slots. At this point I would take 6 levels of bard for a few reasons. First you are progressing your spell caster level. Secondly you become more of a skill monkey especially if you take college of lore. College of lore would add great support abilities like cutting words. And you can steal two spells at level 20 one can be a smite, you could take spirit guardians or spiritual weapon which scales well, or counterspell for obvious reasons.
Alternatively instead of 6 levels of bard you could take 6 levels of fighter eldritch knight to get an extra ASI, progress your spell caster level, get action surge, and finally second attack. If you took two levels paladin then you can smite more often on your turns.
EDIT: Your six levels of fighter/bard can come at any point not just the end of the build. Same thing for Paladin. The two paladin levels I suggest taking early.
I'm sure their are other optimal ways to build this character.
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
Warlock1 has 1 spell slot on a short rest recharge with 2 spells known.
Forgot since the only time I played a warlock I started at level 3 and you have two slots for such a long time.
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
No problem, I was just looking at it and had to double check. I agree that some of the classes are dead weight classes, particularly monk1. Unless you have a scenario where you are without arms and armor, these abilities do nothing and you gain no proficiencies that aren't duplicated elsewhere. At least it's a d8 hit die class and isn't losing you an HP. Barbarian is almost as bad if you aren't using strength melee attacks, but rage does give you a panic button for slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage in addition to that lively D12 that's making up for Wizard and Sorcerer only being d6s. Of course, you could replace barb and monk with 2 levels of some combination of fighter, ranger, and paladin and have the same HP with more goodies, including the potential to become an 8th or 9th level caster with just those levels and the 1st levels of all the classes less barbarian and monk. But then it wouldn't really be an every class character.
@Shaylic: Combining EK and warlock isn't really that good since you then become reliant on both Int and Charisma. Either or is probably favourable.
You've already got Wizard and Artificer as part of the every class build. How is adding EK any different? The key to this build is to take all of your attack spells from classes with the same spellcasting ability and taking utility spells with everything else. Further, you'll be hard pressed to get any ability much higher than 16, particularly if you don't invest most or all of your extra 7 levels in fighter, and especially if you don't dump constitution. Dumping constitution leaves you low on HP and leaves your con saves reliant on proficiency bonus meaning you have to start fighter, barbarian, or sorcerer or use one of those precious few ASIs or the human variant feat on Resilient (Con) and/or Warcaster if you want concentration spells to be reliable. If magic items are in play and you can guarantee a Amulet of Health that also mitigates the problem. Otherwise, your better off taking some Constitution and forgetting about attack spells unless you can get a Headband of Intellect or a similar item for wisdom or charisma. I believe those would have to be homebrewed and you've got attunement limits to deal with to boot.
A Belt of Dwarvenkind can help con as well. There are several items that boost strength.
Because if you're making the build realiant on casting from those classes, you are no longer SAD, which was the point of the comment I was replying to.
I stated two builds one that focused on bard and one that focused on EK. The only thing about warlock I mentioned is that Hexblade helps alot since their are so many CHA casters you are mixing into the build that it can be an easy focal point. Even if you went EK for six levels the benefits is that it still progresses spell levels, and you get fighter features to help with smiting. You still will want to primarily cast spells from the CHA classes, but that EK helps since I suggested two levels of Paladin.
For a build where you are multiclassing all the classes you need at least a 13 across the board in your stats. With Hexblade you can focus on CHA to up your spell casting on low level spells like Dissonant whispers and you can use the stat for your weapon meaning the levels in Paladin won't be wasted. going fighter instead of bard gives you an extra ASI as well.
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
Thanks for the clarification
I made a test character. You get 5th level spell slots and you can smite and make two attacks. Also you get some decent casting since your CHA is 18.
Linked HERE
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
If you're going 2 levels of Paladin, there's enough utility between the prepared caster list (ups the spells known and number prepared), the extra spellcaster level (probably more slots), and potentially the fighting style (depending on what you did with the fighter fighting style, whether the UA styles are available, and whether you're also going ranger 2) to make the 2nd level not a complete waste, even if you're not able to take advantage of the smites. Getting those online simply adds value for me, particularly since I don't see a great way to get smiting online for every class and haven't had time to theorycraft it yet. It's such a departure from the normal paladin outlook that I can understand the sentiment though.
If your DM is tossing levels at you like they're candy, then I guess it doesn't matter if you play a character capable of doing nothing useful.
If you're levelling up a lot faster than that then either you do no RP or you just milestone level whenever the DM feels like it. Either way, I love the campaign I play in. We develop characters and allows them to have personal storylines. I appreciate that you're not really interested in that aspect of the game, but 8 hours of gameplay per character per level is about right for a campaign that isn't just World of Warcraft on a tabletop.
Everyone we play with is no longer a beginner so we tend to start campaigns at level 3 or 5 depending. Levels 1 through 5 goes pretty quick anyway. After that then it usually takes between 8 to 12 sessions to level.
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
See you now said 1 per 8. Before it was 1 per 50.
Using your newly stated standard, you'd gain 6 levels in the time it takes that other hypothetical group to gain 1 level.
Neither of us want levels to be candy, but we *do* want to level up.
He said 1 level per 8 hours per character. If they've got 6 characters, that's 48 hours. If it's mostly role play, the mechanical weakness of your character won't come into play as often. If it's skills, you'll likely have a few opportunities there with expertise and proficiencies galore. If high damage means combat success to you, you'll likely not enjoy the character. However, if you can find joy in supporting the party with the myriad options that you have without dealing much direct damage, this type of character could be quite fun.
Warlock 2 solves all your offensive issues(eldritch blast with charisma on every ray, scales with character level), and combines well with bard 3. Furthermore, beeing the party face (charismaperson) doesnt require a class so you will excel at it with expertise.