D&D 5E Warlock/Cleric Best of all Worlds

Herobizkit · Aug 23, 2014

For me, this is why Valor Bard/Blade Pact Warlock is a three-cheese club sandwich. They're both Cah powered and Bards 'know' their spells - so they can heal, blast AND wail with a Pact Blade.

Christian · Sep 11, 2014

holyground said:
since clerics prepare their list of available spells during a long rest, and since they are allowed to use warlock slot levels to determine maximum spell level known, even a 1st level cleric max level warlock has access to all of the cleric spells, just not at the same time. Each long rest, they have access to wis mod+cleric level spells <=spell slot level.

I really don't think so. "You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class." If you have one cleric level, you can prepare 1+Wis mod cleric spells of up to 1st level. The fact that your warlock (or any other) levels give you 9th-level casting slots does not have any relevance to what spells you can prepare. It's only relevant in that your cure wounds spell can be cast with that 9th-level slot you got from your warlock class to heal 9d8.

holyground · Sep 11, 2014

that is certainly one way to interpret the rules. and I don't disagree with your interpretation. however, pact magic on page 164 specifically states that each class can use other slots. when looking at cleric spell preperation, it does not state cleric slot levels. it simply says you cannot prepare a spell for which you do not have an appropriate spell slot level.

so, my interpretation is that an Mc cleric/warlock, can only pull from cleric or warlock spell lists, can only prepare the list of known spells based on their class level respectively, and then they look at highest slot level to determine which level of spells they know. clerics reset during long rest, warlocks do not.

holyground · Sep 11, 2014

that is certainly one way to interpret the rules. and I don't disagree with your interpretation. however, pact magic on page 164 specifically states that each class can use other slots. when looking at cleric spell preperation, it does not state cleric slot levels. it simply says you cannot prepare a spell for which you do not have an appropriate spell slot level.

so, my interpretation is that an Mc cleric/warlock, can only pull from cleric or warlock spell lists, can only prepare the list of known spells based on their class level respectively, and then they look at highest slot level to determine which level of spells they know. clerics reset during long rest, warlocks do not.

brehobit · Sep 11, 2014

holyground said:
so, my interpretation is that an Mc cleric/warlock, can only pull from cleric or warlock spell lists, can only prepare the list of known spells based on their class level respectively, and then they look at highest slot level to determine which level of spells they know. clerics reset during long rest, warlocks do not.

I agree with this. A Cleric 1/Warlock 10 will have some spells "known" from the warlock and cleric side. The Cleric side can change every long rest. But those cleric spells can only be 1st level. He can use a level 5 slot (from the Warlock) to cast those first level cleric spells.

Is it hugely powerful? I really don't think so. Most spells scale into higher-level slots pretty poorly.

On a different note, I think we all agree that 3e made multi-classing a spell caster a pretty difficult thing. I think 5e has made it work (perhaps even making it slightly over powered). But 5e has really made multi-classing warrior types really painful. Both casters and warriors suffer from the stat-gain problem (level 3/3 has no stat bonuses), but warrior types also have to worry about multi-attack not stacking (level 4 fighter/level 5 paladin has 1 attack). That can make for very ineffective warriors as multi-attack is _huge_ in this edition.

RangerWickett · Sep 12, 2014

Why not just have levels stack for "extra attack" and "stat increase"?

brehobit · Sep 13, 2014

RangerWickett said:
Why not just have levels stack for "extra attack" and "stat increase"?

Not sure if that's a rhetorical question or not, but they clearly did it to weaken multi-class options. I can see why--some dips are very nice indeed. But it ends up hurting warriors who are splitting between two classes evenly a bit more than _I_ think it should.

green_destiny · Jan 3, 2015

Im also of dipping into a bit of cleric levels in my warlock's later levels my only problemis tha pairing of my patron and diety that wont be thematically oposing. Any dieties that i can pair up with a Fiend patron?

i agree that Life domain diety and a Fiend patron can be a bit of a stretch...

sithramir · Jan 3, 2015

green_destiny said:
Im also of dipping into a bit of cleric levels in my warlock's later levels my only problemis tha pairing of my patron and diety that wont be thematically oposing. Any dieties that i can pair up with a Fiend patron?

i agree that Life domain diety and a Fiend patron can be a bit of a stretch...

Remember that your patron for warlock doesn't have to be willing. They show an example of being born a descendant of a warlock who made the deal. They give you powers and are trying to "steal your soul" in that sense but you can still be good and fighting it. Perhaps you're a cleric and that god is your savior but it's a wrest for final control of where your soul goes, etc. They made it that way so that you can really use any deity and still be a warlock if you play it that weay. Obviously some people will want to do it a certain way but they wrote a book about the one tiefling warlock to show this off.

green_destiny · Jan 5, 2015

sithramir said:
Remember that your patron for warlock doesn't have to be willing. They show an example of being born a descendant of a warlock who made the deal. They give you powers and are trying to "steal your soul" in that sense but you can still be good and fighting it. Perhaps you're a cleric and that god is your savior but it's a wrest for final control of where your soul goes, etc. They made it that way so that you can really use any deity and still be a warlock if you play it that weay. Obviously some people will want to do it a certain way but they wrote a book about the one tiefling warlock to show this off.

Thanks! This made me read about the nine hells plane and deities. After 3 or 4 warlock levels i'll see if i can dip 2 cleric levels (Tempest domain).

But if the class feature grants me heavy armor proficiency but my strength score is not enough for that armor, can i still don that armor without penalty..?