D&D 5E Xanathar's "War Magic" too strong for multiclassing?

FrogReaver said:

Barbarian 5 warwizard 2 then continue on in barbarian. Take out of combat utility spells.

I think that's much stronger than a straight barbarian. A barbarian with good saves is scary.

Any fightery class after level 11 is amazing with that ability too. Be it fighter or barbarian or paladin.

It's still a solid trade off after 5 levels of fighter or 6 levels of paladin.

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Snof said:

How would this barbarian compare to a barbarian with a dip in fighter, either champion (extra crit), or maybe even battlemaster?

Without making a long post, I'd argue that is is just as good, if not better than dipping two level of wizard.

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• Five stat points that must be diverted to your class's natural dump stat
• 6 hit points, which is about 9% of your total (assuming Con 14)
• One daily use of rage, which is 25% of your total
• Advantage on initiative rolls
• The ability to negate surprise by raging
• A very minor ribbon ability from totem barbarian

• +2 AC and/or +4 to saves, at the cost of your reaction (since you only use this ability if you get hit or fail a save, and you can use it every round, it's close to a continuous bonus)
• +1 to initiative (assuming you put the minimum required in Int)
• Three wizard cantrips
• Four 1st-level spell slots (including Arcane Recovery)
• The ability to cast 1st-level wizard rituals

Dausuul said:

Okay, let's try barbarian 5/war wizard 2 versus barbarian 7. What's the trade? (I'll go with totem barbarian since most folks seem to think that's the best option.)

What you lose:

• Five stat points that must be diverted to your class's natural dump stat
• 6 hit points, which is about 9% of your total (assuming Con 14)
• One daily use of rage, which is 25% of your total
• Advantage on initiative rolls
• The ability to negate surprise by raging
• A very minor ribbon ability from totem barbarian

What you get:

• +2 AC and/or +4 to saves, at the cost of your reaction (since you only use this ability if you get hit or fail a save, and you can use it every round, it's close to a continuous bonus)
• +1 to initiative (assuming you put the minimum required in Int)
• Three wizard cantrips
• Four 1st-level spell slots (including Arcane Recovery)
• The ability to cast 1st-level wizard rituals

The big gains are the AC/saving throw bonus, and ritual casting. The big costs are the stat point investment, going from 4 rages/day to 3, and the initiative/surprise benefits (advantage on initiative is way, way better than a mere +1). I think the stat points push it over the line to "not worth it." Still, if you rolled for stats and have a spare 13 floating around, this might be a neat way to go.

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BookBarbarian said:

It's a solid dip, but I think it's pretty comparable to a Fighter 2 dip, Barbarian 2 dip, Rogue 2 dip, or Warlock 2 dip.

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FrogReaver said:

Aren't those basically the best dips you can take in the game?

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FrogReaver said:

So let's start with a few baseline assumptions.
1. You are having at most 3 combat encounters per day. (the guideline 6-8 just doesn't happen in many peoples campaigns). Having 4 rages instead of 3 will help once in a blue moon but not on the average adventuring day in this setup.
2. To make the stats work to get 13 int you will generally have to take one less bonus in con. There may be some racial choice that makes it work without taking away any bonuses but i'm willing to concede 1 less bonus in con.
3. Agreed on the loss of 6hp from class and an additional 7 from the con bonus. In perspective this would be the difference between 68 and 55 hp.
4. Initaitive would be lower.
5. A ribbon ability from the totem barbarian.

What you gain by going wizard is the ability to cast false life 4 times for a potential total daily temp hp of 4d6+16 (average 26). 55+26 = 81 effective hp vs 68 effective hp.
You gain the saves and ac bonus reaction. And a bit of initiative to help close the gap a bit on the pure barbarian.

That to me looks like a good trade. One rage I'm probably not using anyways, an initiative bonus, a ribbon ability and better initiative for more effective hp, +4 better saves and a little better ac. I think that looks like an amazing trade...

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