D&D 5E Mid-level Versatility

[cmad1977]

One level of every class

 

[pdegan2814]

Agreed. Meaningful choices and opportunity cost are part of the system. But the flip side of that, saying that all characters have to be one-dimensional, isn't exactly a selling point.

I don't think anyone is saying your character has to be one-dimensional, I certainly wasn't. At the minimum, I suggested focusing on one in-combat and one non-combat role, but there's certainly room to expand beyond that. And "role" in this case is a pretty broad term. Beyond that, it's just "season to taste". So you pick Fighter for your class. There's no reason why you can't boost his Charisma a bit, take proficiency in Persuasion & Deception and make him the "face" of your party. Or stick with Athletics & Intimidation and make him the Brute Squad. Or go with Animal Handling, Survival, & Nature for a bit of Ranger flavor, but with the pure martial abilities of the Fighter class. Heck, look at the Cleric & Druid classes. They have a whole lot of versatility all by themselves. The Druid's spells let them do lots of different things, from combat to healing and plenty in between. And when it's time to just hit stuff, their Wild Shapes give them extra melee power. The Cleric can hold their own pretty well in melee combat, some domains even have access to heavy armor and advanced weapons. Plus their spells run the gamut between offensive and defensive.

At the end of the day, the game is about making choices. Choosing to go broader with your skills means you won't be able to go as deep. If you're ok with that, it's up to you. Decide who you want your character to be, and go for it. If you find yourself wishing there were other classes or abilities you'd like to play with, there's always another campaign, with a chance to roll up a new character.

 

[bid]

If I want maximum versatility I would focus on skills and spells. To fill the requirements the best I can, I would recommend a Cleric (knowledge domain) 1/Wizard (Diviner) X, I would make it a half elf. Probably go for the Urchin background.

Here's what the build would achieve:

Starting skills: Medicine (Cleric), Insight (Cleric), Arcana (with expertise knowledge), History (with expertise knowledge), Stealth (background), Sleight of Hand (background), Perception (Half Elf), Investigation (Half Elf), Thieves tool proficiency (background)

That's pretty doable with 8 14 13 13 16 13, but maybe going human with resilient (Con) would be worth losing 1 skill and having Cha11.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

That's pretty doable with 8 14 13 13 16 13, but maybe going human with resilient (Con) would be worth losing 1 skill and having Cha11.

Variant Human is always a decent alternative for pretty much any build. Personally, using the Stat array - I would probably stat it out (with Half Elf)
Str: 10
Dex: 12
Con: 13+1=14
Int: 15+1=16
Wis: 14
Cha: 8+2=10

Edit: There is a decent case for going 12 Con, 14 Dex as well. Comes down to personal preference.

With Variant Human I would probably go with the Str 8, Cha 10. The feat I would probably select is Warcaster.

Of course, you could throw the 13 in Wisdom, then put the 14 in Con (+1 racial) for 15 total, then Resilient to up it to 16.

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of Warcaster - especially if you are giving your spellcaster a shield.

 

[Redthistle]

A well-rounded 5th level PC (there may well be better builds out there):

Human standard build with starting ability raises applied: Str 11 Dex 16 Con 13 Int 13 Wis 13 Cha 13.

PC level 1, Rogue 1: Gains 6 proficient skills from class and background, 2 of the skills with expertise; sneak attack (+1d6); thieve's cant. Dex is primary; Int is just high enough in case PC becomes Arcane Trickster up the road.

PC level 2, Monk 1: Gains unarmed defense and martial arts (unarmed damage increased to 1d4); two useful features if the PC is ever deprived of all weapons and equipment, and more fun in a bar fight. Also, there's overlap with the rogue's weapon proficiencies and some monk-usable weapons. Wis adds to unarmored AC; primacy of Dex overlaps with rogue.

PC level 3-to-5, Bard 1-to-3: Number of proficient skills raised to 10, 4 of them with expertise; gains spell-casting with access to cure/heal type spells and divination magic.

Drawbacks:

One big one is a delay in class-associated Ability Score Improvements if (as in my example) the advancement of the PC jumps around between classes. If on the other hand, the player advances the PC with 4 straight levels for each class before switching to another, it will remain in lockstep with single-class character improvements. The player needs to be careful to divide up the classes' level distribution in accumulated blocks of 4 levels to keep from removing the fifth and final improvement from disappearing.

On the same note, a three-class PC, with the distribution of class levels at L4/L4/L12, would gain no class feature higher than level 12. A two-class PC with could benefit from all 5 ability improvements with either a L1/L19 level-split between the classes or a L4/L16 distribution of class levels.

Whenever a given class does reach an Ability Score Improvement level, 2 would be need to raise Dex to 20, 2 more could be used to raise all of the 13s to 14, with the 5th improvement up for grabs.

 

[Craig Bettles]

I highly recommend a Paladin (any)/Sorcerer (Favored Soul) for mid level versatility. At P-3/S-6 you get the following:
- Two attacks a round with a fighting style (3 with Haste)
- Great AC, a decent HP pool and immunity to disease (and Defense spells like Shield/Blink)
- Lots of spell versatility with Sorcerer, Paladin and a Divine Domain
- Big heals with Twinned Cure Wounds and Lay on Hands
- Ability to twin cast some great buffs (hello Haste)
- Battlefield control and AOE (Web, Fireball)

You can also add out of combat versatility with the right background and spells like Enhance Ability