D&D 5E Overpowered, Underpowered or Just Right

[Carbonfiber07]

Hello Everyone. Long time lurker on these boards. Have a 5E situation that I would like opinions on. We just finished up a long Pathfinder campaign and we are starting 5E for the first time. All players have been playing D&D since the 80s, so while we are familiar with RPGs and the rules, this is our first foray into 5E.

One of the players has a nice character concept for the new 5E game. He is a High Elf and currently has 2 levels of Rogue. At level 3 he will dip into fighter for a level, then back to Rogue for one more level, then the rest in Fighter and he will take the Eldrich Knight path. He is a DEX based character and is using two short swords, so he will take the two weapon fighting style when he gets his first Fighter level. Then when he goes back to Rogue for a level he wants to take the Swashbuckler archetype from the Sword Coast book. He also wants to use the Green-Flame Blade cantrip as his High Elf cantrip.

Given the sneak attack rules in the PHB and the additional opportunities for sneak attack from the Swashbuckler archetype, plus the two weapon fighting and DEX based character along with the Green Flame Blade cantrip, does anyone think this is overpowered, underpowered or just right? Everything he wants to do seems RAW, but I have no experience with this combo and not sure if others think the additions from the Sword Coast Adventures Guide are overpowered or not. Seems he can spam the Green-Flame Blade cantrip over and over as it states that the melee attack is part of the action used to cast the spell.

Of course, at the lower levels, the Green-Flame Blade cantrip and the sneak attack seem to be at odds with each other, such that for the cantrip to work, a creature needs to be within 5 feet of the enemy you are hitting, whereas for sneak attack to work (from the Swashbuckler archetype), there must be no other creature within 5 feet of the Rogue. This assumes I understand the sneak attack rules.

Thank you for any opinions and feel free to tell me I am concerned about something that really doesn't justify my concern.

 

[FrogReaver]

Fairly certain in combat his build will underperform a single class character until about level 8 or so. Then he will see-saw back and forth.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

One of the players has a nice character concept for the new 5E game. He is a High Elf and currently has 2 levels of Rogue. At level 3 he will dip into fighter for a level, then back to Rogue for one more level, then the rest in Fighter and he will take the Eldrich Knight path. He is a DEX based character and is using two short swords, so he will take the two weapon fighting style when he gets his first Fighter level. Then when he goes back to Rogue for a level he wants to take the Swashbuckler archetype from the Sword Coast book. He also wants to use the Green-Flame Blade cantrip as his High Elf cantrip.

Given the sneak attack rules in the PHB and the additional opportunities for sneak attack from the Swashbuckler archetype, plus the two weapon fighting and DEX based character along with the Green Flame Blade cantrip, does anyone think this is overpowered, underpowered or just right? Everything he wants to do seems RAW, but I have no experience with this combo and not sure if others think the additions from the Sword Coast Adventures Guide are overpowered or not. Seems he can spam the Green-Flame Blade cantrip over and over as it states that the melee attack is part of the action used to cast the spell.

Of course, at the lower levels, the Green-Flame Blade cantrip and the sneak attack seem to be at odds with each other, such that for the cantrip to work, a creature needs to be within 5 feet of the enemy you are hitting, whereas for sneak attack to work (from the Swashbuckler archetype), there must be no other creature within 5 feet of the Rogue. This assumes I understand the sneak attack rules.

Thank you for any opinions and feel free to tell me I am concerned about something that really doesn't justify my concern.

You might want to ensure that they understand the rules around some of those capabilities. They may be basing a character build on a misapprehension.

1) You can only sneak attack once in your round. Using two-weapon fighting gives an additional chance to hit, but you only get to roll sneak attack even if more than one attack hits.

2) Using a combat cantrip like Green Flame Blade is a "Cast a spell" action, during which you get to make an attack. It is not an "Attack" action, therefore you cannot (by RAW) make an off-hand attack using the two-weapon-fighting rules when you use the cantrip.

(I'm also pretty sure that the "splash damage" from GFB can't benefit from sneak attack, although the once-per-round limitation will generally rule this out anyway.)

 

[Waterbizkit]

Jumping back and forth like that early on will probably see him underperforming against single-classed characters as every class gets a fairly significant bump in power at 5th level and he's delaying that by quite a bit. Other things to consider as others have pointed out...

You can only sneak attack once per turn regardless of how many attacks you get, all extra attacks net you are extra chances to land that hit.

Green Flame Blade and similar cantrips that involve making a melee attack do just that, allow a melee attack, not the attack action... so Extra Attack from the Fighter levels won't apply.

Sneak Attack is tied completely to Rogue levels, not character levels, so again all the hopping back and forth is going to slow the growth of his sneak attack damage.

There might be others but I'm at work and in a rush. He probably won't be terribly underpowered but it'll take him some time to finally catch up to the characters that are remaining single-classed.

 

[CheezyRamen]

I think the main difference is that he is coming from Pathfinder where in my experience multi classing is encouraged and even I would consider part of the game. In 5e I feel like multi classing is discouraged and will punish you kinda. I dunno, just my take on it. I would list the other things that people have listed but ya know....people already listed them.

 

[Carbonfiber07]

You might want to ensure that they understand the rules around some of those capabilities. They may be basing a character build on a misapprehension.

1) You can only sneak attack once in your round. Using two-weapon fighting gives an additional chance to hit, but you only get to roll sneak attack even if more than one attack hits.

2) Using a combat cantrip like Green Flame Blade is a "Cast a spell" action, during which you get to make an attack. It is not an "Attack" action, therefore you cannot (by RAW) make an off-hand attack using the two-weapon-fighting rules when you use the cantrip.

(I'm also pretty sure that the "splash damage" from GFB can't benefit from sneak attack, although the once-per-round limitation will generally rule this out anyway.)

Thanks for the quick responses.

Questions in response to Cap'n Kobold:
1) Understood
2) Can you direct me to the PHB section on this? Or are you getting this from the description of the spell? The spell says, "as part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack...." So, if I understand your comment, the off hand attack only comes from a bonus action which triggers when using the "attack" action, and since the cantrip is not using the "attack" action, but rather the "cast a spell" action, the bonus action is never triggered?

Thanks again for the replies, BTW, as I really appreciate the community.

 

[Tormyr]

Thanks for the quick responses.

Questions in response to Cap'n Kobold:
1) Understood
2) Can you direct me to the PHB section on this? Or are you getting this from the description of the spell? The spell says, "as part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack...." So, if I understand your comment, the off hand attack only comes from a bonus action which triggers when using the "attack" action, and since the cantrip is not using the "attack" action, but rather the "cast a spell" action, the bonus action is never triggered?

Thanks again for the replies, BTW, as I really appreciate the community.

Correct, as part of casting the spell you make a single melee attack roll, but the action taken is still Cast a Spell. Getting a bonus action attack from Two Weapon Fighting requires taking the Attack action.

Multiclassing in 5e works much better in larger blocks rather than jumping back and forth. It also does not apply as many proficiencies from the additional classes. In general, a player wants to choose their primary class for the initial proficiencies, stick with that until the first ASI (if they are planning on at least four levels in the class) or five levels if the class is one of those that offers Extra Attack, and then they dip into the other class. In this case, if the player wants proficiency in rogue stuff and Dexterity saving throws, they would start as a rogue. If they want the Con saving throw that would balance against their high Dex (in essence giving two medium saving throws vs. 1 good one), then start as a fighter.

Why did the player want the levels of rogue out of interest? Sometimes there is a way to get the same features or concept more efficiently than multiclassing.

 

[Carbonfiber07]

Green Flame Blade and similar cantrips that involve making a melee attack do just that, allow a melee attack, not the attack action... so Extra Attack from the Fighter levels won't apply.

Thanks for the reply. This coincides with Cap'n Kobolds response. I did not consider this, as I was assuming (apparently wrongly) that the GFB cantrip was an attack action because it says you get to make an attack as part of casting the spell. I think I follow what you guys are saying now and appreciate the clarification. Can you point to any PHB section that would support this? I think I am agreeing with your logic, just want to know if there is a rule somewhere that says something like this.

 

[Corwin]

2) Can you direct me to the PHB section on this? Or are you getting this from the description of the spell? The spell says, "as part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack...." So, if I understand your comment, the off hand attack only comes from a bonus action which triggers when using the "attack" action, and since the cantrip is not using the "attack" action, but rather the "cast a spell" action, the bonus action is never triggered?

I explain it to new players like this:

Would you expect to be able to make an off-hand bonus action attack after casting fire bolt? Of course not. In the same way, you are taking the "cast a spell" action when you cast booming blade, or green flame blade. No difference mechanically. It just so happens, as part of those two spells, you get to make a single melee attack to deliver the effect.

 

[Carbonfiber07]

Why did the player want the levels of rogue out of interest? Sometimes there is a way to get the same features or concept more efficiently than multiclassing.

Thanks. I seem to be coming to the conclusion now that alluded me before. In response to this particular quote, the players are very good role players and design a concept first and then try and make that work within the rules, as opposed to reading the rules first and then trying to make the most powerful concept. They really are good players and we have been the same group, sans one, for a long time.

He plans to put the rest of his levels into Eldrich Knight after these dips back and forth between fighter and rogue. Not entirely sure why he doesn't just go Rogue 3 and then switch to Fighter.