Who's Multiclassing With Who? More D&D Beyond Stats!

D&D Beyond has released yet more stats! We've already seen the most common adventures, classes by tier, and subclasses. This time it's a look at popular multiclass combinations! They use "active characters" which are those not deleted or suspended, and which there is "some reasonable sense that maybe they're played". There was a LOT of data whizzing by very fast in the Twitch stream, so here it is broken down.

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It turns out that 11% of level 2+ characters are multiclass and 27% of level 20 characters are multiclass. This varies by class, of course, with the fighter being the most common, with 33% multiclassed at levels 2+ and nearly 40% at level 20.

In the graphics here, the light blue is characters of level 2+, the dark blue is characters of level 20. The fact that you can take more than just two classes means that these won't add up to exactly 100%.

Fighter/Rogue is the most popular combo, followed by Barbarian/Fighter. Warlock/Bard is the least popular.

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Up at level 20, the figures differ a little.

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Zooming in at the bard, you can see it broken down by level. Level 1 is a popular level as are 3 and 10. The most popular choices for a bard's multi class are the rogue and the warlock.

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And here's the cleric by level. The most popular cleric combinations are fighter, wizard, and rogue.

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Here are druids, one of the least popular multiclasses, with only 8% multiclass druids. There's a peak at 10th level. Barbarians, rangers, and clerics are popular combos.

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Paladins. Levels 2 and 6 are popular. Popular combos are with warlock, fighter, and sorcerer.

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Next up is the ranger. Popular multiclasses are rogue, fighter, and druid.

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Monk is next. Level 17 is a milestone, and it multiclasses with rogue, fighter, and barbarian most.

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Sorcerer. Warlock, paladin, and fighters are common multiclasses.

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And then we have the warlock. A very popular choice for muliticlassing, with 23-25% of warlock characters doing so. Sorcerer, fighter, rogue are the popular multiclasses.

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The wizard has a peak at 10th level. They tend to multiclass with warlocks, paladins, and fighters.

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For the barbarian, we have mainly a low level dip, and lots of fighter multiclasses, followed by druid, rogue and monk.

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This one is the fighter. Very popular for multiclassers, with 33% of characters, and nearly 40% at level 20. Warlock, paladin and... fighter? are popular multiclasses.

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And then we have the rogue! Almost as popular as the fighter (32%). The popular mutliclass choices here are warlock, paladin, and fighter.

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[TwoSix]

Fighter/Rogue is the most popular combo, followed by Barbarian/Fighter. Warlock/Bard is the least popular.

That's not quite accurate...Warlock/Bard is the least common option on that chart, but that chart is only showing the 10 most popular combinations. Since there are 66 possible combinations of 2 PHB classes, that means Warlock/Bard is 10th out of 66, a fairly popular combination! (Considering Warlock/bard is a pretty optimal multiclass combination, that isn't too surprising.)

This one is the fighter. Very popular for multiclassers, with 33% of characters, and nearly 40% at level 20. Warlock, paladin and... fighter? are popular multiclasses.

Looks like it should be sorcerer in that chart instead of fighter; the same error exists on both the rogue and the wizard chart.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Only surprise to me, here, is the low numbers on Warlock MC for Bards. It’s a really easy and fun way to make a bard Gish or blaster, while sacrificing very, very, little.

 

[ad_hoc]

I'd love to know the % of tables who use multiclassing. Mearls has stated that less than half of all groups use Feats. I would have thought multiclassing would be lower than that.

Multiclassed Fighters can be up to 40%!

That's much higher than I would have thought. I wonder what the sample bias is like between people who use D&D Beyond and like to go into finer character options like multiclassing.

 

[kenmarable]

Only surprise to me, here, is the low numbers on Warlock MC for Bards. It’s a really easy and fun way to make a bard Gish or blaster, while sacrificing very, very, little.

As TwoSix pointed out, warlock/bard is least popular *of those shown*, which is the top 10. So it’s actually quite popular as you figured.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

As TwoSix pointed out, warlock/bard is least popular *of those shown*, which is the top 10. So it’s actually quite popular as you figured.

Right, but tenth is still lower than I’d have expected. OTOH, is Warlock is high for Bards that multiclass, so at least that makes sense. I’d expect Bards to multiclass more, I guess.

 

[Hussar]

In my very inexpert and totally anecdotal opinion, multiclassing in 5e has far more to do with creating a character with, well, character, than simply min-maxing and power gaming. Thus, classes like bards and druids, which come built in with tons of flavor, generally don't get multiclassed, whereas fighters, because they are so generic, multiclass in order to actually have something to hang the character on.

 

[gyor]

I'm surprised Sorcerer/Bard isn't more popular.

 

[Sadras]

In my very inexpert and totally anecdotal opinion, multiclassing in 5e has far more to do with creating a character with, well, character, than simply min-maxing and power gaming. Thus, classes like bards and druids, which come built in with tons of flavor, generally don't get multiclassed, whereas fighters, because they are so generic, multiclass in order to actually have something to hang the character on.

I suspect you may be right. We have two fighters at our table, both are multi-classed, one with rogue the other with wizard, and both with the fighter as the initial class.

 

[kenmarable]

Right, but tenth is still lower than I’d have expected. OTOH, is Warlock is high for Bards that multiclass, so at least that makes sense. I’d expect Bards to multiclass more, I guess.

If I understand that chart right, that's out of all multiclass characters. So the fact that there are FAR more fighters and rogues than warlocks and bards overall, would cause those to rise up quite a bit.

Also, honestly, I really like bards and a I really like warlocks, but thematically, that's a combo that has never occurred to me. Mechanically, it makes sense, and I'm sure there are plenty of interesting concepts. But even as someone who plays those two classes, it wouldn't occur to me to combine them conceptually at all. I was actually surprised that it was that high! But it just goes to show that the game is rich enough for people to have very different experiences of them.

 

[5ekyu]

If I understand that chart right, that's out of all multiclass characters. So the fact that there are FAR more fighters and rogues than warlocks and bards overall, would cause those to rise up quite a bit.

Also, honestly, I really like bards and a I really like warlocks, but thematically, that's a combo that has never occurred to me. Mechanically, it makes sense, and I'm sure there are plenty of interesting concepts. But even as someone who plays those two classes, it wouldn't occur to me to combine them conceptually at all. I was actually surprised that it was that high! But it just goes to show that the game is rich enough for people to have very different experiences of them.

Well maybe but we need to see the numbers of non-multi-class to be sure.

I mean when they told use there were more fighters rogues and wizards I assume that included the multi-classes so maybe a good chunk of that extra was from them multi-classing so much.

I think an interesting chart would be class popularity weighted by levels.

So a fighter- 2 wizard 10 would count as 2 ftr levels and 10 wizard levels . Let's see the levels folks see invested in these characters in play.