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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[Henry]

I'm actually surprised that the "dipping" doesn't go all the way to level 4 for most of these, stopping at level 3 so often; if you're going to level 3, in most cases might as well go to level 4, so as not to delay ability score increases/feats. Basically, if you only go to level 3, you're 3 levels behind your next ASI (excepting the fighter multiclass.) For Wizards/Clerics/Druids I can see a compelling reason not to go to level 4 in your multiclass (9th level spells!) but for most other classes, giving up the level 17 increase isn't that big to me.

 

[the Jester]

Does this mean D&D could create any "hybrid" class as in Pathfinder? And why not?

If multiclassing can do the job, why create a system that is unnecessary and redundant?

More classes aren't necessarily better.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm actually surprised that the "dipping" doesn't go all the way to level 4 for most of these, stopping at level 3 so often; if you're going to level 3, in most cases might as well go to level 4, so as not to delay ability score increases/feats. Basically, if you only go to level 3, you're 3 levels behind your next ASI (excepting the fighter multiclass.) For Wizards/Clerics/Druids I can see a compelling reason not to go to level 4 in your multiclass (9th level spells!) but for most other classes, giving up the level 17 increase isn't that big to me.

If you've already maxed out your prime stat, and your build isn't heavily feat-dependent, level 4 is something of a dead level.

 

[FrogReaver]

If multiclassing can do the job, why create a system that is unnecessary and redundant?

More classes aren't necessarily better.

Because mutliclassing does a terrible job of emulating many concepts across the whole level 1-20 range. mukticlassing tends to do much better at emulating concepts for levels 12+ than for levels 1-11.

 

[Henry]

If you've already maxed out your prime stat, and your build isn't heavily feat-dependent, level 4 is something of a dead level.

Given that I've always played in 5e games with the default point buy, I don't think either of those have ever applied to me -- I'm ALWAYS loath to pass up an ability score increase -- it would be at least 16th level before my prime stat and my CON are maxed, anyway.

 

[BookBarbarian]

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.

That seems to fit with me. I have a level 5 barbarian and was looking at the 6-10 levels of barbarian and decided it wouldn't bring enough that was new to my character. Just the same old same old.

Although in defiance of the popular (according to this data) I shall be multi-classing into Ranger.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I’ve only seen that happen once in 5e – a cleric/sorcerer/fighter. Guy had some interesting synergies and was pretty versatile, but his spell DCs were abysmal. That really hampered him by the campaign’s end.

I'm curious if there are any 3rd class stats.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The paladin is a fighter-cleric hybrid class, and the ranger was a rogue-druid. You can't say "there is enough classes, or monsters or PC races". Always there is a player who wants some different thing.

 

[Ganders]

The abundance of level 3 multiclasses seems like an index to how many of these characters are real. Theorycrafters love level 20 characters with level 9 spells, so they aren't tempted to bump that up to level 4 for a feat. Many of those 'level 20' characters were likely never played.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If multiclassing can do the job, why create a system that is unnecessary and redundant?

More classes aren't necessarily better.

Rather a lot of people don’t like mutliclassing, and for good reasons.

It’s kludgey, it leaves you with weird traits that have absolutely nothing to do with the concept, and it requires more mental effort to plan for than just picking a class and leveling up, with greater risk of a mechanically crummy character that doesn’t do what the player wanted the character to do.