D&D 5E Sorcerer levels best way to mix combat and spells

[TheSword]

Hey all,

So for the first time I tried playing a mixed caster and melee. I started off as fighter(Eldritch knight), then redid the character as a revised Ranger with the alternate class features. Then finally I tried adding a few levels of sorcerer... particularly you to level 3 to get meta magic quicken spell.

Is it me or is metamagic quicken by far the best way of casting and attacking? The Eldritch knight lets you attack once as well as casting a cantrip.

However metamagic lets you take your full attack (3 attacks potentially for a 6th level hunter), and then cast any spell for only 2 arcane points. It doesn’t matter that you’re quickening a spell as you’ll be attacking at the same time not casting anything else. The fact that you are primarily a fighter means you can afford to use up higher spell slots (that you don’t have spells for anyway) for arcane points and do this several times a day.

What am I missing, Paladin, Ranger, Eldritch Knight, Cleric, it seems that combining any of these with sorcerer makes them substantially better in combat?

 

[Salthorae]

Anytime you multiclass you get more powerful characters.

This is certainly one area where that is true, though I would question the "substantially" qualifier.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The weakness of quicken as something to multiclass for is that it takes 3 levels of Sorcerer to get it at all, at which point you have and can hold enough sorcery points to cast it a grand total of one time without burning a spell slot or two, and using a bonus action, to re-up sorcery points. A three level dip is all you can take as a full caster like the cleric without losing access to 9th level spells, and, more important to most actual play, it seriously slows down your spell progression. Quicken is always going to be resource intensive for anyone who is not a high level sorcerer. The half-casting Paladin and Ranger and the 1/3 casting Eldritch knight don't have many spell slots to burn on sorcery points. An option for a handful of rounds of absolute awesomeness a day usually don't really make up for a martial character taking 3 or more levels without other martial benefits.

Of the classes you mentioned only Paladins are Charisma oriented (and it is still often not a super high stat) so the utility of the broader Charisma casting opportunities of sorcerer levels is a bit limited. Even having the minimum 13 charisma to multiclass is a pretty big ask, especially since anyone martially oriented is going to need an extra high Constitution to make up for taking a bunch of d6 Sorcerer hit dice.

Some people really dig the Paladin-Sorcerer multiclass, but unless you are rolling a high level character or starting with jus a small Paladin dip it is a long journey to getting enough Sorcery points to be worthwhile, made palatable only by getting way more divine smites along the way from all the extra spell slots. But this latter part can be achieved with bard levels, which come with a lot more side benefits than Sorcerer levels, and Warlock may be even better if you are a short rest heavy group. They both do a little better than the dreaded d6 hit die as well. But the Sorcadin has its evangelists, and when it eventually comes online it seems to become one of the strongest multiclasses in the game. Particularly if you are a one or two encounter a day group a Sorcerer-Paladin can nova like no other. I wouldn't really recommend it as a multiclass to actually enjoyably play through the lower levels, but to each their own.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Anytime you multiclass you get more powerful characters.

This is certainly one area where that is true, though I would question the "substantially" qualifier.

Anytime you multiclass with careful planning you eventually get more powerful characters.

There's almost always some point(s) of feeling somewhat behind the power curve, and it takes the training wheels off the character building process.

 

[Salthorae]

Anytime you multiclass with careful planning you eventually get more powerful characters.

There's almost always some point(s) of feeling somewhat behind the power curve, and it takes the training wheels off the character building process.

That seems presumptuous to say that more power requires careful planning as if it can't be done by anyone or stumbled across. shrug

I've seen many characters who multiclass for any number of reasons but then ended up with more "power" than others. If you only define power as "combat effectiveness", then sure, it often does require planning to get there, but again, not always. I've seen people who ended up more powerful in combat than they'd thought after a multiclass.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

That seems presumptuous to say that more power requires careful planning as if it can't be done by anyone or stumbled across. shrug

I did worry that I'd sounded a bit too elitist or whatever, really all I'm getting at is that a single class character is hard to build wrong short of dumping your primary stats, or taking an exceptionally bad selection of spells (which can at least eventually be fixed for those who have set spells). Multi-classing can involve features that just don't synergize well, or at least not up to people's expectations. I think some people go in without appreciating the impact of putting off ASIs, spell progression, etc, or that some classes are a bit underwhelming if you have just the prerequisite 13 in the relevant stat. Multi-classing also requires a grasp of several additional rules that people frequently get confused on, such as prerequisite ability scores, multi-class spell progression, extra attacks not stacking, or that proficiency bonuses and cantrip damages do, unlike basically everything else, increase based on total level. And with any multiclass there are major tradeoffs in terms of when you take a given second, third, or thirteenth class.

In any case saying multiclassing will always result in a more powerful character is a bit hyperbolic. We can come up with all sorts of ridiculous builds to contradict that.

 

[Blue]

That seems presumptuous to say that more power requires careful planning as if it can't be done by anyone or stumbled across. shrug

I've seen many characters who multiclass for any number of reasons but then ended up with more "power" than others. If you only define power as "combat effectiveness", then sure, it often does require planning to get there, but again, not always. I've seen people who ended up more powerful in combat than they'd thought after a multiclass.

I've seen that - and I've also seen the opposite. I've seen characters trying to stand along 7th level characters with a bunch of nifty low level features - but only 2nd level spells known, and not a single ASI.

And even the high level build that at levels 10-12 is above average, if it was below average 4th through 8th then for more of it's career it was underpowered than over. Where it ends up matters just the same as every level it had to travel to get there.

 

[TheSword]

These are fair points in particular the limit of max arcane points. Sorcerer 4 may be more useful for the ASI and the extra point meaning you can quicken twice before needing convert.

However I think you are underestimating the extra spell slots. A ranger or Paladin is then casting as if 6 levels higher and an Eldritch Knight 9 levels higher. These aren’t losing 9th level slots as they don’t get them. The difference to a ranger Or paladin to lose 3rd or 4th level spells is negligible for the trade off being able to cast as a bonus action two or three times in a combat as well as make full attacks.

Even for the highest levels of spells remember in most cases single casters are getting one spell of each level... give up bigby’s hand to be able to cast your other spells as bonuses.

 

[Blue]

Quicken is great to nova, but very resource heavy. Now, if you run with a DM who averages 2-3 encounters a day then any long-rest-recharge class will do well and you don't have to worry about it as much, but if you have a DM running more, or even the DMG 6-8 encounters per day, you'll run out of SP very quickly.

Quickening a 1st level spell is the equivalent of three 1st level slots - one for the spell, two for the SP. Quickening a 2nd level spell is the equivilant of two 2nd level slots. These are heavy costs for a multiclassed caster. It's good to nova, but it's not sustainable.

And consider the opportunity cost of picking sorcerer for a mixed melee/caster. It has precious little from a class side that adds to the melee part, and is in the category of least HPs/level. Consider instead something like a sword bard, where your CHR is also feeding bardic inspiration that can be used with flourish maneuvers that boost your melee, as well as having better HPs. Or the Abjuration wizard with Arcane Ward for additional protection. Or the Divination wizard with Portent.

Don't get me wrong - you won't go wrong with sorcerer. It's a very solid choice. My point is that it's not the only choice - that there are several contenders for a gish that give different advantages and have different weaknesses and you should look at all of them for a build, not just default to sorcerer.