D&D 5E Bard + Warlock multiclass

[Inoeex]

Hey everyone

I am asking for some consultant please.

I am gonna to start a new game as a Bard and since Bard does not get good stuff at level 20, I am thinking abt going multiclass.
I think Rogue must be the best option but I wanna go for warlock " Great Old One pact " so I can cumminicate with anyone without any words : )

The thing I want to know is, do you suggest me to start the class as Bard or Lock? I dont know which one should be my main class?

I can get cantrip from both classes I presume, but what abt skills? Can I benefit from my primary class's skills besides me second class?

Also I want to know what is the rule for learning spells, let say my total level is 5, will I have my two 3rd level slots? Or I have to gain 5 levels as Bard in order to have my 3rd level slots


Thanks in advance : )

 

[Horwath]

Warlock doesn't stack his levels to other spellcasters. He has separate mechanics: short vs long rest.

But you do get cantrips from both classes for their respective levels. and you can cast all spells known with both classes spell slots.

You dont get any extra skills if you go from bard to lock but you gain one if you go from lock to bard, but the sum is the same it's 3+0 or 2+1. you always get bards 3 instruments proficiencies.

Both classes get overlap in light armor proficiency. Maybe you could weasel in from your DM extra skill proficiency because of that

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Starting as a Warlock gets you Wisdom + Charisma save proficiency; Bard gets you Dexterity + Charisma, and additional weapon proficiencies (hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords). Are you more afraid of Fireballs or Dominate Person? Are you planning to gish it up any with rapiers? (Probably not.) Do you think of your bard as more of a spellcaster or a warrior?

When I played a Bardlock I started with Warlock, in large part because I didn't want to have to explain in play why he suddenly started dabbling in Cthulu's brain. It was easier to just start him out that way and say that he branched out into other esoterica (Bard stuff) from there. Worked out well for me and was a lot of fun to play. I'd recommend it.

 

[Tormyr]

Warlock doesn't stack his levels to other spellcasters. He has separate mechanics: short vs long rest.

But you do get cantrips from both classes for their respective levels. and you can cast all spells known with both classes spell slots.

You dont get any extra skills if you go from bard to lock but you gain one if you go from lock to bard, but the sum is the same it's 3+0 or 2+1. you always get bards 3 instruments proficiencies.

Both classes get overlap in light armor proficiency. Maybe you could weasel in from your DM extra skill proficiency because of that

Bard and Warlock multiclass so well together from an ability score standpoint that I would think the additional proficiency would be unnecessary, especially when they have access to at will mage armor and can have access to shield.

To the OP, what level are you starting at?

 

[Inoeex]

Warlock doesn't stack his levels to other spellcasters. He has separate mechanics: short vs long rest.

You dont get any extra skills if you go from bard to lock but you gain one if you go from lock to bard, but the sum is the same it's 3+0 or 2+1.

Both classes get overlap in light armor proficiency. Maybe you could weasel in from your DM extra skill proficiency because of that

Aah thats lame, so my warlock slots will be useless for bard spells :<
How can I get extra skills from Lock to Bard ? I found out the related article in the PHB page 164 "Multiclassing Proficiencies" it says you only get 1 extra skill if your main class is Bard.
Not every DM are generous :|

Starting as a Warlock gets you Wisdom + Charisma save proficiency; Bard gets you Dexterity + Charisma, and additional weapon proficiencies (hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords). Are you more afraid of Fireballs or Dominate Person? Are you planning to gish it up any with rapiers? (Probably not.) Do you think of your bard as more of a spellcaster or a warrior?

When I played a Bardlock I started with Warlock, in large part because I didn't want to have to explain in play why he suddenly started dabbling in Cthulu's brain.

I want to play as a skill monkey, I wanna avoid fights with my other skills as much as I can but spells are my 1st choice when it comes to fight

Yeah I thought abt the story too, starting with Lock is more reasonable : )

Bard and Warlock multiclass so well together from an ability score standpoint that I would think the additional proficiency would be unnecessary, especially when they have access to at will mage armor and can have access to shield.

To the OP, what level are you starting at?

We will start from 1.
Do you suggest me to pick Armor of Shadows as one of my invocations? Since I wanna go for 2 or 3 Lock lvls, I only can get two invocations .... I was thinking abt Mask of Many Faces for disguise self at will and Eyes Of The Rune Keeper to read all the writing in the game

 

[Tormyr]

Aah thats lame, so my warlock slots will be useless for bard spells :<
How can I get extra skills from Lock to Bard ? I found out the related article in the PHB page 164 "Multiclassing Proficiencies" it says you only get 1 extra skill if your main class is Bard.
Not every DM are generous :|



I want to play as a skill monkey, I wanna avoid fights with my other skills as much as I can but spells are my 1st choice when it comes to fight

Yeah I thought abt the story too, starting with Lock is more reasonable : )



We will start from 1.
Do you suggest me to pick Armor of Shadows as one of my invocations? Since I wanna go for 2 or 3 Lock lvls, I only can get two invocations .... I was thinking abt Mask of Many Faces for disguise self at will and Eyes Of The Rune Keeper to read all the writing in the game

Check multiclass rules again. According to the Pact Magic section, you can use the spell slots interchangeably. Choose whatever invocations you like and fit your character concept the best. In my experience, 5e works quite well with suboptimal characters (let alone ones that are not perfectly optimized). We have a Paladin with an 8 Charisma that works really well.

My suggestion would actually be to play the bard straight up without multiclassing. The odds of this character making it to level 20 due to character reasons or real life stuff is relatively low in the grand scheme of things. The original reason you cited for multiclassing was because of a capstone feature that you were not excited about, but you might not get there anyway. If your character makes it to level 20 and you take 3 levels of Warlock, you will have also sacrificed an ability score improvement and an additional opportunity to dip into the spells of another class. We had a level 19 bard in our party until it died a couple weeks ago, and it was awesome. It was also awesome when I brought him back the following week as a favored spawn of Kyuss and he used all of his signature stuff (tsunami, shapechange into a tyrannosaurus rex, bardic inspiration, etc.) against the party.

Go for the lore bard! It will be great. If you do not like it, you can always dip into another class later, even at level 17 or 18.

 

[mellored]

You can use any spell slot to cast any spell you know. So you can go ahead and cast cure wounds with warlock slots, or hex with bard slots.

The big thing you miss out on is higher level spells. A bard 10/warlock 10 will have a lot of low level spells to choose from, and a lot of slots to cast them in, but will lack the big spells like mass suggestion, force cage, or foresight.
Fortunatly, cantrips, inluding eldrich blast, will scale by character level. So you won't be short on damage.


There's also big bumps in power at class level 5, and 11. So you might to get to bard 5 fist, then warlock 11, then finish up with bard.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Aah thats lame, so my warlock slots will be useless for bard spells :<
How can I get extra skills from Lock to Bard ?

Go Lore Bard. At Lore Bard 3 you get a pile of extra skills. You'll have just as many skills as any other Lore Bard out there.

If you really, really want extra skills, you can pick the warlock Invocations that give you more skills, and/or add a level of Rogue. If you take level 1 in Rogue that gives you four starting skills (plus skills from your race and background), then one more when you multiclass to Bard, and then whatever else you get from Lore Bard and Warlock invocations on top of that. But really it's redundant.

 

[mellored]

If you want all the skills...

Half-elf (2 skills) background (2 skills, 2 tools) Rogue 1 (4 skills if you start rogue, thieves tools), knowledge cleric 1 (2 skills, 2 expertise), warlock 2 with beguiling influence (2 skills), lore bard 3 (1 skill for multiclassing, 1 instrument, 3 skills for lore bard)
level 7 = 16 skills, 4 expertise, thieves tools, 1 instrument, and 2 other tools. Not to mention plenty of cantrips.
And there's still the skilled feat as well.


10 Str, 14 Dex, 12 Con, 12 Int, 14 Wis, 16 Cha. Leaves you well rounded for all the skills. Or trade Str and Int for 14 Con.

Medium armor + shield, bless, eldrich blast, healing word, and cutting word to be competent ranged support in battle.

I would finish with bard 6, warlock 11, rogue 2, knowledge 1. With 20 Cha and inspiring leader. Though hard to say what order to go in.
Sorcerer 3 is also tempting for quickened bless.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Storywise, becoming a warlock is easy, especially for a GOOlock. See an ugly picture or statue, hear funny voices in your head, hazzah, you are a warlock (or crazy or probably both). It is kind of like the old school paladin: out adventuring and you get a vision of LG paradise, and paladinhood, here you come.

If you are looking for utility, I would recommend a chainlock with a sprite familiar, maybe starting after level 7 bard.

All the old Weird Tales stories had strange piping music associated with the GOO's, so bardlock is a good thematic combo (ditto Devil Went Down to Georgia for the fiendlock/bard and the feylock/bard is a satyr's best friend).

 

[Ashrym]

If you want all the skills...

Half-elf (2 skills) background (2 skills, 2 tools) Rogue 1 (4 skills if you start rogue, thieves tools), knowledge cleric 1 (2 skills, 2 expertise), warlock 2 with beguiling influence (2 skills), lore bard 3 (1 skill for multiclassing, 1 instrument, 3 skills for lore bard)
level 7 = 16 skills, 4 expertise, thieves tools, 1 instrument, and 2 other tools. Not to mention plenty of cantrips.
And there's still the skilled feat as well.


10 Str, 14 Dex, 12 Con, 12 Int, 14 Wis, 16 Cha. Leaves you well rounded for all the skills. Or trade Str and Int for 14 Con.

Medium armor + shield, bless, eldrich blast, healing word, and cutting word to be competent ranged support in battle.

I would finish with bard 6, warlock 11, rogue 2, knowledge 1. With 20 Cha and inspiring leader. Though hard to say what order to go in.
Sorcerer 3 is also tempting for quickened bless.

The feat would add on 19 skills out of 18 choices. Why not go variant human and spend the bonus feat on skilled? That ends up with 18/18 skills and doesn't lose out on an ASI with a build that only allows for 3 ASI's (bard 4, warlock 4, warlock 8). I'd probably do the variant human as stated and then drop to rogue 1 taking warlock 12 for another ASI and invocation.

I consider it a novelty build anyway. Lore bards already have plenty of skill, jack of all trades, and peerless skill without all the hassle of multiclassing and the average bonus from peerless skill plus jack of all trades is higher than proficiency as well. Knowledge clerics with knowledge of ages can just add proficiency if needed to cover any skill or tool. Both are limited by BI dice or channel divinity but for how often it comes up as important I would call them better solutions to a desire for an all proficient skills style of character.
[MENTION=6802927]Inoeex[/MENTION], what you are describing sounds like you want lore bard 18 / warlock 2 and to spend the 2 invocations on agonizing blast and beguiling influence (maybe devil's sight). That's a ton of skills already with 3 from the class, 3 from the subclass, 2 from the background, 1 or 2 possible from race, and possibly 2 from the splash. That gives you more than enough to cover what is generally considered important and as I mentioned, jack of all trades half bonus still applies to the rest and peerless skill is available so it could already be in overkill territory.

That also keeps a person from delaying too much progression and only loses out on one ASI, and keeps all the magical secrets options plus progression is up to 9th level spells known. That's plenty of skill and spell support with eldritch blast for consistent damage. It's a common build. You might give up that last magical secrets for the 3rd level of warlock and use it for tome. More cantrips and more ritual access opens up options that won't cost spell slots but it's hard to say on that because it's giving up wish or other 9th level spells known as an options so depends on what you want from the character if you ever do get to those levels.

 

[mellored]

The feat would add on 19 skills out of 18 choices. Why not go variant human and spend the bonus feat on skilled? That ends up with 18/18 skills and doesn't lose out on an ASI with a build that only allows for 3 ASI's (bard 4, warlock 4, warlock 8). I'd probably do the variant human as stated and then drop to rogue 1 taking warlock 12 for another ASI and invocation.

That's possibly a better option.

I consider it a novelty build anyway.

Sure, but it's also a functional one. You have good damage and support and lot's of versatility.

I'd probably do the variant human as stated and then drop to rogue 1 taking warlock 12 for another ASI and invocation.

I find rogue 2 to be worth more than an ASI. Though maybe, depending on the invocation.


Bard 2/rogue 11 is another way to go. Jack of all trades + reliable talent = can't roll less than 10 for any skill.

 

[Ashrym]

Bard 2/rogue 11 is another way to go. Jack of all trades + reliable talent = can't roll less than 10 for any skill.

Can't roll less than 10 in any skill anyway because the build is proficient in every skill. ;-)

Jack of all trades only applies to checks that don't have associated skills in the build and still nice to have. I thought the two were mutually exclusive but I just checked Crawford's twitter and he did confirm that reliable talent does work with jack-of-all-trades and remarkable athlete. That means the build can't roll less than a 10 on initiative as well, along with any other check that doesn't include an associated skill.

I like it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Has anyone mentioned that you also get a bonus skill from multiclassing to Ranger 1?

 

[Ashrym]

Has anyone mentioned that you also get a bonus skill from multiclassing to Ranger 1?

So rogue (thief for fast hands, second story work, and supreme sneak as skill benefits) 11, bard 5 (jack-of-all-trades, font of inspiration, lore skills and spell support), ranger 1 (an extra skill and skill benefits in favored terrain), knowledge cleric 1, and warlock 2 (beguiling influence and agonizing blast)? That gives 18 skills without needing variant human or half-elf with the skilled feat added. Going with either allows for taking extra tool proficiency instead with the skilled feat.

Point buy looks like str 8, dex 14, con 12, int 10, wis 14, cha 16 to meet MC ability score requirements and keeps scores even. Could swap STR and INT but not much point, or drop WIS to 13 and apply 2 more build points to STR or INT if a person doesn't mind the 13 WIS or gives up inspiring leader for a different feat to top it off.

Still only 3 ASI's so variant human is needed to add in the skilled feat and pick up 20 CHA plus inspiring leader which means 1 extra tool proficiency in the mix and a lot of skill benefits.

 

[jadeitejynx]

Starting as a Warlock gets you Wisdom + Charisma save proficiency; Bard gets you Dexterity + Charisma, and additional weapon proficiencies (hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords). Are you more afraid of Fireballs or Dominate Person? Are you planning to gish it up any with rapiers? (Probably not.) Do you think of your bard as more of a spellcaster or a warrior?

When I played a Bardlock I started with Warlock, in large part because I didn't want to have to explain in play why he suddenly started dabbling in Cthulu's brain. It was easier to just start him out that way and say that he branched out into other esoterica (Bard stuff) from there. Worked out well for me and was a lot of fun to play. I'd recommend it.

I just explained it as he accidentally made a deal with the devil in college

 

[Mad_Jack]

I just explained it as he accidentally made a deal with the devil in college

His singing was so bad he was literally dragged off to Hell for it? lol

 

[Older Beholder]

I once asked a DM if he was OK with me playing a Bard-lock
He asked what it was, when I explained it was a multi-class Bard/Warlock he said 'Sure, but you're not allowed to call it a Bard-lock again'

 

[Audiomancer]

My group may be starting up a new campaign next month. We often start at Level 5, and I’m considering playing a Bard 4/Warlock 1. The character concept would be a musician who cut a deal with an otherworldly entity for more talent/power (think, blues musician Robert Johnson).

 

[Krachek]

A death metal singer! Could make an interesting party.