D&D 5E Could a Sorcerer with a 1 Wizard dip fulfill everything unique about a wizard?

[fearsomepirate]

but assuming you'll have hex is a bad assumption. Casting it means you give up 3d10+15 damage in the first round, in exchange for 3d6 damage - and then you get a bonus 6d6 damage in the second round.

You cast in in the morning, using a 3rd level slot. You know what else is cool about Sorlocks vs Warlocks? Proficiency in CON saves. So the party Sorlock rarely lost Hex compared to the full Warlock. He may have taken War Caster, but this was a year ago, so I don't remember.

Regardless, 7th level and 6th level quickened disitengrates, followed by a fire bolt or toll the dead, deal more damage per round than the double EBs.

Pure Sorc, 14th level:
Dis 7 + Fire Bolt ~ 102
Dis 6 + Fire Bolt ~ 91.5
TOTAL: 193.5

Sorlock (S12/W2):
Dis 6 + Hexed EB ~ 114
2x Hexed EB ~ 78
TOTAL 192

Seems like a statistical tie to me.

 

[jgsugden]

You cast [Hex] in the morning, using a 3rd level slot. You know what else is cool about Sorlocks vs Warlocks? Proficiency in CON saves...

Have you even played this combo? You seem unclear on how Hex works.

It still requires a bonus action to put it on the target. You're giving up that 3d10+5 bonus action of damage every time you change the target. And, further, it has to be on a subsequent turn, so you can't do it on the turn you drop the creature.

If the target drops to 0 hit points before this spell ends, you can use a bonus action on a subsequent turn of yours to curse a new creature.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Have you even played this combo? You seem unclear on how Hex works.

Have you even read this thread? You seem unclear that I was DMing the adventure. I'm explaining what I saw. I might make a mistake here or there on a turn's worth of action economy when responding to your white room theorycraft, but it is mostly irrelevant, because I am in fact speaking from experience.

Your theorized 2-round nova is irrelevant. For one thing, every monster worth doing that on in this adventure had Legendary Resistance. The reality is that, as the Sorlock was doing damage on par with 4th-7th level slots for very, very little resource expenditure, unlike a normal Sorc, he was far more ready late in any given adventuring day to hand out Banishes or whatever. This threw off my intuition quite a bit, as, at the point I'd normally expect a full caster to be running low, he'd barely gotten started. Futher, unlike the Warlock in the party, he never worried about lacking the resources to use Hex.

 

[Flamestrike]

As soon as you make 2 levels of Warlock, it's all gravy from there.

No, it's not.

Warlock 2/ Sorcerer 3 vs Sorcerer (or Fiend Lock) 5

The straight PC is tossing out fireballs, fly and counterspell. Bladelocks are swinging twice witht their weapons. The single classed PC also has an extra ASI up their sleeve.

From there the problem continues.

It's like the 3.5 Theurge. Looks great on paper, and then you play it and realize just how sucky being 3 levels behind in spell casting really is.

If you were to play a level 20 one shot, then it's great. But getting there (next to a full caster who didnt MC) sucks.

I never really know how to respond to people who try to use theorycraft to trump experience. I can say I've never seen a published adventure maintain a consistent 6-8 encounters per day,

Which gets me back to my original point. Of course classes balance differently if you stray from this 6 encounter/ 2 short rest median, which it seems like was the case in your example (with fewer deadlier encounters, and few short rests).

In those kinds of meta, of course the Warlock is going to suffer.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

you can use it on any 4th level spell or less.

There is no "or less". The substituted spell must exactly match the level of the spell slot used.

You'd still have plenty of options, there are damage spells spread throughout each level, just not slashing damage. Comsidering you generally only need one other damage type to beat a resistance or immunity, there shouldn't really be too much issue there, especially since the scribe wizard would, or at least should, be looking at which spells they're choosing and picking up diverse damage dealing spells.

This. And it's designed to give a mechanical reason to obsessively collect as many spells as possible at each level, since that is supposed to be what scribes do. And they can do it cheaply with their magic quill. They are somewhat dependant on DMs including copyable spells in loot though.

Thunder, Force and Radiant are the best damage types for avoiding resistance/immunity.

 

[fearsomepirate]

No, it's not.

Warlock 2/ Sorcerer 3 vs Sorcerer (or Fiend Lock) 5

The straight PC is tossing out fireballs, fly and counterspell. Bladelocks are swinging twice witht their weapons.

Sure, it is. At this tier, the Sorlock is basically like a ranged Fighter who gave up hit points for extra Action Surges and pushes bad guys around for free. Every additional level at this point just grants him the ability to Action Surge more often. Once he hits 5th level, he basically never needs to spend a major resource on single-target damage ever again. Now, it's true at this point, a full-classed Sorc hands-down beats the Sorlock at AoE, because Fireball is a big deal (btw, a 5th-level sorc learns 1 3rd-level spell, not 3). We're not at the tier where it's obvious that the Sorlock is blatantly overpowered, just something of an outlier when it comes to multiclassing. The DM isn't pissed off to the point of house-ruling yet.

Since you brought up the Bladelock, the Hexblade Patron is another example of badly designed, front-loaded power creep tied to the Warlock class. Sorlocks and Bardlocks were bad enough, but now it's become quite popular for Paladins to 1-dip and 2-dip Warlock now, since using Cha for your weapon attacks, gaining a devastating ranged attack, and the Hexblade's Curse makes a Bladelock 2-dip possibly the most overpowered dip in the game.

Now that I think of it, Hexblade is probably the best option for a Sorlock, too. XGtE wasn't out when I banned the combo (this is wrong, it was a Storm Sorcerer), but since the Bladelock's proficiencies are tied to patron, not class, and therefore not in any way restricted by multiclassing, the Sorlock can pretty easily get 19 AC with only 14 DEX, since you can cast EB while carrying a shield. He also has the Shield spell now.

It's like the 3.5 Theurge. Looks great on paper, and then you play it and realize just how sucky being 3 levels behind in spell casting really is.

No, it's more like the 5e Sorlock. Sounds weak on paper, then in practice, when you realize their "cantrip" is more like martial character's main attack, and therefore they stop using low level slots for pretty anything other than Hex and Quickened Spell, it's pretty annoying.

 

[auburn2]

You'd still have plenty of options, there are damage spells spread throughout each level, just not slashing damage. Comsidering you generally only need one other damage type to beat a resistance or immunity, there shouldn't really be too much issue there, especially since the scribe wizard would, or at least should, be looking at which spells they're choosing and picking up diverse damage dealing spells.

You only get to choose 4 spells of each level (8 first) and some of them are going to be spells with no damage mentioned like mage armor, identify and comprehend languages, this is going to give you very few options for changing damage for everything except very low level spells. It is going to lock you into a few options.

I think the intent here is for scribe wizard to pick up spells like absorb elements and elemental shield and stoneskin along with things like magic missile, lightning bolt and virtiolic sphere and get a bunch of damage types available.

 

[Mort]

You only get to choose 4 spells of each level (8 first) and some of them are going to be spells with no damage mentioned like mage armor, identify and comprehend languages, this is going to give you very few options for changing damage for everything except very low level spells. It is going to lock you into a few options.

I think the intent here is for scribe wizard to pick up spells like absorb elements and elemental shield and stoneskin along with things like magic missile, lightning bolt and virtiolic sphere and get a bunch of damage types available.

It's an interesting argument that the intent is to have defensive spells that can be converted to offensive damage types (which is what you are suggesting).

If the scribe makes it into official content, I would hope the language is much more clear.

 

[auburn2]

There is no "or less". The substituted spell must exactly match the level of the spell slot used.

Yes, the slot not the spell. So you can use stoneskin to cast any spell 4th level or less by using a 4th level slot. For example, you can use stoneskin to cast a fireball using a 4th level slot and dealing slashing damage or you can cast a 4th level magic missile doing 6d4+6 slashing damage.

This. And it's designed to give a mechanical reason to obsessively collect as many spells as possible at each level, since that is supposed to be what scribes do. And they can do it cheaply with their magic quill. They are somewhat dependant on DMs including copyable spells in loot though.

I think it is intended to get people to pick spells where a lot of damage types mentioned and bring a ton more creativity and versatility to the player and spells he casts in the game.

If I use it the way you think it needs too be used then it is still very limited, even if I collect a ton of spells. As you said earlier, if you change the rules so you can only use spells that cause damage there is no way to cast a fireball that does slashing.

Thunder, Force and Radiant are the best damage types for avoiding resistance/immunity.

That is great but being cool and creative is part of the the point and being able to fireball a bunch of orcs and tell your DM it is necrotic damage and describe what it does to them is a big part of this and something this player is going to be doing all the time - second group of orcs he decides to make it a poision fireball. They are orcs and he could have killed them all just as easily with fire, but if he has this feature, why wouldn't he be creative, and more importantly why would the game designers or DM want to severely limit that for what seems to be a trivial reason?

Further one of the good features is being able to use this for AOE spells is playing into your party's resistances. For example, if your Barbarian is in rage and you slashing damage-fireball him, he takes half damage, while the enemies he is in combat with take full. Use fire and they both take full.

 

[jgsugden]

Have you even read this thread? You seem unclear that I was DMing the adventure. I'm explaining what I saw. I might make a mistake here or there on a turn's worth of action economy when responding to your white room theorycraft, but it is mostly irrelevant, because I am in fact speaking from experience...

Whether as a player, or the DM, you are attempting to speak authoritatively about the efficacy of the situation, yet clearly do not understand it from a basic mechanical level. That undercuts your position, dramatically.