D&D 5E Full-Caster Multiclassing & RP Viability

[Kreinas]

Let me preface this with a little background;

In our custom low-magic campaign, I am currently a Fighter 3 (Battlemaster)/Wizard 4 (Bladesinger). The way I am currently playing is a front-line DPS/Controller with above average defensive options. The fighter 3 dip is for flavor as much as it is for utility--I love battlemaster maneuvers, and the character was a King's Knight (Fighter start) who was recruited by a caster (class currently unknown) of great power who has trained an elite group to research the potential of the scarce sources of magic in the land, and seek out new sources of Magic. Current character build is as follow:

Fighter 3/Wizard 4
Stat Spread (rolled); 15, 17, 16, 17, 14, 11
High-Elf (+2 dex +1int)
Knight background
Fighter start (full proficiencies, CON/STR proficiency)
Feats/abilities: Warcaster, Bladesong, Fighting Style: Mariner, Action Surge, Second Wind
Maneuvers; Riposte, Lunging Attack, Precision Attack
Weapon: Long Sword w/ Finesse w/o versatile (Basically a rapier, damage type changed, mostly for flavor reasons)
Armor: Studded Leather (AC 12+DEX)

The first question; Is it viable to multiclass into a sorcerer without starting as a sorcerer? What RP reasons could be used for suddenly discovering an innate ability for magic?

Normally I'm fairly good at coming up with logical backgrounds that create a sound character concept, but with the way sorcerers are described I'm having a hard time coming up with a reason a magic-user would discover an innate magical ability later. Perhaps being caught off-guard with no spells prepared and reflex casting in a state of emergency?

The second question; Can a Wizard 15/ Sorcerer 2 learn a 9th level wizard spell from a scroll?

When determining the spells you can learn from leveling up, the spellcasting rules (PHB 164) state that though you may have access to higher level spell slots, you learn spells as if you were a single caster level from that specific class. I take this to mean that when you level up and gain a 9th level slot, your wizard level (15) would not be high enough to gain a 9th level spell from the level up. HOWEVER, the spellbook description from the wizard class section (PHB 114) states that as long as you have a slot of the slots for it, you can add any wizard spell of 1st level or higher to your spellbook.


Wanting 2 levels from sorcerer is purely for the ability to quicken the SCAG melee cantrips, with the additional benefit of another metamagic for extending utility of controller spells. They are not needed, but access to it for the small price of an ASI would be worth it to me.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Answers the first: Yes, basically any character that is allowed according to the written rules is viable in 5th edition. As for RP reasons to discover latent magical heritage... puberty, any other puberty-esque changes in a person that happen as they grow older, or being exposed to potent/violent magic (i.e. getting blasted with dragon breath and emerging to find it awoke something within you).

Answers the second: No. The learning of spells is explicitly, and with clear example in the rules, restricted in such a way that 9th level spells are only possible if you have 17+ levels in a class that would get 9th level spell slots at 17th level.

 

[Kreinas]

Answers the first: Yes, basically any character that is allowed according to the written rules is viable in 5th edition. As for RP reasons to discover latent magical heritage... puberty, any other puberty-esque changes in a person that happen as they grow older, or being exposed to potent/violent magic (i.e. getting blasted with dragon breath and emerging to find it awoke something within you).

Answers the second: No. The learning of spells is explicitly, and with clear example in the rules, restricted in such a way that 9th level spells are only possible if you have 17+ levels in a class that would get 9th level spell slots at 17th level.

I like the idea of being exposed to potent magic. That sounds like something I could convince the DM into including when the time comes. Puberty isn't an option, this elf is nearly 300 years old.

As for the second answer, I assumed that was the case, but hoped the specificity of the spellbook's learning mechanism would allow it. Now to determine if quicken spell every other round is worth giving up foresight (probably not...)

 

[TwoSix]

The first question; Is it viable to multiclass into a sorcerer without starting as a sorcerer? What RP reasons could be used for suddenly discovering an innate ability for magic?

Normally I'm fairly good at coming up with logical backgrounds that create a sound character concept, but with the way sorcerers are described I'm having a hard time coming up with a reason a magic-user would discover an innate magical ability later. Perhaps being caught off-guard with no spells prepared and reflex casting in a state of emergency?

Weird, innate magic seems like one of the easier things to justify! It could just be exposure to something draconic or chaotic. Or, like you said, a moment of stress. Or his wizardly training has primed his body to start to manifest its latent bloodline.

Although you can't actually multiclass sorcerer with a Charisma of 11 unless your DM has more flexible MC rules than the PHB.

As to your second question, I believe Sage Advice addressed it and said the answer is "No".

Oh, and not to be a spoilsport, but you need 3 levels of sorcerer to gain Quicken metamagic.

 

[iserith]

Answers the first: Yes, basically any character that is allowed according to the written rules is viable in 5th edition. As for RP reasons to discover latent magical heritage... puberty, any other puberty-esque changes in a person that happen as they grow older, or being exposed to potent/violent magic (i.e. getting blasted with dragon breath and emerging to find it awoke something within you).

Hilarious - I was just about to post "puberty" as the reason. You beat me to it! "I've got hair where there was none before and also a magic missile!"

 

[Kreinas]

Weird, innate magic seems like one of the easier things to justify! It could just be exposure to something draconic or chaotic. Or, like you said, a moment of stress. Or his wizardly training has primed his body to start to manifest its latent bloodline.

Although you can't actually multiclass sorcerer with a Charisma of 11 unless your DM has more flexible MC rules than the PHB.

As to your second question, I believe Sage Advice addressed it and said the answer is "No".

Oh, and not to be a spoilsport, but you need 3 levels of sorcerer to gain Quicken metamagic.

Youre right, it is sorc 3. Ive played enough of them I should know this by now...

Id love a link to the sage advice if you can find it! The plan was to ASI CHA to 13 before multiclassing, as I dont want to gimp my spell levels any more until late game.

Something about the purity of sorcerous origin limits my creativity. I was having a hard time rationalizing a 300 year old high elf with a bladesinger background NOT having discovered innate magical talent. My own bias was holding me back. All around, I probably wont multiclass with sorc. Too much given up for quicken spell, and the fact I couldnt justify it immediately in my character isnt a good sign...

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...hoped the specificity of the spellbook's learning mechanism would allow it.

A not insignificant number of people have had the same hope, but alas, the multi-classing rules - being specifically labelled optional, and only applying to the subset of wizards that are multi-classed - are the specific rule that trumps the general spellbook rule.

I get how that can seem counter-intuitive since multi-classed spellcasters could be generally anything, but only some are specifically wizards, but that's why the example in the book uses a multi-classed 3rd-level wizard and mentions that 2 of the 10 known spells can be 2nd-level spells (meaning not 3rd-level) even though the character counts as 5th-level when determining spell slots and thus has 3rd-level slots.

 

[Illithidbix]

You cannot prepare or know spells of a higher level than a single class spellcaster with equal level in that class can cast. Even if your total character spell casting levels allow you access to higher level spell slots.

Look at page 164, specifically the carefully chosen example, since the example drives home a few points in a way that is easier than the raw text.

"You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single class member of that class"."

They then present a Ranger 4/Wizard 3, so they have the spell slots of a 5th level multiclass spellcaster, which also is exactly as many spellslots as a 5th level Wizard or 5th Level Cleric or 5th Level Druid or 5th Level Bard (or 10th level Ranger etc). So 4 1st level spell slots, 3 2nd level spells and 2 3rd level spell slots.
However you don't know any 3rd level spells, nor do you know any 2nd -level ranger spells.

Here are the tweets from Mearls, Crawford and co on the subject: https://thesageadvice.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/multiclass-caster-spellbook/
[MENTION=4036]Jeremy[/MENTION]ECrawford Can a MC Wizard 2/Cleric 18 learn a 3rd level spell, i.e fireball that he would find on is adventure?
[MENTION=6701422]Plaguescarred[/MENTION] That character wouldn't be able to learn fireball, since he doesn't have enough levels in the wizard class.
[MENTION=4036]Jeremy[/MENTION]ECrawford : cleric 2/wizard 2 finds a 2nd level spell in a book. By multiclassing rule he has 4 1st and 3 2nd level slots? can he copy 2nd level wiz spell into his book even though Wiz 2 can't normally cast 2nd level spells? and then cast
[MENTION=2463]Allensh[/MENTION]ock1 No, and he can use those 2nd-level slots only to cast 1st-level spells.

 

[Kreinas]

You cannot prepare or know spells of a higher level than a single class spellcaster with equal level in that class can cast. Even if your total character spell casting levels allow you access to higher level spell slots.

Look at page 164, specifically the carefully chosen example, since the example drives home a few points in a way that is easier than the raw text.



They then present a Ranger 4/Wizard 3, so they have the spell slots of a 5th level multiclass spellcaster, which also is exactly as many spellslots as a 5th level Wizard or 5th Level Cleric or 5th Level Druid or 5th Level Bard (or 10th level Ranger etc). So 4 1st level spell slots, 3 2nd level spells and 2 3rd level spell slots.
However you don't know any 3rd level spells, nor do you know any 2nd -level ranger spells.

Here are the tweets from Mearls, Crawford and co on the subject: https://thesageadvice.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/multiclass-caster-spellbook/

[MENTION=4036]Jeremy[/MENTION]ECrawford Can a MC Wizard 2/Cleric 18 learn a 3rd level spell, i.e fireball that he would find on is adventure?

[MENTION=6701422]Plaguescarred[/MENTION] That character wouldn't be able to learn fireball, since he doesn't have enough levels in the wizard class.
[MENTION=4036]Jeremy[/MENTION]ECrawford : cleric 2/wizard 2 finds a 2nd level spell in a book. By multiclassing rule he has 4 1st and 3 2nd level slots? can he copy 2nd level wiz spell into his book even though Wiz 2 can't normally cast 2nd level spells? and then cast

[MENTION=2463]Allensh[/MENTION]ock1 No, and he can use those 2nd-level slots only to cast 1st-level spells.

That's pretty convincing evidence

It's a shame they would include such an awesome ribbon mechanic, only to officially gimp it. I didn't notice the word "prepare" in the multiclass spellcasting text, which is another nail in that coffin; even if it was in the spell book it couldn't be prepared. Oh well, the sorcerer multiclass was just munchkin greed anyway!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Though with the first printing you litteraly can add that spell to your book but not prepare it. So writing rituals into your book can still be useful.