D&D 5E good breakdown of multiclass vs single class for 5e?

[MoonSong]

Well, except with magic. You can jump into a Rope Trick, hide behind your indestructible portable bunker (sometimes called Leomund's Tiny Hut), cast your Catnap spells to short rest inside of 10 minutes, and super high level groups can just pop into an extradimensional mansion.

Sorcerer doesn't have these spells.

 

[James Gasik]

Sorcerer doesn't have these spells.

They have Catnap at least.

 

[James Gasik]

Also, I was just saying in general, players can rest with magic very easily, not that Sorcerers can.

 

[Dausuul]

True "Coffeelocks" address the first with Aspect of the Moon (or by sleeping for six hours and then deliberately breaking the Long Rest before it reaches the required 8 hours). For the second, they convert the Sorcery points to spell slots. (So I should have said arbitrarily large numbers of spell slots, rather than sorcery points.)

This, of course, relies on being able to exceed your normal allocation of spell slots per long/short rest. There's nothing in the book that says you can't; but I'd consider it entirely reasonable of a DM to rule that you can't, which shuts down the coffeelock (and cocainelock) entirely.

 

[Xetheral]

This, of course, relies on being able to exceed your normal allocation of spell slots per long/short rest. There's nothing in the book that says you can't; but I'd consider it entirely reasonable of a DM to rule that you can't, which shuts down the coffeelock (and cocainelock) entirely.

Very true. And I'm all for shutting down the coffeelock exploit, although I personally think it's simpler to do so socially than mechanically.

I just don't think that the normal interaction of Pact Magic and Flexible Casting rises to the level of an exploit without the resting shenanigans of the coffeelock.

 

[James Gasik]

Personally, I think the issue will resolve itself in the future- thanks to Monsters of the Multiverse, it sure looks like short rest mechanics are going to be radically altered to better balance the game.

Having played a Sorcerer, if a player wanted to multiclass as Warlock (setting their access to spells back) just to get more Sorcery Points, I wouldn't mind, but I'd probably try to hammer out a reasonable amount with them.

Or just give the Sorcerer more Sorcery points to work with, they really could use a buff.

 

[Flamestrike]

Well, except with magic. You can jump into a Rope Trick, hide behind your indestructible portable bunker (sometimes called Leomund's Tiny Hut), cast your Catnap spells to short rest inside of 10 minutes, and super high level groups can just pop into an extradimensional mansion.

DM: You rest and your rest is uneventful, and plagued by bad dreams. It has no effect. When you leave your magical shelter, the BBEG has completed the ritual, and the townsfolk have been slain.

(Has quick out of game chat with the players about what happens when you attempt to game the 5 minute WD at his table. Points the door out to anyone who complains).

What do you do?

 

[Jer]

DM: You rest and your rest is uneventful, and plagued by bad dreams. It has no effect. When you leave your magical shelter, the BBEG has completed the ritual, and the townsfolk have been slain.

(Has quick out of game chat with the players about what happens when you attempt to game the 5 minute WD at his table. Points the door out to anyone who complains).

What do you do?

Leave, because life is too short to play with a DM that condescending to me and my fellow players.

(Seriously even back in the days of High Dudgeon Adversarial DM there was always the advice to "remind the players of the consequences of decisions their characters might think about but they appear to have forgotten and then ask 'are you sure you want to do that'". Any DM who just said "ok, you all lose" might as well just say "rock fall, everyone dies, campaign over" as far as I'm concerned.)

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sure.
5th level fighter with multiattack, 16 dex and a Rapier has a +6 attack and is doing a combined 15DPR

This is confusing me for two reasons:

• Why a 16 in their primary stat at level 4. What have you done with the ASI/feat?
• What's the fighting style? Normally I expect a rapier wielder especially in light armour to use the Duelist fighting style.

I'd therefore expect the baseline DPR to be 21 not 15 assuming both attacks hit. And this to only shift the single attack damage by 3.

In none of these is the 5th level fighter doing anywhere close to twice as much damage as the multiclass and in some cases he will be doing less. None of these are an optimized comparison either.

Indeed. You're massively un-optimising the fighter. Then showing that if you de-optimise the fighter hard enough that you can put it far enough behind the curve to make multiclassing seem worth it.

But we are talking about characters who are going to multiclass, which is usually going to be a dex-based fighter if he is multiclassing into Monk or Rogue.

And now we're adding conditions that you haven't elsewhere followed through on. None of your multiclasses there were multiclassing into rogue.

I also think that my next question is pretty obvious. In a post-Tasha's world why are you playing a dex based fighter and considering multiclassing when the ranger exists? I mean pretty clearly you've said you want more skills - you get that out of being a ranger. You've said you want Hex - but Hunter's Mark is a much better melee spell because it doesn't have a somatic component thus doesn't require a free hand to cast. You have second level spells including the amazing Pass Without Trace. About the only thing you give up from picking a ranger not a fighter that you haven't already discarded (such as heavy armour and a greatweapon when you went for a dex/rapier) or got a solid equivalent for like Goodberry for Second Wind is Action Surge. Which admittedly isn't nothing but is way less than you get. Is there something you want that much out of the subclass - like the Echo Knight's Echo.

So once again we find that if you are looking at a badly built character a multiclass can be better.

No but it lasts an hour he can cast it twice between every short rest. It is going to be there a lot on that kind of character.

No he can't. He only gets that second spell slot at level 2 in the warlock class - and warlock casting doesn't stack with anything else.

The booming blade will trigger at times. That is a fact. There will be times when 2 enemies will be next to each other for GFB. That will happen.

Sometimes. Meanwhile the gap is a lot larger than you've claimed unless you specifically make bad choices for the fighter.

Like I said you need to look at the specific build and weigh what you get with what you lose, including both combat and non-combat.

The extra ~5 DPR you do if you don't multiclass is not overwhelming either.

To put this in perspective, go to Rogue 1 after Fighter 4 and you are getting a skill, expertise, thieves can't, Thieves tools and you are giving up about 5DPR for that, less if consider chance to hit.

To put this in perspective go Ranger 5 instead and you're getting a skill, an expertise, two languages, second level spells, favoured foe, hunter's mark, and you still get your second attack. Oh, and you're a caster with second level spells while the eldritch knight would be stuck at first level. Once more this is a bad case of "you can multiclass to be better than an extremely badly optimised character". I guess thieves can't...

Not always. Your assumption here is you are playing a striker of sorts where you need to maximize damage, and if that is the case your argument is probably true.

On the other hand 2 spell slots a day and the ability to save and stay alive is going to be a lot better for a tank character who is more defensive in nature.

You were justifying things in terms of damage. If you want a fighter that specialises in staying alive go for the subclass.

Explain in terms of mechanics why it does not work. You said it, read what I put above on how to do it and explain specifically why it won't work instead of just saying it won't work.

This is the pogo stick argument. You can take part in combat by bouncing round on a pogo stick. It mathematically works in any game where pogo sticks have mechanics. In that sense all your multiclasses work. But only in that sense.

You do lose out on top level spells, but you get subclass features metamagic and more spells known. Keep in mind even if you can't find a good spell to upcast (which you usually can) you can still trade your high level slots directly for sorcery points you can use with metamagic. At 9th level (4S/5W) for example you have 1 5th and 3 4th level slots you do not have spells for. You can turn those into 16 sorcery points (not at once obviously). That is enough to quicken 8 other spells (with 1 point left) or give enemies disadvantage on 5 spells with a point to spare or to twin a bunch and it is on top of the 4 SPs you already have.

Yay! Congratulations! You made a level 8 character that didn't know any spells higher than second level. (They passed through 4S/4W). And Quicken Spell in 5e isn't that great; if you don't have multiple attacks the main thing it allows you to do is cast another cantrip. You suggest elsewhere a bladesinger? Bladesingers are, when push comes to shove, extremely squishy until they start burning through their spell slots on the Shield spell; they do not have a whole lot of hit points and even when bladesinging their AC isn't amazing. The lack of power in your spells relative to where you should be means that I would struggle to come up with a worse 8th level multiclass than Wizard 4/Sorcerer 4 - and in general I would expect a Wizard 5 to be more effective.

 

[Dausuul]

Leave, because life is too short to play with a DM that condescending to me and my fellow players.

Agreed. I also am inclined to impose consequences for players thinking they can withdraw to a magic fort and rest any time they feel like it. But the way I'd approach that is with a gentle but firm reminder: "This is not a video game. The world does not go on pause when you stop to rest, you are (in a very dangerous location/on a clock), and the bad guys know you're here. Are you sure you want to rest now?"

If I had a DM who took the approach described above, I'd be out of there no matter how much I might agree with them on the merits. (And I don't agree on the merits. If the players are on a clock, they should face the logical and foreseeable consequences if it runs out, but denying them any benefit from the rest is neither logical nor foreseeable. It's just the DM behaving like a jerk.)