D&D General Mearls: Spells and Classes

[Silam]

You literally double your damage output as a thief rogue (before level 14) with a single level of wizard.

I’m curious. How does the Wizard level help a Thief so much?

 

[Tigris]

I’m curious. How does the Wizard level help a Thief so much?

You can cast with your bonus action scroll of true strike (which you can craft/buy relatively cheap at least cheap enough for important fights where its important).


So you can cast true strike as a bonus action on your turn triggering sneak attack. And then use your action to prepare true strike, trigger next characters turn starts so you can do true strike directly again using a reaction triggering sneak attack again since its another turn.

+ true strike itself also adds damage after level 5.

 

[bsss]

Fair enough. Although I still cannot see how this differs from other parts of the game, where you also may or not may want to have a discussion about whether your group wants to include it in their game (them being unseen landmines or not). I have seen people (for similar, but perhaps not entirely the same reasons) wanting to disregard spells like 'Shield', 'Counterspell', and 'Silvery Barbs'. And perhaps there are feats I am not aware of that groups might want or not want to include for their group either ? Are there subclasses that would fall into the same category ? I mean, if this is the situation you are already in anyway, does the addition of multiclassing really make that much of a difference ?

First, I wouldn't really lean on a "you have some complexity, what's some complexity more?" argument in favor of adding/keeping anything.

Second, you're right, it doesn't differ --- people should feel free to fix or remove all the things they find poor about their game --- but the high surface area of what multiclassing can affect is what encourages people to just cut it out entirely rather than fix it. Spells, feats, and similar are far more discrete, specific, and easier to understand than how the whole of classes potentially interact with the base class under multiclassing. Individual element selections are also easier to change or remove after the fact without upending the whole character. It doesn't surprise me if most people would just consider 5e multiclassing not worth the hassle.

 

[Tigris]

. It doesn't surprise me if most people would just consider 5e multiclassing not worth the hassle.

Most people I know who play 5e never used multiclassing outside of high level one shots. (For some I dont know, they might have I just never heard about it).


Also multiclassing does have impact on other design. Subclasses cant be level 1 because of too much power gain with a single level dip, as the most obvious effect.

 

[Zardnaar]

You can cast with your bonus action scroll of true strike (which you can craft/buy relatively cheap at least cheap enough for important fights where its important).


So you can cast true strike as a bonus action on your turn triggering sneak attack. And then use your action to prepare true strike, trigger next characters turn starts so you can do true strike directly again using a reaction triggering sneak attack again since its another turn.

+ true strike itself also adds damage after level 5.

That and you gain the ability to cast truestrike off a scroll before lvl 13.

One reason I rated the cartographer higher than the internet was you can craft scrolls faster that an elf or similar can do it overnight iirc.

 

[Silam]

You can cast with your bonus action scroll of true strike (which you can craft/buy relatively cheap at least cheap enough for important fights where its important).


So you can cast true strike as a bonus action on your turn triggering sneak attack. And then use your action to prepare true strike, trigger next characters turn starts so you can do true strike directly again using a reaction triggering sneak attack again since its another turn.

+ true strike itself also adds damage after level 5.

Got it. I suspected something along those lines but thanks for spelling it out!

The thing is, though, you could do all of that on a pure Thief with just the Sage background, right? Or even with a High Elf (for the cantrip) + the Arcana proficiency (to craft scrolls).

The Wizard level is a way to achieve it (and it carries other benefits such as Ritual Casting) but multi-classing is not strictly necessary.

 

[Zardnaar]

Got it. I suspected something along those lines but thanks for spelling it out!

The thing is, though, you could do all of that on a pure Thief with just the Sage background, right? Or even with a High Elf (for the cantrip) + the Arcana proficiency (to craft scrolls).

The Wizard level is a way to achieve it (and it carries other benefits such as Ritual Casting) but multi-classing is not strictly necessary.

Theres a contradiction in the rules.

PHB says the scroll has to be on your class spell list to iuse it. DMG seems to indicate you only need to be able to read it (unless otherwise specified PHB)

RAW it seems you can't cast scrolls via racial abilities. I seem to recall something similar in the DMG as well but can't currently locate it.

 

[tetrasodium]

I’m not that surprised to hear negative sentiment around 5e multi-classing but I’m surprised to hear it’s because it leads to overpowered builds!

5e multi-classing is clunky in a bunch of ways (for example, the feats, the spellcasting math, subclasses in general, and I’m sure there are more issues I’m not thinking of), but one thing it rarely is in my opinion is over-powered.

Sure, sometimes you can get weird combos with interesting properties that a single class build cannot achieve, but they usually come online late and often aren’t even that strong when they do come online.

Can a MC build sometimes be more powerful than a single-class build? Yeah, no doubt. It can… but you have to fight an uphill battle against a system that is decidedly very single-class oriented.

Multi-classing in 2e and 3e was often stronger than single-class… but in 5e I think it’s rarely (not never) the case. And 4e didn’t really have MC at least not in a comparable way to the other editions, as far as I remember, so I’m not comparing it.

That bold bit is only half right. You could always make very powerful builds through multiclassing, but the playing field changed with 5e. Now it can be done without commitment or planning and the bar to achieving those builds is so low that no longer requires enough system mastery for the player to understand why the gm might be pushing back. Worse still is that those PCs no longer need magic items the gm can hold back on to mitigate the power.

That's a critical difference because

Spoiler: the GM is not a Netflix subscription

As a gm I can work with a player who has goals and commitment backed by system mastery & tangible opportunity costs. There's nothing to work with anymore though. In some ways that's an even bigger problem than the power curve spread across the party.

@AlViking prerequisites were a big safeguard in 3.5, as was expected magic item increases and class specific spell slots. In 2e the multiclass and dual class rules required huge commitment levels that made dips a non-issue and resulted in a cost of its own. Now when Bob comes across a guide for a self described op build in 5e there's not really any hurdles to clear to get their current PC to that build as long as it happens to already be the right class. I mentioned most if not all of them in earlier posts and at least one other poster has mentioned some of them as well. If you aren't familiar with the rules and mechanics of editions pre-5e it shouldn't be difficult to get a little understanding on those kinds of things

 

[AlViking]

You can cast with your bonus action scroll of true strike (which you can craft/buy relatively cheap at least cheap enough for important fights where its important).


So you can cast true strike as a bonus action on your turn triggering sneak attack. And then use your action to prepare true strike, trigger next characters turn starts so you can do true strike directly again using a reaction triggering sneak attack again since its another turn.

+ true strike itself also adds damage after level 5.

You can't cast a spell as a bonus action unless you're using a scroll. If you're using the 2024 rules, you don't need to do that - or multiclass for that matter. Just take the arcane initiate feat and you get the cantrip, true strike now grants you a single attack using advantage. The big drawback is that you're using intelligence to attack instead of dexterity.

In addition, it's a lot easier to just use steady aim most of the time - it is incredibly rare that rogues don't get sneak attack for one reason or another in any game I've played.

 

[Silam]

Theres a contradiction in the rules.

PHB says the scroll has to be on your class spell listto iuse it. DMG seems to indicate you only need to be able to read it (unless otherwise specified PHB)

RAW it seems you can't cast scrolls via racial abilities. I seem to recall something similar in the DMG as well but can't currently locate it.

You’re right. The rules are sketchy here. The Sage background (or High Elf + Arcana prof) gives you everything you need to cast the cantrip and to craft a scroll with that cantrip on it, but the strictest reading of the RAW would not allow you to use the scroll you were able to craft which contains the spell you’re able to cast.

The Spell Scroll’s description says the spell must be "on your spell list", which is slightly less specific than "on your class spell list". Are there other types of spell lists besides class spell lists? Not explicitly, as far as I know, but… The High Elf description says "You know the Prestidigitation cantrip. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can replace that cantrip with a different cantrip from the Wizard spell list."—that sounds pretty much like the Wizard spell list is your spell list (as far as cantrips are concerned). The Magic Initiate feat likewise mentions certain class spell lists as being what you can pick from both initially and when you change your pick on level ups. Do these class spell lists become "your spell list"? It’s not 100% clear that the answer’s yes, but not entirely clear that it’s no either. It’s ambiguous. DM’s call.

Whether the DM considers the above more or less sketchy than the routine of preparing an action to reliably proc an extra SA on the Reaction because it’s someone else’s turn, I don’t know. That latter thing is entirely legit by the RAW as far as I understand it, but very sketchy. Your mileage may vary as far as your table is concerned.