D&D 5E Nice idea or real character progression?

[Warpiglet]

I was curious: for those interested in complicated "builds:" how often do you implement what you discuss? Specifically, I have an image of what I want to play. For me, waiting 5 levels for the concept to come online is not feasible. I want to play an armored melee oriented blade pact warlock...I am willing to do a level in fighter (possibly with magic initiate to get the f/mu (ie gish to you kids) up ASAP but cannot fathom playing three levels of fighter or more before playing what I ultimately want. I started wondering if some people have theories they test simply by jumping in at higher level or if they grind all the way. For me, I want semblance of the character early. So: do our multiclass gurus really play these out from the start?

 

[iserith]

I wouldn't consider myself a "guru" in this regard, but when I do engineer particular builds ahead of time, I imagine the story implication of the progress toward the end goal and try to play that up during the game. So if I have to start out as a warrior-type and plan on getting some caster levels later, I play up seeking advice from the party's wizard or NPCs, practicing spells, gathering components, or the like. I especially enjoy playing at having the character making mistakes while he or she learns for a bit of comedy. I find this makes "the wait" fun and contributes to everyone's fun and to the emergent story.

 

[Warpiglet]

Yeah, that seems reasonable if a theme is really locked in mind and there is a progression---using foreshadowing for your own enjoyment. I cannot wait. Rey long since my play time is so limited. As a result, multiclassing is hard for me---hard to put off that ASI, feat and theme...

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm a big believe in feature exchanges. Swapping out one class feature for another one brought in (of relatively equivalent power.) All of this MUCH MORESO than one or two level "dips" of multiclassing. Because this way you get what you want without all the extra junk you don't that comes along with multiclassing.

For example... I want to play a dwarven Cleric of Clangaddin Silverbeard-- the dwarven god of war who specializes and wields a pair of battleaxes in battle. As it stands, I could wield two axe weapons to begin with at level one (handaxes), but I wouldn't get to add my STR bonus to the second axe. By the same token, the War domain's main 'War Priest' feature is allowing the cleric to use a Bonus action to take a second attack a certain number of times per day. But as I'm already dual-wielding... that feature is pretty much useless to me (considering it's really built expecting the cleric to be wielding a two-handed weapon.) Thus... I ask my DM and get permission to do a feature swap-- swap out the War Priest domain feature, and swap in the Two-Weapon Fighting style. Now I get to add my STR bonus to both handaxe attacks, without having to "dip" one level of Fighter just to get the fighting style. Then at 4th level (to complete the character) I can select the Dual-Wielder feat to be able to switch over to dual-wielding battleaxes just like and in honor of my god.

The gain of off-hand STR bonus to damage is probably relatively balanced against the loss of the three or so Bonus Action attacks I would have gotten with War Priest, so it's a fair swap. Plus, it gets me what I want-- more characterization for my build, without bothering to multiclass.

So if you want to go heavy armor for your warlock build, then work with your DM to figure out which warlock feature you can swap out in exchange for Heavy Armor proficiency, and maybe which feature you can swap out for Action Surge. After all... if a Fighter can swap out its improved critical hit ranges or superiority dice to gain a bit of spellcasting (in the Eldritch Knight)... the Warlock should be able to swap out some of its abilities to get stronger in melee. Seems only fair.

 

[Sunseeker]

Typically, if my build can't be visualized by level 5, there's something wrong with the build. I can wait till level 5, but the progression dramatically slows down after that and makes implementing a build very difficult.