Todd Roybark
Hero
One is tortilla chips, the other is nachos.Shadow blade is good without any upcasting.
Chips

One is tortilla chips, the other is nachos.Shadow blade is good without any upcasting.
Idk, IMO Shadowblade, while better upcast than a lot of spells, is still not as good a 3rd level spell as just about any actual 3rd level spell.One is tortilla chips, the other is nachos.
Chips ⚖ <Nachos
I’m glad it is fun for the player and the group. Both Rogue and Warlock are great 2 level dip classes. The player, however, would have certain advantages now, by being a single class character, instead.
A 6th level Rogue would have an extra helping of Expertise goodness and Uncanny Dodge, and an extra 1d6 Sneak Attack.
A 6th level Warlock could already be casting an upcast 3rd level slot Shadow Blade and be attacking twice per round with the Thirsting Blade Invocation. Two attacks with SB is going to typically out perform SA, in damage output, at 6th level.
The oft talked about state of grace that is an upcast Shadow Blade, being used to attack with Booming Blade and Sneak Attack is nice, but mainly the domain of the Arcane Trickster.
Other characters need to consider wether to prioritize damage dice from upcasting Shadow Blade or taking levels in Rogue to improve Sneak Attack.
With the few spell slots a Warlock has, capping at 5th level slots; the Warlock just isn’t as good with the Shadow Blade spell as other classes.
A Sorcerer or Wizard using a 7th level slot to upcast Shadow Blade has a similar damage output as a 16th level Sneak Attack, with no other damage riders on the Sneak Attack,( E.G. no Booming Blade etc).
Yeah, I have one MC character who MCed early on, and it was kinda rough until about level 9, even though it's a really good combination. Swashbuckler/Bladesinger doesn't work quite as naturally as Swashlock (Hexbuckler? MC combbo naming is basically just fandom ship naming), but it still kicks ass. But at early levels it was hard not to think all the time about how I was missing out on things like Uncanny Dodge, and 3rd level spells.This is exactly why I never end up actually multiclassing, even though it's fun to think about the interesting combos.
Idk, IMO Shadowblade, while better upcast than a lot of spells, is still not as good a 3rd level spell as just about any actual 3rd level spell.
So...it’s like getting slightly better chips for the price of good nachos, I guess?