Harzel
Adventurer
I'm curious about your experience. What was bad about the dip - didn't fit the in-game narrative well, too powerful, fall too far behind? In other words: what didn't work?
Well, in truth it's a bit of a particular situation, but the heart of the matter is the pickup of shield proficiency. He has 16 DEX, so with Mage Armor he was already at AC 16 (21 with Shield spell). Now suddenly he's toting around a shield and is AC 18 (23 with Shield spell). Close to unhittable by creatures below CR5 or so. Just feels really cheesy.
Admittedly, it does delay his wizard spell levels by one level, but it still feels pretty cheap, since he gets the whole Cleric(1) spell list and 1st level cleric domain benefits as well.