My approach to multiclassing
[7 min read]
When I created Tomas of Tyr as my first character coming back to Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, I really didn't have a well-defined concept and backstory in mind. I wanted to be a powerful damage dealer, read that Oath of Vengeance Paladins were strong, and chose Mountain Dwarf because of the +2 bonus to Strength and Constitution. Ie. I min/maxed a character based on a desired combat role of single target damage dealer with some support spells for self and party. (FYI, by the time of the first session I had fleshed out a back story here.)
And at 5th level, Tomas was already realising that vision - capable of 3x polearm attacks with Extra Attack and Polearm Mastery, 2d10+1d4+15 damage per round (28 avg) if all attacks hit. Going full nova with Divine Smites on all three, using two second level and one first level spell slots, that increased by 8d8 (avg 36). Ie. a total of 64 average damage in a single turn. Not bad at all!
But... soon after starting playing Tomas, I realised that the party was already pretty covered for damage dealing. We have a Battlemaster Fighter, Kingsley Bladesong, who can deal out a ton of damage in a single round with Action Surge and Maneuvers (his highest turn was 112 points of damage!). We have an Evocation Wizard, Jaee of Witcher's Deep, with fireballs out the wazoo. What was missing from the party was more utility, both in and out of combat.
I started researching the path of multiclassing - how could I use it to better round out the party whilst remaining true to being a damage dealer, in a way that reflected the story that was shaping Tomas in the campaign?
My reasons for multi-classing
- To realise a character concept that isn't covered by a single class / subclass choice
- To round out deficiencies in, or to enhance the capabilities of, the party
- To reflect narrative events and their impact on my character's development
Why Sorcerer?
Coming late to D&D 5E, I realise there is already a plethora of multiclassing optimisation articles and videos out there, so I am not trying to recreate that here. By reading some of these I came across the Sorcadin (Paladin/Sorcerer), which works well since the spellcasting power is based on Charisma for both classes. It also fit well thematically with the campaign events, where the party was exposed to powerful arcane magic from Azuth, and each character given bespoke eldritch powers.
When it comes to increased utility, the Sorcerer has two other main advantages over other Charisma-based spellcasting classes (Bard, Warlock) - the Divine Soul Sorcerer subclass (from Xanathar's Guide to Everything), and Metamagic. The former provides access to arguably the best spell list in the game - the Sorcerer and the Cleric lists combined. The latter allows for incredible versatility with metamagic options such as Extend Spell (double duration on all your spells, including buffs), Twin Spell (double the number of targets of the spell, still only using one slot) and Quicken Spell (turn a one action spell into a bonus action to cast). I was imagining twinning Haste on Tomas and Kingsley for insane damage per round, extending Aid on the party ahead of a long dungeon crawl, and quickening a Hold Person spell as a bonus action on a bad guy, then attacking with advantage and doing critical damage if hitting.
The evaluation process
Whenever you multiclass and gain additional versatility there is always a trade-off to be considered. My personal approach was to map out the abilities lost versus the abilities gained in order to assess whether these trading off the power of a Paladin for the versatility of the Sorcerer felt good overall. See below:
In Tomas' case, by multi-classing at 6th level meant missing an ability score increase or an extra feat at 8th, which is a very high price to pay. The benefit to offset that loss is more spells, using sorcery points to regain spell slots, and metamagics.
Losing Improved Divine Smite at 11th level also hurts, but since we are moving away from damage dealing to utility as a goal, at 6th Paladin/5th Sorcerer Tomas will have access to 4th level spells and two extra spell slots vs the Paladin. Those extra spell slots can be used for smites for more burst.
Lay on Hands is a really strong and versatile method for healing hit points and removing effects such as poison and disease. Tomas will still keep 30 points of Lay on Hands to use for curing these status effects, but will rely on Empowered Healing and spells such as Heal in order to restore more hit points for the party overall.
Many of the Oath of Vengeance Paladin spells are so strong (Haste, Banish, Dimension Door), that Tomas will take them as a Divine Soul Sorcerer anyway, which may make multiclassing seem counter-intuitive. But what is better than a Death Ward? A Twinned or Extended Death Ward.
Lastly Tomas will never be able to access the the capstone feature of the Oath of Vengeance Paladin, Avenging Angel, which is both cool and powerful given the fly speed of 60 feet and a 30 foot fear aura. However the Divine Soul Sorcerer gets 30 feet of flight anyway, and the addition of 6th and 7th level spells which are far more powerful - Disintegrate, Divine Word, Summon Celestial for example. And with one 8th and one 9th level spell slot, Tomas will be able to up-cast some of the more powerful spells. E.g. a 9th level Disintegrate spell has an up-casted damage of 19d6+40 force damage (avg. 106), and can be twinned to a second target!
So, as you can see from the above analysis, Tomas will trade off combat effectiveness and some cool Oath features for more spellcasting capability and more utility overall. And the Divine Soul Sorcerer really fits with some of the events that have shaped Tomas so far in the campaign, making for some great roleplaying opportunities (see the narrative justification of the multiclassing here).
Public service announcements
Per the Player's Handbook, multiclassing, along with feats, are optional rules to use at DM's discretion. This is probably because it is easy to create combinations that don't work well together and are too dependent on multiple ability scores to be effective. That can be a dissatisfying outcome for the player, so multiclassing tends to stay in the realm of the experienced. Additionally, you need to meet the ability score prerequisites in both the existing class and the new class, disqualifying certain combinations depending on the character's abilities.
Multiclass spellcasting also adds some complexity to planning your character. I won't reprint the Player's Handbook here, but check the Multiclass spellcasting rules to understand how your character's spell slots and level will be calculated. In Tomas' case, I stopped progressing as a Paladin at 6th level, and since Paladin is a half caster, his multiclass spellcasting level when taking 1 level of Sorcerer (considered a full caster) was 4th. Ie 6 divided by 2 for Paladin, plus 1 for Sorcerer. At character level 20, if Tomas continues progressing exclusively as a Sorcerer, he will be a 17th level spellcaster. Despite having 8th and 9th level spell slots, Tomas being only a max 14th level Sorcerer means he will never be able to cast spells higher than 7th level. Thus those slots can only be used to up-cast spells of 7th or lower. That is the power trade-off of multiclassing between one third casters (e.g. Eldritch Knight) or half casters (e.g. Rangers) versus full casters (e.g. Clerics), and can easily confuse new players.
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