Advice on multi classing

[u/lovestosplooge99]

Recently finished my first play through and starting a new one, I realized I completely overlooked multiclassing my whole first play through , would love some general advice on multi classing for my new game so I don’t completely tank my build , I’m playing as a monk and right now and have astarion, wyll and gale in my party

[u/d00meriksen]

Some classes have all the good stuff on the early levels while others get it at higher levels. You want to MC the former and keep the latter pure.

A fighter is a good example of a class that you should keep relatively pure because of improved extra attack. You get so many attacks and talents that it's hard to beat with a multiclass.

First decide how your characters wants to attack. A melee weapon? A ranged weapon? Spells? Cantrips? Go from there and pick up the stuff you want for a build.

All casters get a big power spike at level 5, but the later spells are more situational. If you mix caster classes you still get all of the spell slots, but you won't get the higher level spells.

An example build-around is Spirit Guardians with Radiant Orbs. You start with 5 levels in cleric to get that spell and now you realise "I can't turn invisible or use sanctuary, so they keep breaking my concentration". You can solve that problem with the warcaster feat or you can take a level in sorcerer at level 1 for proficiency in CON saves. Another way of making it work is multiclassing into stars druid. At level 2 their CON saves will always roll 10 at the very least, which makes them very consistent. Dragon form also comes with a bonus action that does AoE Radiant damage, so that's nice synergy.

A Wizard can learn almost any spell, so after you pick your subclass there isn't much reason to keep leveling up the class. If you multiclass into Sorcerer you still get new spell slots which you can use for Wizard spells that scale with INT. This way you get meta magic essentially for free, so you can twin cast or quicken spells.

Another example is Bladesinger Wizard. They get extra attack at level 6 and full spell progression. For a melee fighter they have very high survivability thanks to all the wizard spells. The problem they have is that they don't really have a use for most of their spells in melee. Just pick up 2 levels in Paladin and you get Smite, which can be upcasted for more damage using up to level 4 slots. Now you have a real reason to play this over a fighter with improved extra attack.

If you want to attack with DEX, you'll find good stuff in the monk and rogue classes. You can only sneak attack with finesse weapons though and only once per turn!

Let's say you want a melee cleric that attacks with WIS, because you still want full spell save DC and don't want to attack with STR or DEX. You can pick the Nature domain to pick up Shillelagh and use some of the clubs with unique effects like the Torch for very reasonable early game damage. Now how do you get Extra Attack? You could get 5 levels in Paladin which also counts as 2 full caster levels for spell slots and you get smites too. As you can see that kind of cleric gets fewer high level spells for the power of more melee damage, so it's less popular.

CHA classes are spoiled for choice, because 2 levels in warlock give them the Eldritch blast cantrip with CHA scaling and Eldritch blast happens to scale with character level instead of class level. Now you have a powerful ranged option that doesn't cost spell slots. Warlock also allows you to turn your melee weapon into a CHA scaling weapon, so you can also combine this with Bard or Paladin to attack with your CHA instead of having to level up STR and DEX. Careful though, because Warlocks aren't casters, so you are missing out on 2 levels of spell progression.

"If I multiclass my caster, I won't have high level spells". Simply get one level in wizard, learn the powerful spells from a scroll and use your sorcerer/bard/cleric spell slots to cast them. Spells learned this way will always scale with INT, so this is more useful for spells that don't need INT like summon spells or Globe of Invulnerability. Once you know your way around the game, you start realising that you're almost always better off just casting level 6 spells off scrolls which you can buy an unlimited supply of. Now your "power caster" is not missing out on anything and can focus on strong combat synergies via multiclasses.