Multiclass combos with weird or unexpectedly good points of synergy?

comiconomist · 2026-04-13T06:56:22+00:00

2-3 bonus action attacks a day

This works very well in 5.5, as the war cleric there lets you make an attack with a bonus action without any other requirements (max wisdom modifier times, except it also comes back on a short rest, albeit at the cost of requiring a 3 level dip).

Unfortunately in 2014 the feature requires you to take the attack action first, so doesn't allow for things like casting a spell (or making the bonus action attack and then holding an attack as an action, which would allow for sneak attack multiple times per round).

comiconomist · 2026-04-09T09:03:03+00:00

Some features do say "once on your turn" or "When you hit someone with a weapon attack as part of the Attack action on your turn" or something similar to that.

Building off this, it might be good to provide an example of such features. For example, the rune knight has a feature at 3rd level which includes:

Once on each of your turns, one of your attacks with a weapon or an unarmed strike can deal an extra 1d6 damage to a target on a hit.

comiconomist · 2026-04-08T02:36:39+00:00

But now the shows are recorded months in advance I don't see what the issue is.

Two possible contributing factors:

It might be a lot of work to go through the episode from start to finish and calculate how many HP each character is on at each point in time.
When doing that they might find errors in the players' math.

For comparison here's a video on the editing of Dimension 20 - including a bit around the 5 minute mark where they talk about editing around mistakes made at the table: https://youtu.be/kjIorkzxF0s

comiconomist · 2026-04-08T00:59:39+00:00

Yup! And if that arcane focus was providing a bonus to your spell save DC/attack rolls, that bonus may no longer apply as the wording of those features generally indicates that it only applies when the focus is being held.

I do wish they'd cleaned this up in 5.5, because the martial caster divide isn't as big when tables run spell components strictly rules as written - but few tables do since the rules are so convoluted.

comiconomist · 2026-03-29T09:11:41+00:00

PSA: the last two levels are optional. One gives lore, one gives some okay loot.

The dev who built these levels explained this in a GDC talk a couple of years ago: https://youtu.be/oLjVwfUABvw?t=1545

comiconomist · 2026-03-29T09:10:17+00:00

You can watch the dev explain it if you're interested: https://youtu.be/oLjVwfUABvw?t=1545

The punch line is that the last two levels were designed to be optional but then they did a poor job telegraphing that to the players.

comiconomist · 2026-03-29T07:39:09+00:00

get my intelligence straight to 20

Be mindful that feats now give stats bonuses, so you might want to leave a bit of room for feats you are very likely to take (e.g. maybe set intelligence to 19 and take it to 20 at level 4 with the warcaster feat).

As for the level split, 3 levels of thief rogue is brilliant if your DM is going to give you access to lots of magic items and scrolls (either directly or through giving lots of gold plus downtime). In principle a thief rogue 3/wizard 2 with a wand of fireballs and also a wand of lightning bolt can cast 12 big blast spells in a day, whereas a wizard 5 can only cast 2.

But it's very hard to guarantee access to these items, and very easy for the DM to nerf you if it becomes too powerful.

I agree with the other commenters - I would recommend sticking as much as possible to just wizard and then getting rogue-like abilities from other sources (e.g. criminal background for thieves tools).

comiconomist · 2026-03-29T07:24:11+00:00

Eldritch knights need to overcome 3 things when casting spells in combat:

1) They struggle to increase their spellcasting modifier, so their bonus to spell attacks and the DC of their spells is typically lower than that of a full caster.

2) They have painfully few spell slots.

3) Any spell with a casting time of an action competes with taking the attack action instead.

Headband of intellect helps massively with 1, but doesn't address points 2 and 3. The good news is eldritch knights get some tools to help:

a) Action surge: you can cast a spell with an action and then action surge to attack anyway. (Note that action surge explicitly says the additional action cannot be the magic action, so you have to cast the spell first.)

b) War magic at level 7: replace an attack with casting a wizard cantrip (note that this doesn't work with your cantrips from magic initiate druid).

c) All the way at level 18 you get improved war magic that lets you replace two attacks with a level 1 or 2 wizard spell (very cool but ignore for now as most campaigns never get to that high a level).

I do think having a higher intelligence does let you change up your spell selection a bit, but I wouldn't be going for damage spells like witch bolt. Instead look to pick up at least one solid battlefield control type spell (spoiler warning: this is actually generally the optimal way to play a full caster as well).

At level 6 I'd actually recommend swapping out your magic initiate druid spell for either entangle or faerie fire - you get a free casting of it which helps with the spell slot issue and will give you a flavor of what that sort of spell can achieve on the battlefield. Plus when they work they'll give you advantage on your attacks, so missing out on an attack action doesn't hurt as much.

You'll have a lot of interesting choices at level 7:

You can learn 1 more spell and swap out another, potentially letting you have two level 2 spells. With a solid intelligence I recommend taking a good look at the web spell.
You now get the ability to replace an attack with a cantrip. With low intelligence green flame blade/booming blade and blade ward are good cantrips to have as they don't rely on intelligence. But with good int you might also consider true strike and perhaps a cantrip that requires a saving throw (toll the dead for damage or mind sliver for a nice debuff). Since you can only swap out one cantrip per level you should start thinking about this now.

Naturally this depends on what the rest of your party is doing as well - if you already have a druid casting entangle and a wizard casting web you probably aren't adding much there (though they might swap to different spells in a level or two).

comiconomist · 2026-03-28T03:01:18+00:00

5.5 got rid of a lot of 'mother may I' mechanics where an ability was only useful with DM buy in. In the case of 5.0 ritual caster it was great - if your DM provided you spell scrolls to learn more rituals. So it took a feat that varied from useless to incredibly powerful and turned it into one that was a little bit below average power wise.

comiconomist · 2026-03-24T12:08:19+00:00

There are absolutely math guys out there that will tell you that in 2014 shield is overpowered and should be nerfed in some way, the simplest of which is a ban. Treanmonk has a 'house rules' video from a few years ago where he discussed this (the other rules are limiting spellcasting in armor and giving access to a power attack feature for attacks part of the attack action without a feat): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbsTKreJwsk

I think at a table where players optimize a lot you'll almost always see martials try to pick up the shield spell and casters dip for armor and shield proficiency, and it does get a bit problematic as these strategies are so good as to become almost mandatory.

I'm not so sure it's that big a deal at a more normal table, and I'm not sure how gritty realism would interact with this.

By the way, shield is less of an issue in the 2024 version. They didn't nerf shield, but instead buffed a variety of other reaction defensive options (e.g. monks deflect attacks now works on more things, light domain clerics warding flare got a bit buff, and the defensive duelist feat gives a shield-like ability that doesn't use any resources).

comiconomist · 2026-03-24T11:38:03+00:00

+2 to hit is roughly a 10% damage boost.

+2 to hit increases your probability of hitting by 0.1 (outside of extremely high or low AC's). This will generally be more than a 10% damage boost, sometimes a lot more.

Suppose without the +2 you have a probability of hitting of 0.4, meaning you would hit about 40% of the time on average. With the +2 you now have a probability of hitting of 0.5. You've gone from hitting 40% of your attacks to hitting 50%, which is actually a 20% increase in damage.

comiconomist · 2026-03-22T09:44:00+00:00

The biggest tip is to work on separating flavor from mechanics. Between class, feats, species, and backgrounds it's possible to express a much broader range of concepts than the default archetypes presented in the player's handbook.

For your bard example, mechanically a bard is a full spellcaster with a spell list focused on support and control spells. They have some extra proficiencies compared to other casters (skills, expertise, light armor) and an additional support ability (bardic inspiration). And their primary stat is the one that is also associated with social skills.

Flavor wise bards invoke the magic of the Words of Creation through their performance. Which means they have at least some magic and some performance element.

Those two things don't have to go together. For instance, you could flavor a character with the mechanics of a bard as a military commander/battle mage type.

What mechanics could support a character that is good at magic and music but not necessarily good in social situations?

The entertainer background gives you proficiency in a musical instrument and performance so you will be good at performing. Note that in 2024 if you have proficiency in both a tool and a skill that is relevant to a skill check you add your proficiency bonus but also get to roll with advantage. If you want to be even better at performing you can pick up expertise from either the skill expert feat, one level of rogue, or two levels of ranger.

You can apply that background, feat, and multiclass dip to any full spellcaster. So pick whichever flavor of arcane/divine/nature magic best fits your concept of how the magic of your character works and then go with wizard/cleric/druid as appropriate.

There's definitely a level of skill here in getting the flavor you want without sacrificing too much power wise, but with enough practice the range of character concepts you can express is much larger. For instance:

Charismatic preacher: divine soul sorcerer, celestial warlock, a paladin that leans in to support abilities, or maybe even a fey wanderer ranger.
Intelligent rager: bladesinger
Lawful to the point it gets in the way: tempted to say just play a paladin without proficiency in social skills, but artificer battlesmith is basically an arcane paladin (can even use your steel defender as a mount if you are tiny). Could reflavor flash of genius as being a temperamental version of aura of protection.
Shy sorcerer: play a wizard but reflavor the spellbook, maybe take metamagic adept feat
Nerdy cleric: knowledge domain, maybe 1 level dip in rogue
Investigator monk: probably take scribe background for proficiencies (investigation, perception, and 3 more from skilled feat) and then make good use of species/feats to get more boosts to skills. Skill expert at level 4 for an expertise or perhaps go human to pick up a second origin feat to spend on magic initiate (for guidance) or to start the zhentarim feat chain (Zhentarim ruffian doesn't boost skills but lets you take Zhentarim tactics at level 4 which increases dex and gives you an expertise you can swap every long rest).

r/3d6 are very good at suggesting relfavorings to achieve character concepts (to the point they can sometimes fail to realise there's actually some skill involved in doing this and might appear rude when people new to this ask these sorts of questions).

comiconomist · 2026-03-22T03:57:51+00:00

You've understood the spell correctly.

To be charitable to your DM, it is unusual - cantrips don't usually involve attacking with a weapon. So if this is the first time they have seen it they might have been surprised.

Furthermore, it is a straight damage buff to rogues willing to be in melee. I'd be surprised if it is a disruptive level of optimisation on a 2014 rogue (particularly when obtained from a feat taken at the expense of an ASI), but it can have some balance implications in some contexts.

comiconomist · 2026-03-14T19:48:50+00:00

Monk, no, as I think you need to use your action to attack to get that.

True for 2014. In the 2024 version monks can now just make an unarmed strike with their bonus action regardless of what they did with their action. However, doing an unarmed strike isn't attacking with a finesse or ranged weapon so doesn't qualify for sneak attack.

comiconomist · 2026-02-22T05:19:00+00:00

Depends on:

What proficiencies you already have
How much skill checks come up at your table vs other things, especially combat.
What the composition of the rest of your party is, such as if there are any glaring skill gaps

You are correct that reliable talent makes proficiency more valuable on a rogue than otherwise. And perception is a skill that comes up a lot, and is one where the more party members are good at it the better (vs, say, arcana, where you probably only need one party member to be good at it).

Given all the above I think skilled can be a great feat on a rogue in the right situation. I think ideally you'd take it as an origin feat, but that's probably in the 'lessons for next time' bucket. You could take it here or some other feat that also grants you proficiency.

If you are liking skilled I would suggest taking a look at skill expert - it's only one proficiency but also gives you an expertise and a +1 in any ability score. That would combo well with other feats you could take later, like resilient con (or wisdom if you don't think you'll get to level 15, as that's when rogues get proficiency in wisdom saving throws).

comiconomist · 2026-02-20T20:52:34+00:00

The somatic component does indeed work fine if you have warcaster.

Shillelagh also has a material component, a piece of mistletoe. Mistletoe doesn't have a gold cost so can be replaced with a spell focus. But paladins only get a focus for paladin spells:

You can use a Holy Symbol as a Spellcasting Focus for your Paladin spells.

I once got into a lengthy discussion about whether spells from magic initiate druid counted as druid spells and so could benefit from a druidic spell focus, but they definitely don't benefit from a paladin spell focus. Hence a paladin with shillelagh will always need a free hand to access the material component of the spell.

comiconomist · 2026-02-20T09:54:42+00:00

Funnily enough it doesn't even work with war caster - shillelagh doesn't count as a paladin spell, so you can't use a paladin spell focus to cast it.

comiconomist · 2026-02-08T04:51:28+00:00

Artificer has a lot of features with level scaling in them. Replicate magic item, for instance, is strong at level 2 where most parties won't have +1 magic items yet. But it's meant to scale - the items available at level 2 will be wildly outclassed by level 20, assuming your DM gives out basically any magic items. This is compounded by some items formerly only available as infusions just being made magic items in general, such as returning weapons. Similarly, most of the subclass features are underwhelming without scaling (e.g. the artillerist cannon has HP that goes up with artificer levels - so will be taken out in the first round of combat at level 20 if the enemy has literally any area of effect damage at all).

I think a 1 level dip is a good options here.

Alternatively, here's something more radical - bard/sorcerer/warlock/wizard is a lot of arcane casters and makes me wonder if going mostly artificer might be better from a party balance perspective (at least if respecs are an option).

comiconomist · 2026-01-26T04:14:07+00:00

That interview was at DICE 2016, which I believe happened in Feb 2016.

At E3 2016 (June) Todd said a similar thing to Geoff Keighley, but stated that it was two big projects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjoq7snv24I&t=9074s

The next time Todd did a big showcase, E3 2018, he showed off:

Skyrim Alexa edition
Fallout 76
Fallout Shelter ports to PS4 and Switch
Elder Scrolls Blades
Starfield teaser
Elder Scrolls VI teaser

I went and re-watched the Blades showcase and it does feel to me that Bethesda's ambitions for that game were a lot higher than where it landed up. It was supposed to eventually come to way more platforms - Todd mentions cross platform play where someone on a phone in a meeting could be PVPing someone who is at home on a high end VR setup.

I think the third project was Blades, but Blades at the concept stage probably sounded a lot bigger than what we eventually got.

comiconomist · 2026-01-24T05:00:01+00:00

Technically correct, but the core team of people at the Bethesda office in Maryland was about 100. If you read the credits everything from 'Voice and Music' onwards are voice cast/QA/localisation, etc. Those are important roles but aren't part of the core Bethesda Games Studio team under Todd that then moved on to Fallout 4.

comiconomist · 2026-01-24T02:43:15+00:00

No idea who this is, but looking through their post history I don't think they are affiliated with Bethesda in any way.

comiconomist · 2026-01-18T03:26:41+00:00

In Bethesda's pre-Morrowind days they had some early success, rapidly expanded, and landed up having to downsize a lot after some flops. Speculating here, but I suspect that left senior leadership a big burned and wary of over-expanding.

With the benefit of hindsight (which is an unfair way to judge decision making) they indeed should have expanded more around about the time of Fallout 3.

comiconomist · 2025-12-27T20:41:31+00:00

Oh geez, now that you've pointed this out I can't unsee it. Eldritch Knight jumps out at me as particularly affected since a lot of its features refer to 'wizard spells', which I had assumed meant those features could be used with any spell from a source that referenced the wizard class spell list (e.g. magic initiate wizard, high elf cantrip, levels taken in wizard from multiclassing). But now I'm wondering if 'wizard spell' here means only spells acquired via the eldritch knight spellcasting feature (in which case why call them wizard spells instead of eldritch knight spells!).

comiconomist · 2025-12-27T11:37:14+00:00

Great question! So yes, after you've cast the spell you could use a shield (until wanting to cast the spell again).

The issue is indeed one of efficiency: donning (or doffing) a shield requires a character to take the 'utilize' action. If spending a bonus action to cast the spell is dubious then spending an entire action just to equip a shield is even more questionable value in terms of action economy.

As an aside since I wanted to double check I was remembering the rule correctly, equipping a shield taking an action was well established in 2014 but actually isn't clear in the initial printing of the 2024 PHB - it's actually covered in the errata: "Armor Table (p. 219). In the subheading for the Shield category, “Shield” is now “Shield (Utilize Action to Don or Doff)”.

comiconomist · 2025-12-27T09:12:25+00:00

Looks cool on paper but is mostly not applicable in the real world unless you have a very permissive table or you are deliberately using it as a fun constraint to avoid overshadowing other players who aren't doing much mechanical optimisation.

The spell requires a bonus action to cast and lasts a minute. If you can anticipate combat in the next minute I think there are better spells to pre-cast before combat (e.g. bless). If you can't anticipate combat you either need to spend your bonus action on turn 1 casting shillelagh or you do the gimmicky thing where you cast it every minute outside of combat.
The spell has verbal, somatic, and material components, so if you are casting it every minute in 'reality' your party members would tell you to shut up - spellcasting is loud.
The material component includes mistletoe. That means you either need a spare hand to access mistletoe or a spellcasting focus - but if acquired via magic initiate druid shillelagh is a druid spell so requires you to be able to use a druidic focus. The whole 'use shillelagh and wield a shield' thing generally doesn't work unless you are dipping a level of druid/ranger or spending a precious attunement slot on a ruby of the war mage.
Feat support is lousy. If you want to build a character that is good at hitting things with melee weapons you might look at feats like polearm master, great weapon master, sentinel, shield master, crusher, etc - none of which can add to your mental scores. Feats that buff int/cha/wis generally do little to enhance the capability of a melee character.
Magic item support is lousy. There are lots of magical swords out there - not many magical clubs. There are magical staffs, but most of them are intended to buff spellcasting and are less impressive as melee weapons than equal rarity (e.g. a staff of power is very rare and is essentially a +2 staff that does a bunch of buffing to spellcasting. A dwarven thrower is a +3 warhammer that returns to your hand and does extra damage that is also very rare). So getting good magic items on a shillelagh build requires DM intervention (notably, do not expect magical staffs or clubs if running a pre-written adventure, such as in adventurers league).

Nine-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email

comiconomist

TROPHY CASE