Best splash dips for each class

[ApplePen]

I got to thinking while looking over the threads how the best fighter seems to be Battlemaster with a 3 level Assassin dip. The Paladin has some great synergy with sorcerer and or fighter for slots and action surge. War cleric links up nicely with 2-3 levels of Paladin, and warlock loves 3 levels of Sorcerer like they got hitched.


What are your preferred dips for each class and why?

[Laserlight]

I got to thinking while looking over the threads how the best fighter seems to be Battlemaster with a 3 level Assassin dip. The Paladin has some great synergy with sorcerer and or fighter for slots and action surge. War cleric links up nicely with 2-3 levels of Paladin, and warlock loves 3 levels of Sorcerer like they got hitched.


What are your preferred dips for each class and why?


You may be looking for this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?502248-Ultimate-Optimizer-s-Multiclassing-Guide)

[Foxhound438]

You may be looking for this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?502248-Ultimate-Optimizer-s-Multiclassing-Guide)

^ that.

If you're looking for my opinion:

lore bard with 2-3 levels of life cleric is an awesome healer

fighter with 3 levels of any caster can be okay, depending on what tricks you gain from the spells you take

monk has a lot of good dips, but at the end of the day you're looking for per-hit damage boosts to take advantage of your 4 attacks per turn- warlock, ranger, and war cleric come to mind

Paladin dips great with any charisma full caster, but quickening out SCAG cantrips is particularly good in my mind.

rogue with 2 barbarian levels for free advantage is okay

sorcerer does well to quicken eldritch blasts all day, so sorc/warlock is good



Anything else I would probably not multiclass, at least not until extremely high levels (wizard's capstone isn't particularly interesting to me, for example.)

[Vaz]

Warlock 2/Sorc +

Pal 3 (2?)/Sorc +

[Toadkiller]

Having fun with Cleric 1(knowledge)/wizard X. Armor, more cantrips and wizardly expertise.

[Ogre Mage]

^ that.

If you're looking for my opinion:

lore bard with 2-3 levels of life cleric is an awesome healer



You really only need one level of life cleric to get the best benefits out of it -- heavy armor, bless and the life domain power. Grab Aura of Vitality via magical secrets for supremely powerful healing. Lore Bard 19/Life Cleric 1 is one of the best support casters in the game. Maybe THE best.

[ApplePen]

I'm more looking for personal experience than a dedicated ranking system, though the ranking system is very thorough and eye opening.

[MrFahrenheit]

Best support splash I've seen in my campaign (started at 1, now at character level 17)...

Lore bard 14/life cleric 1/rogue 2. The cleric level synchs up perfectly with bard, and gets its level bonus as already mentioned. Two levels of rogue are key for when the player doesn't have a bonus action use otherwise: heal/buff/debuff/etc, hide, then end of turn.

[MrFahrenheit]

Best in-combat utility I've seen is the thief/battlemaster combo. Comes on board at 6 (3/3), then the player should get to at least 5 battlemaster for extra attack before deciding where the rest of his levels will go. Note though that in this case, a thief 9/battlemaster 11 split is a perfectly reasonable outcome inasmuch as a 3/17 or 15/5 one is.

Why is this so awesome?

At SIXTH level, you can do the following on the first round of combat (the first!)...

1. Approach enemy (ideally you'd be stealthed pre-combat, but it's usually still fine otherwise; partial [hopefully] move action).
2. Swipe enemy's holstered backup weapon (fast hands bonus action).
3. Sneak attack enemy and disarm their primary weapon (disarming attack maneuver action).
4. Kick bad guy's primary weapon away (free action interact with object).
5. Finish your partial move by walking away from current enemy and toward the next. So what if you take an AoO from your burglarized bad guy? It's 1+str mod at best.

YMMV with this; can't recommend the build if you're going up against primarily weapon-less baddies.

[rooneg]

Having fun with Cleric 1(knowledge)/wizard X. Armor, more cantrips and wizardly expertise.

Or alternatively Cleric 1 (arcana)/wizard X. You get some useful wizard spells as cleric domain spells, pick up armor, WAY more cantrips (including cleric ones like guidance, but also a bunch of wizard ones) and you get healing spells.

[Millface]

Swashbuckler Rogue with Bear Barb to 5 for damage resistance all and extra attack is really good.

Really, any melee with 3 levels in Bear Barb becomes almost unkillable.

[Citan]

Honestly the possibilities are too wide to really tell what would be "objectively best".

Basically, nearly all cross "class A 1-3 levels" / "class B X" can be great, very few cases happen when it would be just a bad idea.

So I'll give a reverse: what are the few "bad idea" splashes.

1. MADdening splashes
Such as Monk / Paladin, or Ranger / Sorcerer, etc... Basically any two classes that rely on very different stats usually.
But even these cases are "bad" only if you use point-buy or make bad rolls. As long as rolled stats give you enough to sustain multiclass and have at least 2 good stats, there is no problem.

2. Splashes from classes which resources is growing linearly.
Because in most cases, you won't get much mileage from the splash because of the limited resource pool.
Honestly though, the only one I could think of is Monk, because everything relies on Ki and class level. So usually anything short than Monk 5 is not good enough.
With that said, there are some niche cases when even one or two levels of Monk bring a strong enough value to be considered. For example, when you just want to be able to use a quarterstaff with DEX (Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer), or you just have no good use for your bonus action so a weak unarmed is better than nothing, especially with a bonus damage per attack (Bladesinger, Warlock), or you just want a few uses of one particular Ki option per short rest (such as "Dodge as a bonus action", or "Darkness for 2 Ki").

3. Splashes that would eat at great capstones or near capstones.
So, basically, splashes made to complement a chassis of Druid (20: perma-Wild Shape), Barbarian (20: perma-Rage), Wizard (18: free spells, 20: short-rest spells), Bard (18: 9th Magic Secret), Cleric (20: auto-succeed Divine Intervention), Fighter (20: 4 attacks on Attack), Monk (20: Perfect Self -ymmv though-), Paladin (18: 30-feet Auras, 20: Oath feature), Warlock (20: Eldricht Master -ymmv though-).
Of course, if you think you'll never get there, there is no doubt to have. ;)