Rogue/Warlock or Battlemaster/Warlock? Or maybe Wizard/Battlemaster?

[nirurin]

So i'm considering a new build, for a campaign that is likely to get to level 20 (eventually) but I'm more looking for low level and continuous levelling fun options.

I find that relying on long rests for recharging abilities is a bit of a pain at times, and often leaves a character with very little to do. Warlock helps with this with the short-rest spell slots, but you only ever get 2 (and eventually 3) so it balances I guess.

Battlemaster gets the maneuvers, and 4 of those every short rest is handy, has some nice utility in there. But would only need fighter 3 for that. Only reason to go any higher would be 5 for extra attack.

Rogue gets cunning action and sneak attacks.

Battlemaster 3/Wizard X gets some options, might work especially well with bladedancer.

Any suggestions?

[bid]

Get to level 5 of your main class before dipping. There's nothing better than extra attack or a fireball.

That being said, it's not clear why you want a gish. Do you like melee combat or only dislike having "nothing to do" once out of spell slots?

[SkylarkR6]

Make sure your party members are also taking classes that benefit from a short rest(other then burning HD) or you might find yourself locked out of your spell slots. That being said, battle master/lock could be fun. Don't really need to go to 5, thirsting blade invocation works fine. Action surge, fighting style and maneuvers are nice. Heavy armor to get really SAD.

[nirurin]

Get to level 5 of your main class before dipping. There's nothing better than extra attack or a fireball.

That being said, it's not clear why you want a gish. Do you like melee combat or only dislike having "nothing to do" once out of spell slots?


In this campaign we tend not to know if/when we will get a short/long rest until it happens, as we dont know when we have cleared an area of enemies until the last one dies and we investigate. As such, I tend to end up hoarding my spell slots for 'when needed', as a long rest may be a long time away.

I played a Paladin for the first couple levels, and basically didn't cast anything until one fight which looked like it might be a big fight. Burned through my slots with smites in 3 rounds, and then had no slots for the rest of the day (and nothing vs the actual boss fight). It's the way the game works I know, and most people are fine with it, it just bugs me because of how *I* am personally. (I'm the kind of person who would have a megaelixer in my bag, and never use it because im always saving it for a rainy day).

Short rest abilities I can actually just spam through, and use them regularly, because a short rest is much much easier to come by.

Also I don't necessarily need to be a Gish. I'm also considering Rogue/Battlemaster, and just going straight-up rogue or fighter. But this game does seem to have a pretty big lean towards spellcasters being the most useful and varied overall.

Swords Bard would be a potential option, but i've found the Flourish options to be highly lackluster. Only the defensive flourish is worthwhile, and even then you can't use it reactively so the Shield spell is universally better as most of the time (with a halfway decent DM) your defensive flourish AC will be wasted.


And so I'm thinking Battlemaster 3, for Action Surge + Maneuvers, as well as armour, weapon and shield proficiencies. Though these are less useful with Bladedancer if I mainly go wizard. Abjurer or one of the other schools might be a better fit for it. Would also mean Polearm + Polearm Mastery could be an option.

[nirurin]

Oh, I forgot that Polearms don't mix with the Booming/GreenFlame cantrips. So that's a bit of a shame. Would have to be a normal weapon. This does however free up the feat for Mobile, which still lets me tag an enemy with booming and backing off so they have to either waste a turn or take damage.

So I guess I should add the tldr of my vague plan -

Character with mobile + booming/gf blade cantrips. 18 DEX, 18 Casting stat (INT or CHA), 16 CON. Human variant with feat (probably mobile in this case).

As polearms are out, bladesinger is back in the fight (though I'd have to avoid shields).

[bid]

(I'm the kind of person who would have a megaelixer in my bag, and never use it because im always saving it for a rainy day).

Also I don't necessarily need to be a Gish. I'm also considering Rogue/Battlemaster, and just going straight-up rogue or fighter. But this game does seem to have a pretty big lean towards spellcasters being the most useful and varied overall.
I understand what you are saying. It's the DM's job to make you use up your resources to make encounters challenging. It's not easy to use them parcimoniously.

Spellwise, you have to go all out with a pure caster, or use them for utilities. Mending and guidance are nice cantrips for a martial.

Even if I feel BM is a step above other fighters, SD is weaksauce compared to spells. Only MC fighter if you need extra attack.

Hexblade is too good an alternative to the fighter dip. Paired with rogue's expertise opens up a world of utilities. Blade for extra attack or chain for scouting. Swashbuckler for melee dancing or AT for utility slots. You can stay Dex14 + breastplate until you reach Cha20 and can even use a shield if you have thirsting blade.
In fact, any rogue with extra attack can be fun, from the barbarian wrestler to the bladedancer.

[danpit2991]

i have been playing a half orc champion/ celestial warlock and it has been a blast

[MxKit]

Character with mobile + booming/gf blade cantrips. 18 DEX, 18 Casting stat (INT or CHA), 16 CON. Human variant with feat (probably mobile in this case).

My first instinct is to advise you to go Arcane Trickster/Battle Master. Take your first level or two in Fighter, then go all the way up to Rogue 5 for Uncanny Dodge. Then go up to Fighter 5 for Extra Attack, then switch back to Rogue.

Alternatively, you could take only three or four levels of Battle Master, but Rogues are pretty good with Extra Attack. Either way, Arcane Trickster lets you pick up the two cantrips you want pretty early, and Rogues benefit pretty well from Mobile. You can get away with concentrating mostly on Dex, and depending on the spells you pick you don't even necessarily need an 18 in Intelligence, though if you can swing it it wouldn't hurt.

Alternatively alternatively, get to your first ASI as soon as you can and take Magic Initiate for your cantrips. That way you don't even have to pick Arcane Trickster; any of the other subclasses would be great for you, but I'd suggest Swashbuckler (raise your Charisma as if it were your casting stat) or Scout.

[Tikkun]

You seem to want to mix melee and magic. In that case perhaps an Eldritch Knight might scratch your itch. Gives you the pluses of fighter with a bit of flavour of wizard. EK's are usually restricted to abjuration and evocation spells early on and that fits perfectly with what you want--a Battle Wizard. Also by level 7 you get the use of War Magic which allows you to cast a cantrip and then make a melee attack. I think by level 11 your melee attacks that hit give your spells advantage against that mob. Plus you can also add wizard levels should you so desire for more powerful spells.

In the same vein you might also consider a Moon Druid. This gives you Wild Shapes that can fight along with a host of magical spells that you can cast before Shaping. Or try a Land Druid, who regains spell slots during short rests.

I usually encourage people to stay in one class as I think 5e punishes you for multi-classing. One of the ways it does this is via MADness in trying to 'shoehorn' many different stats into your build. Combining magic and melee is one way this happens. Try a multi classes that use the same stat, like a battlemaster/rogue combo using a bow or cross bow or the tried and tested warlock 2 or 3/sorcerer X combo. Remember if your campaign is going to 20 you should seriously investigate the level 20 capstone of a particular class first before even considering an mc. A little leveling pain/boredom for a massive gain may well be worthwhile.

[Kefvin]

So i'm considering a new build, for a campaign that is likely to get to level 20 (eventually) but I'm more looking for low level and continuous levelling fun options.

I find that relying on long rests for recharging abilities is a bit of a pain at times, and often leaves a character with very little to do. Warlock helps with this with the short-rest spell slots, but you only ever get 2 (and eventually 3) so it balances I guess.

Battlemaster gets the maneuvers, and 4 of those every short rest is handy, has some nice utility in there. But would only need fighter 3 for that. Only reason to go any higher would be 5 for extra attack.

Rogue gets cunning action and sneak attacks.

Battlemaster 3/Wizard X gets some options, might work especially well with bladedancer.

Any suggestions?

I’m currently building towards a build called the ”Battlebuckler”
Basically Its 3rogue (swashbuckler) and 3fighter (Battlemaster) Im soon getting to the online level of 6 but so far its been amazing.

Lots of mobility through cunning action and Expertise in sneak and acrobatics. Bit of a glass cannon but Ive finished of more than one boss by darting in, backstabbing and darting out again. I did also get bit by a were boar the one time I tried dueling...
But that will all change once I get my tasty maneuvers.

As others have mentioned you seem to want to have magic, I would seriously recommend this build though :)

[Mikal]

Hate to beat a dead horse, but it's my favorite horse (so why am I beating it? English can be weird).
You could consider Hexblade Blade Pact Warlock, MCing for 4 levels into Battlemaster, and MCing for 4 levels into Blade Bard.
Alternatively, if you have the stats and want to go heavy armor anyway, you could go Hexblade 12/Oathbreaker Paladin 8.

With the first build you get lots of goodness
Short Rest: spells, battlemaster maneuvers, as well as 5th level casting 3 slots per short rest, which can also be used to Eldritch Smite. You get plenty of melee damage thanks to Charisma twice to that damage, as well as strong useful spells. You also get one of the strongest cantrips in the game in Eldritch Blast.

Long Rest: Blade Flourishes/Bardic Inspiration Dice, 2nd level Bard spells which can also be used for low-level Warlock spells you want to keep memorized but suck when upcast to 5th like say... Shield. You'll also get a 6th level Mystic Arcanum to cast (though it can't be used to upcast of course)

With the second build you lose the battlemaster abilities for short rest, but keep the others. You also gain some pretty nice Channel Divinity abilities in the form of commanding undead and cause the frightened status to others.

You also gain a lot of passive abilities in addition to your long rest strengths- Charisma to save for you and your allies, as well as Charisma to damage for a third time.

To me, that seems to be a very decent Gish, and you can layer the mutliclasses however you want to in order to keep it interesting.

[nirurin]

It's not that I want to be a spellcaster exactly, it's more that in this game it seems that non-spellcaster characters basically do the exact same thing from level 1 to level 20. Turn is move + swing sword, next persons turn.
Fighter/Battlemaster gets to swing sword twice at 5, and thrice at 11, and occasionally gets to add a superiority dice to that swing (which is the widest variety of options out of all the pure martial classes).
Rogue only ever gets to stab once, so all that changes is the extra dice they roll for sneak attack. So far as I can tell they'd just do the same routine for the entire 20 levels.

Casters get new spells every couple levels, that have increasingly various effects and functions. Fear groups, create illusions, raise an army of creatures/fey/zombies, etc etc for like 20 pages of options. Pure martial characters get nothing (except battlemaster, who gets like 10 options, which isn't terrible. And Arcane Archer, who gets like 4 options).


However I don't like the idea of just sitting on the back lines and plinking away with spells all the time. I like being in the action when needed. Its why on my martial character in a different game I went crossbow mastery and hand crossbow. All the benefits of two handed fighting, but I could be at range or point blank tanking enemies and always be effective.

This is why I was considering Bladesinger (though that came up after I wrote the original post). Full Wizard progression, but with the ability to run into the fight and survive. Even gets extra attack, even though it seems wasted if the melee cantrips are being used. Can take Mobility at 4, or take two levels of Rogue for cunning action.

An alternative non-MC option might be Warlock, and still take the Crossbow Expert feat, and Eldritch Blast people in melee range.

[Citan]

It's not that I want to be a spellcaster exactly, it's more that in this game it seems that non-spellcaster characters basically do the exact same thing from level 1 to level 20. Turn is move + swing sword, next persons turn.
Fighter/Battlemaster gets to swing sword twice at 5, and thrice at 11, and occasionally gets to add a superiority dice to that swing (which is the widest variety of options out of all the pure martial classes).
Rogue only ever gets to stab once, so all that changes is the extra dice they roll for sneak attack. So far as I can tell they'd just do the same routine for the entire 20 levels.

Casters get new spells every couple levels, that have increasingly various effects and functions. Fear groups, create illusions, raise an army of creatures/fey/zombies, etc etc for like 20 pages of options. Pure martial characters get nothing (except battlemaster, who gets like 10 options, which isn't terrible. And Arcane Archer, who gets like 4 options).


However I don't like the idea of just sitting on the back lines and plinking away with spells all the time. I like being in the action when needed. Its why on my martial character in a different game I went crossbow mastery and hand crossbow. All the benefits of two handed fighting, but I could be at range or point blank tanking enemies and always be effective.

This is why I was considering Bladesinger (though that came up after I wrote the original post). Full Wizard progression, but with the ability to run into the fight and survive. Even gets extra attack, even though it seems wasted if the melee cantrips are being used. Can take Mobility at 4, or take two levels of Rogue for cunning action.

An alternative non-MC option might be Warlock, and still take the Crossbow Expert feat, and Eldritch Blast people in melee range.
Hi!
After reading your initial post I was gonna suggest exactly that:

For easy build, Fighter 1 / Bladesinger X is really all you need.
Although you won't circumvent the slot management aspect, by the time you are level 7, you will be able to dish out 4 attacks nearly each and every encounter if you so wish.

A much more complex, but much more rewarding build could be
Divine Soul Sorcerer 3-5 (depending on your taste for 3rd level spells) / Hexblade Warlock 3+ / Battlemaster or Eldricht Knight 3-6-7-10-11 (with or without Bladesinger 3+).
Only, of course, if your DM is willing to agree on liberal use of the following trick: learn Rope Trick (through Bladesinger or Eldricht Knight).
Also learn Leomund's Tiny Hut if possible (Tome Warlock, Wizard 5).
Basically, whenever you just blew all your short-rest resources, as long as you kept one sorcery point and one 2nd level slot, you can Extend Rope Trick (so you have margin to take short rest inside).

You could of course abuse this trick to convert short rest slots into SP then back into long-rest slots but I'd really advise against it: your DM (and maybe fellow PC) will quickly grow tired and annoyed of it and he would probably shut everything at once. So just use it as a way to give back to your party a bit of control on resting.

Whenever your party wants a long-rest, same, you can just Extend Ritualcast LTH, so you now have up to 16 hours to take a long rest. Bonus point: with a proper timing, you could blow your highest level slot on Extended Aid before taking the long rest, to buff several people for the most part of the next adventuring day.

Big problem of this build is that it's gonna be painful to level.
Unless you don't care about Extra Attack, you will have to choose which class you will use for the "martial part" (Fighter / Blade Warlock / Bladesinger), which class you will use to learn Rope Trick (Bladesinger, also Lore Bard 6) and LTH (Bladesinger, Tome Warlock, Bard)...

In fact, it may be much easier to run as full CHA: Hexblade Blade Warlock 3-5 (2nd or 3rd level short rest, Extra Attack or weapon cantrips), Divine Soul Sorcerer 3-5 (Aid, Warding Bond, Spiritual Weapon, Extend metamagic, possibly Counterspell and Haste/Fear/Hypnotic Pattern/Fireball/Slow/Spirit Guardians/whatever), Lore Bard 6 (LTH on spell list, grab Rope Trick and whatever else you want).
Of course... I totally forgot about the Battlemaster aspect. XD

[nirurin]

Hi!
After reading your initial post I was gonna suggest exactly that:

For easy build, Fighter 1 / Bladesinger X is really all you need.
Although you won't circumvent the slot management aspect, by the time you are level 7, you will be able to dish out 4 attacks nearly each and every encounter if you so wish.

A much more complex, but much more rewarding build could be
Divine Soul Sorcerer 3-5 (depending on your taste for 3rd level spells) / Hexblade Warlock 3+ / Battlemaster or Eldricht Knight 3-6-7-10-11 (with or without Bladesinger 3+).
Only, of course, if your DM is willing to agree on liberal use of the following trick: learn Rope Trick (through Bladesinger or Eldricht Knight).
Also learn Leomund's Tiny Hut if possible (Tome Warlock, Wizard 5).
Basically, whenever you just blew all your short-rest resources, as long as you kept one sorcery point and one 2nd level slot, you can Extend Rope Trick (so you have margin to take short rest inside).

You could of course abuse this trick to convert short rest slots into SP then back into long-rest slots but I'd really advise against it: your DM (and maybe fellow PC) will quickly grow tired and annoyed of it and he would probably shut everything at once. So just use it as a way to give back to your party a bit of control on resting.

Whenever your party wants a long-rest, same, you can just Extend Ritualcast LTH, so you now have up to 16 hours to take a long rest. Bonus point: with a proper timing, you could blow your highest level slot on Extended Aid before taking the long rest, to buff several people for the most part of the next adventuring day.

Big problem of this build is that it's gonna be painful to level.
Unless you don't care about Extra Attack, you will have to choose which class you will use for the "martial part" (Fighter / Blade Warlock / Bladesinger), which class you will use to learn Rope Trick (Bladesinger, also Lore Bard 6) and LTH (Bladesinger, Tome Warlock, Bard)...

In fact, it may be much easier to run as full CHA: Hexblade Blade Warlock 3-5 (2nd or 3rd level short rest, Extra Attack or weapon cantrips), Divine Soul Sorcerer 3-5 (Aid, Warding Bond, Spiritual Weapon, Extend metamagic, possibly Counterspell and Haste/Fear/Hypnotic Pattern/Fireball/Slow/Spirit Guardians/whatever), Lore Bard 6 (LTH on spell list, grab Rope Trick and whatever else you want).
Of course... I totally forgot about the Battlemaster aspect. XD


Divine soul is UA isn't it? UA isn't allowed in this campaign unfortunately. Unless that's the new one in xgte, but that doesn't have anything good for a close range caster that I can remember. It's cleric sorcerer as I recall...

I'm considering simplifying my idea down to trying to avoid a deep multiclass. Trying to stick to a single class would be ideal but not sure if it will work.

Bladesinger works by itself.

Sorcerer doesn't. Would need fighter or paladin to fix the weaknesses. But paladin 2 or fighter 2 should be enough.

Same with abjurer. Would need pal or fighter 2.

Warlock can manage as a pure build I think. Blade pact, with a couple sorcerer levels later on to build up spare low level spell slots.

Eldritch knight is the final option. It's a shame they didn't give it the same slot progression as paladin though. Or access to short rest spell slots as they have so few of them.

[Citan]

Divine soul is UA isn't it? UA isn't allowed in this campaign unfortunately. Unless that's the new one in xgte, but that doesn't have anything good for a close range caster that I can remember. It's cleric sorcerer as I recall...

I'm considering simplifying my idea down to trying to avoid a deep multiclass. Trying to stick to a single class would be ideal but not sure if it will work.

Bladesinger works by itself.

Sorcerer doesn't. Would need fighter or paladin to fix the weaknesses. But paladin 2 or fighter 2 should be enough.

Same with abjurer. Would need pal or fighter 2.

Warlock can manage as a pure build I think. Blade pact, with a couple sorcerer levels later on to build up spare low level spell slots.

Eldritch knight is the final option. It's a shame they didn't give it the same slot progression as paladin though. Or access to short rest spell slots as they have so few of them.
Divine Soul is actually not UA ;) it's the official version of Favored Soul that was published in Xanathars.

Also, don't mind my several heavy multi-class suggestions: I tend to make those to give people an overview of all the possibilities. But making a single-class with or without dip is very fine too. ;)

As I said, I think the easiest for you would be Bladesinger with Fighter starting dip.
Eldricht Knight is the other great thing (you can still dip/multiclass into a caster later if really you feel lacking in spellcasting).

You could also go Divine Soul Sorcerer X / Hexblade Warlock 1. Obviously you will have to rely only on Booming Blade / Green Flame Blade for sustained rounds, but apart from that it is a very great build: you could actually get pretty good sustained damage in big fights thanks to Spiritual Weapon, or Spirit Guardians.

Or if you want Extra Attack, another pure caster that makes things good is Valor Bard: you get a mix of long-rest abilities (spells), short-rest abilities (Song of Rest, Bardic Inspiration), permanent abilities (Expertise, Jack of All Trades), nicely wrapped in a standard gish package (medium armor, Extra Attack).

And you can still stack a 3-level Battlemaster on any of those if you so wished. :=)

Last option would be a WIS-one: either pure 4E Monks (totally short-rest this one, and archetype is costly in ki so you would suffer at low levels), or...
- Shadow Monk + Tome Warlock 5: total short rest, Darkness tricks, and rituals allow you to use LTH to take short rests as often as you want.
- Open Hand Monk 14 / Land Druid 6: just pick some Land Druid levels whenever you want a bit more spellcasting.
- Long Death Monk / Shepherd Druid: the bonus action aura helps much with Grappling. :)