Multiclassing Warlock

[Nagog]

Hello Adventurers and Dungeon Lords!

Question for ya: I'm building a character that is Warlock 4 and Rogue 1, taking the dip for the Expertise and other rogue bonuses. I've read up on multiclassing involving spellcasters and spell slots, and while there is plenty of information on gaining spell slots for a class with Spellcasting, there is a noticeable lack of information on how levels in a secondary class affect the Pact Magic class feature. Does it affect it similarly to other spellcasting classes in that you gain spell slots but no spells of that level, because in other classes that's relatively OK, but with Warlocks higher spell slots and upcasting is a major thing. Any thoughts, resources, or suggested houserules on the issue?

[Man_Over_Game]

Hello Adventurers and Dungeon Lords!

Question for ya: I'm building a character that is Warlock 4 and Rogue 1, taking the dip for the Expertise and other rogue bonuses. I've read up on multiclassing involving spellcasters and spell slots, and while there is plenty of information on gaining spell slots for a class with Spellcasting, there is a noticeable lack of information on how levels in a secondary class affect the Pact Magic class feature. Does it affect it similarly to other spellcasting classes in that you gain spell slots but no spells of that level, because in other classes that's relatively OK, but with Warlocks higher spell slots and upcasting is a major thing. Any thoughts, resources, or suggested houserules on the issue?

So, there's a few misconceptions that we want to address:


Spell slots are only related in terms of multiclassing when multiple classes you have levels in use a spellcasting feature. So being a Wizard/Rogue will mean you only have spell slots from just your Wizard levels, unless you happen to be an Arcane Trickster Rogue (which has spell slots).
Warlocks are an exception to this. It does not matter what a Warlock multiclasses with, their spell slots are separate. So if you mixed Sorcerer, Bard and Warlock levels, you'd combine your Sorcerer and Bard levels to determine your normal spell slots, and then you'd calculate your Warlock spell slots separately according to the Warlock Class page. You can still use your Sorcerer/Bard and Warlock spell slots to cast each others' spells, but you don't sum them together to determine how many you have. That is, if you are a level 1 Warlock, you only have 1 Warlock spell slot, period, even if you have 19 levels into Sorcerer (in which case, you'd have Sorcerer spell slots as a 19th level sorcerer, but Warlock spell slots as a level 1 Warlock).


this is important is because Warlocks regenerate slots differently than other classes. A Warlock regenerates 1-3 spell slots per Short Rest, when other classes regenerate 2-20 spell slots per Long Rest. You can think of Warlock spell slots like a small-capacity, fast-recharge battery, capable of granting you a small capacity of spell slots that you can afford to spend frequently. Sorcerer spell slots, on the other hand, are high-capacity with a slow recharge. But you can, for instance, spend your Sorcerer Spell slots for your Warlock spells, and vice versa, so the only real difference between using spell slots from Warlock or another class is just how fast they recharge. This isn't regarding your actual question, but it is fairly related.

In your example, neither the Warlock, nor the Rogue contribute towards a spell slot sum. If you were an Arcane Trickster Rogue, with levels of Wizard/Bard/Eldritch Knight/Any Caster, that'd be different.

[Teaguethebean]

Unrelated to your question but you can pick up thirsting blade when your total character is lv5 so that means at your current level you can be extra attack even with the mc

[Millstone85]

Unrelated to your question but you can pick up thirsting blade when your total character is lv5 so that means at your current level you can be extra attack even with the mcThis is wrong. A level prerequisite refers to your level in the warlock class.

[Man_Over_Game]

This is wrong. A level prerequisite refers to your level in the warlock class.

Millstone's correct.

As far as I know, there are only two things that scale with level, ignoring how you level up:

Cantrips, and Proficiencies. Everything else is based off of class levels.

[bid]

Question for ya: I'm building a character that is Warlock 4 and Rogue 1,

Any thoughts, resources, or suggested houserules on the issue?
Yeah, it's a non-issue.

MC makes you 2 characters at once:
- you are a warlock 4 with all its features,
- you are a rogue 1 with all its features.

The Customization Options chapter lists the exceptions to this, proficiency bonus being the biggest one in your case.