Good build suggestions?

[Finback]

Our party is facing a TPK in CoS, and our DM has suggested after our last post-game roundup that it might be worth us having a spare character ready, just in case. I've always been happy in our group to be the one who rounds out the edges (most of our party of six is new to D&D, so I always play what we lack - at the moment, I'm the warforged brute fighter in a group made of a divine soul sorcerer, dwarven cleric, drow artificer, tiefling rogue and gnome bard).

I have a slew of other character ideas which I'd already fleshed out, but now I'm working up a concept character but not sure what the best build might be.

I'm thinking a dragonborn sorcerer/bard - green heritage (Draconic ancestry) and College of Whispers, as they are a manipulator, out to twist people to their bidding. Which leads me to my two main questions:
1. Which class should I start in, and where should I split the pathway? At present, we're level 8s, but I'm not sure if a 5/3, or a 4/4 split might be good, and which class to favour with it.
2. Is College of Whispers (and bard, therefore) worth it? I've seen some articles elsewhere suggesting that a better option would be to go Warlock, and pact of the tome, but then the question becomes which patron? I suppose I could re-flavour the Great Old One to represent mentally manipulating people, but it feels a bit less ... green dragon.

The alternate would be to run them as a half-elf rather than a dragonborn, giving me better stat bumps, but my mental image of this PC is way more draconic than just someone with a taint in the blood.

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The inverse would be my idea for a half-elf Phoenix sorcerer, and I'm thinking of going fighter/battlemaster, probably an archer. The idea is literally based solely on a piece of fan-art of a gender-swapped human-bodied version of Rodimus/Hot Rod from Transformers, and the art just really felt like they escaped from a D&D campaign. Does that sound like a more feasible build than the dragonborn idea?

[Lyracian]

Definitely 5/3 as Level 5 has such good bonus for every class. Not played Whisper bard so no idea on part two. My take would be to favour Bard.

Sorcerer gives you Con save proficiency but Bard has better weapon proficiency. Depends if you want to use a Rapier or just sling spells. Also are you using point buy or rolling stats as that may determine if you want to have Resistance as a feat.

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

Kind of depends what you want to do. If you just want access to cheap metamagic like quicken and subtle, then 3 Sorcerer/Bard X would give you that option. You don't have a ton of sorcery points, but you can convert your slots to sorcery points to fuel it anyway and those two metamagics are fairly cheap. You'll miss out on the level 18 magical secrets from Bard, but that's something you won't miss until level 20, which most people don't hit.

If you wanted to be more Sorcerer, the Sorcerer X/Lore Bard 3 would probably be the best mix. Bard's a bit of a harder sell as a multiclass for Sorcerer, but Lore Bard will get you some inspiration, cutting words, expertise, and three more skills. Don't think the others are that useful as a dip.

Standard Sorlock is 1-3 levels of Warlock and the rest Sorcerer (take sorcerer first for con save proficiency). The 1 level dip is usually reserved for Hexblade multiclassers who want charisma to be their attacking stat. The 2 level dip is for invocations (usually Devil's Sight and Agonizing Blast). The 3 level dip is for a pact and 2nd level spells slots that recover on short rests, which can essentially give you the Sorcerer capstone ability right out the gate if you cannibalize them for sorcery points after every short rest. The patrons themselves can be reflavored to taste, with Fiend and Fey probably matching the dragon-ish side more. Celestial also isn't necessarily "good" and you can have a connection to a patron such as Bahamut or Tiamat for that dragon flavor. Hexblade lore also states that the patron isn't necessarily a weapon, but could also be an artifact. Just have the artifact be attached to some ancient dragon, or dragon God, and through it you draw the power of your patron.

If you're set on multiclassing, I'd either go mostly Bard with a Sorcerer dip, or mostly Sorcerer with a Warlock dip.

Another option is the Sorcadin, where you go 2 levels into Paladin to get heavy armor, martial weapons, fighting styles, and Smites, then the rest into Sorcerer. This option is more if you want to be a magical knight of sorts (gish). The benefit of this is being able to do an attack, use a spell slot to add a lot of smite damage, then quicken a booming blade/greenflame blade/other spell to put out a lot of damage while being tanky.