Quote Originally Posted by MaxWilson View Post
Not sure I agree with this part. The biggest problem with the Barbarian class is that it's so front-loaded you can play e.g. a Barbarian 2/Fiend Bladelock X and still be about as good as a Barbarian X+2 at most or all aspects of the Barbarian fantasy. The same might apply to Bladesinger, although there are bonus action economy issues.
maybe, but imo it wouldn't feel like playing a barbarian, most of your abilities are going to be from the wizard half. that beign said, you may be right, i was mostly spitballing when i tossed out that idea

Going Barb 5 first seems like a mistake to me. There's too little return on the investment.
barb 2-reckless attack/danger sense
barb 3- resistance to all damage, except for psychic
barb 4- ASI. barbarians are MAD enough without having to worry about meet MC requirements for wizard, you need these ASIS
barb 5- extra movement/multiattack. if you've already taken 4 level sin barb, you may as well take the 5th otherwise you're not getting multi attack until 10. which would suck.

like you said, barb is pretty front loaded, grabbing these 5 levels i think would go a long way toward making it feel like a barbarian imo. and i think its worth the opportunity cost.

then you go 5 levels of wizard and gain:
1-familiar! (and i guess false life since...i mean 6 temp hit points isn't nothing? and you're not really using your spell slots for anything else at this juncture
2-bladesong!
3-uhhh...mirror image? i guess. or just magic mouth for da pranks! not many great, non concentration lvl 2 spells, at least not for this build. blur would be great, but its concentration, so its backup.
4- another ASI!
5- haste! (although niche, but still useful.) blink! (is kinda meh due to duration)

hmmm, overall IMO you tend to gain more from the barbarian levels than you do this, just because of the rage mechanic. also if you previously took those 5 levels in barbarian, the general drought of these levels is gonna be less impactful i think.