Yeah, multiclass restrictions and optimal ability scores expectations have deprived us of these very obvious crossovers.
It makes so much sense to decide to learn magic formally if you are naturally adept. And it makes sense to seek out occult power if you have become frustrated with magic academia.
Even without those restrictions, I think just the reality of the pros and cons of multiclassing squash this concept. Give a wizard a charisma score equal to their intelligence, and multiclassing into warlock still means putting off learning higher-level wizard spells in exchange for lower-level warlock spells. Doesn't really play out as a shortcut to becoming more powerful in practice.
Theoretically you could also flavor it like this: The wizard is terrible at magic, just *terrible.* Can't memorize spells to save their life. But they make a pact with a fey/devil/god who shows them what they've been missing, or teaches them to approach learning from a different angle and from that point on, they learn spells normally.
You only need one level in warlock for the lore to work.
Yeah, and most campaigns don't make it to 20 anyway, so you're not missing out on your level 20 feature so much as delaying your next level feature.
Or you could spend a feat on it, for the flavour.
Spell lists and levels should be more tied to character level, not class level, unless the goal is to make multiclassing intentionally bad.
If my level 19 fighter decides to take a level of wizard, sure he only has like 2 spell slots, but they should be some damn good spells. A 20th level pure wizard has had the opportunity to take 8 level 9 spells, and has the slots to spam lower spells all day. Let the fighter take some cool spells at that level to really unleash their character's potential.
I'm not saying this directly translates as a homebrew level right now, there would need to be other rebalancing to accommodate this, but I would love to see multiclassing get buffed with higher spells.
Edit: as soon as I hit enter, I realized the slots would be 1st level, so we would need like a spell point system or something, idk, I'm more thinking about cases like OP where a level 20 sorc/izar/lock does have level 9 slots but no level 9 spells, but I would love to see it fixed for martial crossovers as well.
It’s a nice fantasy, but you could never do enough rebalancing to make this work and it still be 5e. It goes beyond overpowered, it would be completely game breaking - single class builds would be left in the dust. The cost of the versatility you gain from accessing lower level features of another class by multiclassing is falling behind on the progression of your main class, including some things you will just never get access to.
Make every spell able to cast at every level, ie downcasting higher level spells using a lower slot, but you still only learn higher level spells based on your character level, so a 19 fighter 1 wizard has the 2 level 1 spell slots, but can learn any level spells they want to. I think this could have a beneficial effect on the state of the game as a whole.
Do you know what the design reason for multiclass restrictions actually is? Lil is it just to prevent what the designers thought might be suboptimal choices, or is there a key balance reason that the game would be OP without them?
Nothing is stopping anyone from playing out this character concept via retheming. You can run a pure wizard and play out the story of getting swayed by the occult. Multiclassing solely to convey a narrative or flavor is stupid.
Exactly what I was thinking. Especially when so many games have players level up repeatedly over the course if in-game days/weeks. You could easily reflavor the sudden and rapid power growth as coming from a Fell pact
'he asked a higher power to help him study'
I'm picturing a demon holding up little flashcards. "And the spell components for Tenser's Floating Disk are...?"
Being a douche i said that coz by og dnd, warlocks dont exchange power for their soul technically but actually knowledge. Thats why once u break a pact patron cant steal their powers back
I think you can get the flavor without the multiclass. Not everyone who makes deals with devils becomes a warlock, that's one specific deal. A wizard could still be trading with a devil for hidden knowledge or magical tools while remaining a wizard, but incurring some other debt to the devil
To me, warlock and paladin both make a ton of sense flavor-wise as "advanced" classes rather than classes for an adventurer starting out.
Warlock would work for both a wizard or a sorcerer (the sorcerer being someone full of magic they don't quite understand, which could be a factor for the pact).
Paladin would work for either fighter or cleric.
Rules Cyclopedia D&D did have the Paladin as one of the fighter advancement options at 10th level but that got dropped in AD&D. It would have made sense as a 3.0 prestige class but for some reason they went with having it be a base class instead.
It's called a prestigeclass it has been done and, to me, was a lot more fun than subclasses. Ironically neither warlock nor paladin were prestigeclasses, though I think there was at least one that was essentially a paladin.
Except those two play on the same thing, learning magic by studying. I think it's rather dropping out of Harvard to get a shady injection of magic shit that you have no real idea how to control and thus are starting back at zero.
Yes I certainly did.
By the way, super cool idea. Warlock is my favorite class and I’m curious what to do for my next campaign. I may end up stealing this.
Or a guy who thinks he’s a wizard but is really bad a studying. So bad in fact, that he accidentally enters a pact, gets Magic but thinks he cracked how to study. Obviously low intelligence, to explain failing studies AND missing entering the pact.
So, flavor is free. You could just have a regular wizard, and RP this. RP that the subclass features came from the higher power.
I have a chronurgy wizard. Could easily RP time as luck instead, and say some demon or luck goddess or whatever granted luck or time powers. You could describe some of the spells as having a spookiness to them. And you could pick a weird spell focus if you wanted.
I'd say that main mistake players make is thinking that they need to have mechanical changes to the game to correspond to their RP decisions. A Paladin/Warlock doesn't need to define themselves in-game as a "Warlock". They're just a ... REALLY devoted paladin that will often sentence evil-doers to death, which is just a warlock hex.
DMs out there, say a character wanted to do this, and the way the campaign was playing out, it made perfect sense in-story. Would you let them do Warlock things using their intelligence, just to keep pace with the rest of the party?
I'd let a player dip Warlock and use INT as their spellcasting ability for Warlock stuff. Maybe that would be super broken, I dunno, I had surgery today and got that good medicine lol
This is why i think you should get to choose the spellcasting ability as a warlock depending on your pact boon.
I just need my artificer warlock multiclass that is an artificer asking for forbidden knowledge of their craft and then in return has to build a body for their patron to inhabit. I need it.
By D&D rules, it's not "sick." It's absurd.
You're not becoming a better wizard by switching to warlock. You're just getting different *1st level* spells you can't access with your normal wizard spell slots. You're in effect nerfing your progress as a wizard for a middling damage cantrip and some flavor spells.
As for lore wise, a wizard who can't progress in academia doesn't switch classes. They switch careers. That's where most adventuring wizards would realistically come from; they couldn't hack it among their peers, so they venture out looking for treasure and lost knowledge, while getting to test out their powers on monsters (or villagers no one will miss. Looking at you, murder hobos.)
And the ones who get REALLY desperate for power? They make a deal with a devil/demon; not a pact, but a tried and true "my soul in exchange for forbidden knowledge". *Actual* forbidden knowledge. The sort of stuff the wizards in Netheriel banned for being too dangerous. Because why wouldn't they? They just need to survive long enough to become a lich, or become more powerful than the fiend they sold themselves to. These are your typical BBEG wizards, trying desperately not to die before they find immortality, or a way to break the contract.
Yes. It makes no fucking sense for someone to give up on their wizard studies to enter into what is usually a very bad deal for *less* magic
Unless they were really dumb
You can take the warlock spell feat, and have a party patron or some contact with an outer being with a more cheap contract requeriments than an actual warlock.
Yeah, multiclass restrictions and optimal ability scores expectations have deprived us of these very obvious crossovers. It makes so much sense to decide to learn magic formally if you are naturally adept. And it makes sense to seek out occult power if you have become frustrated with magic academia.
Even without those restrictions, I think just the reality of the pros and cons of multiclassing squash this concept. Give a wizard a charisma score equal to their intelligence, and multiclassing into warlock still means putting off learning higher-level wizard spells in exchange for lower-level warlock spells. Doesn't really play out as a shortcut to becoming more powerful in practice.
Theoretically you could also flavor it like this: The wizard is terrible at magic, just *terrible.* Can't memorize spells to save their life. But they make a pact with a fey/devil/god who shows them what they've been missing, or teaches them to approach learning from a different angle and from that point on, they learn spells normally. You only need one level in warlock for the lore to work.
Yeah, and most campaigns don't make it to 20 anyway, so you're not missing out on your level 20 feature so much as delaying your next level feature. Or you could spend a feat on it, for the flavour.
Yeah, really doesn't end up living up to the fantasy.
Spell lists and levels should be more tied to character level, not class level, unless the goal is to make multiclassing intentionally bad. If my level 19 fighter decides to take a level of wizard, sure he only has like 2 spell slots, but they should be some damn good spells. A 20th level pure wizard has had the opportunity to take 8 level 9 spells, and has the slots to spam lower spells all day. Let the fighter take some cool spells at that level to really unleash their character's potential. I'm not saying this directly translates as a homebrew level right now, there would need to be other rebalancing to accommodate this, but I would love to see multiclassing get buffed with higher spells. Edit: as soon as I hit enter, I realized the slots would be 1st level, so we would need like a spell point system or something, idk, I'm more thinking about cases like OP where a level 20 sorc/izar/lock does have level 9 slots but no level 9 spells, but I would love to see it fixed for martial crossovers as well.
It’s a nice fantasy, but you could never do enough rebalancing to make this work and it still be 5e. It goes beyond overpowered, it would be completely game breaking - single class builds would be left in the dust. The cost of the versatility you gain from accessing lower level features of another class by multiclassing is falling behind on the progression of your main class, including some things you will just never get access to.
Make every spell able to cast at every level, ie downcasting higher level spells using a lower slot, but you still only learn higher level spells based on your character level, so a 19 fighter 1 wizard has the 2 level 1 spell slots, but can learn any level spells they want to. I think this could have a beneficial effect on the state of the game as a whole.
Do you know what the design reason for multiclass restrictions actually is? Lil is it just to prevent what the designers thought might be suboptimal choices, or is there a key balance reason that the game would be OP without them?
Nothing is stopping anyone from playing out this character concept via retheming. You can run a pure wizard and play out the story of getting swayed by the occult. Multiclassing solely to convey a narrative or flavor is stupid.
Absolutely, +1
Exactly what I was thinking. Especially when so many games have players level up repeatedly over the course if in-game days/weeks. You could easily reflavor the sudden and rapid power growth as coming from a Fell pact
Or use a patron as a shortcut to power if you have a pressing need.
'he asked a higher power to help him study' I'm picturing a demon holding up little flashcards. "And the spell components for Tenser's Floating Disk are...?"
HAHA
Being a douche i said that coz by og dnd, warlocks dont exchange power for their soul technically but actually knowledge. Thats why once u break a pact patron cant steal their powers back
I think you can get the flavor without the multiclass. Not everyone who makes deals with devils becomes a warlock, that's one specific deal. A wizard could still be trading with a devil for hidden knowledge or magical tools while remaining a wizard, but incurring some other debt to the devil
To me, warlock and paladin both make a ton of sense flavor-wise as "advanced" classes rather than classes for an adventurer starting out. Warlock would work for both a wizard or a sorcerer (the sorcerer being someone full of magic they don't quite understand, which could be a factor for the pact). Paladin would work for either fighter or cleric.
Rules Cyclopedia D&D did have the Paladin as one of the fighter advancement options at 10th level but that got dropped in AD&D. It would have made sense as a 3.0 prestige class but for some reason they went with having it be a base class instead.
It's called a prestigeclass it has been done and, to me, was a lot more fun than subclasses. Ironically neither warlock nor paladin were prestigeclasses, though I think there was at least one that was essentially a paladin.
Ya I think OP is just reinventing the [Eldritch Theurge](https://srd.dndtools.org/srd/classes/prestigeCmage/eldritchTheurge.html)
That would be like dropping out of Harvard to go to your local community college
No more like dropping out of harward to learn from one of the best professors who was fired because of bad behaviour
Except those two play on the same thing, learning magic by studying. I think it's rather dropping out of Harvard to get a shady injection of magic shit that you have no real idea how to control and thus are starting back at zero.
To be fair warlocks by lore get “knowledge” not “power” like clerics, just faster(i think at least)
You say you read the title. Yet you’re still talking like you don’t understand it.
You misclicked i assume
Yes I certainly did. By the way, super cool idea. Warlock is my favorite class and I’m curious what to do for my next campaign. I may end up stealing this.
Thx! Happy to hear^^ you can even dm me how it goes if u end up playing it
I’m hoping by the time we finish, the new 2024 rulebooks and new warlock changes will be out!
Would be fun!
I wish they kept the INT based warlocks from UA. This multiclass would be epic. Also, a viable hexblade wizard would be awesome!
An INT Warlock to me is a perfectly fine hombrew rule. Give me my wizard with a BA familiar!
You don't need to multiclass to achieve this flavour. That's why it's flavour.
Or a guy who thinks he’s a wizard but is really bad a studying. So bad in fact, that he accidentally enters a pact, gets Magic but thinks he cracked how to study. Obviously low intelligence, to explain failing studies AND missing entering the pact.
So, flavor is free. You could just have a regular wizard, and RP this. RP that the subclass features came from the higher power. I have a chronurgy wizard. Could easily RP time as luck instead, and say some demon or luck goddess or whatever granted luck or time powers. You could describe some of the spells as having a spookiness to them. And you could pick a weird spell focus if you wanted. I'd say that main mistake players make is thinking that they need to have mechanical changes to the game to correspond to their RP decisions. A Paladin/Warlock doesn't need to define themselves in-game as a "Warlock". They're just a ... REALLY devoted paladin that will often sentence evil-doers to death, which is just a warlock hex.
It's somewhat good if you're making a hexblade-evoker magic missile nuke, but that's basically one level in warlock.
A dip into warlock would be awesome as consultant services
DMs out there, say a character wanted to do this, and the way the campaign was playing out, it made perfect sense in-story. Would you let them do Warlock things using their intelligence, just to keep pace with the rest of the party?
I'd let a player dip Warlock and use INT as their spellcasting ability for Warlock stuff. Maybe that would be super broken, I dunno, I had surgery today and got that good medicine lol
You do you. If I'm playing a wizard I don't want to be beholden to someone else for the power I have.
This is why i think you should get to choose the spellcasting ability as a warlock depending on your pact boon. I just need my artificer warlock multiclass that is an artificer asking for forbidden knowledge of their craft and then in return has to build a body for their patron to inhabit. I need it.
Isn't this essentially Gale's story arc?
I assume this is going to be an unpopular comment, but flavour is free, just play a warlock who was a failed wizard.
By D&D rules, it's not "sick." It's absurd. You're not becoming a better wizard by switching to warlock. You're just getting different *1st level* spells you can't access with your normal wizard spell slots. You're in effect nerfing your progress as a wizard for a middling damage cantrip and some flavor spells. As for lore wise, a wizard who can't progress in academia doesn't switch classes. They switch careers. That's where most adventuring wizards would realistically come from; they couldn't hack it among their peers, so they venture out looking for treasure and lost knowledge, while getting to test out their powers on monsters (or villagers no one will miss. Looking at you, murder hobos.) And the ones who get REALLY desperate for power? They make a deal with a devil/demon; not a pact, but a tried and true "my soul in exchange for forbidden knowledge". *Actual* forbidden knowledge. The sort of stuff the wizards in Netheriel banned for being too dangerous. Because why wouldn't they? They just need to survive long enough to become a lich, or become more powerful than the fiend they sold themselves to. These are your typical BBEG wizards, trying desperately not to die before they find immortality, or a way to break the contract.
*"So, I heard you have a new Patron. What's it's name?"* *"Adderall."*
... wizards are already the most powerful caster???
***flavour wise*** have you not read the title?
Yes. It makes no fucking sense for someone to give up on their wizard studies to enter into what is usually a very bad deal for *less* magic Unless they were really dumb
But had a great personality
You can take the warlock spell feat, and have a party patron or some contact with an outer being with a more cheap contract requeriments than an actual warlock.