Ultimate Optimizer's Multiclassing Guide

[PeteNutButter]

I very strongly disagree with the Monk/Wizard being best avoided that I just had to make a forum account. Take the way of the open hand, and two levels in wizard for divination's portent. You will be able to guarantee a quivering palm kill like that. An instant guaranteed kill is not best avoided.

As a general rule of thumb the guide isn't giving much to high level MCs. While it is a pretty cool gimmick at level 19, it is at level 19. The character in question will have to be short 5 point buy points to get that 13 int for the bulk of their career with absolutely no payoff. Even if you take the wizard levels right after monk 5 to try and secure stunning strikes, the character will be much weaker than a pure monk or a monk MC that isn't MAD (Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue). Monk being the most stat dependent class, those 5 points cost dearly in either AC or HP.

To make matters worse, by that level any enemy that is worth using your 0-2 times a day gimmick (you might roll 2 high numbers for your portent) probably has legendary saves, making the whole thing pointless. Now it might be a fun character to play if you are playing a one shot at high level, but it is for the vast majority of cases, "probably best avoided."

Red coloring is by no means unplayable. It just means you have to really work to make it function. I have played and will continue to play characters that are coded as red and purple on this guide, making use of edge case mechanics to coordinate something. That doesn't make those combinations any more viable for the majority of characters. Compare it to the higher rated MCs which are almost impossible to screw up.

Red is mostly a warning of "enter at your own risk." I might tell the average person not to climb skyscrapers with their bare hands. Just because some parkour expert can do it, doesn't mean my advice is wrong.

The saving grace is that once you hit Samurai 10 you get essentially 1 free nova per encounter, because if you roll initiative without a charge you get one for free.

I went with Medium Armor and the thought of potentially Medium Armor Master mostly out of consideration for Stealth and other Dex based checks, but I can totally understand the logic of going with Heavy Armor for the early game survivability compared to medium armor. It has the secondary benefit of allowing use of a heavy weapon without needing Hex Warrior turned on for it, stat-wise. My initial plan was to either Sword and Board until you hit Warlock 3, or to use a Longsword two handed to allow Hex Warrior and Great Weapon Fighting to have an impact -- neither of which are necessarily ideal.
The Strength dip also opens the possibility of Samurai 15/Warlock 3/Paladin 2 if you so choose, which gets you better AC (Defense Fighting Style), Lay on Hands, and Divine Smite along with extra slots to use for Smiting (but you do lose an ASI, which might be...less than ideal).

Other side benefit to this combo is that you can use either Eldritch Blast OR a Blade Pact Longbow for ranged combat, depending on the enemy -- might even make it worth picking up Sharpshooter if you're greedy for Longbow usage.

One other potential long term build could be Samurai 17/Hexblade 3 for the second use of Action Surge per rest -- potential to Nova twice in a single battle is potent.

Other possible build thoughts that aren't fully formed, but might be interesting to dive into some more:

• Zealot Barbarian dipping into Paladin and/or Fighter (and if Paladin going Fallen Aasimar) to grant itself non-spell self healing to make sure it never dies once it gets it's level 14 Archetype feature. It's a super late multiclass which is kind of against the ethos of this thread, but it's a nifty toolkit to make sure you're nigh unkillable while raging.
• Bugbear Barbarian 2/Assassin Rogue X, eventually dipping into Battlemaster for Riposte and Extra Attack: Gets reach on Rapier, has solid AC, reduced damage while raging and Uncanny Dodge to reduce damage further. Plus if you're able to get a Surprise round you get 1d8+2d6+Sneak Attack+Str Mod+2 damage as an auto-crit.

The zealot is not only late, but probably not worth it. After you kill all the enemies, you can just drink a potion on your last turn before your rage ends. By that level the 50 gold potions should be pretty easy to come by.

The Rage and Poke character is always solid. Taking a quarter damage on uncanny dodge attacks is silly good. I'd probably just take Barb 5/Rogue 15.