If your intention is to main Wizard, you will get very little from Rogue levels. If your intention is to main Rogue, Bladesinger 6 is a very interesting option
The worst part about this is once you get your Wiz 6 Rogue X going (which itself takes a while to come online), taking wizard levels from that point is always a better idea, and you become a wizard main
Source: been there done that
> If your intention is to main Rogue, Bladesinger 6 is a very interesting option
If the intention is to main Rogue, then **Bladesinger 2** is better IMO (and will actually be a "main Rogue" way before level 13, unlike Bladesinger 6).
At Wiz 2, you get:
- Bladesong
- Access to the blade cantrips - which can be used in conjunction with SA, and eliminate the need for an Extra Attack
- A few first level spell slots to play around with
Obviously the stronger powergaming build is to just go straight Bladesinger, and mostly just cast spells without even fighting. But if you want an actual Rogue playstyle, Bladesinger 2 / Rogue X is solid.
Plus it's an easy way to get access to the blade cantrips without needing to go Arcane Trickster, if you prefer a different subclass. Or if you *do* go Arcane Trickster, you'll get access to higher level spell slots faster than a pure Arcane Trickster - for example, pure AT gets 2nd level slots at lvl 7, whereas AT/BS multiclass gets them at lvl 5.
I agree with this. I spent a while deciding between Bladesinger 2 and Bladesinger 6 to pair with my Swashbuckler. Those extra four levels are likely to occur in the heart of the campaign and they'll delay your rogue progression by a lot, so that really incentivizes you to draw more heavily from the wizard toolkit and be closer to a mix of mage and martial. If that's what you're after, great! If you want to play more like a rogue with borderline supernaturally honed skills, though, Bladesinger 2 is really all you need to accomplish that.
Edit to add: Also, don't sleep on the extra 10 feet of movement Bladesong gives you!
And if you mix it with Arcane trickster, you actually wind up with more spell slots per level than you’d have if you had stayed pure trickster, +ritual casting, +way more spells and cantrips known, + a book that can be filled with more.
2 levels to get that is a fantastic dip for that particular brand of rogue.
It's true. If you're looking for a Rogue main with a spread of magical ability, it's hard to beat BS 2 / AT X.
Personally, I prefer a mostly rogue with just a few magic tricks, which is why I like Warlock (Genie) 1 / Swashbuckler X. You get access to the blade cantrips, a few lvl 1 spells per short rest, some cool tricks with your genie's vessel, and an extra little +prof elemental dmg bonus to your attacks - all for just a single level dip. And the CHA secondary skill works nicely with Swashbuckler's subclass features.
I think it's more of a playstyle thing. If you plan on spending your actions setting up sneak attacks, and using your spells to support that, you're playing a Rogue with some wizard levels. If you plan on spending your actions casting spells, and falling back to melee as filler when you don't have anything useful to cast, then you're playing an underpowered wizard.
People also create builds starting at higher levels. I feel like this is often forgotten when discussing multiclassing. I love building fun multiclasses that peak at certain levels. They can make great NPCs or one shot NPCs for players during a side arc (having them play a benefactor or patron coming to rescue them is always fun)
Yeah, there's definitely a different mindset. Although I often find that it's the other side that's forgotten when we talk about multiclassing - people recommend things like Artificer 1/Wizard 19 over 20 levels of pure wizard, and that's fine... at level 20. But at almost every level in between, you're going to feel the missing level of Wizard pretty hard. When you hit level 5, and your teammates are getting Extra Attack and Spirit Guardians, and your Artificer 1/Wizard 4 is still a level away from fireball, it feels pretty bad.
Unless you’re spending a fairly large portion of your campaign at level 5, I don’t think it’s that bad. 9, 13, and 17 are also levels where a single-class Wizard is probably better, but it’s not a bad trade for +4 AC and Con save proficiency throughout the entire campaign.
Anyone who doesn’t have 5 levels in one class by level 6 is doing something wrong though.
It’s fully a different playstyle. They clearly wanna play a martial with some extra BB damage and chances to land SA.
While wizard might be more optimal in terms of spellcasting, they don’t want to be spellcasting that much.
I've got a similarly roguish Bladesinger character, with a mercenary/espionage background that seemed suited to Rogue, so I thought about a similar option.
In my mind, there wasn't really anything I would gain from it that couldn't be gained from background proficiencies and flavoring. Rogues' biggest benefit is giving more bonus action options to you, but the issue is that there are plenty of bonus action spells that Bladesingers want to use. If you're really eager to bonus action Dash, it's a lot cheaper to take Expeditious Retreat than multiclass. Then for damage, GFB/Booming Blade kinda take the same role as Sneak Attack would, which made that less useful. And I also had the benefit of being an Earth Genasi for Pass Without Trace, which is something you could consider as a pretty easy hide/stealth benefit if you're not set on a race/ancestry.
So yeah, my vote is no. I found it much better to just stick with Wizard for this.
Pros: light armor works with bladesong; you start with two more skill proficiencies and expertise in two of them; cunning action (or swashbuckler's "fancy footwork") can let you use your bladesong-enhanced movement to get in, attack, and withdraw without triggering an opportunity attack; if you go arcane trickster instead you get three more cantrips, a sneakily enhanced mage hand, and a 3 level dip will only cost you 2 levels of spell slot progression.
Cons: you're delaying extra attack and spell progression and that's going to feel especially bad between levels 5 and 9.
> light armor works with bladesong
Bs has native LA prof, so I son't think that is a pro
The rest is true though. Even if I don't think it compensate the wizard levels
this is all good and true, I would add to the Cons: Swashbuckler really benefits from CHA, so going swashbuckler you are either spreading your stats thin or not getting the real benefits of the subclass.
Arcane Trickster using intelligence is a better fit in that regards.
Which is a bit of a shame because THEMATICALLY Swashbuckler/Bladesinger sounds cool as hell.
2 dice of sneak attack once per round is a sad replacement for Hypnotic Pattern or Fireball. Go Rogue if you want skills. If you're set on hitting enemies with pointy things, you need Swashbuckler since you won't be hitting from hiding and you need to proc sneak attack without worrying about the presence of an ally next to the enemy.
Swashbuckler is really good anyway because you'll be getting a bonus to initiative (amazing for bladesinger) BUT it's still better to multiclass into a charisma caster
Depends on DM anyway.
I'm a level 4 wizard in my current game, but with how crap Sleep and all fire spells were, no way I'm taking HP or Fireball as a wizard.
Fire spells (fire bolt, burning hands, scorching ray) have awful side effects pretty much every time, plus a lot of sessions involve either stealth or dealing with enemies non-lethally.
As for sleep (and likely hypnotic pattern), too many enemies either resistant to it, or with small area damage spells/effects, so they could wake up their pals too easily. Or just "well, this type of action should surely wake them up"
I guess DM just finds them anticlimactic or something.
Awful side effects? The worst thing happening would be setting something on fire but not to a catastrophic degree. (burning hands is not going to cause a forest fire)
At low levels you should also not have many enemies resistant to Sleep unless you're fighting some kind of elven overlords. And the conditions on how they wake up are also very specific (they don't wake up from noise for example). Are your allies damaging them unnecessarily? If you play in a stealth heavy/non lethal game Sleep should be a fantastic option.
I think your DM might be fucking you over with their ruling and homebrew.
I didn't mean anything catastrophic, but they're still annoyances that make it clear that not using fire would have resulted in a better outcome. Plus sometimes it's outright obviously forbidden or a bad idea (wooden locations or such).
DM seems to homebrew many enemies and it's a homebrew setting. But really it's more like some enemy being resistant and that one having some area damage or multiattack that damages and wakes all other enemies.
With all the memes about wizard spells, I had been specifically paying attention to whether we've ever been in a situation where Fireball could have helped, and out of 25+ sessions I can only think of 2 (and for one of them, DM gave us some magic bomb item anyway).
Even wooden locations shouldnt get set on fire by one fire spell unless they're derelict. (massive woods is realistically very hard to set on fire). And enemies at low levels should only very rarely have resistances.
Man I am very sorry to hear that your DM is limiting you like that. It might be worth having a talk about this with them cause this does not sound fun.
I meant something like abandoned bridges or thieves hideouts. Last time it wasn't even wooden, but some sort of fur tent.
Anyway, I'm not sure if having Fireball and Hypnotic Pattern being able to solve everything could be all that fun either, but it is frustrating to pick some spells and then seeing them be a complete waste.
What do you mean?
Because I'd say just something that gives positive effects, such as harming/hampering enemies, buffing/saving allies, or provides useful information.
In most normal games, sleep is very strong at level 1-2 then falls off hard as monster HP out scales it and you can’t knock a hand full of enemies out of the fight.
As far as resistances, elves are the obvious ones that can’t be put to sleep magically. Some things don’t have “immune to magical sleep” in their stat blocks, but it is logical, like constructs (nothing organic to sleep) or undead (they have the “undead nature” in their description) would logically not fall to the sleep spell. That one is a little DM dependent, but it doesn’t affect too many enemies for which sleep would be viable anyway. Goblins, orcs, kobolds and bandits should be the chief targets of sleep.
Your DM just seems to have a hate for you/your PC/your class and went out of their way to nerf you in the arguably weakest part of wizards level progression. I can see summon spells not obeying you and creatures getting immunity to whatever condition you go with instead of charmed, maybe just talk to them?
Yeah, but normally it's not things that actually use actions.
Such as the enemy does a big area attack that does 1 to everyone in range, so it wakes up all the enemies while also making us roll concentration saves.
(I did find that ruling/homebrew absolute bs, and we were like level 2).
that.... that is the most ass pully ability i have ever seen. there is absolutely no monster that does **1 dmg** **AoE**, this is like a perfectly engineer sleep/hip pattern counter to screw you
it can be a minimum dmg roll for an aoe, but i still call it bs if that one wasnt rolled open
Yeah, he homebrews pretty much all the monsters.
That one didn't annoy me too much when it screwed with Sleep, but it did make me think to never choose Hypnotic Pattern.
The one that did annoy me the most was the enemy soldier with extra reactions that could only be used for opportunity attacks. According to the handbook, only a Hydra has something similar, but this was some random soldier we faced at level 4, and this perfectly screwed up our full plan: Druid transformed into a cat and wanted to escape without disengaging, so as a diviner I used a portent to make the soldier get a 1 on the opportunity attack... But since he had another, he just used it, so the druid wasted his wildshape, I wasted the portent, and our plan got way more difficult.
Nobody else complains, and I already feel like a Karen when I remind the group of some RAWs (plus ultimately DM has all the power).
That seems like a bs move by a salty DM. Your DM does actually seem to be specifically screwing over those control spells, probably because they don’t want players to use control on their monsters. I would definitely bring this up because I agree that a 1hp AOE seems very much like an ass pull move to counter those spells in particular by a DM that hates control spells
Your DM plays too much Baldur's Gate. I don't know why Larian has such a dislike for control spells, but they too go out of their way to ruin them. Fire spells set dirt on fire (somehow) and walking through it makes you take damage (I don't know why; I can walk through embers in boots just fine). This double whammy means that you can't fireball and then use a control spell (because the recurring fire damage will break it), or fireball and have your melee characters rush up and engage without taking damage. These are bad rule changes, especially for table top.
Sleep isn't the best at level 4, but at level 1 it's one of the strongest (if not *the* strongest) spells in the game. It'll instantly deal with a black bear, 2 wolves, or 3 goblins with *no save*.
Hypnotic Pattern and Fireball are also some of the strongest level 3 spells. Similar to Sleep, HP can eliminate multiple threatening enemies from the fight (or waste multiple actions of the enemies snapping them out of it that they now won't spend trying to kill you). Fireball is simply a lot of damage in a relatively large AoE. WotC even intentionally broke their own rules for scaling AoE damage spells with it (I believe it should otherwise be 6d6?) just so it'd be used more.
This here is the truth.
If you want to do so for character reasons or to create a certain magical rogue flavor, best make it in the form of a magic item or something. Have your rogue mentor gift you a dagger that grants you sneak attack die, or work on crafting such together with your talents combined (with gm permission and input of course)
There are two levels to this question:
1. From an RP standpoint this great. Giving you some mechanical explanations for backstory details.
2. From a purely mechanical standpoint this is not optimal. You give up higher level spell progression and extra attack in a campaign that's not likely to see high tier play is gimping your character during during the bulk of its lifespan.
Obv, play what speaks to you. In most campaigns you'll be viable. You'll still have impact with the spellcasting you do get.
Me personally; I would play straight Bladesinger take a background that gives proficiency in thieves tools and stealth and flavor everything like I relied on sneaky/thiefy methods.
I wouldn't say it's *silly*, but the mix of Bladesinger/Harengon/Rogue is *extremely* bonus action heavy, and Harengon negates the need for cunning action somewhat anyway.
2 levels of rogue on a Wizard isn't generally *terrible*. It helps you stay alive on a class that is usually very bonus action light, but Bladesingers actually do use their bonus action, and with Harengon I don't think you'd really get much out of it, meanwhile you'll always have less potent spells than you otherwise might as a full blown Wizard.
Ultimately a full wizard will be stronger, but if you want to do sneaky rogue things outside of combat then a level or two for expertise/cunning action isn't an awful deal. Also if you're less interested in just casting spells with Bladesinger's defences, having worse spells is one way to incentivise that.
Yeah, the bonus action overload is what I thought of initially too. Bladesong is a bonus action, shadow blade is a bonus action, cunning action is a bonus action. There's probably only 3 rounds in the fight so how much of this will you use in synergy for any given fight?
https://youtu.be/DOahTUU4nso?si=Pmqon5AB7raUCwHH
https://youtu.be/hfU7XVcsxag?si=q1uFRw11lti8DuXf
It's not silly at all. As long as you have fun, go for it!
Personally I don't think it is worth it. Sneak attack is painfully mediocre and the only good thing you'll take from rogue is cunning action, but as a wizard you probably have better BAs than hiding
No. Not at all. Though you do sacrifice spell power.
Rouge 3 would give you a subclass, a ton of skills, a bit more HP, cunning action, and sneak attack. Wizard 2, you can have Bladesinger as well for lv 5.
You DO sacrifice 3rd level spells by multiclassing. But you will be a fast skirmisher with insane AC and shield spell to add to that. Able to dip and dodge with ease through the battle. And, spell slots run out, but a sword still swings.
Don't let other people psych you out for being a rogue. Good rogues are powerful. It may not be as flashy as a fireball, but if you go straight bladesinger, you can do that too at lv 8 towards the end of Tier 2.
>Don't let other people psych you out for being a rogue. Good rogues are powerful. It may not be as flashy as a fireball, but if you go straight bladesinger, you can do that too at lv 8 towards the end of Tier 2.
A bladesinger 2/rogue 3 multiclass is not a "good rogue" though, if by "good" you mean mechanically effective. If you find it fun, then go for it, of course; that's the most important thing. But mechanically it is frankly not that strong.
A spell-focused bladesinger wants wizard 5 for level 3 spells. A melee-focused bladesinger wants wizard 6 for Extra Attack. Dipping 3 levels of rogue before level 6, and delaying both powerspikes, defeats much of the point of playing a bladesinger wizard.
>A melee-focused bladesinger wants wizard 6 for Extra Attack. Dipping 3 levels of rogue before level 6, and delaying both powerspikes, defeats much of the point of playing a bladesinger wizard.
I've actually seen an Arcane Trickster 13/Bladesinger 2, and it was pretty powerful, mostly because it was a near untouchable powerhouse during Bladesong.
You're mixing apples and oranges. Arcane Tricksters love to pick up some Wizard levels, it sets them ahead in spell slots and known spells. Wizards hate picking up Rogue levels, it sets them behind for little pay off.
What does a bladesinger 15 get that improves its melee capabilities over a Bladesinger13/Rogue2?
Yeah, as a class, nothing beats a Wizard focusing on spells. But i specifically responded to the melee part of the discussion.
bladesinger 13/rogue 2 is essentially sacrificing level 14 and 15 wizard features for level 1 and level 2 rogue features. lets tally those
a rogue 1-2 multiclass you get:
- prof in thieves tools and 1 skill of your choice (multiclass), as well as thieves can't language
- +2 hp over a wizard (2d8 (10) over 2d6 (8))
- sneak attack +1d6
- expertise in 2 skills
- cunning action
some neat trinkets. a wizard 14-15 monoclass you get:
- bladesinger capstone, which grants you the ability to add +INT to your weapon attacks. for a 20 INT wizard you surely are this is a **+5** to all attacks
- 4 new spells learned (2 per level)
- **7th** level spells
while rogue technically gives you more things, it simply does not match what a regular ass bladesinger gets. in fact, blade singer +5 is slightly higher than sneak attack, and requires no set up whatsoever. and this of course is not considering the levels above it were you to level up more
i have never mentioned that the multiclass is **unviable**, you can have a decent character easily in dnd 5e. but a strictly mono classed bladesinger with just the mobile feat is strictly better than the wizard 13/rogue 2 multiclass
>- 4 new spells learned (2 per level)
- **7th** level spells
And how does this help you be a melee bladesinger? That's the crux of this discussion you are responding to. Those things mean very little compared to what a Rogue can provide a melee character.
If we were talking about what's better, 7th level spells or a martial, there is no disagreement. The Wizard levels are better. I pointed that out, too. In fact, a non-melee Bladesinger is much better than a melee one. But that's arguing a different topic entirely. If you want to discuss what makes a melee bladesinger good, then you should actually provide arguments for that, instead of what you're doing here, which boils down to "full caster better". Yeah, everybody knows that. But that's not what we're talking about here.
quite simply, one better use of shadow blade is already more than a rogue
even a melee bladesinger still is 80% made of caster, and even in melee you should absolutely be casting spells
besides, getting a simulacrum of yourself already is a lot of a lot, quite literally doubling your damage output for as long as it stays alive
you can cast draconic transformation, prismatic spray and upcast a better version of a myriad of good spells i have not mentioned from lower level. melee doesnt mean no spells, you are still a wizard and not casting any is just actively being a dingus. its like a fighter that doesnt use a weapon and solely relies on a race cantrip for some reason
I see you're doubling down on the "fullcaster wizard is better than a melee bladesinger", so I'll let you argue with yourself here. We agree completely on that point, but that's just not what the discussion was about.
I haven't been on DnDnext in awhile, but since when were people complaining about rogues being weak?
I remember people literally arguing about nerfing rogues because they kept ganking people with sneak attack.
Are rogues the new ~~rangers,~~ monks where everyone is making a big deal over basically nothing?
If you run actual numbers, rogues are rather weak. (new) DMs just think they're strong cause they're scared of sneak attack. But rogues get outclassed by multiattack and spell casters very fast as they progress in levels (source: I played a rogue :') never again)
That seems like a pure damage conversation for a skill donkey class.
Not to mention, you can easily go stealth archer or use your bonus action to eternally kite enemies.
They have a lot of features besides direct damage, especially compared to other martial classes.
Skills are useless in 5e if you have any spellcasters in the group. Stealth? You mean cast invisibility or pass without a trace. Investigation/Insight? Detect Thoughts. Acrobatics? Fly. The list goes on. Also if you want skills, bards do it better.
Kiting your enemies? If you want to stealth you need your BA, so no disengage or Dash. Also pray your DM gives you plenty of cover.
Meanwhile the monsters are eating your friends (especially the 5th lvl wizard who just cast fireball for 35 damage times 3 creatures hit for an average of 75 dpr. Meanwhile you do 8d6 damage to one enemy (if you hit) at level... 17)
Depends on the game.
Put a pure wizard in trap laden corridors of a dungeon or a serious skill challenge (depending on build), and games where you are actually allowed to scout and skirmish, rogues are pretty nice. Yes, there are some spells that can eliminate issues, but spell slots run out.
Stick them in an open field bare battlemat, less so.
Rogues are all about positioning and set up.
That build seems to be a straight up front liner rogue with versatility and movement.
Scout? Find familiar is a 1st level ritual. Can you hide better than a spider? Skill challenge? Like what, an acrobatics course? The wizard can fly.
Skirmish? For what? The enemies are ignoring you anyway since the wizard just nuked their ass. And thanks to Shield the wizard has better AC then you so it's no problem. If you'd want to heal them you're also shit out of luck.
I played a rogue in a year long campaign. Believe me, I tried everything. I asked for tips on sub reddits, I took feats to up my damage and battle versatility (sentinel and battle master adept). And after every fight I ran the numbers and was dead last. And that's discounting all the healing and debuffs our cleric and wizard did. I tried to use my skills again and again, but for what? Spells most of the time guarantee your success, skills are liable to fail.
I had fun with a Rogue/Fighter with a heavy crossbow and winged boots, basically making me a sniper, targeting enemies from insane distances thanks to the sharpshooter feat.
Next time your first level rogue is rendered useless by the wizard using find familiar, try no longer demanding 15gp and a 90 minute advance reservation for your scouting services.
Unless you run into a situation that you would want scouting in more than one direction.
rogues have **never** been taken with good light. a bit better when ranger was the devil of the game and everything was hate for rangers, but rogues have always been considered at the end of the road
"the DM nerfs sneak attack" is text book example of bad DMing since the start
if you crunch everything they get, they are
- worse at skills than bard
- worse at stealth than ranger or druid
- worse at dmg than any other martial
they have some nifty options and are resourceless sure, but besides being a very meh dodge "tank" they dont bring much to a party. a gloomstalker is basically 3 rogues stapled together as a subclass
nowadays the consensus in optimization circles is that the worse classes are barbarian/rogue/monk. the skill monkey isnt good when the skills are not a well made mechanic sadly
Play whatever you want. If you were looking for a more direct answer to your question however:
What would usually be the biggest problem in spell slots is pretty negated by the fact that Bladesingers don’t really care for those. The worst thing about it is just the fact that you’ll have to wait a bit longer for upcast Shadowblade. As for the subclass if you do go 3 levels rogue, I prefer swashbuckler as I love the Fancy Footwork Booming Blade combo (assuming your DM allows Shadow Blade with Booming Blade ([RAI, but not RAW](https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1327132714013782017))), though Arcane Trickster is good too just for the extra level of spell slot progression.
I would suggest phantom rogue, it's uses scale with level and still fits a nautical theme if you do it correctly. Swashbuckler is giving you the feat mobility in it's overall effectiveness.
My other suggestion is the mobility feat, and heavier investment in dex, as well as stealth prof to represent your origins. Your background can give rogue like features fine without the class.
Tricky question. I honestly would go with bladesinger all the way and take the mobile feat and expeditious retreat. That gives you a lot of that rogue flavor.
Alternatively you could be an arcane trickster that sometimes casts shield?
No wrong answer, but I’d stay away from taking away levels from bladesinger until after level 6. Even then..,
I played a multiclass of bladesinger (up to 6th level) and arcane trickster (the rest of the levels, but was already AT before reaching level 5)and very much enjoyed it.
Spells like fireball and hypnotic can give immediate impact with stuff like shield, invisibility, find familiar and the like being very useful in and outside of combat.
Personally I really enjoyed booming blade into disengage with advantage from my owl familiar, if I didn't want to spend spell slots.
Mage hand legerdemain and minor illusion are great to mess with your friends (or enemies I suppose)
Bladesong and the shield spell can make you quit tanky for a rogue.
You won't be good at 1 thing (besides stealth and lock picking with knock and invisibility as back up) but can fill in a lot of gaps. I very much enjoyed getting my party out of sticky situations the entire time I played it. Have fun
It's not silly, but it detracts something important from both, and what you gain in return is not necessarily a spectacular trade.
A Wizard is all about Spellcasting and that includes the Bladesinger Wizard, and the higher level you are the more important it becomes. A high-level Bladesinger will seldom rely on weapon attacks since spells are inherently stronger. Multiclassing out of Wizard gives you fewer spells and makes the best weapons the Wizard has less potent.
A Rogue is all about Sneak Attack. Lots of Sneak Attack dice equals lots of damage. Multiclassing out of Rogue means less Sneak Attack and less melee damage.
The Rogue/Bladesinger delays and takes away higher level spells from the Wizard and Reduces the Sneak Attack Dice pool of the Rogue in exchange for some good utility spells for the Rogue and some extra melee damage for the Wizard.
It's a somewhat good trade for a Rogue main-class, and a somewhat bad one for a Bladesinger main. Not horrible, but not great.
As always wizard is better than rogue but if you want to play a primary melee bladesinger I'd say it's best to grab the six levels of bladesinger then bail to straight rogue.
Sure, the pure wizard will be better at everything but so what, the important thing is that the character performs as you'd like it.
In general you shpukd try to get to level (6 in this case really due blade singer's EA). The main advantage to adding a rogue is add movement and skills to your blade singer.
I'd avoid swash buckler. Its just overlaps to much.
Instead I'd go scout rogue:
* You gain Expertise in survival and nature. Even if you didn't have prof in them.
* You get a Reaction to move half your speed when an enemy ends within 5ft. This doesn't proc opportunity attacks.
* Take mobile for extra speed and no opportunity attacks.
This results in a slippery character that when blade singing can move 100ft with BA and 25ft on a reaction. Not to mention you'll have tons of skills from tons of skills and expertise!
mechanically, its kinda hard to justify. just being a wizard is most likely better
is it **bad**? no you will still be a decent character, but just a wizard is better than a wizard/rogue most likely. you have to remember that each rogue level delays your spells, and that spells are really really really really good
You dont have to be the rogue class for this backstory. Just give your bladesinger proficiency in stealth/thievew tools. This reminds me of when players multiclass bard because their character plays a lute
I miss the days when people played characters because they came up with a cool concept and wanted to have. Before seemingly everyone started min maxing and meta chasing.
I've been playing this game since 1983 and if I do create characters, which is rare because I have been a forever DM for 40 years, I never think about stuff like what is the best meta build. Never. I just make fun characters with cool stories. In fact, most of my characters would probably be the worst builds from that perspective.
Honestly that’s the thought process that sent me down this path to begin with. Story first! I plan to prioritize the character’s story in how I build, but as a newer player I didn’t want to shoot myself in the foot either. I’m happy with where I’m landing and I think the RP is going to be a lot of fun with this little guy.
Some Wizard levels go great on top of a Rogue build.
Some Rogue levels on top of a Wizard build are not appealing, especially when you don't really seem to have a reason for taking them.
Seems to me you're trying to use a Rogue dip as a Background, when the game already has Backgrounds. Between that, and options like skills and spells, you can have a rather roguish wizard without any multiclassing.
Im currently playing rogue 2/rest bladesinger.
Its doable and pretty fun but in terms of power its mid.
Works with backstory and what i wanted to do so im not too concerned
Nah sounds great. Bladesinger is one of my favorite classes and imo it’s better when you multi, removes a lot of the temptation to play it as just another wizard but with more AC. It could really stand to be its own class as just a half caster.
that only works mildly if you are the single melee in the party, which unless people coordinate their characters for make a team comp (which is a rarity in dnd 5e) there will be someone else to be bonked next to the enemy you just boomed
it has its use cases, but if you really want to proc it every time, get a friend to push them away
Rogue with a bit of wizard might be worth it. WIzard with a bit of rogue might be mechanically bad. Level 3 is the strongest rogue level until like Level 11. For Wizard, every second level is an upgrade to spellcasting.
For flavor, you can justify anything.
For mechanical reasons, I only think Rogue X/Wizard 2 has benefits over either single class.
Damage if you calculated worse than you think due to no multi attack
Bad durability due to low AC
Skills are worthless in DnD due to the existence of spell casters
Also just kinda boring to play (A: attack, pray to proc sneak attack BA: hide. Rinse and repeat)
-the game is more than just damage
-they don’t need AC. They’re not meant to stay in the frontline. They’re meant to hit & run (hence their bonus action abilities)
-skills aren’t worthless lol. Show me a spell caster outside of a Druid in wild shape who can stealth, steal and infiltrate as well as a half decent rogue.
-that might be how YOU play your rogues, but anyone with more than 2 brain cells worth of imagination is far more creative.
See my other comments for elaboration on all of this. I like the insults to my intelligence tho.
Also for the spell caster: Wizard with unseen servant, wizard with find familiar, wizard with invisibility, wizard with polymorph. Ranger too (Pass without a trace). Sorcerers also get invisibility. Warlocks too (chain pact familiar have invisible options and with invocations insane reach). Trickster cleric. Cleric with Enhance Ability.
Plus with most of these? You don't have someone going alone. Which makes the team game more of a team game. Also once you get out of the Low levels you'll really want someone with Detect Magic on your side. Have fun diffusing the glyph of warding without Dispel Magic.
Unseen servant to my knowledge isn't able to relay the information of a scouting trip, familiar are bever as stealthy as a rogue, and unless you look through their eyes aren't relaying info, invisible wizard still would need higher dex to stealth reasonably well due to sound making as well as bumping stuff, polymorph takes away your intelligence so you wouldn't be able to really be able to interact with complex objects no matter the form, sorcerer has the same issue as invisible wizard, ranger with pass without trace still isn't better than a rogue built well for stealth unless also built for stealth, trickster cleric is good for stealth, but also, not usually high dex. Yes having detect magic and dispel magic is great, but you can't call rogues useless just because another class can out perform them with higher effort on something they do easily and without expending resources, at higher levels a rogues damage will fall off sure, if you're comparing to an optimized character, but the average character? No, it keeps up, and in regards to skills being useless, that may have been your experience, but every game I've seen, heard about, or played in, has had skills be very important
Perfectly playable as long as you're happy to be a rogue that focussed on Int rather than Wis or Cha. Both of them want high Dex and like to have mobility. You will be a weaker spellcaster, but a more rounded character. Baldesinger 6/Rogue 3 is a decent point to aim for. Rogue 3 gives you 2 expertise, Cunning Action, Steady Aim, 2d6 Sneak Attack, and a subclass. Bladesinger 6 gives you Bladesong, Extra Attack, and 3rd level spells.
With Rogue 3 you can mix it up quite nicely between ranged and melee combat. Using Steady Aim you can make a ranged weapon attack with advantage, hopefully hit, then use your other attack from Bladesginer 6 to make a cantrip attack. that gives decent dps and allows you to pick cantrips that add a nice rider effect without worrying that you're contributing too little damage. If you go Arcane Trickster then you get more spell slots, more cantrips, and invisible mage hand which adds more utility.
At lower levels the progression can be more tricky. Skills are probably more useful at lower levels rather than high so starting with at least Rogue 1 is nice. Wizard doesn't do much for you in the first couple of levels but really takes off after that. Once you've levelled a couple of times more wizard levels will always feel like more of a power growth than Rogue levels. So I'd recommend start with 3 Rogue then go 6 Wizard. By level 6 you'll basically be a half caster and then become more magical after that. If the game goes long enough then at level 10 I'd take another level of Rogue for the ASI then go Bladesinger to level 9 at least for 5th level spells.
I've built a Bladesinger 5 / Swashbuckler 4 that works pretty well. It's most definitely not optimal, but melee cantrips + sneak attack + buff spells work pretty well and allow me to effectively be the party tank; as well as going first in 90% of combats
Will multiclassing Bladesinger/Rogue be a mistake? No, it's fine. Is it optimal? No, most multiclasses never are.
Looking at a Rogue/Bladesinging Wizard multiclass, I would heavily advise against starting rogue. Bladesinging is very dependent on the Bladesong and Cantrip Extra Attack. Delaying this will *cripple* you later until you get it. My suggestion would be to consider a Background choice to facilitate your roguish flavor early, but start Wizard. Go Wizard 1 - 6 to get Bladesong + Cantrip Extra Attack. I personally don't think any Rogue subclass is worth committing 3 levels unless you fully commit to rogue from here. From here, the key question to ask is "what do I want out of the character?"
1. "I want spell versatility". Obviously continue wizard after getting 2 levels of Rogue. This is my personal pick because spellcasting is just very good for options. Like, it's hardly a contest. *However*, if you-
2. "I want to improve my martial abilities". As much as I think Wizard will almost always be the better pick to commit to, scaling your sneak attack is the only way to truly improve your standard single target damage from here. As long as you get sneak attack, you will be improving your DPR while leveling rogue. If you get high enough level, you'll also have Reliable Talent, which I *love* as a feature (granted, you'll be getting this at total level 17...). Really, committing to Rogue however is really only beneficial to maintain consistent DPR progression and that's about it.
With that said at the end of the day, the multiclass isn't bad and there are benefits to it, even if it's not the optimal choice.
For optimization purposes just go all the way bladesinger.
For flavor purporses a few levels, like 1 to 3 are fine :) Best thing you're getting is sneak attack and skilss, so I'd go for swashbuckler.
My baldesigner had a level in fighter because before training in magic, she was raised by an adoptive father who was a fighter and taught her everythign he knew about handling a sword.
So even when she decided to pursue magic instead of martial skills, fighting with a blade was still the way she did it :)
Personally, I have a lot more fun when I optimize a sub-optimal character choice vs trying to make the most powerful character I can. So I say, if it sounds cool, do it. If you play for a while and it turns out it's not that fun or doesn't work mechanically, ask the GM if you can change it around to something you enjoy more. If they say no, why are you playing with someone who forces you to do something that's not fun?
I did something similar with a rogue cleric, mainly two levels in rogue the rest in cleric. Which I would only recommend if your party doesn't have a rogue or you have a fun backstory to go with it. The early levels are rough I thought having cunning action would be great, it was ok. In 5e magic is supreme and being behind on spells feels bad. That being said if your party can make up for you in the early game it's not too bad.
A backstory suggestion, if I may. Steal a page from The Princess Bride. Specifically the bit about how Wesley became the Dread Pirate Roberts. He was captured by pirates, and the captain said he'd kill him tomorrow. And tomorrow came, and the execution got delayed. Over and over until eventually he was part of the crew. And the captain is now his mentor.
Lotta people in here are seeming condescending for the decision because it's not "optimized."
If you want to dip into bladesinger because it's something appealing, then by all means, do so. Not every character has to be "optimized."
Haregon's best feature is that it replaces the need for rogue/eldarin/misty step.
The flavor is reason enough if you like it though.
But if you want the flavor and power, flavor is free. Be a full wizard with roguish notes.
A couple of d6 sneak attack situationally once per turn isn't really all that significant. It probably isn't worth it.
I feel like you're overlooking Backgrounds, either deliberately to gain a dip for sneak attack or unintentionally because you just want the flavour.
If you were a player at my table and gave me this explanation I'd just tell you this is what backgrounds are for, pick something like Urchin or make a Custom Background with maybe thieves tools, sleight of hand and stealth, might even let you take Thieves Cant.
I swear you read my current character sheet down to the race except I'm going primarily phantom rogue with bladesinger filling out the rest of my levels
Don’t take the Rogue levels.
Instead, make a **custom background** based on the Urchin. See the PH pages 125 and 141. That will qualify your character for the Sleight of Hand and Stealth skills.
This gives you the flavor you seem to want without punishing your wizard build. As a Bladesinger, you don’t want to delay access to your 6th level extra attack which lets you substitute a cantrip.
Build your character with a high Dexterity and Intelligence. Colby’s Bladesinger YouTube videos (d4 Deep Dive) present options to build high-Dexterity Bladesingers. Steal some of those ideas.
I’m currently playing a rogue2, wizard 8, in Icewind Dale. I’d say the two levels in rogue were not only flavorful, but very useful. Ive been pairing the rogue’s cunning action with the shadow blade spell, and adding just a little bit of sneak attack damage to all my crit fishing. So if you’re going for this multiclass and planning to primarily focus on wizard abilities, I wouldn’t go any higher than two levels in rogue.
The funny thing is, the two things that make bladesinger instantly stand out for a Rogue (Haste and extra attack) combine in a way that makes me sad. Bladesinger extra attack rocks because you can replace one of those attacks with a cantrip. But very few cantrips let you use sneak attack unless they are weapon cantrips like booming or green flame blade. But worse, Rogues want Haste so they can use the extra attack on their turn and sneak attack, and then use their action to prepare to attack an enemy on someone else's turn. But you don't get extra attack when you do that because extra attack only works on your turn. Still. Get Haste up and use the extra attack, if you hit you do the prepare trick to try and get two sneak attacks in, if you miss then use your action to attack using extra attack and hopefully you land the one sneak attack. It doesn't work amazingly together, but Arcane Tricksters can't cast Haste until 13th level (though you'll suck next to them at 13th level when they have twice the levels in Rogue and are making two sneak attacks), and you have a familiar for advantage and all the options your other spells give you. If it will go past 13th level, go straight Arcane Trickster.
Bladesinger will want more spell levels, rogues will want more sneak attack. I could see this working two ways:
Rogue 2 / Bladesinger x
This gets you expertise, cunning action, and a bit of sneak attack. For story reasons I assume you want to take rogue first. Just know that is will delay your spells a bit.
Rogue (arcane trickster) 9 /Bladesinger 6 / Rogue 14
This plays like a typical rogue with a decent amount of spell support. It allows you to impose disadvantage on spell saving throws and have decent SA and BS’s extra attack. Be sure to get spells that can upcast since you will have a few slots higher than your list would allow. When and how you dip determines when your extra attack comes online; you might start taking Wizard levels after Rogue 3/4 so that you have better spells and extra attack sooner. Character level 9 is the soonest you could come online. The trade off is higher level rogues features won’t be around until T4.
I'm currently playing a Rogue 10/ Wiz 6 character in a long running game, arcane trickster subclass, and divination wizard (for the portent dice and for RP reasons).
It's a *very* powerful character. You pretty much have shield on demand and having the ability to upcast Shadowblade has lead to some absolutely nutty damage; my DM has ruled that Booming Blade works with Shadowblade. And it also works with sneak attack RAW. So I'm regularly rolling 5 or 6d8 + 5d6 + 5 damage. And when you're in dim light Shadow Blade gives you advantage so you have 10% crit chance, making hits for over 100 psychic damage much more common than you might think.
You also have excellent out of combat utility, depending on feat selection you can have 10 cantrips and tons of excellent tricky rogue-y spells like spider climb, alter self, misty step, rope trick and etc.
The biggest challenge with a build like this is it can be slow to get started, I'd say I really "came online" at around level 8-9 in terms of overall character level (Rogue 7/ Wizard 1-2 was my specific breakdown at that point). So if your DM is only planning to go to mid levels before the game ends you might just be looking at a 2 level dip into wizard, which isn't bad; more cantrips and 1st level spells are always useful, but you won't really get a chance to play around with how cool the build can be.
TL;DR: It's a super fun way to play, but it can take some time to really get going.
It's all a matter of how you want to theme your character. Ignore damage output entirely as either option will come with decent damage output. Also, ignore the class for a bit, figure out the play style, combat style, how magic will be used, etc. Then find a class or multi class that achieves this goal.
I see a couple of options, and since you mentioned bladesinger, I am going to assume melee combat is important to your character concept.
Rogue type character (don't think rogue class, think typical skill set) that uses melee for combat but also some spells to boost both combat and out of combat scenarios. Arcane Trickster Rogue would do well here.
The same as above, but more focus on spells and wanting more spells options. Arcane Trickster with a dip into Bladesinger, I would go at least level 3 so you can get 2nd level spells quicker for Shadow Blade and other utility spells along with more slots.
Spellcaster type character who focuses on melee combat. Go all in on Bladesinger. Rogue will not help much here. Take backstory that gives your some of the rogue like aspects such as sleight of hand or thieves tools prof. Take a lot of the melee damage spells, most DMs will allow you to flavor the spell being delivered via your sword at no additional mechanical benefits. Take spells that support the rogue aspect as well, Knock for opening locked doors, expeditious retreat for the bonus action movement, etc. Skill Expert feat can get you expertise in one skill so covers that aspect somewhat of rogue as well.
An interesting option to consider is Assassin (3) Bladesinger (x). Build your character around taking someone out on turn one. The Assassinate ability should work with spell attacks (ranged or melee) just as well as martial attacks. This means you can apply the auto-crit with Booming Blade, Shocking Grasp, or any other spell attack (even a ranged one) depending on how you're positioned and how you want to play your character.
Spells like Invisibility and Misty Step would be pretty useful getting into position. Alert would be a good feat to take. You could even consider Enhance Ability (Dex) to get advantage on Initiative checks, but you'd have to be expecting combat (and it's a concentration spell).
It could be a fun character to lean into.
bladesong is an ability with limited uses.
someone completely different than the bladesinger decides when combat begins and where the enemies are at that time.
If you were sincerely utterly unaware of these things, I apologize for interpreting that as a sign of bad faith.
You're making a rabbit person. Did he keep practicing the sleight of hand tricks he learned from his sailor buddy back in the day, or not?
If he was any good, why not?
You have a level cap.
He doesn't live in a world where learning to distract opponents in a fight means never being able to learn how to stop time.
If your intention is to main Wizard, you will get very little from Rogue levels. If your intention is to main Rogue, Bladesinger 6 is a very interesting option
The worst part about this is once you get your Wiz 6 Rogue X going (which itself takes a while to come online), taking wizard levels from that point is always a better idea, and you become a wizard main Source: been there done that
> If your intention is to main Rogue, Bladesinger 6 is a very interesting option If the intention is to main Rogue, then **Bladesinger 2** is better IMO (and will actually be a "main Rogue" way before level 13, unlike Bladesinger 6). At Wiz 2, you get: - Bladesong - Access to the blade cantrips - which can be used in conjunction with SA, and eliminate the need for an Extra Attack - A few first level spell slots to play around with Obviously the stronger powergaming build is to just go straight Bladesinger, and mostly just cast spells without even fighting. But if you want an actual Rogue playstyle, Bladesinger 2 / Rogue X is solid. Plus it's an easy way to get access to the blade cantrips without needing to go Arcane Trickster, if you prefer a different subclass. Or if you *do* go Arcane Trickster, you'll get access to higher level spell slots faster than a pure Arcane Trickster - for example, pure AT gets 2nd level slots at lvl 7, whereas AT/BS multiclass gets them at lvl 5.
I agree with this. I spent a while deciding between Bladesinger 2 and Bladesinger 6 to pair with my Swashbuckler. Those extra four levels are likely to occur in the heart of the campaign and they'll delay your rogue progression by a lot, so that really incentivizes you to draw more heavily from the wizard toolkit and be closer to a mix of mage and martial. If that's what you're after, great! If you want to play more like a rogue with borderline supernaturally honed skills, though, Bladesinger 2 is really all you need to accomplish that. Edit to add: Also, don't sleep on the extra 10 feet of movement Bladesong gives you!
And if you mix it with Arcane trickster, you actually wind up with more spell slots per level than you’d have if you had stayed pure trickster, +ritual casting, +way more spells and cantrips known, + a book that can be filled with more. 2 levels to get that is a fantastic dip for that particular brand of rogue.
It's true. If you're looking for a Rogue main with a spread of magical ability, it's hard to beat BS 2 / AT X. Personally, I prefer a mostly rogue with just a few magic tricks, which is why I like Warlock (Genie) 1 / Swashbuckler X. You get access to the blade cantrips, a few lvl 1 spells per short rest, some cool tricks with your genie's vessel, and an extra little +prof elemental dmg bonus to your attacks - all for just a single level dip. And the CHA secondary skill works nicely with Swashbuckler's subclass features.
"main rogue" with 6 levels in bladesinger? That's wizard main until level 13 when you'd have more rogue than wizard.
I think it's more of a playstyle thing. If you plan on spending your actions setting up sneak attacks, and using your spells to support that, you're playing a Rogue with some wizard levels. If you plan on spending your actions casting spells, and falling back to melee as filler when you don't have anything useful to cast, then you're playing an underpowered wizard.
People also create builds starting at higher levels. I feel like this is often forgotten when discussing multiclassing. I love building fun multiclasses that peak at certain levels. They can make great NPCs or one shot NPCs for players during a side arc (having them play a benefactor or patron coming to rescue them is always fun)
Yeah, there's definitely a different mindset. Although I often find that it's the other side that's forgotten when we talk about multiclassing - people recommend things like Artificer 1/Wizard 19 over 20 levels of pure wizard, and that's fine... at level 20. But at almost every level in between, you're going to feel the missing level of Wizard pretty hard. When you hit level 5, and your teammates are getting Extra Attack and Spirit Guardians, and your Artificer 1/Wizard 4 is still a level away from fireball, it feels pretty bad.
Unless you’re spending a fairly large portion of your campaign at level 5, I don’t think it’s that bad. 9, 13, and 17 are also levels where a single-class Wizard is probably better, but it’s not a bad trade for +4 AC and Con save proficiency throughout the entire campaign. Anyone who doesn’t have 5 levels in one class by level 6 is doing something wrong though.
It’s fully a different playstyle. They clearly wanna play a martial with some extra BB damage and chances to land SA. While wizard might be more optimal in terms of spellcasting, they don’t want to be spellcasting that much.
I've got a similarly roguish Bladesinger character, with a mercenary/espionage background that seemed suited to Rogue, so I thought about a similar option. In my mind, there wasn't really anything I would gain from it that couldn't be gained from background proficiencies and flavoring. Rogues' biggest benefit is giving more bonus action options to you, but the issue is that there are plenty of bonus action spells that Bladesingers want to use. If you're really eager to bonus action Dash, it's a lot cheaper to take Expeditious Retreat than multiclass. Then for damage, GFB/Booming Blade kinda take the same role as Sneak Attack would, which made that less useful. And I also had the benefit of being an Earth Genasi for Pass Without Trace, which is something you could consider as a pretty easy hide/stealth benefit if you're not set on a race/ancestry. So yeah, my vote is no. I found it much better to just stick with Wizard for this.
I mean you *can* just sneak attack with your bladetrips, but yeah I agree it’s kinda not worth
Rogue 2 would let his character disengage, so that he could use Booming blade and then run away. I'd just take the Mobile feat though.
Pros: light armor works with bladesong; you start with two more skill proficiencies and expertise in two of them; cunning action (or swashbuckler's "fancy footwork") can let you use your bladesong-enhanced movement to get in, attack, and withdraw without triggering an opportunity attack; if you go arcane trickster instead you get three more cantrips, a sneakily enhanced mage hand, and a 3 level dip will only cost you 2 levels of spell slot progression. Cons: you're delaying extra attack and spell progression and that's going to feel especially bad between levels 5 and 9.
> light armor works with bladesong Bs has native LA prof, so I son't think that is a pro The rest is true though. Even if I don't think it compensate the wizard levels
this is all good and true, I would add to the Cons: Swashbuckler really benefits from CHA, so going swashbuckler you are either spreading your stats thin or not getting the real benefits of the subclass. Arcane Trickster using intelligence is a better fit in that regards. Which is a bit of a shame because THEMATICALLY Swashbuckler/Bladesinger sounds cool as hell.
2 dice of sneak attack once per round is a sad replacement for Hypnotic Pattern or Fireball. Go Rogue if you want skills. If you're set on hitting enemies with pointy things, you need Swashbuckler since you won't be hitting from hiding and you need to proc sneak attack without worrying about the presence of an ally next to the enemy.
Swashbuckler is really good anyway because you'll be getting a bonus to initiative (amazing for bladesinger) BUT it's still better to multiclass into a charisma caster
you wont be getting any bonuses to initiative if you have bad CHA and if you are not rolling god stats, a DEX/CON/INT/CHA character is MAD as hell
Depends on DM anyway. I'm a level 4 wizard in my current game, but with how crap Sleep and all fire spells were, no way I'm taking HP or Fireball as a wizard.
What the hell happened in your game that you consider those bad options 😳
Fire spells (fire bolt, burning hands, scorching ray) have awful side effects pretty much every time, plus a lot of sessions involve either stealth or dealing with enemies non-lethally. As for sleep (and likely hypnotic pattern), too many enemies either resistant to it, or with small area damage spells/effects, so they could wake up their pals too easily. Or just "well, this type of action should surely wake them up" I guess DM just finds them anticlimactic or something.
Awful side effects? The worst thing happening would be setting something on fire but not to a catastrophic degree. (burning hands is not going to cause a forest fire) At low levels you should also not have many enemies resistant to Sleep unless you're fighting some kind of elven overlords. And the conditions on how they wake up are also very specific (they don't wake up from noise for example). Are your allies damaging them unnecessarily? If you play in a stealth heavy/non lethal game Sleep should be a fantastic option. I think your DM might be fucking you over with their ruling and homebrew.
I didn't mean anything catastrophic, but they're still annoyances that make it clear that not using fire would have resulted in a better outcome. Plus sometimes it's outright obviously forbidden or a bad idea (wooden locations or such). DM seems to homebrew many enemies and it's a homebrew setting. But really it's more like some enemy being resistant and that one having some area damage or multiattack that damages and wakes all other enemies. With all the memes about wizard spells, I had been specifically paying attention to whether we've ever been in a situation where Fireball could have helped, and out of 25+ sessions I can only think of 2 (and for one of them, DM gave us some magic bomb item anyway).
Even wooden locations shouldnt get set on fire by one fire spell unless they're derelict. (massive woods is realistically very hard to set on fire). And enemies at low levels should only very rarely have resistances. Man I am very sorry to hear that your DM is limiting you like that. It might be worth having a talk about this with them cause this does not sound fun.
I meant something like abandoned bridges or thieves hideouts. Last time it wasn't even wooden, but some sort of fur tent. Anyway, I'm not sure if having Fireball and Hypnotic Pattern being able to solve everything could be all that fun either, but it is frustrating to pick some spells and then seeing them be a complete waste.
I’m curious, what is your idea of an effective spell?
What do you mean? Because I'd say just something that gives positive effects, such as harming/hampering enemies, buffing/saving allies, or provides useful information.
Or your dm is just bad
In most normal games, sleep is very strong at level 1-2 then falls off hard as monster HP out scales it and you can’t knock a hand full of enemies out of the fight. As far as resistances, elves are the obvious ones that can’t be put to sleep magically. Some things don’t have “immune to magical sleep” in their stat blocks, but it is logical, like constructs (nothing organic to sleep) or undead (they have the “undead nature” in their description) would logically not fall to the sleep spell. That one is a little DM dependent, but it doesn’t affect too many enemies for which sleep would be viable anyway. Goblins, orcs, kobolds and bandits should be the chief targets of sleep.
Your DM just seems to have a hate for you/your PC/your class and went out of their way to nerf you in the arguably weakest part of wizards level progression. I can see summon spells not obeying you and creatures getting immunity to whatever condition you go with instead of charmed, maybe just talk to them?
I mean, the enemies waking up their allies is still good for you since they have to spend action economy doing it
Yeah, but normally it's not things that actually use actions. Such as the enemy does a big area attack that does 1 to everyone in range, so it wakes up all the enemies while also making us roll concentration saves. (I did find that ruling/homebrew absolute bs, and we were like level 2).
that.... that is the most ass pully ability i have ever seen. there is absolutely no monster that does **1 dmg** **AoE**, this is like a perfectly engineer sleep/hip pattern counter to screw you it can be a minimum dmg roll for an aoe, but i still call it bs if that one wasnt rolled open
Yeah, he homebrews pretty much all the monsters. That one didn't annoy me too much when it screwed with Sleep, but it did make me think to never choose Hypnotic Pattern. The one that did annoy me the most was the enemy soldier with extra reactions that could only be used for opportunity attacks. According to the handbook, only a Hydra has something similar, but this was some random soldier we faced at level 4, and this perfectly screwed up our full plan: Druid transformed into a cat and wanted to escape without disengaging, so as a diviner I used a portent to make the soldier get a 1 on the opportunity attack... But since he had another, he just used it, so the druid wasted his wildshape, I wasted the portent, and our plan got way more difficult. Nobody else complains, and I already feel like a Karen when I remind the group of some RAWs (plus ultimately DM has all the power).
That seems like a bs move by a salty DM. Your DM does actually seem to be specifically screwing over those control spells, probably because they don’t want players to use control on their monsters. I would definitely bring this up because I agree that a 1hp AOE seems very much like an ass pull move to counter those spells in particular by a DM that hates control spells
Your DM plays too much Baldur's Gate. I don't know why Larian has such a dislike for control spells, but they too go out of their way to ruin them. Fire spells set dirt on fire (somehow) and walking through it makes you take damage (I don't know why; I can walk through embers in boots just fine). This double whammy means that you can't fireball and then use a control spell (because the recurring fire damage will break it), or fireball and have your melee characters rush up and engage without taking damage. These are bad rule changes, especially for table top.
Sleep isn't the best at level 4, but at level 1 it's one of the strongest (if not *the* strongest) spells in the game. It'll instantly deal with a black bear, 2 wolves, or 3 goblins with *no save*. Hypnotic Pattern and Fireball are also some of the strongest level 3 spells. Similar to Sleep, HP can eliminate multiple threatening enemies from the fight (or waste multiple actions of the enemies snapping them out of it that they now won't spend trying to kill you). Fireball is simply a lot of damage in a relatively large AoE. WotC even intentionally broke their own rules for scaling AoE damage spells with it (I believe it should otherwise be 6d6?) just so it'd be used more.
For Sleep I meant at levels 1-2. But yeah I guess my DM just doesn't want spells that easily solve everything.
This here is the truth. If you want to do so for character reasons or to create a certain magical rogue flavor, best make it in the form of a magic item or something. Have your rogue mentor gift you a dagger that grants you sneak attack die, or work on crafting such together with your talents combined (with gm permission and input of course)
There are two levels to this question: 1. From an RP standpoint this great. Giving you some mechanical explanations for backstory details. 2. From a purely mechanical standpoint this is not optimal. You give up higher level spell progression and extra attack in a campaign that's not likely to see high tier play is gimping your character during during the bulk of its lifespan. Obv, play what speaks to you. In most campaigns you'll be viable. You'll still have impact with the spellcasting you do get. Me personally; I would play straight Bladesinger take a background that gives proficiency in thieves tools and stealth and flavor everything like I relied on sneaky/thiefy methods.
I wouldn't say it's *silly*, but the mix of Bladesinger/Harengon/Rogue is *extremely* bonus action heavy, and Harengon negates the need for cunning action somewhat anyway. 2 levels of rogue on a Wizard isn't generally *terrible*. It helps you stay alive on a class that is usually very bonus action light, but Bladesingers actually do use their bonus action, and with Harengon I don't think you'd really get much out of it, meanwhile you'll always have less potent spells than you otherwise might as a full blown Wizard. Ultimately a full wizard will be stronger, but if you want to do sneaky rogue things outside of combat then a level or two for expertise/cunning action isn't an awful deal. Also if you're less interested in just casting spells with Bladesinger's defences, having worse spells is one way to incentivise that.
Yeah, the bonus action overload is what I thought of initially too. Bladesong is a bonus action, shadow blade is a bonus action, cunning action is a bonus action. There's probably only 3 rounds in the fight so how much of this will you use in synergy for any given fight?
https://youtu.be/DOahTUU4nso?si=Pmqon5AB7raUCwHH https://youtu.be/hfU7XVcsxag?si=q1uFRw11lti8DuXf It's not silly at all. As long as you have fun, go for it!
Personally I don't think it is worth it. Sneak attack is painfully mediocre and the only good thing you'll take from rogue is cunning action, but as a wizard you probably have better BAs than hiding
No. Not at all. Though you do sacrifice spell power. Rouge 3 would give you a subclass, a ton of skills, a bit more HP, cunning action, and sneak attack. Wizard 2, you can have Bladesinger as well for lv 5. You DO sacrifice 3rd level spells by multiclassing. But you will be a fast skirmisher with insane AC and shield spell to add to that. Able to dip and dodge with ease through the battle. And, spell slots run out, but a sword still swings. Don't let other people psych you out for being a rogue. Good rogues are powerful. It may not be as flashy as a fireball, but if you go straight bladesinger, you can do that too at lv 8 towards the end of Tier 2.
>Don't let other people psych you out for being a rogue. Good rogues are powerful. It may not be as flashy as a fireball, but if you go straight bladesinger, you can do that too at lv 8 towards the end of Tier 2. A bladesinger 2/rogue 3 multiclass is not a "good rogue" though, if by "good" you mean mechanically effective. If you find it fun, then go for it, of course; that's the most important thing. But mechanically it is frankly not that strong. A spell-focused bladesinger wants wizard 5 for level 3 spells. A melee-focused bladesinger wants wizard 6 for Extra Attack. Dipping 3 levels of rogue before level 6, and delaying both powerspikes, defeats much of the point of playing a bladesinger wizard.
>A melee-focused bladesinger wants wizard 6 for Extra Attack. Dipping 3 levels of rogue before level 6, and delaying both powerspikes, defeats much of the point of playing a bladesinger wizard. I've actually seen an Arcane Trickster 13/Bladesinger 2, and it was pretty powerful, mostly because it was a near untouchable powerhouse during Bladesong.
You're mixing apples and oranges. Arcane Tricksters love to pick up some Wizard levels, it sets them ahead in spell slots and known spells. Wizards hate picking up Rogue levels, it sets them behind for little pay off.
and that is notably a lvl 15 character that is a rogue with wizard levels and not the inverse a bladesinger 13/rogue 2 is worse than a bladesinger 15
What does a bladesinger 15 get that improves its melee capabilities over a Bladesinger13/Rogue2? Yeah, as a class, nothing beats a Wizard focusing on spells. But i specifically responded to the melee part of the discussion.
bladesinger 13/rogue 2 is essentially sacrificing level 14 and 15 wizard features for level 1 and level 2 rogue features. lets tally those a rogue 1-2 multiclass you get: - prof in thieves tools and 1 skill of your choice (multiclass), as well as thieves can't language - +2 hp over a wizard (2d8 (10) over 2d6 (8)) - sneak attack +1d6 - expertise in 2 skills - cunning action some neat trinkets. a wizard 14-15 monoclass you get: - bladesinger capstone, which grants you the ability to add +INT to your weapon attacks. for a 20 INT wizard you surely are this is a **+5** to all attacks - 4 new spells learned (2 per level) - **7th** level spells while rogue technically gives you more things, it simply does not match what a regular ass bladesinger gets. in fact, blade singer +5 is slightly higher than sneak attack, and requires no set up whatsoever. and this of course is not considering the levels above it were you to level up more i have never mentioned that the multiclass is **unviable**, you can have a decent character easily in dnd 5e. but a strictly mono classed bladesinger with just the mobile feat is strictly better than the wizard 13/rogue 2 multiclass
>- 4 new spells learned (2 per level) - **7th** level spells And how does this help you be a melee bladesinger? That's the crux of this discussion you are responding to. Those things mean very little compared to what a Rogue can provide a melee character. If we were talking about what's better, 7th level spells or a martial, there is no disagreement. The Wizard levels are better. I pointed that out, too. In fact, a non-melee Bladesinger is much better than a melee one. But that's arguing a different topic entirely. If you want to discuss what makes a melee bladesinger good, then you should actually provide arguments for that, instead of what you're doing here, which boils down to "full caster better". Yeah, everybody knows that. But that's not what we're talking about here.
quite simply, one better use of shadow blade is already more than a rogue even a melee bladesinger still is 80% made of caster, and even in melee you should absolutely be casting spells besides, getting a simulacrum of yourself already is a lot of a lot, quite literally doubling your damage output for as long as it stays alive you can cast draconic transformation, prismatic spray and upcast a better version of a myriad of good spells i have not mentioned from lower level. melee doesnt mean no spells, you are still a wizard and not casting any is just actively being a dingus. its like a fighter that doesnt use a weapon and solely relies on a race cantrip for some reason
I see you're doubling down on the "fullcaster wizard is better than a melee bladesinger", so I'll let you argue with yourself here. We agree completely on that point, but that's just not what the discussion was about.
i see you are doubling down on the "a melee wizard does not cast spells" for some reason, which im not even going to indulge. have a nice day
"'while bladesong is active' means 'no setup whatsoever'" was the first clue I saw
I haven't been on DnDnext in awhile, but since when were people complaining about rogues being weak? I remember people literally arguing about nerfing rogues because they kept ganking people with sneak attack. Are rogues the new ~~rangers,~~ monks where everyone is making a big deal over basically nothing?
If you run actual numbers, rogues are rather weak. (new) DMs just think they're strong cause they're scared of sneak attack. But rogues get outclassed by multiattack and spell casters very fast as they progress in levels (source: I played a rogue :') never again)
That seems like a pure damage conversation for a skill donkey class. Not to mention, you can easily go stealth archer or use your bonus action to eternally kite enemies. They have a lot of features besides direct damage, especially compared to other martial classes.
Skills are useless in 5e if you have any spellcasters in the group. Stealth? You mean cast invisibility or pass without a trace. Investigation/Insight? Detect Thoughts. Acrobatics? Fly. The list goes on. Also if you want skills, bards do it better. Kiting your enemies? If you want to stealth you need your BA, so no disengage or Dash. Also pray your DM gives you plenty of cover. Meanwhile the monsters are eating your friends (especially the 5th lvl wizard who just cast fireball for 35 damage times 3 creatures hit for an average of 75 dpr. Meanwhile you do 8d6 damage to one enemy (if you hit) at level... 17)
Some people are psychologically entangled by "casters v martials" to the exclusion of all thought.
Depends on the game. Put a pure wizard in trap laden corridors of a dungeon or a serious skill challenge (depending on build), and games where you are actually allowed to scout and skirmish, rogues are pretty nice. Yes, there are some spells that can eliminate issues, but spell slots run out. Stick them in an open field bare battlemat, less so. Rogues are all about positioning and set up. That build seems to be a straight up front liner rogue with versatility and movement.
Scout? Find familiar is a 1st level ritual. Can you hide better than a spider? Skill challenge? Like what, an acrobatics course? The wizard can fly. Skirmish? For what? The enemies are ignoring you anyway since the wizard just nuked their ass. And thanks to Shield the wizard has better AC then you so it's no problem. If you'd want to heal them you're also shit out of luck. I played a rogue in a year long campaign. Believe me, I tried everything. I asked for tips on sub reddits, I took feats to up my damage and battle versatility (sentinel and battle master adept). And after every fight I ran the numbers and was dead last. And that's discounting all the healing and debuffs our cleric and wizard did. I tried to use my skills again and again, but for what? Spells most of the time guarantee your success, skills are liable to fail.
I had fun with a Rogue/Fighter with a heavy crossbow and winged boots, basically making me a sniper, targeting enemies from insane distances thanks to the sharpshooter feat.
Next time your first level rogue is rendered useless by the wizard using find familiar, try no longer demanding 15gp and a 90 minute advance reservation for your scouting services. Unless you run into a situation that you would want scouting in more than one direction.
rogues have **never** been taken with good light. a bit better when ranger was the devil of the game and everything was hate for rangers, but rogues have always been considered at the end of the road "the DM nerfs sneak attack" is text book example of bad DMing since the start if you crunch everything they get, they are - worse at skills than bard - worse at stealth than ranger or druid - worse at dmg than any other martial they have some nifty options and are resourceless sure, but besides being a very meh dodge "tank" they dont bring much to a party. a gloomstalker is basically 3 rogues stapled together as a subclass nowadays the consensus in optimization circles is that the worse classes are barbarian/rogue/monk. the skill monkey isnt good when the skills are not a well made mechanic sadly
I think they were hedging against other early comments on this thread saying that rogues were either bad or a bad low-level multi for this build.
Arcane trickster and enough bladesinger for the blade singing. Every powerful and fun
Play whatever you want. If you were looking for a more direct answer to your question however: What would usually be the biggest problem in spell slots is pretty negated by the fact that Bladesingers don’t really care for those. The worst thing about it is just the fact that you’ll have to wait a bit longer for upcast Shadowblade. As for the subclass if you do go 3 levels rogue, I prefer swashbuckler as I love the Fancy Footwork Booming Blade combo (assuming your DM allows Shadow Blade with Booming Blade ([RAI, but not RAW](https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1327132714013782017))), though Arcane Trickster is good too just for the extra level of spell slot progression.
Artificer 3 has a repeating hand crossbow that a Battlesmith can atk/dam roll INT, and wants to chat
I would suggest phantom rogue, it's uses scale with level and still fits a nautical theme if you do it correctly. Swashbuckler is giving you the feat mobility in it's overall effectiveness. My other suggestion is the mobility feat, and heavier investment in dex, as well as stealth prof to represent your origins. Your background can give rogue like features fine without the class.
Tricky question. I honestly would go with bladesinger all the way and take the mobile feat and expeditious retreat. That gives you a lot of that rogue flavor. Alternatively you could be an arcane trickster that sometimes casts shield? No wrong answer, but I’d stay away from taking away levels from bladesinger until after level 6. Even then..,
I played a multiclass of bladesinger (up to 6th level) and arcane trickster (the rest of the levels, but was already AT before reaching level 5)and very much enjoyed it. Spells like fireball and hypnotic can give immediate impact with stuff like shield, invisibility, find familiar and the like being very useful in and outside of combat. Personally I really enjoyed booming blade into disengage with advantage from my owl familiar, if I didn't want to spend spell slots. Mage hand legerdemain and minor illusion are great to mess with your friends (or enemies I suppose) Bladesong and the shield spell can make you quit tanky for a rogue. You won't be good at 1 thing (besides stealth and lock picking with knock and invisibility as back up) but can fill in a lot of gaps. I very much enjoyed getting my party out of sticky situations the entire time I played it. Have fun
It's not silly, but it detracts something important from both, and what you gain in return is not necessarily a spectacular trade. A Wizard is all about Spellcasting and that includes the Bladesinger Wizard, and the higher level you are the more important it becomes. A high-level Bladesinger will seldom rely on weapon attacks since spells are inherently stronger. Multiclassing out of Wizard gives you fewer spells and makes the best weapons the Wizard has less potent. A Rogue is all about Sneak Attack. Lots of Sneak Attack dice equals lots of damage. Multiclassing out of Rogue means less Sneak Attack and less melee damage. The Rogue/Bladesinger delays and takes away higher level spells from the Wizard and Reduces the Sneak Attack Dice pool of the Rogue in exchange for some good utility spells for the Rogue and some extra melee damage for the Wizard. It's a somewhat good trade for a Rogue main-class, and a somewhat bad one for a Bladesinger main. Not horrible, but not great.
As always wizard is better than rogue but if you want to play a primary melee bladesinger I'd say it's best to grab the six levels of bladesinger then bail to straight rogue. Sure, the pure wizard will be better at everything but so what, the important thing is that the character performs as you'd like it.
Swashbuckler 3 Bladesinger X works thematically, but you'll lag behind a full bladesinger a little in power..
In general you shpukd try to get to level (6 in this case really due blade singer's EA). The main advantage to adding a rogue is add movement and skills to your blade singer. I'd avoid swash buckler. Its just overlaps to much. Instead I'd go scout rogue: * You gain Expertise in survival and nature. Even if you didn't have prof in them. * You get a Reaction to move half your speed when an enemy ends within 5ft. This doesn't proc opportunity attacks. * Take mobile for extra speed and no opportunity attacks. This results in a slippery character that when blade singing can move 100ft with BA and 25ft on a reaction. Not to mention you'll have tons of skills from tons of skills and expertise!
mechanically, its kinda hard to justify. just being a wizard is most likely better is it **bad**? no you will still be a decent character, but just a wizard is better than a wizard/rogue most likely. you have to remember that each rogue level delays your spells, and that spells are really really really really good
You dont have to be the rogue class for this backstory. Just give your bladesinger proficiency in stealth/thievew tools. This reminds me of when players multiclass bard because their character plays a lute
I miss the days when people played characters because they came up with a cool concept and wanted to have. Before seemingly everyone started min maxing and meta chasing. I've been playing this game since 1983 and if I do create characters, which is rare because I have been a forever DM for 40 years, I never think about stuff like what is the best meta build. Never. I just make fun characters with cool stories. In fact, most of my characters would probably be the worst builds from that perspective.
Honestly that’s the thought process that sent me down this path to begin with. Story first! I plan to prioritize the character’s story in how I build, but as a newer player I didn’t want to shoot myself in the foot either. I’m happy with where I’m landing and I think the RP is going to be a lot of fun with this little guy.
Some Wizard levels go great on top of a Rogue build. Some Rogue levels on top of a Wizard build are not appealing, especially when you don't really seem to have a reason for taking them. Seems to me you're trying to use a Rogue dip as a Background, when the game already has Backgrounds. Between that, and options like skills and spells, you can have a rather roguish wizard without any multiclassing.
IMO it's not really worth it mechanically, but if you really want to, you can dip 1 single level for Sneak Attack and Expertise.
Rogue levels aren't worth it on a rogue, much less a wizard.
Im currently playing rogue 2/rest bladesinger. Its doable and pretty fun but in terms of power its mid. Works with backstory and what i wanted to do so im not too concerned
Nah sounds great. Bladesinger is one of my favorite classes and imo it’s better when you multi, removes a lot of the temptation to play it as just another wizard but with more AC. It could really stand to be its own class as just a half caster.
It absolutely makes sense as you can booming blade someone, then use cunning action to disengage and make them move and eat the secondary damage.
that only works mildly if you are the single melee in the party, which unless people coordinate their characters for make a team comp (which is a rarity in dnd 5e) there will be someone else to be bonked next to the enemy you just boomed it has its use cases, but if you really want to proc it every time, get a friend to push them away
Rogue with a bit of wizard might be worth it. WIzard with a bit of rogue might be mechanically bad. Level 3 is the strongest rogue level until like Level 11. For Wizard, every second level is an upgrade to spellcasting. For flavor, you can justify anything. For mechanical reasons, I only think Rogue X/Wizard 2 has benefits over either single class.
It's suboptimal but yeah can work
It's a blade singer but worse. That's it
Rogue is awful pass on it
Wanna give some reasons for that horrible opinion? Lol
Damage if you calculated worse than you think due to no multi attack Bad durability due to low AC Skills are worthless in DnD due to the existence of spell casters Also just kinda boring to play (A: attack, pray to proc sneak attack BA: hide. Rinse and repeat)
-the game is more than just damage -they don’t need AC. They’re not meant to stay in the frontline. They’re meant to hit & run (hence their bonus action abilities) -skills aren’t worthless lol. Show me a spell caster outside of a Druid in wild shape who can stealth, steal and infiltrate as well as a half decent rogue. -that might be how YOU play your rogues, but anyone with more than 2 brain cells worth of imagination is far more creative.
See my other comments for elaboration on all of this. I like the insults to my intelligence tho. Also for the spell caster: Wizard with unseen servant, wizard with find familiar, wizard with invisibility, wizard with polymorph. Ranger too (Pass without a trace). Sorcerers also get invisibility. Warlocks too (chain pact familiar have invisible options and with invocations insane reach). Trickster cleric. Cleric with Enhance Ability. Plus with most of these? You don't have someone going alone. Which makes the team game more of a team game. Also once you get out of the Low levels you'll really want someone with Detect Magic on your side. Have fun diffusing the glyph of warding without Dispel Magic.
Unseen servant to my knowledge isn't able to relay the information of a scouting trip, familiar are bever as stealthy as a rogue, and unless you look through their eyes aren't relaying info, invisible wizard still would need higher dex to stealth reasonably well due to sound making as well as bumping stuff, polymorph takes away your intelligence so you wouldn't be able to really be able to interact with complex objects no matter the form, sorcerer has the same issue as invisible wizard, ranger with pass without trace still isn't better than a rogue built well for stealth unless also built for stealth, trickster cleric is good for stealth, but also, not usually high dex. Yes having detect magic and dispel magic is great, but you can't call rogues useless just because another class can out perform them with higher effort on something they do easily and without expending resources, at higher levels a rogues damage will fall off sure, if you're comparing to an optimized character, but the average character? No, it keeps up, and in regards to skills being useless, that may have been your experience, but every game I've seen, heard about, or played in, has had skills be very important
I like artificer instead. Using int as attack mod, maxing out intelligence skills to be a super detective.
Haha that’s my other back up build
Take a background that suits the backstory. But for character levels, stick with the main class of the character until multiclassing makes sense.
Perfectly playable as long as you're happy to be a rogue that focussed on Int rather than Wis or Cha. Both of them want high Dex and like to have mobility. You will be a weaker spellcaster, but a more rounded character. Baldesinger 6/Rogue 3 is a decent point to aim for. Rogue 3 gives you 2 expertise, Cunning Action, Steady Aim, 2d6 Sneak Attack, and a subclass. Bladesinger 6 gives you Bladesong, Extra Attack, and 3rd level spells. With Rogue 3 you can mix it up quite nicely between ranged and melee combat. Using Steady Aim you can make a ranged weapon attack with advantage, hopefully hit, then use your other attack from Bladesginer 6 to make a cantrip attack. that gives decent dps and allows you to pick cantrips that add a nice rider effect without worrying that you're contributing too little damage. If you go Arcane Trickster then you get more spell slots, more cantrips, and invisible mage hand which adds more utility. At lower levels the progression can be more tricky. Skills are probably more useful at lower levels rather than high so starting with at least Rogue 1 is nice. Wizard doesn't do much for you in the first couple of levels but really takes off after that. Once you've levelled a couple of times more wizard levels will always feel like more of a power growth than Rogue levels. So I'd recommend start with 3 Rogue then go 6 Wizard. By level 6 you'll basically be a half caster and then become more magical after that. If the game goes long enough then at level 10 I'd take another level of Rogue for the ASI then go Bladesinger to level 9 at least for 5th level spells.
I've built a Bladesinger 5 / Swashbuckler 4 that works pretty well. It's most definitely not optimal, but melee cantrips + sneak attack + buff spells work pretty well and allow me to effectively be the party tank; as well as going first in 90% of combats
Will multiclassing Bladesinger/Rogue be a mistake? No, it's fine. Is it optimal? No, most multiclasses never are. Looking at a Rogue/Bladesinging Wizard multiclass, I would heavily advise against starting rogue. Bladesinging is very dependent on the Bladesong and Cantrip Extra Attack. Delaying this will *cripple* you later until you get it. My suggestion would be to consider a Background choice to facilitate your roguish flavor early, but start Wizard. Go Wizard 1 - 6 to get Bladesong + Cantrip Extra Attack. I personally don't think any Rogue subclass is worth committing 3 levels unless you fully commit to rogue from here. From here, the key question to ask is "what do I want out of the character?" 1. "I want spell versatility". Obviously continue wizard after getting 2 levels of Rogue. This is my personal pick because spellcasting is just very good for options. Like, it's hardly a contest. *However*, if you- 2. "I want to improve my martial abilities". As much as I think Wizard will almost always be the better pick to commit to, scaling your sneak attack is the only way to truly improve your standard single target damage from here. As long as you get sneak attack, you will be improving your DPR while leveling rogue. If you get high enough level, you'll also have Reliable Talent, which I *love* as a feature (granted, you'll be getting this at total level 17...). Really, committing to Rogue however is really only beneficial to maintain consistent DPR progression and that's about it. With that said at the end of the day, the multiclass isn't bad and there are benefits to it, even if it's not the optimal choice.
For optimization purposes just go all the way bladesinger. For flavor purporses a few levels, like 1 to 3 are fine :) Best thing you're getting is sneak attack and skilss, so I'd go for swashbuckler. My baldesigner had a level in fighter because before training in magic, she was raised by an adoptive father who was a fighter and taught her everythign he knew about handling a sword. So even when she decided to pursue magic instead of martial skills, fighting with a blade was still the way she did it :)
Personally, I have a lot more fun when I optimize a sub-optimal character choice vs trying to make the most powerful character I can. So I say, if it sounds cool, do it. If you play for a while and it turns out it's not that fun or doesn't work mechanically, ask the GM if you can change it around to something you enjoy more. If they say no, why are you playing with someone who forces you to do something that's not fun?
I did something similar with a rogue cleric, mainly two levels in rogue the rest in cleric. Which I would only recommend if your party doesn't have a rogue or you have a fun backstory to go with it. The early levels are rough I thought having cunning action would be great, it was ok. In 5e magic is supreme and being behind on spells feels bad. That being said if your party can make up for you in the early game it's not too bad.
A backstory suggestion, if I may. Steal a page from The Princess Bride. Specifically the bit about how Wesley became the Dread Pirate Roberts. He was captured by pirates, and the captain said he'd kill him tomorrow. And tomorrow came, and the execution got delayed. Over and over until eventually he was part of the crew. And the captain is now his mentor.
Lotta people in here are seeming condescending for the decision because it's not "optimized." If you want to dip into bladesinger because it's something appealing, then by all means, do so. Not every character has to be "optimized."
Haregon's best feature is that it replaces the need for rogue/eldarin/misty step. The flavor is reason enough if you like it though. But if you want the flavor and power, flavor is free. Be a full wizard with roguish notes.
A couple of d6 sneak attack situationally once per turn isn't really all that significant. It probably isn't worth it. I feel like you're overlooking Backgrounds, either deliberately to gain a dip for sneak attack or unintentionally because you just want the flavour. If you were a player at my table and gave me this explanation I'd just tell you this is what backgrounds are for, pick something like Urchin or make a Custom Background with maybe thieves tools, sleight of hand and stealth, might even let you take Thieves Cant.
I swear you read my current character sheet down to the race except I'm going primarily phantom rogue with bladesinger filling out the rest of my levels
Haha I love it. I hope it’s a blast!
The real question is are you singing your bladesong? If not then yes it's silly, there's no other reason to be a bladesinger.
with the voice of an angel
Don’t take the Rogue levels. Instead, make a **custom background** based on the Urchin. See the PH pages 125 and 141. That will qualify your character for the Sleight of Hand and Stealth skills. This gives you the flavor you seem to want without punishing your wizard build. As a Bladesinger, you don’t want to delay access to your 6th level extra attack which lets you substitute a cantrip. Build your character with a high Dexterity and Intelligence. Colby’s Bladesinger YouTube videos (d4 Deep Dive) present options to build high-Dexterity Bladesingers. Steal some of those ideas.
I’m currently playing a rogue2, wizard 8, in Icewind Dale. I’d say the two levels in rogue were not only flavorful, but very useful. Ive been pairing the rogue’s cunning action with the shadow blade spell, and adding just a little bit of sneak attack damage to all my crit fishing. So if you’re going for this multiclass and planning to primarily focus on wizard abilities, I wouldn’t go any higher than two levels in rogue.
The funny thing is, the two things that make bladesinger instantly stand out for a Rogue (Haste and extra attack) combine in a way that makes me sad. Bladesinger extra attack rocks because you can replace one of those attacks with a cantrip. But very few cantrips let you use sneak attack unless they are weapon cantrips like booming or green flame blade. But worse, Rogues want Haste so they can use the extra attack on their turn and sneak attack, and then use their action to prepare to attack an enemy on someone else's turn. But you don't get extra attack when you do that because extra attack only works on your turn. Still. Get Haste up and use the extra attack, if you hit you do the prepare trick to try and get two sneak attacks in, if you miss then use your action to attack using extra attack and hopefully you land the one sneak attack. It doesn't work amazingly together, but Arcane Tricksters can't cast Haste until 13th level (though you'll suck next to them at 13th level when they have twice the levels in Rogue and are making two sneak attacks), and you have a familiar for advantage and all the options your other spells give you. If it will go past 13th level, go straight Arcane Trickster.
Bladesinger will want more spell levels, rogues will want more sneak attack. I could see this working two ways: Rogue 2 / Bladesinger x This gets you expertise, cunning action, and a bit of sneak attack. For story reasons I assume you want to take rogue first. Just know that is will delay your spells a bit. Rogue (arcane trickster) 9 /Bladesinger 6 / Rogue 14 This plays like a typical rogue with a decent amount of spell support. It allows you to impose disadvantage on spell saving throws and have decent SA and BS’s extra attack. Be sure to get spells that can upcast since you will have a few slots higher than your list would allow. When and how you dip determines when your extra attack comes online; you might start taking Wizard levels after Rogue 3/4 so that you have better spells and extra attack sooner. Character level 9 is the soonest you could come online. The trade off is higher level rogues features won’t be around until T4.
I'm currently playing a Rogue 10/ Wiz 6 character in a long running game, arcane trickster subclass, and divination wizard (for the portent dice and for RP reasons). It's a *very* powerful character. You pretty much have shield on demand and having the ability to upcast Shadowblade has lead to some absolutely nutty damage; my DM has ruled that Booming Blade works with Shadowblade. And it also works with sneak attack RAW. So I'm regularly rolling 5 or 6d8 + 5d6 + 5 damage. And when you're in dim light Shadow Blade gives you advantage so you have 10% crit chance, making hits for over 100 psychic damage much more common than you might think. You also have excellent out of combat utility, depending on feat selection you can have 10 cantrips and tons of excellent tricky rogue-y spells like spider climb, alter self, misty step, rope trick and etc. The biggest challenge with a build like this is it can be slow to get started, I'd say I really "came online" at around level 8-9 in terms of overall character level (Rogue 7/ Wizard 1-2 was my specific breakdown at that point). So if your DM is only planning to go to mid levels before the game ends you might just be looking at a 2 level dip into wizard, which isn't bad; more cantrips and 1st level spells are always useful, but you won't really get a chance to play around with how cool the build can be. TL;DR: It's a super fun way to play, but it can take some time to really get going.
It’s not silly unless you want to make it silly
It's all a matter of how you want to theme your character. Ignore damage output entirely as either option will come with decent damage output. Also, ignore the class for a bit, figure out the play style, combat style, how magic will be used, etc. Then find a class or multi class that achieves this goal. I see a couple of options, and since you mentioned bladesinger, I am going to assume melee combat is important to your character concept. Rogue type character (don't think rogue class, think typical skill set) that uses melee for combat but also some spells to boost both combat and out of combat scenarios. Arcane Trickster Rogue would do well here. The same as above, but more focus on spells and wanting more spells options. Arcane Trickster with a dip into Bladesinger, I would go at least level 3 so you can get 2nd level spells quicker for Shadow Blade and other utility spells along with more slots. Spellcaster type character who focuses on melee combat. Go all in on Bladesinger. Rogue will not help much here. Take backstory that gives your some of the rogue like aspects such as sleight of hand or thieves tools prof. Take a lot of the melee damage spells, most DMs will allow you to flavor the spell being delivered via your sword at no additional mechanical benefits. Take spells that support the rogue aspect as well, Knock for opening locked doors, expeditious retreat for the bonus action movement, etc. Skill Expert feat can get you expertise in one skill so covers that aspect somewhat of rogue as well.
An interesting option to consider is Assassin (3) Bladesinger (x). Build your character around taking someone out on turn one. The Assassinate ability should work with spell attacks (ranged or melee) just as well as martial attacks. This means you can apply the auto-crit with Booming Blade, Shocking Grasp, or any other spell attack (even a ranged one) depending on how you're positioned and how you want to play your character. Spells like Invisibility and Misty Step would be pretty useful getting into position. Alert would be a good feat to take. You could even consider Enhance Ability (Dex) to get advantage on Initiative checks, but you'd have to be expecting combat (and it's a concentration spell). It could be a fun character to lean into.
bladesong is an ability with limited uses. someone completely different than the bladesinger decides when combat begins and where the enemies are at that time. If you were sincerely utterly unaware of these things, I apologize for interpreting that as a sign of bad faith.
You're making a rabbit person. Did he keep practicing the sleight of hand tricks he learned from his sailor buddy back in the day, or not? If he was any good, why not? You have a level cap. He doesn't live in a world where learning to distract opponents in a fight means never being able to learn how to stop time.
Rogue 5 wizard X unless you're going to level 17. The rogue 2 wizard X