Theorycraft Gone Wrong (Or Gone Right?)

In designing and playing my Warrens of the Harengon character for the 2023-2024 Dungeons & Toast (D&T) guild campaign (July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024), I modified the theorycraft build I found online to fit in with the campaign; some may say, this writer included, with disastrous results. Where did things go wrong? One possibility is that there are three differences in the theorycraft of the build as it’s presented online and in how I built the character. The differences are ancestry, class selection after level five, and roleplay versus optimization. Other factors that come into play are related to the experience of playing the build – the execution of said build and less play time at each level.

For starters, “Theorycraft (or theorycrafting) is the mathematical analysis of game mechanics (usually in video games) to discover optimal strategies and tactics (Wikipedia).” The first difference to tackle between the theorycraft build and how I built the character is ancestry. The 2023-2024 D&T guild campaign was strictly based on animal ancestries, so the option to take the Halfling ancestry was unavailable as adjustments had to be made to fit the animal ancestries campaign theme. This means that the Lucky Halfling Trait (reroll ones on attack roles, ability checks, and saving throws)* and the Halfling ancestral feat of Bountiful Luck (allies within range can reroll ones on attack roles, ability checks, and saving throws)** were both unavailable to my character, further taking away an additional ability I could have had to help the party.

The second difference is class level increases after level five, which is as far as the build goes, at least in terms of in-depth specifics. I chose cleric instead of the other classes, one of which was specifically the wizard class, as suggested by the build, to raise up in level. The reason I did this is for roleplaying purposes, as it fit with my character, rather than for optimization purposes by leveling up in the wizard class, where I could upcast spells and have more offensive firepower. A part of choosing roleplay over optimization includes the spells that I chose, leaning heavily into peace spells that lack offensive firepower, in favor of nondamaging spells that focus more on battlefield control, healing, and buffs/debuffs. If I had more time to play the character, perhaps I would have made different choices.

In a traditional campaign, opportunities probably exist to play the character at each level, regardless of frequency of play. In the D&T guild campaign, we continue to accrue experience points through contributions to our guild (aka the Toastmasters side of things), be it fulfilling functionary roles at meetings, blog posts, cosplay, or in other ways. And I missed most of the campaign adventures due to other responsibilities and obligations, all except for three adventures, the introductory adventure, one of the adventures between the introduction and the finale, and the finale. Therefore, I missed out on crucial playtime and character development opportunities, losing out on the ability to see how well the spells I chose work and how to play the character, mostly in combat. Theorycraft and gameplay are crucial to character development and experience playing the character.

There was the theorycraft side of things, as described above, and then the experience and execution of playing the build, including the in-game reality of the finale. I was unprepared for my character to be dropped in the middle of melee combat from the get-go of the finale, the entirety of which was combat against the Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG), or woman, in this case, and her many undead minions. With so many options at my disposal, I overlooked the one option that I was looking for, the option that would have solved many of my problems: the Disengage action, which would have allowed me to escape being locked down in hand-to-hand combat and instead allowed me to focus on playing the character as the support character they were meant to be. In addition, many of the abilities that I had to help the party had requirements that must be met before my character could use them, and these requirements weren’t met, further denying me opportunities to help the party.

As a result, in the latter half of the battle, my character was knocked unconscious numerous times, and as the party’s healing resources dwindled, some due to other healers being unconscious as well, my character spent more time fighting for survival by rolling Death Saves than doing anything constructive to help the party.

After this experience, do I think the build has merit? Yes, I do. If played well and the conditions are right for the character to perform at optimum levels, I think the build will do well.

Furthermore, how could I have executed playing the character better? Well, my unfamiliarity with the character due to lack of playtime was a hindrance more than a help, so more playtime. Better organization of my character sheet would have benefited me as well. Resource management for a build like this is at a premium because of all the class abilities and spells the character has at their disposal. After the finale was over, I looked over my character sheet and organized it like it should be. That was immensely helpful in terms of getting a clearer understanding of what the character can do and easily locating said abilities and spells on my character sheet. (I used a paper character sheet rather than digital one.) In looking over the spells I chose, the cleric, sorcerer, and bard spells are okay.

More healing, buffs/debuffs, defensive and offensive spells would have been beneficial. Bard and sorcerer spells can only be changed per Rules as Written (RAW), one spell in each class when a level is gained. It could be a long time before the spells get more balanced in terms of offensive, party support, and battlefield control spells, especially since the campaign is over and thus I may never play the character again. In like manner, wizard spells can only be changed when the character gets new spells, something that may never happen due to the possibility of the character never being played again. In regard to spell selection, something that I forgot to take into account when choosing spells is martial characters being in close proximity to enemies, which hindered my character in terms of casting Area of Effect (AoE) spells, to affect many enemies at one time. That was the experience and execution of playing the character that I had. What about the drawbacks of playing a four-class multiclass character?

The drawback to playing a character who has multiclassed into four-classes is that the character is weaker when compared to single class characters, or even multiclass characters that take a dip into another class or limit their multiclassing to fewer than four classes, two, in all probability. Thus, there are substantial tradeoffs to a build like this one. I’ve included the link to the Reddit post where I found this theorycraft build. To save you some time, here it is, posted by Vizzun three years ago at the time of this writing. “As a base: Halfling – Peace Cleric 1/ Clockwork Sorc[erer] 1/ Bard 1/ /Divination Wizard 2, take Bountiful Luck.

You hang out there, giving pseudo-bless, inspiration, negating advantages, protecting [SIC] from ones, using Portent. Attacking you is not that good a choice, since you do have medium armor and a shield.

Really fun, requires you to be conscious of the battlefield. You’re a fate MACHINE and the rolls WILL be good.

As to what after lv 5 – You are a pure caster and getting something nice to upcast would be good. Clockwork can get Agathys lv 2, Wizard’s summons from lv 5 are very strong on upcasting, and Beyblade Cleric with Spirit Guardians is always decent.”

In conclusion, here are my takeaways from playing this build: It was fun! I imagine that I would have had more fun if I had played better and if things had gone differently. This is the second time where a multiclass character of mine was locked down in hand-to-hand combat and prevented from being able to act at their full capabilities. Next time, I shall be more cognizant of the actions I can take in combat to prevent being locked down facing one or more enemies in hand-to-hand combat when my character could better use his abilities elsewhere in the battle. Perhaps I need to have a getaway plan, such as Misty Step, or just remember to disengage.

Moving forward, maybe I learned my lesson this time! There is a multiclass build that I’m aware of that has five classes. To that I say thee nay! (At least for right now, anyway.) Maybe I’ll try it in the future as the theorycraft of the build sounds interesting to me. However, I look at theorycraft and multiclass builds like this with a more critical eye now, after these two experiences of playing two multiclass characters (one with three classes and one with four classes), and I look for the tradeoffs and what is not mentioned in the build, in addition to what is mentioned. My character survived thanks to the help of the rest of the party. I got player experience as well. So, it’s a win-win! Moving forward, I’ll take this experience and apply it to this year’s D&T guild campaign, where I will again play a multiclass character, although with just two classes this time. I’m excited about the new character and the new campaign!

Sources:

* Players Handbook, Fifth Edition (28)

** Xanathar’s Guide to Everything (73)

Favorite/most fun race/class/multiclass combos

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