• How Do Spell Slots Work With Multiclassing 5e Players
• How Do Spell Slots Work With Multiclassing 5e Stat
• How Do Spell Slots Work With Multiclassing 5e Spell
• How Do Spell Slots Work With Multiclassing 5e Spells

How Do Spell Slots Work With Multiclassing 5e Players

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Multiclassing

Multiclassing allows you to gain levels in multiple classes. Doing so lets you mix the abilities of those classes to realize a character concept that might not be reflected in one of the standard class options.
With this rule, you have the option of gaining a level in a new class whenever you advance in level, instead of gaining a level in your current class. Your levels in all your classes are added together to determine your character level. For example, if you have three levels in wizard and two in fighter, you're a 5th-level character.
As you advance in levels, you might primarily remain a member of your original class with just a few levels in another class, or you might change course entirely, never looking back at the class you left behind. You might even start progressing in a third or fourth class. Compared to a single-class character of the same level, you'll sacrifice some focus in exchange for versatility.

Prerequisites

To qualify for a new class, you must meet the ability score prerequisites for both your current class and your new one, as shown in the Multiclassing Prerequisites table. For example, a barbarian who decides to multiclass into the druid class must have both Strength and Wisdom scores of 13 or higher. Without the full training that a beginning character receives, you must be a quick study in your new class, having a natural aptitude that is reflected by higher-than-average ability scores.

Along with spell slots, which nearly every 5E D&D class can potentially gain through subclasses, exhaustible class features come in handy for design work as well as during game play. Many, many times I’ve offered players opportunities to expend or suppress existing resources and features to do unusual things and you might be surprised to hear. How do Warlocks work out multiclassing, beyond a few level dips. Unlike other spellcasters, Pact casting doesn't exactly add together with your caster levels, so you don't get higher level slots. You have tons of low level slots, though. If it wasn't for there being plenty of. If you do this every short rest you take then the number of spell slots your Coffeelock has will simply keep on increasing. Is the Coffeelock multiclass legal in D&D 5e? It is, although multiclassing is an optional rule which DMs do not have to use.

Experience Points

The experience point cost to gain a level is always based on your total character level, as shown in the Character Advancement table, not your level in a particular class. So, if you are a cleric 6/fighter 1, you must gain enough XP to reach 8th level before you can take your second level as a fighter or your seventh level as a cleric.

Hit Points and Hit Dice

You gain the hit points from your new class as described for levels after 1st. You gain the 1st-level hit points for a class only when you are a 1st-level character.
You add together the Hit Dice granted by all your classes to form your pool of Hit Dice. If the Hit Dice are the same die type, you can simply pool them together. For example, both the fighter and the paladin have a d10, so if you are a paladin 5/fighter 5, you have ten d10 Hit Dice. If your classes give you Hit Dice of different types, keep track of them separately. If you are a paladin 5/cleric 5, for example, you have five d10 Hit Dice and five d8 Hit Dice.

Proficiency Bonus

Your proficiency bonus is always based on your total character level, not your level in a particular class. For example, if you are a fighter 3/rogue 2, you have the proficiency bonus of a 5th-level character, which is +3.

Proficiencies

How Do Spell Slots Work With Multiclassing 5e Stat

When you gain your first level in a class other than your initial class, you gain only some of new class's starting proficiencies, as shown in the Multiclassing Proficiencies table.

Multiclassing Proficiencies

Class Features

When you gain a new level in a class, you get its features for that level. You don't, however, receive the class's starting equipment, and a few features have additional rules when you're multiclassing: Channel Divinity, Extra Attack, Unarmored Defense, and Spellcasting.

Channel Divinity

If you already have the Channel Divinity feature and gain a level in a class that also grants the feature, you gain the Channel Divinity effects granted by that class, but getting the feature again doesn't give you an additional use of it. You gain additional uses only when you reach a class level that explicitly grants them to you. For example, if you are a cleric 6/paladin 4, you can use Channel Divinity twice between rests because you are high enough level in the cleric class to have more uses. Whenever you use the feature, you can choose any of the Channel Divinity effects available to you from your two classes.

Extra Attack

If you gain the Extra Attack class feature from more than one class, the features don't add together. You can't make more than two attacks with this feature unless it says you do (as the fighter's version of Extra Attack does). Similarly, the warlock's eldritch invocation Thirsting Blade doesn't give you additional attacks if you also have Extra Attack.

Unarmored Defense

If you already have the Unarmored Defense feature, you can't gain it again from another class.

Spellcasting

Your capacity for spellcasting depends partly on your combined levels in all your spellcasting classes and partly on your individual levels in those classes. Once you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class, use the rules below. If you multiclass but have the Spellcasting feature from only one class, you follow the rules as described in that class.
Spells Known and Prepared. You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class. If you are a ranger 4/wizard 3, for example, you know three 1st-level ranger spells based on your levels in the ranger class. As 3rd-level wizard, you know three wizard cantrips, and your spellbook contains ten wizard spells, two of which (the two you gained when you reached 3rd level as a wizard) can be 2nd-level spells. If your Intelligence is 16, you can prepare six wizard spells from your spellbook.
Each spell you know and prepare is associated with one of your classes, and you use the spellcasting ability of that class when you cast the spell. Similarly, a spellcasting focus, such as a holy symbol, can be used only for the spells from the class associated with that focus.
Spell Slots. You determine your available spell slots by adding together all your levels in the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, and wizard classes, and half your levels (rounded down) in the paladin and ranger classes. Use this total to determine your spell slots by consulting the Multiclass Spellcaster table.
If you have more than one spellcasting class, this table might give you spell slots of a level that is higher than the spells you know or can prepare. You can use those slots, but only to cast your lower-level spells. If a lower-level spell that you cast, like burning hands, has an enhanced effect when cast using a higher-level slot, you can use the enhanced effect, even though you don't have any spells of that higher level.
For example, if you are the aforementioned ranger 4/wizard 3, you count as a 5th-level character when determining your spell slots: you have four 1st-level slots, three 2nd-level slots, and two 3rd-level slots. However, you don't know any 3rd-level spells, nor do you know any 2nd-level ranger spells. You can use the spell slots of those levels to cast the spells you do know — and potentially enhance their effects.
Pact Magic. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.

Multiclass Spellcaster: Spell Slots per Spell Level

Multiclassing in Dungeons and Dragons 5e can be rewarding, but it can also end up cheating you out of abilities you’d otherwise get — it mixes together aspects of various classes and does so in a way unique to this edition of the game. Multiclassing in previous editions worked differently per edition — the way it worked in AD&D or in 3rd Edition is not how it works now. So how does it work, and should you be looking at multiclassing? Well, to answer the second question first — the whole post is going to be about how it works — I’ll just say that there are significant pros and cons to multiclassing. Certain class combinations work extremely well together, and others really do not.

So let’s go over multiclassing, how it functions, and whether or not you should give it a try.

How Do Spell Slots Work With Multiclassing 5e Spell

What is Multiclassing?

Multiclassing is, on the surface, very simple. You start off like all characters — your first level will be in a specific class. For the purposes of this example, we’ll say you started as a Wizard. Let’s say you made third level as a Wizard when you decided you wanted to focus on melee combat, and when you reached fourth level, you decided to multiclass as a Fighter. Great! Except in order to multiclass, you have to have a 13 or higher in the primary attribute for the class you’re currently playing (Wizard, in this case) and in the class you intend to pick up (Fighter). So if you only have a 12 Str, you can’t multiclass as a Fighter. These stats are called your prerequisites.

You can see on the chart above what the primary attributes are for each class. So, for example, it’s easier to multiclass into a class you already have a high primary attribute in — so if you wanted to take a level of Paladin on your Warlock, you probably at least have that Charisma at or above a 13, but the Strength could be harder to come by unless you did your research in advance.

If you’re planning to multiclass from the jump, it might be worth it to put a strong stat in something you normally wouldn’t. If your Wizard starts off with the standard array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8, for example, and you’re planning to multiclass into Fighter later, you might want to put your 15 in Intelligence, your 14 in Constitution, and the 13 in Strength. That 14 in Con is because it’ll help with HP while you’re trying to get ready to switch classes — a reasonably high Con is good for every single class, that’s why it’s not considered a prerequisite for any class.

More doesn’t always mean… more

Now, certain things are pretty straightforward. Your Proficiency Bonus is always based on your character level, not your class level. So in the case of your Wizard/Fighter above, if you took three levels of Wizard before starting to take Fighter levels, and took two levels of Fighter, you’re a Wizard 3/Fighter 2, which makes you a 5th level character, and thus your Proficiency Bonus is a +3, just as it would have been for a 5th level Wizard or 5th level Fighter.

Okay, so what do you get, and what don’t you get when you multiclass? Well, for starters, you don’t get all the proficiencies. Each class has a certain amount of proficiencies like armor types, weapon types, and in the case of classes like Bards skills and musical instruments you learn by taking a level in the class, which you can find on pages 163 and 164 of the Player’s Handbook.

When you multiclass into a new class, you get the features of that class at that level except for some special circumstances. For example, if you already have Extra Attack (you’re a 5th level Barbarian who decides to multiclass into Fighter or Paladin, for example) then your Extra Attack from your Barbarian levels do not stack with Fighter or Paladin Extra Attack — if you’re a 10th level character with 5 Barbarian and 5 Fighter levels, you do not get another Extra Attack when you hit Fighter 5.

This is also the case for Channel Divinity — if you’re a Cleric who multiclasses into Paladin, you’ll get different types of Channel Divinity, but you only get extra uses of it when you gain a level in a class that specifically states it grants an extra use of Channel Divinity. Similarly, Barbarian and Monk Unarmored Defense (or any other kind of Unarmored Defense that might happen down the line if a new class with it is added) doesn’t stack, and in fact, you can’t even get another kind of Unarmored Defense if you already have it. So Barbarians who take levels in Monk don’t get to add their Dex, Con and Wisdom to their AC.

How spellcasting complicates multiclassing

Okay, you’re thinking — that’s a bit complicated, but I have a basic understanding.

Well, buckle up. We haven’t talked about what happens when you multiclass between two or more spellcasting classes. This is where it gets complicated. If you just have one spellcasting class — say, the Wizard/Fighter I mentioned above — then you may be thinking we’re good, I just have the one class that can cast spells, I just use the rules for that class and level. And you’d be right, unless you took (as an example) the Eldritch Knight subclass, which you did because you hate me.

I’m going to try and cover this now, but I won’t lie — you should definitely go look at page 163-164 in the PHB here. Basically, for this example, let’s assume you’re a 5th level Cleric/ 4th level Wizard. You are a 9th level caster, who can cast 4 Wizard Cantrips, 4 1st level spells, 3 2nd level spells, 3 3rd level spells, 3 4th level spells, and 1 5th level spell. However, as a 4th level Wizard, you only know up to 2nd level spells, and as a 5th level Cleric, you only know up to 3rd level spells. However, you can cast the spells you know using those spell slots, essentially casting a 3rd level Cleric spell at 5th level, for example. You still have to prepare your Wizard spells as normal, and your Cleric spells in the usual manner. You’ve sacrificed deeper knowledge of spells for a broader array including divine and arcane spells.

Multiclassing Pros and Cons

We’ve covered the basics, but I mentioned there were pros and cons to multiclassing. The pros are generally rooted in the flexibility it offers. If you want to be able to combine a Barbarian’s rage with a Champion Fighter’s ability to get a Critical Hit on a 19, for example, going Barbarian/Fighter multiclass has a lot of appeal. Why wouldn’t you do that? Why not give your Monk a Rogue’s ability to sneak attack?

Well, for starters, the deeper you get into a class, the more features of that class unlock. An 11th level Fighter gets a 2nd Extra Attack, which your Barbarian 3/Fighter 8 will not have and won’t get for three levels. Similarly, you won’t be getting the Barbarian’s extra rages, Brutal Critical ability, or Fast Movement — you’ve given up a lot of strength that Barbarians get at higher levels to play a hybrid character who gets to add Barbarian rage and the power of a Primal Path (but just the first ability) to the toolkit of a Fighter. You’ll get those Fighter abilities later than someone who just stuck with Fighter from the beginning, and you won’t ever get certain Fighter abilities at higher levels like that last Extra Attack that Fighters get at level 20.

Now, for most players, stuff at level 20 isn’t all that important — most campaigns don’t even reach level 20, and even if you did, the ability to use a Barbarian Rage while getting two uses of Action Surge is nothing to sneeze at. It really comes down to what you actually want to do with your character and how you imagine them, but it does have to be pointed out again, the complexities of a multiclassed spellcaster are not easily navigated for all players. But if you really want to roleplay a character who started out a raging Barbarian before learning how to sing and encourage her allies? Yeah, you can do that — just make sure your Barbarian has a Strength and Charisma above 13.

How Do Spell Slots Work With Multiclassing 5e Spells

Multiclassing might not be for you, but it exists if you’re feeling adventurous or have a character concept that just won’t be constrained by one class. For more resources, the folks at Critical Role did a pretty solid video explaining it here, and there’s lots of stuff available at D&D Beyond to help out.