True, but there’s a case for sorcerer (meta-magic) and paladin – anything where there’s not too big an investment of stats needed for power, and instead you can burn spell slots or similar.

The recent earth sorcerer comes to mind, 1 level dip in that means you can ignore dex entirely and use con for AC and int for init.

Spell slots synergises well with sorcery points too – more bang for your buck for that level 6th feature.

True, though wizard is currently one of the weakest multiclassing foundations – it’s the only Int-dependent full spellcaster, and the other Int-driven classes wouldn’t get the wizard those last three spell levels in six progression levels, I don’t think. Other multiclassing is possible with strong enough ability scores, but probably only the deep utility of low-level bards, clerics, or druids are even worth contemplating, in my view. Your thoughts?

The Shadow Sorcerer actually gets a hound given that they summon a Dire Wolf, but this is just named Hound. It’s not particularly Hound-like IMO, but just a name.

I am kind of bothered by pets more broadly, which start out as a pretty huge boost in power and drift towards being fairly useless to a liability at higher levels, depending on the pet. Familiars, for instance, do not improve with level, so they become area effect death bait. I’d have thought WotC would do a better job with making pets be useful and scale but not annoying. But no.

Ah, thanks. I didn’t realize Stormbringer was a two-handed sword, but that makes sense.

Elric of Melniboné.

Moorcock has a very particular writing style. I like it but it’s very specific.

More multi-capable characters work better in smaller groups. If you want to play a game with, say, two players, the standard D&D classes are too limited.

Lieber’s work is very worthwhile. I should reread Lankhmar but I’ll definitely take a look at the article you mention.

That’s a great story about Blackrazor. Thank you!

I don’t think you’ll find Brust’s Great Weapons to be overtly Moorcockian, and the writing style is very far from Moorcock’s in my view, but holy jeez is Brust a good read. I can be counted on to lift from Brust whenever I need new inspiration.

Yeah, I absolutely agree that characters from fiction – even tie-in fiction – don’t fit neatly into class-and-level boxes, and I think that’s fine. The funny thing about Lieber is that if he had published some of his just-for-fun creations, we might look to him, rather than Gygax, as the father of roleplaying games. Blog of Holding has the whole story on the original Lankhmar wargame-with-RPG-elements, if you haven’t seen it before.

Blackrazor is clearly a Stormbringer knockoff because it dates to 1978’s White Plume Mountain, though the stats may have drifted over time, but thanks for the reference to Brust. He was one of those people on my radar I simply never read. Obviously I need to change that!

Lots of heroes (or anti-heroes) of D&D inspiration don’t fit nicely. D&D had a lot of niche protection built in from the early days but mostly solo heroes rarely fit in one niche. If you look at the hero stats in the original Deities & Demigods they’re all multi-classed or dual classed to heck and gone. Elric, Conan, Fafhrd, the Mouser, are all statted and all have multiple classes. Lieber was clearly thinking of a more 3.X or 5E style multiclassing because Fafhrd has a bard level from his early training as a skald and the Mouser also has a wizard level or two. 🙂