Pacts with Arch-Fiends

This article exists as a part 2 to a Form of Dread Article, found here

https://formofdread.wordpress.com/2022/11/02/devil-pacts-how-to-dip-warlock-on-a-warlock/

Essentially, this forces us to take a level into fiend warlock, detailed explanation from the person who found this above.

This also includes info on how we can get access to magic items, which is mentioned later.

Subclass Swap

When we reach level 20, we can take a deal with an arch-devil and be forced to take levels into fiend warlock. “At least 1” is stated, meaning we could take more. This might allow us to take 20 levels at a time, but the amount at a time does not matter much, as once we have a simulacrum giving us pacts it’s just a matter of spending some downtime. At this level we should have plenty of downtime, and if not we can often make choices to procure more of it, usually by being exhaustion immune and skipping long rests.

Changing your subclass reads as follows

“Each character class involves the choice of a subclass at 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level. A subclass represents an area of specialization and offers different class features as you level up. With your DM’s approval, you can change your subclass when you would normally gain a new subclass feature. If you decide to make this change, choose another subclass that belongs to your class and replace all your old subclass features with the features of the new subclass that are for your new level and lower.”
(Quick note, this means we need DM permission, but that’s a lot of this game)
[https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/tcoe/character-options#ChangingYourSubclass]

Particularly of interest here is “choose another subclass that belongs to your class”, and how it pertains to multiclassed characters.

Say we are a chronurge 15 and take 3 levels into artificer. Not very optimal at this moment, but this is just a demonstration. This gives us the option to change our artificer subclass to a new subclass belonging to our class. This could be a different artificer subclass, or it could be a wizard subclass, as wizard is ‘our class’. With this, we can become a chronurgy wizard with 3 levels in conjuration wizard. With this, conjuchron is real.

Note that a conj3/chron 15 is still an 18th level wizard.

“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.”

This means that we can learn 9th level spells with this split.

If we can do this at level 2, because it would be a new subclass feature for the one we’re swapping to but not the class we’re in, is a bit uncertain. Simmilarly, we likely can’t swap from 1 level of cleric into a level of something that doesn’t get a subclass til level 2 or 3. We might even need to wait til the next subclass feature on artificer. Swap with caution at this stage, we should plan carefully to become the ultimate lifeform.

Leveling+ :

this gets wackier when we come back to leveling beyond level 20. If we’re a classic build, lets say, cleric 1 wizard 19, then get forced to take levels into fiend warlock via our pacts with arch-devils that are actually us.

We can then take some levels into fiend warlock, then swap to wizard levels. then take more levels into fiend warlock.

worth noting that there’s nothing written officially for going beyond level 20, but we do possess the benefits on the classes individually, and that nothing states leveling would not continue as described, just that we don’t get there via XP.

This means that through fiend leveling, we can accomplish levels far beyond the norm. to a hypothetical maximum of every subclass in the game, meaning level 2,120. The catch here is that we need to have at least one level in that class before hitting 20th, and we can’t get true polymorph if we take every subclass. Warlock is free because of how the deal works, but that leaves us choosing a select number of class dips pre level 20.

For wizard. We can take 20 levels into every wizard class with just 17 levels in wizard [or less, if we can bridge the gap to getting an arch devil without true polymorph]. We could then pick 3 classes to dip to level into, plus warlock. Cleric is a strangely good pick here, as they have the most subclasses in the game. Warlock is free so we don’t need the charisma for it. Even if we do need charisma, it’s possible to take pacts for very rare magic items and below, allowing us to raise our charisma to a point we could multiclass. This is useful for other possible multiclass options.

One issue that comes up; do subclasses stack with eachother? So, do we get more spell slots? If 2 subclasses give us the same feature and they’d stack normally, can we use both? The answer here seems to be ‘who knows’. I will give explanations for both, it makes sense intuitively that a level 40 wizard has more slots than a level 20, but the multiclass table maxes out at 20th. It however says to ‘refer to the table’ not that 20 is strictly the max slots available. Meanwhile, hitdice don’t cap anywhere. Aura of Protection, RAW, also stacks with itself. So if we have 6 levels in pally and 6 levels in another pally, we have gained the feature twice.

choices for fiend leveling

Main class: Wizard, Bard,

Wizard, Bard, and Warlock are the only 3 classes that can pick true polymorph. This means we need to pick one of them, Wizard being the best in my opinion as it has more multiclassing freedom as well as an easier time getting to this point. Warlock is the worst, as it limits our fiend leveling because we gain warlock levels for free.

Notice for Arcana Cleric that they can take true poly and enjoy the limit-breaker leveling as well.

Dip choices, Graded
(Skip if you just want to bypass this for now)

Wizard: A+++
Subclasses: 13
Wizard is obviously really good, and if you’re not using it to main class, dip it before you hit 20th. they have a ton of subclasses that continue to be useful into epic tiers. Abjuration ward, conjuration tech, chronurgy tech, bladesinging GITM, hexvoker, war wizard buffs on conc, school of illusion’s 14th allowing insane control potential, order of scribes allowing for easy spell scribing and life-saving spell books, diviner portents, and so on. Wizard has so many great subclasses that using them together makes you even more unstopable.

Artificer: C+
Subclasses: 4
Artificer can make some magic items, which we don’t need if we’re using demon deals. It also only has 4 subclasses, by far the least. The spells aren’t particularly useful either. infusions may have some niche uses, but not much at this point. The best thing here is that we get access to more attunement slots. this maxes out at 6. Still there’s some useful defense potential with magic items, keeping artificer somewhere in the race.

Bard: B-
Subclasses: 8
Bard doesn’t stack especially well with itself, and has an average number of subclasses. inspiration is good, kind of. The thing that saves bard from going into mediocrity is creation bard. Creation bard can be used to spike damage using catapult munitions and keep things conj wizard can’t keep on hand on hand for longer. together they’re the master of item creation meta. Item creation meta, however, falls off over time. Other notable features include eloquence inspiration, whispers bard psychic smite, and cutting words for save or suck spells. Generally these fall behind wizard abilities and don’t provide as much as some later entries, but it’s not ‘bad’.

Barbarian: D
Subclasses: 8
Rage keeps us from concentrating on spells and from casting them, the defense from it is minimal compared to other things.
Extra attack isn’t useful since we have bladesinger
reckless attack seems redundant
one benefit we can get out of it is unarmored defense, given our stats can eventually hit 30 in all of them (or more, even) we can have 30 standing AC (or more)
We can also gain 10ft bonus movement speed. at this point this is about as notable as a wet fart. you’ll notice it, but it’s not making your day

Bloodhunter: F-
Subclasses: 4
“See me after class” implies I want to see you at all, get out of my sight

Cleric: B
Subclasses: 14
Cleric is a decent choice just because it has so many subclasses, leaving plenty of space for levels down the line. Access to spells is good, and some of their features are very useful. This gives us access to divine intervention later as well, which would be useful. Cleric also happens to be a good 1st level dip on wizard anyway.

Druid: B-
Subclasses: 7
Notable for druid is shepherd druid having magic conjure animals, and perhaps more relevant, moon druid’s ability to wildshape into powerful statblocks. this wouldn’t work with GITM, but would be a good back up option once we’re de-meched as it were. wildshaping into a mighty servant is true death so never do it.

Fighter: A-?
Subclasses: 10
Fighter is weird in this situation. Action surge is good, fighting styles are alright. Having access to extra attack [4] is great for GITM and their at-will capacity, especially considering death zero. The best pure martial dip for sure

Monk: D
Subclasses: 10

unarmored movement, unarmored defense, Ki stacks ontop of slots, but doesn’t cast much that’s useful

Paladin: A+
Subclasses: 9
Assuming main class features can stack if they’re able to RAW with multiple of the same class in a party, pally is weirdly good here. Watchers aura to initiative is great, but the biggest boon here is that we get aura of protection 9 times over 54 levels, allowing us to have a flat +100 to every save before proficiency.

Oathbreakers ability to control undead could also be very useful, similar to necromancy wizard’s ability to do so

Smites are ok.

Ranger: F
Subclasses: 8
Gloomstalker adds one attack on first round, otherwise who cares

Rogue: B?
Subclasses: 9

Decent if you’re already into fighter and want to squeeze out damage, assassin for crits and so fourth. Also a decent damage reduction move for late game, but at this point it’s very unnecessary. Cunning action and thief hands is ok, but there’s a lot that’s better around.

It does become one of the only ways to continue scaling damage after fighter 20. There’s also the interpretation that sneak attack continues to stack since there is no duration. meaning if we max all our rogue subclasses we can sneak attack for 90d6 at a time, and we can double it with a crit from assassin rogue’s abilities on surprise or simply landing a crit in another way.

Sorcerer: A
Subclasses: 7

metamagic and sorcery points gives us more spells per day and higher nova potential. quickening a spell then using an attack action has actual use here. Subtle spell keeps us safe from counterspellers and makes our counterspells better.

Warlock: ∞
Subclasses: 9
Literally required and forced for any of this to work, it also gives pact magic which stacks with our spell slots. Invocations could be used for stacking agonizing blast, though, are likely hard stuck at 8 total, since they’re tied to total warlock level.

Warlock may also contain the best damage scaling in this newfound world of levels beyond 20, if we assume invocations stack from all subclasses and we take agonizing for all of them, we reach truly ridiculous numbers. a level 180 all subs warlock’s eldritch blast, who takes all agonizing, does 4 beams of 1d10+720 damage.

some good class breakdowns going into level 20/21 with the tech so far would be:
“Double Holy Battle Mage”
Wizard 17
Pal1
fighter1
Cleric1

plenty of room to level into, pal 6 nine times gives us 9 auras of protection, high AC, gets fighters quad attack, and clerics 14 subclasses have great 1st levels, though again, tends to get out-scaled.

Don’t forget, we’re always leveling into warlock

[Yes this means the holy classes have a use again, blasphemy series aside. The math changes significantly when you have the chance to get every subclass at once and it’s not costing you caster progression]

“Maximum Mana”
Wizard17
Sorcerer1
Artificer1
monk1

Wizard 20 / Sorcerer 20 / Artificer 20 gives us 6 magic item attunements, metamagic, and wizards list. Monk gives us unarmored defense, ki as bootleg magic, and extra speed. Less good at directly pummeling enemies, but defeats enemies via default kills and out-thinking them more than raw firepower. despite having the full firepower of all 13 wizard subclasses and hexblades curse with evoker magic missile with max stats.

Magic Jar Class Bypass

Wanna learn every subclass of paladin but didn’t take any levels in pally before you hit 20? Do you hate your fellow players? I have a win/win solution for you. introducing Magic Jar Class Limitbreaker Bypass Tech, or MJCLB.

Magic jar states
“Once you possess a creature’s body, you control it. Your game Statistics are replaced by the Statistics of the creature though you retain your Alignment and your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You retain the benefit of your own class feature. If the target has any class levels, you can’t use any of its Class Features.”

So how is that helpful?

Well, we can’t -use its class features- but that doesn’t mean we aren’t that class. This allows us to qualify as a certain class for the purposes of subclass changing.

With a little teamwork and/or PVP, we can take levels in every class. this comes up to 116 subclasses, or 120 if you count bloodhunter, it does make the max level of 2400 look nicer. This is the most useful part of bloodhunter multiclassing at this point.

at level 2000 we’re sitting on over 28,000 HP, and over 32,000 at level 2400.

Conclusion

Levels beyond level 20 and up to 2400 are possible RAW.

Conjuchron is real

Magic items up to very rare can be gotten by selling your soul to yourself

Eat your friends souls to take levels in their class

I don’t expect this to pass in most games, but if you want to go beyond level 20 in your game and don’t know what homebrew to use, why not use RAW?

Thanks for reading.