multiclass your... FIGHTER!!
Before you’ve even chosen a subclass, you have proficiency in all weapons and all armor (including shields), your fighting style, your Second Wind, and an Action Surge. Most of the fighter’s other features are Extra Attacks, and at one point the ability to reroll a failed saving throw.
Among subclasses: Arcane Archer gets special options for their arrows, Battle Master gets equally badass options for “superiority maneuvers,” Cavalier mostly gets advantages and disadvantages against melee enemies, Champion gets an improved critical and an additional fighting style, Eldritch Knight bonds with a melee weapon and gains abjuration and evocation casting, and Samurai mixes bonus skills with temporary HP and temporary advantage on weapon attacks.
You should expect to be getting hit a lot. Most fighters spend their time in melee range, so if you multiclass into a caster, you better have a killer Constitution. Don’t go after a caster class like wizard or sorcerer, whose hit dice are a mere d6. You need every hitpoint you can get, and if you like spellcasting, you should just take the Eldritch Knight subclass instead.
Druid is also not your best bet unless you choose a Circle that lets you use Wild Shape to do something that isn’t turning into an animal, because all your fighter skills are centered around weapon attacks and being a beast won’t help you with that.
Bards get a d8 for hit dice, so they’re a safer bet if you’re choosing a caster class. Those low-level spells will cost you an action except for Healing Word, so in combat, you should favor the use of healing and Bardic Inspiration as bonus actions while you attack with your action. Outside combat, bard gets you skills and post-combat healing.
Most of the nice parts of being a monk at low levels have to do with the perks to being unarmored. But you’re already proficient in all armor, so unless you have a good Dex and a sweet Wisdom it may not be worth it, even for the unarmored movement perk–seeing as how you can’t use a shield with these abilities either. Ki points can still be nice to get a bonus action, but the unarmed attack damage just isn’t worth it for Flurry of Blows when you have an Action Surge that does functionally the same thing, but with stronger weapons.
This is a perfectly good multiclass, but there’s nothing about ranger that is especially well-suited to fighter. You’ll get extra skills and languages, and an additional fighting style, but that’s about it at early levels. If you pushed it to 3rd level, the ranger archetype you choose could definitely change that, but until then the ranger doesn’t offer much to enhance the fighter’s existing abilities–unless you’re a Samurai, in which case, the emphasis on skills and languages is perfect for you.
You can definitely make this one work for you, but except for Hex, most of the spells that do the most for you are Actions, which means at best expending an Action Surge to cast a spell and at worst having to use your whole action–and because it’s not the Attack action, you don’t get to use your Extra Attack. It’s not really an ideal build unless you’re in it for Hex and the Eldritch Invocations, or if you go for the Hexblade pact, which improves you in melee combat to some degree.
Multiclassing HELL YEAHs:
Cleric is great if you do one thing–you choose a combat-oriented Divine Domain at first level, when you first multiclass. Like bard, you should use your spell slots on bonus-action healing and out-of-combat work, but if you’re War Domain, for instance, you can Attack as a bonus action and at 2nd level use Channel Divinity to add a +10 to an attack roll. This is a great multiclass to use for damage output with a little healing on the side.
There’s nothing outstanding about this multiclass…except Reckless Attack granting advantage on every attack…so at 11th level, you get 3 Attacks per action, and on an Action Surge you get six total Attacks on your turn, greatly increasing your chances of a critical hit–and if you have a Champion’s Improved Critical those odds double. Not to mention that when you rage, you halve most weapon damage and deal additional damage. Not ideal for the Eldritch Knight, though.
This multiclass is really nice to blend the benefits of cleric and barbarian–additional damage and additional healing, even if both are a little less powerful than when you pick one. Lay on Hands can help you keep yourself (but more importantly your allies) standing–despite being an action, sometimes it’s worth it to keep your cleric from going down, and it’s a last resort anyway. You’ll also get a second fighting style and use your spellcasting to deal radiant damage or smite your enemy. This could blend especially well with the Eldritch Knight, since you can cast your knight and paladin spells in either class’s slots.
Sneak Attack and Cunning Actions are excellent for your fighter’s existing abilities, especially if you’re a Cavalier (tell me it’s not hysterical to imagine taking a bonus action to hide while mounted…but seriously, you can gain advantage against enemies which gets you sneak attack!) And you’ll get skill bonuses through Expertise!
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