D&D 5E Full classes and Half classes

Steely_Dan · Sep 28, 2012

Umbran said:
Whether it works or not, people won't like it, and will call it a half-classed attempt...

Ha, exactly, when I first saw this thread title I almost read Full asses and Half asses, classic.

I like the proposal, a nifty little multiclass table, and it sounds like PrCs will work in a similar way.

Minigiant · Sep 28, 2012

Steely_Dan said:
Ha, exactly, when I first saw this thread title I almost read Full asses and Half asses, classic.

I like the proposal, a nifty little multiclass table, and it sounds like PrCs will work in a similar way.

Yeah. Essentially multi classing would be take a "weaker" Prc version of base class.

Mattachine said:
Many folks won't like it, because it is straight from 4e.

Yup. Doomed from the start. /sarcasm

keterys · Sep 28, 2012

Weirdly, I think it would be possible to use 3e's multiclassing mechanic safely as long as you changed classes so that levels gave you about the same amount every level and were all linear.

One benefit there is you would be reducing what you get with a level by a lot, so early levels would have you be pretty ineffective; way easier to play your farmers forced into heroism, caravan guards stepping up from earning their paycheck, barmaids with a sturdy iron, etc.

One downside there is that, well, early levels being effective makes people think they suck. As easy as it is to start higher level, people are bad at it. It does work in systems like Mutants and Masterminds, though. If you tell people "Heroes start at level 6, so that's where we expect default games to start. Commoners start at level 1, so that's a good spot for grittier games or for learning the system. If just learning the system, consider leveling up very rapidly."

They're definitely not doing that though - see quadratic casters, frontloaded classes... and I can't imagine them coming close to doing that, so... I'm a little baffled about what the plan is here, but hey. The road is interesting.

Jeff Carlsen · Sep 28, 2012

I think that a more nuanced multiclass version of a class could work very well, but it does feel more complicated. But, with bounded accuracy in play and feats and skills mostly divorced from classes, the multi-class version are really about grabbing class features, so will likely be fairly simple.

All that said, I still kind of like the idea of having a level 0 for each class that has to be taken with multi-classing.

Minigiant · Sep 28, 2012

How about this as a multi/dualclass/hybrid class

Code:

[B]Level | HD | Weapon Attack | CS Dice | Class Features[/B]
 -1 | 1d8 | +1 | None |  
 0 | 1d10 | +2 | 1d4 |  Combat Expertise, Deadly Strike  
 1 | 1d10 | +2 | 1d4 | Parry
 2 | 2d10 | +3 | 1d6 | 
 3 | 3d10 | +3 | 1d6 | Fighting style 
 4 | 4d10 | +4 | 1d8 | Fighting style 
 5 | 5d10 | +4 | 2d8 | Fighting style

This way it take 4 level levels to be a full fighter package of the same level normal fighter.

Crazy Jerome · Sep 29, 2012

Assume that this idea can be made to work cleanly. Now double the number of class levels in each class chart, making the "half" levels the odd ones and the "full" levels the even ones. Start all single-class characters at level 2. How is this different, functionally, than the original idea, except for abandoning fractional class levels?