D&D 5E Multiclass House Rule

KarinsDad said:

What's the archetype a half-elven magic-user/cleric supposed to be modeling in 1E or 2E for that matter? Answer: who cares?

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I wouldn't have asked if I didn't.

Nobody plays archetype fictional characters like Gandalf or Elrond in 1E, 2E, 3E, 4E, or 5E because the rules do not effectively model those archetypes. D&D Wizards are extremely different than the vast majority of fictional Wizards (unless it is a D&D novel).

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Or the sci-fi classic, The Dying Earth, thus 'Vancian,' I know. The point isn't how badly D&D models archetypes (admittedly, pretty badly - maybe not so bad with a lot of applied system mastery in 3.x or some re-skinning in 4e), but what archetype it's modeling (however badly) with a 1/2-elf cleric/magic-user in AD&D.

Now, if you want to model the system artifacts of 1e...
...well, you kinda can in other editions, if you apply some system mastery and re-skinning - my second 4e character was a rather satisfying callback to a 1e fighter/magic-user with a Wand of Fire - from 1st level, without ever finding said magic wand, for instance.

For a 5e cleric/magic-user, just bite the bulette and do it. Make good use of your cantrips, because they'll be justfinethankyou, heal, because that's what anyone with cleric spells did in AD&D, and cast the occasional situationally-useful classic low-level wizard spell as a ritual. You won't be outshining any full-class clerics or wizards, but you'll be contributing as much as anyone, and much more broadly than the non-casters.
Don't do it in some hardcore optimizer RAW campaign, you'd be non-viable, of course, but in a campaign were the DM is good with reprising such a classic PC and will be making the effort to evoke the classic game and make it fun for everyone.

(Yes, Good DM = all problems solved. I went there. No charge for that advice.)


Of course, as a DM, if you wanted to bring back classic-style MCing, you could - but I'd strongly recommend bringing back something like 1e's strict/low class/level limits to go with them.

Saelorn said:

Of course, the Elf would still be a level behind in their Mage class after they had capped their Cleric level at 12; and after they hit Mage 15 (when their fellow Human Mage was level 16), they just couldn't advance any further...

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...unless the campaign was using the DMG rules for exceeding level limits, in which case he could go up to IIRC wizard 19 if he had a high enough prime requisite.

Hemlock said:

That's still very abusable. A Cleric 1/Wizard 19 is already an attractive combination in 5E for heavy armor; but now you'd give them access to Revify and Death Ward as well (5% of 133 is 6 spell points, so 4th level spells). Now that wizard can Contingency: Revivify on himself ("whenever I die, Revivify me") as well as on any fellow PCs. Sure, he can only do it once per day, but you don't tend to need it frequently, and besides it's a lot more than the zero times per day he gets under PHB rules.

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You consider this a super powerful ability for a 20th level PC? Besides, a party Cleric at 20th level could create a chest full of scrolls of Death Ward and Revivifies and protect the entire party anyway.

Since the vast majority of attacks do not kill PCs outright, this doesn't seem earthshaking.

For example, Death Ward. Monster hits Wizard for 15 hit points when he has 10 hit points remaining. Wizard is at 1 hit point instead. Monster hits again and Wizard is still unconscious. So for a 4th level spell, the Wizard might sometimes last a fraction of a round longer. If the monster has no more attacks that round or misses with follow up attacks and/or another monster doesn't attack and hit the Wizard before the Wizard's init, sure, it might significantly help.

Contingency Revify? Sure, it sounds great on paper, but the Wizard is now conscious instead of dead. Yes, he is alive, but at 1 hit point and probably not conscious for long.

PS. DM ruling as to whether both Contingency and Death Ward both trigger when the Wizard dies from massive damage (course, that's not the only way to die). I would rule that both triggers fire off.

And how many 20th level PCs do people play?


The earliest level that a Wizard could get Death Ward is level 8 (Cleric 1 Wizard 7, 4 SP out of 27). He would have to cast one of his 2 4th level slots to protect himself. In our game, Wizards (even ones in heavier armor) don't often go unconscious unless the entire party is at risk. Sure, once in a blue moon, but Misty Step and Greater Invisibility and a group of PCs in front of them and such keeps them mostly out of harms way. So yes, he gains this cool ability, but most days it doesn't do anything other than use up a 4th level spell slot because most Wizards are rarely in real harms way. Oh and he cannot do any healing at ALL because he already used up all of his Cleric SPs for the day. Even at level 9, 4 SP out of 36 (1/9th). He can never cast both Death Ward and any other Cleric spell unless he takes a second level in Cleric. Even at level 20, 5% of 89 points = 4.45 SP or 4 SP.

He never gains more than 4 SP with a single level dip of Cleric.


Then again, that's the point of the thread. Is there a way to make such multiclassing viable? Your contingency example here, while cool and awesome sounding, is probably not that useful or potent in actual game play because there are SO many other things that a 20th level party can do. Or even a level 11 party, the first level at which a Cleric 1 / Wizard 10 could do this (fairly pricey at level 11 at 1800 GP and the PC might never die). Even if he dies from death saving throws, he comes back to life and 1 hit point will kill him again (since he failed 3 death saving throws already this encounter).

Yeah, I don't see where this is game breaking.

KarinsDad said:

You consider this a super powerful ability for a 20th level PC?

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Straw man alert.

I do however consider it to strengthen an already-strong package of abilities. In exchange for losing Signature Spell, you get a cleric domain ability like Preserve Life, ability to cast up to 4th level Cleric spells at need, and heavy armor proficiency (worth three ASIs).

And of course it's strong at every other level too, however early you take it. That is in fact why you see Cleric 1/Wizard X multiclass combinations instead of Cleric 5/Wizard 5. You get 90% of what you need from just a single level in cleric. All I'm doing is pointing out that your suggested rules tweaks don't change that dynamic.

But apparently you don't want design feedback, so okay, whatever.

Hemlock said:

Straw man alert.

I do however consider it to strengthen an already-strong package of abilities. In exchange for losing Signature Spell, you get a cleric domain ability like Preserve Life, ability to cast up to 4th level Cleric spells at need, and heavy armor proficiency (worth three ASIs).

And of course it's strong at every other level too, however early you take it. That is in fact why you see Cleric 1/Wizard X multiclass combinations instead of Cleric 5/Wizard 5. You get 90% of what you need from just a single level in cleric. All I'm doing is pointing out that your suggested rules tweaks don't change that dynamic.

But apparently you don't want design feedback, so okay, whatever.

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You seem to be arguing that because it makes multiclassing stronger, it is bad.

Earlier feedback in the thread said "Hey, a single level dip is super huge" hence the reason I made the houserule change suggestion. It was a valid criticism of the idea.

I am quite willing to take valuable feedback, but your two examples there were mostly, so what? At the higher levels where matters, they were fairly pedestrian abilities considering what PCs can do at those levels.

And yes, this does make Cleric 1 / Wizard X a better option than in core. No doubt. The question is whether it makes it so good that players would rarely take Wizard X+1. Doubtful, but possible for some min max players. I think it opens up a lot more multiclassing like Bard 1 / Wizard X where most players wouldn't do that.


Yes, your Contingency example DID sound on the surface like it was pretty sweet. But when carefully analyzed, one realizes that the primary way a PC dies is missing multiple death savings throws and in that case at 1 hit point, the PC is probably dead anyway. It helps more for death from massive damage (like maybe falling), but at the cost of not using Contingency for anything else and the fact that death from massive damage is probably relatively rare and there still are other PCs in the group to help with that. Pros and Cons.

Tony Vargas said:

I wouldn't have asked if I didn't.

Or the sci-fi classic, The Dying Earth, thus 'Vancian,' I know. The point isn't how badly D&D models archetypes (admittedly, pretty badly - maybe not so bad with a lot of applied system mastery in 3.x or some re-skinning in 4e), but what archetype it's modeling (however badly) with a 1/2-elf cleric/magic-user in AD&D.

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One could ask the question, what archetype it's modeling (however badly) with a 5E Dragonborn Warlock 2 / Paladin 10? That doesn't come off as modeling any type of archetype at all. But, a lot of players play something like that and they modify their character concept to match the D&D 5E rules. This archetype wasn't possible in 1E or 2E TMK.


The point is that nearly every player (except maybe some newbie) filters their PC concept via the rules of the game they are playing. Playing GURPS? Your concept is as good as those rules. Playing Rolemaster? Ditto.

I actually tried to model Sparhawk in 5E and was only slightly successful. The entire "unknown destiny" thing, for one, was impossible in 5E without the DM making up some house rule (like maybe permanent Nondetection spell up).

The very mechanics of a game system dictate what works and what does not work in it. Even something like Invisibility changed from D&D version to D&D version, hence, changing what is possible for a PC to do hence changing at least some portion of a PC concept. Max duration: 1E: potentially very long, days, weeks; 2E: 24 hours; 3E: 1 minute per level; 4E: end of next turn or standard action to prolong a turn; 5E: 1 hour. The very concept and viability of having a sneaky invisible wizard changes from edition to edition.


So yeah, I have no problem with Cleric X / Wizard Y in a 5E game where they are not heavily gimped because the player wanted to play a given concept.

Multiclassing rules are extremely limited in 5E, rewarding front loaded classes and smacking down spell casting classes. IMO. And virtually nobody takes: spell caster class 1 X / spell caster class 2 X because it's extremely limiting. I see that as a weakness of the multiclass rules, not a strength.

KarinsDad said:

You seem to be arguing that because it makes multiclassing stronger, it is bad.

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No.

KarinsDad said:

There is nothing to indicate that it was "rules artifact". I suspect that it was "Let's gives some races the ability to gain levels in two classes" and the rules followed by that.

Usually, the reason for the rule occurs first and the rules that seem to work follow.

Rules artifact implies that the rules were there first and the PC archetype followed.

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Possibly, but Cleric/Wizard was (IME) usually only a popular choice for the (half?)elves that had the stats for it...because....wait for it...."Level Limits"! Level limits have the (AFAICT) unintentional side-effect of really pushing demi-human multiclassing, because you really need to squeeze everything you can out of that character. You might be sitting quite a while trying to compete with people who are still leveling up. (Just had this issue in an AD&D campaign a year ago. Character who had already just capped out, actually used a Wish to be able to level up like humans in wizard.

Ok, so here is an Email that I sent to my group concerning this house rule (I wrote some other stuff, but this is the rules / examples / limitations section). I think that the limitations listed at the bottom of this do balance out the higher level spell casting capability quite a bit and does open up multiclassing to a wide number of class combos which normally would never be created.


Instead of using the chart for the class to determine which spells can be prepped, the multiclassing chart is used to determine which spells can be prepped, similar to how the multiclassing chart is currently used to determine which spell slots are available. This allows the PC to not fall behind on his spell casting levels, just because he decided to multiclass a little (or even a lot). However, this rule does need a throttle on it because otherwise, a Wizard 1 / Cleric 6 could cast 4th level spells in both classes. The throttle is that for PCs who do that, two new numbers are added to their character sheet: Spell Points for Class 1, Spell Points for Class 2. So, we multiple the number of first level spells by one, the number of second level spells by two, etc. to determine the total number of spell points. Those points are then divided by the two classes to determine how many spells can be cast from each class based on how many levels that class adds to the multiclassing spell level. Also, the PC can exceed the highest level spell he knows in each class.

For example:

Wizard 1 / Cleric 6

Cleric 7 can normally cast 4 1st, 3 2nd, 3 3rd, and 1 4th level spells. W 1 / C 6 can also cast that many spells, but the class has no 4th level spells and hence falls behind other 7th level PCs a bit.

There are a total of 23 spell points here (4 * 1 + 3 * 2 + 3 * 3 + 1 * 4). 1/7 of those points go to Wizard, so 3 Wizard spell points and 20 Cleric spell points.

So, the PC can cast 3 first level Wizard spells, one 1st and a 2nd, or 1 3rd level spell. The PC can also cast a 4th level Cleric spell and doesn't fall behind other PCs.


Example 2:

Wizard 6 / Cleric 6

The PC can cast 4 1st, 3 2nd, 3 3rd, 3 4th, 2 5th, and 1 6th spells. There are 35 SP so 17 Wizard SP and 18 Cleric SP (the remaining point goes to whichever class was created at first level, so normally this would be cleric)

The PC can cast a single 6th level spell. If he casts it as Wizard, he now has 11 Wizard SP and 18 Cleric SP.


Example 3:

Ranger 4 / Paladin 6


The PC can cast 4 1st and 2 2nd spells. There are 8 SP so 3 Ranger SP and 5 Paladin SP.

The PC can cast two 2nd level spells. He can use those two slots for one Ranger and one Paladin, or two Paladin slots. With the PHB rules, this PC would be limited to first level spells.



Example 4: Everett (Everett is a PC that was created when 5E first came out and we had limited understanding of the rules. The player felt like he lagged behind other PCs casting-wise and his Ranger abilities did not make up for that.)

Ranger 2 / Wizard 10


The PC can cast 4 1st, 3 2nd, 3 3rd, 3 4th, 2 5th, and 1 6th spells. There are 35 SP, but this PC is level 11 on the multiclassing spell chart, not level 12 (unlike classes that are full casting classes, Ranger is 1/2 casting level, 10 levels for Wizard, 1 level for Ranger). There are 35 SP with 1/11 Ranger, so 3 Ranger SP and 32 Wizard SP.

With the normal PHB rules, Everett could have cast as many first level Ranger spells as he wanted to, putting them into higher level spell slots. He could cast Cure Wounds over and over and over again. With this houserule, he can cast a max of 3 Ranger spells (it's a limitation, see below). On the other hand, Everett could also know and cast a 3rd level Ranger spell. Since 2nd level Rangers only get two total spells known, he would have to decide whether he wanted to know 2 first, 1 first and 1 second, or 1 first and 1 third (he could also do 1 second and 1 third, but then he could only cast one Ranger spell per day). He can cast higher level spells, but fewer Ranger spells overall per day. On the other hand, this PC can cast a 6th level Wizard spell.



You might ask, what are the downsides of this? Well, there actually are some that might not be obvious. This is not just free higher level spells, it has a cost.

1) MAD (multiple attribute dependency). In order to do this type of thing, the PC typically needs a 13 in two different ability scores which are not CON or DEX. So for example, having a 16 in Wis at level 1 and putting a 13 in Int means that 5 point buy points were used for Int instead of for Con or Dex or something else. This means maybe slightly lower AC, or slightly lower hit points, and maybe -1 in one or two saving throws. It gets even worse if the PC wants to have a decently high score in both Wis and Int to get good spell DCs and such.

2) ASI delay (Ability Score Improvement). ASI is that feature at levels 4, 8, 12, etc. where you get to buy a feat or bump up an ability score by 2 points. When multiclassing, those ASIs are delayed because although the PC might be able to cast slightly higher level spells than normal, he doesn't get the features of that slightly higher level PC in that class. In addition to this, the player already wants to bump up two spell casting ability scores, so delaying that many levels does throttle down how high save DCs and such are.

3) Other class feature delays. Bard 1 / Sorcerer 2 might be able to cast 2nd level Sorcerer spells, but the PC does not yet get metamagic. The PC is not truly a 3rd level Sorcerer.

4) Not necessarily able to cast all spells every single day. This doesn't always happen, but it could. In the Wizard 5 / Cleric 5 example, the PC could cast all of his spells but one single 4th level spell. He has 1 Wizard SP left over and 3 Cleric SP left over. He cannot cast a 4th level spell with either class, so he loses the spell slot. At the beginning of the day, the PC can cast whatever spells he wants. Near the end of the day, things get a little more restrictive. The PC might have to limit which spells that get cast, or he might end up in a situation where one spell slot gets lost. And, that's ok. It's the cost of being able to cast slightly higher level spells in both classes.

5) The ratio of spells cast is based on how many levels (that apply to the multiclass table) in each class. So instead of being able to cast all spells from one class, each class gets fewer spells cast per day in order to compensate for the ability to cast higher level spells. In a Wizard 6 / Cleric 6 scenario, half of the spells must be Wizard spells and half must be Cleric spells.

Hemlock said:

...unless the campaign was using the DMG rules for exceeding level limits, in which case he could go up to IIRC wizard 19 if he had a high enough prime requisite.

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In which case the game was just dominated be frikk'n elves all campaign long, and you'd want to play Talislanta just get away from them!

KarinsDad said:

One could ask the question, what archetype it's modeling (however badly) with a 5E Dragonborn Warlock 2 / Paladin 10? That doesn't come off as modeling any type of archetype at all.

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You don't start with a combo, you start with an archetype, a concept. If no one class can do it, MCing is an option.

You said 5e couldn't do the old cleric/magic-user 'archetype,' but as you've now pointed out, /that's not an archetype/, it's a mechanical choice.

The point is that nearly every player (except maybe some newbie) filters their PC concept via the rules of the game they are playing. The very mechanics of a game system dictate what works and what does not work in it.

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So, that cleric/magic-users 'worked' in AD&D doesn't make them an archetype that 5e must make 'work' as well. What would make an even combo something that should work in 5e would be an heroic concept or archetype that needs it.

Say you want a Conan. He was a barbarian who became a thief, a pirate, and a king. Those are some heterogenous skillsets, there, and he maybe could do with more than one class... a lot of Giants in the Earth write-ups completely broke the rules to model characters from fiction, because 1e MCing wasn't remotely up to the challenge.

Multiclassing rules are extremely limited in 5E, rewarding front loaded classes and smacking down spell casting classes. IMO. And virtually nobody takes: spell caster class 1 X / spell caster class 2 X because it's extremely limiting. I see that as a weakness of the multiclass rules, not a strength.

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They seem much less limiting and catch-22 - for casters, anyway - than they did in 3.5 (compared to 4e it's wild west), there's no favored class, no exp penalties, caster level is character level and determines save DC & cantrip scaling, combined caster level determines slots... compared to an evenly-advancing caster/caster in 3.5, who was like two casters standing next to eachother, taking turns, it's amazing.

Now consider that as far as ASIs and Extra Attack go, 5e's every bit as bad as 3.5 was for casters...