D&D 5E Poll for PC's with 4 or more levels in a class.

[FrogReaver]

I'd be more interested in knowingwhy they MC.
Was it in pursuit of how the story was developing?
Or was it a "build" thing where no matter what, even if it didn't make any sense story-wise, the MCing was going to happen?

Well it's probly they started at level 1 with a multiclassing character in mind but incapable of achieving multiclassing at level 1. So most multiclassing doesn't flow from the story but from a pr defined character the player had inadequate resources to properly build without multiclassing. Also it doesn't help that 5e makes it pretty mechanically inefficient to multiclassing early (a few obvious exceptions).

 

[Hussar]

I'd be more interested in knowingwhy they MC.
Was it in pursuit of how the story was developing?
Or was it a "build" thing where no matter what, even if it didn't make any sense story-wise, the MCing was going to happen?

Bit of one, bit of another...

 

[Yardiff]

The last campaign I was in, which went to 8 lv, had 2 fighters (BM,EK), a warlock, a bard, and a thief. We had started with a monk and cleric as well but those players had bail for RL reasons. All were single class.

 

[Azzy]

I'm currently playing an 16th-level EK Fighter.

 

[Azzy]

I don't even think multiclassing in general is that popular. Half the groups I know don't even allow it.

But yeah, I also never had a multiclass fighter.

Multiclassing has been allowed in our current and our last campaign (which was our first 5e campaign), but no one has chosen to multiclass thus far.

 

[Azzy]

Wow. Barbarian, monk and druid really are the red headed step children here. Not much loving at all.

If it's any consolation, one of my friends (who doesn't post to forums) is playing a Monk in our current campaign, and I plan on playing a druid in our next one.

 

[smbakeresq]

The plural of anecdote is obviously not data. I've almost never seen anyone take more than 3 levels of fighter. Out of the 10 or so characters with fighter class we've had over the past three years, only 2 took more than 3 levels. But, as the poll pretty clearly shows, my group is the outlier here.

So, just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it's not true. The information that was being referenced can be found here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...t-Common-Race-Class-Combo-In-D-D#.Welf6TKRU8Q

Actually I saw it about 14 minutes after it came out, a friend of mine who works at 538 sent it to me.

I don't doubt the data, I doubt the conclusions that everyone is drawing from it.

1. The data was not controlled for anything - its just a data dump
2. It was not controlled for people who just tried the builder to see how it worked.
3. It was not controlled for experienced players who know that the fighter is the easiest class to build and thus used it to get to know the program
4. It was not controlled for whether or not people would actually play the classes they built.
5. It was not controlled for the positions of choices in the menus, that has an effect on what people choose.
6. It was not controlled for the experience of the player using the program - new will players will pick human due to familiarity.


I think WAY TO MUCH is being made of that data dump and article. My evidence is anecdotal because I didn't record every play session I have ever been in as part of a data study. However over 35 + years I have completed in a group off the top of my head most adventures in including ToEE (all the way) Scourge of the Slavelords (all modules twice) entire GDQ series (all the way, G more than once in more than one edition) Conan Modules, all the S series, WG4 and 5 (just read Castle Greyhawk) Age of Worms (playing through again in this 5e thanks to Tormyr) Savage Tide, Rise of the Runelords, PoTA and SKT mashup (with kids) etc. Tony Vargas (a fellow lifer) probably has the same experiences as me.

Fighters were the choice in 1e (best chance to survive) were just ok in 2e, were ok in 3e but really good when the Warblade and stuff came out, were really good in 4e, and are just ok in 5e. I would rather play a fighter or paladin or barbarian then most other classes as you are involved in the action more. While always present in a group in some form they have never been 1/3 of group. That's my point.

 

[smbakeresq]

I'd be more interested in knowingwhy they MC.
Was it in pursuit of how the story was developing?
Or was it a "build" thing where no matter what, even if it didn't make any sense story-wise, the MCing was going to happen?

That would be a better poll. For example, as a DM would you allow someone to start as a fighter then MC into a Barbarian? I am not sure as a being a Barbarian is not something that can be learned, its more of a product of the environment thing. But Barbarian MC into fighter, sure.

The MC now seems to mostly be about dipping into arcane to get booming blade and its like.

 

[Tony Vargas]

5. It was not controlled for the positions of choices in the menus, that has an effect on what people choose.

Barbarian, Bard, and Cleric are at the top of the menu, but they're kinda spread out in the rankings.

Other than that, yeah, all factors.

I think WAY TO MUCH is being made of that data dump and article.

My feeling is that it's like one of those studies that confirms the obvious. It may or may not be a good study, but it's easy to accept the conclusion, because it's, well, obvious.

Tony Vargas (a fellow lifer) probably has the same experiences as me.

Fighters were the choice in 1e (best chance to survive) were just ok in 2e, were ok in 3e but really good when the Warblade and stuff came out, were really good in 4e, and are just ok in 5e.

I think you're using 'good' here in the sense of effective or capable in some sense (you mention survival, for instance)? Once TWF & double-specialization became options, the fighter had an 'optimal DPR build' (long before that was a thing), so the 2e and late-1e fighters were powerhouses in that area. IMHO, the 5e fighter returns to that, it's just by a narrower margin, and shares the high-DPR laurels with several other classes, I guess it's also slower-maturing. The 3e fighter also had a couple of high-power builds that were arguably viable, or at least occasionally relevant, in spite of CoDzilla, but was, overall Tier 5, & the 4e fighter had the privilege of being a well-supported 'Defender' in a generally better-balanced iteration of the game. :shrug:

OTOH, the fighter design has gone from simplistic, to broken, to elegant, to specialized, to ...derivative, I think, is the only way to describe it succinctly. It's gone from toughness, to DPR, to customizeability, to defense-of-others, and back to DPR again. It's gone from balanced-by-items, to broken by optional rules, to optimizeable, to solidly supported in one role, to.
In Tier terms, even though they were invented specifically for 3.5, the fighter's roughly gone from Tier 5, to Tier 4, to Tier 5 (the only really valid data point in this chain), to Tier 3, to Tier 4.

It's been all over the map in a lot of ways, but it's consistently remained the most popular class. Same with human, though it's bounced around less, it's still consistently most popular.

It just dosn't seem plausible that you'd get consistent popularity from wildly varying roles, mechanics, support, balance, etc...

Thus, my conclusion is that Fighter and Human are popular because of an understandable preference for concepts that just don't fit into other classes or races. Familiar and/or relatable and/or prevalent-in-genre concepts.

 

[smbakeresq]

I do think Human would plummet in the rankings if Variant Human was not available among those who know the power of Variant Human.