D&D 5E A Thought about 5e Multi-classing...

[Starman]

I really want 5E's multiclassing to be similar to 3E. It wasn't perfect (stacking of saves and issues with spellcasting), but I think the freedom it allowed was awesome. It should be up the GM and players to decide if they want to disallow characters with a half-dozen classes.

 

[GX.Sigma]

It just stuck in my "flavor/fluff" craw. I don't fully understand how it worked...Did you have to train with someone of a completely different occupation than you started with? How long did that take? Or did you just wake up one day and suddenly have all of the bells and whistles of the new class at level 1?

Compare the following situations:

• A Wizard gains a level and suddenly knows new spells.
• A Fighter gains a level and suddenly can cast spells.
• A Fighter (but only a human one) gains a level and suddenly can cast spells, and also suddenly sucks at fighting.

Let's be honest, the only time it ever really made sense was BD&D style, where experience was distributed at the end of the adventure, and characters gained levels between adventures (representing a long period of time including training, spell research, etc.). So it's really a campaign style issue.

 

[variant]

I say get rid of multiclassing altogether and add a prestige class module for people that want to branch out into other classes.

 

[Frostmarrow]

If a character is the result of these factors: race, class, background, and theme maybe multi-classing isn't really necessary.

Obviously you can't change your race permanently and also your background is pretty much set in stone.
You probably can change your class and your theme. Imagine a fighter with a noble theme. He starts meddling with the dark arts and drops noble in favor of mystic, so now he is a mystic fighter, a swordsman with a few magic tricks. The character continues to develop and drops fighter all together and becomes a fully fledged wizard with a swordsman theme.

How would having several classes fit into this? Maybe theme is the Moon to the single classed Earth (discretely making all characters multi-classed.)

 

[ren1999]

I like Pathfinder's multi-classing way.

Just gain enough experience points to advance in the 1st level of a new class. Add the hit point allowance of that class.

This does not make players too powerful over other players. If anything, they are less powerful because fighter damage is balanced with wizard damage. Wizards can do burst damage but in my house rules, fighter classes can attack an additional adjacent foe after several level-ups.

Nor does allowing players to choose from a list of known encounter or daily powers make them too powerful as long as you restrict their encounter and daily uses of those powers.

I would add, restrict all players to a total of 30 levels before they can chose to become an immortal, retire, or just stay at 30th and continue to adventure.

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[BobTheNob]

I just love the idea. SO many things in dnd sound so great when you first read about them and use them, then lose a lot of there luster over time. I thought 3e multiple classing was the business. We played 3e tabletop campaign for years, I played my way through nun 1 & 2 and a whole lot of ddo. After all of that, the idea has just left a bad taste in my mouth.

This idea (with every one having multiple classes) works nicely in my mind...but could I add one thing? Consider making kits into classes which require the base class. For instance, a fighter(base class)/bezerker(kit) allowing an established image of a bezerker style character.

 

[Falling Icicle]

We know the math in 5e is going to be very different from 3e, with a greater emphasis on ability scores and much more gradual increases from leveling. Depending on how they do it, 5e might avoid alot of the problems that plagued 3e multiclassing, like odd stacking of attack/save bonuses.

I also hope that, like in 4e, there will be no "caster level" on spells. The revelation that fireball will do a flat 5d6 base damage and not scale with level seems to indicate that there won't be caster levels in 5e. If there aren't caster levels that will also solve one of the biggest problems with multiclass spellcasters in 3e.

The other big problem with multiclassing in 3e was that some of the classes were front-loaded with special features and you could get many of the best things a class had to offer by just taking one level in it. This problem can easily be avoided with good class design and/or Star Wars Saga Edition-like talent trees for the classes.

I think the developers are well aware of the problems 3e multiclassing had and will do their best to avoid them this time around. If not, we'll have plenty of opportunities to enlighten them during the public playtest.

 

[steeldragons]

I'd prefer if "established tough adventurer" is somewhere around 5th level, so 1 level in any given class is kinda dinky. And then I'd start most of my games at 5th level.

Sure. 5th sounds reasonable.

So you want everyone to multiclass because it is overpowered?

Oh! Gods no! I'm not saying everyone should multiclass...only that they could if that's the kind of character they want. Single classed characters, especially with whatever little tidbits background and theme are going to add to your concept, are definitely what I would prefer to see in my games. The multiclassed/trained individual would/should be a unique or at least uncommon phenomenon.

I would also, expand on the original idea to perhaps include that you can only multiclass with one of them being the base-4 classes.

Fighter/Rogue = OK.
Fighter/Assassin = OK (a bit redundant, maybe, but OK).
Paladin/Assassin = NOT ok.
Fighter/Mage = OK.
Mage/Ranger = OK.
Ranger/Necromancer = NOT ok.

And then, when you're high enough to tack another class on, you're done multiclassing. 3 tops. No more 5 or 6 different levels of all kinds of things.

A few prestige classes or "trees" to specialize oneself with what they have...A Fighter/Rogue...who then wants to add some Assassin in the mix, fine. Then your DM can whip up a "Shadowswords Assassin Guildsman" to give you a few extra bells and whistles or some such.

The Ranger/Mage...tacks on some Illusionist and becomes an "Arcane Archer of the Unseen" or some such.

But that's all getting into the implementation of the idea...and the point of the thread is really just the idea in/of itself.

--SD

 

[Crazy Jerome]

As written, I've never seen anything as clear, easy to use, and reasonably well tied to the thing it attempts to model as Dragon Quest professions (its classes). You can advance in as many as you want, at whatever pace you want, independently, within the limits of your XP. (And if you practice it RAW, within the limits of practice--not having 1 day of practice per month per profession meaning that you are in peril of losing ground.)

The problem with that model for D&D is exactly why D&D has always struggled on the multiclass issue: DQ doesn't imbed weapon or spell use into the professions, the professions being more concerned with "skills". A "ranger" is a character that has all kinds of skills in the wild. Magic intersects with this, and some of the "skills" are explicitly called out as "quasi-magical," but the main identify of a great warrior, rogue, or caster is not tied directly to the professions at all.

I don't see how D&D can use the DQ model more or less straight without sacrificing its D&D-ness. But I don't see how D&D can reconcile tying all the fundamental building blocks to class without encountering problems with multiclassing, either.

 

[Firzair]

I'd like a mix of 2E and 3E.
Upon reaching the xp needed to advance a level, you can choose to start a new class career. You "spend" half the xp required for reaching second level to gain the first level class features in that class. From that point on all xp gained is distributed evenly on your careers. All general variables you get from every class (hit points, defenses/saves etc.) will only use the better stats or will be halfed (I wouldn't like this).

Example:
Hypothetical classes
Fighter, hit dice per level 1d10, saves fort +1, will +0, ref +0
Features: attack +1 at every odd level, defense +1 at every even level, 1 bonus feat every odd level

Wizard, hit dice per level 1d6, saves fort +0, will +1, ref +0
Features: arcane caster +1 per level, +1 magic feat per 3 levels

So using the 1000xp per level rules from 3E you could go like this:
- 1st level fighter 10 hp, fort +1, attack +1, defense +0, 1 fighter bonus feat
- at 1000xp he chooses to also become a wizard, reducing his xp for fighter to 500 and starting a wizard class with 0 xp. From the wizard level he gains +1 will (higher than fighter level 1 will +0), +1 arcane caster level, he rolls hitpoints but a they are lower than the starting 10 from fighter 1 he ignores that
- 1000 xp later (split for both classes) he advances 1 level as fighter, gaining 1d10 hitpoints (he rolled a 3), +1 defense plus perhaps some saves progression.
- 1000 xp later he advances as wizard, rolls 1d6 for hitpoints (rolls 6 which is 3 better than 3 and raises his maximum hintpoint by 3), +1 arcane caster level
- 3000 xp later he becomes a fighter 3 (3000 xp) / wizard 2 (2500 xp) and gains 1d10 hitpoints, +1 attack, +1 fighter bonus feat

The pure fighter would be level 4 with 6000 xp having more hitpoints, +1 to defense and probably other features that came with the 4th level.

An alternative could also be to let the xp be used for training, advancing every class individually but only gaining the classes individual features if the class level isn't the highest one.