D&D 5E Ability Score Requeriments for Multiclassing, yay or nay?

[Ahnehnois]

This resonates very strongly with me. I prefer PC building to be as transparent as possible, with options doing what they say on the tin.

There are a lot of examples of this. Several of the original 3e classes offer virtually no useful class abilities at high levels (fighter, sorcerer, cleric, really most of them to a lesser extent) while prestige classes are almost always superior options. So playing a straight fighter/sorcerer/etc. becomes obviously suboptimal, and prestige classes become virtually mandatory. Easily fixable.

Conversely, there are also a variety of classes (fighter and monk jump to mind) that offer wide-reaching benefits for characters of other classes at early levels, and encourage dipping. Again, easily fixable.

 

[Cyberen]

Thank you, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], for putting the thread back on its rails !
I will say again here what I was saying in the "new packet" thread :
1) Free multiclassing yields to a free-for-all market where every level of every single class compete with each other. It means at least 10 classes x 20 level (discounting subclasses) available choices at each level ! It is clearly untractable by the design team, and the average player. System mastery and charop rule.
2) Multiclassing is easy to reign in : rather than inventing arbitrary limitations on requirements, simply state you have to level up X times in the same class in a row (for dual classing), or alternatively in each of your class for AD&D-style multiclassing. Hybrid classes being supported out of the box would also go a long way, as well as custom class design.

 

[Nellisir]

You (Nellisir) have tried to head-off concerns about mechanical effectiveness as a distinct and important category of effectiveness by you remarks about the GM being able to beat any PC, and challenging all the players and giving all the PCs spotlight time. But those strategies only work (I think) in a game which is very heavily GM driven and correspondingly passive on the player side.

I'm not sure that I agree - or perhaps I do, but that style of disinvolved DMing is more CRPG than I practice. I do tweak encounters on the fly to make them more interesting; I don't just play them right out of the book. I don't believe that requires passive players.

The DM sets the entire world for the players. Sight, sound, smell, sensation, encounters, challenges, difficulties. If a rogue wants to become a paladin, that suggests that at some point, an order of paladins was introduced and given some detail -- probably by the DM. That doesn't mean that the players can't dictate their actions within the world - they can and should. They choose where to go, what to do, what quests to take up or drop, etc.

I see my job as taking the players' choices and making them interesting and meaningful. Every player should have fun. If you're not having fun, then we need to talk and figure out what the problem is. Maybe your character hasn't had much to do recently. You could take a level of fighter, or I could put a few more traps into the game. The first implicitly validates the view that you made bad choices. The second acknowledges my role in making your choices meaningful.

In a more player driven game, a player who wants his/her PC to be effective in genre terms also needs to have adequate mechanical effectiveness.

The more you remove DM judgement and oversight from the game, the more mechanical effectiveness matters in validating a player's choice. That makes sense.

I'll be honest; I'm used to homebrew adventures and house ruling things. I don't do pre-written adventures; at least, not without a lot of customization. As I said at the beginning, I don't believe that requires player passivity. My job isn't to tell my story, it's to make sure everyone has fun (and your job is to also make sure everyone has fun) and if we're lucky, we all have a story. Without a fixed script for the adventure, it's impossible for anyone to get off track or miss the adventure - if that adventure doesn't suit, we'll try a different one.

(And as far as beating PC's...it's not something I advocate. But there are players that see the game as an adversarial relationship, where their job is to "beat" the DM, and that doesn't work for me.)

Edit: I write this, and then I see this on the WotC site..." Its goal is to present combat as a challenging puzzle that pits the players against the DM, capturing the best parts of 4th Edition." http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130923

Edit edit: This sounds cool, though: " An optional system that cranks up character customization by allowing players to build their own subclasses. This system is really more of a set of guidelines that let you mix and match abilities pulled from subclasses within a class. You can approach it as a DM tool (“In my setting, the wizards of the Burning Isle combine illusion and necromancy”) or as a way for players to have more choice in building characters. We’re making this system optional because we know that some players want a lot of ways to customize their characters, but more customization invariably leads to broken combos. We can manage combinations and fairness at the subclass and feat level, but slicing things much finer than that goes beyond what we can reasonably expect to playtest."

 

[Nellisir]

Thank you, @pemerton, for putting the thread back on its rails !
I will say again here what I was saying in the "new packet" thread :
1) Free multiclassing yields to a free-for-all market where every level of every single class compete with each other. It means at least 10 classes x 20 level (discounting subclasses) available choices at each level ! It is clearly untractable by the design team, and the average player. System mastery and charop rule.
2) Multiclassing is easy to reign in : rather than inventing arbitrary limitations on requirements, simply state you have to level up X times in the same class in a row (for dual classing), or alternatively in each of your class for AD&D-style multiclassing. Hybrid classes being supported out of the box would also go a long way, as well as custom class design.

I'm not really fond of the stat requirements - it's a bit "hit it with a hammer" for my taste. Requiring X levels in a new class gives me the same feeling. I'd rather limit the benefits that characters receive, particularly proficiencys and skills.

 

[billd91]

You (Nellisir) have tried to head-off concerns about mechanical effectiveness as a distinct and important category of effectiveness by you remarks about the GM being able to beat any PC, and challenging all the players and giving all the PCs spotlight time. But those strategies only work (I think) in a game which is very heavily GM driven and correspondingly passive on the player side. In a more player driven game, a player who wants his/her PC to be effective in genre terms also needs to have adequate mechanical effectiveness. I don't know if that's what Ahnehnois had in mind, but it's the direction of thought that the quoted post pushed me in.

I have to agree with Nellisir in saying that GMs being involved in challenging all of the players and giving them all spotlight time doesn't require player passivity or a heavily GM driven game. In fact, it can be more of a method of balancing activity levels between players and their own different play styles. In most groups I've encountered, there are some players more active in driving the story and other PC action/interactions than others, particularly in games that are more player/PC interest-driven than GM-plot driven. Frequently, the GM needs to take an active role to keep the more passive players in the action, making sure the spotlight moves their way because they typically won't put themselves in it.

 

[billd91]

I'm not really fond of the stat requirements - it's a bit "hit it with a hammer" for my taste. Requiring X levels in a new class gives me the same feeling. I'd rather limit the benefits that characters receive, particularly proficiencys and skills.

This does contribute to the complexity of the multiclassing rules, but I can see where you're coming from.

The least complex multiclassing rules, from the 3e perspective, is just to give the character entering the new class all of its benefits and add them on to what you've got. It certainly simplifies assumptions later on if all wizards who multiclass into fighting simply pick up all martial weapon, all armor, and all shield proficiencies even if it does lead to some questionable metagame issues. A more complex model, like the one in Star Wars Saga Edition in which you get only one of the class's starter feats rather than all of them, undermines the predictability of what taking a level of a class like soldier means to the individual character.

Having experienced both multiclass methods above, including heavily front-loaded classes in 3.0, I have to say that the SWSE method is kind of nice and keeps multiclass PCs from benefiting from big front loads for classes.

 

[Mistwell]

For one, you can't possibly get more than five tiers of improvement because 6 is the bottom tier and 1 is the top tier. For two, no, I meant five. The fighter is tier five. With optimization he can reach a high four at best. He certainly never approaches tier 1 in any imagining of the scale. Let's take a look at the six tiers of classes shall we? You can feel free to debate who falls in where but the tiers are very clear:



This is the generally accepted set of tiers and within that framework classes like the fighter, taken on their own from level 1 to 20 fall squarely in tier 5. That's not a judgement about whether the fighter's power level is appropriate or not, just a statement of where the class lies in the scheme of things. This list can also be generally applied to characters from any RPG.

Ah, I was meaning "level", and misread your meaning (though I definitely disagree with you that the system you just outlined is the generally accepted set of tiers - that's a game design summary that is not commonly used but found only in a fairly narrow set of discussions). Sorry about that.

I am saying that the CharOp boards made it clear that the Fighter was capable of being made to do almost anything, often through multi-classing. Certainly they were able to do both all three of Controller, Defender, and Striker in one character using builds on the CharOp board, with some minor Leader abilities thrown in. They definitely were moved up to around Tier 3 or Tier 2 given the builds available on the CharOp board.

 

[Nellisir]

A more complex model, like the one in Star Wars Saga Edition in which you get only one of the class's starter feats rather than all of them,

Yeah, that's basically my thought. I haven't looked at the classes since thinking about this, but I'd be fine with multiclassed characters that getting one additional of each, if better: armor, weapon, tools, saving throws. Skills can be existing +1, or whatever the minimum for the new class is, whichever is more.

For instance, a barbarian multiclassing into bard would get: armor: none (barbarian has better than bard); weapons: none (ditto); tools: one musical instrument; saving throws: either Int or Chr; Skills: any 2 (because barbarians have 1, and bards have 3). Plus Bardic Knowledge and Bardic Performance.

A bard multiclassing as a barbarian would get either medium armor OR shields; martial weapons; Mounts (land) as a tool; either Strength OR Constitution; and +1 skill. Plus Rage and Thick Hide.

The bard probably comes out a little better in the exchange, but ce la vie.

 

[Ismaul]

I don't think anybody has mentioned this, but with the prerequisite system in place, Humans are actually the best at multiclassing because of their blanket +1 to all stats. I like this a lot, anyways it fits with the humans are adaptable archetype. Half-elves come in second, which again fits with the fluff, while other races are better at multiclassing in a specific class, like Orcs and Fighter.

Also, with the ability boosts that come with leveling up, multiclassing feels a bit more organic as you are developping related stats to get there. It also means that you have more opportunities to multiclass as you become higher level / more experienced. Not a bad thing IMO. The alternative would be a character that can multiclass multiple times at low level, but that would just attest to the inability of the class system to present solid archetypes, or that the player should be going for a classless system.

 

[pemerton]

It also means that you have more opportunities to multiclass as you become higher level / more experienced.

Provided that you haven't actually multi-classed yet. If you have, then despite being high level you mightn't have reached your stat/feat options yet.