Arguments and assumptions against multi classing

[Grognerd]

As to the point about mindsets and fluff: I don't choose to negate them, I combine them. With my recent PC, a level or two of cleric does not seem so alien for a celestial pact warlock.

Where I bolded your comment: THIS is what I would call the key determinant for supporting or objecting to a multiclass. In your case, I agree entirely. Worshiping as a cleric could naturally lead to a closer and more personal pact with a servant of said deity. Heck, you could even argue that since the clerlock has an active relationship with a being who speaks directly to his deity, he actually grows more in his devotion to his deity as a result -- the polar opposite of having a jealous god who objects to the warlock pact. It's all in how you frame it. And in this case, I'd agree that is a reasonable path to take (even if I'd try to avoid it).

Without that natural/organic pattern, though, too often MC simply looks like an attempt to game the system. To me, at least.

 

[Riley37]

There are, in the real world, people with both legal and medical expertise, carpenters who then become actors (Harrison Ford), and so forth. Some special-operations soldiers might be Fighters with dips in Rogue and Monk. Paul Robeson had about as many skill sets as Buckaroo Banzai. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson)

IMO, when a player games the system, the price is coming up with a story, which both justifies the MC, and also *entertains the other players (and the DM)* with its narrative depth. If an NPC asks the PC why the PC has skill-sets from multiple career paths, the PC should have a good answer.

 

[Seramus]

I buy a game book because I want to know how their world works. If you include the multi-classing rules, then that world isn't inherently better or worse for it, but it is more complicated for no obvious gain.

If you say that Paladins are always Lawful Good, then that is a useful note which helps me understand the world better. If you say that some Paladins are also Warlocks, then that gives me less of an idea about what it means to be a Paladin.

Lack of Multiclassing seems like it would inform the world more than the presence of Multiclassing. Caste systems and Destiny would probably play a really major role, especially since you could only ever be 'great' at one thing when you are born. Or, if you are mutable until you choose a class, it would become a fateful decision about what caste you are going to enter into because you could never take back that decision.

Imagine the pressure your parents might put on you to enter into a wizard college, but you really want to be with your hometown fighter romance. Or you were feeling rebellious as a teenager and picked up a level of Rogue, but now you can't be anything but a Rogue and it was your biggest regret in life now that you are middle aged.

You could build an entire plot around a power mad cleric who forces everyone to become a Level 1 Fighter, so that nobody can become a cleric and challenge his divine superiority.

 

[5ekyu]

Lack of Multiclassing seems like it would inform the world more than the presence of Multiclassing. Caste systems and Destiny would probably play a really major role, especially since you could only ever be 'great' at one thing when you are born. Or, if you are mutable until you choose a class, it would become a fateful decision about what caste you are going to enter into because you could never take back that decision.

Imagine the pressure your parents might put on you to enter into a wizard college, but you really want to be with your hometown fighter romance. Or you were feeling rebellious as a teenager and picked up a level of Rogue, but now you can't be anything but a Rogue and it was your biggest regret in life now that you are middle aged.

You could build an entire plot around a power mad cleric who forces everyone to become a Level 1 Fighter, so that nobody can become a cleric and challenge his divine superiority.

IMO what you are describing is a society, not "classes of character building."

Even in rigid caste systems there were outliers, outlaws, folks who developed in secret cross-caste efforts/experiences/professions etc.

Additionally, there were in some caste systems quite a bit of leeway allowed depending on status. At some lower caste levels whether one was rogue or fighter or fighter-rogue or whether or not the witch was also a pickpocket etc... and at higher levels when one had enough money and privy and privacy one could still "indulge" other pursuits - as long as one was discrete.

In short, the society acceptance of castes and such has little to do with the actual allowance in the game of multi-classing. All removing multi-classing entirely does is prevent certain options - that doesn't **add more story** that otherwise could not happen.

if it did, the most storied game would be "only fighters allowed" cuz then we have the most clearly defined world of all.

But basically, if the only option is single-classing, it isn't going to seem restrictive in the world... its just "normal". the restrictive nature of "caste systems of societies" stand out in the presence of other more flexible alternatives. Without contrast their is only monochrome.

 

[Seramus]

IMO what you are describing is a society, not "classes of character building."

No, I definitely think they are intrinsically linked. There will always be outliers, but society is otherwise defined by the mechanics of the world (even if many of those mechanics are abstracts). If there is a literal mechanic that prevents excelling in certain skill sets, or outright prevents group A from learning what group B knows, people within that world are going to notice and responding accordingly.

Now, the big disclaimer here is how many levels are assumed to be the average in your setting. In a world where almost nobody has levels, then this is a completely moot issue because anyone with a meaningful amount of levels is the outlier. But as the average level of your world increases (like Eberron for example) these things become increasingly noticeable, and inform the world.

 

[ad_hoc]

Lack of Multiclassing seems like it would inform the world more than the presence of Multiclassing. Caste systems and Destiny would probably play a really major role, especially since you could only ever be 'great' at one thing when you are born. Or, if you are mutable until you choose a class, it would become a fateful decision about what caste you are going to enter into because you could never take back that decision.

PC rules are not world building rules.

People in the world should hopefully be doing other things than PCs. PC rules are for creating characters in a fantasy action story. That's it.

Multiclassing muddles the archetypes and is unnecessary. It's good for characters at the table to have clear and distinct abilities. With that as a foundation it is easier for them to stand out with characterization. If everyone is a mishmash of different classes then building identities in the game is harder.

The biggest knock against it is that it is clunky and uneven. Classes are built as a chassis. When you combine them together they don't behave properly. A Fighter/Wizard is different than a Wizard/Fighter for example.

D&D is a class based system. That has strengths and weaknesses. Undermining the classes with multiclassing results in the downsides of a class based game and the downsides of a classless game. The subclass system is an elegant solution to the mess of multiclassing that D&D has been plagued with.

 

[Seramus]

PC rules are not world building rules.

People in the world should hopefully be doing other things than PCs. PC rules are for creating characters in a fantasy action story. That's it.

You can certainly run it that way, and that does give the GM a lot of freedom to handwave whatever he wants, but then you get into awkward questions about why your characters seem to have learning disabilities.

 

[Sadras]

The way I see it, multiclassing exists to fix the fact that the inherent game does not possess a classless/skill-tree system.

 

[ad_hoc]

The way I see it, multiclassing exists to fix the fact that the inherent game does not possess a classless/skill-tree system.

It is a fundamental part of the system. If you don't like class based games you should play a different game.

Multiclassing just creates the worst aspects of both.

 

[Hussar]

I'm surprised. I thought you'd be firmly against multiclassing given how many times its used specifically to take a few Paladin levels.

Are we talking white room theorycrafting or actual play experience.

Because, IME, paladin is almost never chosen as a second class. Fighters are by far the most common second class IME. I've yet to see a player start as one class and then MC into paladin. Maybe my group is just strange.