Arguments and assumptions against multi classing

[Satyrn]

I will disagree with those who say it's 100% the player, as well as with those who say it's 100% the DM. I'll even go further and suggest that anybody who thinks they need to invoke 100% for either is probably at the wrong table.

This is really simple, guys:
Player: "Hey, I have this idea..."
DM: "Hmm, that won't really work because..."
Player: "Well, how about if I..."
DM: "Could you tweak it so that..."
Player: "Yeah, that works."
DM: "Cool."
Player: "Cool."

It's so simple, I wonder if there's anybody who actually is 100% either way.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You aren't asking me, but my answer would be "there is nothing in the rules that states you must use their fluff, thus it is not a rule."

There's nothing in the rules that states you must use their mechanics, either. The mechanics are exactly the same degree of rule as the fluff. Whether you take that to mean both are sacrosanct, or both are just suggestions, the book treats them identically. Guidelines for changing both of them are in the DMG.

If your conversation does NOT resemble that, you are either playing with the wrong people or in the wrong hobby entirely.

Agreed.

 

[S'mon]

It's the place of the DM to provide a campaign primer so that players know what is explicitly allowed based on the story being told. It is the place of the player to ask the DM if they look at the primer and don't see what they wish, if what they want to play is allowed.

Not providing players with enough information to logically ask questions is the playground of lousy DMs and has been since the dawn of DMs.

In the real world, 95% of players don't read campaign primers, and players ask the GM about
stuff they're interested in. GM then considers the question and gives a reasonable answer. I
don't see players issuing diktats or telling GMs they're lousy GMs over something like this.

I'm one of the very worst players I know, and even I only get annoyed at GMs who - during play -
nerf explicit class abilities, like telling a Rogue they can't shoot into melee with sneak attack (that was a mate of mine, I had to drop his game after that).
I might want to play an urban thug barbarian modelled on Vinny Jones. I might even get slightly annoyed if the GM said no. I wouldn't call them a lousy GM though.

 

[Greg K]

That reminds me of the time I pitched a low-magic, swords vs sorcery campaign, & asked for PCs 'like Conan' - so of course I got a Tiefling Warlock, a Revenant Warlock, a Goliath Warden... the only PCs that really worked were the two human Fighters I created as pregens.

That is why I am way always way more specific. I specify that the races and cultures available and, along with brief descriptions of the cultures, I include which classes (and/or subclasses) and backgrounds are appropriate for specific cultures. From there, people can pitch their character and ask about characters growing up in other cultures, having an unusual background for someone from their culture, etc.

 

[Mistwell]

The 5e devs deliberately wrote out any power-removing mechanic (they have a power-swapping option with Oathbreakers), because they have realised for years that it is inherently unfair for some players to be penalised just because their player chose one of the allowed classes, while other classes can do what they like and don't get punished in the metagame by removing the mechanical abilities of the class.

The devs want players to pick whatever class and available power for ANY class, not just the ones unconnected to a god/patron/whatever.

I hate DMs who slaver at the mouth when they hear that a player has chosen a cleric or a paladin because the DM thinks he has carte blanche to take the player's agency away using the threat of taking class abilities away.

From the Paladin class, "If a paladin willfully violates his or her oath and shows no sign of repentance, the consequences can be more serious. At the DM’s discretion, an impenitent paladin might be forced to abandon this class and adopt another, or perhaps to take the Oathbreaker paladin option that appears in the Dungeon Master’s Guide."

 

[Kobold Boots]

In the real world, 95% of players don't read campaign primers, and players ask the GM about
stuff they're interested in. GM then considers the question and gives a reasonable answer. I
don't see players issuing diktats or telling GMs they're lousy GMs over something like this.

I'm one of the very worst players I know, and even I only get annoyed at GMs who - during play -
nerf explicit class abilities, like telling a Rogue they can't shoot into melee with sneak attack (that was a mate of mine, I had to drop his game after that).
I might want to play an urban thug barbarian modelled on Vinny Jones. I might even get slightly annoyed if the GM said no. I wouldn't call them a lousy GM though.

That's fair. I guess I take exception to the term "real world" because it's dependent on the specific experiences of the person using the term.

In my real world, until I gave players a primer I'd say I was constantly answering scoping questions about the campaign world that were of the most mundane variety. In many cases the answers were spread out enough that I would often enough contradict whatever the prior answer was.

In my opinion it's very important for a DM to be internally consistent and manage expectations of the player group. Then the next thing is to manage the exceptions not the standards. The rule books explain "all that is possible" inside the framework of the rules, not necessarily "all that is possible" for the players. Assuming that the books are fully allowed is fine, but it's not necessarily a good idea.

Thanks,
KB

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Ovinomancer]

Funny, this reminds me of the "Geniuses with 5 Int" debate from two years ago, in which Max simply couldn't wrap his head around the idea. He was stuck on the commonly accepted definition of "Intelligence", and couldn't see any distinction between that and a game stat with the same name. Rather than see the fun to be had with a character who abided by the mechanical limitations of 5 Int without being bound by the most obvious interpretation of it, he insisted that 5 Int had one and only one meaning.

(EDIT: Actually, I want to amend that. It wasn't just that he/they thought 5 Int had one meaning, they felt it had to be roleplayed in a specific way. Or, more accurately, within a very, very narrow range of ways...which I assume they perceived as a wide range. E.g., stupid and loud, stupid and meek, stupid and goofy, stupid and overly confident, etc. To paraphrase Henry Ford: "You can have it in any personality you want, as long as it's stupid.")

I got so frustrated with Max (and a few others) that I partially succumbed to the Dark Side and got myself banned from my own thread.

Ah, good times.

Nah, I agree strongly with you here -- fluff is malleable around mechanics especially for class/background -- but the idea of playing a 5 INT genius is like playing a 5 STR strongest man in the world -- it's farce, the mechanics don't support the fluff. While I love respinning mechanics, whatever fluff that comes up shouldn't contradict the mechanic without good reason. Most of the 'builds' you proposed in that scenario where 'geniuses' hobbled by crippling disabilities, which belies the concept of functioning genius when you can't actually do the INT things well. So, I think there's room for 'refluff' and 'I don't think a 5 INT genius is a coherent concept'. YMMV, and, obviously, did!

Now, you can do farce, for sure, but I don't really prefer that much farce in my games.

 

[Xetheral]

You never answered, but why do you believe this? Where in the PHB, or in the basic rules document, does it suggest that the description of a class is any more optional than its mechanics? Is it something that you're bringing in from another game, or another edition? Is it just a local tradition, around the circles you grew up playing in?

Although the question was not aimed at me, I hope you won't mind if I provide my take on it.

I consider the fluff of the class to be up to the player (within the constraints set by the DM's opinion of what fits in the setting) based on implication from the text in the PHB (and what it doesn't say), my experience with the D&D product across multiple editions, and a comparison with other game systems. I fully acknowledge that my interpretation is not the only one: the examples below are intended to explain the source of my interpretation, not to try to prove that my interpretation is the best one.

From the PHB:

Page 11: "You also invent the personality, appearance, and backstory of your character." If the personality, appearance, and backstory described in the class fluff was meant to be a stricture, rather than a suggestion, I would expect this quote to instead say "you invent the personality, appearance, and backstory of your character within the boundaries set by your choices in the steps listed below". The lack of such limiting language along with the placement of such an expansive directive to "invent" in the very first paragraph of character creation suggest to me that the context of character creation is one of player-driven invention.

Page 11: "Or you might be more interested in an unconventional character, such as a brawny rogue who likes hand-to-hand combat...". There is no mention of brawny rogues anywhere in the rogue class fluff. Instead, the fluff explicitly says that "rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength" (PHB 94). We know that brawny rogues are explicitly allowed by the text on page 11. Since the rogue fluff text does not make allowances for brawny rogues, I conclude that it is reasonable to infer that the class fluff text is more likely to be a series of examples and possibilities rather than strictures.

Page 11: "Class broadly describes a character's vocation, what special talents he or she is most likely to employ when exploring a dungeon, fighting monsters, or engaging in a tense negotiation". This passage says nothing about class determining personality, appearance, or backstory, even though most of the classes include fluff text that describe those things. Because they are uniquely emphasized in the introduction to choosing a class, I infer that that the "special talents" in the class description are more fundamental to each class than the fluff.

Page 45: "Class shapes the way you think about the world and interact with it and your relationship with other people and power in the multiverse. A fighter, for example, might view the world in pragmatic terms of strategy and manuevering, and see herself as just a pawn in a much larger game." (Emphasis added.) The key word here is "might", which strongly implies that there are other possibilities. Also, there is no directive to see each class's entry for specifics (and the specific example given isn't found in the fighter class description). So while class is broadly relevant to how you interact with the world, the soecifics appear to have been left up to the player.

Page 46: The first paragraphs of the Barbarian class fluff describe three example barbarians, only two of which are tribal. The rest of the fluff goes on to present a very tribal-centric description, which, if the fluff is mandatory, creates a contradiction with the non-tribal dwarf character that is explicitly allowed. This suggests to me that the fluff isn't intended to be mandatory.

Page 51: The first paragraphs of the bard description describe three possibilities: "scholar, skald, or scoundrel". Yet the "Learning from Experience" section describes bards only as entertainers, going so far as to describe that they "liv[e] on the gratitute of audiences". If you interpret the fluff as rules text, would also have to be entertainers (and live on gratuities), even though that is in tension with the idea of scholar or skald bards. It seems more reasonable to me to treat the fluff text as suggestions, in which case the contradiction vanishes.

Page 82: "Whatever their origin and their mission, paladins are united by their oaths to stand against the forces of evil." I see no way that quote can be rules text, because it contradicts other rules (the subclass choices) that permit paladins that haven't sworn oaths against evil. A clear example like this of fluff text that can't plausibly be a rule I believe supports the inference that fluff text isn't a set of rules in the first place.

Page 94: (See discussion for page 11 and pages 163-164.)

Pages 105-106, 108-109: This one is independently controversial, but I would note the tension between some of the text (arguably) assuming warlocks are obligated to their patrons and the possibility of Great Old One patrons to be unaware of their own warlocks. This suggests that the fluff text is not intended to be a stricture--if it we're, presumably more emphasis would have been put on avoiding apparent contradictions.

Pages 163-164: The multiclassing optional rules dramatically expand the number of character permutations, and include explicit rules on how to merge the mechanics of each class. There is no mention whatsoever about how to merge the fluff, even though the fluff is even more of a contradiction in many cases. For example, if class fluff was a binding stricture, a multiclass barbarian/rogue would be required to prioritize cunning over brute strength (PHB 94) which interferes with taking advantage of the barbarian's strength-based class abilities. Because the multiclass rules go into detail on class mechanics, but ignore class fluff, I think it is reasonable to infer that the class fluff must not require rules to reconcile, which it would if the fluff was itself a rule.

Broadly speaking, the language of the class fluff suggests to me possibilities rather than strictures. Where multiple options are explicitly provided (e.g. scholar, skald, scoundrel for bard on PHB 51) I read the language as inclusive rather than exclusive. By contrast, the mechanics sections use more definitive language

Comparison to Recent Editions:

Particularly since recent previous editions were quite explicit about the distinction between rules and fluff, had the designers intended the fluff text to be equivalent to rules text, I would have expected them to be quite blatant about saying so. It is true that 5e lacks the explicitness of recent editions in saying that fluff and rules are distinct. But I think it is more plausible that this lack implies a desire to make it easier for DMs to decide to enforce fluff as sacrosanct at their tables, rather than an unspoken 180 degree reversal from the idea that fluff is mutable.

Comparison to Other Systems:

If the designers had intended fluff to be sacrosanct, they could have been much more explicit about limiting player choices to those presented in the fluff text. Other games do this. For example, for Urban Shadows, after choosing an archetype, you pick your character's personality from a list of three class-specific, one-word adjectives. By contrast, see the broad language in the 5e PHB above about player invention suggests much more freedom.

Based on all of the above, I infer that class fluff is not intended by the designers to be rules text, and instead merely as possibilities and suggestions. DMs are, of course free to change that at their table, and the designers made it easier to do so in this edition.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Page 11: "Or you might be more interested in an unconventional character, such as a brawny rogue who likes hand-to-hand combat...". There is no mention of brawny rogues anywhere in the rogue class fluff. Instead, the fluff explicitly says that "rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength" (PHB 94). We know that brawny rogues are explicitly allowed by the text on page 11. Since the rogue fluff text does not make allowances for brawny rogues, I conclude that it is reasonable to infer that the class fluff text is more likely to be a series of examples and possibilities rather than strictures.

That doesn't change any of the fluff around the mechanical aspects of the class, though. Even if your particular rogue is an oddity among rogues, with a higher Strength than Dexterity, their sneak attack ability is still a precise strike made with a light weapon rather than a clobber over the head. That is to say, a class isn't the only aspect to a given character; your rogue may vary from other rogues, in ways that have nothing to do with your shared rogue aspect, but your rogue-ness is the same as their rogue-ness. There are different paths to the same power, but that power is the same regardless of who uses it.

Class descriptions are descriptions. They aren't definitions. They describe what members of that class are like. Scholars, skalds, and scoundrels all have something in common; and that commonality is part of what it means to be a bard. There are other types of people which also fit in with that description. It's natural language, and there's some interpretation required as to what exactly qualifies as a bard, but it's possible to play within that vaguely-defined sandbox without re-defining the class to cover something that it was never intended to cover.