Why deciding to round down multiclassing spellcaster levels was stupid

[Immortal Sun]

Wait...you're telling me taking levels in more than one class can make you miss out on some of the strongest elements of a single class?

NO WAY!

 

[jayoungr]

Hopefully that's enough to put an end to the rather offensive notion you posted above, the notion where you classify those that want a class to enable their desired playstyles and concepts as people that are not happy to roleplay without some video-game-esque special move.

Let me start by apologizing to anyone who found my earlier post offensive. It was absolutely not my intention to put down anyone's playstyle, in any way. I was attempting to characterize the approach in neutral language, but I admit that I don't typically design characters this way myself, so I may not have done it justice.

For what it's worth, I actually do not believe that designing characters in this way represents a failure to roleplay, or think that it means those players are approaching D&D like a video game. It's just a different approach that some people gravitate toward, and for those people, it's very important. It's their "way in" to a character. I respect that. The reason I contrasted it with roleplaying is because it seems to me, for the people to whom it matters, the thing they want to reflect mechanically says something important about who the character is; the character is the sort of person who would choose this particular approach to a common situation. (I'm trying to leave exactly what the thing is open, but remember, I did say it doesn't have to mean combat.) A different player might still feel like they could effectively play a character with the same sort of personality by showing it in non-mechanical ways, and it might not matter so much to that player that the mechanical moves don't always quite pinpoint the character's style.

They keep adding subclasses into the game

I consider any subclasses that aren't in the original PHB to be part of the optional game.

they want players of the base non-optional game to be able to realize fairly specific character concepts

I don't consider any of the PHB classes to be the level of specific that I was talking about in my previous post. I was thinking in terms of people who come in with a concept like "I want to be an illusionist who ..." or "I want to be an assassin who..."

wanting a close approximation of a class concept and playstyle doesn't entail wanting granularity coupled with millions of options.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean here. How would you make a class-based game that caters to a wide variety of specific playstyles without millions of options? Or is that not your goal?

 

[Yunru]

Wait...you're telling me taking levels in more than one class can make you miss out on some of the strongest elements of a single class?

NO WAY!

Nope!
I'm telling you that taking levels in more than one class can reduce some of the elements you've already gotten.

 

[FrogReaver]

Oh come on, my reply was well in line with yours. If you want to play the "But no feats" game then don't play the "But no muticlassing" game with me. My point stands that you can in fact simulate a wizard with a champion fighter using feats, which they get more of than anyone else. In fact I was kinda impressed just how much magic you can produce with that build I outlined, and was thinking about which cantrips and first level spell make the most sense and if Charisma is needed for the build despite it being the key ability for their racial spells (was unsure if any actually needed a DC or spell attack roll). The Sage or Cloistered Scholar backgrounds both fit pretty well also. In Waterdeep, Guild Artisan: Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors would work as well.

Of course your point stands. No one in their right mind would argue that a champion fighter with feats can't get enough spell casting via feats to roleplay himself as a relatively unskilled wizard. That's why I'm not arguing against that.

Instead I'm saying that the example I used to illustrate the point I made about certain classes being incapable of emulating certain concepts still stands despite your showing that such a class can emulate the example concept with the optional feat rule. Why? Because the whole crux of my discussion with the actual poster I was discussing with (before you went off on some tangent about champion fighters with feats being able to emulate wizards)... was whether the base game should be able to support such concepts.

You do get why what you did would illicit rather negative attitudes from those you are attempting to engage with, right?

 

[jgsugden]

Beyond this not really being a significant issue, it was intended. They're CONSERVATIVE with multi-classing, by intent, to avoid overpowered combos. Even with that caution, they ended up with a few extra strong combo like the sorlock.

And do we not remember the years of playtesting that was open to the public?

 

[Yunru]

Beyond this not really being a significant issue, it was intended. They're CONSERVATIVE with multi-classing, by intent, to avoid overpowered combos. Even with that caution, they ended up with a few extra strong combo like the sorlock.

And do we not remember the years of playtesting that was open to the public?

Ironically the Sorlock doesn't suffer this setback at all.

 

[FrogReaver]

Let me start by apologizing to anyone who found my earlier post offensive. It was absolutely not my intention to put down anyone's playstyle, in any way. I was attempting to characterize the approach in neutral language, but I admit that I don't typically design characters this way myself, so I may not have done it justice.

Thanks, I don't think you were intentionally doing that. I also took your words to the furthest extremes they could have been taken to and I apologize for doing that.

For what it's worth, I actually do not believe that designing characters in this way represents a failure to roleplay, or think that it means those players are approaching D&D like a video game. It's just a different approach that some people gravitate toward, and for those people, it's very important. It's their "way in" to a character. I respect that. The reason I contrasted it with roleplaying is because it seems to me, for the people to whom it matters, the thing they want to reflect mechanically says something important about who the character is; the character is the sort of person who would choose this particular approach to a common situation. (I'm trying to leave exactly what the thing is open, but remember, I did say it doesn't have to mean combat.) A different player might still feel like they could effectively play a character with the same sort of personality by showing it in non-mechanical ways, and it might not matter so much to that player that the mechanical moves don't always quite pinpoint the character's style.

In probably the most basic concept of an RPG you tend to have 3 designations. The warrior, the skilled, and the magic user. Then you have hybrid designations of these etc. In a game where all warriors are mechanically identical I think most players are happy just roleplaying differences between various warriors. The same with skilled and magic users. However, in a game where multiple classes fall under the warrior designation and each have their own special abilities that give them a certain playstyle distinct from other classes that fall under that same warrior designation, I think it's only natural to desire and expect other concepts to have mechanical support for their distinct playstyles as well.

I consider any subclasses that aren't in the original PHB to be part of the optional game.

Then I'm not sure what we are discussing anymore. If you don't think options of any kind can be added to the base game then at that point everything is just an optional preference for whether it gets included or not.

I don't consider any of the PHB classes to be the level of specific that I was talking about in my previous post. I was thinking in terms of people who come in with a concept like "I want to be an illusionist who ..." or "I want to be an assassin who..."

I don't follow this part at all

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean here. How would you make a class-based game that caters to a wide variety of specific playstyles without millions of options? Or is that not your goal?

The simple answer for 5e in it's current state is by introducing more classes and ignoring mutlclassing altogether. You don't need millions of classes to cater to a wide variety of specific playstyles, but you do need maybe double or triple the number of classes that are currently in the game and some additional overlap on subclass concepts between classes.

If designing a game from scratch you would probably be better off sticking to the primary warrior/skilled/mage designations and their half and half hybrids and developing a single class to represent each of those things. Give each class choices like weapon proficiencies, skill proficiencies etc. Then have character differences between members of a certain class be roleplayed. Once you get into mechanically differentiating some concepts and playstyles beyond the core designations and their hybrids then you really place yourself in a position where you will need to mechanically differentiate most options.

 

[Immortal Sun]

Nope!
I'm telling you that taking levels in more than one class can reduce some of the elements you've already gotten.

That's to be expected as well.

Splitting the fish will always leave you with half a fish. Even if you get two halves of two fish, you don't have one whole fish. You have two halves of two fish.

Multiclassing in 5E is intended to be flavorful, but not equal, as it has in almost every edition ever.

 

[jgsugden]

Ironically the Sorlock doesn't suffer this setback at all.

So you think a Sorcerer X/Warlock 2 is not behind in spellcasting compared to a Sorcerer X+2?

 

[Harzel]

Ironically the Sorlock doesn't suffer this setback at all.

(emphasis mine)

So you think a Sorcerer X/Warlock 2 is not behind in spellcasting compared to a Sorcerer X+2?

Not meaning to put words in their mouth, but it looks like [MENTION=6780961]Yunru[/MENTION] was referring specifically to the issue raised in the OP (multiclassed caster having fewer spell slots than a single-classed caster with the same total levels due to the rounding rule). That's much more narrow than 'not behind in spellcasting'. And it's correct, as the Sorcerer/Warlock is not subject to the rule referenced in the OP.