D&D 5E Multiclass in 5E

[JRRNeiklot]

That was a completely bizarre system that (IME) most DMs just said N-O-! to.

Can you imagine actually playing this one through? Suppose I was a human who went through 8 levels of Fighter. I then tell my friends "Hey, I want to try something different!" and start progressing as a Thief. W-T-F. Why should my old party want a 1st level Rogue sucking up XP and gold and magic items?

On the plus side, I am cranking through levels because of the fast Thief XP chart. When I finally arrive to my 9th level Thief level I am pretty much like exactly like the demi-human Fighter/Thief multiclass only I now have twice as many hit points(!!!).

1e/2e multiclassing has its problems, but at least, in principle, I can imagine a DM heavily fudging single-class PCs to give them the necessary leg up. Dual-classing is simply too bizarre to work with.

I've played and seen played a few dual class characters over the years. They are extremely rare using the standard (non UA) character generation methods. Why would you be sucking exp? You'd have the hitpoints of a first level fighter and - since you have to have at least a 16 dex - you'd be very respectable with range attacks. An 18 Thac0 is equal to a 6th level cleric and only one worse than a 6th level fighter. Also, a fighter/thief of levels 8/8 has on average 32 hit points. A dual class fighter thief of 8/9 has 39.5. And you fly through the levels. The biggest downside is missing time do to training. I most often saw people dual class after 2nd level for the better hit points and weapon selection, or, if using UA, for weapon specialization.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

In the example I provided, my PC would be in an 8ish level party. So he would have 8th level Fighter HPs (good!). But as he progresses along his new career direction he has the abilities of a low level Thief.

From the perspective of the other PCs in the party, he is sandbagging in the most absurd manner and taking a full share of XP and gold and magic items. After all, in order to get any XP at all, my PC is only using the abilities of a Thief, i.e. he sucks and expects to be treated like a full party member. Isn't that, well, stupid?

Now this is not so bad if the dual classing happens at lowish level. It is huge later along the campaign.

I may be misremembering how the HPs work...I will have to look that up. Anyone have their 1e PHB handy, not sure where mine is right now...

 

[Mattachine]

Funny, when I tried to do the "missed adventuring time due to training" back in AD&D, the players would say that their PCs would wait for the others to finish.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

In the example I provided, my PC would be in an 8ish level party. So he would have 8th level Fighter HPs (good!). But as he progresses along his new career direction he has the abilities of a low level Thief.

From the perspective of the other PCs in the party, he is sandbagging in the most absurd manner and taking a full share of XP and gold and magic items. After all, in order to get any XP at all, my PC is only using the abilities of a Thief, i.e. he sucks and expects to be treated like a full party member. Isn't that, well, stupid?

If A farmer starts a new career as a fisherman, he'd damn well better fish instead of planting corn if he wants to get paid. He's not sandbagging. He's trying to be the best thief he can be. When the fishing is bad, the fisherman can resort to harvesting crops in order to feed his family, but he's not going to get better as a fisherman. So can the thief use his fighter attack tables and saving throws in a pinch. Yeah, he'll lose out on exp, but he'll be alive. I always looked at it as if fighting like a thief or a mage meant using an entirely different fighting style. As if Conan is now trying to fight like Erol Flynn. He's going to suck for a while, but if he has to, he can resort to splitting skulls with abandon. Also, in 1e, it's quite the norm to have characters of disparate levels in a party, due to death, level drain, or characters filling in while others are off training, so a first level thief in an eighth level party is not all that strange.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Funny, when I tried to do the "missed adventuring time due to training" back in AD&D, the players would say that their PCs would wait for the others to finish.

That's fine sometimes. But sometimes a rival adventuring party loots the tomb of whatsit, they all miss the great chariot race with a hefty gold reward, or whatever. Unless you pause the campaign while they train, they're going to miss out on something, sometime. I'm not going to miss out on 50 yard line seats at the Superbowl because my buddy has to do homework that night.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

...so a first level thief in an eighth level party is not all that strange.

And reasonably played PCs are going to choke on the idea that 1st level wannabe is going to get a share of...anything.

I do agree that with platoons of PCs handy and lots of attrition, a lot of the odd rules in early editions work well enough. But as the game was put into the hands of groups that did not have those assumptions (and they are not spelled out clearly in the rulebooks either), as the game transitioned away from a kooky/fun wargame towards a roleplaying game, your assumptions just did not apply because they did not make sense to (IME) approximately everyone else.

 

[Celestian]

they said they are going back to 3e multi-classing

Can you link where this was said?

 

[Grimmjow]

Can you link where this was said?

why yes i can riiiiiiiight here!

 

[Li Shenron]

It will be either similar to 3e (level-based) or 4e (feature-based), or even a combination of both.

AD&D multiclassing is unlikely, since it can be anyway approximated both by 3e and 4e methods, but of course only if they manage to make it so that a 50%-50% split is an actually balanced character (a known problem in 3e).

There is also a (small) chance they just don't include multiclassing, if it happens that they cannot balance well multiclassed PCs against single-class PCs. This will also be related to how many base classes they publish... the more base classes available, the less need for multiclassing because additional base classes will be used to cover hybrid concepts.

 

[Mattachine]

That's fine sometimes. But sometimes a rival adventuring party loots the tomb of whatsit, they all miss the great chariot race with a hefty gold reward, or whatever. Unless you pause the campaign while they train, they're going to miss out on something, sometime. I'm not going to miss out on 50 yard line seats at the Superbowl because my buddy has to do homework that night.

My players would shrug. It would be same as if that opportunity never presented itself. Meanwhile, as a DM, I have to provide adventure hooks and respond to player actions . . . or there is no game. Eventually, I just fast-forwarded through training time.