D&D 5E New legends and lore.....multiclassing sneak peak

[MarkB]

This I totally disagree with. Why should one fighter/wizard have fewer proficincies than another fighter/wizard, just because he happened to take fighter first?

Then maybe weapon and armour proficiency acquisition should also be spread through the first three levels, rather than all provided at 1st level.

 

[Iosue]

(Just to double-check: you guys all do know that right? That the amount of spells prepared and the amount of spells you can cast are completely different things?)

Yes, which is why it makes more sense for Mearls to be referring to the caster's "spell list" for caster level, rather than the spells per day table, and that he misspoke. The spellcasting design paradigm has been to cap actual number of spells per day (to a degree not seen in any of the other editions using spell slots) while increasing versatility. Your reading of his article suggests they are blowing that out of the water, allowing multi-classed casters to have a slightly larger number of prepared spells and a great deal more spells per day, and making it an extremely bad choice to ever single-class a caster. I can see how it would be read that way. I agree that such a way would be extremely stupid. That's what makes me doubt they are doing it that way. But then, I imagine I give the designers much more benefit of the doubt than you. So my hunch is that either Mearls meant "spells prepared per day" when he said "spells cast per day" (since that's the only thing in the current game that makes for easy addition based on level), or there's going to be something like an alternate spells per day table for multi-classed casters. If he wrote " For instance, a 3rd-level mage/3rd-level cleric casts spells per day as a 6th-level character, but can choose to prepare only spells available to a 3rd-level wizard or to a 3rd-level cleric." I'd almost certainly see it your way. But there is no "6th-level character" spells-per-day table. There is however a spells per day number of common to all 6th level casters*, and that's the number of spells prepared per day.

*Paladin and Ranger excepted, of course, but it looks like they're doing something different with them.

Hopefully someone with Twitter can ask Mearls, or maybe it will come up on the Q&A to clarify.

 

[Atomo]

Quite opposite some members of this forum, I really hope that feats remain in the classes and multiclass do not touch that. So, someone like a rogue 3/fighter 3/mage 3 has NO feat at all (he exchanged the feats for the flexibility and traits of these classes).

 

[Li Shenron]

Then maybe weapon and armour proficiency acquisition should also be spread through the first three levels, rather than all provided at 1st level.

Maybe it could work, especially on the ground of "apprentice tiers", but something needs to be left for the players to choose, and certainly it would look weird because the class would need to grant few proficiencies at 1st level (few enough, so that it can't be dipped in for the proficiencies) but full proficiencies at 3rd level maximum.

For armors, maybe it's just best one Fighter level gives them all.

 

[MarkB]

Maybe it could work, especially on the ground of "apprentice tiers", but something needs to be left for the players to choose, and certainly it would look weird because the class would need to grant few proficiencies at 1st level (few enough, so that it can't be dipped in for the proficiencies) but full proficiencies at 3rd level maximum.

For armors, maybe it's just best one Fighter level gives them all.

The way I'd do it for Fighters, if I were going this route, would be to give them Light and Medium Armour at 1st level, then a choice between shields or Heavy armour at 2nd, and whichever was left at 3rd.

For weapons, give them all simple weapons at 1st level, and divide military weapons into three groups, of which they choose one each at 1st, 2nd and 3rd level.

Personally, I'm not too bothered if a character who starts out as something other than a Fighter gets fewer weapon and armour proficiencies - a similar system worked well in Star Wars Saga Edition, and this way some of those weapon and armour proficiencies in the new mega-feats might actually be useful.

 

[gyor]

I wonder if they'll have the multiclassing subclasses for all possible combos.

Like one for say Paladin Mages, Barbarian Clerics, Fighter Druids, Ranger Rogues, Bard Monks and so on.

 

[1of3]

I wonder if they'll have the multiclassing subclasses for all possible combos.

In time, we will probably drown in subclasses.

 

[Li Shenron]

The way I'd do it for Fighters, if I were going this route, would be to give them Light and Medium Armour at 1st level, then a choice between shields or Heavy armour at 2nd, and whichever was left at 3rd.

It's a bit slow because it means that classic knight must wait 3rd level, but can be done.

I am not sure this is really needed however, IMHO there is hardly a problem with getting all armor prof at once because anyway (1) almost all class already get some armor prof anyway, and (2) the max Dex limit means that for a lot of characters Heavy or even Medium armor prof is useless.

For weapons, give them all simple weapons at 1st level, and divide military weapons into three groups, of which they choose one each at 1st, 2nd and 3rd level.

I like this less, because if the purpose is avoiding dipping for the proficiencies, then this doesn't prevent dipping. For most characters 1/3 of martial weapons is plenty, since they'll just pick the favourite type and stick to it.

Very large weapon profs are useful only (1) for beginners and the undecided, or (2) in campaigns where magic weapons are so many that it's good to be able to switch them often.

So then to avoid dipping successfully you must give at max 1-2 weapon profs, which is quite sad for the regular Fighter player...

All in all, I don't think the issue of proficiency-dipping is so important in practice, that it justifies complicating the system or (worse) penalize single class characters. If it was for me, I'd probably just handwave full proficiencies at 1st level.

Personally, I'm not too bothered if a character who starts out as something other than a Fighter gets fewer weapon and armour proficiencies - a similar system worked well in Star Wars Saga Edition, and this way some of those weapon and armour proficiencies in the new mega-feats might actually be useful.

The only negative IMO is that when you create a character starting at higher level, it does suck if you discover later that if you took the levels in your classes in the opposite order you would have gotten some better results.

 

[Kobold Stew]

It always comes down to this problem of proficiencies though - it's ok to let a Wizard have +6 to attack because it'll only be with their staff, or a sword if they invest a feat.

...or are an elf or dwarf. Weapon and armor proficiencies by race continue to throw this off, which means that the attack bonus cannot be simply ported over as an equivalent to spellcasting bonus for mages.

Ok I understand that my enmity towards +1 to all stats for humans is becoming the pet peeve of a niche of gamers But with the current option of swapping stat increases for feats, it should be VERY easy to apply something like that to humans racial package.

My proposal for a fix is here.

Also... they must be kidding if they think Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are finished. They look like HALF a race each at the moment! (Actually, this could be a way out of the situation with them...)

I too am surprised at this claim. I can see them being happy with Halflings, Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes as they are, but not Humans, Half-Elves, and Half-Orcs.

It ought to be this:
* casts spells per day as a 3rd-level wizard and a 3rd-level cleric
* can prepare spells available to a 6th-level character

I believe that is what is intended.

Quite opposite some members of this forum, I really hope that feats remain in the classes and multiclass do not touch that. So, someone like a rogue 3/fighter 3/mage 3 has NO feat at all (he exchanged the feats for the flexibility and traits of these classes).

Absolutely. Another argument against one-level dips is the delay in ability score adjustment (and feats, if one plays with them).

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

As long as I can pull off a viable dwarven skald (bard-barian), I'll be happy.