D&D 5E Multiclassing discussion

[Majoru Oakheart]

But why? Why this is even something that needs to be prevented in the first place?

As I said, the more ways you can combine rules together the more likely you will be able to cause problems. Especially in combining archetypes that are completely different from one another. Most of the brokenness in 4e multiclassing came from taking feats designed and tested for one class on a class that was completely different from the one it was on.

I can't come up with a really good example off the top of my head but they were things like "When deal lightning damage you knock the target prone". The game was balanced figuring that all the lightning powers were encounter powers and it couldn't be done over and over again. Then a fighter acquired the feat through multiclassing and used a lightning weapon so that they'd knock enemies down with every attack they made. The same sorts of issues were present in 3.5e.

And if that was really the purpose, they'd be better off by saying "you can't have more than X classes". Instead, the current, apparently "smart" restrictions, will NOT AT ALL prevent someone to play a ridiculous Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger/Paladin/Monk/Rogue (you just to have a couple of good scores), while instead it might prevent someone else to play a totally reasonable Wizard/Fighter just because of the unforgivable mistake of having only Str 14 instead of 15. Until the next ability bump, you may say, then she'll raise it! Yes, so the "smart" restriction brilliantly became pure and simply a nuisance.

The thing is, that first multiclass would likely not be very good. Its powers are unlikely to cause problems given that most of them are just alternate ways of fighting. It's actually the combination of caster and weapon user that causes the most problems with weird combos.

As I said in my post above this. I actually like the idea that a character might be restricted from becoming a fighter because they just aren't good enough at it. Heroes are often defined as much by their limitations as their strengths. It is even better when they finally overcome those limitations by raising their stat and qualifying.

This is exactly the SAME problem of 3e multiclassing restrictrions, which were ridiculously meticulously planned "to prevent abuse" by giving XP penalties only on some specific combos, including exceptions to exceptions to exceptions. Only that those combos weren't really the broken ones.

The restrictions put in there were not really meant to prevent any abuses. As far as I can tell they were just a roleplaying thing. Even if they were, they were a really bad attempt at it. It never stopped you from multiclassing. Either way, the success of that system really doesn't matter in terms of this new system. They work completely different ways. Plus, the frontloading of classes is mostly gone.

The bottom line is actually that, restrictrions cannot be used to prevent abuses that aren't foreseen, exactly because if you can't foresee which combos will be overpowered, the restrictions will arbitrarily block balanced combos and allow some of the overpowered ones anyway.

You can restrictions are at least half roleplaying and half to prevent abuse. Will they prevent all abuses? No. Will they prevent some of them? Likely. Will it block THE most abusive combos? No way to tell. Will the restrictions cause my players to stop pouring over the books every level to see which class they want to take this level? Almost definitely. They are going to say "I don't have stats high enough to multiclass...so I know I'll just be single class for the rest of the campaign". This way it won't take them a week to level up their characters due to over analyzing the possibilities.

The entire playtest before they added multiclassing I've been so happy not to have to deal with that. When multiclassing came out, the restrictions have mostly kept it in line and have caused most players to stay single classed and only a couple to multiclass. I'd like to see multiclassing be rare, in general, and only done by exceptional PCs. Stat requirements help encourage that.

 

[MoonSong]

Having a high stat isn't powergaming. Especially not stats high enough to qualify for multiclassing. If this particular combination is too powerful, we should fix it for balance reasons.

Still, it likely prevents this from getting more out of hand. It's likely that if that character had no multiclassing restrictions at all, they'd also multi-class into Wizard to get the Enchanter class feature and give everyone disadvantage to hit them all the time. At least it limits the powergaming.

I like the idea of archetypes and anything that promotes sticking to one archetype as much as possible. I have no problem whatsoever saying "Sure, you want to be disciplined. I understand that, but you have difficulty concentrating. You can't focus well enough to control your Ki no matter how much the monks attempt to teach you. Your mind keeps wandering and you find yourself getting bored at the endless sitting around doing nothing. You just aren't cut out for all this meditating and self enlightenment."

It actually encourages roleplaying who your character is as opposed to trying to be something you aren't.

Start wiizard with druid stats, stay long enough to get the enchanter eature (and shield) then dip monk, then druid for your career.AC 25 and disadvantage versus you, you even get 9th level slots and all score increases.

Edit: And why should archetypes get in the way of iindiviual characters? Why is badwrongfun to get creative and deviating from them? Also if a character is so bad at being a fighter why not allow hin to be a bad fighter then get better? And there is more to being a fighter than just raw strength a Str 3 fighter with Dex 16 can still be awesome. Sometthing current rules fail to acknowledge.

 

[Dausuul]

"It might maybe prevent something broken, sometime?" That's the best you've got? That's a very, very poor excuse for imposing a constraint that kills a number of interesting character concepts, further complicates multiclassing, and can usually be evaded by changing the order in which you take your class levels.

I'm still waiting to see an actual example of one of these "multiclass monsters" that would be prevented by ability prereqs. Specifics and stats, please. How many levels, in which classes, with what stats?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Start wiizard with druid stats, stay long enough to get the enchanter eature (and shield) then dip monk, then druid for your career.AC 25 and disadvantage versus you, you even get 9th level slots and all score increases.

Yeah, though I expect those class features to see at least some change before release as well as the numbers for multiclassing. So, it becomes kind of moot. There are issues. I'm not disputing that.

Edit: And why should archetypes get in the way of iindiviual characters? Why is badwrongfun to get creative and deviating from them?

I believe archetypes are better because they are simpler to understand and work with. It is easy for people to say "Wizard, that's the guy who casts fireballs and lightning bolts at people" or "Rogue, that's the sneaky guy with the daggers who stabs people in the back". These archetypes are intuitive, they are the kind of things even non-gamers thinks of when these words come up.

On top of that, it is easier to balance packages than it is to balance random level picks. Archetypes are almost always more balanced.

Probably the biggest reason though is that it encourages teamwork and cooperation. When you design an archetype you can create them with disadvantages that they can't overcome on their own. This enables you to give other archetypes the ability to cover these areas creating a situation where players have to mutually rely upon one another. Almost every game I've ever played that allowed a lot of freedom in character creation inevitably ended with characters who had no weaknesses or whose weaknesses were minimized to the point of barely existing unless explicitly targeted. I hate the situations created by characters like Achilles. They are invincible and fighting them becomes useless unless you have an enemy explicitly target their Achilles Heel. But each time you target it, you are making an explicit choice to attempt to kill them and the player knows that. Hurt feelings are almost always the result.

Not to mention the other player's feelings when these characters are doing well: "I'll heal you! I'm a cleric and I specialized in healing!" "No thanks, I have a class feature that allows me to heal myself. Did I mention I also have the best AC in the group, the most hitpoints and do the most damage? It's cute that you think I need your help. Since all you can do is heal and I don't need that, why don't you sit over there and I'll let you bring me ale when I'm done killing the enemies."

It's a team game and archetypes help enforce a team dynamic. Split archetypes, where you say "I'm essentially taking the role of the Fighter AND the Wizard in the group, but I'm worse at both.", are fine. I just don't like when you can create an entirely new archetype by mixing and matching. It slows the game down as characters get more complicated and take much longer to level, it encourages "builds", and it encourages a group full of solo players.

Also if a character is so bad at being a fighter why not allow hin to be a bad fighter then get better? And there is more to being a fighter than just raw strength a Str 3 fighter with Dex 16 can still be awesome. Sometthing current rules fail to acknowledge.

I'd imagine that given a Str 3 fighter could barely lift a sword that they'd be really bad at fighting. Realistically, swinging a sword around all day, practicing with heavy weapons and armor and being physically fit enough to strike blows through armor and do some of the maneuvers required to fight with all the weapons fighters are trained in, there would be a minimum strength required. It would be above average.

Though, I admit it is kind of silly that there aren't single classed stat requirements as well to go along with the multiclassed ones. It would remove some of the abuses of taking a certain class first.

Then again, I think that the point of the system is that your character IS their primary class, they are just dabbling in other classes. I generally think of someone who starts as a level 1 Wizard, for instance, to be someone who started training at a young age, practiced for years to get everything right and is now a full fledged Wizard. A Fighter who multiclasses into Wizard is instead the guy who spent his entire life training with weapons and armors and practices martial maneuvers. He then picks up a spell book one day and says "I'm going to learn magic. I have 2 weeks, what can you teach me?" Only people who are exceptionally intelligent can learn magic in such a short period of time. They have to be able to read and understand advanced topics quickly. So they need to be REALLY naturally talented.

As for the Fighter who is str 3 and Dex 16. They might be a great fighter according to the rules, but I hate when people refer to the rules for everything. The rules MEAN something in the game world. Even though the character is mechanically super awesome, the character in question is a little absurd. Mechanically a 3 str doesn't hurt this character at all. That's because the rules are attempting to be abstract and easy to learn. In the game, the character has a max load of 30 lbs and shouldn't be able to effectively wield a sword at all. I wouldn't ever make this character. I'd also look down at someone who tried it for powergaming.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'm still waiting to see an actual example of one of these "multiclass monsters" that would be prevented by ability prereqs. Specifics and stats, please. How many levels, in which classes, with what stats?

I don't have any examples from D&D Next. Though if I did they'd be pointless anyways, since I don't have access to at least 2 of the classes and a number of options that will be in the final game and many of the issues are likely already fixed.

But there were MANY examples of this back in 3.5e. Almost all of them were caused by multiclassing like crazy. I remember at least one character I made who wore heavy armor, had a crap ton of hitpoints, had a +17 BAB at level 20 and could cast 9th level spells with no spell failure chance while wearing his armor. He had a feat that let him channel spells into his weapon to do an extra +9 to hit and +9d4 damage while making his attacks touch attacks. It was extremely powerful. It required me to have 5 different classes to get all the class features, however.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see a different system for gating in possible over-multiclassers. But this one works well enough to at least prevent the worst of the issues.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't have any examples from D&D Next. Though if I did they'd be pointless anyways, since I don't have access to at least 2 of the classes and a number of options that will be in the final game and many of the issues are likely already fixed.

But there were MANY examples of this back in 3.5e. Almost all of them were caused by multiclassing like crazy. I remember at least one character I made who wore heavy armor, had a crap ton of hitpoints, had a +17 BAB at level 20 and could cast 9th level spells with no spell failure chance while wearing his armor. He had a feat that let him channel spells into his weapon to do an extra +9 to hit and +9d4 damage while making his attacks touch attacks. It was extremely powerful. It required me to have 5 different classes to get all the class features, however.

Okay, I'll bite. Let's see the 3.5E example. We'll say that a similar restriction for core classes was in force in 3.5E (prestige classes already had prereqs), and see if it prevents the monster in question. I bet it doesn't.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see a different system for gating in possible over-multiclassers. But this one works well enough to at least prevent the worst of the issues.

In the absence of any examples of it working at all, I'm wondering what on earth would lead you to think this.

 

[bogmad]

Even a wizard who only has STR 3 is going to be ineffective. How does he lift his spellbook? Can he effectively carry anything except for the clothes on his back? The whole system breaks down with scores that low. He can barely swing a stick to hit the broad side of a barn. Hitting and squashing a bug becomes tremendously difficult.

Like I've said before, I have no problems with narrative multiclassing restrictions, but I don't agree that "half narrative, half mechanical" is the way to approach balanced multiclassing. 15% narrative, 85% mechanical seems like a much better goal. Get to that point and the extent to which combos are "broken" is little more than a difference of opinion. Lowering the ability score restrictions a bit, is a start.

I'm also not so protective of archetypes that I'm against clever players trying to create their own. If a guy is getting peanut butter in his chocolate, that's fine with me. Let's just make sure nobody is picking a reeses out when he wants a hershey bar because it's a better quality chocolate. (Ok so that metaphor may be a bit ... wonky).

 

[Obryn]

I don't dig narrative restrictions for multiclassing because starting at higher levels is a thing. It's even more ineffective at its job than ability score restrictions evidently are.

I think restrictions need to be in place - there've been a few examples here showcasing it. But I'm now convinced stats aren't it.

Removing it altogether would be my preference, but I doubt I'll get my way, here.

 

[Herobizkit]

Coming in way late to the party, but what if the offered multi-classing "feats" like they did in 4e?

For example, I envision a Fighter MC feat as improving on the character's weapon and armor proficiencies by one 'step'. A wizard taking a Fighter MC feat would get his armor proficiency upgraded one 'step' (from, what, none to Light?) and would also get proficiency in one weapon or weapon category (all swords, all maces, however they're doing it now).

Now you have a light armored, sword-wielding wizard (not unlike the Battle Sorcerer from 3.x) who can continue up the chain to learn Medium and Heavy armors if he so desires.

It's not as 'quick' as adding a level of Fighter, or as efficient, but it gives something to the folks who don't want to sacrifice a caster level.

 

[bogmad]

Coming in way late to the party, but what if the offered multi-classing "feats" like they did in 4e?

For example, I envision a Fighter MC feat as improving on the character's weapon and armor proficiencies by one 'step'. A wizard taking a Fighter MC feat would get his armor proficiency upgraded one 'step' (from, what, none to Light?) and would also get proficiency in one weapon or weapon category (all swords, all maces, however they're doing it now).

Now you have a light armored, sword-wielding wizard (not unlike the Battle Sorcerer from 3.x) who can continue up the chain to learn Medium and Heavy armors if he so desires.

It's not as 'quick' as adding a level of Fighter, or as efficient, but it gives something to the folks who don't want to sacrifice a caster level.

They already do that to an extent, though it could be done better. Heavy armor feat gives you proficiency in heavy armor plus a few bonuses. The Arcane and Divine adept feats give you a small bit of spellcasting. In the last public playtest doc there weren't quite enough feats that were all that great for magic users or divine classes (in my opinion) but there's definitely room for that sort of design space.