D&D 5E (2014) Princes of the Apocalypse campaign recaps

Nebulous · Apr 23, 2015

Session #1 - Red Larch

https://app.box.com/s/oj0jy718p6wrjxaws8po0ygg0gqnj8ua

Nebulous · Apr 23, 2015

2) The missing blond sisters at Berry Hill. Someone used a pass without trace spell mere moments after the kidnapping to hide their getaway, and where they went from there is anyone’s guess. But that was two weeks ago and the outcome for the girls looks grim.

This was an unplanned addition to the session. The players picked up on something I said in passing and really, really wanted to follow up, partly because they had so few clues to hinge on at the moment, so I went with it. Now I'm thinking if the girls are even alive, they're at Lance Rock with the Necromancer....

YourSwordIsMine · Apr 23, 2015

Rogue/Ranger/druid? lol

Whats the reasoning for such a diverse multiclassing? And he is aware of the drawbacks multiclassing can cause right?

phantomK9 · Apr 23, 2015

YourSwordIsMine said:
Rogue/Ranger/druid? lol

Whats the reasoning for such a diverse multiclassing? And he is aware of the drawbacks multiclassing can cause right?

I came here to ask the same thing.
Interesting combo, lots of moving parts.
Does he plan to just have a couple levels in two classes and then focus on one class or spread them out evenly?

Nebulous · Apr 23, 2015

YourSwordIsMine said:
Rogue/Ranger/druid? lol

Whats the reasoning for such a diverse multiclassing? And he is aware of the drawbacks multiclassing can cause right?

Oh yeah, he's an old hat at gaming. I think he just wanted to see what happened

Nebulous · Apr 23, 2015

phantomK9 said:
I came here to ask the same thing.
Interesting combo, lots of moving parts.
Does he plan to just have a couple levels in two classes and then focus on one class or spread them out evenly?

I don't know yet. But given that two people have already asked here, I will inquire of the player and find out exactly what he wants to do, I hadn't given it too much thought.

Nebulous · Apr 23, 2015

Nebulous said:
I don't know yet. But given that two people have already asked here, I will inquire of the player and find out exactly what he wants to do, I hadn't given it too much thought.

From the player of the druid/rogue/ranger:

Yup, I know exactly what I'm doing.

I think the biggest drawback is that I will miss out on ability score increases/feats, which are pretty powerful, so it will be interesting to see whether taking the features from several different classes will compensate for that. If I was going to rely heavily on druid spells, I would suffer a lot by delaying access to higher level spells, but since the party already has another magic user I'm mostly going for wild shape and some healing with that class (and at least the cantrips will get more powerful based on character level rather than class).

So like I thought, he's just experimenting and not worried about optimization.

phantomK9 · Apr 23, 2015

Nebulous said:
So like I thought, he's just experimenting and not worried about optimization.

That's pretty cool.
Yeah missing out on the feats for a while could really suck, but the build sounds fun.

Anyway, great write up. Looking forward to more.

YourSwordIsMine · Apr 23, 2015

I wasn't worried about optimization, I was just curious as to his thoughts and plans. Multiclass x3 is not something you see a lot anymore. Gone are the days of the Elf Fighter/Magic-User/Thief

Nebulous · Apr 24, 2015

YourSwordIsMine said:
I wasn't worried about optimization, I was just curious as to his thoughts and plans. Multiclass x3 is not something you see a lot anymore. Gone are the days of the Elf Fighter/Magic-User/Thief

He actually elaborated more in a second email. He's put a LOT of thought into this triple class character, way more than I'd realized!

At low to mid-level, I prefer versatility because it increases my chances of having something interesting to do and helps to cover the bases in a 3-person party.

Also, say I had taken fighter instead of ranger, and I took another level of druid at 4th. I could heal 1d10 every fight, get a +2 to my ranged attacks, wild shape twice every fight (into CR1 beasts, some of which are pretty dangerous for our level, plus I get all the hit points of those two creatures before you start actually getting to mine), plus I get some extra healing as a druid (and can cash those in even while in wild shape). Another level of rogue, and I'm hitting, withdrawing, and hiding every round given the right terrain and probably adding sneak attack damage to those +2 bow attacks.

Not that I think it's unbalanced in my favor either. If I was just a pure druid in the above example I would just be one level away from being able to wildshape into CR2 monsters and would have a lot more spellcasting ability. From a number crunching standpoint, I think I am in effect making a few of my early levels behave like the levels where I would gain a feat. I would argue that at lower levels, taking a 1st level of a new class can actually be better than a feat level if you choose wisely and is worth delaying advancement in a single class, but at higher levels you start to pay a bigger and bigger cost by delaying that advancement. Based on that, if I wanted to optimize, I would maybe max out the other classes at level 2 or 3 and then focus on a single class.