D&D 5E Explainable multiclassing

[Arial Black]

For a single class PC, we assume that he has been training as a (whatever class) for a decade or so without any class abilities being usable, until one day he wakes up as a 1st level (whatever), able to use all of those abilities when he couldn't use any of those abilities the day before.

On his first day adventuring, he earns 300xp and levels up to level 2 (whatever), and suddenly, without any training whatsoever, has abilities this evening that he didn't have this morning. Unless you fluff this as the eventual culmination of that decade of pre- 1st level training but it took some *ahem* experience in order for it to finally click.

Let's say....ranger. He's been ranger training since he was 8 years old, but did not have the abilities of a 1st level ranger, because if he did then he would already be a 1st level ranger!

One day he goes to bed and he doesn't have any ranger abilities. When he wakes up, he has all of the abilities of a Rgr 1. We must assume that abilities are binary-you either have an ability or you don't-and that although abilities seem to suddenly spontaneously 'appear' that this represents your training finally 'clicking'.

After the first day/300xp, suddenly, spontaneously, he has the TWF weapon style, and can cast spells. He couldn't this morning! It's stupid!

Well, stupid or not, this is how D&D works.

The reason I wrote all that is to point out that this process is identical for both single class AND multi class PCs! You train for years, one day you wake up with abilities you didn't have the day before, then you kill 300xp-worth of baddies and have abilities that you didn't have before.

This process makes as much (or as little) sense for both single class AND multi class PCs!

My Rg 1 gains 300xp; he can either become a Rgr 2 or a Rgr 1/Ftr 1. 'But that's stupid and unrealistic!' I hear you cry. Why? So, instead of the 'perfectly sensible' spontaneously-gained abilities of TWF style and spellcasting, he gains the 'totally stupid and unrealistic' abilities of...TWF style and second wind...!

'But he trained for 10 years to be a ranger, and his abilities are only clicking now!' Well, it turns out that he spent that decade training to be a Rgr/Ftr, and those abilities are only clicking now.

'He never said anything about training to be a fighter, until just now!' So? You don't know about every minute of every day of that 10 years. Just like the stories we read/watch, the writer decides that the hero is an expert chef/has a famous uncle/was trained in ju-jitsu/speaks fluent swahili/whatever, even though this was never mentioned before, because the writer ret-conned it in.

Now, we can't just 'ret-con' in that, 'oh yeah, didn't I mention, I'm also an archmage!' We have to play by the rules. But the rules certainly do allow us to say (as we level up), 'oh yeah, didn't I mention, I also was made to go to wizard school for a bit when I was a kid. I hated it at the time; doing boring finger exercises and reading boring theory books while I watched my mates through the window playing and fighting and having fun, pointing at me and calling me a softie. Still, now that I have some experience it, well, it just...clicked!'

'Ah, but some things don't make sense, because the barbarian class is not a profession, it's a background!' Bollocks. You can fluff ANY class how you want, and the game has any background usable with any class. Barbarian...urchin? Noble? Entertainer? Acolyte? We are certainly not tied to the outsider background.

The description of the class, the fluff, is up to the player. Anyone who benefits from his fury in a fight can be a barbarian in class terms. You may treat barbarian as a background, but that doesn't mean that everyone else has to.

There are some books by Robert Green that deal with a far-future human space empire. The hero, Gavin, is a noble whose entire noble line has been genetically enhanced with an adrenal gland that delivers combat drugs into his system at will (although not forever). As soon as I read this, I thought 'civilised barbarian'.

TLDR: the multi class system is actually the same as the single class system: you train for a decade before play, abilities seem to spontaneously appear with experience with no further training required. Same system for both. Penalising MC PCs without imposing the same penalties on single class PCs is either hypocritical or shows a lack of understanding of how the game actually works compared to how you think it should work.

 

[MG.0]

For a single class PC, we assume that he has been training as a (whatever class) for a decade or so without any class abilities being usable, until one day he wakes up as a 1st level (whatever), able to use all of those abilities when he couldn't use any of those abilities the day before.

On his first day adventuring, he earns 300xp and levels up to level 2 (whatever), and suddenly, without any training whatsoever, has abilities this evening that he didn't have this morning. Unless you fluff this as the eventual culmination of that decade of pre- 1st level training but it took some *ahem* experience in order for it to finally click.

That's why I use much slower advancement, and require training between levels before gaining any new abilities. The default pace of advancement in modern D&D is insanely silly. Characters go from nobody to world-shaking demi-god in weeks of game time unless the DM throws on the brakes to preserve some semblance of world consistency and character growth.

Another thing I (sometimes) do but would like to see it built into the game as an optional rule is to start characters at zero level with no class. Characters adventure at this level for a period before gravitating to the class of their choice. Upon choosing, training and time must be spent to complete the transition to 1st level anything.

Edit:

Slower advancement has the added benefit of allowing longer time in sweet spots in character power to allow for a greater variety of adventures with the same characters before they outpace certain groups of enemies entirely. With the normal pace of advancement suppose you want to have the party explore an elemental plane but don't want to either overwhelm the party or have to throw bucketfuls of enemies at them just to present a challenge? Then you have to time it just right in the campaign, probably removing the opportunity to have some other really cool adventure instead. Slower advancement opens up a lot of possibilities with regard to campaign building that is impossible or absurd given the default rate of advancement.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I get what you guys are saying, but those all sound like balance issues. If someone showed up to your table and wanted to play a laser-wielding space-monkey, and it was mechanically balanced, would you allow it?

If we were starting a new campaign? I'd take that as a request that the player is interested in a lighthearted SF game and plan the campaign accordingly. Our group plays an off-and-on game that can be summarized as "Two rowdy retired asteroid miners and an illegal clone of Britney Spears run a dinosaur-themed bar on Mars", so this is well within our scope.

But in my regular dark-age fantasy campaign? No. The other players have investment into and expectations about the genre and tone of the game, and their suspension of disbelief would be strained to say the least by the appearance of such a character. Saying "yes" stops being an option when it comes at the expense of other players' fun.

In my current game, set in the Forgotten Realms, one of the PCs is a Roman sailor and priest of Neptune who got displaced into the Realms by some kind of planar portal. He's trying to find his way home, and having a good time acting baffled at the strange customs of the locals, while educating them about proper Roman deities. It's really a lot of fun, but I know a lot of DMs who would not allow a character like that.

Contact between Faerûn and Earth is canonical -- there are historical pagan deities in the FR pantheon for a reason. So for a Roman priest of Neptune to show up doesn't strike me as particularly farfetched.

 

[Arial Black]

That's why I use much slower advancement, and require training between levels before gaining any new abilities. The default pace of advancement in modern D&D is insanely silly. Characters go from nobody to world-shaking demi-god in weeks of game time unless the DM throws on the brakes to preserve some semblance of world consistency and character growth.

Another thing I (sometimes) do but would like to see it built into the game as an optional rule is to start characters at zero level with no class. Characters adventure at this level for a period before gravitating to the class of their choice. Upon choosing, training and time must be spent to complete the transition to 1st level anything.

Of course, we know that any DM can tinker with the rules in any way he wants, but we are discussing what the rules actually are, not what they could be.

The way the rules are, requiring months of in-game training to gain the 1st level abilities of a 2nd class is not compatible with allowing single class PCs to get their new abilities without any in game training at all.

My Ftr 2 levels up and wants to be Ftr 2/Wiz 1: totally unrealistic to spontaneously know how to use wizard spells without years of training.

Okay, my Ftr 2 becomes Ftr 3, Eldritch Knight. He has spontaneously learned how to cast wizard spells, without ever mentioning wizard training before; I was originally going to choose Battlemaster.

Why is one okay but the other not okay?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The way the rules are, requiring months of in-game training to gain the 1st level abilities of a 2nd class is not compatible with allowing single class PCs to get their new abilities without any in game training at all.

I think you may be misunderstanding him. The way I read it, he's saying he'd require the training time either way.

 

[MG.0]

I think you may be misunderstanding him. The way I read it, he's saying he'd require the training time either way.

Correct, I require training in 100% of cases.

@Arial Black
You are discussing what you think the rules to be, not what they are. Training to advance is just as much a part of the game rules as written as feats and multiclassing are. Training to advance is a variant rule in the DMG...so it is part of the game if the DM chooses it to be. It is every bit as valid as auto-advancement and a hell of a lot more sensical.

 

[Greg K]

If someone showed up to your table and wanted to play a laser-wielding space-monkey, and it was mechanically balanced, would you allow it?

No, I would not. I don't do laser wielding anything in D&D. The player knows prior to character generation, the races and cultures of my setting, classes found (and not) in those cultures, deities (including tenets and other aspects of the priesthoods), etc. When they agree to play, the terms they are agreeing to is to build a character that fits within both the limits of the setting and house rules presented.

In my current game, set in the Forgotten Realms, one of the PCs is a Roman sailor and priest of Neptune who got displaced into the Realms by some kind of planar portal. He's trying to find his way home, and having a good time acting baffled at the strange customs of the locals, while educating them about proper Roman deities. It's really a lot of fun, but I know a lot of DMs who would not allow a character like that.

I don't do planar portals between alternate worlds. I don't like the trope. When I run, there is the main plane of the setting with the world, a spirit world, a heaven type plane (not necessarily with angels), and an abyss and/or hell. There are no Elemental Planes, Negative Material Plane, etc

To me, multi-classing is no different. Even if a multi-class combo seems sudden and weird and out-of-genre, if it sounds fun to the player and isn't broken, then it's my job to find a way to say "Yes" in a way that makes the game more entertaining for everyone.

That is your choice and WOTC would love you as it helps them sell books. Personally, however, you would not be a DM with whom I would want to play- it is just not the the type of campaign that interests me.

 

[Greg K]

Okay, my Ftr 2 becomes Ftr 3, Eldritch Knight. He has spontaneously learned how to cast wizard spells, without ever mentioning wizard training before; I was originally going to choose Battlemaster.

Why is one okay but the other not okay?

It is not ok for my tastes which is why I have stated elsewhere that I want a base class that does the Fighter/Mage (3.0 at least had 0/0 level multiclassing which worked until I found a third party Figher/Mage base class that I liked). Personally, I dislike that all classes do not gain their subclass at level. The Eldritch Knight is one of the reasons. The light fighter is another (However, one of the posters on EnWorld did a great Light Fighter class variant complete with subclasses).

 

[MG.0]

There are no Elemental Planes, Negative Material Plane, etc

Man, you had me up until you dissed the Negative Material plane. Seriously, who can forget all those classic adventures set on...um...wait a minute...checking...Nevermind, it seems no adventure of significant impact has ever taken place there...carry on.

In all seriousness, I love the planes and would hate to see them gone, but they're not right for every campaign. The same goes for laser wielding space-monkeys.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

For a single class PC, we assume that he has been training as a (whatever class) for a decade or so without any class abilities being usable, until one day he wakes up as a 1st level (whatever), able to use all of those abilities when he couldn't use any of those abilities the day before.

On his first day adventuring, he earns 300xp and levels up to level 2 (whatever), and suddenly, without any training whatsoever, has abilities this evening that he didn't have this morning. Unless you fluff this as the eventual culmination of that decade of pre- 1st level training but it took some *ahem* experience in order for it to finally click.
.....

I pretty much agree with the entire post, except that i sort of have an alternative interpretation for the 1st level. You see, as it makes no sense at all to me that years of practice accumulate to lvl 1 adventurer, but the local militia is composed of lvl3 guards, the marshal's deputies are lvl 5 rangers, and the local city watch is lvl7 fighters, i prefer to see at the levels of experience as just that..... levels of experience. When one gains a level, he or she doesn't learn anything new per se, they just find a way how to mechanically (META) express what they are no capable of doing. I.E. all PC's are actually the lvl20 versions of themselves from the very start, it's just that their full potential is locked at the start. This IMO allows for much more rich and varied character to roam the planes then what can be achieved with the PHB basic classes alone.