Arguments and assumptions against multi classing

[Arial Black]

I think you're both circling the difference and neither is entirely accurate. Arial has the math down pat, PMing has the application down pat but there's a middle that can be found on page 83 of the 1e DMG.

Paraphrased (and you can find my post up thread for clarity) the DM has the ability to rank your character on a four rank scale based on their performance by the class or classes they play. It's entirely possible for a multi-class character to earn a thousand XP, then split it up by 2 (500 XP per class) then get rated highly on one class and poorly on another and end up with 750 towards one class and 250 towards another.

Note that this ranking system was not considered optional in terms of RAW, but was certainly just as optional as anything else in the rules given how people freely interpreted things or didn't read things at the time.

Be well
KB

Well, I have to admit that I have never heard of anything like that, despite playing 1e with many different groups between 1978 and when 2e came out.

Did 2e have the same or similar rule?

 

[Arial Black]

Just wow! So many nuggets untouched in this great game! Gygax was
A damn genius even if you ignored some
Of his rules. Wish I could have been his friend and gaming buddy! I give two sh*ts about celebrity...but him? Always amazed.

I liked and respected GG, but what amazes me most while reading about him and D&D is that he made this game with all its potential for imagining and role-playing in whole worlds and planes of existence....but in practice it was all just background fluff for the actual game which was about mega-dungeons and fiendish killer traps so that he could pit his wits against his players'.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Why couldn't you do that in 5e though? Sure it'd be a bit homebrew, but... ok? or you can just only level at even levels and advance two classes at one time! Or ou bring back gestalt concepts or something. You're still limited by the action economy, so there are only so many things you can do in one round!

Never said I couldn't do that. I did (see below) write up some rules. I have considered it, seriously, but in the end just kind of decided that I didn't really need MC nor did my players. In all the time of playing 5e (and for the first half or more of since we've been playing...Starter Box launch time, whenever that was) we were using MC (and Feats!). Because we wanted to see what was there and what we liked or didn't. Funny thing...with MC, not a single player of mine ever used it. Not one. Over a year of weekly play. Not once. And, in case you didn't know, I'm a very unforgiving DM (one might say "Killer DM", by today's standards). Most PC's would hit 2nd and many 3rd. A few less every level there after up until 7th..the highest PC anyone has managed to get in our 5e games. So they had opportunity to use the MC rules. I think only once do I vaguely remember a player contemplating adding a 2nd class.

When we finally decided to drop MC and Feats from our games, nobody batted an eye. In fact, all of them wanted to see Feats ditched, and about half didn't care one way or the other about MC, the rest, including me, would rather not have the MC rules or change them to be more like what we like (1e/2e/Hackmaster4th).

Anyway, if I *did* want to bring back MC'ing I'd bring it back in the form of a "different name specialty class"...basically a "prestige class" but you would start as it. I did do this, as I mentioned up above. Where it was more of a "pre-planned double-advancement" thing. So you were a new class that was a Fighter (Champion)/Rogue (Thief). You start at Level 2 (so 1st/1st Fighter/Rogue). You then start getting XP. You don't gain ANY levels until you have enough XP to hit 4th level, where you become a 2nd/2nd Fighter (Champion)/Rogue (Thief). Continue ever 2 levels until you hit 10/10. The "special classes" that were made up of three classes, pretty much the same thing, except levels were gained in 3's. With a "triple class MC" class the max level was 18. You never gained the last "two levels".

All said, I'd still rather have 1e/2e MC rules. But it's not really possible due to the universal XP advancement table.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Salthorae]

But it would resemble something like 4/4/5. Something like that. If someone has access to those tables, by all means let us know the actual numbers.

My point is that the DM awards XPs, including bonus XPs for class specific stuff, to the player. The player then does the dividing and adding any +10%s. So doing more of thieving and casting and less of fighting during an adventure did not impact the divided XP totals unevenly. The only thing that could make them uneven were the possible +10%s.

Of course, we may have been playing wrong all those years ago, but if so I played in many groups that accidentally did the exact same wrong thing!

2e PHB says XP is divided evenly among all your multi-classes.

Fighter 4 = 8k - 5 = 16k; Wizard 4 = 10k - 5 = 20k Rogue 5 = 10k - 6 = 20k SO you are spot on with the 4/4/5 mix.

I guess what feels so different with 1/2e vs. 3.x/5e MC is the gap between individual class level capabilities vs. single class characters and that you can't start the game with full fledged F/M/T levels. in 3.x+ Two characters who had gained enough XP for a Druid to be 7th would have a 2/2/3 split on the F/M/T character, which means you're more behind the curve in casting power and/or # of attacks per round. Whereas a 1/2e F/M/T got basically the same #' of attacks with their specialized weapons 3 att/2 rds and they had 5 weapon proficiency slots just like any other 4th level warrior, they are on the verge of 3rd level spells, where the 3.x MC is almost to 2nd level spells, and their theiving skills are probably actually better relative to the rest of the 5e system at Rogue 3 (with expertise) than Thief 5 would have been in 1/2e or Rogue 3 in 3.x

I say again though, if you want to get back to that feel, you either need to homebrew some rules to split XP and have multiple classes advancing at the same time, which if the XP table is the same regardless... sounds a lot like gestalt rules! If you split XP though, your MC advancement is slowed vs. single class, which may be a nice way to balance gestalt/MC characters vs. normal PC's, even in 5e.

So a Character in 5e with 34k XP: single class they just made level 8. Split XP Gestalt/MC they would be 5/5/5 and need another 11k (split 3 ways) to get to 6/6/6; another 27k (split 3 ways to get to 7/7/7). A single class that stared with 34k and added another 38k would be 10th level and something like 40% of the way to 11th. So they maintain basically a 3 level gap on the MC PC through the end of tier 2.

a 2 class split would be 6/6 when the single class was 8th and if they got another 38k, they'd be 8/8 when the single class is 10th.

it seems like you'd be behind in levels = to the # of extra classes you add on. That keeps through the end of tier 2 anyway.

It's not a bad system since action economy is still your limiting factor. You only ever get an action, bonus action, and move... being Gestalt/MC just gives you more options for using those action types.

I might try this in my next game I run for my group and see how it pans out.

EDIT: Addendum to the notes above...

I just did the math/compared the tables to 2e XP for MC all the way to 20th...

2e 20th level mage XP = 3,750,000 - a 2 class Fighter/Mage would be 15/15 with that much xp, and a 3 class Fighter/Mage/Thief would be 13/13/15

5e 20th level XP = 355,000 - a 2 class Anything as described above would be *gasp* 15/15 with that much xp, and a 3 class Anything would be... 12/12/12.

That's pretty close to the old spreads, though I suppose the 3 class DOES sacrifice a little bit, specifically 7th level spells vs. 1/2e

 

[pming]

Hiya!

No, I think you imagined that. I suppose it may be an optional rule hidden somewhere, but the actual multiclass rules were that:...

You could be entierly correct. It could have been a house rule I used back when I started...and like you, that was a LONG time ago. Old grey matter ain't what it used to be! If I ever find it I'll be sure to make a note in one of my DMG's (or GMG's for Hackmaster 4th).

But my multiclass F/M/T friend has been on the same adventures and gained the same number of XPs, which is a bit of a coincidence since the DM usually awarded some bonus XPs for class-specific things, like thieves getting more for money and fighters getting more for killing, etc. Maybe that's what you are (mis-)remembering?

I don't think so...but anything's possible. The "class specific" bonus XP came about when 2e came out. I remember thinking "Hey, that's kind of a cool idea..." and then looked at the class bonuses for tasks and saw that they weren't exactly..."balanced". Some class abilities were gained all the time by some classes because of use (Fighters), and others only when the opportunity came up (Cleric and Turning Undead, iirc). Like so many things we found 'wrong' about 2e, this was yet another example of "Cool idea...buuuutttt....". Kit's were the same thing.

My point is that the DM awards XPs, including bonus XPs for class specific stuff, to the player. The player then does the dividing and adding any +10%s. So doing more of thieving and casting and less of fighting during an adventure did not impact the divided XP totals unevenly. The only thing that could make them uneven were the possible +10%s.

Of course, we may have been playing wrong all those years ago, but if so I played in many groups that accidentally did the exact same wrong thing!

As opposed to the things we deliberately did wrong, like requiring training to level up (nobody ever!), or using class level limits for demihumans (variable).

Your number-remembering is correct (at least from my memory...hehe...it's like two old farts at a nursing home arguing about something that happened 40 years ago that both remember, but don't remember it the same way... LOL!). As we played 1e (we gave 2e a fair shake, a good two or three years, but went back to 1e), I used Level Limits. This was probably one of the number one factors that edged players towards Human characters, or Thieves, or Races with Unlimited in some class. Not that PC's got much above 10th to 12th level, handful of 'teen levels. Only about...no, exactly 5 PC's got to 18th or higher in the 25 to 30 years of DM'ing 1e ( [yes, creative names by 11 year olds...] "Hawk", "Tron", "Denakhan", "Dargoth", and "The Ranger" who probably had a name but the player played in two campaigns and used the same character in both...remember when that was a thing? It was probably "Aragan" or "Argorn" or something cheezy like that...ahhh...memories... ).

Anyway, if I ever do find where I read that XP division thing I'll try and remember to PM it to you or something here. But don't hold your breath. Weather or not it's an actual rule, and option somewhere, or a house rule, it's something I'll keep using because it's what we like. Likewise we won't use things we don't like...and the core 5e MC rules fall into that bucket, unfortunately. YMMV.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Yeah, I fluffed it, not the DM. I imagined this whole regiment. The DM is okay with it.

Sure, the DM could refuse. If he were a jerk.

And that's the kind of player entitlement which I object to. You are a player, but you are usurping the DM's role as world-builder, and calling him names if he doesn't let you get away with it. The roles of player and DM are very clearly delineated in the rules, and you are over-stepping.

It's fine if your DM wants to share the responsibility, or crowd-source for ideas, in order to increase player investment. There's nothing wrong with them having that option. What's wrong is your expectation that the DM should do so, or your perception that they're doing it wrong by choosing not to.

They can. Those that do may become paladins.

And you're more than welcome to run it that way at your table, and anyone who objects does not have to play with you, because you're the DM and only you know the absolute truth about how your own setting works. No mere player has the authority to overrule the DM on such a matter, and any player who attempts such a thing, is indeed a jerk.

But my DM says that I've lost my paladin powers! WTF? Why? "Because you could have given the beggar 10 gp instead of 1gp, and I'm the DM and what I say goes and how I interpret the text of the law trumps yours!"

That's the kind of DM I'm complaining about!

I would also complain about such a DM, because regardless of their interpretation of how the Oath works in their world, they failed to properly convey it to the player. It's simply unreasonable to expect a player to know what you're thinking, when given such vague rules to go by. If nothing else, the DM should tell you that the Oath demands you give 10gp, because that's something your character would know if they were a paladin who had taken that Oath. (Not that I would agree with their interpretation, mind, but they are the DM, and it's their world.)

Meanwhile, there are those who (correctly) see the game mechanics as a metagame rules structure that allows us all to play in our imaginary worlds, but the imagination part is up to us. Just to give you an idea of what we mean, here are three example character ideas for each class, but the fluff is up to you.

Then there are those who (wrongly!) read the exact same words and come to the conclusion that the only allowed PCs are those three examples per class. That the game mechanics of class (barbarian, bard, cleric) are not only the metagame but also the in-world reality. That a 'fighter' is something that the creatures in the game world can know, as opposed to a thief. That the creatures in the game world can get a microscope and tell the difference between a 'fighter' and a 'thief' by looking.

It's rare I say this, but those guys are role-playing wrong.

The concept of the metagame does not apply here. The game mechanics represent the reality of the game world, and they give some examples of things that might exist within the game world alongside the mechanics which reflect those things, but neither the crunch nor the fluff is more sacrosanct than the other. It is the connection between crunch and fluff which is important, because that defines the language of the game mechanics. Indeed, anyone in the world can tell the difference between a fighter and a thief, because fighters know how to wear heavy armor without looking like an idiot, and thieves are more reliable when they try to pick a lock; they may not assign those names to any given individuals, but the difference is plain for anyone to see, if they know what to look for.

It is not necessarily true that those are the only character types which can exist in the world, of course, just as it is not necessarily true that all of those in the book will exist in every given world. Any given world may or may not have humans, paladins, oni, or shugenja. Of course you can invent new character classes, races, feats, spells, monsters, or anything else. The DMG even has guidelines to help you figure out how to correctly reflect those new things, within the language of the game mechanics.

What you can't do is just unilaterally change the fluff for a thing, without changing the mechanics which represent it, unless those mechanics are truly the best reflection of that reality. This isn't 4E. For all the numerous faults of 5E, the designers at least understand that much.

 

[5ekyu]

"My fluff. It's up to me.

Just like I fluffed my background (soldier-officer) into Captain of the Avant Guard, the best regiment in the army, focusing on scouting and trail-blazing, with a uniform so smart its got a PhD from the best university in the land!

Yeah, I fluffed it, not the DM. I imagined this whole regiment. The DM is okay with it.

Sure, the DM could refuse. If he were a jerk. "

There are other reasons the gm could object to your fluff as presented and they dont necessitate the gm being a jerk.

As a gm who asks or encourages or allows players to invent whole worlds in my scifi game and who gives advice number one to what's next/how improv GM of "check PC background/backstory"... where we cross ideas in opposite directions is that very attitude that a gm not allowing your "fluff" somehow gets tossed as a jerk.

You just linked werewolves and raging and copy of barbarian mechanics into the game. That cannot be seen as "collaboration" of refusing to go along dumps your other collaborators into the "jerk" category.

Your military bit hasn't got enough meat on its bones to really be accepted or denied imo. I would have quite a few questions either way, before I could assess its impact.

But the WW thing... while I personally like it... the attitude of "its mine, take it or be a jerk" does get you auto-refusal, at my table. At my table, we work to play together, not to issue declarations (and denouncements) of that nature whenever we disagree.

Reasonable people can disagree, with some not getting everything they want without one of them being the victim and the other jerks.

 

[5ekyu]

"I would also complain about such a DM, because regardless of their interpretation of how the Oath works in their world, they failed to properly convey it to the player. It's simply unreasonable to expect a player to know what you're thinking, when given such vague rules to go by. If nothing else, the DM should tell you that the Oath demands you give 10gp, because that's something your character would know if they were a paladin who had taken that Oath. (Not that I would agree with their interpretation, mind, but they are the DM, and it's their world.)"

Tend to agree.

The issue here is not working from common baselines of understanding. The **character** should have good knowledge of where the boundaries are and the player should also have enough info yo make informed decisions.

Sometimes this seems driven by the expectation of hostility or deception on the GMs part, like the GM is waiting to catch the player and so the GM needs reigning in.

Can a GM do so, sure just like the player can exert the ultimate player agency... feet.

If the GM is gonna be a jerk, if the GM is gonna work to "get you"... no fluff text enabling entitlement credo is likely gonna be the solution.

 

[SirGrotius]

I suppose I'm more of a black & white guy, but when I thought about multi-classing, it always seemed to rub against the classic rubrics which made D&D very epic and meaningful to me. I suppose on another layer, I saw it as almost gaming the system and creating a character to game the system more than for the story or the idea. I realize those thoughts are outdated, so appreciate the broader viewpoint here in and can appreciate the advantages of offering greater flexibility and instilling a sense of creativity amongst players.

 

[Arial Black]

"My fluff. It's up to me.

Just like I fluffed my background (soldier-officer) into Captain of the Avant Guard, the best regiment in the army, focusing on scouting and trail-blazing, with a uniform so smart its got a PhD from the best university in the land!

Yeah, I fluffed it, not the DM. I imagined this whole regiment. The DM is okay with it.

Sure, the DM could refuse. If he were a jerk. "

There are other reasons the gm could object to your fluff as presented and they dont necessitate the gm being a jerk.

As a gm who asks or encourages or allows players to invent whole worlds in my scifi game and who gives advice number one to what's next/how improv GM of "check PC background/backstory"... where we cross ideas in opposite directions is that very attitude that a gm not allowing your "fluff" somehow gets tossed as a jerk.

You just linked werewolves and raging and copy of barbarian mechanics into the game. That cannot be seen as "collaboration" of refusing to go along dumps your other collaborators into the "jerk" category.

Your military bit hasn't got enough meat on its bones to really be accepted or denied imo. I would have quite a few questions either way, before I could assess its impact.

But the WW thing... while I personally like it... the attitude of "its mine, take it or be a jerk" does get you auto-refusal, at my table. At my table, we work to play together, not to issue declarations (and denouncements) of that nature whenever we disagree.

Reasonable people can disagree, with some not getting everything they want without one of them being the victim and the other jerks.

In this medium (Internet, gaming forum, debate) each side tends to exaggerate the other side's transgressions, partly because we are passionate and partly to better illustrate the fault.

In reality, I talk to my DM. He says he's starting a new campaign soon, each of you needs to create an th level PC. We talk as a party so our PCs don't tread on each others' toes, and we talk to the DM about our 'cool idea!' (TM).

In fact, we probably talk more than the DM wants to listen, because we are invested in our idea while the DM cannot be (because he doesn't know what it is yet) and the DM has to take in four or five such ideas while simultaneously readying the campaign.

This means that the DM is, usually, happy for us to do all or most of the work re: fluff. The DM can certainly pipe up and make suggestions to make it even cooler, tell us or talk to us about how our concept could fit into his world, or even say that a particular bit cannot work in his campaign and work with us to make adjustments. Bear in mind that he's already told us about house rules or campaign specific rules. For example, if the campaign is set in Krynn in the years between the fall of Istar and the heroes of the lance the DM will say that there are no clerics. Fair enough, we won't make any clerics; what about druids? And we get to know what the limits are and then create our PCs in that light.

So, at various pre-campaign start moments, each player will go to the DM and say, "Here's my PC". We can tell the story of our characters, how each mechanical ability makes sense for this PC (I'm super-civilised but I've got anger management issues, that's how my Rage ability makes sense for this PC, what with his werewolf-adjacent heritage).

At this point the DM reviews our characters sheets (for crunch). If I were to say that my rogue has the Rage ability even though it's against the rules because I don't have barbarian levels, he would just say no and I know that so I wouldn't present that. If I were to say that my barbarian Rage works differently than it says in the PHB, just because I say so, then I have overstepped my bounds. If that's something I want then I'd have to explain it to him and ask, nicely, and take it like a gentleman if he says no.

But if I present him with a character sheet that says 'Barbarian 1', and includes a description of the Rage ability that is copy/pasted from the PHB with no alterations, then he simply has no grounds for complaint! How I fluff my rage for this PC isn't in his purview!

No, I'm not foolish or impolite enough to begin my conversation with, "Here's my PC; it's my way or the highway!", because that would be insane and foolish and I probably wouldn't have a game anymore.

But equally, if the DM finds that my PC is mechanically RAW, he has nothing to object to and I would be stunned if he banned my fluff, saying that it's his way or the highway! He wouldn't treat me so badly anymore than I would treat him badly.

Even if he said it politely, I would be absolutely stunned and gobsmacked if he refused to allow my fluff even though my crunch was unimpeachable! It wouldn't make sense to me! What would he care? My civilised, anger management-challenged version of Rage in no way messes with his world. My cool idea doesn't impose anything on the rest of his world! There is nothing to object to.

If my DM was that kind of person, one who inexplicably and irrationally messes with my PC like that, then he probably wouldn't be my DM for long. He wouldn't be reasonable at that point.

What actually happened was that the DM thought it was a cool idea too! Everyone is happy.