D&D 5E To MC or not MC? That is the question!

[Fanaelialae]

Some might say "limiting interesting race/class options," others are saying "prevents cherry-picking and problematic combos." If Multiclassing isn't allowed or abused at your table, this isn't really necessary and the optional rules are probably fine as-written.

I'm looking for a Goldilocks version, though...something that's harder to exploit, but not an outright ban on multiclassing.

That's what I'm saying though. This doesn't do that. All it does is slightly restrict which races the the power-gamer has access to for their combo. It's only really punitive for the role-played who is going for the unplanned, unoptimized combo.

It doesn't stop the sor-lock. You just have to take a race that favors warlock (I think - I'm not an optimizer myself - so I'm assuming the low class in that combo is the warlock).

It doesn't fix the problem you set out to fix. Unless your only concern is MC/race combos, which seems odd to me. And it creates other problems, for those not seeking to abuse the rules.

 

[CleverNickName]

That's what I'm saying though. This doesn't do that. All it does is slightly restrict which races the the power-gamer has access to for their combo. It's only really punitive for the role-played who is going for the unplanned, unoptimized combo.

It doesn't stop the sor-lock. You just have to take a race that favors warlock (I think - I'm not an optimizer myself - so I'm assuming the low class in that combo is the warlock).

It doesn't fix the problem you set out to fix. Unless your only concern is MC/race combos, which seems odd to me. And it creates other problems, for those not seeking to abuse the rules.

I don't disagree, but what else would you suggest for fixing it?

Full disclosure, I'm not interested in stopping the sor-lock. I'm interested in making it harder/more restrictive to be a sor-lock.

 

[Stoutstien]

Some might say "limiting interesting race/class options," others are saying "prevents cherry-picking and problematic combos." If Multiclassing isn't allowed or abused at your table, this isn't really necessary and the optional rules are probably fine as-written.

I'm looking for a Goldilocks version, though...something that's harder to exploit, but not an outright ban on multiclassing.

Besides. Power gamers are always going to find a way to game the system--sometimes I think that part of the fun for them is finding exploits and then rubbing everyone's faces in them. But once those exploits are found, I like to reign them in a bit. Give those power-gamers a new bone to gnaw on.

The good new is the list of combos that really break out of the normal curve are few and can be addressed individually instead of any great overhaul of the rules.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I don't disagree, but what else would you suggest for fixing it?

Full disclosure, I'm not interested in stopping the sor-lock. I'm interested in making it harder/more restrictive to be a sor-lock.

I guess the first thing would be to figure out what you mean when you say you want to make it harder/ more restrictive, because that is a vague goal.

If you want to make them rare, you could have a player who wants to play one roll percentile dice and only allow it if they beat the odds. Or you could allow one sor-lock per X number of characters/campaigns. Or only allow a player who rolls a natural 18 charisma to be a sor-lock. Or allow a player who completes a complicated in game quest to have their next character to be a sor-lock. Those are just random ideas for making it more restricted to play one.

 

[CleverNickName]

The good new is the list of combos that really break out of the normal curve are few and can be addressed individually instead of any great overhaul of the rules.

True, and this is really the only recourse you have without a house rule to fix the problem. And with new races, classes, and subclasses being released on the regular, it would be nice to have some kind of rule or framework in place that would preemptively prevent known issues. (I also have the sort of players that feel attacked when I ban their Favorite Combo^TM without imposing the same restrictions on others at the table. "Hey, why can't I multiclass? You let Alex do it...")

This is all philosophical, I promise. I doubt that Wizards of the Coast is going to read this stuff with anything greater than a grain of salt, and decide to add it to the next edition of D&D. I just wanted to get folks talking about house rules for multiclassing.

The percentile die that @Fanaelialae suggests is certainly one way to do it. Another would be to prepare a list of problematic combos that aren't allowed in your campaign, and update it routinely whenever issues are discovered and/or new materials are released. A third option would be to ban Warlocks. Taking that to its logical conclusion, a DM could just hand out a set of pre-gen characters for her campaign.

I wouldn't say these are any better or more desirable than the "favored class" houserule that I propose, though.

 

[prabe]

I've been pretty fortunate, in that I have a lot of players in my longer-running campaign that have multiclassed, and they've all done it for reasons that made sense outside of optimization.

That said, I think I've seen the idea of making PCs choose feats or multiclassing, and that appeals to me, as does an idea almost opposite of that, forcing PCs to take a specific feat before they could multiclass. I haven't done either of these, and if I do it'll be the next campaign I start (so as not to change the rules out from under players in an ongoing campaign).

It occurs to me that one could go for the idea @dnd4vr mentioned upthread of forcing multiclass characters to keep their classes no more than [number] levels apart, and add in a feat that would let them have one class that wasn't so close.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It occurs to me that one could go for the idea @dnd4vr mentioned upthread of forcing multiclass characters to keep their classes no more than [number] levels apart, and add in a feat that would let them have one class that wasn't so close.

This is what we do in our current game, but it is a bit different because we use old-school multiclassing, so by default the classes have to be the same level. IIRC, in 3E you had to keep classes within 1 level or suffered an XP penalty.

 

[prabe]

This is what we do in our current game, but it is a bit different because we use old-school multiclassing, so by default the classes have to be the same level. IIRC, in 3E you had to keep classes within 1 level or suffered an XP penalty.

Fair enough. I'd missed that you were allowing PCs to take a feat to get around the limitation (or I'm misunderstanding you now, that you are). That sounds about right for 3.x, though the group I've played the most of that with doesn't multiclass, as a table rule. I wasn't thinking about XP because I don't use them in my games.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Fair enough. I'd missed that you were allowing PCs to take a feat to get around the limitation (or I'm misunderstanding you now, that you are). That sounds about right for 3.x, though the group I've played the most of that with doesn't multiclass, as a table rule. I wasn't thinking about XP because I don't use them in my games.

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean about requiring a feat for MCing, I meant that we keep levels within 1 all the time for MCed characters.

 

[prabe]

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean about requiring a feat for MCing, I meant that we keep levels within 1 all the time for MCed characters.

That was what I thought I'd seen. No worries.