D&D 5E Jeremy Crawford Discusses Details on Custom Origins

[Aldarc]

That is an against culture. Not type. This is DM fiat with no mechanical support. Where as a the halfling barb has mechanical support to play against type. So nope. You're point do not stand up to close scrutiny. It is almost a strawman.

I do not make a distinction between these categories. Also learn what a strawman is before you half-accuse me of one.

 

[Helldritch]

I do not make a distinction between these categories. Also learn what a strawman is before you half-accuse me of one.

It is why I said almost. There is a fine line you did not cross. But do not accuse me of ignorance unless you're sure of yourself.
You decided to include culture into the argument where I was not doing it and I was clear that I was talking about the mechanics themselves. It almost came out of nowhere. Introducing your counter point before making it would have make it more... standard?
But if you felt insulted that was not my goal. Sorry.

 

[Aldarc]

It is why I said almost. There is a fine line you did not cross. But do not accuse me of ignorance unless you're sure of yourself.
You decided to include culture into the argument where I was not doing it and I was clear that I was talking about the mechanics themselves. It almost came out of nowhere. Introducing your counter point before making it would have make it more... standard?
But if you felt insulted that was not my goal. Sorry.

It's an important aspect of "playing against type" for me and also more important than "playing against numbers" of type.

 

[GreenTengu]

@GreenTengu
1) I like elves.
2) My sentences were meant as a joke. Not an attack. So I am sorry if you felt that way.
3) I am almost exclusively a DM. Last time I have been a player must have been in 1993 or something. So I am fairly neuter to what a player wants.
4) I strongly feel that race should have a big impact on what you are. So yep, the +2/+1 should stay static. The best compromise I'd be ready to accept would be to be able to move the +1 around but in doing so, I would remove subraces altogether. A dwarf would simply be a dwarf. Would be hard to accept, but at least it would be consistent. You could define your subrace with where your +1 went into.
5) All classes should give nothing really special until level 3 and truly good stuff only at level 6. This would prevent cheesy combo with 1st level pick. Multiclassing should have been restricted to 1 change or a prefered class system such as the one we had 3.xed. No turning back to your previous class would ensure that multiclassing would be done for RP purpose and not cheesy pick as I have seen so many times.
6) It was really not meant as an attack on you. I am really sorry.

I feel like we generally agree on most points then. My major concern is that players cannot play whatever character they imagine-- whatever race/class combination due to either the designers deciding a particular race doesn't deserve real attention or development, or that a class and all associated abilities must be entirely dependent on having attributes a particular race cannot achieve.
I want a gnomish fighter who is just as good as a half-orc fighter of the same level. I just think the idea that "this fighter is good because of knowledge of tactics" and "this fighter i good because of brute strength" ought to both be options.
Similarly, a spellcaster who uses intelligence, wisdom, charisma, constitution or strength ought to all be viable, but with maybe slightly different rules.

 

[Helldritch]

That sounds very very bad for any group other than your own.

So far it works with quite a good number of DMs. About 2 dozens and growing. We all restrict MC to once only. No revert. Works wonder to remove cheesy combo.

Classes would be boring in the bulk of play, under that system, for one thing. For another, it would lead to many crappy filler features from levels 1-5, and make multiclassing just a total waste of time. Just ban multiclassing, it's easier, and does less to hurt the rest of the game.

No complains in any players. Be they at my table or another's that have adopted it. In fact, with MC included into story and being irreversible, it makes it work a lot. MC is a careful choice now.

As for the "cheesy combo" concern, I kinda get where you're coming from, but as DM you have the power to literally just say, "you can MC for concept but cheesy combos are not allowed. I reserve the right to retcon any MC back to a pure class version of the character, if it comes to light that you're just trying to game the system" or whatever. However, 5e doesn't actually have satisfying iterations of every character concept without some multiclassing, so i vehemently oppose reducing MC options to "roleplaying decision" made in play.

I disagree with your analysis. Any concept can be done with the PHB. You just need to work them into your stories. I often tell that we had a samurai way before the subclass existed. It was done on the Battlemaster chassis and it was more to the point than what we have now.

a) Training further in both arcana and skulldugery, as well as his swordplay being a mix of the two
2) His conceptual class is "Bladesinging Mage Hunter" which I've built from Swashbuckler Rogue and Bladesinger Wizard levels. At level 20 he will have 14 levels of rogue and 6 levels of wizard, with a custom feat that allows him to count his rogue levels as 1/3 caster class levels for determining his spellcasting, and to learn spells of any level he has spell slots. It's a hack to build a custom class, essentially, but it works.

Nothing in our system prevents this. Do 6 levels of bladesinger. Switch to rogue and good to go. The custom feat we do not have nor would I allow such a thing.

Depending on his story as it plays out, it's possible that he might gain 2-4 levels of Fighter in there, but that's unlikely.

So it would be Wizard 6, Rogue 10-12 and Fighter 2-4? Not optimal. But easy to do as the changes are irreversible but you can still change one at a time. You just can't go back. This thing I would allow if the RP justifies it.

I greatly prefer this to building an entire new class for him. My DM is much more comfortable with the custom feat than with trying to DM for an entirely homebrewed Swordmage class with a Mage Hunter subclass. I'll build that eventaully anyway, because I enjoy it, but I am not gonna ask someone to run a full campaign where we have to tinker my class regularly, sometimes retconning major abilities as we find them to not work as intended. I can't wait to playtest my swordmage in short story games and one shots, but I wouldn't throw it into a real campaign.

I don't say it is bad. It obviously work at your table with all your custom rules and it is a good thing. But I would not enforce such a type of play as it opens up a lot of potential abuses. I do believe that you playtest your stuff thoroughly but as I said, we play test too. And not only one group but both of my groups and the groups of 3 other DMs. That gives us a lot to chew on. MC is just broken with one level dip.

And most players don't have the mindset to build a custom class, to begin with. Why not just let them build thier "class" as a multiclass "build"?

1) Most players in my area are in the power gamer / minmaxer type. We RP a lot. And I mean quite a lot. But in the end, unchecked, they will build cheesy picked custom classes without a second thought. Almost even without thinking. So this leads to #2
2) We do let them build their custom class with multiclassing. They just have restrictions to think about and work with.

 

[Helldritch]

It's an important aspect of "playing against type" for me and also more important than "playing against numbers" of type.

I do not deny this. But I was under the impression we were discussing the mechanical aspect. I do agree that playing against culture is and can be both fun and valid. It was just not the focus of my posts.

 

[Oofta]

I've been in very few games where culture was so narrowly defined that playing against type would have any significant impact or even be noticed. To me, that also falls more into a background lore area which can also be cool and a lot of fun.

But I've never seen anyone bat an eye if someone is play X when they come from culture Y. Maybe a wizard from a region known for barbarians and vice versa.

It's different than showing up to an AL game with my mountain dwarf wizard or half-orc monk. I've just never seen playing against type be based totally on culture, although of course different campaigns may well put more emphasis on things like that than I've seen.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So far it works with quite a good number of DMs. About 2 dozens and growing. We all restrict MC to once only. No revert. Works wonder to remove cheesy combo.

What cheesy combos does 5e even have? Nothing in 5e, and I mean literally nothing in any official book, breaks the game, in any officially allowed combination.

I disagree with your analysis. Any concept can be done with the PHB. You just need to work them into your stories.

Any concept can be done with Tasha's sidekick classes, too. That doesn't mean they work well for every concept.

Nothing in our system prevents this. Do 6 levels of bladesinger. Switch to rogue and good to go.


So it would be Wizard 6, Rogue 10-12 and Fighter 2-4? Not optimal. But easy to do as the changes are irreversible but you can still change one at a time. You just can't go back. This thing I would allow if the RP justifies it.

That wouldn't work. He'd be a completely different character. Leveling up both classes is what the character is. He isn't a Bladesinger that decided to become a rogue, or vise versa, he is a Swashbuckler/Bladesinger. He was initially trained by a Swashbuckler/Bladesinger. He at no point is going to stop training one part of the tradition he is steeped in in favor of another aspect of it, but at a certain point, gaining new spells in his spellbook is all that is needed to represent the tradition, because there is no reason for the concept to have really high level spells, as an even split rogue/wizard would.

I

MC is just broken with one level dip.

How? What in the game breaks? Also, surely you can see the difference between "my character is going to be part druid part monk, and the best way to represent that in play is going back and forth between the two classes" and "level 1 dip builds".

1) Most players in my area are in the power gamer / minmaxer type. We RP a lot. And I mean quite a lot. But in the end, unchecked, they will build cheesy picked custom classes without a second thought. Almost even without thinking. So this leads to #2

2) We do let them build their custom class with multiclassing. They just have restrictions to think about and work with.

1) That's unfortunate. But if they're roleplaying, why does this matter? 5e isn't a game that breaks when you let players just play whatever they want. If they're roleplaying, then these supposedly cheesy builds will surely still be grounded in roleplaying.
2) Doesn't sound like it. Sounds like you force concepts that don't fit into an existing class satisfyingly to jump through arbitrary hoops, wait huge chunks into the campaign to actually be a "Mage Hunter" or whatever the concept is, instead being stuck playing a rogue for X levels before they can tak a single level of wizard. That is incompatible with what I'm describing.

Do whatever you want, it just makes no sense to me, as a DM or as a player.

 

[Helldritch]

What cheesy combos does 5e even have? Nothing in 5e, and I mean literally nothing in any official book, breaks the game, in any officially allowed combination.


How? What in the game breaks? Also, surely you can see the difference between "my character is going to be part druid part monk, and the best way to represent that in play is going back and forth between the two classes" and "level 1 dip builds".

I am not going to chew all the work for you. Go out there in the forums. Look at so many posts/threads. One example is the Sorlock. You know as well as I that 1-3 level dip are and can be broken. Pretending the contrary, especially with all your experience on this forum and in specific thread talking about multiclassing in which you were, is... baffling?

 

[Helldritch]

I've been in very few games where culture was so narrowly defined that playing against type would have any significant impact or even be noticed. To me, that also falls more into a background lore area which can also be cool and a lot of fun.

But I've never seen anyone bat an eye if someone is play X when they come from culture Y. Maybe a wizard from a region known for barbarians and vice versa.

It's different than showing up to an AL game with my mountain dwarf wizard or half-orc monk. I've just never seen playing against type be based totally on culture, although of course different campaigns may well put more emphasis on things like that than I've seen.

And I did see some of these where going against culture was really game changing. Both for the player, and the whole group. It is not as clear cut as a dwarven wizard where the racial ASI is mechanicaly enforcing type, but it can be done. It does, however, require outstanding RP that is not commonly achieved by young or inexperienced players. It takes more than one campaign for the average player to pull something like that off.