D&D 5E Can you share your experience with a featless/multiclassless game?

[The Green Hermit]

The page 163 of the Player's handbook says:

However, even they are an optional rule, feats and multiclasses are allowed in the Adventure League's plays, and some claim they as a core part of the edition. Thus, I want to know how was your experiences without theses optional set of rules. This include gaming balance, martials against spellcasters, fighters without feats and so on.

Thanks in advance.

We've never played with the feats or with multiclasses. It isn't banned from our table, but nobody's ever jumped on it.

 

[GlassJaw]

Tasha's and all the UAs prove that 5E could work as a complete a la carte character system; bounded accuracy makes balancing features quite forgiving, much more so than past systems.

Now complexity and system mastery are another discussion entirely but the system can handle it.

My point is that if a player wants a druid without wild shape or a fighter with some sneak attack, there are enough checks & balances inherent in the system that you can do that without much worry about the system breaking (within reason).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

???

4-6 > 1, which is how many variants you get if you don't have feats.

Two handed melee fighters alone have four to six textbook feats: Great Weapon Master, Heavy Armour Master, Martial Adept, Polearm Master, Sentinel, and Lucky. Of these precisely one (Lucky) gets taken by wizards.

IME Charger is a must.

Class guides generally declare this feat to be subpar, but I used it at the start of more than 50% of my encounters (as a fighter) and probably more than 75%. I went from level 1-13. +5 damage isn't worth losing an attack, but I don't have the feat I could lose attacks. I used it whenever I couldn't "single move" to a target and multiattack at the start of a battle (or even during a battle, if enemies are spread out).

Some of the players were uninterested in feats. However we were different classes, so no "apples and oranges" comparisons.

We had no multiclassing, although a bard (we had one) is practically multiclassed out of the gate.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I often see the argument that feats help "differentiate" characters. I have found the opposite to be true. Since everyone tends to gravitate towards the same 4-6 amazing feats, the effect of having feats in the game actually creates more sameness among characters, not distinctiveness.

I don't buy it.

It's absolutely true over a large population of characters, on say, DNDBeyond. It seems like complete and utter nonsense across the characters actually played by a single gaming group. I think you're talking about the former, which is outside scope for this discussion. Unless people are playing VHumans, Feats often don't even enter the building until level 12 for non-Fighters. How many campaigns even go that high?

 

[Undrave]

My experiences are evidence as to why "never" and "always" are problematic words.

Haven't run/been in a game that forbids either. However, since the 5e PHB first dropped, I haven't seen anyone multiclass. There's been some talk about doing so, but it just never happens. As far as feats, they tend to be few and only occasionally chosen.

I've seen 1 MC character (Barbarian into Fighter, so nothing eccentric like a Sorlock or Sorcadin) and 1 character talk about it (Eldritch Knight/Blade Pact Warlock).

Multiclassing is way too difficult to pull off in 5e for most players. It's only a problem in niche corner cases, most of the times it's a downgrade.

 

[Torquar]

I'd be tempted to try just clipping off the -5/+10 from GWM and Sharpshooter and seeing what that changes.

 

[Neonchameleon]

IME Charger is a must.

Class guides generally declare this feat to be subpar, but I used it at the start of more than 50% of my encounters (as a fighter) and probably more than 75%. I went from level 1-13. +5 damage isn't worth losing an attack, but I don't have the feat I could lose attacks. I used it whenever I couldn't "single move" to a target and multiattack at the start of a battle (or even during a battle, if enemies are spread out).

Some of the players were uninterested in feats. However we were different classes, so no "apples and oranges" comparisons.

We had no multiclassing, although a bard (we had one) is practically multiclassed out of the gate.

Charger's something I'd expect to differ on a campaign by campaign basis. If you're in a dungeon 30 feet is a long way and you'll very seldom use it. If you're in the wilderness it's a lot more useful, especially with the object interaction rules or if you're sword & board making it hard to throw two javelins in a turn.

 

[Burnside]

I don't buy it.

It's absolutely true over a large population of characters, on say, DNDBeyond. It seems like complete and utter nonsense across the characters actually played by a single gaming group. I think you're talking about the former, which is outside scope for this discussion. Unless people are playing VHumans, Feats often don't even enter the building until level 12 for non-Fighters. How many campaigns even go that high?

I'm actually talking about the latter. "Magic Initiate so I get a familiar" is ubiquitous. I'm running a Curse of Strahd campaign where THREE players in the same party did it (fighter and two rogues, and they all did it at level 4). I see this feat in every campaign.

Fighter is the edge case, because it actually does differentiate them to a degree. Although man I'm sick of great weapon masters, who are inevitable in every campaign. And the polearm master and great weapon master feats are so good that the fighters who have them can rarely justify doing ANYTHING else with their actions in combat, regardless of what fun stuff their subclass abilities might let them do.

 

[GlassJaw]

I'd be tempted to try just clipping off the -5/+10 from GWM and Sharpshooter and seeing what that changes.

Or change it to -/+ proficiency.

(Note: It actually gets better if it's -(prof)/+(2*prof), so don't do that.)

 

[Bacon Bits]

So wait a second here. Two fighters are more same-y when one's a great weapon master who can make mighty blows at low accuracy and the other's a polearm master who fights with both ends of the weapon than when they each have a +1 to rolls based on a different stat?

I just don't get it.

Because it's the feat that determines the capabilities instead of anything else. Subclass doesn't matter. You don't pick a different weapon style or weapon because you're limited to the two or three viable "builds". Worse, it infects all martial characters. Everyone is going for GWM + PM or SS + CE. So all the classes that favor weapons start to feel the same.

It'd be like if every spellcasting class had identical spell lists.