D&D (2024) What happened to proficiency bonus times per day?

I think multiclassing is optional specifically because it is so difficult to balance. I think that is the "out" provided for tables that have a problem with it.

EzekielRaiden said:

I mean, that's the problem with a la carte multiclassing. It creates enormous game-design problems and pretty much exclusively provides aesthetic benefits. As with most aesthetic-based game-design decisions, it's not undertaken because it makes a better gameplay experience, but because it feels and looks like it's great design.

It's like having an important, functional building like a library or hospital be designed by an avant garde architect; the building might (...might) look beautiful and be a true work of architectural art, but it's infuriating and unpleasant to actually use or live/work in/around.

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(The angle you're seeing in these stairs is not a visual trick caused by lens distortion! They are designed that way. You will trip on them.)

EzekielRaiden said:

I mean, that's the problem with a la carte multiclassing. It creates enormous game-design problems and pretty much exclusively provides aesthetic benefits. As with most aesthetic-based game-design decisions, it's not undertaken because it makes a better gameplay experience, but because it feels and looks like it's great design.

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Strongly disagree. I don't multiclass often, but it's a tool that is far from just aesthetic.

Picture that you have an index card (because we're geeks) and it's completely covered with dots that represent various archetypes and character ideas that fit the genre. Now picture the classes are a number of coins that you scatter on that index card. The coins cover a large number of those dots - but leave a large number uncovered. Multiclassing allows you to reach the dots between the coins. (And the dots between coins and the edge can't be replicated using the ruleset.)

If the classes were numerous enough so you had a larger handful of coins, or were each individually "bigger" (say multiple major flavor/action points instead of just subclass) so each coin could cover more dots, that's fine.

But right now multiclassing helps mechanically realize the great number of archetypes and characters outside the reach of a single class, and that's far from just aesthetic game-design, that's pretty critical.

Blue said:

I'm sorry, what?!

I'm with you on 5e, though at T4 play it breaks down. I don't have enough PF1 experience to speak either way, though having it based off of 3.5 makes me doubt it.

But claiming that in 3e it was very rare to have multiclass characters superior to single class is sheer... folly? ignorance? blinders? Multiclassing first to fulfill requirements and then to get PrCs, even before cherry picking, was a route to heights of power in 3ed and 3.5 that a single classed character couldn't dream of. Let's continue full casting and get other stuff, for instance.

Sorry, it isn't even defendable when it comes to 3.x.

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I’m just an idiot then but I played with some of the worst min makers and they never muliclassed unless it was to get into prestige class non-sense.

JohnSnow said:

Unpopular Opinion: the game shouldn’t have “per day” abilities at all.

If you want something to be used infrequently, just make it either hard enough to activate, or draining enough to use, that it only gets used infrequently.

No more per day kludges required.

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That's one of the sacred cows of D&D. Attrition has been a part of every edition. "A" game shouldn't have per days is a perfectly fine opinion, one I might agree with depending on what the game is trying to do. I play many RPGs like that. That D&D shouldn't have them is an opinion on the other hand that is exactly as you labelled it: unpopular with gamers at large.

TwoSix said:

Related opinion: Make all strong abilities use expensive reagents, most of which can only be gathered via adventuring. The challenge in the game becomes gathering more reagents than the party expends.

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You have rediscoverd Fate. But the currency to use your powerful abilities (your aspects) is being willing to use the aspects you picked when they aren't advantageous.

For example, an aspect of Kleptomaniac might be great to add to swiping something, but sometimes the DM will tempt you just to use it and pay you a Fate point (the currency to active it when you want it) to do so.

We saw that feature Proficiency Times, so now we won't see it again until after a Long Rest.

Blue said:

The number of high-level one-shot builds I've seen that cheese out with two levels of Warlock for full EB + Agonizing Blast completely disagree strongly that something you don't ever invest in again should grow just as fast as everything else.

I think the few cases we do see this it in 2014 rules it turns out badly.

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however, the flaw in your point is the fact that EB is not balanced on PB/LR, it is an infinite use cantrip that scales in power rather than usage, that's why it's such an awful subject of multiclass cheese, getting more uses of features that do the same thing at 5th that they do at 15th doesn't break the game half as much.

Blue said:

You have rediscoverd Fate. But the currency to use your powerful abilities (your aspects) is being willing to use the aspects you picked when they aren't advantageous.

For example, an aspect of Kleptomaniac might be great to add to swiping something, but sometimes the DM will tempt you just to use it and pay you a Fate point (the currency to active it when you want it) to do so.

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I was talking specific diegetic reagents, not metacurrency. If you did it with meta currency, you’d have Fate, like you said.

I like Fate, but this is a different idea.

DrJawaPhD said:

That's not really an unpopular opinion. Even among people who extensively multiclass (like myself) there are many that think the game would be better without it.

It's actually really easy to fix, they need to buff the high level class abilities so that sticking with one class actually matters, instead of front-loading all the powerful features in the first few levels. WotC doesn't want to put any cool abilities at high level though since "no one plays high level DnD", so that leads to multiclassing being vastly superior

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That is not a solution to the problem "class design is severely constrained by multiclassing." It's an example of the problem.

Furthermore, it misses the larger picture. The existence of a handful of overpowered MC builds is one part of that picture. The other part is the vast sea of MC builds which are painfully sub-par compared to single-class. Multiclassing on the 3E model has never worked well. It's a trap for novice players and a tool of abuse for veterans.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: 4E was the only edition to get multiclassing right. For those who just want to dabble in another class, offer feats to cherry-pick the features you're after (5E has also started providing these). For those who want to fully combine two classes, take each class and create a "half-version" of it, such that you can take two half-classes and glue them together to create a hybrid whole.