5e Character Guides - why rate all features?

[Yunru]

Yet that ignores that when you get abilities and what you can already do with your action economy impacts how good abilities are. It’s impossible to accurately rate abilities without a “timing” and “package” context.

Extra attack is great if you get it at level 5 but if you were to get it at level 20 and already had access to level 7 and below spells and max tier cantrips then it might as well be worthless to you.

Yes and if elephants were purple then mongooses would sell apples.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

It's really weird, when I first saw that style of guide I figured it must be a holdover from something in 3e, pathfinder, or 4e becaue it really doesn't make sense. There's just no point in putting a red rating on Wizard weapon/armor proficiencies as they're just going to happen any way, but I guess it makes the guide makers feel happy to do it so I just ignore it.

 

[André Soares]

Yet that ignores that when you get abilities and what you can already do with your action economy impacts how good abilities are. It’s impossible to accurately rate abilities without a “timing” and “package” context.

Extra attack is great if you get it at level 5 but if you were to get it at level 20 and already had access to level 7 and below spells and max tier cantrips then it might as well be worthless to you.

Most of the good guides have sections on Multiclassing where they talk about trap "timing" options, like the exemple you gave.

 

[Yunru]

It also lets you look at a class, and see what levels you get the good features, and what levels are duds.
Very helpful if you're running a campaign from X to Y (at least, as long as X isn't 1 and Y isn't 20 ).

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes and if elephants were purple then mongooses would sell apples.

Your claim was that you get to pick what features you want via multiclassing and that’s why all features were rated. That also presumes you can pick when you get them. That means my example stands as an accurate rebuttal of your claim

 

[Dausuul]

Yet that ignores that when you get abilities and what you can already do with your action economy impacts how good abilities are.

The same is true of the stuff you get a choice about. The spell sleep can be a win button or a waste of space depending on the level range of the campaign.

Ratings are meant to give you an idea of how useful something is in a general sense, not to answer every possible question about every possible scenario.

 

[FrogReaver]

Most of the good guides have sections on Multiclassing where they talk about trap "timing" options, like the exemple you gave.

Yep. And they definitely should. I’m all for including sections about common and strong multi class options in guides and explaining what makes them strong and advice on when to take the multi class levels

That still doesn’t mean every ability needs a rating nor that the ratings actually hold up under even very limited assumption changes. (Such as getting the ability 5 levels later due to a multi class etc).

 

[FrogReaver]

The same is true of the stuff you get a choice about. The spell sleep can be a win button or a waste of space depending on the level range of the campaign.

Ratings are meant to give you an idea of how useful something is in a general sense, not to answer every possible question about every possible scenario.

Ratings tend to be done for the level a Single classes PC would normally get that ability at. Doing that ignores multiclassing “choices”. As such the ratings provided don’t really help compare the multiclassing options. So why have them at all. What useful information are they providing. What choice are they helping a player make?

 

[Yunru]

Yep. And they definitely should. I’m all for including sections about common and strong multi class options in guides and explaining what makes them strong and advice on when to take the multi class levels

That still doesn’t mean every ability needs a rating nor that the ratings actually hold up under even very limited assumption changes. (Such as getting the ability 5 levels later due to a multi class etc).

5 levels in not a small change in any way. You're really reaching here.

 

[Blue]

It's really weird, when I first saw that style of guide I figured it must be a holdover from something in 3e, pathfinder, or 4e becaue it really doesn't make sense. There's just no point in putting a red rating on Wizard weapon/armor proficiencies as they're just going to happen any way, but I guess it makes the guide makers feel happy to do it so I just ignore it.

Hmm, do I want to take the level of fighter first or wizard? Oh, I can avoid this red bit if I take fighter first.

There's a lot where it's useful for multiclassing choice. "Well, should I go grab X now or another level of Y? Hmm, Y has nothing inspiring this level - but next level has a Sky Blue. Hmm, do I really want to push that off even further? Especially since the adventure only goes to 10-11th? Probably not. Okay, stay with this class.