Arguments and assumptions against multi classing

[Warpiglet]

My problem is not with restrictions per se. I think it is absolutely within the DM's right to craft a world. If a DM said "no multiclassing" I would shrug and make a single classed character.

What I object to is the idea that the fluff cannot be modified for fear of the destruction of absolutely essential archetypes (or worse yet, that the very spirit of the game demands single classing)!

First, look at some of the sub classes! Looks like some fighters can learn magic and some clerics can swing greatswords. But if I take a life cleric with a level of fighter it suddenly makes the game impure? I have destroyed the archetype because I now have second wind? Even if I take acolyte background and was a temple guard who manifested clerical magic a few hundred experience later?

Let's call things like they are. The spirit of the game is not violated with multiclassing per se. It has almost always existed (well, for 4.5 decades anyway). Banning multiclassing or only partially banning multiclassing is a PREFERENCE only. It is as valid as any other, but the basic tenets of the game are not violated by the inclusion of this now optional rule.

The other thing I object to is saying certain fluff is meant for modification or reflavoring and some is too sacred (as in you are cheating if you do so). Again this is PREFERENCE without any more validity than another. Some people selectively quote the books to show how "it has to be." Unless it is an actual game balancing issue, why must this be so? I don't think it has to be this way. As DM, my player's have been pretty easy to deal with. I have one character with three classes and his idea was forged by both mechanical as well as flavor related elements.

As a player, I often have an image in mind and look for ways to make it happen in an effective way. If I multiclass I either take a feat, background or both to telegraph my interest in a new class from level one because I see characters as integrated wholes and not "class levels."

 

[Kobold Boots]

Last point I think I'll make based on personal experiences..

Player: May I multi-class?
DM: Sure. May I make villains that multi-class?
Player: Sure.

DM learns from players and makes all rolls out in the open. Party near TPK.

Next campaign

Player: May I gestalt?
DM: Sure, may I make enemies that also do so?
Player: Sure
Player 2: Um, remember what happened last time we used optional rules? Lets take a look at this.
DM: I'll allow anything you guys want to do, but know that your choices have consequences, not necessarily bad ones, but consider the outcomes fully during chargen.

A lot of this stuff comes down to the DM allowing him or herself to embrace the adversary role as well as the enabler. No player is going to get angry if you enable them to make the decisions that affect their play within reasonable lines.

 

[SolidPlatonic]

What you've seen on boards is not necessarily an accurate representation of what it looks like in actual play. I would suggest resisting the urge to ban anything based on hearsay.

I've played a paladin warlock and a paladin bard, and I've played with several paladin warlocks and one paladin sorcerer. What I meant by "abuses I've seen on the boards," was an imprecise way of saying all of the "abuses" that are possible with CHA-based multiclassing, seen from firsthand knowledge, reading other peoples' experience, and doing the research myself.

I haven't had anyone play or ask to play a coffeelock, yet. That's probably because that is just the most egregious, eye-rolling abuse of a poorly-designed rule.

It basically comes down to (one of the few) very sloppy design elements in 5e that can pretty easily be avoided. A talk with players to say, "hey, don't abuse MC rules" also works in most cases, but the internet shorthand is to just to state that MCing CHA-based classes is uncool and should be avoided.

 

[smbakeresq]

Last point I think I'll make based on personal experiences..

Player: May I multi-class?
DM: Sure. May I make villains that multi-class?
Player: Sure.

DM learns from players and makes all rolls out in the open. Party near TPK.

Next campaign

Player: May I gestalt?
DM: Sure, may I make enemies that also do so?
Player: Sure
Player 2: Um, remember what happened last time we used optional rules? Lets take a look at this.
DM: I'll allow anything you guys want to do, but know that your choices have consequences, not necessarily bad ones, but consider the outcomes fully during chargen.

A lot of this stuff comes down to the DM allowing him or herself to embrace the adversary role as well as the enabler. No player is going to get angry if you enable them to make the decisions that affect their play within reasonable lines.

This is greatly true and not done enough in general. The DM has access to everything the player era do also, and if laid out before hand it doesn’t cause problems.

For example I use the old critical hit rules, a critical hit is max weapon damage plus whatever damage you roll, a critical hit is a big event for the PCs and shouldn’t be ruined by rolling low. Players like it, but monsters get it also, the frost giant critical hit is 43 + 3d12, a big number. While players hate getting hit by such a big number, it adds tension of a crushing blow.

Of course a MC bad guy is always a custom design, so isn’t used by a lot of DMs who are pressed for time. A great way to avoid this is collect your PCs old PC sheets and use them as your bad guys, or have your PCs fight a mirror image of themselves.

The reaction of your players when they have to wade through enemy Spirit Guardians or an undead horde that keeps getting HP back through a necrotic version of Aura of Life is pretty good.

Most humanoid bad guys should have some element of MC in them for flavor, some make DMing easier. An enemy wizard with 1 level of knowledge cleric gets armor proficiency and knowledge skills to know a lot about the group and thus justify using PC go-to moves against them without meta-gaming the PCs.

 

[Arial Black]

Hmmm... comparing that to the post it was directed at warlock pally multi-class...

it almost seems as if one person/poster was referencing a build that used an optional rule and the other was referencing a core one in juxtaposition to it.

That seems odd?

Well...allow me to elaborate....

But to the point
YES "some GMs IRl and here may look at multi-classing and yell ban ban ban!
YES some GMS may look at multi-classing warlock and pally and yell ban ban ban!
YES some Gms may look at a player who wants to multi-class warlock and pally and see a player who is just power gaming and see no possibility worth mentioning of a good story path.
YES other Gms like me may see it as perfectly fine - given the right story and background and subject it to the same scrutiny of story that other multi-class are.

Let's break it down:-

* a game where multiclassing is banned. In such a game, the Pal/War isn't an issue that will arise. In that game, none of the classes is banned. Who gets to choose which class each player plays, DM or player? That's right, the player. Yes, the player is entitled to play any (allowed) class they want to play. It's not okay for the DM to say that Tom, Dick and Harry can play whatever class they want, but Jane is not allowed to play ANY class without my prior permission because I assume that whatever class she plays she will abuse it!

* a game where multiclassing is allowed. In such a game, just like a single class game, it's the player who gets to choose their own character class or classes

Which sort of starts to skethc in a line where a player should perhaps not feel its an affront to their ***PLAYER AGENCY THUNDEROUS RIGHT OF DOOM*** to look at optional rules (multi-classing) and classes where there are lotsa of statements about things to work thru with GM as part of creation and especially very close links to an NPC agency and feel entitled to have it all work out the way they want and the other "agency" to have basically little more than a toothless sham of a position of influence.

Each class is a set of game mechanics. Each class is also presented with several examples of fluff, but the fluff bits are not 'rules', they are suggestions. Players are expected and encouraged to make their own fluff. No-one can seriously look at the fluff in the Warlock description and assert that ALL warlock patrons WILL take away your hard-earned mechanical abilities if you choose to do something they don't like.

Sure, ideally, it makes for a much, much better game if there is collaboration between player and DM, but it must be the player who makes the choices. Otherwise, the DM is just playing Magic Story Time and the players are just pushing the DM's pawns around the table at the DM's whim.

Which brings us to....

Either side of a collaboration can be a jerk, after all.

Absolutely!

Both sides of this debate can envision the extreme, but in one side's minds the 'extreme' is the tyrannical DM, while in the other side's minds the 'extreme' is players who totally ignore their own fluff or make up nonsensical fluff just so they can be murderhobos without consequence.

So my complaints are specific, and it would be helpful if I were more precise in my objections:-

* the DM tells us what rules we're using. Fine. I make a PC accordingly. He THEN makes up a spurious excuse and alters the rules for me in order that I can't play what I want

* I look at the god I worship, or the Oath I'm keeping, or the patron who's the other side of my Pact. I read what the books say, and I imagine what my PC will be like. Sure, there are wrong ways to play, say, the Oath of the Ancients, but there are plenty of different right ways to play it. After all, the Oaths (and gods and Pacts) are intentionally vague. 'Be the light' is one of the clauses in the Oath of the Ancients. What? Oh, be courageous and positive and so forth. Great, I can get my head around that kind of personality and play that honestly.

So I play my Ancients paladin honestly, according to my honest ideas about the kind of personality that would take that Oath. But, it has to be admitted, that there is not just one single possible personality that EVERY Ancients paladin has! That would be absurd! No, there are MANY ways that personality could manifest and still be an honest portrayal of that Oath. Yes, there are many wrong ways too, but as long as the player plays the PC in one of the many right ways, everything is kosher.

Or it should be!

My specific complaint is the kind of DM behaviour that boils down to, "No! I play Ancients paladins this way, therefore ANY other way of playing them is wrong and I will take your powers away unless you play YOUR paladin (or cleric or warlock or whatever) the exact same way I would play it if I were playing that class/Oath/Pact/god!"

So the idea that ANY multiclass of paladin and warlock is impossible because the god/patron would not allow it is demonstrably flawed, simply by explaining how this particular character/god/patron works. It all makes sense.

So how can you pre-ban it before you've even heard about this specific character? How can you just ASSUME that I'm a jerk power-gaming munchkin as soon as the words 'paladin/warlock' escape my lips and refuse to even hear about my character?

That's not respectful. Assuming the lowest of motives and refusing to listen to what's actually going on shows that this DM is not worthy of respect since this DM shows such disrespect.

So these DMs take away class abilities (using Rule zero as a pathetic excuse) not because the player is ignoring the relationship between PC and god/patron/Oath, but because the DM would have made a different decision if HE were playing a PC with that god/patron/Oath. When HE is playing such a PC he can make those choices, but when I am playing such a PC those choices are MINE to make!

THAT is 'player agency'. Without it there is no point in playing the game at all. Taking that agency away is the greatest RPG crime a DM can commit!

 

[Arial Black]

Hiya!

Hello, Paul.

I think multi-classing is fun and interesting...in 1e and 2e AD&D. Everything after 2e, however, sucks.

Really? Please, explain!

It's not that I think they are more powerful or anything (although some combo's, when also mixed with other optional rules like feats, spells, races, etc., can produce some monstrosities). It's that someone who has "Fighter/Wizard/Thief" on their character sheet isn't actually a multi-classed F/W/T...they are a character that is a Fighter, and a Wizard, and a Thief.

....errm...what?

My problem, if I boil it down as much as possible, is that each class sits COMPLETELY interdependently of the others...mostly (mechanics wise) with regards to XP progression. When that F/W/T gets 1400 xp and gains a 'level', they up *A* class or add a new one. That screams, to me again (ymmv), "You just gained a level of Fighter! ...the last three months of sea travel, fighting the leviathan, rescuing the sea-princes bride to be, sending the horrible water-demon back to the abyss, sneaking into the half-submerged lighthouse dungeon, and deciphering all the runes, puzzles and riddles had ZERO EFFECT on your capabilities as a Wizard or Thief". All the sneaking? Irrelevant. All the Sneak Attacks? Irrelevant. All the spells cast? Irrelevant.

But in 1e/2e exactly the same thing happened!

My Ftr/MU/Thf has the levels x/y/z. I go on a loooong adventure (because we levelled more slowly in those days) and did plenty of sneaking and casting and, okay, a bit of fighting, but when I accumulate enough XPs to level up in one of those classes (because each class had its own advancement table) the class that gets +1 level is not based on the things you did in the adventure that garnered those XPs but on those tables. It may very well be that those tables dictate that my fighter level increases, and now I am x+1/y/z.

In this respect, both pre-3e and post-3e multiclassing advancement is equally divorced from the kind of things you did in the previous adventure, so this is not a valid criticism of post 2e multiclassing.

In contrast, if you played RuneQuest or Stormbringer (which was based on a simplified RuneQuest rules set) then at the end of each adventure you rolled to see if you improved any of the skills you actually used during the adventure.

So, in my mind, the old-skool way of actually BEING a Fighter/Magic-User/Thief from day one, and advancing each class more or less collectively, has a completely different feel and in-campaign narrative than the 3.x+ versions of the game where you are but a single class at level 1. Then you add a new class later. Then maybe another after that. At no point are you ever "advancing all aspects of your skill-set" at the same time. Ever. It's only ONE at a time. Always. That feels completely different than the 1e/2e characters that are multi-classed. Again, IMNSHO, 1e/2e did it MUCH better. Like, leaps and bounds better.

Conceptually, you could still have trained to be a F/M/T since 2e. You could be a long-lived elf who trained from childhood to be all three classes in 1e or 5e. In 1e you have the advantage that at first level you are all three, while in 5e you only start as one class and cannot actually use the abilities of a second class until you have killed 300 XP-worth of goblins. Wonky? Yeah.

But in 5e you can do some sensible things which you could not in 1e: you can, as a multiclass character, choose to emphasise some aspects of your multiclass over others, concentrating on (say) being the best fencer you can be while just using your wizard-y stuff for utility rituals and things that make you a better fencer, but that Bladesong really helps in a duel! You can also learn some stuff in later life that you never thought of in childhood. Both of these are sensible, realistic possibilities, and 5e allows them.

But 1e disallows any choice of focus for multiclass PCs, who remain bound by those class experience tables. It disallows-for demihumans-picking up new skills later. Meanwhile, humans CAN do the latter but CANNOT do the former! Why? Because 1e is wonky that way.

 

[5ekyu]

Well...allow me to elaborate....



Let's break it down:-

* a game where multiclassing is banned. In such a game, the Pal/War isn't an issue that will arise. In that game, none of the classes is banned. Who gets to choose which class each player plays, DM or player? That's right, the player. Yes, the player is entitled to play any (allowed) class they want to play. It's not okay for the DM to say that Tom, Dick and Harry can play whatever class they want, but Jane is not allowed to play ANY class without my prior permission because I assume that whatever class she plays she will abuse it!

* a game where multiclassing is allowed. In such a game, just like a single class game, it's the player who gets to choose their own character class or classes



Each class is a set of game mechanics. Each class is also presented with several examples of fluff, but the fluff bits are not 'rules', they are suggestions. Players are expected and encouraged to make their own fluff. No-one can seriously look at the fluff in the Warlock description and assert that ALL warlock patrons WILL take away your hard-earned mechanical abilities if you choose to do something they don't like.

Sure, ideally, it makes for a much, much better game if there is collaboration between player and DM, but it must be the player who makes the choices. Otherwise, the DM is just playing Magic Story Time and the players are just pushing the DM's pawns around the table at the DM's whim.

Which brings us to....



Absolutely!

Both sides of this debate can envision the extreme, but in one side's minds the 'extreme' is the tyrannical DM, while in the other side's minds the 'extreme' is players who totally ignore their own fluff or make up nonsensical fluff just so they can be murderhobos without consequence.

So my complaints are specific, and it would be helpful if I were more precise in my objections:-

* the DM tells us what rules we're using. Fine. I make a PC accordingly. He THEN makes up a spurious excuse and alters the rules for me in order that I can't play what I want

* I look at the god I worship, or the Oath I'm keeping, or the patron who's the other side of my Pact. I read what the books say, and I imagine what my PC will be like. Sure, there are wrong ways to play, say, the Oath of the Ancients, but there are plenty of different right ways to play it. After all, the Oaths (and gods and Pacts) are intentionally vague. 'Be the light' is one of the clauses in the Oath of the Ancients. What? Oh, be courageous and positive and so forth. Great, I can get my head around that kind of personality and play that honestly.

So I play my Ancients paladin honestly, according to my honest ideas about the kind of personality that would take that Oath. But, it has to be admitted, that there is not just one single possible personality that EVERY Ancients paladin has! That would be absurd! No, there are MANY ways that personality could manifest and still be an honest portrayal of that Oath. Yes, there are many wrong ways too, but as long as the player plays the PC in one of the many right ways, everything is kosher.

Or it should be!

My specific complaint is the kind of DM behaviour that boils down to, "No! I play Ancients paladins this way, therefore ANY other way of playing them is wrong and I will take your powers away unless you play YOUR paladin (or cleric or warlock or whatever) the exact same way I would play it if I were playing that class/Oath/Pact/god!"

So the idea that ANY multiclass of paladin and warlock is impossible because the god/patron would not allow it is demonstrably flawed, simply by explaining how this particular character/god/patron works. It all makes sense.

So how can you pre-ban it before you've even heard about this specific character? How can you just ASSUME that I'm a jerk power-gaming munchkin as soon as the words 'paladin/warlock' escape my lips and refuse to even hear about my character?

That's not respectful. Assuming the lowest of motives and refusing to listen to what's actually going on shows that this DM is not worthy of respect since this DM shows such disrespect.

So these DMs take away class abilities (using Rule zero as a pathetic excuse) not because the player is ignoring the relationship between PC and god/patron/Oath, but because the DM would have made a different decision if HE were playing a PC with that god/patron/Oath. When HE is playing such a PC he can make those choices, but when I am playing such a PC those choices are MINE to make!

THAT is 'player agency'. Without it there is no point in playing the game at all. Taking that agency away is the greatest RPG crime a DM can commit!

Just two points worth mentioning...

Imo any game mechanic decision that is **player specific** as opposed to character specific or setting specific is imo basically poor Gming. The only exceptions I could see might involve some lesser mechanic fluff type stuff for cases where "Jackie likes cats so... I use more cats." But really not the same thing. I did not think we were discussing player agency violations in the context of favoritism tho. Maybe I missed that massive suction of this thread.

As for a GM having the absurd temerity for him to think he has the right to decide for himself what npcs of divine/Pattron level will agree to in the setting he is running - and from that say for instance pally-lock is not allowed in his game - and that bring a removal of player agency - well you know - we will just have to agree to disagree even though that particular case is one I do not choose for my games. I think many divine/patron combos are fine.


But then, in games I GM, its understood and made clear from the start all PCs are subject to approval by GM, not given unlimited license. Its expected backgrounds and development makes sense and are worked as story elements, not deviations.

But you have shown me that whatever player agency may have started out as and whatever serious ills it was sought as a concept to define or address, it has been now transmuted into something I can now basically ignore as anything like a useful term for discussion.

 

[Arial Black]

But you have shown me that whatever player agency may have started out as and whatever serious ills it was sought as a concept to define or address, it has been now transmuted into something I can now basically ignore as anything like a useful term for discussion.

At its most basic, player agency is that players choose what their PCs do and what their personalities are like, the DM chooses what all the NPCs do and what they are like.

Of course, the player can only choose the things the PC is actually able to do! The declared action, "I fly 60 feet up to the top of the tower" is only valid if the PC can fly! But, within the realm of the possible, it's the player who chooses, not the DM.

Imagine this:-
Player: I cast sleep at the...
DM: No, you draw your dagger and move to melee.
Player: What? Have I failed some save against something?
DM: No, I just think it's what you'd do.

No! The player makes those choices!

Similarly, the player chooses the PC's personality, how they interact with their god/patron/Oath from their end of the deal. And just like the player can only choose from the possible, they should also choose things that make sense in context. So saving these orphans instead of those orphans is a legitimate player choice, while murdering any orphans is not a legitimate player choice for any Ancients paladin to make IF he intends to keep to his Oath. Of course, he can choose to break his Oath if he wants.

With power comes responsibility. The player is responsible for making choices that make sense in context.

With great power comes great responsibility. The DM is responsible for making choices that make sense in context.

Sure, the orphan-murdering Ancients paladin must be reasonably judged to have broken his Oath. But saving these orphans instead of those cannot reasonably be judged to have broken that Oath.

My problem is DMs who make unreasonable judgements and take away powers based on that. The legitimate role-play of the god/patron/etc. is instead replaced by what the DM would have done if they were playing an Ancients paladin (or whatever god/patron) and ANY deviation from the DM's choice results in the player being punished. It's not really the god who's punishing, it's the DM using the god as an excuse to punish the player for playing his own PC as he sees fit.

It's a problem that exists when the PC conceptually receives powers from an intelligent source. It is not a problem for classes that gain their abilities through their own efforts. No-one takes away the rogue's class abilities for daring to steal this necklace instead of that necklace!

But the 5e devs don't discriminate between classes in that way. They don't want some classes to be vulnerable to power-stripping while others are not. It's not fair, they recognise, to penalise players for having the temerity to choose to play paladins/clerics/warlocks but not fighters/rogues/wizards. That's why any such mechanics have been deliberately written out of the game! In fact, the only thing left that even resembles that is the Oathbreaker paladin, and even then it doesn't strip you of all your class abilities leaving you a powerless husk with too many hit points for a commoner, it replaces the abilities of your original Oath with an equally powerful set of abilities and a new Oath.

The game itself doesn't want DMs to strip class abilities away! If the god/patron/whatever has a problem with the PC's behaviour then the entity should do something that makes sense in the game world to address it, not punish the metagame by erasing portions of his character sheet!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Each class is a set of game mechanics. Each class is also presented with several examples of fluff, but the fluff bits are not 'rules', they are suggestions. Players are expected and encouraged to make their own fluff.

False. That was only true of 4E. In 5E, as in every other edition, the game mechanics are inextricably tied to the fluff. The DM is free to create their own fluff, and can use the existing game mechanics as guidelines for how to do so, but that's an aspect of setting creation in which the players are not involved (unless it's by the DM's request, which goes beyond the purview of setting creation as described in the DMG).

If a player shows up at a game with a warlock whose pact does not work as the DM tells them it does, then the player needs to fix their character in order to better fit with the world.

* I look at the god I worship, or the Oath I'm keeping, or the patron who's the other side of my Pact. I read what the books say, and I imagine what my PC will be like. Sure, there are wrong ways to play, say, the Oath of the Ancients, but there are plenty of different right ways to play it. After all, the Oaths (and gods and Pacts) are intentionally vague. 'Be the light' is one of the clauses in the Oath of the Ancients. What? Oh, be courageous and positive and so forth. Great, I can get my head around that kind of personality and play that honestly.

Much of the conflict can be resolved as long as everyone is playing in good faith.

When it comes to some element of the setting that's vague or poorly-defined, then it's up to the DM to clarify that, because the DM is the absolute authority on how their setting works. They need to know literally everything about their world, in case some question comes up that they need to answer, and their word is the only one that matters. Players do not have the authority to establish facts about how the world works; players can only make decisions for their own character. If a player interprets an Oath (or Pact, or whatever) in a manner contrary to how the DM interprets it, then the player has made an honest mistake, and should work with the DM to resolve the conflict. That could mean playing a different character, or it could mean that this one player character works differently from everyone else in the setting (maybe they really are unique, but people might take notice, and there may be consequences).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Just wanted to point out that 3e had UA. In UA you could make a gestalt character which is very much like the multiclass type characters of 1e and 2e. The biggest problem people had with it was that BECAUSE there were no level limits and they advanced at the same rate as all the other characters, they tended to be 1.5 to 2x as powerful.

For that matter, 3E also had actual AD&D-style multi-classing, even at level 1. You started with some of the features from each class, and after that you alternated between gaining levels in each class. (Just as you alternated gaining levels in AD&D, since each class used a different XP chart.)

It was one of the few great things from 3.0 that was inexplicably dropped for 3.5.