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

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

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.

I have never been in a campaign that took place entirely in a dungeon. Even so, sometimes there are large rooms.

As a melee fighter, I wanted to get in close, not throw javelins. The attack bonus and damage would be a lot lower.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As a melee fighter, I wanted to get in close, not throw javelins. The attack bonus and damage would be a lot lower.

The attack bonus is likely to be the same and the damage about a dice lower if you're fighting two handed, or a dice step lower sword and board. On the other hand some of the melee feats are really good so you give up a lot for the charge feat.

Like I said it's situational and DM dependent.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

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

Well, since you only get +5 prof. bonus at 13th level and at that point its only on par with the feat as presented in the PHB, I dont think its too bad. And to make make it better (aka +12 damage), you need to take a higher penalty anyway (-6 to-hit) and only at 17th level.

by that time you have a spellcaster dropping meteors on the planet once every day if they want to.

 

[GlassJaw]

Well, since you only get +5 prof. bonus at 13th level and at that point its only on par with the feat as presented in the PHB, I dont think its too bad. And to make make it better (aka +12 damage), you need to take a higher penalty anyway (-6 to-hit) and only at 17th level.

by that time you have a spellcaster dropping meteors on the planet once every day if they want to.

It's better across the lifetime of the character because you are getting extra damage with a reduced penalty. I will agree it's less spikey but it is more definitely better than -5/+10.

Search the interwebs. The math doesn't lie.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I think I'm the middle of what you're looking for, gameplay-wise.

I absolutely loathe the WotC-era Multiclassing; it never feels like a proper combination of classes to me. I also dislike ASIs.

So in my games there is no multiclassing and feats only, no ASIs. I've run something like 7 or 8 different groups that way, and we've really liked how it plays out. Feats are just more interesting choices to make than an ability bonus, and it's cool to see how different people apply them to their characters.

 

[fba827]

I don’t use feats when I have dmed home games. Works totally fine and simpler. Yes there is a player who wants to say how he can’t build his character concept without feats but when I ask him to explain the concept really is just ‘cool dpr “

Multi class I let people do but I can’t think of more than one instance that someone even opted to do it

I will toss out there that I’m very particular about how I say it... I express that I’m “not using the optional feat rule’ as opposed to saying ‘I’m banning feats’ as one implies that players are owed it while the other keeps in terminology of the game that it isn’t I in fact it core and instead an optional rule choice

 

[pming]

Hiya!

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.

Think of it this way. You go compete in a 500m bicycle race...and everyone there is given a choice of what bike to ride. There is the Standard Bike (which is coloured any colour other than blue, red or black,) which everyone is allowed to use by default. Or, if you want, you can choose from three pro-level hyper-engineered racing bikes (which are blue, red or black). You look around the field and see...? Yeah...you see that EVERYONE is using a blue, red or black bike. Because anyone who is using a silver bike is at a disadvantage.

So the "same-y'ness" changes from multiple colours of bikes in the field...to one of three choices; blue, red or black. Not a silver, gold, white, yellow, green, or purple bike to be seen. That's what I was getting at.

You see a Fighter and look at the sheet; Great Weapon Mastery, Polearm Mastery or Sharpshooting. So in stead of seeing 100 fighters, all with different weapons, armour, shields, etc....you see 100 fighters, all using 2-Handed swords, Halberds, or Composite Longbows. Oh, you may find the odd Great Axe, Bardiche or Shortbow, but the result is the same; every single one of those Fighters is "better at fighting" than you are with the same weapon.

When simply looking at it between two or three characters, it looks diverse. But extrapolate that out to the NPC's and campaign world at large... and every fighter is using a 2h weapon, polearm or composite longbow.

YMMV.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

To me that doesn't show what you're saying. You were talking about "amazing feats", and Magic Initiate isn't an "amazing Feat", really. It's decent but it's not wild, and people picking it at level 4 are not doing it for optimization reasons, they're doing for it for RP reasons - literally to get a familiar.

This has always been a classic issue in D&D. Some people really want that familiar. They will do whatever it takes to get that familiar. I've seen that since 2E. That is not specific to Feats.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Hiya!

Think of it this way. You go compete in a 500m bicycle race...and everyone there is given a choice of what bike to ride. There is the Standard Bike (which is coloured any colour other than blue, red or black,) which everyone is allowed to use by default. Or, if you want, you can choose from three pro-level hyper-engineered racing bikes (which are blue, red or black). You look around the field and see...? Yeah...you see that EVERYONE is using a blue, red or black bike. Because anyone who is using a silver bike is at a disadvantage.

Again I don't get it. The "standard bike" gives you all the choice of Henry Ford. You can have any colour you like as long as it's black. Having feats makes the difference between weapons much more meaningful - and there's enough of a spread of feats that anything that without feats is good enough to use has feats to support it.

So the "same-y'ness" changes from multiple colours of bikes in the field...to one of three choices; blue, red or black. Not a silver, gold, white, yellow, green, or purple bike to be seen. That's what I was getting at.

You see a Fighter and look at the sheet; Great Weapon Mastery, Polearm Mastery or Sharpshooting. So in stead of seeing 100 fighters, all with different weapons, armour, shields, etc....you see 100 fighters, all using 2-Handed swords, Halberds, or Composite Longbows. Oh, you may find the odd Great Axe, Bardiche or Shortbow, but the result is the same; every single one of those Fighters is "better at fighting" than you are with the same weapon.

When simply looking at it between two or three characters, it looks diverse. But extrapolate that out to the NPC's and campaign world at large... and every fighter is using a 2h weapon, polearm or composite longbow.

Or sword & board. Those are viable as well - and Sentinel + Sword and Board is an excellent feat and weapon combination. You might not have seen it but I certainly have and people really appreciate having shields.

Between 2 handed close quarters weapons, 2 handed polearms, 1 handed weapons with shield, and bows I'm curious what you think is missing? 1 handed weapons with no shield? Two Weapon Fighting? Crossbows? Because it isn't feats making any of those poor choices for a fighter. For example it's not Sharpshooter that makes the longbow better than the crossbow. It's that crossbows need to reload and so can't fire fast enough for fighters. It's not Sharpshooter that makes longbows better than shortbows, it's that the damage dice is higher.

If you accept that Sword & Board + Sentinel is a strong combination then I don't think that there's one single weapon in 5e that feats encourage fighters not to use any more than the basic properties of that weapon already do.

On the contrary if people go by the best weapons then due to there being few fighters on your average 5e battlefield the polearm would be a very niche weapon. But Polearm Master puts the halberd, the glaive, and even the staff into the top tier, meaning it's not all greatswords/mauls, longbows, and sword/axe & board. It's four groups rather than three.

As for why you never see bardiches in 5e the answer is simple. There are no bardiches on the weapons list - it's just halberds and glaives.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I absolutely loathe the WotC-era Multiclassing; it never feels like a proper combination of classes to me. I also dislike ASIs.

My problem with WotC-era multiclassing is that it should solve an RP problem but it doesn't.

When I have a character in a game that isn't level based they grow at least semi-organically; the areas I spend my XP in tend to be on the skills or effects my character has been focusing on because those are the rolls I've been making. Growth proceeds in slightly unexpected directions from play. But D&D classes, although it allows growth in odd directions are just too granular for this to feel natural.