D&D General Changing subclasses mid-campaign (or even classes)

Sacrosanct

Legend
I was curious to know if others did this, and what ways they did so that made it the most organic. I have always been a rulings over rules person, so something like this is totally OK for me to do. That is, during the course of the campaign, and what's been happening in the campaign, have you or one of your players ever just swapped subclasses or even classes?

For example, the campaign I'm currently in, I've been playing a bugbear swarmkeeper ranger. 2024 rules with 2014 swarmkeeper subclass. We had found a young owlbear. I had spent several sessions and months of gameplay bonding with the owlbear. Narratively, I've been describing my swarm (a group of twig fey that lived in my beard) emerging and helping sooth the creature with fey magic.

We recently level'd up, and it was an opportune time to change from a swarmkeeper ranger to a beast master ranger. I described it to my fellow players as thus:

My trusted companions. A month has passed since were victorious against the sinister wererats. Guided by a supernatural premonition, I was able to strike true. During this time, you saw me continue to spend time with my owlbear cub. You saw my twig fey emerge and surround the creature, not only calming it, but encasing it with a bluish glow. You noticed that the creature has grown at an unusual rate during this time. Perhaps the fey magic? During the third week after the wererats, I left into the forest with the owlbear. I have returned. You will notice the difference. (The owlbear is now full grown and has a slight blue translucent aspect to it. The ribbons are gone from Burgoth's hair, but are now in the owlbear's. You don't see any of the fey any longer, and Burgoth does not seem to talk to himself like he did prior)

Definitely not RAW. Would you even allow something like this in your games? Have you done it before? I'm very curious to know your examples.
 

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Sure, I never have a problem with a player changing.

A subclass is pretty easy. Even easier is a feat change or whatever.

A class change? At that point it seems like that would be a new character which is also fine.

A class change while keeping the same character? I don't think so because it will be too hard for everyone to keep that character straight in their imaginations.

I think it is already difficult to convey who your character is at the table. We play every 2 weeks and people need to remember each other's characters and what they have done in the campaign.
 

Absolutely fine. The player isn’t having fun or wants to switch things up, let them. Keeping the same character and swapping classes or subclasses is preferable to bringing in a new character or forcing them to multiclass or whatever. Nobody needs to be a jerk about it or a stickler for the rules.
 
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I definitely allow it. Especially in your case where the transition is already a very natural and organic one.

It really comes down to frequency for me. I'm always going to side with the player and let them transition once or twice during a campaign, and only start giving them the narrative side-eye if it keeps happening. Same for changing characters entirely (beside replacing someone that has died).
 

I also would have no issue with this.

I am also a "rulings, not rules" kind of DM/player... and I also do not treat the narrative description that has been placed upon a mechanical construct within the game as proscriptive and unable to be changed. The game might describe a character with all the barbarian class game mechanics as a "Barbarian"... but I do not have any problem with changing that description in whichever manner I or the player wishes (if they have something else in mind for which the barbarian mechanics would be illustrate it.)

So in your case in particular... what matters to me is the story of your PC. Being the hobgoblin that had these twig fey for a long while but then acquiring an owlbear companion, and then eventually the twig fey merging into the essence of the owlbear. That narrative over time is my juice... not the game mechanics that were handed out to represent that narrative. So changing, adding, and/or removing game mechanics to the character in order to best represent the story of the PC (in this specific case, changing subclass) is all completely fine. And in fact... if it were me, I might not have even required you to change subclass completely (if you didn't necessarily want to lose the swarmkeeper mechanics you had had up to that point.) I quite possibly might have let you keep your swarmkeeper mechanics and then ADD beastmaster mechanics on top of it... under the assumption that adding those mechanics would be like no different than getting a magic item or two that gives out additional mechanics. And it wouldn't matter if we called it as being "two subclasses" or "one subclass" and a "magical boon" (that just happened to have the same mechanics as a second subclass), or whatever definitions we wanted to use. The definitions and descriptions of what these mechanic are don't matter to me... what matters is the character getting the mechanics they want to best illustrate who their character is and what their story is.
 

I allow it if people want to swap subclasses they can, and far less organically than the aituation in the OP. I don't require campaign developments to aid in swapping subclasses but I'm all for using campaign developments to explain it.

For classes, we typically just reture the current PC and bring in a new one. I'm useless at explaining why someone has left and another has joined, typically it's "here's a lizardfolk druid, he's in your party now" <- an actual scenario.
 

I always tell my players that they are welcome to change any aspect of their character they like, whatever they feel best fits their concept/vision of the character. Have never had anyone abuse it.

Realistically, if they wanted to bring in a new character (and retire the old one) I'd have no problem allowing them to bring the character in at the same level as the rest of the group - so I certainly don't have a problem allowing them to change their current character to fit what they want. Again, haven't seen anything close to abuse of this yet.
 

Yep. Whether the change makes sense for story reasons or just because the player isn't happy with the class/sublcass, I'll work with them to make the change. Like to have a story reason, but alsom more than willing to chalk it up to Magic or The Gods.

Only had this happen once, a death Cleric who changed to a necromancer Wizard.
 

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