D&D 5E Character Options

[thalmin]

First 5e game I ran, one of my players started with the Min/Max crap, gonna take 2 levels of this, 3 levels of that, 1 level of the other thing...

Of course, this character would still be at least 1 level away from getting his first ability score increase/feat, if that level was in the 3rd-level class

 

[Talmek]

In my home group none of the PCs have expressed any interest in either multiclassing or feats (all PCs are currently 6th level so it's still early). Strangely enough this group consists of three serious min/max'ers from 3e forward; if I had to speculate why it is that they haven't really started looking into it I would guess that it's related to their characters being "playable as is". No one has complained that there's a lack of abilities in any of their choices and no one seems to have felt limited by their choices in-class. I'm not really sure whether that's due to them being able to delve into sub-classes and backgrounds more in this edition than previously or some other reason altogether.

As the GM I'm not particularly opposed to my group looking for advantages in character development, provided that they can offer some in-world reasoning behind it. If you want to train to be a fighter/rogue/sorcerer (all classes within the group), you had better spend some time in-character looking for ways to train with the others

 

[bedir than]

I like that by using fits you can still have the story of a dip into another class without a full multi-class. Bad ass fighter learns a bit of magic? Magic Initiate. Wizard that fights a bit? Take an armor and weapon feat. A Barbarian that learns to be sneaky? Skulker.

At my table if someone indicates their character is learning off their class-path I would point to certain feats or make others. We currently have a cleric that is becoming wizard like. I'm going to recommend Magic Initiate and/or Ritual Caster.

 

[Sunseeker]

I allow people to play pretty much however they want within the confines of the edition. I don't like 5E multiclassing because I feel it is far too close to 3E multiclassing, which served little purpose beyond breaking the game. Few people use multiclassing to better represent their character IME.

 

[redrick]

First 5e game I ran, one of my players started with the Min/Max crap, gonna take 2 levels of this, 3 levels of that, 1 level of the other thing... took me no time at all to shut that down. My first instinct was to say "if you want to switch classes, you will need to come up with a narrative in which that makes sense." Then I realised that it was just a much better idea to disallow multiclassing, period. You don't need it in 5e - any character concept you can imagine can be expressed with a single class and a feat or two, especially if the DM is willing to indulge some creativity (which I am.)

Edit: one of the dangers of unrestricted multiclassing is that someone will spend multiple levels in a class for one ability that turns out not to work the way they thought it would. If you allow at-will multiclassing, you might at least give a thought to how you might allow a re-spec. I know, I know... the fool dug his own grave, he should have to lie in it, etc. Thing is, there are some folks who won't play a character for months in a campaign after they've decided it is "broken." Better to plan ahead for that possibility than to lose a player over poor class choices, and if you've spent effort on developing hooks and tie-ins to that character's back story, a respec is better than a new character.

Yes, I definitely think it's worth talking to a player when they announce an intention to multi-class, and getting a sense of that player's general playstyle, and mechanical and "optimal" flexibility. I had a player in a Roll20 campaign play a Paladin/Assassin. I encouraged him to do it, because we were playing in the Glantri setting (magocracy which has outlawed religion, clerics and other divine casters), so the character concept seemed really interesting to me and the hooks I had in mind for the campaign. Unfortunately, he was less interested in the thematic interplay of Paladin and Assassin, and more just interested in the mechanical interplay of Divine Smite and Assassinate. We played together for a couple months, but after a session where I told him that he could not, under normal circumstances, step out of hiding, run 20' towards a facing opponent, and still be considered "hidden" for purposes of advantage, he declared he would no longer play the character, as the whole character was designed to get advantage in melee. (We explained that he could still get sneak attack in melee, since there were two melee fighters in the group, and that he could also make ranged attacks from hiding, but he was uninterested.) The next day, he removed his login from the campaign.

You can't get too hung up about that stuff over the internet — some people just want to pull the bandaid off and find a group that better fits their schedule, their playstyle or their personality, without having any awkward interactions or explanations. But, I never would have encouraged him to build the character in the first place if I'd understood he was basing the whole thing around one specific "move."

That being said, we had another multiclass in the group, a fighter/warlock, who, while he occasionally got excited about some pretty cheesy synergies, didn't build his whole character around a limited set of of abilities, and put a lot of work into the character concept of a warlock/knight, so it didn't feel like he was just playing a complex statblock.

 

[Psikerlord#]

We don't allow MCing (feel like the subsclasses/backgrounds are plenty), but we do play with modified feats (GWM/SS have substituted the -5/+10 for +1 stat, and deleted the bit about no disad shooting in melee for CE). Works excellent.

Ime however the best part about feats is custom making your own.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I allow both, but I prefer players go light on the multiclassing and avoid trying to get feat combos. So far, my players haven't needed any encouragement to stick with that.

Of the 16 PCs that have been created since we've had the PHB, only one of them multiclassed, and it was concept driven and didn't add power. People are choosing feats regularly, but ability scores are getting chosen also, so it's working alright there.

Once they introduce rules for gestalt/hybrid multiclassing, I'm going to encourage that over standard multiclassing whenever it would make sense, because I love that style of multiclassing, and the current 3e style just doesn't do the same thing.

One of my game assumptions is that a class is a significant field of study, like an academic major or degree program, not just a selection of abilities you stick together to create another character concept. So I'd require role-playing justification and some downtime if someone wants to pick up what is essentially another bachelor's degree (for 1st level) in my game.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Once they introduce rules for gestalt/hybrid multiclassing, I'm going to encourage that over standard multiclassing whenever it would make sense, because I love that style of multiclassing, and the current 3e style just doesn't do the same thing.

Agree. If they ever come out with rules for AD&D-style lifelong multiclassing, I will lobby my group to drop PHB by-level multiclassing in favor of lifelong multiclassing. I can live with the status quo all right, but I prefer the aesthetics of the old style over characters dynamically choosing what class to allocate levels to.

 

[Arial Black]

Well, we're currently playing "feats only". I like feats, but I think next game, I'm going to play without them. As for multi-classing, we decided after a long look to get rid of them, and only one player is put-off by this decision... and he still absolutely understands why I made it.

I'd be all for getting rid of feats if I had a player seriously interested in sharp shooter or great weapon master. Strangely, no one is, and so they work quite nicely. But yeah, I'd prefer to get rid of the added complexity, and just have everyone make simpler characters.

Although I respect your opinion, I confess that I don't understand it.

Different people like different things. Some like feats, some don't. Some like multi-classing, some don't.

But I wouldn't dream of saying, "I don't like multi-classing, therefore no-one else at my table is allowed to multi-class!"

I don't like playing wizards, but I wouldn't ban other people from playing them!

If you don't like multi-classing (or feats) but another player does, how does it spoil your day if they make use of that option and you don't?

I know I'm replying to your post, but my reply is to anyone who bans either option.

I've played two 5E characters so far (although I've been playing D&D since the seventies); the first is a single class variant human, but every time I level up I'd rather take the next fighter level than 1st level in a new class. I'm happy.

The other character was designed as a multi-class concept from the word go. I wanted a conflicted character, and chose a paladin/warlock. Briefly, he thought his god Wotan had sent him one of his two ravens (Hugin) that fly over the world during the day and report back to him at night. My PC believes that Wotan has sent Hugin to help him. What my PC doesn't know (but I do) is that his prayers are not heard by Wotan (who may or may not exist!) and are instead answered by an Archdevil pretending to be Wotan, and has sent a shapechanged Imp to very gradually corrupt him over the years.

So, he started with two levels of paladin and now has three levels of devil-pact warlock and just gained his Imp familiar (who stays in raven form).

This PC is good at some things and not so good at others. For example, he wears plate armour and uses a greatsword (when a min-maxed warlock would spam eldritch blast and/or have blade pact), but he only gets one attack when all the other warrior-types get two. But although I'm aware of this objectively, subjectively my PC feels awesome! Isn't that the most important thing in an RPG: that you thing that your own character is cool? If you didn't, why would you play?

I'm not convinced that banning multi-classing has any benefit whatsoever. It may not be the way to introduce a new player to the game, but that's not a factor for long. I certainly couldn't have made my latest PC concept work if multi-classing were banned.

 

[redrick]

Although I respect your opinion, I confess that I don't understand it.

Different people like different things. Some like feats, some don't. Some like multi-classing, some don't.

But I wouldn't dream of saying, "I don't like multi-classing, therefore no-one else at my table is allowed to multi-class!"

I don't like playing wizards, but I wouldn't ban other people from playing them!

If you don't like multi-classing (or feats) but another player does, how does it spoil your day if they make use of that option and you don't?

I know I'm replying to your post, but my reply is to anyone who bans either option.

I've played two 5E characters so far (although I've been playing D&D since the seventies); the first is a single class variant human, but every time I level up I'd rather take the next fighter level than 1st level in a new class. I'm happy.

The other character was designed as a multi-class concept from the word go. I wanted a conflicted character, and chose a paladin/warlock. Briefly, he thought his god Wotan had sent him one of his two ravens (Hugin) that fly over the world during the day and report back to him at night. My PC believes that Wotan has sent Hugin to help him. What my PC doesn't know (but I do) is that his prayers are not heard by Wotan (who may or may not exist!) and are instead answered by an Archdevil pretending to be Wotan, and has sent a shapechanged Imp to very gradually corrupt him over the years.

So, he started with two levels of paladin and now has three levels of devil-pact warlock and just gained his Imp familiar (who stays in raven form).

This PC is good at some things and not so good at others. For example, he wears plate armour and uses a greatsword (when a min-maxed warlock would spam eldritch blast and/or have blade pact), but he only gets one attack when all the other warrior-types get two. But although I'm aware of this objectively, subjectively my PC feels awesome! Isn't that the most important thing in an RPG: that you thing that your own character is cool? If you didn't, why would you play?

I'm not convinced that banning multi-classing has any benefit whatsoever. It may not be the way to introduce a new player to the game, but that's not a factor for long. I certainly couldn't have made my latest PC concept work if multi-classing were banned.

First of all, I think when folks say "ban at my table", the word might seem stronger than what is often happening. I mean, if I "ban" feats at my table, I do so with the cooperation and buy-in of all the players. I hope. We are deciding to play a game with certain restrictions. Now, it is fine to say, "some players will want to use feats, and some won't", and D&D 5e works very well this way, but some players will use feats if they have them, but not mind not using them if they don't have them, and if I want a simpler, less complex game, and my players are on board, why not? It allows a group to play a slightly different game, without having to completely learn a new set of rules.

One of the great things about feats in 5e is they got rid of feat trees. If you want what a feat provides, you take it. You don't need to worry about taking earlier feats to "unlock" a cool 2nd or 3rd tier feat. This makes them much simpler, and makes it easier for a player to know what they're getting when they take a feat. If a feat really doesn't work for you, you can talk to your DM and swap it out. It shouldn't have cascading effects for your character.

Multiclassing in 5e brings back in some of that "feat tree" quality. In order to get action surge, you need to take two levels of fighter. In order to get Assassinate, you need to take three levels of rogue. Players start investing multiple levels of choices into getting one specific combination. What happens when that combination doesn't work the way they intended? Or when a character becomes so dependent on that particular power move that the player gets frustrated whenever that move is unavailable?

Anyway, as I said, we play with multiclassing at my table. But I could totally see wanting a game where it wasn't an issue.

(In continuing your example, if wizards didn't make sense for the tone or setting of a game that I were running, I would not hesitate to ban them. Obviously, we would discuss ahead of time with other players, and if players said, "a game without wizards is not a game I want to play," I would either run a different game or they would find a different table. It's not about disliking something. It's about establishing an overall tone and feel of a game that everybody wants.)