D&D 5E Character Options

[TheWriterFantastic™]

The whole impetus behind 5e was to have a game that everyone playing at the same table could enjoy as their favorite version of the game, by allowing each player to bring their favorite edition's style into the game, at least from their perspective - to have players that preferred Basic at the same table as AD&D players, 3e players, and 4e players. IMHO, 5e has mostly succeeded in allowing that to happen, by bringing very balanced options to the table with their modular approach. You want single class PCs without feats or multiclassing, like Basic, you have it. Want a featless multiclass fighter/mage PC, like in AD&D, you can have that. Want your feat dipping PC from 3e? That's an option? Want at will and encounter like powers, and tactical fighter powers, like in 4e? That's an option. Nothing's stopping you from playing the PC you want to, and you won't be breaking the other player's game. It's democratic a la carte D&D, and it seems pretty promising so far.

 

[The_Gneech]

After 15 years of 3.x/PF, 5E feats and multiclassing still feel nice and streamlined. Sure, go for it players!

Besides, they have enough built in opportunity costs that I don't feel like either option is overpowering.

-TG

 

[steeldragons]

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.

If you can not see the benefit or ability to play an effective, interesting, and well-developed character in D&D without multiclassing, you are precisely the kind of person that needs to sit at a table and play without it.

Your character concept being multiclassed is absolutely irrelevant to their being a "conflicted" character. Many a paladin has had moments of doubt in their faith, temptations to this or that, many MANY stories/ways for them to be conflicted and confused as to their role and place in the universe...their closeness to their faith/deity/cause/oath...are they doing what's really "right"? What their oath/god commands? ...Taking levels in warlock is completely superfluous.

MCing does not make a character "interesting" or "deep" or grant them a "rich story", the player [with the assistance of others at the table!] does that...through roleplaying their character...not piling on bells and whistles to follow along whatever MCing tells the player that the character is supposed to do/capable of doing.

3+e style MCing has been the source of a [often unrecognized] tragic degradation of the role-playing game...."my opinion", of course.

It will NEVER have a place at a table I run.

Feats are similarly, more power grabs than character development. But seem, in 5e, to at least be able to add a bit of flavor to "lean" a character toward a bit of skill in different areas without needing to rely on MCing. I will not use them, outright. But I could see permitting them on a case-by-case basis...with the proper in-game/story RP to justify them...FIRST! Not "Wake up, gain a feat. Come up with a story justification afterwards."

 

[TheWriterFantastic™]

If you can not see the benefit or ability to play an effective, interesting, and well-developed character in D&D without multiclassing, you are precisely the kind of person that needs to sit at a table and play without it.

Isn't this an explicit "Your fun is wrong/bad" statement? One could argue the opposite for someone taking your position.

Your character concept being multiclassed is absolutely irrelevant to their being a "conflicted" character. Many a paladin has had moments of doubt in their faith, temptations to this or that, many MANY stories/ways for them to be conflicted and confused as to their role and place in the universe...their closeness to their faith/deity/cause/oath...are they doing what's really "right"? What their oath/god commands? ...Taking levels in warlock is completely superfluous.

MCing does not make a character "interesting" or "deep" or grant them a "rich story", the player [with the assistance of others at the table!] does that...through roleplaying their character...not piling on bells and whistles to follow along whatever MCing tells the player that the character is supposed to do/capable of doing.

3+e style MCing has been the source of a [often unrecognized] tragic degradation of the role-playing game...."my opinion", of course.

Preference to use multiclassing to create a varied background character concept is just as valid as one's preference to stick to a single class and use backgrounds and roleplaying. While prior editions may had easily abusable multiclassing rules, 5e, for the most part, seems fairly balanced, in its approach. No one is strong-arming you into using it, but I hope DMs aren't strong-arming their players out of it either.

It will NEVER have a place at a table I run.

Totally your prerogative -- at your table, it's your game, as long as your players are of the same consensus.

Feats are similarly, more power grabs than character development. But seem, in 5e, to at least be able to add a bit of flavor to "lean" a character toward a bit of skill in different areas without needing to rely on MCing. I will not use them, outright. But I could see permitting them on a case-by-case basis...with the proper in-game/story RP to justify them...FIRST! Not "Wake up, gain a feat. Come up with a story justification afterwards."

Again, your prerogative - your group's table, your group's rules.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The whole impetus behind 5e was to have a game that everyone playing at the same table could enjoy as their favorite version of the game, by allowing each player to bring their favorite edition's style into the game, at least from their perspective - to have players that preferred Basic at the same table as AD&D players, 3e players, and 4e players.

That was an early idea put out there, but they really seemed to back off from it as Next developed.

IMHO, 5e has mostly succeeded in allowing that to happen, by bringing very balanced options to the table with their modular approach.

Couldn't disagree more. 5e brings excellent support for the 2e fan, a fair bit of related nostalgia for fans of yet earlier editions, and, with Feats & Multi-classing opted-in, is not terribly disappointing to the 3.x fans (though, really, offers little reason to switch back from Pathfinder if they'd already gone there). But, it doesn't quite deliver on allowing 3.x and AD&D fans to play at the same table, each feeling like they're playing their favorite system. And, to try to get a 4e experience out of it, you have to have the DM opt-in to modular options that are incompatible with those AD&D/3e experiences at the same table, and, even then, fall far short of delivering on the 4e-style experience.

I don't blame WotC for that 'failure,' though: the idea in question was overly ambitious, and they never committed to it formally. 5e succeeds admirably at bringing back a classic D&D feel, with some of that 3.x character customizablility and d20-compatible mechanics, while delivering on DM empowerment in spades. That's still a damned impressive achievement.

If you can not see the benefit or ability to play an effective, interesting, and well-developed character in D&D without multiclassing, you are precisely the kind of person that needs to sit at a table and play without it.

3+e style MCing has been the source of a [often unrecognized] tragic degradation of the role-playing game...."my opinion", of course.

It will NEVER have a place at a table I run.

Sounds like you're precisely the kind of person who needs to sit down at the table with some cool MC'd characters. ;P

Seriously, though, I couldn't easily disagree more with your characterization of 3.x-style MCing. It was probably the single best idea in 3e. Had the class designs been worthy of it, it'd've been a remarkably elegant and efficient way to enable a virtually limitless range of character concepts, with only a relatively few & simple character classes.

Unfortunately, that kind of 'modular' multi-classing demands classes that are so neatly designed and robustly balanced that taking the 1st level of any class is as viable as taking the next level of any other class, at any level. And D&D's never come close to that. The 3.x fighter could have been the model for designing classes that'd've really worked with that kind of MC'ing, but no other class was ever implemented in a similar way. 3.x also screwed up save advancement and caster levels for it's own MC system. 5e, for it's part, fixes the latter, AFAICT.

In any case, there's nothing about being able to do a better build-to-concept that gets in the way of RP, rather, it supports RP by giving you something closer to the character you want to play. Sure, customization options can be abused to break the game or just used badly, but that's true of any sub-system that has any value at all.

 

[kenmarable]

As for what's allowed at our games, I'm totally open to both multiclassing and feats. We have nearly always found it more fun with more options rather than fewer.

As for my own characters, I have a tendency towards character concepts that are... complicated, so multiclassing is very common. Feats, however, I'm avoiding for now. Feats became so overwhelming in 3.x/PF, that I was tempted to stop using them in those games - or just go with basic options that I didn't have to think about (Weapon Focus on main weapon, Save boosts, etc. - "just write it down and forget about it" sort of feats). It's not exactly rational, but, honestly, the number of feat choices became so overbearing that it became one of the least fun parts of the game for me. (Yes, I know this runs counter to my general "more options is more fun" feeling, but here there are so many options it's oppressive!)

5e feats are a massive improvement over them. But there's such a bad taste in my mouth around them, that I'm happy just skipping that section for my own characters for the time being. I'll get to it, but especially since I don't get to play much 5e, there's plenty of other fun options to explore still.

But unless it's irrevocably broken, our games are always open to more options, rather than fewer (even including some occasional "revocably broken" options that we tweak to try to keep fun if someone is interested in them).

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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.

AD&D multiclassing was by far the most broken because of the way the exp charts worked. You could be a 10th level mage, or a 9/10 mage/cleric (possibly 11th in cleric, they advanced very fast).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

AD&D multiclassing was by far the most broken because of the way the exp charts worked. You could be a 10th level mage, or a 9/10 mage/cleric (possibly 11th in cleric, they advanced very fast).

Full disclosure: I'm addressing AD&D 2nd edition specifically, having never played 1st. I don't think it matters for this discussion though.

It's not quite that simple because of the opportunity cost: half-speed advancement at levels above 10-ish, and you lose the opportunity to specialize in a weapon or a school of magic. And you didn't gain the full benefits of additional classes levels: your 9/10 mage-cleric has less HP than a 9th level cleric. By the time your fighter/mage gets 9th level spells, my pure Necromancer would be level 26-ish. There's a real cost to multiclassing at high levels, and IMO that makes it an interesting dilemma.

So, given that 5E's XP table has a different shape than AD&D's, I agree that you couldn't just port over the AD&D rules in a straightforward way. I did play with a guy for a while who allowed AD&D-style multiclassing in 5E and called it "dual classing": just track XP in each class separately and level up when you hit the next breakpoint. You didn't gain double HP or double ASIs, and you couldn't share spell slots between classes, but it was still obviously overpowered because 5E classes are mostly front-loaded: a Warlock 11/Druid 11 is just plain better than a Druid 15 in too many ways. Dual-classing was a dominant option, way too attractive, and I wouldn't use those rules myself for that reason.

 

[Kestrel]

We play with both options. I even give them a free feat at first level and allow them to move the stat bonuses from a race around (although they cannot stack them with the subrace bonus).

I haven't found it to be a problem, the players like the extra options and as a GM it just lets me throw bigger encounters at them. I guess it would be an issue if I used the pre-made campaigns but since my game is home-brew, its working just fine.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Full disclosure: I'm addressing AD&D 2nd edition specifically, having never played 1st. I don't think it matters for this discussion though.

It does somewhat. There were fewer restrictions on multiclassing in 1E. Multiclass fighter types (including rangers) could still specialize. Clerics didnt have weapon restrictions. 2E depends on what supplements you use.

It's not quite that simple because of the opportunity cost: half-speed advancement at levels above 10-ish, and you lose the opportunity to specialize in a weapon or a school of magic.

That depends on a game actually reaching 10+, and spending any appreciable amount of time at 10+. Specialization is again dependent on splats, as other resources added ways to specialize (players option books, kits, etc). Gnomes could be multi-class illusionists. Al-quadim allowed MC elemental specialists (required in fact) etc.

And you didn't gain the full benefits of additional classes levels: your 9/10 mage-cleric has less HP than a 9th level cleric.

But more than the mage, which was my example (and better saves... dat Paralyzation/Poison/Death!). If you were thinking about going mage, it was kind of "why not add some cleric?". Other than the "strict" roleplaying straightjacket of following the god of magic!

By the time your fighter/mage gets 9th level spells, my pure Necromancer would be level 26-ish. There's a real cost to multiclassing at high levels, and IMO that makes it an interesting dilemma.

In general, you'll know if your group is going to level 10+. Few games go to where you fight d6 tarrasques as a random encounter heh. I reached 15+ once in all my 1E/2E days. In the range most campaigns reached before they fell apart, it was pretty much a no brainer for lots of classes.

So, given that 5E's XP table has a different shape than AD&D's, I agree that you couldn't just port over the AD&D rules in a straightforward way. I did play with a guy for a while who allowed AD&D-style multiclassing in 5E and called it "dual classing": just track XP in each class separately and level up when you hit the next breakpoint. You didn't gain double HP or double ASIs, and you couldn't share spell slots between classes, but it was still obviously overpowered because 5E classes are mostly front-loaded: a Warlock 11/Druid 11 is just plain better than a Druid 15 in too many ways. Dual-classing was a dominant option, way too attractive, and I wouldn't use those rules myself for that reason.

Yeah, that would really only work if everyone did it (and the DM adjusted encounter difficulty accordingly).