D&D 5E Character Options

[Wik]

Well, thanks for trying to help me understand your point of view.

No problem. One of the great things about this board these days is that people can disagree and it's all good. Much better than the 4e days. People died, man.

[quote[Perhaps one reason why I don't get your way is that I've played the game from 1st ed (multi-classing) and loved 3E (feats).[/quote]

Hey, me too. Started in '89 at the age of six. Did a bunch of multi-classing in the 2e days. And for what it's worth, I liked 3e era feats too. For the most part.

I love the way feats are done in 5E, and think that the MC balancing is better in 5E too.

I like all but two feats in 5e. As for the balancing of multi-classing? Well, it's probably better than it's been, but you know the game was balanced for single-classing. Multi-classing was tacked on, and it still seems like that. It's not a default option, and you can tell from looking at the rules.

I know that the book says that MC/feats are optional, but because of my previous experience (and my preference, I suppose), I view MC/feats as part of the core game, with the 'option' to opt out of them!

Sure! So long that you recognize that you're absolutely wrong.

The fact that organised play uses both just underlines that.

I wouldn't use organized play as a barometer for what's kosher in D&D. Also, even if it were - that was never the point of this discussion. It was "who is using this rule?" Some people disagree with the rule. Hence the disagreements.

Therefore, banning either feels like you're actually taking something away from me.

Does this help explain my POV to you?

Absolutely. Hopefully you get mine.

If I were playing a 2e game, and someone said "hey, I want to use Skills and Powers." I'm within my right to say no. Players can argue all they want, but as the GM, I have the right to say no. This is the exact same argument being made here. I don't want players using rules arguments to customize their characters. I want a loosey-goosey system, so we can have a lot more fun with customization.

Oh, and I appreciate the civilised nature of our discussion.

Shove it up your butt.

I mean, um. Me too.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Arial Black]

Not to be argumentative, but 2e (with all of those supplments) started to become very different than 1e. More importantly, what you described isn't how dual-classing would work in classic 1e. Allow me to explain by quoting the DMG-

"Experience points are merely an indicator of the character’s progress towards greater proficiency in his chosen profession. Upward progress is never automatic. The gaining of sufficient experience points is necessary to indicate that a character is eligible to gain a level or experience, but the actual award is a matter for the DM.

The character must spend [weeks] in study and/or training before he can actually gain the benefits of the new level.

All training/study is recorded in game time. The period must be uninterrupted and continuous. He cannot engage in adventuring, travel, magic research of any nature, atonement, etc.

Once a character has points which are equal to or greater than the minimum number necessary to move upward in experience level, no further experience points can be gained until the character actually gains the new level."

IOW, you shouldn't be able to just tag along with your party shooting your wand and get their XP to rapidly advance. Instead, from a role-playing perspective, it would be the party, say, killing one high-level monster and getting the treasure, and then your character saying, "Hey, guys, y'all wait and stop for a while. I need to go learn how to be a better transmuter." And you keep repeating that process. You wouldn't magically level up several times during the adventure.

More fundamentally, it shows a divide in how one approaches the game under the old rules. Think of it in modern terms- if you need heart surgery, and, say, you are an amazing banker, do you suddenly stop being a banker so that you can learn to be a heart surgeon? Or do you keep being a banker, and use your banking skills to make money to pay someone else to do the heart surgery? When I read *why* you became a transmuter, I think to myself, "Self, why didn't he just go on a quest to find an item or a person to change him back? If he spent his whole life as a human fighter... doesn't that seem weird?"

But to get back to the original point, 1e (which is what you first mentioned) did have an ability to dual class and multiclass, but it was so severely constrained by the rules that it wouldn't play out. This is why (IMO) 1e so such a profusion of homebrew classes. It's just a different philosophy.

I have to say that I've been playing D&D since 1979 without ever 'giving it up for a while'. I played 1E, 2E, 3E, 3.5E, 4E and now 5E. Although most people in the early editions knew about the 'level up requires training' rules, not one single group I played in ever used those rules! In many, many different groups, none used them. Most just required a night's sleep, while others would let you level up between fights, depending on circumstances.

 

[Wik]

I have to say that I've been playing D&D since 1979 without ever 'giving it up for a while'. I played 1E, 2E, 3E, 3.5E, 4E and now 5E. Although most people in the early editions knew about the 'level up requires training' rules, not one single group I played in ever used those rules! In many, many different groups, none used them. Most just required a night's sleep, while others would let you level up between fights, depending on circumstances.

Must be a regional thing. I've been playing since 1989, and before 3e, levelling up took training and money. We're using that rule in 5e now, too, because it's a fun rule. In the last 1e game I played (it finished about three months ago), we had to train, spend money, and were punished if we went too long gaining XP without training.

A lot of 1e house rules do seem to move from region to region. Which initiative system to use, how to deal with critical hits, what a "1" on a d20 means, non-thief climbing, and stuff like that.

Point is, when people debate and refer to past editions, it's usually a good idea to refer to the rules as written... too many people have played too many house-ruled editions (as you did).

 

[Arial Black]

Must be a regional thing. I've been playing since 1989, and before 3e, levelling up took training and money. We're using that rule in 5e now, too, because it's a fun rule. In the last 1e game I played (it finished about three months ago), we had to train, spend money, and were punished if we went too long gaining XP without training.

A lot of 1e house rules do seem to move from region to region. Which initiative system to use, how to deal with critical hits, what a "1" on a d20 means, non-thief climbing, and stuff like that.

Point is, when people debate and refer to past editions, it's usually a good idea to refer to the rules as written... too many people have played too many house-ruled editions (as you did).

Just out of curiosity, what proportion of groups you played 1E with used the rule regarding weapon versus armour type?

Although I planned a fighter around that table once, that table is another thing that never got used in actual play.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Arial Black]

Fair enough. I have no desire to argue with personal experience (and as Wik points out, different things are more common in different areas). That said, the original issue was multiclassing/dualclassing, and I was curious because you specifically mentioned 1e.

My understanding, given your latest post, is that you played for more than 11 years (from 1979 through your tranmuter character, which would have been on or after 1990), and that was the first example you came up with for dualclassing. Which kind of supports my point that the 1e RAW were exceptionally discouraging to dual classing* to such an extent that it didn't really happen.

*Multiclassing for demihumans was differnet, but as I noted above, Gygax put in a lot of reasons not to play demihumans if you were playing a long campaign.

It has to be said that the mechanics of dual classing made it very hard to make work. In all those 1E and 2E years that I played, mine was the only dual class PC I ever saw.

 

[Arial Black]

Various rules in the system, as Wik notes, were RAW. As you are undoubtedly aware, some of them were used by more people, some by less. The one you bring up is infamous for not being used- it was originally included in an attempt to make the combat more realistic (some weapons would be more effective against different types of armor- shades of the old tabletop wargaming influence), but it was thoroughly unuseable for a game that was mostly about, well, dungeons and dragons. Added complexity with little payoff.

The concept was that some weapons were better/worse versus different types of armour. Chainmail was thought to be better than plate against arrows, for example.

The trouble is that this is not how the table worked! You cross-referenced the weapon you were using, not against the type of armour your target was wearing, but against the target's base AC! Different armour types could have the same base AC, and IIRC using a shield added to that base AC.

Although it was a cool idea, the actual table wasn't fit for purpose.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

It has to be said that the mechanics of dual classing made it very hard to make work.

My first character ever was a 2e Thief/Illusionist and I found it remarkably easy to make him work.

(But decades later I learned that was primarily because the friend who showed me how to make a character had NO idea what the rules were for making dual class characters. Basically it was, "You want to be a thief and an illusionist? Sure, just grab all of the cool stuff from both and you're set!")