D&D General Do We Really Need Multiclassing?

[nevin]

Do we need it. No. Do players want it yes. Which means it's not going away. In this day and age of instant gratification telling people they can't have a feature is bad for sales.

 

[Redwizard007]

Do we need it. No. Do players want it yes. Which means it's not going away. In this day and age of instant gratification telling people they can't have a feature is bad for sales.

And yet, I still don't have psionics.

 

[greg kaye]

WotC needs controversy and debate. It keeps a focus on their products and keeps sales high.

They say that multiclassing is optional but then often make high-level progression in a dominant class less advantageous than taking those occasional multiclass dips.

 

[nevin]

And yet, I still don't have psionics.

or lightsabers. Psionics is typically relegated to scifi games. There seems to be something similar to an uncanny valley effect in fantasy games when you start adding things similar to scifi. Most people just don't like it.

 

[Corinnguard]

Unless you rebrand psionics by calling it another form of magic. In Pathfinder, psionics became psychic magic.

 

[Vaalingrade]

or lightsabers. Psionics is typically relegated to scifi games. There seems to be something similar to an uncanny valley effect in fantasy games when you start adding things similar to scifi. Most people just don't like it.

One day, I will complete my time machine so I can go back and wreck the nerd who decided to segregate the various genres of speculative fiction.

 

[nevin]

Ive never seen anyone play a psychic character in pathfinder. I'd argue it's just as niche there.

 

[Pedantic]

or lightsabers. Psionics is typically relegated to scifi games. There seems to be something similar to an uncanny valley effect in fantasy games when you start adding things similar to scifi. Most people just don't like it.

I do think there's a sensible mechanical genre divide between sci-fi/fantasy, but it's distinctly in tension with the aesthetic one. Sci-fi assumes projection from modern technology to reasonably assumed future technology, and fantasy posits specific exceptions to known reality and projects from there.

The problem is that space opera is fantasy under that model, and the established aesthetic divide has a lot more to do with brushed metal, energy weapons, knights and dragons.

 

[nevin]

your preaching to the choir. I love steampunk, victorian scif. I liked the original spell jammer. But when you try to give king arthur more modern gear, have psionics, or anything that feels like scifi with your fantasy IME most of the players at the table have some sort of mental disconnect and just can't or won't enjoy it.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I have the best reason: removing it breaks compatibility.