D&D General Do We Really Need Multiclassing?

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

You'd have less of the take a 1 level dip type stuff if multi-classing was permanent and starting at first class. Essentially how it worked in older versions of D&D. You can have a multi-class character, you just split XP between the classes as you level.

 

[Clint_L]

I hear multiclassing is optional, but I've never met a player who viewed it as optional. Does everyone allow mutliclassing in their games? I don't like it, but I've never restricted it.

I allow it - why not? I don't see much reason to restrict player choice about their character vision. Players seldom use it, though.

 

[aco175]

I can see a place for it. Mostly if the campaign changes and a player needs to change the path he though of from the start. Say the group did not have a cleric and a player feels like the group needs more healing, then I can see it.

I'm not a fan of looking for the best or most powerful build, but some like that, so whatever.

 

[ECMO3]

One of the things I like about 5th edition is the inclusion of backgrounds which I (naively) thought would eliminate some of the desire for people to multiclass. After all, does my Fighter really need to take a level of Rogue in order for me to meet my vision of a character with who grew up as a gutter snipe stealing things? Or am I just better having the Criminal background which will allow me access to some skills and proficiency in thieve's tools?

Admittedly I grew to hate multiclassing during 3rd edition. Largely beacuse of the way prestige classes worked. In my mind, they took away all spontaneity requiring players to plan ahead to select specific classes and feats in order to get the prestige class instead of choosing such things in response to the events of the game. And as a general rule, I just don't like keeping track of character builds by dipping into other classes. But I recognize that some people just love building characters and multiclassing can be a part of it and there's nothing wrong with that.

I hear multiclassing is optional, but I've never met a player who viewed it as optional. Does everyone allow mutliclassing in their games? I don't like it, but I've never restricted it.

It is allowed in all the games I have played, but players who multiclass are the minority IME. Personally, I almost always multiclass. I have only played one single class character past level 2 since 5E came out (a Kender Conquest Paladin).

I agree with you on 3E. Byzantine multiclass rules, prestige class requirements, xp penalties and favored classes really sucked the life and fun out of the game. This combined with tiered feats (and required feats for prestige classes) greatly restricted your options and really eliminated any relevant story-driven choices after character creation.

5E is MUCH better. 13 in your required stat(s) and bam, you can multiclass. The only thing I wish they would do different is take armor proficiency away from cleric and druid dips and give heavy armor proficiency to fighter dips (but only fighters, not Paladins). Those are minor nit-picky gripes though and in general I really like the 5E multiclass rules.

 

[ECMO3]

I can see a place for it. Mostly if the campaign changes and a player needs to change the path he though of from the start. Say the group did not have a cleric and a player feels like the group needs more healing, then I can see it.

I'm not a fan of looking for the best or most powerful build, but some like that, so whatever.

When I played Tomb of Annihilation we were not prepared for the difficult navigation checks to keep from getting lost, and although we hired guides, they were not any good at navigating either. As a result we spent the first 3 levels lost most of the time. It was actually starting to get tedious - spend 4 days lost in the jungle, fighting wandering monsters, then you finally figure out where you are and it is the same place you were 5 days ago before you got lost.

As a party we talked about how to fix this and what we were going to do during an off week and then one of the players noted "Rangers are never lost in favored terrain". My Rogue 2-Hexblade 1 was the only PC with the ability scores high enough to multiclass (actually tripleclass) to Ranger, others had Dex or Wisdom but not both. I had the requisite Dex and Wisdom (barely) and Charisma. I got a Ranger level, we never got lost in that campaign again. Totally fun, and totally unexpected when I made my character.

If it were not for the 5E rules the DM would have had to unwind or alter the campaign, which I am sure he would have done, but this made us feel a lot better about it since we solved it.

 

[jgsugden]

Need? no. However, I find that it makes the storytelling aspect of the game better. And the example you bring up from 3E - where people ran a PC through a series of weird decisions just so they could qualify for a prestige class - isn't really happening in 5E.

Instead, I see people have an idea for a PC and start playing it. They sometimes already have an idea for a multiclass they want to do later, or sometimes they have a storyline influence their character advancement by multiclassing into something that makes sense, but I tend to find most multiclassing in 5E makes sense for the PC.

Sometimes the multiclassing can really help with the storytelling. As a classic example of an "abomination" of multiclassing that I ran from level 1 to 20: Myska Urge was a bit of a naive Tiefling. She grew up in the service of a Noble Tiefling House and journeyed to the Underdark as a member of the guard for her employer. That trip went disastrously bad and she escaped into the Underdark and had to find her way back to the surface, learning the skills of a ranger as she did so. That backstory carried her to level 1 as a Ranger and she advanced to 5th level as an Archer (Gloomstalker) ranger in her earlier career. One of the Traits she had was a belief that her ancestors, Asmodeus and Glasya, were misunderstood and underappreciated heroes that were doing everything they could to win the Blood War - and that their methods were necessary as the Goodly forces were not doing their part to help drive the Demons back. That just so happened to play into the game's storyline, and after hitting 5th level it made sense, as she had taken some rather vocal positions in support of the Devils that she take a level of cleric (Cleric of Order) as a Cleric of Asmodeus.

After she took that level, the DM had the Divine Order of Asmodeus make contact with her and tell her that she was to do as she was told as a member of the church - which would have required her leaving her adventuring life behind. This caused a bit of a crisis of faith in her, but she negotiated the situation and was reassigned to "Missionary Work" that allowed her to recruit for Asmodeus by being an open worshipper of Asmodeus that was doing heroic things. However, she was not going to be allowed to "advance" as a Cleric as part of this deal. Rather than continue as a cleric, I thought it made sense for her to live to the letter of the agreement but still do as she wanted - and I had her call on her heritage as a Tiefling descendent of Asmodeus and Glasya and become a Divine Soul Sorcerer. She advanced in that class for 5 levels (taking her to 11th character level).

At that point we concluded the story arc and took a break from the game. We knew we'd come back to these PCs, so the DM had us write up a "what are they doing" tag for what the PCs intended to do when the group dispersed for a while. I had her decide that she'd spend more time in service of the "Noble Goals" of Asmodeus, where in she was assigned duties as a Punisher - essentially the vengeful arm of the Order of Asmodeus. When we regrouped 6 months later, we took our 12th level and I had her advance as a fighter as she'd spent the last 6 months shooting people for Asmodeus. The DM built the campaign storyline around what we'd been doing and I ended up hunting down a list of "bad guys" for Asmodeus. I continued to play up the martial side of the PC, developing a bit of a "Ranged Assassin's Creed" approach to the character. She took 4 levels in Battlemaster and 3 levels in Assassin. At this point I was playing a Gloomstalker 5, Cleric of Order 1, Divine Soul 5, Battlemaster 4, Assassin 3 - at level 18. She'd wrap up taking 2 more levels in Divine Soul before the campaign ended and we retired the PCs, but that was sort of a throw in as those levels came really fast.

Every time I "switched" classes with multiclassing it was a response to where we'd gone in the campaign. It furthered the story. Could I have essentially done the same thing by just staying a ranger? Yeah - sort of - but it worked a lot better with the multiclassing. I believe that had the DM said that we could not multicass I would have ended up with a much less evocative storyline for the character, and the elements of her storyline that guided the adventure for higher levels would not have been nearly as interesting.

All in all - while I get that mutliclassing in prior editions was often full of rough fits in the sake of meeting prerequisities and optimization, I don't see that in 5E and I have never seen any reason, whatsoever, to restrict multiclassing. In fact, I think a bigger problem with 5E is that certain classes are mechanically discouraged from multiclassing because they lose out on key elements they need for their class to features to stay competitive, like access to the highest level spells for spellcasting classes and Ki points for monks.

 

[ECMO3]

After having played in a two year campaign, followed by my DM'ing a one year campaign, both in 5e, for my next game I would, as part of the pitch and session zero, remove multiclassing as an option. In my experience, the players used multiclassing to build for effectiveness and "maximization", rather than for what it did for the world or whether it made sense in the world - i.e. it was a pure power play. Now, there is nothing wrong with maximizing every little bit out of a character, if that is the game that is being played, of course.

I don't usually see that and I don't really agree either, because "maximization" will generally drive players to play a Wizard, and not one with a lot of other classes.

Multiclassing can boost the power of a lot of builds, especially weapon-fighting and skill monkeys builds and there are a ton of great synergies. But those builds are behind casters to start with.

It can also bring a lot of off-color flavor and mechanics to a spellcaster build (Death Cleric/Bladesinger, Order Cleric/Enchantment Wizard, Wizard/Sorcerer, Sorlock). But when it comes to maxing a character for level 1-20 I think a single class Wizard will generally outperform any multiclass combo (assuming identical ability scores and at least one 16 to start).

There are a few specific levels and level ranges I could build a multiclass character that would be more powerful than a single class Wizard at that level, but overall they will be behind through most of the campaign.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I don’t like 3e/5e/dual-classing style multiclassing where you gain a level in one class or another. It does work well for a couple kinds of concepts (namely career-changing and prestige classes) but those are not the most common reasons to multiclass.

The most common type I see is the dip: a feature from one class makes too much sense for a build or concept that overall fits better in another class. Ie the paladin who learns special magic to swing their sword with the power of their faith rather than the power if their muscles. Or just a rogue who picks up a few magical rituals. Feats should be the answer here, maybe backgrounds or in extreme cases subclasses. But you need a lot of content to cover all bases.

The second most common reason is a desire to play a hybrid concept, either because both bases are cool or because you’re just bored with the base options.

The best way to add these to the game is new classes; I still think swordmage should be its own class. But sometimes a subclass would be enough.

All told, I don’t like the current setup but getting rid of it requires adding a lot of content (or dramatically reducing player options).

 

[Neonchameleon]

5e multiclassing is an awkward patch to a fundamental flaw in the design of most 5e characters. With certain honourable exceptions (lead by the warlock, with sorcerer, ranger, and bard following as spells known casters with the wizard bringing up the rear) if you don't multiclass then if you look at the character at level three then in the overwhelming majority of cases by level 16 the PC will have made one and a half meaningful choices that can not be changed by a simple long rest in how they grow after level three.

This is because literally everything is hardcoded in terms of how you grow and ASIs are better than all but the very best feats. So by level 15 the majority of single classed PCs are going to have raised their prime stat to 20 and will have a feat. Possibly one and a half feats if they started with a prime stat of 17. And in the case of a divine caster their choice of spells isn't meaningful because they can change that with a single long rest's notice.

This doesn't mean that a barbarian is a druid, or a moon druid is a wildfire druid. But all those choices are made by level three. If you were to almost clone your level 3 wildfire druid and send one through twelve levels of Fantasy naughty word Vietnam in a gritty setting and the other through twelve levels of whimsical feywild adventures then when they met up at level 15, give both a shower, a shave, and identical clothing and equipment and the only meaningful mechanical difference between these two druids who have lived very different lives is one to one and a half feats. Your life does not have a mechanical impact.

This, of course, isn't true for warlocks or even sorcerers. A warlock is likely to pick up a different range of invocations based on what they have faced, and warlocks and sorcerers alike pick their spells for their environments. And yes I'm aware e.g. fighters get extra feats, and Totem Warriors have a couple of choices within the class and there are a very few characters that don't rush to 20 in their primary stat. But for most 5e characters who don't multiclass there is about as much character development through mechanics and in terms of response to your environment as there is from optimised min-max net-built 3.5 characters.

5e is a bit better. The new half-feats being better than the ASIs at least gives you more options, so you can grow within your class while responding to your environment in your growth.

 

[Pedantic]

If you want to do away with multiclassing, the game needs a willingness to create a lot more classes. It's one of my primary frustrations with class based games, that they don't lean in on their primary strength of portraying a bunch of archetypes at nominally similar growth/power levels.

Multiclassing ends up as a player desire, because their just isn't enough variety in character optionality without it. If there was 6 different Fighters, that covered a bunch of different combat approaches, the Divine Rogue, the summoner, fey edition, summoner, elemental edition and on and on, all with some choices built into their chasses, and a few universal systems like feats for point buy-esque customization, we wouldn't miss it.

Unfortunately, you're never going to escape the calls for simplicity, which tends to get pushed as "3 or 4 classes only." Multiclassing is the compromise that's stuck, despite its problems.