D&D General How do you handle doubling of classes?

[iserith]

I encourage players to not double up on anything without talking to each other first and making sure there's sufficient differentiation that the spotlight is equally shared.

 

[GM Lent]

I've had it happen here and there and it's never been a problem. I'd go so far as to say that there's a problem with multiple characters of the same class in a group, the problem is with the GM more than anything else.

Even back when adventures were expressly written to have a "balanced" party - that is, an arcane caster, a divine caster, a sneaky person, and a martial combatant - I never had issues when the party had more of one type an/or less of another.

It's seriously NBD.

 

[HJFudge]

Yeah I see no reason not to allow players to play what they want. If two or more wanna play the same class, that is between them. I will advise them to have a wide variety of capabilities but beyond that, their choice.

 

[Gorg]

This used to happen frequently, back in the old days- when we were often able to get 6 or more players. Not to mention the main campaign, where we had a habit of picking up strays as well as playing multiple characters each. Which was a hedge against the sometimes frequent low turnouts. It just made it easier for the DM to plan, with a consistent core known party size. NOT playing because x, y and Z didn't feel like playing?? Notta chance!!!

It was never a big deal- especially since the multiples were mostly fighter types. A few were also multi-classed, for example, my fighter-magic user-cleric. You PAID for that extra flexibility in AD&D- all XP were split evenly between all of your classes, AND each class had it's own level progression. Thus individual classes lagged WAY behind, and so did your total character level.

In more recent games, we try to ensure a good mix of capabilities/classes- but if say, 2 players want to be fighters or barbarians, for example, they can. We tend to play heavy adventure/ exploration with plenty of action and combat, so extra beef up front is always welcome. Also had a wizard AND a Sorcerer; and 2 clerics. It never caused us any problems. Everyone got their chance to contribute.

We never did have any of the internet tropes, like parties full of paladins, rogues, Rangers, or bards, lol. And the vast majority of players stuck to the core PC races: humans, elves, and dwarves especially. Drow were also popular. Nobody ever played a tiefling; dragonborn, or Gensai, that I recall- and I played the only Aasimar I ever saw. Eberron released after the group broke up, got lives, and stopped playing- so Warforged were never an option,

 

[Faolyn]

No problem whatsoever. In a game I'm running, there are two warlocks (Fey and Hexblade). In the game I'm playing in right now, there are two wizards (Graviturge, I think, and I dunno). They're all very different characters.

 

[Dausuul]

I must admit one reason I asked is because one player in my group never plays anything but bards. Never.

And I have a bard character that I'd really like to play again someday, but there is no game where I'm a player that this other player doesn't already play in, and I don't really want to be "the other bard." I feel like it's harder to double up on bards than some other classes, because then they're jostling to be the "face" of the party.

I DM'd for a group with two bards (one of whom was this mentioned player), and I could see that the lore bard usually hung back and let the glamour bard do the talking.

Can you sit down with Bard Player and figure out a way for the two of you to work as a team? There are lots of ways for two PCs with high social skills to work together; two-man cons, good cop/bad cop routines, etc. Ideally you can work it so that each of you is playing a role you enjoy in social situations.

Combat-wise, it should be fine as long as the party has plenty of muscle to take advantage of the barrage of buffs and debuffs the two of you throw down.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm just curious how other people handle the idea of having, or potentially having, multiple PCs of the same class in a party: two fighters, two sorcerers, etc.

Do you ban, or at least discourage, it?

I'm fine with it as long as they're different subclasses.

Do you find that players are likely to back down and pick something else if someone else expresses an interest in playing a class they've chosen?

Not that I recall.

Has your group ever played with doubled-up classes, and how did it go?

Yeah. It was fine.

Have you ever been one of the doubled-up classes, and how did you feel about it?

Yeah. It was lame because the other person picked the same class and subclass as I was playing.

 

[fba827]

From a DM side it doesn’t matter ( or at least shouldn’t matter) to me ( in fact I’ve even run campaigns without that as a premise)
As a player it usually doesn’t matter, and if we’re playing different subclasses then it never matters to me

However, I know other players that will have a serious problem and strongly request others to not pick his chosen pc class else he’ll repack if he can’t convince others.

 

[Dragongrief]

I'm running a game with two Evokers in it, and both have their own style.

One is a human and is taking the more traditional "hang back and cast" focus. The other is a mountain dwarf and gets up close hitting things with a stick, and occasionally dropping close-range AoE spells.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm just curious how other people handle the idea of having, or potentially having, multiple PCs of the same class in a party: two fighters, two sorcerers, etc.

Do you ban, or at least discourage, it?

Not in the slightest. Hell, the only thing better than two fighters in a party is three fighters in a party!

Do you find that players are likely to back down and pick something else if someone else expresses an interest in playing a class they've chosen?

Not often. I've even seen the reverse on occasion, where a player picking a class causes another player to pick the same class for synergy or roleplay reasons.

Has your group ever played with doubled-up classes, and how did it go?

Constantly. Most of the time it's not a problem at all, and on the rare occasions it is it's usually due to some sort of in-game rivalry between the two PCs anyway.

Have you ever been one of the doubled-up classes, and how did you feel about it?

Many times. Didn't care. Sometimes I welcomed it, as it meant that whatever the class' job was I didn't have to do all of it: someone else could share the load.

We sometimes play multiple PCs at once, and for quite some time recently I was running two fighters side-along. They were different enough in personality etc. that I didn't have to worry about one being mistaken for the other, and I made sure that they weren't great friends so as to avoid problems of collusion.