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

[Charlaquin]

I’ve never really had a problem with it - my players avoid doubling up classes all on their own, even though I have never encouraged doing so, nor discouraged doubling up. If I did have two or more players who wanted to play the same class, I would allow it without question, though I would encourage them to talk to each other just to make sure they don’t feel like they’re competing for the same niche.

 

[Shiroiken]

Since this is under General, I'm going to point out that it kind of depends on the edition. OD&D and 1E normally had large groups with duplicate classes; due to the simplicity of character design, there normally wasn't too much of an issue since duplicates benefited the probability of success. Both 4E and 5E have issues with a couple of classes, but overall isn't that big of a deal since there's a lot of customization available with races, backgrounds, and sub-classes.

In 2E it was bad, however, and in 3E it was a nightmare. It was very probable that one PC would simply outshine the other in just about every meaningful way, making them a hanger on that provides almost nothing. I experienced it on multiple occasions, and it really ruins the fun.

 

[Ancalagon]

We frequently had 2 fighters and 2 wizards in our 2nd ed party, and it wasn't too much of a problem for us...

 

[Richards]

I've DMed for a party with two wizards and another with two rangers and play in a group whose party contains a fighter, a barbarian, and a fighter/barbarian. We've never had any major issues.

Johnathan

 

[Swarmkeeper]

We currently have a West Marches style 5e campaign where players have up to 3 PCs to choose from each session. Despite that, we still get some class/function overlap in about half of the sessions regardless of the potential PC pool. The latest party consists of a Glamour Bard, Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, Dreams Druid, Land (Forest) Druid, Fiend Warlock, and GOO Warlock. Another session famously featured a Death Cleric, Life Cleric, and Tempest Cleric, with a Beastmaster Ranger and a Phantom Rogue along for the ride. It has been fun regardless of any overlap. IMO, to provide a good gaming experience regardless of overlap, it is incumbent on the DM to provide varied encounters and important for both DM and players to embrace cooperative spotlight sharing.

 

[jasper]

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?

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?

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

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

Why is this a problem? I ran a module with all paladins. 5E has buried the concept of a rounded balanced party aka healer, tank, thief, caster. Play what you want. If the monster eats your lunch too bad. And not going narcing to the principal about it.

 

[jasper]

Since someone pointed out it is general topic, back in 1E and 2E duplicate classes did exist at the table. Fighter and Thief were the standard I ran across. With the fighters no problems. With the Thief generally the players switch off die rolls, with the backup rolling if we knew the first thief failed. (Yes megagaming).
The only problem came up was with magical loot. Hey +20% pick pocket gloves. Who gets it? The loot division depended on the group dynamics. OR who could pin the other the fastest outside in the grass.

 

[Greg K]

If the class, is available to play in the campaign and I have not restricted it to one in the party (which is almost never), I have no issues with 2 PCs of the same class.
In fact, I have seen it happen multiple times in AD&D and 3e games that I have run- especially within large groups. The most memorable was in AD&D 1e when my brother and a friend both chose to play fighters. I watched both roll an 18 using 4d6 and drop the lowest die. Both placed their 18 in Strength and rolled percentile dice which resulted in exceptional strength scores in the 90's for both characters. They ended up deciding that their characters were brothers whom labeled themselves, the "Bruise Brothers" (a play on the Jim Belushi and Dan Ackroyd "Blues Brothers").

 

[steeldragons]

I don't "handle" them...or see anything to handle. The adventure and setting is going to be the adventure and setting. The characters' interactions with the adventure and setting is what will drive the campaign.

If a whole party of fighters shows up (or 4 mages or all rogues or 3 clerics of different gods -or 3 clerics of the same god, whatever) it's up to the players of those characters to figure out how to get through the day. If that means needing to hire henchmen, or becoming indebted to some NPC of a different class, or (in an all fighter party) simply getting a bigger axe, or anything else, then it might mean that. If it requires the multiple PCs of the same class getting their butts kicked a couple of times before figuring out how to get past a particular challenge, so be it.

It's not up to the DM. It's up to the players to move their characters through a setting/campaign -yes , preferably with more success than losses- utterly regardless of what classes those characters are.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I dont generally oppose it, unless the two players are not of the same caliber. I've some pretty casual players (who never opened the player handbook) and some pretty invested players (who own many books) so I usually at least warn them that player X will probably outshine them if both of them play the same thing. If that's no problem for anyone then its all good.