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

[jayoungr]

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?

 

[Ancalagon]

I think it's perfectly fine as long as the two are different subclasses/style of characters. For example, in a Pbp game I played in we had 2 fighters - one was an archer (samurai) and the other (my PC) was a dex melee specialist battlemaster. Even with us both being humans (I think?), we were different enough in style/role that it was fine.

 

[Retreater]

Absolutely no problem with it, especially with fighters - which is normal in my games. Extra spellcasters can bring different selections of spells. Just encourage the group to fill the roles if you want to run a published module without making any modifications.

 

[Musing Mage]

As DM I have no say in what the players wish to play, beyond the parameters I've set for the campaign.

There's no need or even reason to ban multiples of the same class. In fact, doubling up can be fairly advantageous - especially in old school where multiple fighters in a group increases survivability.

In 5e, each class is so varied with the different paths, you might as well be making different characters if everyone chooses a different specialty anyway.

In my 1e game, there are often duplicates of a given class - Usually fighters, but we've have doubles of Rangers, Clerics and thieves fairly often especially if one is a multiclass.

I was in a 2e game 15 years ago where we were all wizards (well, 3 wizards and a Mage/Druid), that was crazy and it made us unbelievably powerful.

So yeah - let your players do what they're gonna do and figure out the rest themselves.

 

[billd91]

I don't really have a problem with it, per se. I just don't like if the players can't hash things out so they aren't stepping on each other's toes, and I normally expect them to do so without DM intervention.

 

[Ancalagon]

I also ran a game with two monks. They had a blast (one was drunken master and a religious acolyte, the other was an open fist sailor). It was probably harder on the GM (me) because they could stunlock anything.

Oh and the party also had a paladin with 16 cha (so +3 saves to everyone nearby). The party saw fireballs as annoyances.

 

[jayoungr]

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.

 

[commandercrud]

Totally doesn't matter.

 

[Don Durito]

I'm not sure it really matters. These days we have Wizards, + Charisma Wizards + other Charisma Wizards + other other Charisma Wizards + Clerwizards, so it's generally happening anyway

 

[commandercrud]

At GenCon once I was at a table that was all rogues.