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

[Blue]

Had an interesting case of this yesterday. I've recently started a West Marches campaign with a few other DMs, and we're also playing on each other's adventures as we get inertia going. While the idea is to have a stable of character, two of the players had just joined and only had one character each, and another player really wanted to play her druid, she was on track to be our first 4th level character. (Which she accomplished, yea!) That druid was the only character I knew, having DMed for her before, but this time I was playing.

So we had a moon druid, a fighter, and a paladin. The other player woth choices and I discussed - he brought in a sorcerer, no overlap. My choices were: a druid - exact class, a fighter - exact class, or a battlesmith artificer. I brought in the artificer - very defender-y front line, but also some rogue, INT skills, some spell. Not a huge overlap I thought.

Now, it turns out the vhuman Fighter had the sentinel feat, the Paladin had the interception fighting style from Tasha's, and my Steel Defender has his reaction defend as well. All of us tanky, defendery, and not specializing in damage. Plus a moon druid with CR 1 forms, so not a lot of damage but very tanky.

So even though we were different classes, we ended up having a lot of overlap at the table. In hindsight, both my gnomish Circle of Stars Druid and my grappler Fighter would have played more differently in combat. On the other hand, I had a completely different set of skills (and tools!) with the Artificer.

In the end, we all had fun. The moon druid stayed more caster, and we all took turns defending each other. But if the combats were more challenging we weren't well positioned to deal with it since overlap in characters led to gaps elsewhere, like ranged combat. We made it work, but I think we'd rather have been able to show how cool we were in our own niche.

 

[Stormonu]

I have no problem with it at all. If everyone wanted to play all the same class, I'd love to see what emerges.

I do encourage folks not to take clones of one another. The all-fighter party might have a Battlemaster with longsword and shield, an Arcane archer, a Champion with a two-handed sword and a Battlemaster whose a light-armored rapier wielder, and I'd be fine. But if they were all human Champion Two-handed sword wielders with Great Weapon fighting, I might have a discussion with them about that - but if they're serious, say "We're the Mercenary Brother's Company of Blades (and Sister too!), we live by the sword!", I could probably still make it work.

 

[Greg K]

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 just looking up some old AD&D 1e TSR adventtures and, I believe, it was G1 that stated you will want more at least 9 characters- that is going to be a lot of overlap.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I've played in and DM'd for groups where classes were duplicated. It's easy enough to compensate for. I was playing a game with two wizards but each wizard focused on different schools of magic. I played in a game where, without talking to each other, a friend and I each brought in a half-elf ranger. But we focused on different skills and combat styles. I once DM'd for a game where everyone had a roguish scoundrel and everyone could bluff but not a single person could sense motive!

The only time I encouraged my players to diversify was when I was running a prewritten adventure path and I knew the players were going to need a wide variety of skill sets. It would have been very hard a group of, say, all fighters to complete.

 

[Nefermandias]

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?

You don't have to handle it at all.

 

[auburn2]

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?

In 5e it works fine because you can get so much variation with skills, feats and backgrounds.

To really do 5e well you need at least one guy that talks, one that can sneak, one that can pick locks, one that can search, one that can close with the enemy and one guy that can effectively engage at range. If you are going to be in the widernesss a lot you also need a surivial guy. Those are not mutually exclusive, the guy that closes with the enemy can be the same guy that sneaks and picks locks.

As a result you can have two or even three of the same class in a 4-person party as long as they all don't pick the same subcclass, background, skills and feats.

Even a party full of fighters is playable and effective if they are the right mix of different kinds of fighters - a human arcane archer with archeologist, an elf EK with the faction agent background, a half-elf battlemaster with noble and a halfling champion with criminal would have all the bases covered. I can't think of a class that would not work if there was subclass, background and race differences to cover the things mentioned above.

 

[akr71]

I'm more concerned with a DMPC than a second rogue in a party. If it is really supposed to be an NPC, I try very hard to find an appropriate statblock to base it off.

It sounds to me like the DM needs a chance to play. If they are excited by a cool character concept, reserve it for a PC, not NPC.

If it really troubles you, I would suggest talking to the DM about niche protection. Maybe initiate it by asking what archtype this new NPC will be.

 

[auburn2]

I'm more concerned with a DMPC than a second rogue in a party. If it is really supposed to be an NPC, I try very hard to find an appropriate statblock to base it off.

I would give more than one PC to a party member before I went DMPC

 

[akr71]

I would give more than one PC to a party member before I went DMPC

Yes, same here. If an NPC is going to travel with the party for a bit, I generally see if I can pawn them off onto a player to run. I've got enough to do.

Another thought ... the party can always tell the DMPC/NPC to get lost - "we don't need your help."

 

[Voadam]

It happened a bunch in B/X and AD&D for me. Fighers and magic users being the most common overlaps. My long term 1e campaign though had two CE Grugach assassin brothers with no problem. It only got annoying when I was playing a 2e melee weapon specialized human fighter with a 17 strength alongside a guy who was playing an 18 percentile strength melee specialized human fighter who was a bit of a jerk about it with a bit of PVP threat undercurrent going on. The mechanical similarities with one being flatly superior on their main thing was annoying.

I can't remember it really happening in 3e, Pathfinder, 4e, or 5e. Often there is a specific conversation during character creation with intentions to cover certain bases and be different but it is also easier to come up with unique classes in the party when half the core class options are no longer gatekeepered behind stat requirements.