D&D 5E How long are you willing to wait for a build to "turn on?"

[Neonchameleon]

Interesting. What are your setups for other classes & subclasses? Presumably you have them picked out in advance for the players, but are there more possibilities than players? Can two players wind up with the same one? If a player already has an idea in mind, do you set that up for them?

I don't actually have them picked out in advance, in part because I can't cover all angles and enjoy the players surprising me. If a player has an idea in mind then it's always a possibility but it doesn't always happen. Some of the ones that spring to mind have been:

• Just continuing to fight and ignore the voice is either a barbarian or a fighter (depending on how they fight)
• Telling the demon in no uncertain terms "No" is the Paladin choice
• Calling on a god is of course clerical
• Someone who was angling for bard decided to try to provoke the demon - and had a psychic entity slammed into them, ending up as an Aberrant Mind sorcerer (which they enjoyed)
• Hiding is either a ranger or a rogue depending on how, why, and the rest of what they did. (I suppose monk is a possibility but hasn't happened yet).

As for two players winding up with the same class, it's unlikely. I'd be far more likely to use "paired classes" like fighter and barbarian or rogue and ranger. But it's whatever feels right in the moment.

Edit: And the only setup for another warlock subclass is if the warlock tries later to find a new patron; it hasn't happened yet but that's both the easiest and safest route out of a pact (not that it's either easy or safe).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sounds not too far off from how I run my DW game, @Neonchameleon. That is, of the players currently in the group or on hiatus, we have:

• A Bard who has actively dabbled in various other things (esp. thievery) and specialized in healing, but is branching out. His story has centered on his tiefling heritage and what it means, so his powers have grown by becoming first a proper cambion, and then something beyond cambion. (Long story short, he absorbed the fiendish power that had made some people the party likes into tieflings, freeing them from this unwanted connection, because the being who granted that power is his devilish ancestor on his dad's side; this power turned him into an effective half-devil. Then he also took on his maternal great-grandmother's succubus powers....so he's now, in a sense, 90% human, 50% devil, 50% incubus.)
• A Druid who has pulled at the edges of knowledge, and in so doing...basically found God. Or at least that's what he believes. I've taken pains to make sure that he knows: there is no proof. He's had one "interaction" (which was left deliberately ambiguous), and all his other contact with the divine has been mediated through third parties (a couatl the party has befriended, and their close ally, Tenryu Shen, a gold dragon). These allies have made clear, even the One Themself cannot prove Their divinity beyond doubt; it must be an act of faith. But the One believes he is the right man for the mission of revealing new understandings of old, old truths.
• A Battlemaster who was, once, a perfectly, completely normal half-elf. Zero magic. This made him unique in the party. Everyone else has relatively rigorous magical training. He has since slowly come to terms with that aspect of existence, and begun to learn the ways it can be turned toward war....and learned that the mysteries of his elven heritage are much more complicated than he ever expected. The powerful heirloom sword he inherited from his elven mother is the key--or part of the key--to an ancient, disappeared civilization.
• A Ranger who has found God in his own way, becoming the terrible swift sword that hunts down the things which lurk in the darkness and among the dunes....and who has also learned that he is an heir to the First Sultan, twice over, that the blood runs strong in his veins, and that his dreams of leading his nomad tribe away from the comfortable city life his maternal grandmother has chosen for them may now instead bloom as founding his own city-state. But will he succumb to the temptations that his hated paternal grandfather did, and become everything he hates in the process of trying to secure everything he loves...? (Player currently on hiatus: character is off getting logistics going for the foundation of his new city-state.)

We also have a Spellslinger, but she's still pretty new to the party. We haven't yet worked out a suitably epic story for her. It's a work in progress.

 

[Garthanos]

Okay...I guess my issue with that is, a choice is a single moment. That moment may be awesome or boring or whatever, but it happens, once, and then it's done.

exactly one and its done is not evolution its like going to college and picking a minor and zip the school then gives you exactly the same classes as every other student with that minor (not how it works IRL)

 

[Hussar]

Thinking about it I think my next campaign will start at 4th. 4th to 5th is a big jump for pretty much all classes and it usually takes a few sessions. At least at my table anyway.

So use 4th level to really nail down who this character is and then at 5th your pretty much good to go.

I think I like this plan.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, for me it really depends on the build, and how much of the “seeds” of the build I can get early on.

For my recent “Star Wars to Planesjammer/MtG mashup” PC, Ianthe, she was a Scout/Jedi in SWSE with very strong telekenetic powers, and a very deadly duelist, who made it to early teen years as a prodigy Tapani saber rake and racing pilot, until her “uncle” (actually father) realized she was force sensitive and sent her to train with her Jedi uncle. Her mom is an Umbaran smuggler and former assassin, and her father is a Tapani Noble/Ace Pilot/Jedi who likes the Jedi but doesn’t especially want to be one. He just trained with them to learn how to avoid the Dark Side and focus his abilities. He’d rather run his racing syndicate that is a front for a smuggling ring.

So Ianthe is deadly with a dueling saber or lightfoil, powerfully telekinetic, incorporates the force into her dueling, and is an athlete and starfighter and swoop bike racer. She’s a bit of a tech head, but not super invested in that, just at the “solid mechanic” level.

But the D&D version needs to start at 1.

First I tried 1 level of Rogue with a feat to get a few appropriate spells. It’s close. High Elf gets another cantrip, swap proficiencies to get smiths and tinker tools and a vehicle type, background for another vehicle type, looks good. Couple levels I’ll be rocking and rolling. Magic Initiate gets me Mage Hand and Message, and catapult, high elf for booming blade.

If I couldn’t have some magic and mechanic vibe and sword fighting at level 1, she wouldn’t work.

I also did a Wood Elf wizard build with Skill Expert, swap profs for rapiers and tools as above, get same cantrips as above with wizard, grab catapult, jump, mage armor, shield (flavored as block/deflect), etc. wood elf gives perception and a hiding benefit, which fits Umbaran.

Both builds work at level 1, but wouldn’t pre-Tasha’s.

Other PCs I love had a harder time coming together early.

 

[NaturalZero]

I think my main issue is that people want these classes and archetypes at as low a level as possible even when it doesn’t really make sense to.

They make as much sense as the base classes and options that are already there though. You have a 1st level wizard that can shoot magic all day, the guy with ancient dragon blood, an aasimar who is descended from God, and a guy who's made a pact with Satan. But the Arcane Trickster using mage hand at level 1 doesn't make sense? The 1st level Barbarian doesn't worship a totem?

If I had my choice I think I'd hand out a new subclass half way through every tier (so at levels 3, 8, 13, and 17 or so). A big meaningful choice you can make that fundamentally affects who you are and how you approach the world from then on.

I'd definitely like more customization points. I think one option would be to retool feats to be mini subclasses and give them out for free at certain points.

Reading this thread has made me realize that 4e was pretty much the best DnD at organic growth because of the freedom to pick paragon paths and epic destinies, often times regardless of class or stringent prereqs. 3e was really, really, really, bad at organic growth because you had to micro-plan your build for it to come out correctly and 5e has most people locking in decision points early on, with less feat points than either 3e or 4e.

Slide the average level 1-10 game to level 3-12?

The thing is that no one decided that the average game was level 1-10, that's just roughly how 5e turned out after the community played it for 8 years. If I could wave a magic wand, I'd love to change things so that every game averaged levels 3-20 but I don't see that being adopted as the average campaign.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I am SO DONE TO DEATH with levels 1-3.

As a DM who also gets rare time to play, I get this.

A while ago I was thinking about the E6 variant of the game (or whatever, so you only have 6 levels), and also about how tier 2 is considered the sweet spot in the game. I realized, why not have levels 5-10 BE what is "E6"??? After all, IME most games only take 6-10 sessions to reach level 5.

Most important features come online near 5th level (give or take 1-2 levels) and you always have your subclass chosen. By 10th level you can handle most threats in the game, but there are still many threats that can be extremely challenging, perhaps even requiring a McGuffin or something to be successful.

Since most games seem to end around 10th levels, it also works in that sense.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I realize that but imagine a game where 1 and 2 were "real" levels that you got to fully enjoy as part of the average 1-10 game instead of being skipped over?

4E was exactly like that, 1st level characters had powerful, flavorful class abilities and enough HP to not go down to a single lucky hit. But not everyone liked that, some people really enjoy the "zero-to-hero" gameplay, so in 5E we get starting at 3rd level as a compromise for groups who want to start a campaign with actually competent characters.

 

[payn]

The thing is that no one decided that the average game was level 1-10, that's just roughly how 5e turned out after the community played it for 8 years. If I could wave a magic wand, I'd love to change things so that every game averaged levels 3-20 but I don't see that being adopted as the average campaign.

Is it? I have only played a couple 5E games and one went to level 20. How has that average settled across the community?

 

[d24454_modern]

Reading this thread has made me realize that 4e was pretty much the best DnD at organic growth because of the freedom to pick paragon paths and epic destinies, often times regardless of class or stringent prereqs. 3e was really, really, really, bad at organic growth because you had to micro-plan your build for it to come out correctly and 5e has most people locking in decision points early on, with less feat points than either 3e or 4e.

Personally, I feel like the most organic type of growth is just picking up whatever comes your way rather than the set paths that a lot of later editions try to force us down.