Starbuck_II
First Post
3E also introduced Gestalht: 1E multiclassing
D&D 5E Multiclass in 5E
- Thread starter Stormonu
- Start date
Grimmjow
First Post
than maybe that will be an option at level 1
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
That was a completely bizarre system that (IME) most DMs just said N-O-! to.
Can you imagine actually playing this one through? Suppose I was a human who went through 8 levels of Fighter. I then tell my friends "Hey, I want to try something different!" and start progressing as a Thief. W-T-F. Why should my old party want a 1st level Rogue sucking up XP and gold and magic items?
On the plus side, I am cranking through levels because of the fast Thief XP chart. When I finally arrive to my 9th level Thief level I am pretty much like exactly like the demi-human Fighter/Thief multiclass only I now have twice as many hit points(!!!).
1e/2e multiclassing has its problems, but at least, in principle, I can imagine a DM heavily fudging single-class PCs to give them the necessary leg up. Dual-classing is simply too bizarre to work with.
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
Every player bringing multiple ready PCs to the gaming table does help resolve some "peculiarities" of the earlier edition rules. I never played in a gaming group that did not strongly desire to move away from that direction for many reasons. It brings up questions like "If I have 3 PCs can I just bring them all along?" From an in world perspective, there is almost never a reason to say no. But from a player perspective and DM perspective, many platoons of PCs slowed the game down too much, and sucked the fun out of the game.
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MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
I think I have an idea of how it could work.
When you take your first level on a new class:
-You get the hit dice for that class and the asociated hit points
-If the Weapon Attack bonus for the new class exceeds the one from your class, replace it, otherwise you keep your current one.
-If the Magic Attack bonus for the new class exceeds the one from your class, replace it, otherwise you keep your current one.
-The base spell DC's from your spellcasting classes are kept separate.
When you add a level on a class you already have
- If the Weapon Attack bonus from the new level on this class is higher than your current Weapon Attack Bonus, replace it with it
- If the Magical Attack bonus from the new level on this class is higher than your current Magical Attack Bonus, replace it with it
For class features:
They are delayed over three levels:
Cleric:
-You get the spellcasting ability of all clerics
-You pick a doimain and gain the asociated first level spell. However the second level benefit gets delayed until your third Cleric level
-You get your first Channel Divinity dice at your second Cleric Level
-You get two Orisons at your Third Cleric level.
-You don't get any proficiencies from your Domian
Fighter:
-You get the normal combat superiority dice at the first level and every fighter level afterwards.
-You pick your Fighting Style, but receive no maneuver from it yet. You learn your maneuver at your second fighter level. You receive the second maneuver from your Fighting Style at your third Fighter level as normal
-You receive either Jab or Parry at first level. You receive the other at your third fighter level.
Rogue:
-You get the Sneak attac dice as normal at your first rogue level and every rogue level
-You pick a Scheme, however you don't get it's full benefits yet.
-At your first Rogue level, you gain training in one skill from your Scheme, you earn the other two skills at your second and third rogue levels
-When you get the third skill from your scheme, you also get the trait associated with that scheme
-You get your first level scheme benefit at your second rogue level, and your second level beneit at your third rogue level.
-You get thieves Can't at your second rogue level
-You get skill Mastery at your third rogue level
-You get Knack as normal at your second rogue level, but can only use it once per day until you get yout third rogue level
Sorcerer
-You get the spellcasting ability of all sorcerers at your first sorcerer level and each Sorcerer level afterwards
-You pick a Sorcerous origin, however you don't get the associated Sorcerous power until your second sorcerer level. You don't get any other benefit from it until you reach your third sorcerer level, even then you never get any proficiencies from your sorcerous Origin.
-You get cantrips at your third Sorcerer level
Warlock
-You get the normal number of Invocations known at your firs Warlock Level and every warlock level afterwards. This includes Eldritch Blast
-You pick a Pact and gain the normal benefits form it, however you get your first level Pact Boon only at your Second Warlock level and you only get one favor from your patron until your third Warlock level. You gain your Third level Pact Boon (and all following Pact Boons) as normal acording to your Warlock level
-You gain Ritual casting at your Second Warlock level, from that point onwards the spell level you can cast scales as normal
Wizard
-You get the normal spellcasting progression of all wizards acording to your wizard level
-You get your spellbook as normal, however you only learn a number of spells equal to your Intelligence modiffier instead of the regular 5, you gain the appropriate numebr of spells upon adding additional wizard levels
-You learn only one cantrip at your first Wizard level, you learn one additional cantrip upon reaching your second and third wizard levels.
Or more or less I think.
When you take your first level on a new class:
-You get the hit dice for that class and the asociated hit points
-If the Weapon Attack bonus for the new class exceeds the one from your class, replace it, otherwise you keep your current one.
-If the Magic Attack bonus for the new class exceeds the one from your class, replace it, otherwise you keep your current one.
-The base spell DC's from your spellcasting classes are kept separate.
When you add a level on a class you already have
- If the Weapon Attack bonus from the new level on this class is higher than your current Weapon Attack Bonus, replace it with it
- If the Magical Attack bonus from the new level on this class is higher than your current Magical Attack Bonus, replace it with it
For class features:
They are delayed over three levels:
Cleric:
-You get the spellcasting ability of all clerics
-You pick a doimain and gain the asociated first level spell. However the second level benefit gets delayed until your third Cleric level
-You get your first Channel Divinity dice at your second Cleric Level
-You get two Orisons at your Third Cleric level.
-You don't get any proficiencies from your Domian
Fighter:
-You get the normal combat superiority dice at the first level and every fighter level afterwards.
-You pick your Fighting Style, but receive no maneuver from it yet. You learn your maneuver at your second fighter level. You receive the second maneuver from your Fighting Style at your third Fighter level as normal
-You receive either Jab or Parry at first level. You receive the other at your third fighter level.
Rogue:
-You get the Sneak attac dice as normal at your first rogue level and every rogue level
-You pick a Scheme, however you don't get it's full benefits yet.
-At your first Rogue level, you gain training in one skill from your Scheme, you earn the other two skills at your second and third rogue levels
-When you get the third skill from your scheme, you also get the trait associated with that scheme
-You get your first level scheme benefit at your second rogue level, and your second level beneit at your third rogue level.
-You get thieves Can't at your second rogue level
-You get skill Mastery at your third rogue level
-You get Knack as normal at your second rogue level, but can only use it once per day until you get yout third rogue level
Sorcerer
-You get the spellcasting ability of all sorcerers at your first sorcerer level and each Sorcerer level afterwards
-You pick a Sorcerous origin, however you don't get the associated Sorcerous power until your second sorcerer level. You don't get any other benefit from it until you reach your third sorcerer level, even then you never get any proficiencies from your sorcerous Origin.
-You get cantrips at your third Sorcerer level
Warlock
-You get the normal number of Invocations known at your firs Warlock Level and every warlock level afterwards. This includes Eldritch Blast
-You pick a Pact and gain the normal benefits form it, however you get your first level Pact Boon only at your Second Warlock level and you only get one favor from your patron until your third Warlock level. You gain your Third level Pact Boon (and all following Pact Boons) as normal acording to your Warlock level
-You gain Ritual casting at your Second Warlock level, from that point onwards the spell level you can cast scales as normal
Wizard
-You get the normal spellcasting progression of all wizards acording to your wizard level
-You get your spellbook as normal, however you only learn a number of spells equal to your Intelligence modiffier instead of the regular 5, you gain the appropriate numebr of spells upon adding additional wizard levels
-You learn only one cantrip at your first Wizard level, you learn one additional cantrip upon reaching your second and third wizard levels.
Or more or less I think.
Yora
Legend
What about effectivly gestalting and take the best number from any of your classes?
As a fighter/wizard, you take your weapon attack bonus from your fighter level and your magic attack bonus from your wizard level. Both are worse when compared to a pure fighter or pure wizard, but you still have better wepon AB than a wizard and better magic AB than a fighter.
Hit dice and hit points would still be added together. And you add all weapon and armor proficiencies together.
As a fighter/wizard, you take your weapon attack bonus from your fighter level and your magic attack bonus from your wizard level. Both are worse when compared to a pure fighter or pure wizard, but you still have better wepon AB than a wizard and better magic AB than a fighter.
Hit dice and hit points would still be added together. And you add all weapon and armor proficiencies together.
MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
Yes, unless they come up with the Hybrid variety from 4e, whihc would be balanced. The only problem with it, is that it takes way too long to get hybrid versions of certain classes, for example Slayer, Knight and the like never got hybrid versions
The Shadow
Hero
Someone else suggested devoting a skill increase to retraining, and that makes more sense to me.
If someone multiclasses into rogue, do they immediately get a full new background? That seems... odd. I'd rather see it spread out a bit more, along the lines of KaiiLurker's idea.
(And let me just say that I find the idea of someone multiclassing into rogue and gaining the Thug background to be hilarious. Imagine the training montage for that one!)
JRRNeiklot
First Post
I've played and seen played a few dual class characters over the years. They are extremely rare using the standard (non UA) character generation methods. Why would you be sucking exp? You'd have the hitpoints of a first level fighter and - since you have to have at least a 16 dex - you'd be very respectable with range attacks. An 18 Thac0 is equal to a 6th level cleric and only one worse than a 6th level fighter. Also, a fighter/thief of levels 8/8 has on average 32 hit points. A dual class fighter thief of 8/9 has 39.5. And you fly through the levels. The biggest downside is missing time do to training. I most often saw people dual class after 2nd level for the better hit points and weapon selection, or, if using UA, for weapon specialization.
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
In the example I provided, my PC would be in an 8ish level party. So he would have 8th level Fighter HPs (good!). But as he progresses along his new career direction he has the abilities of a low level Thief.
From the perspective of the other PCs in the party, he is sandbagging in the most absurd manner and taking a full share of XP and gold and magic items. After all, in order to get any XP at all, my PC is only using the abilities of a Thief, i.e. he sucks and expects to be treated like a full party member. Isn't that, well, stupid?
Now this is not so bad if the dual classing happens at lowish level. It is huge later along the campaign.
I may be misremembering how the HPs work...I will have to look that up. Anyone have their 1e PHB handy, not sure where mine is right now...
From the perspective of the other PCs in the party, he is sandbagging in the most absurd manner and taking a full share of XP and gold and magic items. After all, in order to get any XP at all, my PC is only using the abilities of a Thief, i.e. he sucks and expects to be treated like a full party member. Isn't that, well, stupid?
Now this is not so bad if the dual classing happens at lowish level. It is huge later along the campaign.
I may be misremembering how the HPs work...I will have to look that up. Anyone have their 1e PHB handy, not sure where mine is right now...
Mattachine
Adventurer
Funny, when I tried to do the "missed adventuring time due to training" back in AD&D, the players would say that their PCs would wait for the others to finish.
JRRNeiklot
First Post
If A farmer starts a new career as a fisherman, he'd damn well better fish instead of planting corn if he wants to get paid. He's not sandbagging. He's trying to be the best thief he can be. When the fishing is bad, the fisherman can resort to harvesting crops in order to feed his family, but he's not going to get better as a fisherman. So can the thief use his fighter attack tables and saving throws in a pinch. Yeah, he'll lose out on exp, but he'll be alive. I always looked at it as if fighting like a thief or a mage meant using an entirely different fighting style. As if Conan is now trying to fight like Erol Flynn. He's going to suck for a while, but if he has to, he can resort to splitting skulls with abandon. Also, in 1e, it's quite the norm to have characters of disparate levels in a party, due to death, level drain, or characters filling in while others are off training, so a first level thief in an eighth level party is not all that strange.
JRRNeiklot
First Post
That's fine sometimes. But sometimes a rival adventuring party loots the tomb of whatsit, they all miss the great chariot race with a hefty gold reward, or whatever. Unless you pause the campaign while they train, they're going to miss out on something, sometime. I'm not going to miss out on 50 yard line seats at the Superbowl because my buddy has to do homework that night.
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
And reasonably played PCs are going to choke on the idea that 1st level wannabe is going to get a share of...anything.
I do agree that with platoons of PCs handy and lots of attrition, a lot of the odd rules in early editions work well enough. But as the game was put into the hands of groups that did not have those assumptions (and they are not spelled out clearly in the rulebooks either), as the game transitioned away from a kooky/fun wargame towards a roleplaying game, your assumptions just did not apply because they did not make sense to (IME) approximately everyone else.
Celestian
Explorer
Can you link where this was said?
Grimmjow
First Post
Li Shenron
Legend
It will be either similar to 3e (level-based) or 4e (feature-based), or even a combination of both.
AD&D multiclassing is unlikely, since it can be anyway approximated both by 3e and 4e methods, but of course only if they manage to make it so that a 50%-50% split is an actually balanced character (a known problem in 3e).
There is also a (small) chance they just don't include multiclassing, if it happens that they cannot balance well multiclassed PCs against single-class PCs. This will also be related to how many base classes they publish... the more base classes available, the less need for multiclassing because additional base classes will be used to cover hybrid concepts.
AD&D multiclassing is unlikely, since it can be anyway approximated both by 3e and 4e methods, but of course only if they manage to make it so that a 50%-50% split is an actually balanced character (a known problem in 3e).
There is also a (small) chance they just don't include multiclassing, if it happens that they cannot balance well multiclassed PCs against single-class PCs. This will also be related to how many base classes they publish... the more base classes available, the less need for multiclassing because additional base classes will be used to cover hybrid concepts.
Mattachine
Adventurer
My players would shrug. It would be same as if that opportunity never presented itself. Meanwhile, as a DM, I have to provide adventure hooks and respond to player actions . . . or there is no game. Eventually, I just fast-forwarded through training time.
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