D&D 5E Multiclass in 5E


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Ridley's Cohort

First Post
If you were human, you could decide to retire from your current class (forever), assuming you had a high ability score in the class prime attribute (Str for fighters, Int for wizards, etc). Then you could advance in another class, for which you had an even higher stat. You could not use the abilities of your previous class without losing all xp from the current encounter/adventure. Once your new class outleveled your old one, you could mix and match abilities (restrictions still applied).

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
Yes. In my experience, you ran another character while your other guy was training. The world does not stop while the pcs train.

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.
 

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.
 


MoonSong

Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
Gestalt classes always struck me as something that was entirely wrong for D&D. They seemed too good.
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
 

Stalker0

Legend
I like the idea someone mentioned of requiring a feat to multiclass...but you can level in either class freely from then on.

I don't know if a feat is enough, but it seems a good cost to relieve some of power that comes from taking a front loaded 1st level in a class.
 

I like the idea someone mentioned of requiring a feat to multiclass...but you can level in either class freely from then on.

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!)
 

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