D&D 5E Multiclass question

[FrogReaver]

Yup cuz everybody knows all thosecrlves devoted to the path of the ancients and protecting beauty give up on those elven bows and shortswords and agility cuz beefy muscle bro is needed for that "flavor"!!!

Makes flavorful sense to me. He can still have a high or higher dex, it would just be a minimum flavor requirement that a melee focused nature protector has a bit of str.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You mean besides the built in flavor

Lol Nope. I mean exactly what I said.

The built in flavor fits a Musketeer just as much as a Hospitalier or a Templar.

 

[FrogReaver]

Lol Nope. I mean exactly what I said.

The built in flavor fits a Musketeer just as much as a Hospitalier or a Templar.

Guess we will have to agree to disagree.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Guess we will have to agree to disagree.

I mean...you can do, I guess.

 

[Li Shenron]

Other than "game balance" or some other excuse, is there a justifiable reason for the initial class requirement?

No.

Actually, not even "game balance" is at stake here. Multiclass characters are not more powerful than single-class characters in 5e, so an extra cost is not justified. Then the extra cost is definitely low, easy to qualify. In addition, players who look at multiclass because they think they will get more power would not want a low score in the primary ability of their second class anyway, especially if it's a spellcasting ability. Also, if there are classes which are possibly more exploitable than others when multiclassing, it's those based on the same primary ability score, and this requirements actually favor those even more, compared to classes with very different ability profiles. Finally, ability score requirements punish players who voluntarily play characters with lower scores or unusual ability profiles, which are obviously more challenging to play.

So these rules basically punish the least powerful multiclassing combinations while favoring the worst. Fortunately, the worst combos are not really bad in 5e, so it's not a problem, just another proof that these requirements are useless in addition to being wrong. And they are wrong because they get in the way of non-powergamers who just want to play something different.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think you are missing the more obvious symmetry. Your initial class should also require at least 13's in it's main ability scores when you create it.

In fact I think this would be the games natural preference but they didn't want to push new players away or disincintivize rolling for stats too much and so they dropped that requirement for your initial class.

In this case the rule isn't for balance but for flavor and the rather gamist reason for not having that flavor for your initial class choice as well was due to a desire to be more inclusive to new players and multiple playstyles.

We know that’s not how it happened though. During the open play testing process, there was never an ability score requirement for classes at 1st level. On the contrary, your starting class gave you +1 to one of its key abilities (and races gave +1 to two abilities instead of +2 to one and +1 to another.) Multiclassing wasn’t in the early playtest packets at all, and when they did add it they were pretty explicit that ability score requirements were meant to be a balancing factor, and that was one of the things they wanted feedback on. It went over quite well, and made it to the final version pretty much unchanged.

 

[cbwjm]

I remember asking about this for DnDbeyond because I don't use the requirements. Thankfully now it lets you ignore them but someone told me an obvious work around which was raise a stat to the minimum score and then adjust it back after adding the class.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The goal is to simply make multiclassing uncommon in 5e. In 3rd edition pretty much ever character was multiclassed, and the objective is to make a majority of characters single classed in 5e, without removing multiclassing all together.

Personally, I require a role playing justification for a character to multiclass in my game, rather than a game mechanics restriction. e.g. You can't multiclass to wizard unless you have been spending your free time studying magic.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The goal is to simply make multiclassing uncommon in 5e. In 3rd edition pretty much ever character was multiclassed, and the objective is to make a majority of characters single classed in 5e, without removing multiclassing all together.

Personally, I require a role playing justification for a character to multiclass in my game, rather than a game mechanics restriction. e.g. You can't multiclass to wizard unless you have been spending your free time studying magic.

Curious. Do you require the same for Eldritch knights and arcane tricksters? What about Paladins and Rangers? They all suddenly gain spellcasting when they level up.

Do wizards have to spend time with a fighter to take the Bladesinger subclass at level 2?

What’s the difference?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Curious. Do you require the same for Eldritch knights and arcane tricksters? What about Paladins and Rangers? They all suddenly gain spellcasting when they level up.

Do wizards have to spend time with a fighter to take the Bladesinger subclass at level 2?

What’s the difference?

As a matter of fact, yes I do. All characters are expected to spend time learning the relevant skills before they can level up.