D&D 5E (2014) Multiclass vs. hybrid subclasses

[MostlyDm]

Declaring divine smite after seeing the roll is not only fine, it's written in the ability. Unless you mean a smite spell.

Yeah, Hemlock and I just seem to be in agreement that this is a bit lame. Particularly if the Paladin always (and exclusively?) declares smites after crits.

Most other expenditures of spell slots for combat/damage purposes involve spme possibility of failure. It's always seemed a bit odd that smites are an exception.

 

[Yunru]

Yeah, Hemlock and I just seem to be in agreement that this is a bit lame. Particularly if the Paladin always (and exclusively?) declares smites after crits.

Most other expenditures of spell slots for combat/damage purposes involve spme possibility of failure. It's always seemed a bit odd that smites are an exception.

Eh, saving for Crits is subobtimal, besides which what's wrong with wanting a niche to excel in (nova damage).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The GWF thing certainly makes GWF appealing for paladins... but AC is so good, and shields are so strong, that I wanted to give the GWF Paladin something exciting. Bear in mind I don't generally allow feats, so he can't get GWM to outshine his theoretical nonexistent shield-bearing counterpart.

If I were going to fix GWF (and it does need fixing because it is indeed lame) I'd want to fix it in a way that works for everyone and not just paladins. The most obvious fix is to make it work like Archery: +2 to-hit with your two-handed melee weapons. That fixes an asymmetry between GWF and Sharpshooter while still providing a benefit to non-GWMs like paladins (especially w/ Improved Divine Smite) and melee cantrip-users. It also has the side effect of reducing fiddly die re-rolls.

Another option would be to take a page from TWF style and let the GWF fighter break a general rule. For example, "because you know how to exploit leverage on a large weapon, when calculating damage for a two-handed melee weapon, calculate your damage bonus as if your Str were 30% higher than it is, rounded down." This one actually acts as a disincentive to take GWM because there's anti-synergy: taking -5 to hit makes you lose out on more damage than otherwise, so against tough foes like dragons you are even less likely to want GWM than otherwise.

130% of Str 16 is Str 20 (+5 to damage instead of +3)
130% of Str 17 is Str 22 (+6 to damage instead of +3)
130% of Str 18 is Str 23 (+6 to damage instead of +4)
130% of Str 19 is Str 24 (+7 to damage instead of +4)
130% of Str 20 is Str 26 (+8 to damage instead of +5)

Both of these increase the damage output of GWF fighters relative to the PHB baseline, but that's sort of the point of buffing GWF.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yeah, Hemlock and I just seem to be in agreement that this is a bit lame. Particularly if the Paladin always (and exclusively?) declares smites after crits.

Yeah, it doesn't make any in-game sense and it's not possible to plausibly visualize how the player deciding to smite on a crit maps to the character making a decision in-character to do something. "Ooo, that must be his artery I feel with my sword--I'm going to shoot a bolt of divine lightning straight into the artery before pulling out my sword!" Seriously?

It's similar to my beef with how the Lucky feat operates--it's highly unaesthetic and takes you out of the game world and back to being a bunch of folks gathered around a kitchen table rolling dice. The Alexandrian calls this a "dissociated mechanic." (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer) I don't like dissociated mechanics, and delaying smiting until after a crit is a prime example.

Bardic Inspiration is not dissociated but is also aesthetically offensive if the bard is also playing a kazoo and casting a spell and insulting an enemy with Cutting Words simultaneously. I have not (yet) been bothered enough to impose limits on how many things you can say at once, similar to the limits on how many spells you can cast in a round, but it's still weird.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Eh, saving for Crits is subobtimal, besides which what's wrong with wanting a niche to excel in (nova damage).

I have no problem with the idea of saying "I want to smite if I hit." I can visualize that decision in-character. I just can't figure out what "I want to smite if and only if I crit" means in-character.

It's not about balance or niche control or anything. It's about the fact that I want to run a role-playing game where players get inside the characters' heads and play a role, not a puppeteer pushing a PC around a game board. It's an aesthetic preference for me.

For people who don't mind the aesthetics of the Rules As Written, more power to you. Enjoy your game!

 

[Yunru]

I have no problem with the idea of saying "I want to smite if I hit." I can visualize that decision in-character. I just can't figure out what "I want to smite if and only if I crit" means in-character.

It's not about balance or niche control or anything. It's about the fact that I want to run a role-playing game where players get inside the characters' heads and play a role, not a puppeteer pushing a PC around a game board. It's an aesthetic preference for me.

For people who don't mind the aesthetics of the Rules As Written, more power to you. Enjoy your game!

I'd call that a result of a dissonance between player and class [emoji14]

The Paladin is an agent of a higher power. It's not their power they're smiting with (well mechanically it is but eh).

Like with lucky, it's player only intentionally, because it's not your character doing it, it's an outside source (be it a god or luck).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Like with lucky, it's player only intentionally, because it's not your character doing it, it's an outside source (be it a god or luck).

I should note that Lucky is fixable. If the player just decides at chargen time what his PC is lucky at ("I'm inexplicably lucky at not getting hit when I'm below half health"; "I'm lucky at ability checks for picking up women and avoiding crits from red-headed orcs"), then the dissociated mechanic stays in the dissociated part of the game (chargen) and not in the roleplaying part of the game. In theory you could then hand off the re-rolling to the DM without the player being involved at all.

 

[MostlyDm]

If I were going to fix GWF (and it does need fixing because it is indeed lame) I'd want to fix it in a way that works for everyone and not just paladins. The most obvious fix is to make it work like Archery: +2 to-hit with your two-handed melee weapons. That fixes an asymmetry between GWF and Sharpshooter while still providing a benefit to non-GWMs like paladins (especially w/ Improved Divine Smite) and melee cantrip-users. It also has the side effect of reducing fiddly die re-rolls.

At that point I'd just go all out and have dueling do the same thing, in that case. Offensive styles = bonus accuracy. Done.

In a world with Sharpshooter, that makes sense to me. I think I've mentioned before that in a world without Sharpshooter, I see the Archery style as a sort of low-rent version of Sharpshooter (a way to mitigate the myriad accuracy penalties that can be applied to ranged combat, that melee avoids.) With Sharpshooter, though, that completely breaks down into incoherent nonsense where shooting a bow at a moving man-sized target at 500 paces is fundamentally, always, significantly easier than stabbing a guy standing five feet away. Whereas if you change all of the other offensive combat styles to mimic the +2 to hit, then it just becomes "Expert warriors are more accurate" which I have no problem with.

Another option would be to take a page from TWF style and let the GWF fighter break a general rule. For example, "because you know how to exploit leverage on a large weapon, when calculating damage for a two-handed melee weapon, calculate your damage bonus as if your Str were 30% higher than it is, rounded down." This one actually acts as a disincentive to take GWM because there's anti-synergy: taking -5 to hit makes you lose out on more damage than otherwise, so against tough foes like dragons you are even less likely to want GWM than otherwise.

130% of Str 16 is Str 20 (+5 to damage instead of +3)
130% of Str 17 is Str 22 (+6 to damage instead of +3)
130% of Str 18 is Str 23 (+6 to damage instead of +4)
130% of Str 19 is Str 24 (+7 to damage instead of +4)
130% of Str 20 is Str 26 (+8 to damage instead of +5)

Both of these increase the damage output of GWF fighters relative to the PHB baseline, but that's sort of the point of buffing GWF.

This is very reminiscent of 3e, where two-handed weapons benefit from 150% of the strength bonus for purposes of damage only. It was one of a host of contributing factors to 3e's problem of modifiers dwarfing base dice (at high levels, the attack of a powerful barbarian might look something like: 1d20+24 to hit, 1d12+40 damage)

5e already has a bit of this problem with the -5/+10 flat bonus abilities, though as you say there is negative synergy there, so that's nice I suppose.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

At that point I'd just go all out and have dueling do the same thing, in that case. Offensive styles = bonus accuracy. Done.

In a world with Sharpshooter, that makes sense to me. I think I've mentioned before that in a world without Sharpshooter, I see the Archery style as a sort of low-rent version of Sharpshooter (a way to mitigate the myriad accuracy penalties that can be applied to ranged combat, that melee avoids.) With Sharpshooter, though, that completely breaks down into incoherent nonsense where shooting a bow at a moving man-sized target at 500 paces is fundamentally, always, significantly easier than stabbing a guy standing five feet away. Whereas if you change all of the other offensive combat styles to mimic the +2 to hit, then it just becomes "Expert warriors are more accurate" which I have no problem with.

I think the +2 damage is more important for dueling than +2 to hit. Haven't run the math though.

Of course there's no reason you couldn't allow either (but not both) on a per-PC basis. Some guys get accuracy, some guys get damage.

 

[Ovarwa]

Hi,

So your first 2 paragrpahs were spot on.

*lol* Of course you'd say that; they essentially recapitulate your point! (Though with a slightly different emphasis: I'm saying that it is proper for most combos to suck, and that doesn't necessarily make multiclassing suck.) BTW, don't you agree with my last paragraph too? /10 Adding to that, I think that anyone considering a multiclass should think about whether character optimization is better than group optimization: A group that works together is usually best off with *specialists*, and specialization usually involves concentrating on a single class. In a DPR comparison, a lone character might showcase his ability to Haste himself and wade into combat. But a character in a group who lets a straight spellcaster Haste him gets to do this at level 5.

I'll give you a full right up of levels 1-5 for the first one you mentioned as an example ------------------------------------ Fighter 1 Bard 1 2nd Wind at 1d10+1 per short rest +1 ac fighting style 17 ac crossbow +2 hp con proficiency Bard 2 13 ac Song of Rest jack of all trades +1 level 1 spell slot +1 spell known I'd give the fighter 1 bard 1 a slight advantage here.

It isn't just crossbow, though. F1/B1 can also do greatsword. Or cower behind a shield while casting cantrips and concentrating on Bless. +4AC is a pretty big deal. In some games, the ones in which F1/BX is most tempting, the advantage isn't slight. [/quote] ----------------------------------- Fighter 1 Bard 2 2nd Wind at 1d10+1 per short rest +1 ac fighting style 17 ac crossbow +2 hp con proficiency Bard 3 +2 level 2 spell slots +1 level 1 spell slot +1 spell known expertise +3 skill proficiencies cutting words I'd give the bard 3 moderate advantage here. [/quote] I don't know that I would. Of course, we'll see this pattern repeat every odd level through 17, as BardX gets a new spell level! F1/BX pays a price for his robustness, as he should. But that +4ac and ability to fare decently in melee still shine. He isn't as good a Bard as BardX, but might last quite a bit longer.

------------------------------------------------------------ Fighter 1 Bard 4 2nd Wind at 1d10+1 per short rest +1 ac fighting style 17 ac crossbow +2 hp con proficiency Bard 5 Level 3 spells Short rest bardic inspiration Bard 5 wins big time here. ---------------------------------------

Level 5 is always nice. Except for a Moon Druid. [/quote] So through those 5 levels I'd say the solo class bard is better. It's a somewhat subjective comparison and so you may come away with different results than me but I did try to be fair about it. [/quote] Even by your lights, Bard wins 2, F/B wins 2, and level 1 is a tie. That's hardly suckful! I too prefer a straight Bard, but cannot underestimate the attraction of wanting to survive a few hits, and maintain concentration. Other combinations tilt a bit more in favor of a multiclass. F1/BladeX? F1/AbjX? Cl1/WizX? PalY/TomeX? But if most combos fail, that's good. If single class is viable, also good. If people post about multi-classing being overpowered, maybe not so good. Anyway, Ken