Li Shenron
Legend
Thanks for the heads up!
This final version is actually as simple as it can be, which is good, and no weird results from some combinations. I don't think the level-merging rule added anything to the game.
D&D 5E Multiclassing Borked?
Thanks for the heads up!
This final version is actually as simple as it can be, which is good, and no weird results from some combinations. I don't think the level-merging rule added anything to the game.
Quartz
Hero
Because there will be a lot of occasions when they are out of armour: in town, at night, in the desert, underwater, etc.
That as well. And +2 damage. A one-level dip is pretty awesome. It's an easy way of making a duellist type character too.
Quartz
Hero
So you've go 6 levels of Valor Bard, might as well make it 8 for another ability increase. At this point you could swing over to Battlemaster 3... well hell, might as well make it 4... and you're halfway through your career before the build did what little you were asking of it in the first place.
OK. So try 3 levels of Battlemaster first.. Make it 5 for the attack. Damn. 6 for the Ability increase. Now over to Valor Bard for 3. Online at 9, but your 10th level is pretty much chosen as Bard whether you like it or not for a fourth level ability increase from Bard. Well crap, it comes online sooner but doesn't leave you much better off.
Might as well make it 8... Make it 5 for the attack, 6 for the ability increase...
See that? Every time you do that, you abandon the things you said were important to get something else. You fail to stick to the plan, and then are unhappy with the result. This should not surprise you.
You need to be clear and honest with yourself about what you want, mechanically. If you really want X, Y, and Z, you have to ask yourself if that is worth what you have to give up to lose it. Apparently, in the above, getting that extra attack really *isn't* important enough. You aren't willing to give up ability increases for the extra attack - your priorities, then, aren't so clear.
Multiclassing exists to give us a bit of breadth to work with, but it does not exist to allow us to have our cake and eat it too. Multiclassing requires you to make some really hard choices. You can't get it all.
Snapdragyn
Explorer
What I find interesting in reading this thread, is comparing it to the situation for casters in 3.x.
There, casters were screwed over in multiclassing because of spell progression (until the feat Practiced Caster, which at least somewhat fixed this). Everyone agreed that multiclassing was borked for casters. 5e comes along, completely changes the way spell progression works for multiclassing casters - and everyone hails this great design triumph! Huzzah multiclassing!
So the OP notices that now martials have the same difficulty around Extra Attack, and everyone has the same difficulty around API. Points this out - & everyone says 'that's not a bug, it's a feature!'
Um.... o_0
There, casters were screwed over in multiclassing because of spell progression (until the feat Practiced Caster, which at least somewhat fixed this). Everyone agreed that multiclassing was borked for casters. 5e comes along, completely changes the way spell progression works for multiclassing casters - and everyone hails this great design triumph! Huzzah multiclassing!
So the OP notices that now martials have the same difficulty around Extra Attack, and everyone has the same difficulty around API. Points this out - & everyone says 'that's not a bug, it's a feature!'
Um.... o_0
The point of the game isn't to redress a historical imbalance from previous editions. It's to make a viable game. Since I am the only one who has actually said it's a feature not a bug, I will stand by that.
Who cares what the problems with multi classing were in 3.x? What possible relevance do they have to the game we play now, except to show what sorts of problems to avoid. And, it seems, the designers have avoided them. As has been pointed out, the supposed problems with martial classes come only when you multi class with a particular set of presuppositions. There's nothing wrong with a fighter 2/rogue 2, and if the player prefers to work for ability increases as soon as possible, or extra attacks, or whatever, he or she is able to do so.
Who cares what the problems with multi classing were in 3.x? What possible relevance do they have to the game we play now, except to show what sorts of problems to avoid. And, it seems, the designers have avoided them. As has been pointed out, the supposed problems with martial classes come only when you multi class with a particular set of presuppositions. There's nothing wrong with a fighter 2/rogue 2, and if the player prefers to work for ability increases as soon as possible, or extra attacks, or whatever, he or she is able to do so.
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I think you need to give people time to see how it plays before deciding whether it's borked or not. I recall 3e's multiclassing being something that people thought was great - on paper - before actually trying it out and finding out that it was not just "less good" for multiclass casters but actually "really bad".
That said this - at least on paper - doesn't look nearly as bad as the multiclass caster problem from 3e. The spell slot problem struck right at the heart of what the caster classes could do, while this is just a single class feature that is important, but maybe not as important as spellcasting is to casting classes. It also looks pretty easy to fix if it turns out to be a problem - if you mix two or more classes that have Extra Attack at 5th level then you get them when you have 5 levels total in those classes. (I would not do anything about the additional Fighter Extra Attacks because that's something unique to the Fighter, and is part of the exchange when you decide to multiclass). But I'd only bother with it if it became evident that it actually was a problem with playing a multi-classed Barbarian/Ranger (or what have you) being substantially less effective. And again - you have to take breadth vs. depth into account. A MC system that exchanges depth for breadth within a reasonable set of parameters is what I'd hope to see. The problem with multi-class casters in 3e was always that the exchange wasn't reasonable, not that there shouldn't be one at all. As it stands now with the current MC rules a 3rd level Wizard/3rd level Cleric will not have the same access to high level spells that a 6th level Wizard would have or that a 6th level Cleric would have - though they can use their higher level spell slots to boost the spells that they do know to do more damage or healing or what have you. This may be where the fact that a 3rd level Fighter/3rd level Barbarian doesn't have access to Extra Attack yet falls. Or it may not.
Agamon
Adventurer
Because it's not the same thing? Everyone gets hosed by multiclassing, not just martials. It's the price paid for versatility. It just turns out that casters aren't completely gimped now.
Honestly, I think people over estimate how viable stacking caster classes is in 5e. The fact that the level of spells you can learn is limited by you class level is still a huge hindrance, even if you do get to cast them in higher level slots.
To give perhaps the most obvious numerical example, casting Fireball in a level 9 slot is not even in the ballpark of Meteor Swarm.
MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
In my case I've found that multiclassing is a no brainer for sorcerers, merely as a sorcerer you are spells known starved and there is no reason to go beyond 17, 18th level only gives you the equivalent of two first level spells -which if you value you have from the get go instead of waiting- or a mediocre blasting feature -which isn't on the more blasty friendly of the two bloodlines-. The feat at 19th can be hurtfull to lose, but no feat grants true spells known, in a way you are buying spells known with a feat this way. And the capstone is just weak and pales to just more known spells (and if you need it that bad three levels of warlock give you more or less the same thing -at any point). The best way i can think of going sorcerer is having two bard levels (and one of them being the first) and 1 warlock level, for a total of 7 extra spells known (from a baseline of 15) and six extra cantrips. Now that is a no brainer.
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