Multiclassing Fix?

[Ganymede81]

I actually like what 4e did with multiclassing (which is one of the few things I like about 4e).

That edition handled multiclassing by allowing a PC to use his or her feats to essentially take class features from another class. Something like that would be great for 5e; Someone might spend a feat in order to get the Action Surge or Skill Expertise abilities.

Naturally, balancing and level requirements would be required.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

But the XP is not truly the cost, the XP is the speed at which you can acquire.

The cost is very much the levels you take. 1 level in anything other than your main class loses you your capstone. 2 loses you your level 19 ASI. 4 loses you 9th level spells (if you're a caster). Etc.

You only have 20 levels still, it's just going sideways doesn't take as long.

Games that go all the way to the XP cap are unusual. PCs gaining enough experience to hit 15th level before the AP/campaign ends isn't common.

In this environment, the ability to pick up class-defining abilities on the cheap is very powerful. Compared to the XP required to hit level 12, which seems to be as far as most PCs get, a couple of levels in another class to pick up Action Surge, Expertise, Heavy armour or Agonising Blast for example is going to be pretty minimal. - A PC dipping like that probably won't actually be any levels in their main class behind the rest of the party most of the time.

 

[Harzel]

But the gal who goes "I want to be a X/Y because [character concept]!" Doesn't. And they get punished for it.

But what does "I want to be a X/Y because [character concept]" mean?

• If it means X with some Y flavoring (or vice versa), use a background. As a Sorcerer with the Entertainer background you can be the Singing Sorcerer without being a Sorcerer/Bard.
• If it means that you want some of the class features from X and some from Y, then maybe your DM can homebrew some kind of a hybrid for you, or maybe paw through the additional UA subclasses and see if what you want is there.
• If it means having all the actual class features from both X and Y, then, sorry, you have to pay for that and the PHB way of doing that seems like an appropriate cost.

 

[Harzel]

Done some more thinking while staring the chart, and it's too cheap to apply the numbers just as-is.

Having a level in a secondary class cost 2x (Level+1) seems to work, at least for dual classing.

Maybe Rank × (Level + 1), where it's ranked from highest level to lowest?

Well, that's better than the original, but you still haven't answered the questions about how you will handle stuff that depends on total character level, such as Hit Dice, proficiency bonus, cantrip scaling, and spell slots.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The cost is very much the levels you take. 1 level in anything other than your main class loses you your capstone. 2 loses you your level 19 ASI. 4 loses you 9th level spells (if you're a caster). Etc.

You only have 20 levels still, it's just going sideways doesn't take as long.

This is not a true cost. It's completely irrelevant for any campaign that doesn't run to level 20, and even in the rare campaign that does go the distance, it's still irrelevant for 95% of that campaign's run-time (assuming equal time spent at each level). It is as if you introduced a rule that said rogues gain experience at three times the rate of fighters, and argued that it's fair because they both eventually hit the same ceiling. But by the time fighters hit that ceiling, rogues have already been sitting at the ceiling for two-thirds of the campaign. That matters a lot more than the existence of the ceiling.

I really like your idea in principle. I like 2E dual-classing and the Final Fantasy job system and The Secret World's deck system. I think keeping low costs for low-level abilities makes a lot of sense. And if I ever get around to homebrewing an RPG, multiclassing is probably going to look something like this. But if it's going to be balanced, it has to be balanced at every level of play, not just at the ceiling.

 

[Yunru]

This is not a true cost. It's completely irrelevant for any campaign that doesn't run to level 20, and even in the rare campaign that does go the distance, it's still irrelevant for 95% of that campaign's run-time (assuming equal time spent at each level). It is as if you introduced a rule that said rogues gain experience at three times the rate of fighters, and argued that it's fair because they both eventually hit the same ceiling. But by the time fighters hit that ceiling, rogues have already been sitting at the ceiling for two-thirds of the campaign. That matters a lot more than the existence of the ceiling.

I really like your idea in principle. I like 2E dual-classing and the Final Fantasy job system and The Secret World's deck system. I think keeping low costs for low-level abilities makes a lot of sense. And if I ever get around to homebrewing an RPG, multiclassing is probably going to look something like this. But if it's going to be balanced, it has to be balanced at every level of play, not just at the ceiling.

It's the long-term cost, true.
The short term cost is also the same as vanilla: You're delaying you main class features. Just not by as much now.

A Fighter 10 that multiclasses is now 600 xp further away from Fighter 11.

 

[Mephista]

Your logic makes no sense.

It makes absolutely perfect sense. You have only touched on the melee combat ability, and not on classes dedicated to other options other than combat. A wizard / cleric hybrid, for instance, is still going to be utter crap, even if you make things cheaper. Having spell slots grow isn't as large of a deal as not having the spell to go along with it. You can get a lot of mileage out of Fireball and Spirit Guardians, but to get those spells, we're looking at around character level 10. Even with a reduced cost, that's still going to be a fairly long point when others are getting their level 5 spells; a wizard of one level lower is summoning elementals and Planar Binding them, while a cleric has finally gotten Raise Dead. And you can have a fireball-throwing cleric if you just go light cleric; you're even doing good evoker-style damage thanks to Potent Spellcasting. And that is including one level difference.

"Cheaper" may let the characters level up faster, but that does come with its own complications as well. If you go more than one level difference, we start talking about causing some dissastisfaction with higher HD and Proficency bonuses as well.

We talked about spellcasters, because its fairly easy to understand, but now lets talk about experts. A lot of people just focus on combat, so that social and exploration skills do take a minor. In games like that, such skills and abilties really aren't important, and can be ignored. In other games, where they take a greater focus, not having these skills do hurt. There's more going on than having just a high dice roll bonus for tracking, infiltration, social-fu, and lore. Access to the abilities slightly faster than normal multi-classing do not make your goal of hybridization any closer in reach.

Claiming that making multiclassing cheaper drags expertise classes through the mud is akin to saying that reducing the prices in the above makes certain prices dearer.

Hon, its not even close to it. You're comparing apples and peas.

5e multiclass rules are not meant to create hybrid characters. Hells. It wasn't meant to work that way in 3.x. That was what certain Prestige Classes were for - you may have needed to multiclass to get into it as a "cost" but the ultimate end result was that, without those special classes, you could not do a good hybrid that functioned in the game by any meaningful mechanical metric.

Attempts to make it cheaper is not going to change that fact. I don't care if you make buying a lump of garbage cheaper by a pound. Its still trash that's not worth buying in the first place. All your plan would do is make dipping even more attractive, but still leave hybridization out of reach. The complete opposite of your intent, if I'm reading things right.

The simple fact of the matter is that multi-classing is not designed to do hybridization, so your attempts are going to meet with failure unless you redo the entire system at a deeper level than just "cheaper."

 

[CapnZapp]

True hybridization requires us to design specific new A+B classes.

I remember discussing this a while back - assigning point costs to each class feature as an attempt to allow a player that desires a true dualclass experience to essentially build her own class from two existing ones.

Can't really remember the exact thread off hand, though.

PS.Since close to every single responder have agreed your idea about discounting multiclassing doesn't work and in fact runs counter to your stated goals, maybe it's time stop being so defensive about it Yunru and instead switch tracks to something that might actually work? Here's hoping my post can get us all to abandon the initial proposal for a more constructive discussion ahead!

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Caliburn101]

If I understand you right OP, you're proposing a system where single class would be hugely underpowered compared to min-maxing multi-classers. I don't think the problem you are seeking to tackle exists as a problem in reality.

 

[TwoSix]

This is my general thought experiment when people say multiclassing doesn't feel "quite right", or it's a little "off".

1) We know what a level 12 Fighter, or level 12 Wizard, or level 12 Cleric should look like. What does a "multiclass done right" level 12 (or equivalent experience) Fighter/Wizard or Cleric/Wizard look like, to you? Don't design the system to get them there, design what abilities such a character would require to feel like a correct version of that multiclass combination. Then you can start to reverse engineer a process to get them there.

2) Do that same thing, but for level 2. See if such combinations "feel" workable for you at a lower level. That will tell you if something like a hybrid system or AD&D multiclassing is needed for your vision, or if 3e-5e style level blocks or the 4e "feat-power swap" method would work to enable multiclassing more incrementally over the level progression.