Level Up (A5E) Multiclassing for 5E-Level up (dual-class)

[Charlaquin]

IMHO, that was the worst MC idea.
spend a feat to lose a power to gain power.
something that should have been automatic costs a feat.

How is spending a level in one class for a level in another any different?

As long as power gained = power lost, this wouldn't be a problem.

And they were. In fact, multiclass Feats were stronger than your average Feat, making them a solid choice for pretty much any character.

4e multi-classing was great in theory and dreadful in practice, mostly because of how nobody is allowed to be sufficiently MAD in 4e without falling way behind the power curve. I learned this the hard way with my Taclord-stroke-Wizard

Well, generally it was better to multiclass with a class that shared your main class’s primary ability.

Removing 5e multi-classing altogether (and please, for the love of all that is good and holy, never coming close again to how AD&D decided to handle it) and replacing it with 5e-style feats is a mighty fine way of representing multi-classing, without setting anybody too far ahead or too far behind the power curve due to their choices.

I agree, that’s probably the best route to take to both fix multiclassing and retain maximum backwards-compatibility.

 

[CleverNickName]

And they were. In fact, multiclass Feats were stronger than your average Feat, making them a solid choice for pretty much any character.

4e multi-classing was great in theory and dreadful in practice, mostly because of how nobody is allowed to be sufficiently MAD in 4e without falling way behind the power curve. I learned this the hard way with my Taclord-stroke-Wizard

I'll have to take ya'll's word for it; I never played 4E. (When 3.5 went out of print, our gaming group switched to Pathfinder instead of 4th Edition. 5E is the edition that brought us back into the fold, so to speak.)

 

[Gradine]

Well, generally it was better to multiclass with a class that shared your main class’s primary ability.

This is incredibly limiting. Hence, the poor execution

 

[CapnZapp]

I’d like to see a return to 4e Feat-based multiclassing. But for that to work you’d probably need more Feats.

Can I recommend Pathfinder 2?

 

[glass]

How is spending a level in one class for a level in another any different?

If you time it right, it does not cost you a feat on top.

And they were. In fact, multiclass Feats were stronger than your average Feat, making them a solid choice for pretty much any character.

The initial mutlticlass feats were pretty strong, and well worth taking. The power swap feats were very rarely worth taking. When it was first published in the PHB, there were not that many interesting feats to take anyway, so it was not so bad, but as more feats were published just grabbing a power from another class's list (that probably was not even as good for you as it would be for them because you lack supporting features) got less and less appealing.

Feat-based multiclassing is not inherently a bad idea, but 4e's implementation of it left a lot to be desired.

Can I recommend Pathfinder 2?

Based on our interactions since I came back to ENworld a couple of weeks ago, CappnZapp and I agree on almost nothing. But we seemingly both agree that PF2's implements feat-based multiclassing much better.

_
glass.

 

[Charlaquin]

Can I recommend Pathfinder 2?

I like how PF2 does multiclassing quite a lot. It’s just too bad the system is a cumbersome mess of niggling situational bonuses and penalties and obscure rules interactions that make actually running the game a chore.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’d like to see a return to 4e Feat-based multiclassing. But for that to work you’d probably need more Feats.

I'm all for more feats. The semi-feat-based multiclassing in the recent UA looked pretty good to me.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm all for more feats. The semi-feat-based multiclassing in the recent UA looked pretty good to me.

Yeah, I liked that UA, though I do think those Feats are held back from being great multiclass alternatives due to not coming until 4th level and competing against ASIs.

I think Feats and ASIs being mutually exclusive made perfect sense in the context of 5e’s development, where opinions on Feats were extremely polarized and everyone was jazzed on the idea of modularity, but as the game has gone on and the priorities have shifted away from making peace between two warring factions and towards making the best version of the game we have now, that design decision keeps getting in the way of other potential designs that could improve the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, I liked that UA, though I do think those Feats are held back from being great multiclass alternatives due to not coming until 4th level and competing against ASIs.

I think Feats and ASIs being mutually exclusive made perfect sense in the context of 5e’s development, where opinions on Feats were extremely polarized and everyone was jazzed on the idea of modularity, but as the game has gone on and the priorities have shifted away from making peace between two warring factions and towards making the best version of the game we have now, that design decision keeps getting in the way of other potential designs that could improve the game.

We wouldn't have the feats vs. AsIs issue if everyone was given a feat at level 1. That's what I do in my games.

 

[Charlaquin]

We wouldn't have the feats vs. AsIs issue if everyone was given a feat at level 1. That's what I do in my games.

Feats at level 1 is excellent, I agree. But I do think that Feats costing your ASI is a much heavier design constraint than was fully appreciated when they first implemented the idea.