D&D General Multiclassing Shouldn't be Treated as the Default

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Will you also have the STR 15 to wear that heavy armor without penalties?

The only penalty is -10ft to movement. You still have 20ft left (25ft if wood elf, those most known heavy armor users).

Seeing how almost all spells have 60ft range anyway, you're pretty solid.

Regardless, War Caster is patently better most of the time than just getting CON save proficiency...

War Caster is goddamn amazing (especially as full casters don't exactly have that many feat options to choose from), but you're not picking between them. You get one feat per 4 levels, you can get the CON save proficiency by spending just 1 level.

And, as a specific case, Ranger does have other feats tempting them, and have plenty of Concentration options to keep up, recasting which would really eat into other things. Paladins as well, but they get their save aura, so they have a built-in way to make it tolerable.

 

[ezo]

The only penalty is -10ft to movement. You still have 20ft left (25ft if wood elf, those most known heavy armor users).

Seeing how almost all spells have 60ft range anyway, you're pretty solid.

YMMV of course, but a (semi-) permanent -10 speed penalty is significant IMO. It can easily make the difference between you being in range of spell on a single move or not.

We played last night in an underwater adventure, so most of the PCs were reduced to their "swim" half speed of 15. When other foes are swimming at 30-40 feet, losing 15 feet was huge, and even if it was just 10 it would have been nearly as bad.

I know it could be situational, but frankly speaking I would rather go with medium armor and shield 9 times out of 10 over heavy armor with -10 speed....

War Caster is goddamn amazing (especially as full casters don't exactly have that many feat options to choose from), but you're not picking between them. You get one feat per 4 levels, you can get the CON save proficiency by spending just 1 level.

And people like Paladin/Ranger do have other feats tempting them, and have plenty of Concentration options.

If retaining Concentration on spells is your build priority, those other feats are not as important. Since that was sort of the premise of the discussion, I'm going with that.

It is a hefty cost, no doubt, but pretty much can't be beat for any MC martial/caster type IME (again, assuming casting and concentration spells are any sort of priority...).

 

[MichaelSomething]

If I ever have a whole party of multi classed characters, I'd give them a +6 weapon with "bonus only applies to single classed weilder."

 

[FrogReaver]

Incompetently-handled class proliferation is a problem, I agree. It's never hard to do something poorly. But that is not an argument against the thing itself.

I’m for more classes but I don’t agree here. It depends on the likelihood one thinks something will be done poorly. I think reasonable people may disagree there.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

If I ever have a whole party of multi classed characters, I'd give them a +6 weapon with "bonus only applies to single classed weilder."

I assume you're joking here but having items that could only be attuned to by single class characters actually would be a great mechanic to add to the game to help level the playing field a bit.

 

[CleverNickName]

I assume you're joking here but having items that could only be attuned to by single class characters actually would be a great mechanic to add to the game to help level the playing field a bit.

That's a great idea...it sounds like a pretty easy house rule to make. I think I'll steal it for my home game. Why wait for Wizards of the Coast to add it?

 

[GnomeWorks]

I’m for more classes but I don’t agree here. It depends on the likelihood one thinks something will be done poorly. I think reasonable people may disagree there.

If your implication is that WotC in its current state would bungle a class explosion, I won't disagree.

Personally, I'm at ~63 classes. Not all are written or playable at the moment, but for the vast majority of those I at least have the class fantasy and core mechanic down. The goal has been to generally keep them in line with core classes, in terms of power levels: I've toned casters down a notch and my martial-equivalents have considerably more utility than core, but for the majority of them, I imagine most DMs wouldn't balk at their inclusion for mechanical reasons.

 

[Theory of Games]

To the people who always want more classes, a question: WHY? What are you looking for?

And if the answer is "more options", then another question: why aren't you playing GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, which has always offered more character versatility than D&D? Why are you trying to make class-based system do what a point-based system does better?

 

[FrogReaver]

If your implication is that WotC in its current state would bungle a class explosion, I won't disagree.

Yea that.

Personally, I'm at ~63 classes. Not all are written or playable at the moment, but for the vast majority of those I at least have the class fantasy and core mechanic down. The goal has been to generally keep them in line with core classes, in terms of power levels: I've toned casters down a notch and my martial-equivalents have considerably more utility than core, but for the majority of them, I imagine most DMs wouldn't balk at their inclusion for mechanical reasons.

I have doubts you actually did any better than Wotc would have.

 

[FrogReaver]

To the people who always want more classes, a question: WHY? What are you looking for?

For me it’s usually that multiclassing is a poor implementation of most hybrid concepts.

And if the answer is "more options", then another question: why aren't you playing GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, which has always offered more character versatility than D&D? Why are you trying to make class-based system do what a point-based system does better?

Because I like 5e and not gurps. Nor do I find point based systems stable either. They are built on a faulty premise IMO - that the value of an ability doesn’t increase or decrease depending on what other abilities you pair it with.