D&D 5E New multiclassing concept

[Blue]

How do you plan on handling spellcasting? The one thing that would be a showstopper for me would be separate tracks - having many more actions worth of spells would definitely be a large step back towards quadratic casters. But summing them like current multiclassing rules would mean advancing up number of pell slots faster thena single class caster, so that also is off the table.

 

[DND_Reborn]

To answer peoples' questions about some items, my thoughts were:

Proficiency bonus is equal to your MC level. So, a Fighter/ Rogue 8/8 would have a +3, not the +4 an 11th-level PC single-class would have.

Spell casting progression would equal the best progression at the MC level. So, you wouldn't have more spell slots, just more spell options. Since the maximum level would be 15/15 for a two-class character, this would limit you to 8th level spells.

After reading responses, since removing subclasses seems unpopular, limiting them by:

• Lower proficiency bonus (max +4 for three classes, +5 for two classes)
• Fewer HD and hit points (max 12 HD for three, 15 HD for two)
• Removing the ASI from one class (so you won't gain two ASIs at 4/4, just one) (max 3 ASI for both, sans Fighters or Rogues of course).

So, thanks for the responses, I'll look into it more later in the week. Cheers!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Ok, maybe this isn't "new", but I don't recall anyone suggesting it before. Here it is:

1. Remove current multiclassing rules. This cannot be used in conjunction with the current rule set.
2. MC characters have two (or possibly three?) classes beginning at level 1. I'll assume two is the maximum number of classes, such as Fighter/Rogue.
3. Experience is divided evenly among the two classes. So, at max 20th level, your MC would be 15/15 max.
4. You never gain any subclasses or subclass features. This is the price you pay for multiclassing.

Now, some classes are more reliant on their subclasses than others. Paladins, for instance, are pretty powerful without subclass features at all. So, the question becomes is lower "levels of features" and no subclass worth the second class?

HP would also be lower, probably, as I would suggest either the average of the two classes for HP, or to be more generous, allow the larger HD to be used. In the above example, a Fighter/Rogue 15/15 would have 15d10 hit dice, so 5 fewer HD than other 20th level characters.

Thoughts? (I literally JUST thought of this idea--so I haven't considered how balanced it is yet.)

I think this is basically a good idea, but the subclass thing, if this was developed into a full system, would absolutely have to be looked at.

The problem is different classes have wildly different amounts of abilities and importance of abilities gained from their subclass. Like Wizards, they gain very little. They'd at like 95% power or more under this system. Even Paladins though, your example would be massively more impaired than Wizards (though still pretty decently-off - but it does beg the question - what code would they follow and so on? This can be dealt with but needs work).

So realistically you'd need to evaluate every class, probably with the help of others (I suspect @Parmandur could be helpful here, he seems to know a fair bit about subclass balance), and see just how much of a role the subclasses played in each class, and sort of "even it out".

For example, your baseline is probably Wizards. They the subclass entirely and gain nothing.

But most other classes will need some kind of partial subclass - it could be fixed, btw, like "This is what all multi-class characters get", so it doesn't need to be complicated, but if you don't do that, some classes are a lot less impacted by this than others.

Otherwise I like it.

EDIT - Or yeah you could just retain subclasses and hamper advancement a bit more. I dunno about your idea re: spell slots though. I think it might actually be okay to keep them as they are, and I'm not sure there's a workable way to "square the circle" on them, given the different classes involved. I don't think it'd actually blow up the game to just keep them (I could be wrong).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The one thing that would be a showstopper for me would be separate tracks - having many more actions worth of spells would definitely be a large step back towards quadratic casters.

If you look at his advancement table, I'm really skeptical it would.

Casters would just have a large number of low-level spells. That's not going to cause LFQW. Back in 3.XE, it was absolutely clear that someone who was say, Cleric 5/Wizard 5 was nowhere near as much of problem as single-class level 10 of either. And even if they had the spells of Cleric 7/Wizard 7, I doubt they'd be any more of a problem than Wizard 10 or Cleric 10, but you could nerf them a bit. I just think it might be more trouble than it's worth. Maybe just make the table slightly meaner to them level-wise in the mid-levels.

That way you could also avoid the 13/14/15 thing being right next to 18/19/20, which seems off.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That way you could also avoid the 13/14/15 thing being right next to 18/19/20, which seems off.

Those are the corresponding levels if you divide XP evenly between two classes. shrug

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Those are the corresponding levels if you divide XP evenly between two classes. shrug

Yeah, I'm aware, but in terms of making it work well, maybe you throw on the brakes a bit in the mid-levels, which lets them spread out the levels a bit more. That way you don't necessarily have to go into every single caster class-combo and work out how spell progression is going to work.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yeah, I'm aware, but in terms of making it work well, maybe you throw on the brakes a bit in the mid-levels, which lets them spread out the levels a bit more. That way you don't necessarily have to go into every single caster class-combo and work out how spell progression is going to work.

It isn't a big shift, but how does this look (using the Altered MC column)?

For levels 2-4, the MC is 1 level behind.
For levels 5-8, the MC is 2 levels behind.
For levels 9-12, the MC is 3 levels behind.
For levels 13-16, the MC is 4 levels behind.
For levels 17-20, the MC is 5 levels behind.

One option I just thought of is at 1st level, you have just one class. When you reach 2nd level, you gain your second class (also at level 1 in that class).

So, you would be Fighter 1, then Fighter 1 / Rogue 1, then Fighter 2 / Rogue 2, Fighter 3 / Rogue 3 (twice), and so on following the altered MC progression.

Another option would be (after 1st level) to have the level reduced by the tier number (Tier-Minus column):

This would allow MC characters to gain an extra ASI at maximum level 16. I would still do the single class at level 1, then the second class at level 2 (both classes at 1/1 though) as above.

 

[Parmandur]

Ok, maybe this isn't "new", but I don't recall anyone suggesting it before. Here it is:

1. Remove current multiclassing rules. This cannot be used in conjunction with the current rule set.
2. MC characters have two (or possibly three?) classes beginning at level 1. I'll assume two is the maximum number of classes, such as Fighter/Rogue.
3. Experience is divided evenly among the two classes. So, at max 20th level, your MC would be 15/15 max.
4. You never gain any subclasses or subclass features. This is the price you pay for multiclassing.

Now, some classes are more reliant on their subclasses than others. Paladins, for instance, are pretty powerful without subclass features at all. So, the question becomes is lower "levels of features" and no subclass worth the second class?

HP would also be lower, probably, as I would suggest either the average of the two classes for HP, or to be more generous, allow the larger HD to be used. In the above example, a Fighter/Rogue 15/15 would have 15d10 hit dice, so 5 fewer HD than other 20th level characters.

Thoughts? (I literally JUST thought of this idea--so I haven't considered how balanced it is yet.)

I like where your head is at here: the Subclasses are, unfortunately, not balanced between Classes: Bard Subclasses have a lower percentage of the character's lifetime power budget than most, while Fighters & Rogues have Subclasses with a higher percentage of their budget than most.

To get a similar effect, I'd say that a very un-5E solution in spirit that would still work with the rules alright would be to squeeze the base essence of each Class into Feat chains, making the choice more modular and taking the power budget from ASI rather than Subclass

 

[Blue]

If you look at his advancement table, I'm really skeptical it would.

Casters would just have a large number of low-level spells. That's not going to cause LFQW.

As a quick comparison between long-rest-recovery classes/hybrids and at-will classes (like the rogue or a EB-combat warlock), you need to look at the average effect per Action. In general, one of a casters few highest level spells > a pure at-will move, but a cantrip < than an at will move. The truism there is that is casters do not run out of spells, they will be more powerful than at-wills. They need to not just run out of slots, but use enough cantrip action to bring down their average to what the at-wills do.

If you look at the XP, for most tiers of play you're not more than one maximum spell-level behind. If you are missing having a 5th level spell slot but have 6 instead of 3 third level spells, your total actions of viable spells is going up, which means that you would need to increase combat length per day by approximately double the extra slots - once will bring you back to the same number of cantrips as before, twice will add in extra cantrips to offset those extra spells. But that's not going ot happen, so instead we'll have casters with more effectgive spells per day, which is more powerful. In a trend that will get more pronounced as they go up in tier and tghe single class casters slows down in spell slot acquisition quicker than the multiclassed one a few levels behind.

In other words, exactly what I said, a step back towards quadratic casters, where casters are (a) more powerful than at-wills and (b) it accelerates at higher levels.

Back in 3.XE, it was absolutely clear that someone who was say, Cleric 5/Wizard 5 was nowhere near as much of problem as single-class level 10 of either. And even if they had the spells of Cleric 7/Wizard 7, I doubt they'd be any more of a problem than Wizard 10 or Cleric 10, but you could nerf them a bit. I just think it might be more trouble than it's worth. Maybe just make the table slightly meaner to them level-wise in the mid-levels.

That way you could also avoid the 13/14/15 thing being right next to 18/19/20, which seems off.

But this isn't the multiclassing system of 3.x, it's the demihuman multiclassing of AD&D and AD&D 2nd. Which didn't have cantrips so being multiclass so filling more rounds from spells wasn't as bad as your rounds wihtout a spell was so much lesser.

Luckily, nothing looks like returning to another big step in LFQW, which is spell effect scaling by caster level.