D&D General Path of Feats: a Superior Design than Subclasses

[Maxperson]

Casuals dont track power spikes.

A causal might make a Fighter3/Bard3 for flavor. But when the Barbarian Player is attacking twice whereas they are still casting level 1 spells....

Healing himself, power surging for extra rounds of actions, hitting other players with bardic inspiration, using weapon mastery, re-rolling failed ability checks, using TWO subclass abilities for whichever bardic and fighter subclasses he picks, has expertise in two proficiencies, jack of all trades, and 2nd levels spells.

Trying to make it sound like all he has is 1st(which is wrong) level spells is super disingenuous dude. That fighter 3/bard 3 is a very useful character and would be fun to play.

 

[Silam]

Someone called Mini arguing with someone called Max about some build’s effectiveness is too sweetly ironic to not point out. Carry on gentlemen, I’m rooting for both of you

 

[CreamCloud0]

Healing himself, power surging for extra rounds of actions, hitting other players with bardic inspiration, using weapon mastery, re-rolling failed ability checks, using TWO subclass abilities for whichever bardic and fighter subclasses he picks, has expertise in two proficiencies, jack of all trades, and 2nd levels spells.

Trying to make it sound like all he has is 1st(which is wrong) level spells is super disingenuous dude. That fighter 3/bard 3 is a very useful character and would be fun to play.

Doing a whole bunch of things mediocrely still often feels worse than doing one thing competently, and we know that jack of all trades builds suffer in 5e compared to focused masters of one, hey! look at all these things my character gets to be bad at!

 

[Clint_L]

Doing a whole bunch of things mediocrely still often feels worse than doing one thing competently, and we know that jack of all trades builds suffer in 5e compared to focused masters of one, hey! look at all these things my character gets to be bad at!

I was thinking about this the other day when watching Colby's (D&D Deep Dive) class tier rankings for 5.5e, where he had Bards at S tier because of their versatility (they are literally the "jack of all trades" class) and Monks at D tier for being too one dimensional. I don't think monks are as one dimensional he suggests, but certainly much more so than bards...yet they are now REALLY good at what they are supposed to do. Specifically, for combat encounters, I now consider them an S tier class, with well over a year of experience playing one. So it really comes down to play style and preferences.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I was thinking about this the other day when watching Colby's (D&D Deep Dive) class tier rankings for 5.5e, where he had Bards at S tier because of their versatility (they are literally the "jack of all trades" class) and Monks at D tier for being too one dimensional. I don't think monk's are as one dimensional he suggests, but certainly much more so than bards...yet they are now REALLY good at what they are supposed to do. Specifically, for combat encounters, I now consider them an S tier class, with well over a year of experience playing one. So it really comes down to play style and preferences.

Reading this i will just point out one thing, I wouldn’t categorise a JoaT class as the same thing as a JoaT builds, mostly because most jack classes are also fullcasters, whereas jack builds are the ununified results of multiclassing.

 

[Maxperson]

Doing a whole bunch of things mediocrely still often feels worse than doing one thing competently, and we know that jack of all trades builds suffer in 5e compared to focused masters of one, hey! look at all these things my character gets to be bad at!

If the DM is using DCs properly, that isn't the case. Further, you aren't' doing a bunch of things mediocrely. You're doing a bunch of things fairly well. Are you an expert at one thing? No. Are you far more balanced and able to contribute in far more circumstances? Absolutely.

That barbarian does...............combat. The fighter/bard does combat, utility, exploration, and social. I'd take that fighter/bard over the barbarian any day of the week and twice on Tuesday.

 

[saviirkad]

Doing a whole bunch of things mediocrely still often feels worse than doing one thing competently, and we know that jack of all trades builds suffer in 5e compared to focused masters of one, hey! look at all these things my character gets to be bad at!

I think there's always going to be a bit of FOMO, but it's not a one-way road. It goes both ways.

If you're playing a multiclass build, there will be features you'll never get to see that would be really cool to get. But also, if this character concept stuck to a single class, then any of the features you were wanting from the other classes would be out of reach. For such a character, there will always be features that you'd want to have but can't get.

Speaking from my own experience playing a Knowledge Cleric/Diviner Wizard/Star Druid, playing alongside a pure Bard build up to lvl 20 has definitely led to me feeling the loss of higher level spells more keenly. But if I'd stuck to the core class (Star Druid), I wouldn't have had my skill range (Arcana +26, all other Int/Wis skills +15 through +17) nor as many opportunities to change or affect dice rolls, which was the core mechanic I was seeking to engage with.

Considering spells can be upcast, I opted for the build that gave less FOMO.

 

[SkidAce]

Doing a whole bunch of things mediocrely still often feels worse than doing one thing competently, and we know that jack of all trades builds suffer in 5e compared to focused masters of one, hey! look at all these things my character gets to be bad at!

DPS point of view, you are mainly correct.

RP/story view, maybe not?

I think its based on the perspective of the group, and their dynamics. My recent group's cleric told the monk "have fun being the tank, I'm not getting up in there".

 

[Maxperson]

Someone called Mini arguing with someone called Max about some build’s effectiveness is too sweetly ironic to not point out. Carry on gentlemen, I’m rooting for both of you

Okay. That was freaking hilarious.

 

[Maxperson]

DPS point of view, you are mainly correct.

RP/story view, maybe not?

It's not even just RP/Story. You are giving up one kind of power(max level spells, etc.) for greatly increased versatility, which is itself a different kind of power. The power equals out, just not with the same kind of power.

I think its based on the perspective of the group, and their dynamics. My recent group's cleric told the monk "have fun being the tank, I'm not getting up in there".