D&D 5E Proposal: Fighter/mage/thief: quick and dirty concurrent multiclassing/gestalt rules

[FormerlyHemlock]

As someone who's less concerned about resource attrition then I am about alpha-strikes and novas, this doesn't bother me. The one combination I might worry about is Sorcerer/Other Caster. I would probably say that only Sorcerer slots can be turned into Sorcery Points, and vice versa. I would allow metamagic to be used on either spell list, though, or the combination isn't really worthwhile (and much less fun!).

Yes, I agree--the prima facie obvious ruling is that only Sorcerer slots would be able to be turned into Sorcery Points; and for a Paladin, only Paladin slots can be expended as smites.

Unlike you, I would probably even rule that Sorcerer metamagic only works on sorcerer spells. Seems reasonable from an in-world perspective: sorcerer magic is different than wizard magic and can be manipulated in different ways.

So you wind up with a scenario in which a multiclassed spellcaster is clearly inferior in all spellcasting-related ways except endurance to a single-classed spellcaster. If you want to do crazy tricks like Quicken Eldritch Blast while laying down an Empowered Meteor Swarm, you have to do PHB-style multiclassing; old-school multiclassing isn't going to get you there.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

There's no reason you couldn't advance in two classes simultaneously, you just do it alternately. One level in one class, one level in the other. 1. 1/1. 2/1. 2/2, etc, topping out at 10/10. A simple rule to make it truly simultaneous would be to level only at even number. You start at 2nd, as a 1/1, at 3rd nothing happens - when you reach 4th, you're a 2/2.

That's not really multiclassing though. It's sort of like multiclassing with a 50-60% XP penalty. You wind up significantly weaker at all times than a single-classed character. At 20th level, you can barely manage to conjure an elemental--and even more than that, you'll never be able to get better. You will never learn to cast 6th level spells because the 5E level system caps at 20. If you instead eliminated that PC and replaced him with a Fighter and a Wizard, at the end of the day they'd both have 355,000/2 (177,500) XP and be 15th level, and they'd have twice the action economy and more than twice as many HP as the Fighter 10/Wizard 10.

There's a good reason why Fighter 10/Wizard 10 isn't a popular split in the 5E metagame--because the 5E level system makes it lame. You're inferior in basically all ways to a Fighter 2/Bladesinger 18.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's not really multiclassing though.

It is. You are advancing in two (or more) classes.

It's sort of like multiclassing with a 50-60% XP penalty. You wind up significantly weaker at all times than a single-classed character.

Not at all, you have the same proficiency bonus and same number of HD at all times, for instance.

At 20th level, you can barely manage to conjure an elemental--and even more than that, you'll never be able to get better. You will never learn to cast 6th level spells because the 5E level system caps at 20.

Correct. But, you can have 9th level slots so can cast powered-up 5th & lower level spells. It's an improvement over the MCing system in 3e, which really did render MC caster/caster combos into two casters standing next to eachother, taking turns casting.

There's a good reason why Fighter 10/Wizard 10 isn't a popular split in the 5E metagame--because the 5E level system makes it lame. You're inferior in basically all ways to a Fighter 2/Bladesinger 18.

That has more to do with the balance between fighter & wizard than the multi-classing rules, themselves.

 

[Tony Vargas]

2e, on the other hand, with its relaxed level limits and plethora of support for multiclass kits, created a strong incentive to multiclass.

It did break the game to pieces, yes. ;P

Unless you were doing a particular concept that wasn't allowed to multiclass, like a paladin or a druid, pretty much everybody multiclassed who had any familiarity with the system.

I got away with a Druid/Magic-User once - and the DM not only allowed that, he'd expanded the Druid spell list substantially - wildly over the top casting. It was fun in an embarrassment of riches kind of way.

Fighter/thief, fighter/mage (cough...bladesingers), fighter/mage/thief, cleric/ranger, and cleric/mage were easily the most popular character types when I played 2e.

It wasn't that different in 1e, at low level.

Though, there was this mysterious metamorphosis back then, between low and high-level games. At low level, there seemed to be an awful lot of fighters and non-/demi-human multi-classed characters. At very high level they had strangely made the transition to human magic-users.

Reincarnation, perhaps?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It is. You are advancing in two (or more) classes.

Only within a bounded level range.

Not at all, you have the same proficiency bonus and same number of HD at all times, for instance.

I'm not an idiot, Tony. I said "at all times" not "in all ways".

Correct. But, you can have 9th level slots so can cast powered-up 5th & lower level spells.

I think you're changing the subject here. As a Fighter 10/Wizard 10 you will never have 9th level slots. You'll never even have 6th level slots. 5E's default multiclassing rules are incapable of modeling a high-level fighter/mage.

If you're fine with that omission, then all right, but the answer to [MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION]'s question "why are you doing this?" is because 5E's PHB rules don't really support concepts inspired by old-school multiclassing, and yet I think it's possible to do fairly elegantly. Not everybody wants this kind of multiclassing in their games and that is okay too. Poll results indicate that many or most people are 100% fine with the status quo, and there's no real danger of that status quo changing because I doubt WotC is ever going to publish their "gestalt" rules in a usable form.

 

[TwoSix]

I got away with a Druid/Magic-User once - and the DM not only allowed that, he'd expanded the Druid spell list substantially - wildly over the top casting. It was fun in an embarrassment of riches kind of way.

Most 2e play, especially in a post-Skills and Powers environment, was way over-the-top. Druid/MU does sound like fun, though! I had a Cleric/MU I played for a year or so that was wildly entertaining in the amount of spells he could leverage. I might just be feeling nostalgic for that.

 

[TwoSix]

I think you're changing the subject here. As a Fighter 10/Wizard 10 you will never have 9th level slots. You'll never even have 6th level slots. 5E's default multiclassing rules are incapable of modeling a high-level fighter/mage.

Yea, the non-linear increases in power of higher-level class features has always made the 10+10 != 20 problem for multiclassing pretty hard to solve. 3.X tried to patch it with Prestige Classes with only partial success. I think 4e came the closest, between Hybrid Classes and class abilities which were more equivalent between classes at higher power levels.

I still the think best approach would be simply to not have classes that advance across the entire level progress, rather, have classes which only go from 1-5 or 1-10, and are designed with the expectation that a character will have to do "3e-5e" style multiclassing at some point in their career. 4e came close to that with Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies providing 11-20 and 21-30 abilities, but they would have needed to cap off class progression at 10 to fully embrace it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not an idiot, Tony. I said "at all times" not "in all ways".

I must have misread, sorry. I still don't buy it, though. Yes, you're inferior to a wildly overpowered 3e gestalt or classic non-/demi-human multi-class character (at low level), but you're not inferior to a single class character, just less focused.

You'll never even have 6th level slots. 5E's default multiclassing rules are incapable of modeling a high-level fighter/mage.

Is that so unfair or contrary to tradition?
I mean, in 1e for instance, an elven fighter/magic-user topped out at 5/11 or something like that...

 

[dagger]

Well depends on if you used UA or not and what your prime stat was. Also it further depended on the table rules in place also. We love the 1e rules and think they worked really well. No problems at low or high levels, and no switching to human mages either.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I must have misread, sorry. I still don't buy it, though. Yes, you're inferior to a wildly overpowered 3e gestalt or classic non-/demi-human multi-class character (at low level), but you're not inferior to a single class character, just less focused.

I don't buy that a Fighter 10/Wizard 10 is not inferior to a Wizard 20.

(I'm also really skeptical that it's not inferior to an Eldritch Knight 20, but that's harder to demonstrate conclusively because that turns into an argument about the relative value of insane DPR vs. Polymorph and Wall of Force. But the Fighter 20 at least does not Pareto-dominate Fighter 10/Wizard 10 the way Wizard 20 does.)

Is that so unfair or contrary to tradition? I mean, in 1e for instance, an elven fighter/magic-user topped out at 5/11 or something like that...

My exposure to 1E is via CRPGs (Gold Box games), and I remember Silvanesti and Qualinesti elves getting high-level spells. That may have been a Dragonlance variant rule--after all, the Forgotten Realms games like Secret of the Silver Blades encouraged dual-classed human Ranger/Mages more than multi-classed Fighter/Mages.

BTW, 5E doesn't support dual-classing at all.

In 2nd edition, elves could advance up to level 14 or 15 as wizards IIRC, or higher if they had a high Int and the DM was using the optional DMG rules on exceeding level limits. I think it was even possible for an Int 19 elf (via aging) to become an archmage (level 18).

So yes, capping at level 10 is against tradition, which is one of the reasons why a Fighter 10/Wizard 10 is not an acceptable way of modeling a high-level fighter/mage.