Sneak attacking undead and constructs seems wrong

[Dausuul]

Woah, pardner. You're talking about demi-human multiclassing (as opposed to the human, character with two classes).

The human version was called "dual-classing." In 1E, "multi-class" meant the demi-human kind.

First, there were no proficiency bonuses in 1e based upon level of class.

No, but dnd4vr specified how proficiency bonus was handled in their 5E version.

Second, there were a lot weird rules; for example, a F/Mu was not constrained by the MU's armor and weapons, but if you multiclassed with Thief, you were constrained by the Thief's constraints ... for REASONS! (p. 18, PHB).

Yeah, I didn't feel like it was necessary to get into all the hairy details. Nothing was ever simple in 1E.

LEVEL LIMITS. Yeah, this was a bummer- when you hit your level limit, you kept putting XP in that class, and you couldn't advance.

True. This was part of 1E's "balance across the level range" principle: Being a powerhouse at low levels was balanced by suckitude at high levels and vice versa. If your campaign ran long enough to hit the cap, you would be a sad panda. Even if (as was common) the DM waived the cap, multiclassed PCs would fall behind once the XP table stopped being exponential and turned into a flat amount per level.

Unfortunately, "balance across the level range" presumes that the typical campaign runs from 1st level into the teens, and that has never been the case, then or now.

Lots of weirdness- not gestalt, I don't think.

Not exactly gestalt, but the basic idea was the same: You advance simultaneously in two classes and meld their abilities, rather than advancing in each class separately. 4E did something similar with hybrid multiclassing. (I quite liked the 4E hybrid rules--I played a wizard/lazylord who was great fun--but I guess they never really caught on.)

I've sometimes thought about trying to re-create the hybrid rules for 5E. I think it would be doable, although the lack of a unified class framework would make it a bit trickier. Basically cut all usage limits and spell slots in half, and then figure out how to handle the at-will abilities like Extra Attack and Sneak Attack.

 

[Autumn Bask]

I think dnd4vr is talking about really old multiclassing, 1E-style. In modern versions of the game, it would be known as "gestalt" multiclassing.

*dons grognard hat*

The way it worked back in the day was, if you wanted to multiclass, you did it at character creation. From then on, all earned XP was split evenly between your classes. You shared the abilities of all the classes, and averaged their hit points.

Thus, let's say each PC currently has 20,000 XP. For a regular PC, that would put them at 6th level, close to 7th. The rogue/fighter would split those XP between classes: 10,000 to the rogue half, and 10,000 to the fighter half, which means level 5 in both classes*. The character has all the abilities of a rogue 5 and a fighter 5; hit points halfway between fighter 5 and rogue 5; and the proficiency bonus of a 5th-level character.

If that seems brokenly powerful to you... well, that's because it is. Multiclassing was insanely good in AD&D, which is probably why the system was completely scrapped for 3E and replaced with a streamlined version of the AD&D dual-classing mechanic.

[SIZE=-2]*A 5E character multiclassing this way will always have the same level in all classes. In 1E and 2E, each class had its own XP table, so a multiclassed PC's levels would not always be in sync.[/SIZE]

Wait. Wait. Wait.

If that's the case, I think I've located the problem. That's a terrible system. You get 64,000 xp worth of class features (the amount of xp ordinarily required to reach level 10) for only 13,000 actual xp, at the cost of a Hit Dice and being a level behind in Proficiency (which isn't even a factor if they're at 5th level, while everyone else is just at 6th).

If that is the case (if, because the OP hasn't confirmed it), then of course the Rogue is doing more damage then everyone else. They have the effective damage output of a 10th level character minus a single point of accuracy.

You could take any two classes and Multiclass them this way, and it would be broken. That's right, Barbarian 5/Wizard 5—broken.

And the very first level of Fighter is enough to supplement the loss of a Hit Die and point of accuracy, with Second Wind and a Fighting Style respectively. After that, you effectively get those extra four levels of Fighter Features for free.

EDIT: Long story short, if I had to take 1 more Hit Die of health or 5 levels worth of class features, I'm taking the class features every time. Because Dead Demons Don't Deal Damage.

 

[Dausuul]

If that's the case, I think I've located the problem. That's a terrible system. You get 64,000 xp worth of class features (the amount of xp ordinarily required to reach level 10) for only 13,000 actual xp, at the cost of a Hit Dice and being a level behind in Proficiency (which isn't even a factor if they're at 5th level, while everyone else is just at 6th).

Yup. Like I said, we're not talking about a rogue here. We're talking about a fighter with Sneak Attack and Assassinate. (Also Expertise, and Cunning Action, and the rest of the rogue's bag of tricks.)

In fact, depending on how dnd4vr's table is handling ASIs, the fighter/rogue might even be ahead of the party on attack. The rogue and fighter both get an ASI at level 4, which would mean you could hit the stat cap at 4th level while the rest of the party has to wait till 8th. Since everyone has the same proficiency bonus right now, the fighter/rogue would be 1 up on the rest of the party for both attack and damage.

However, I'm guessing that ASIs granted at the regular levels (4/8/12/16/19) are merged.

 

[André Soares]

Why would anyone ever choose not to MC?

 

[Hussar]

Why would anyone ever choose not to MC?

Well, as was mentioned, the level limits could be an issue. Some of the races were limited to pretty low levels - 5th or 6th level was a possible limit. Also, a number of classes had race restrictions meaning if you wanted to play that class, you had to be human (which meant you couldn't multiclass) or maybe couldn't multiclass into something you wanted to play.

OTOH, it was pretty darn easy to game the system, so, yeah, a lot of people multi classed. There was virtually no cost, for example, of adding thief levels to your character, since thief's xp table was so light and every race had no level restrictions in thief.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Bacon Bits]

Wait. Wait. Wait.

If that's the case, I think I've located the problem. That's a terrible system. You get 64,000 xp worth of class features (the amount of xp ordinarily required to reach level 10) for only 13,000 actual xp, at the cost of a Hit Dice and being a level behind in Proficiency (which isn't even a factor if they're at 5th level, while everyone else is just at 6th).

If that is the case (if, because the OP hasn't confirmed it), then of course the Rogue is doing more damage then everyone else. They have the effective damage output of a 10th level character minus a single point of accuracy.

You could take any two classes and Multiclass them this way, and it would be broken. That's right, Barbarian 5/Wizard 5—broken.

And the very first level of Fighter is enough to supplement the loss of a Hit Die and point of accuracy, with Second Wind and a Fighting Style respectively. After that, you effectively get those extra four levels of Fighter Features for free.

It's more than that. OP said he was playing a cleric/rogue/wizard, so they must allow triple class as well. If a 5/5 character took 26,000 XP to get to and we assume they're using triple XP for triple classed characters, then the cleric/rogue/wizard is 4/4/4. The XP table really isn't built for this kind of thing.

I've roughly drawn up a hybrid style multiclassing system as a replacement for a la carte multiclassing, but in that system you still progress in hit dice, proficiency bonus, and character level normally, but you've got slower class level progression (60-70% for two classes, 40-45% for three) and you lose out on archetypes. For example, a level 10 Fighter/Wizard would have 64,000 XP, a +4 proficiency bonus, 10 Hit Dice (5d10 + 5d6), no abilities gained from archetypes, Fighter abilities as a Fighter 6-7, Wizard abilities as a Wizard 6-7. It lets you get a level or two beyond what evenly split MC lets you do, but you lose some flexibilitiy. However, I'm still not happy with how it works with some classes yet.

 

[Staffan]

That may have been the reason for the idiosyncratic "Thief only" restriction. You know, that whole, "If you're a F/MU, you can fireball while wearing plate armor, but if you're a F/Th, it's leather armor for you, buddy!"

Weirdly, I don't even think it applied to Assassins.

I think it was more that thief abilities require freedom of movement and perception, so wearing heavy armor would interfere with that.

In vanilla 1e, thieves could only wear leather armor, and that was that. In Unearthed Arcana, this was expanded to elven chain and studded leather, but wearing these inflicted some serious penalties to thief skills (up to -30%). The UA version carried over to vanilla 2e, and in the Complete Thief's Handbook modifiers for wearing other types of armor were included (for multi-classed characters as well as those in disguise).

 

[Azzy]

Well, as was mentioned, the level limits could be an issue. Some of the races were limited to pretty low levels - 5th or 6th level was a possible limit. Also, a number of classes had race restrictions meaning if you wanted to play that class, you had to be human (which meant you couldn't multiclass) or maybe couldn't multiclass into something you wanted to play.

OTOH, it was pretty darn easy to game the system, so, yeah, a lot of people multi classed. There was virtually no cost, for example, of adding thief levels to your character, since thief's xp table was so light and every race had no level restrictions in thief.

There was the whole dividing XP between classes thing that meant that multiclass characters advanved real slooow.

 

[Staffan]

There was the whole dividing XP between classes thing that meant that multiclass characters advanved real slooow.

Except that for most of the levels where people actually played, XP costs doubled at each level. You needed 2000 XP to be a 2nd level fighter, 4000 XP for 3rd level, 8000 for 4th level, and so on. So the effect was essentially that you were a level behind, and with hit points averaged out between classes (rounding down for each die).