D&D 5E Spellprepared/known for multiclassed spellcaster

[TheCosmicKid]

At which point I would have asked him to write a coherent rule set for something as open ended as D&D in easy to read language with no ambiguity.

You know that's a big ask. But this particular rule could certainly have been written much more clearly. There should be nothing "open-ended" about the question of whether you can prepare 1st- or 9th-level spells. Some ambiguities are inevitable; this one was avoidable.

I don't get the issue with the Lucky feat you mention.

This is a tangent, but the "super advantage" interpretation of Lucky does come straight from Jeremy Crawford.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't get the issue with the Lucky feat you mention. It has no mention of disadvantage at all. It merely says you can spend one luck point to gain an extra d20 when making an attack roll, et. al. It's also clear from the feat that you can only spend 1 point per roll. It says nothing about advantage so I don't see that it would be connected to advantage/disadvantage in any way.

What it says is that when you apply Lucky, you get to roll one additional die, then choose which die to use. If you have disadvantage, you're rolling two dice already and taking the worse result. So, the argument is that if you apply Lucky to a disadvantaged roll, you roll three dice, and then Lucky allows you to choose which of the three to use (since the specific rule for Lucky, allowing you to pick your roll, overrides the general rule for disadvantage that would make you take the lowest roll).

Thus, disadvantage plus Lucky equals super-advantage, and whenever you make an attack roll with Lucky you should shut your eyes so you're more likely to hit.

It's an absurd scenario, and I certainly plan to house-rule it as DM, should it ever come up. But there are two key differences that make it more defensible than the spell prep thing. First, it is not clear what the intended rule is here. If you don't allow super-advantage, how does it work when you apply Lucky to a disadvantaged roll? And second, there is no example illustrating the intended rule in action.

 

[SubDude]

Example with disadvantage:
Player rolls a 1 and a 20. Result is a 1. Player spends luck point and rolls a 5. He can choose 1 or 5.

Example with advantage:
Player rolls a 1 and a 15. Result is a 15. Player spends a luck point and rolls a 10. He can choose 15 or 10.

This is how I'll handle this.

 

[KarinsDad]

You know that's a big ask. But this particular rule could certainly have been written much more clearly. There should be nothing "open-ended" about the question of whether you can prepare 1st- or 9th-level spells. Some ambiguities are inevitable; this one was avoidable.

I actually this that this rule is clear as day and that 95% of the people reading it will read it as intended.

What this means, in my mind, is that some people read and interpret written material in some form of computation manner. They don't read clear intent, instead they read "prep spells per spell slots" + "multiclass gets spell slots as per table" = "prep high level spells for a 1st level classed PC" whereas it's is clearly written "prepare for each class individually". On top of that, they give an example that clearly illustrates the concept and people still misread it.

 

[Dausuul]

I actually this that this rule is clear as day and that 95% of the people reading it will read it as intended.

Agreed.

People keep saying the rule "could have been written more clearly," but I am having a hard time coming up with a clearer way to write it than what's in the book, without drastically increasing word count.

 

[KarinsDad]

Agreed.

People keep saying the rule "could have been written more clearly," but I am having a hard time coming up with a clearer way to write it than what's in the book, without drastically increasing word count.

Yeah, I'm a bit clueless on that as well. I actually run a multiclass PC (cleric 1, wizard 6) and we have another multiclass PC in the group (ranger 2, wizard 5) and it never occurred to either of us to come up with this type of interpretation. It is so far off the beaten trail in my mind that it looks like someone was purposely looking for a loophole.

 

[MG.0]

Agreed.

People keep saying the rule "could have been written more clearly," but I am having a hard time coming up with a clearer way to write it than what's in the book, without drastically increasing word count.

It is near impossible to avoid all ambiguity in natural language without being ridiculously verbose. I think this is a side effect of the multiclass spell slot table being a somewhat inelegant compromise to what would otherwise be a bookeeping chore.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That was largely a joke. As Tony Vargas said, the situation is not really analogous. Spells scale so differently in 4E that evaluating the multiclassing system based on 3E/5E preconceptions -- or vice versa -- is only going to mess you up.

Yep. What the rules actually say in 5e is only one factor in how a 5e DM rules, and it needn't be an important one - what some prior edition rules say is even less of a factor.

Even if you don't fully agree with me that these rules imply the opposite of what you claim, can we at least agree that they are highly ambiguous and should have been written more clearly?

5e was intentionally written in a more natural-language style, with less precise use of jargon. In part to give it more of the feel of classic editions of the game that tended to be written that way, in part to make it appear more accessible at first blush, and, I suspect, in part, to leave wiggle-room for the DM to Rule frequently and how he likes (for the good of his campaign and the fun of his players, of course). So, while it could have been written more clearly, maybe it didn't really need to be.

Rather than wrangling over RAW or which interpretation is closer to what the rules may actual say or may actually have been intended to say, it'd be more useful, in the DM-empowerment spirit of 5e, to think about which Ruling would work better for the campaign in question.

There's potentially 3 rulings on the table, here:

1) Have players prep spells for MC caster/casters as if they were two casters standing next to them, but cast spells using slots as if they were one caster of combined level.

2) Have players prep spells for MC caster/casters as if they were of the combined level in both classes, then cast as if they were the combined level in one, roughly doubling their spell lists relative to a single-class caster, even if they only take 1 level in the second class.

3) Don't allow Multi-classing.

It is so far off the beaten trail in my mind that it looks like someone was purposely looking for a loophole.

Sure, it's not like such 'system mastery' has never been a factor in past editions of D&D, especially the edition that introduced the MC mechanic in question.

 

[MG.0]

What it says is that when you apply Lucky, you get to roll one additional die, then choose which die to use. If you have disadvantage, you're rolling two dice already and taking the worse result.

It's clear from the text that you spend the point after the initial roll. So with disadvantage you've ALREADY chosen the lower of the two dice before spending the luck point, so you can only choose between your lucky die and the already chosen lower roll. The higher of the two disadvantage dice is unavailable to the player. Simple.

 

[KarinsDad]

It's clear from the text that you spend the point after the initial roll. So with disadvantage you've ALREADY chosen the lower of the two dice before spending the luck point, so you can only choose between your lucky die and the already chosen lower roll. The higher of the two disadvantage dice is unavailable to the player. Simple.

And elegant.