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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8320189" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I suppose that's a fair assessment, but if I'm being honest, D&D--even 5e--hasn't been much different on this front in a long time. The "brooding loner with no social skills who just kills things" is an often-discussed Problem Player archetype, and it predates the ubiquity of MMOs.Much of 5e was written on crunch time. Keep in mind that, while the Next playtest ran for multiple years, it was only in the last 3-ish months of public playtesting that several classes took anything like their final shape. Despite coming out pretty early, the playtest Warlock and Sorcerer were pulled so fast nobody really got the chance to iterate on them, and we got some pretty bland, flavorless product out at the end because they never showed us another version. Or how "Specialties" were a key feature right up until the last...six or eight months of public playtesting, something like that, at which point they were dropped like hot potatoes and nothing replaced them.Most of 5e (I'd peg it at 60%ish) is back-of-the-envelope calculations, copying something 3e or 4e did, or ad-hoc fixes behind the scenes (e.g., some of the guest designers have claimed that the reason CRs in the MM differ from calculated values is that WotC often adjusted them, ad-hoc, if the actual monster didn't match its expected performance.) It really shouldn't be surprising that a complex and difficult-to-balance subsystem let a lot of bad edge cases through. I mean, for goodness' sake, one guy being on jury duty delayed the edition conversion document for something like a whole year....and when it did come out it was something any one of us could have written in an hour.Except 4e! Where multiclassing was actually quite balanced in most cases. There were a couple edge cases (ironically, the hybrid Paladin|Warlock, though for very different reasons), but the balance overall was quite good. MC feats were probably a little too strong as standalone feats, but not to the point of being unbalanced.Yeah, that's rather important. The gap between "justified comeuppance" and "BS gotcha" is often crossed based on whether the consequences were clearly stated well ahead of their arrival.While that last sentence is true, "be obnoxious" is in general exactly the opposite of expressing that you have basic social skills. So...yeah, I'd argue that disclaimer is pretty important in this case, since the very thing you were advocating is, in general, a direct contradiction of the rules of social etiquette.This is much fairer, and more interesting to boot. In general, I find the best way to work with players is to be supportive and provide alternatives that match your expectations, rather than trying to "show" the player that their choice or preference is a bad one. For example, a player says they want to be a Paladin/Hexblade, and after some (friendly) conversation, you find out it's because they want to be able to use Charisma with a greatsword, due to loving the image of a scrawny young person who is chronically underestimated because nobody thinks they have what it takes to fight with such a big weapon.If that's their main focus, I would probably tell them, "Stick with Paladin. We'll work something out." And then that opens up a whole plotline for me, where the character finds and bonds with a magic weapon (possibly intelligent!) that is all about flashy, twirling, fancy-looking swordplay that is mostly for show...until it isn't. Where would such a blade come from? Why would it bond with a Paladin? Will there be some sinister (or sacred) cost to such a thing? Who else might want this weapon--and be angry that it chose someone else? Etc. Suddenly, instead of a boring no-consequences multiclass build, you have an exciting new story that achieves what the player wanted, while having the potential to enrich everyone's experience, not just theirs.Or perhaps it's a "Coffeelock" Sorcerer, someone who exploits the interaction of Warlock spell slots and Sorcerer spell-burning to rack up a bunch of sorcery points. Again, I'd tell them, "Stick with Sorcerer. I'll give you something better." Then I have the whole campaign to explain why THIS Sorcerer can pull spell points from the aether. Do they have a special item that can condense raw mana into usable form? Perhaps they have tattoos that can be tapped for spell energy, but at a cost to themselves (maybe a hit point per spell point, or rolling Hit Dice and getting SP instead of HP once per day). Such a secret would be very valuable....especially if someone can find out how to copy it. Now you have implied third parties, the danger of being hunted, questions about the origin or purpose of these abilities, etc.IOW, if you're going to invent new things (narrative or mechanical) to make it suck to do something you don't like...why not instead find a way to embrace what the player does like, without doing the thing you dislike? Then both of you can have what you want. Obviously, this can't work every time. Sometimes, the player's desire is disruptive in some way (whether it be a bad thematic fit, or an actually abusive intent). But I find it is workable most of the time, and that this produces better gaming for everyone.Feats really aren't that bad. The vast, vast majority of them are not as good as getting +2 to your most important stat--and the few that are that good are (in)famous enough that you can literally just look up a couple guides and ban them (SS, PAM, etc.) Feats, in general, are fine. So, unless you're especially worried about player exploitation/abuses, you could probably let people pick two and still not have broken characters.Sigh. The irony of yet another 4e method of doing things being crapped on for being terrible....and then getting copied by 5e and being called great.</blockquote>

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