D&D 5E Subclass feature vs. feat -- Which is "worth" more?

[DrJawaPhD]

How it should it be?

If I were in charge of designing things, then high level Class and Subclass features should be powerful and something that you would actually care about missing out on if you multi-classed.

Right now, the only powerful features gained at high level are 7th, 8th, 9th level spells. This is the real reason people say there is a Caster vs Martial divide. Martials are generally more powerful at low levels but at high levels you're always better multi-classing for the front-loaded features of another class than you are sticking with your original class for mediocre high level features. Casters on the other hand actually gain powerful spells so they're incentivized to mostly avoid multi-classing.

 

[Horwath]

If I were in charge of designing things, then high level Class and Subclass features should be powerful and something that you would actually care about missing out on if you multi-classed.

Right now, the only powerful features gained at high level are 7th, 8th, 9th level spells. This is the real reason people say there is a Caster vs Martial divide. Martials are generally more powerful at low levels but at high levels you're always better multi-classing for the front-loaded features of another class than you are sticking with your original class for mediocre high level features. Casters on the other hand actually gain powerful spells so they're incentivized to mostly avoid multi-classing.

I agree that it should be more powerful as you go up the ladder, but only slightly.
thing is, most low level features are powerful as you need you character concept to be going early and high level is just gravy on that build.

and we need 10/10 split to be viable(mostly) 20 levels in single class.

it's a hard thing to balance out, and easiest is to have all features similar in strength and have them scale with overall level/proficiency bonus/class level.

personally, I am fond in number of usages based on character level/prof bonus and potency of features based on class level.

I.E; Barbarian's Rage:
Number of usages: based on character level/proficiency bonus.
Bonus damage, new features to use rage on: based on Barbarian level.

like it is with multiclass casters.

you get new spell levels with class levels, but slot levels are based on sum of your caster levels.
off topic, fix damage scaling so it is worth to upscale damage spells!

 

[Minigiant]

This is so true and such a terrible failure of game design

It's not a failure of game design.
The designers and community don't know what high level is to design for it.

The D&D community for 50 years demanded that gaming level D&D existed but you 40 of those years only had a concept of what it is on the monster side.

Again...

We all agree on the Archmage, High Patriarch, Ancient Dragons, and Lich.

But there is a void creates 20 concepts of the what the high level version of a Thief, Berserker, or Champion.

Is a level 20 Drunken Master:
Lei Wulong
Jackie Chan
or
Master Roshi


Because the 3rd guy casually blows up the moon to stop lycanthropy.

 

[ezo]

What if you give your players an option to either take a subclass or to just stick with the base class and get a feat for every level where they would otherwise get a subclass feature? I feel like it would be fairly balanced.

This is something that came up a long time ago... and it is being revisited.

 

[Distracted DM]

multiclassing is bad, I agree.

but what is solution?

force even split classes?

6/6 character is almost universally weaker than 12th level character in a single class.

I made a house rule that forces even split, but it gives bonus levels at character levels 5,8,11,14,17 and 20, so you end up at 20th level with HP, HDs and prof bonus of 10/10 split as normal, but have features of 13/13 split.

View attachment 388033

I suppose if you force even level-split you could have martial levels count towards extra attack or somesuch, and make feats based on character level not class level. Basically 3e

 

[Horwath]

It's not a failure of game design.
The designers and community don't know what high level is to design for it.

The D&D community for 50 years demanded that gaming level D&D existed but you 40 of those years only had a concept of what it is on the monster side.

Again...

We all agree on the Archmage, High Patriarch, Ancient Dragons, and Lich.

But there is a void creates 20 concepts of the what the high level version of a Thief, Berserker, or Champion.

Is a level 20 Drunken Master:
Lei Wulong
Jackie Chan
or
Master Roshi


Because the 3rd guy casually blows up the moon to stop lycanthropy.

problem with high level maritals is, how magical do you want them to become?

If you want them to stay completely mundane, then only solution to stay somewhat close to casters is to buff their damage, number of attacks, attack riders(mundane), some skills, more expertise, more AC, maybe 2 reactions per round for AoOs,

now, is it enough that your clumsy 1st level archer that can barely shoot 1 arrow per round becomes Lars Andersen and shoots 15+ arrows per round?

That is impressive, but if that is all he can do, it can get very boring very fast.
but some people really want to roll 15+ attack rolls every round. So, it's fun for them.

on the other hand, we have the Book of nine Swords.

do we want martials to become that amount of magical?

also, most campaigns are done by levels 10-13.
we need ALL the goodies for classes(except spells) to be "on line" by that time. At least in some basic form.
Upgrades can be for high levels.

I.E.battlemasters "unlimited" maneuvers with Relentless should be at 10th level latest and not 15th, that is too little, too late.
maybe even 7th level with d4 dice to power them. d6 at 10th level, d8 at 15th level.

 

[Horwath]

I suppose if you force even level-split you could have martial levels count towards extra attack or somesuch, and make feats based on character level not class level. Basically 3e

your features still come online so late, that they are weak.
Fireball is great at 5th level and just inconvenience at 10th level.

 

[Distracted DM]

your features still come online so late, that they are weak.
Fireball is great at 5th level and just inconvenience at 10th level.

Appreciate the feedback. To play devil's advocate, if you want to throw fireballs at 5th level then why are you multiclassing? I would say that feats would be bound to character level, and if both classes have extra attack then you get EA at character level 7 or 8. Everything else could work RAW with multiclassing.

 

[Horwath]

Appreciate the feedback. To play devil's advocate, if you want to throw fireballs at 5th level then why are you multiclassing? I would say that feats would be bound to character level, and if both classes have extra attack then you get EA at character level 7 or 8. Everything else could work RAW with multiclassing.

one of the best house rule that we managed to think of(or heard somewhere, hehe) is that levels of classes with extra attack stack for 1st instance of it and later full feature of Extra attack stack with it self.

So if you want 5 attacks per round at 20th level, it's fighter5/barbarian5/ranger5/paladin5.

 

[Distracted DM]

one of the best house rule that we managed to think of(or heard somewhere, hehe) is that levels of classes with extra attack stack for 1st instance of it and later full feature of Extra attack stack with it self.

So if you want 5 attacks per round at 20th level, it's fighter5/barbarian5/ranger5/paladin5.

Isn't this making MCing more powerful? You're giving 5 attacks per round, no single class gets that. Fighters get 3 at 11.

To explore the house-rule further basically just to account for MCing with more than 2 classes, you could work out fractions a la 3e BAB. Classes with extra attack could count as .7 or .8 of 1 level (at 5 you get extra attack). You could work out some similar thing where arcane/divine/primal casting levels stack buuuuuuut at that point... Nah.

I'd just keep it simple and say "2 classes max, extra attack at level 7 if you have two classes with EA, feats based on character level (4, 8, 12, etc), all other standard MC rules apply."

Would this make MCing too unappealing and it'd be really bad? Doesn't seem terrible.