D&D General To multiclass or not to multiclass

[lall]

Just curious: what three level dip will raise a stat by 6?

My sorcerer needs an 18 CON (or 14 CON plus Tough) to have at least 151 hit points by level 20 to not be susceptible to Power Word Stun. I also want him to have Musician, Lucky, Resilient, Mage Slayer (all four mostly for a buff to mental saves), and some sort of permanent telepathy, e.g. Telepathic. Finally, I want him to have a permanent way to see in magical darkness, e.g. Boon of Truesight. That didn’t leave any room for Tough, so I had to max CON to 17 (including +2 background bonus), then to 18 with Truesight. I could have raised CHA to 16, but I wanted all three mentals to be decent to protect against saves, thus 14 in each of those three. So sorcerer-only build had CHA at 14.

With a three level GOO warlock dip, I get Devil’s Sight and via Lessons of the First Ones, Lucky and Tough. I also get Awakened Mind, i.e. telepathy. With Tough, I can keep my CON at 14 and go after a high CHA, while still having 14’s in WIS and INT. So CHA starts at 15, 17 with background +2. I now have feat slots open for Skill Expert (CHA) and Ability Score Improvement (CHA), in addition to Resilient and Mage Slayer.

Thus, essentially the same build, but with a CHA that is six higher.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I’m a thematic multiclasser; probably all the way back to AD&D. And almost anyone who has called me a powergamer gets laughed at by anyone who has gamed with me multiple times.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In 5e, I see multiclassing more as trying to gain an advantage and min/maxing over trying to get a concept you want. There are so many subclasses now that one should not have to think MCing is the way to get a cool concept.

There are infinite concepts, and like 200 subclasses max.

I have character ideas literally daily that 5e doesn’t easily model the fantasy of, or that require a class I wouldn’t enjoy playing or that I don’t think fits the concept even though the subclass does, etc.

A thousand ways to play Conan doesn’t help someone play Gandalf.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My Rogue Wizard could be an artificer instead, I suppose, but he would feel very different. Same my Monk/Ranger, could just be a monk, but she would lose a ton of flavor and mechanical representation of her concept.

I take a concept and make a character. Sometimes that leads to multiclassing. Sometimes the character needs to have extensive ritual casting, decent actual casting, and expertise, and a good array of skills, and be nimble and acrobatic and annoying to fight, and has a backstory to points to arcane magic and intelligence more than anything else, and there may be other ways to get there than Arcane Trickster/Bladesinger, but they don’t serve the character nearly as well.

Edit:

All that said, 2024 makes me actually want higher levels of any given class a lot more, so I find it harder to multiclass and be happy.

 

[Blue]

My view on the concept of multiclassing vs. any edition's mechanical representation of multiclassing need not be the same.

Concept
Imagine that the concepts that can be realized with a single class are like coins scattered on an index card. They cover a lot of it, but not all. Multiclassing allows coverage of concepts that are between coins, filling in those gaps. The system still can't handle concept that would be represented by parts of the index card not covered and having an edge.

For a system with classes as primary choice like D&D, it's basically required otherwise you are leaving a lot of character concepts unrealizable.

Realization
Go back to early D&D under TSR, and multiclassing was effectively designing a split class where you picked two or three classes at character conception, with what is allowed based on your race, and advanced in all of them equally at half or a third rate. This locked in who you were, but back then different classes needed different amounts of XP to advance levels. You got half (or a third) of your HPs when you picked up a level, etc. This locked you into a specific progression.

In AD&D 2nd (and I forget if it was also back in AD&D) was the concept of Dual Classing, which was only open to human, who were not allowed to multiclass. You could eschew your class and pick up another at 1st level. If you used any of your features from your first class you got zero XP for the current adventure. But once you were higher level in your new class then you could mix and match. This was actually closer to the 5e multiclassing, except for not being able to use anything and that it was a single allowed switch.

3.x and 5e allow picking each level, giving both a lot of flexibility in how much of each class as well as because-of-what-happened-in-game chance to change your character's direction. However, unlike TSR-era multiclassing you couldn't start with your concept. You couldn't be a FMU - Fighter/Magic-User - from the get-go.

We also have multiclassing feats as an interesting take in there, either as replacements for "true" multiclassing, or as mechanical bridges to allow iconic abilities to continue to grow with a multiclassed implementation.

Really, none of the D&D multiclassing options have hit all of the reuirements for me, and many of them have additional issues in terms of cherry picking or shooting yourself in the foot that can make mechanically a multiclassed character outside the class power curve, either too good or not good enough.

Conclusion
In a heavily class based system, a multiclassing method greatly enhances the spread of concepts that can be achieved. However, D&D's mechanical realization of that have always had both strengths and flaws and can use with improvement.