D&D 5E Why should I allow Multiclassing ?

[Mephista]

In my experience, there are three kinds of multiclassing.

1) Level dipping. You want some goodies that another class has. Generally speaking, this is the min-max part. I find that most people don't dip into another class for story reasons, they do it for abilities. I want to put agonizing eldrtich blast on my sorcerer. I want my wizard in heavy armor and proficient in Constitution saves. While, theoretically, this can be story driven, I have never seen anyone dip for it done as anything but.

2) Gestalt / Hybrid classing. This tends to be where you have a concept that eclipses two classes. A sorcerer-barbarian, because you want dragon magic and all the rage and physicality of a dragon. A cleric of a diety of magic, who studies arcane magic alongside the divine power. Or a crimson knight - the paladin/warlock hybrid from 4e? There was a huge cultural thing for tieflings with that combination.

So far, the closest we have are some key subclasses. The current, 3e era multiclassing is terrible for a gestalt style multiclass, given how milestones and tiers work.

3) Career changes. You're an old assassin who repents and becomes an avenger, following the holy path. A warlock who forsakes their dark power to help protect. There's no good rules to really represent this - at best, there's the Oathbreaker's method. Again, the current multiclass rules are bad for this, for same reason as the gestalt rules.



I just flat out dislike the current multiclass rules. They're designed to only be worth very rare dips outside your main class which, in my experience, is a technique used to min-max, and I have never seen it used for story reasons. Subclasses handle the gestalt style multiclassing now, and the career changes, while enjoyable, are pretty crappy rules wise. I'd rather handle that personally and come up with something custom for a character when it happens than use the existing rules.

 

[trentonjoe]

A lot of anti-Multiclassing sentiment here.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

BTW... while both of my 5e PCs are single-classed and likely to remain that way, I'm very tempted by various Warlock multiclass concepts.

In a thread on another board, I cooked up an evil take on Disney's Aladdin (named either "Badladdin" or "Binladdin"). A Pact of the Chain Warlock + Assassin Rogue. He's basically Aladdin who kills people for his supernatural patron, the Genie of the Lamp. His suspiciously super-smart monkey sidekick is actually a disguised imp (or quasit).

In his case, multiclassing allows me to seamlessly combine flavor, mechanics, and an awful pun/pop-culture joke. In other words, to make a perfect D&D character.

Oh my god, that could turn really creepy if you end up kidnapping a princess. "I could show you the world. WHY WON'T YOU LET ME?!"

That would be awesome.

AHAHHH!!! what?!?!?! um... I think you just literaly broke my mind. It's like the ponoko song in the new avengers... it's just so twisted...

I can't unthink the prince of thieves warlock

 

[Boarstorm]

I allow multiclassing for one reason:

It allows characters to grow organically.

Maybe when you started out, you didn't envision yourself playing a multiclass character. But during the course of play it has become apparent that your fighter has a penchant for sneaky tactics and the thieves' guild's patriarch has taken him under his wing and offered him tutelage in the finer points of sneakology, and now it just makes sense to multiclass into rogue.

Sure, it can be abused by those seeking to game the system. But so can every other element of the game to a greater or lesser degree. I'm comfortable being the gatekeeper of those choices in my role as DM.

 

[Sigbjorn_86]

If you just hate min-maxing, that is easy enough to weed out. Are they taking two levels of Warlock or Fighter, or two levels of Life Cleric? I haven't seen any obviously min-max combinations that don't involve dipping. Meanwhile an actual investment in MC for a character concept may often leave the player slightly behind.

 

[Mephista]

Now, I don't mind the whole Aladdin warlock-assassin hybrid thing (though, I'm going to argue that genies should be allied with sorcerer, not warlock). I just don't think the current multiclass rules support that kind of character mixing classes.


Even in 3e, we had the Prestige Classes to cover mixed classes like that, and not standard multiclass rules.

 

[Dausuul]

3) Career changes. You're an old assassin who repents and becomes an avenger, following the holy path. A warlock who forsakes their dark power to help protect. There's no good rules to really represent this - at best, there's the Oathbreaker's method. Again, the current multiclass rules are bad for this, for same reason as the gestalt rules.

A suggestion for how to do career changes: Use the current multiclassing rules, but say that each time you take a level in a new class, you also convert one of your existing levels to that class. Your old skills fade as you cease to use them.

So, let's say you're a fighter 4 who sees the light and decides to become a cleric. When you hit 5th level, you take a level in cleric and convert one of your fighter levels: You are now a fighter 3/cleric 2. Next level, you'll be a fighter 2/cleric 4. By the time you reach 8th level, you'll be a full cleric.

 

[Boarstorm]

(though, I'm going to argue that genies should be allied with sorcerer, not warlock)

Your reasoning for this isn't clear to me. Care to elaborate?

 

[Mephista]

Oh, I've found that career changes are rare enough in game that I can handle them one on one, as the situation dictates. Custom subclass swap, move to another class level by level, direct change, etc. It really depends on the character, and what they're becoming, I think

 

[Warmaster Horus]

The first and last in that trio are okay. But, "Because the system supports it," isn't a terribly good reason to do it. I would prefer to see some purpose being served other than, "because I can," you know what I mean?

I put that there for a reason. The game rules are a compact between all the players, including the DM. One thing that appeals to me about 5e is that multiclassing is available.

I would want to know why a DM wants to change that basic tenet besides "it's min-maxing". So what? I expect you as a DM to be using your advantages to present players with challenges so why can't they access possibilities offered to them as players if they choose, to meet those challenges? I like to play fighter-thieves (old term) because in AD&D thieves were the only classes that had honest-to-god skills, which I liked, and I wanted to beat on things when TSHTF. Now that's a bad thing?

Players should be able to enjoy the game in a way they want to & supported within the rules and not be railroaded into pigeon holes because of their DM's biases about 'game balance'. There is plenty of challenging content out there for DMs to use to face any party, regardless of whether they can swing a sword and cast a cantrip.