While I’m having fun reading various discussions about multiclass builds (and creating many myself) I wonder how many folks realize that what we are now calling multiclassing was originally called switch classing and had some very different rules. If WOtC really wanted to discourage modern multiclassing all they would have to do is go back to the old rules: 1. once you switch classes you can’t go back to the old class (unless you exceed it’s level in the new class) 2. while in the new class you cannot use any of the features of the old class (except the hit points and skills) until you exceed the level of the old class, if you do you forfeit the experience of the encounter (and for many DMs the adventure) where you reverted. Imagine trying all the 1-3 level dips folks use today under those rules. When you see some NPC like the forgotten realm’s elminster keep in mind that those levels of fighter, rogue and cleric were earned under those rules. Multiclassing back then was something for elves, dwarves etc because they were maxed out in most classes around L15 so they were allowed to do 2 or 3 classes at the same time splitting the experience between them so they leveled much more slowly but stayed roughly on poor power wise. There are times when I almost wish those rules were still in effect when I see some of the power gaming multiclassing folks put together.
Multiclassing has never been as convenient as in 5E (so signs do not point to WotC wanting to discourage multiclassing at all), but by and large I really don't think it's overpowered. Warlocks are a tad exploitative, sure, but those are edge cases. Multiclass powergaming would be handled better by frontloading the classes a little bit less and especially by making the mid and higher level abilities of a number of classes more appealing.
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Multiclassing has never been as convenient as in 5E (so signs do not point to WotC wanting to discourage multiclassing at all), but by and large I really don't think it's overpowered. Warlocks are a tad exploitative, sure, but those are edge cases. Multiclass powergaming would be handled better by frontloading the classes a little bit less and especially by making the mid and higher level abilities of a number of classes more appealing.
MC even with warlocks isn't a huge deal until like level 8+.
Thats the issue with most MC builds is that they take a while to come online compared to single class builds. Hexblade would generally be the exception....but even then you are giving up higher level spell progression.
I think for me the major issue is that levels 1-3 are generally seen as a session or so a piece vs. 4-10 tend to be the majority of the campaign.
This means that if you want your fancy MC build for optimization purposes chances are you won't even hit a point you feel like its worth it until very late into the campaign. Now if you are in a group that starts high and runs high (14+) then it becomes a lot more of an equal race.
MC even with warlocks isn't a huge deal until like level 8+.
Thats the issue with most MC builds is that they take a while to come online compared to single class builds. Hexblade would generally be the exception....but even then you are giving up higher level spell progression.
I think for me the major issue is that levels 1-3 are generally seen as a session or so a piece vs. 4-10 tend to be the majority of the campaign.
This means that if you want your fancy MC build for optimization purposes chances are you won't even hit a point you feel like its worth it until very late into the campaign. Now if you are in a group that starts high and runs high (14+) then it becomes a lot more of an equal race.
It really depends. If you do expect to go all the way to lvl 20, in many cases multiclassing (certainly multiclassing beyond a quick 1-2 level dip) will be suboptimal. If you expect the campaign to end around lvls 10-12 though, I think there are several classes where picking up a new class rather than continuing past level 5-6-7 in your first class is easily equal. And if you stick with a single class for the first 5-6ish levels, or at most pick up just a single level in a side class early on, you're not delaying anything at all or only by a single level, which shouldn't feel like an issue if that one level's features are worth it.
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Why would you want to discourage multiclassing? There are very few times where it gives characters more power than simply continuing in their main class.
Multiclassing allows for more roleplay opportunities, character progression in different directions and more fun all round.
The idea of "being powerful" is a mistake made by people who don't really understand how D&D works. You think you and your party are all super powered munchkin types dealing 25 damage on every melee swing at level 8? Well, here's news for them: the DM just doubled the hit points of every monster you'll fight from now on. For all their munchkin building, they haven't achieved anything. "Character Power" in D&D is only relevant to the specific campaign that you're playing in. At any moment, the DM can declare "The ground opens up and swallows you. You are dead." The level of ability of characters is just something the DM keeps track of in order to know how tough to make future challenges.
A lot of what I think I’m seeing is fairly snap judgments to add a class for a level to 3 for some sort of extra ability that they think makes them more powerful in their campaign - not realizing what they are giving up in their own class. The old rules forced you to think more deeply in some ways about your character development. (Is this Extra ability worth going for when I have to give up everything I have for a while to do it. more later
A lot of what I think I’m seeing is fairly snap judgments to add a class for a level to 3 for some sort of extra ability that they think makes them more powerful in their campaign - not realizing what they are giving up in their own class.
One level dips do tend to make a character more powerful in immediate, quantifiable ways in my experience. Starting with one rogue level gives you more proficiencies than other classes, as well as Expertise. One level of bard, cleric or druid gives you access to healing spells. One level of wizard gives ritual casting, with the option of getting a familiar that way. Starting with artificer gives a wizard healing, armor proficiencies and proficiency in Con saves without reducing spell slots. Obviously there’s a cost involved, but all of these qualities can be objectively useful in a campaign. Taking more than one level in multiple classes becomes harder to quantify, but certainly when you want to optimise a given concept rather than a class archetype there are plenty cases where branching out across multiple classes is the way to go.
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MC even with warlocks isn't a huge deal until like level 8+.
Thats the issue with most MC builds is that they take a while to come online compared to single class builds. Hexblade would generally be the exception....but even then you are giving up higher level spell progression.
I think for me the major issue is that levels 1-3 are generally seen as a session or so a piece vs. 4-10 tend to be the majority of the campaign.
This means that if you want your fancy MC build for optimization purposes chances are you won't even hit a point you feel like its worth it until very late into the campaign. Now if you are in a group that starts high and runs high (14+) then it becomes a lot more of an equal race.
It really depends. If you do expect to go all the way to lvl 20, in many cases multiclassing (certainly multiclassing beyond a quick 1-2 level dip) will be suboptimal. If you expect the campaign to end around lvls 10-12 though, I think there are several classes where picking up a new class rather than continuing past level 5-6-7 in your first class is easily equal. And if you stick with a single class for the first 5-6ish levels, or at most pick up just a single level in a side class early on, you're not delaying anything at all or only by a single level, which shouldn't feel like an issue if that one level's features are worth it.
Single level dips are generally pretty safe yeah and you can get a lot of value from them.
I guess thats the other point...MC dips vs. more "full" MC is a discussion in itself!
While I’m having fun reading various discussions about multiclass builds (and creating many myself) I wonder how many folks realize that what we are now calling multiclassing was originally called switch classing and had some very different rules. If WOtC really wanted to discourage modern multiclassing all they would have to do is go back to the old rules: 1. once you switch classes you can’t go back to the old class (unless you exceed it’s level in the new class) 2. while in the new class you cannot use any of the features of the old class (except the hit points and skills) until you exceed the level of the old class, if you do you forfeit the experience of the encounter (and for many DMs the adventure) where you reverted. Imagine trying all the 1-3 level dips folks use today under those rules. When you see some NPC like the forgotten realm’s elminster keep in mind that those levels of fighter, rogue and cleric were earned under those rules. Multiclassing back then was something for elves, dwarves etc because they were maxed out in most classes around L15 so they were allowed to do 2 or 3 classes at the same time splitting the experience between them so they leveled much more slowly but stayed roughly on poor power wise. There are times when I almost wish those rules were still in effect when I see some of the power gaming multiclassing folks put together.
Pedantic point, but that was actually called dual classing, not split classing. And WotC was justified in dropping it because the rules for it were silly.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Your right it was called dual classing when you had 2 classes but what about when you had 3? 😳 The multiple classes at once with racial limits on all classes except rogues never really made much sense to me - don’t misunderstand I could and did follow their logic I just thought it was ridiculous. The rules for switch classing (in humans primarily) did make sense to me and it’s those rules I sometimes think might be useful. I remember back in school many many years ago failing my French class in grade 4 because I had taken Spanish 1 in grades 1-3 and they were just similar enough that every time the teacher would speak in French I would answer in Spanish. I never did really learn French. Same idea with class skills and abilities - you almost have to unlearn one set to learn and overlay the new one. A rogue’s style of fighting isn’t the same as a fighter’s if your trying to learn to stay in front of your foe to fight Mano a Mano the rogue’s habits of trying to flank the foe don’t work and have to be avoided. Once your equally skilled in both you can integrate then into your own unique fighting style. It won’t happen via WOtC , but I thought I might offer the idea up for homebrew use to help with role play vs power play. Imagine telling your favorite power gamer that yes he can change and become a warlock but that part of his pact is that he spend a full level acting as only a L1 warlock and has to give his armour and weapons for that level keeping only his skills and hit points. Puts a whole different spin on it.
MC isn't just for optimization. Plenty of players use it to explore new concepts that a single class can't cover. Hamstringing them for 3+ levels because you've deemed all MC as powergaming seems like a great way to just discourage any use of MC to the point where you might as well ban it.
Multiclassing has never been as convenient as in 5E (so signs do not point to WotC wanting to discourage multiclassing at all), but by and large I really don't think it's overpowered. Warlocks are a tad exploitative, sure, but those are edge cases. Multiclass powergaming would be handled better by frontloading the classes a little bit less and especially by making the mid and higher level abilities of a number of classes more appealing.
MC even with warlocks isn't a huge deal until like level 8+.
Thats the issue with most MC builds is that they take a while to come online compared to single class builds. Hexblade would generally be the exception....but even then you are giving up higher level spell progression.
I think for me the major issue is that levels 1-3 are generally seen as a session or so a piece vs. 4-10 tend to be the majority of the campaign.
This means that if you want your fancy MC build for optimization purposes chances are you won't even hit a point you feel like its worth it until very late into the campaign. Now if you are in a group that starts high and runs high (14+) then it becomes a lot more of an equal race.
This is a very important thing that I believe is not taken into consideration by a lot of people when they talk about character builds on these forums.
I had a player in the previous campaign I ran that had big plans for this great build he saw online. I told him that the campaign wasn't going to go to 20 and would likely only hit 14 or 15 max. He did it anyway. His build hit the point he had been waiting for at level 14 and just a few sessions later the campaign came to a close. He spent almost the entire campaign waiting and at times complaining that his character seemed weak compared everyone else's. I honestly don't even remember the combo but in the end it didn't matter anyway.
Super OP combos that require you to be level 14+ maybe fun to talk about, but are generally a waste of time to play out side of a One Shot.
If you want to explore a new concept that a single class can’t cover why not simply build it at the level you want to explore? You want to see how a L3 fighter/ L2 sorcerer works build the CL 5 combo here in DDB and then play it and see how it works. Nothing wrong with that - give it a backstory that it started as a fighter then at L2 something happened that activated the latent magical abilities that you played with for a couple of levels till you were equally good and are now at level 5 working to combine both into your singular style - not a problem.
Further I actually do recognize that those rules have to be altered for 5e use as we are now capped at character L20 where in 1-3e you weren’t and when you switched classes you went back to being a L1 character as well. But being forced to spend at least 1 level working solely in the new class to “master” it’s basics and “unlearn the habits” of the old class should lead to some interesting role play if nothing else. Telling a L8 ranger that just made L9 that yes he can become a level 1 sorcerer but that he has to focus on being a sorcerer and not a ranger for 1 level before he can work as a ranger sorcerer and that any time he relapses into ranger mode the experience he earns goes toward becoming a L9 ranger rather than going towards being a L2 sorcerer. Given the level caps of 5e I wouldn’t require more than 1 level be spent that way.
If you want to explore a new concept that a single class can’t cover why not simply build it at the level you want to explore? You want to see how a L3 fighter/ L2 sorcerer works build the CL 5 combo here in DDB and then play it and see how it works. Nothing wrong with that - give it a backstory that it started as a fighter then at L2 something happened that activated the latent magical abilities that you played with for a couple of levels till you were equally good and are now at level 5 working to combine both into your singular style - not a problem.
<snip>
I think that it is not as easy as building a character and poof there is the perfect game for you to play it in most of the time.
So leveling works very different in 5e than the dual class days, at least from AD&D. Presently if I play an 8th level fighter and want to take a level in Bard Rogue, I level to become a 9th level character and take the level if I'm in a multi class game. I believe the old school Dual classing would require me to take the XP to level one in (actually didn't you need to do a lot of other classes before becoming a Bard?*) Rogue. The level 1-3 progression is pretty quick in 5e, especially if this 8th level / 1st level apprenticing character is still in the company of a bunch of 9th levelers earning XP characters at that tier should be earning if adequately challenged. I think reverting to the old way of progression with he present XP tables would actually allow dual/multi/combos to develop the unsettling powers faster than the present design. Just a gut feeling.
As far as the IRL analogies to why dual classing is problematic, I don't really like the classroom/school analogies. Outside the classroom people develop multiple language competencies all over the world with less formal education resources (English only raised Americans and folks with large monolingual geographies miss out on that, but military/work/education can bridge the gap through immersion), in the classroom folks who study comp lit or linguistics have to learn multiple languages and as a consequence of the genius of academic registrar planning that usually means they learn them asynchronously, yet they graduate and many go onto careers or pastimes where those linguistic facilities are worthwhile. Fighting is kinetic learning and cross training has known benefits on the disciplines being crossed, especially given force science, "tactical athletics" etc realization that an all around fitness is key to at least modern combat effectiveness. Combat skills are "perishable skillsets" but I think it's often assumed a MCer just doesn't have the same amount of available time as other characters (what that means "in game" varies from table to table).
One can argue for disciplined focus or one could argue for diverse experience, I'm a fan of the latter, but can understand folks wanting more strictly defined roles in their role playing. I don't think either need to be policed which I feel the old school dual method did intentionally back then and maybe unintentionally in the present offering.
While I'm sure characters level into something new out of impulse, I think there's a lot of players who do consider their leveling options (stick or branch) carefully. Honestly, every player I've had in the past two years of 5e, including some as young as 8 have made careful considerations of what's being lost and gained in the exchange. I think 5e character tables makes these considerations easier.
The old dual class method just seems retrospectively punitive to the player and (since we're archiving the original class until it's release) the party. Now multi-classing is completely in the DMs control and so players who do want to MC need to pass a sort of "plausibility" test with me. In other words there has to be in game opportunity for the character to grow the new class skill/power set beyond simply pressing a DDB button in the character builder. That's the only limit. If I was doing a "starting at high level" game, MC out of the box can be discussed, there's enough synergy out there for most concepts to work.
*That Bard point, in AD&D didn't the Bard appear as a class in a Player's Manual appendix, and basically to become a Bard you had to do time in multiple classes (I want to say Fighter, Rogue, Wizard)? I don't have those books on hand, but I remember reading those rules decades ago and thinking, "Well, no one's every going to do that around here."
Multiclassing has never been as convenient as in 5E (so signs do not point to WotC wanting to discourage multiclassing at all), but by and large I really don't think it's overpowered. Warlocks are a tad exploitative, sure, but those are edge cases. Multiclass powergaming would be handled better by frontloading the classes a little bit less and especially by making the mid and higher level abilities of a number of classes more appealing.
MC even with warlocks isn't a huge deal until like level 8+.
Thats the issue with most MC builds is that they take a while to come online compared to single class builds. Hexblade would generally be the exception....but even then you are giving up higher level spell progression.
I think for me the major issue is that levels 1-3 are generally seen as a session or so a piece vs. 4-10 tend to be the majority of the campaign.
This means that if you want your fancy MC build for optimization purposes chances are you won't even hit a point you feel like its worth it until very late into the campaign. Now if you are in a group that starts high and runs high (14+) then it becomes a lot more of an equal race.
This is a very important thing that I believe is not taken into consideration by a lot of people when they talk about character builds on these forums.
I had a player in the previous campaign I ran that had big plans for this great build he saw online. I told him that the campaign wasn't going to go to 20 and would likely only hit 14 or 15 max. He did it anyway. His build hit the point he had been waiting for at level 14 and just a few sessions later the campaign came to a close. He spent almost the entire campaign waiting and at times complaining that his character seemed weak compared everyone else's. I honestly don't even remember the combo but in the end it didn't matter anyway.
Super OP combos that require you to be level 14+ maybe fun to talk about, but are generally a waste of time to play out side of a One Shot.
Reminds me of a 3.5 game I was in with someone who was bragging about how their wizard/monk multiclass combo was soooo powerful.
The game ended when our characters were 6th level, which for him meant two levels of wizard and four levels of monk, and because we were doing point buy and his character was so MAD all of his ability scores were really low since he could only dump stat charisma. His actual abilities in or out of combat were really weak, and he'd inevitably accuse the GM of "cheating" because he struggled to hit an enemy with a 16 AC.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
One of the bigger differences in the old way was different classes leveling at different rates. There were points where with the same amount of xp, you could be a level 3 thief, level 2 fighter or level 1 magic user. That class based xp system with the current multiclass system might work to clamp down on some things, like that hexblade warlock 1-level dip for cha-based classes, if you just require warlocks to get more xp, but it would be a mess to track, and probably not worth the trouble. (I’m ok with the current system, just trying to brainstorm a bit for the op)
As an aside, I’d always assumed the level caps for demi humans were to balance out the longer life spans. Otherwise why wouldn’t an elf magic user have time to just grind up to some obscene level.
The long ago version of the Bard, as I remember it, took Fighter, Thief, and Druid. I don't remember how many levels of each, but you ended up at a fair high level. People wanted to play as Bards without having to Multi-Class, and sure enough, take a look at what we have now. :-)
How tempting it is to multiclass also depends on your core class, assuming you have one - different classes have radically different scaling (and subclasses have different scaling from each other as well!). For example, if your campaign is going to spend any amount of time at level 20, a pure Druid has nearly infinite hit points and a pure Zealot Barbarian has actually infinite hit points all day. Giving that up is a big deal, but you do have to get there, slogging through levels which may have scaling you dislike. Barbarians probably have the worst scaling of the core classes, in terms of their good abilities being primarily front-loaded and then later levels being largely inferior to ducking out to something else (like Fighter, which generally all Barbarians qualify to MC into, or Rogue, which most Barbarians qualify to MC into). It takes a lot of commitment to stick with Barbarian past level 8, and even that assumes you want a tasty ASI - Barbarian 8 is dead except for the ASI, and Barbarian 7 is inferior to a 1-level dip in something else (it's strictly worse than a 1-dip into Twilight Cleric, if you have the Wisdom for it). But Barbarian 9-19 is usually a clownshow in terms of abilities acquired - the ASIs are good like they are for everyone and L10 and L14 might be great depending on your subclass, but other than that, it's a pretty hard sell sticking with it over multiclassing into not-Barbarian and getting back into reasonable scaling.
If you want to explore a new concept that a single class can’t cover why not simply build it at the level you want to explore? You want to see how a L3 fighter/ L2 sorcerer works build the CL 5 combo here in DDB and then play it and see how it works. Nothing wrong with that - give it a backstory that it started as a fighter then at L2 something happened that activated the latent magical abilities that you played with for a couple of levels till you were equally good and are now at level 5 working to combine both into your singular style - not a problem.
<snip>
I think that it is not as easy as building a character and poof there is the perfect game for you to play it in most of the time.
Agreed I was thinking about it the other way around - it is session zero and your discussing the new campaign, given what the DM tells you you come up with a multiclass design you would like to try and putting it together building the character for the game not trying to find the game for the the character.
granted I all to often just take an idea and toss it into a random campaign and see what happens, but then that IS the challenge - can some cockamame idea I’ve had be played (by me) successfully. Just/ nearly like real life where you don’t know the future and take whatever skills and abilities you have and find a way to make it work and get the job done.
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While I’m having fun reading various discussions about multiclass builds (and creating many myself) I wonder how many folks realize that what we are now calling multiclassing was originally called switch classing and had some very different rules. If WOtC really wanted to discourage modern multiclassing all they would have to do is go back to the old rules:
1. once you switch classes you can’t go back to the old class (unless you exceed it’s level in the new class)
2. while in the new class you cannot use any of the features of the old class (except the hit points and skills) until you exceed the level of the old class, if you do you forfeit the experience of the encounter (and for many DMs the adventure) where you reverted. Imagine trying all the 1-3 level dips folks use today under those rules. When you see some NPC like the forgotten realm’s elminster keep in mind that those levels of fighter, rogue and cleric were earned under those rules.
Multiclassing back then was something for elves, dwarves etc because they were maxed out in most classes around L15 so they were allowed to do 2 or 3 classes at the same time splitting the experience between them so they leveled much more slowly but stayed roughly on poor power wise. There are times when I almost wish those rules were still in effect when I see some of the power gaming multiclassing folks put together.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Multiclassing has never been as convenient as in 5E (so signs do not point to WotC wanting to discourage multiclassing at all), but by and large I really don't think it's overpowered. Warlocks are a tad exploitative, sure, but those are edge cases. Multiclass powergaming would be handled better by frontloading the classes a little bit less and especially by making the mid and higher level abilities of a number of classes more appealing.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
MC even with warlocks isn't a huge deal until like level 8+.
Thats the issue with most MC builds is that they take a while to come online compared to single class builds. Hexblade would generally be the exception....but even then you are giving up higher level spell progression.
I think for me the major issue is that levels 1-3 are generally seen as a session or so a piece vs. 4-10 tend to be the majority of the campaign.
This means that if you want your fancy MC build for optimization purposes chances are you won't even hit a point you feel like its worth it until very late into the campaign. Now if you are in a group that starts high and runs high (14+) then it becomes a lot more of an equal race.
It really depends. If you do expect to go all the way to lvl 20, in many cases multiclassing (certainly multiclassing beyond a quick 1-2 level dip) will be suboptimal. If you expect the campaign to end around lvls 10-12 though, I think there are several classes where picking up a new class rather than continuing past level 5-6-7 in your first class is easily equal. And if you stick with a single class for the first 5-6ish levels, or at most pick up just a single level in a side class early on, you're not delaying anything at all or only by a single level, which shouldn't feel like an issue if that one level's features are worth it.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Why would you want to discourage multiclassing? There are very few times where it gives characters more power than simply continuing in their main class.
Multiclassing allows for more roleplay opportunities, character progression in different directions and more fun all round.
The idea of "being powerful" is a mistake made by people who don't really understand how D&D works. You think you and your party are all super powered munchkin types dealing 25 damage on every melee swing at level 8? Well, here's news for them: the DM just doubled the hit points of every monster you'll fight from now on. For all their munchkin building, they haven't achieved anything. "Character Power" in D&D is only relevant to the specific campaign that you're playing in. At any moment, the DM can declare "The ground opens up and swallows you. You are dead." The level of ability of characters is just something the DM keeps track of in order to know how tough to make future challenges.
A lot of what I think I’m seeing is fairly snap judgments to add a class for a level to 3 for some sort of extra ability that they think makes them more powerful in their campaign - not realizing what they are giving up in their own class. The old rules forced you to think more deeply in some ways about your character development. (Is this Extra ability worth going for when I have to give up everything I have for a while to do it.
more later
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
One level dips do tend to make a character more powerful in immediate, quantifiable ways in my experience. Starting with one rogue level gives you more proficiencies than other classes, as well as Expertise. One level of bard, cleric or druid gives you access to healing spells. One level of wizard gives ritual casting, with the option of getting a familiar that way. Starting with artificer gives a wizard healing, armor proficiencies and proficiency in Con saves without reducing spell slots. Obviously there’s a cost involved, but all of these qualities can be objectively useful in a campaign. Taking more than one level in multiple classes becomes harder to quantify, but certainly when you want to optimise a given concept rather than a class archetype there are plenty cases where branching out across multiple classes is the way to go.
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Single level dips are generally pretty safe yeah and you can get a lot of value from them.
I guess thats the other point...MC dips vs. more "full" MC is a discussion in itself!
Pedantic point, but that was actually called dual classing, not split classing. And WotC was justified in dropping it because the rules for it were silly.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Your right it was called dual classing when you had 2 classes but what about when you had 3? 😳
The multiple classes at once with racial limits on all classes except rogues never really made much sense to me - don’t misunderstand I could and did follow their logic I just thought it was ridiculous. The rules for switch classing (in humans primarily) did make sense to me and it’s those rules I sometimes think might be useful. I remember back in school many many years ago failing my French class in grade 4 because I had taken Spanish 1 in grades 1-3 and they were just similar enough that every time the teacher would speak in French I would answer in Spanish. I never did really learn French. Same idea with class skills and abilities - you almost have to unlearn one set to learn and overlay the new one. A rogue’s style of fighting isn’t the same as a fighter’s if your trying to learn to stay in front of your foe to fight Mano a Mano the rogue’s habits of trying to flank the foe don’t work and have to be avoided. Once your equally skilled in both you can integrate then into your own unique fighting style. It won’t happen via WOtC , but I thought I might offer the idea up for homebrew use to help with role play vs power play. Imagine telling your favorite power gamer that yes he can change and become a warlock but that part of his pact is that he spend a full level acting as only a L1 warlock and has to give his armour and weapons for that level keeping only his skills and hit points. Puts a whole different spin on it.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
MC isn't just for optimization. Plenty of players use it to explore new concepts that a single class can't cover. Hamstringing them for 3+ levels because you've deemed all MC as powergaming seems like a great way to just discourage any use of MC to the point where you might as well ban it.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
This is a very important thing that I believe is not taken into consideration by a lot of people when they talk about character builds on these forums.
I had a player in the previous campaign I ran that had big plans for this great build he saw online. I told him that the campaign wasn't going to go to 20 and would likely only hit 14 or 15 max. He did it anyway. His build hit the point he had been waiting for at level 14 and just a few sessions later the campaign came to a close. He spent almost the entire campaign waiting and at times complaining that his character seemed weak compared everyone else's. I honestly don't even remember the combo but in the end it didn't matter anyway.
Super OP combos that require you to be level 14+ maybe fun to talk about, but are generally a waste of time to play out side of a One Shot.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
If you want to explore a new concept that a single class can’t cover why not simply build it at the level you want to explore? You want to see how a L3 fighter/ L2 sorcerer works build the CL 5 combo here in DDB and then play it and see how it works. Nothing wrong with that - give it a backstory that it started as a fighter then at L2 something happened that activated the latent magical abilities that you played with for a couple of levels till you were equally good and are now at level 5 working to combine both into your singular style - not a problem.
Further I actually do recognize that those rules have to be altered for 5e use as we are now capped at character L20 where in 1-3e you weren’t and when you switched classes you went back to being a L1 character as well. But being forced to spend at least 1 level working solely in the new class to “master” it’s basics and “unlearn the habits” of the old class should lead to some interesting role play if nothing else. Telling a L8 ranger that just made L9 that yes he can become a level 1 sorcerer but that he has to focus on being a sorcerer and not a ranger for 1 level before he can work as a ranger sorcerer and that any time he relapses into ranger mode the experience he earns goes toward becoming a L9 ranger rather than going towards being a L2 sorcerer. Given the level caps of 5e I wouldn’t require more than 1 level be spent that way.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I think that it is not as easy as building a character and poof there is the perfect game for you to play it in most of the time.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
So leveling works very different in 5e than the dual class days, at least from AD&D. Presently if I play an 8th level fighter and want to take a level in
BardRogue, I level to become a 9th level character and take the level if I'm in a multi class game. I believe the old school Dual classing would require me to take the XP to level one in (actually didn't you need to do a lot of other classes before becoming a Bard?*) Rogue. The level 1-3 progression is pretty quick in 5e, especially if this 8th level / 1st level apprenticing character is still in the company of a bunch of 9th levelers earning XP characters at that tier should be earning if adequately challenged. I think reverting to the old way of progression with he present XP tables would actually allow dual/multi/combos to develop the unsettling powers faster than the present design. Just a gut feeling.As far as the IRL analogies to why dual classing is problematic, I don't really like the classroom/school analogies. Outside the classroom people develop multiple language competencies all over the world with less formal education resources (English only raised Americans and folks with large monolingual geographies miss out on that, but military/work/education can bridge the gap through immersion), in the classroom folks who study comp lit or linguistics have to learn multiple languages and as a consequence of the genius of academic registrar planning that usually means they learn them asynchronously, yet they graduate and many go onto careers or pastimes where those linguistic facilities are worthwhile. Fighting is kinetic learning and cross training has known benefits on the disciplines being crossed, especially given force science, "tactical athletics" etc realization that an all around fitness is key to at least modern combat effectiveness. Combat skills are "perishable skillsets" but I think it's often assumed a MCer just doesn't have the same amount of available time as other characters (what that means "in game" varies from table to table).
One can argue for disciplined focus or one could argue for diverse experience, I'm a fan of the latter, but can understand folks wanting more strictly defined roles in their role playing. I don't think either need to be policed which I feel the old school dual method did intentionally back then and maybe unintentionally in the present offering.
While I'm sure characters level into something new out of impulse, I think there's a lot of players who do consider their leveling options (stick or branch) carefully. Honestly, every player I've had in the past two years of 5e, including some as young as 8 have made careful considerations of what's being lost and gained in the exchange. I think 5e character tables makes these considerations easier.
The old dual class method just seems retrospectively punitive to the player and (since we're archiving the original class until it's release) the party. Now multi-classing is completely in the DMs control and so players who do want to MC need to pass a sort of "plausibility" test with me. In other words there has to be in game opportunity for the character to grow the new class skill/power set beyond simply pressing a DDB button in the character builder. That's the only limit. If I was doing a "starting at high level" game, MC out of the box can be discussed, there's enough synergy out there for most concepts to work.
*That Bard point, in AD&D didn't the Bard appear as a class in a Player's Manual appendix, and basically to become a Bard you had to do time in multiple classes (I want to say Fighter, Rogue, Wizard)? I don't have those books on hand, but I remember reading those rules decades ago and thinking, "Well, no one's every going to do that around here."
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Reminds me of a 3.5 game I was in with someone who was bragging about how their wizard/monk multiclass combo was soooo powerful.
The game ended when our characters were 6th level, which for him meant two levels of wizard and four levels of monk, and because we were doing point buy and his character was so MAD all of his ability scores were really low since he could only dump stat charisma. His actual abilities in or out of combat were really weak, and he'd inevitably accuse the GM of "cheating" because he struggled to hit an enemy with a 16 AC.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
One of the bigger differences in the old way was different classes leveling at different rates. There were points where with the same amount of xp, you could be a level 3 thief, level 2 fighter or level 1 magic user.
That class based xp system with the current multiclass system might work to clamp down on some things, like that hexblade warlock 1-level dip for cha-based classes, if you just require warlocks to get more xp, but it would be a mess to track, and probably not worth the trouble. (I’m ok with the current system, just trying to brainstorm a bit for the op)
As an aside, I’d always assumed the level caps for demi humans were to balance out the longer life spans. Otherwise why wouldn’t an elf magic user have time to just grind up to some obscene level.
The long ago version of the Bard, as I remember it, took Fighter, Thief, and Druid. I don't remember how many levels of each, but you ended up at a fair high level. People wanted to play as Bards without having to Multi-Class, and sure enough, take a look at what we have now. :-)
<Insert clever signature here>
How tempting it is to multiclass also depends on your core class, assuming you have one - different classes have radically different scaling (and subclasses have different scaling from each other as well!). For example, if your campaign is going to spend any amount of time at level 20, a pure Druid has nearly infinite hit points and a pure Zealot Barbarian has actually infinite hit points all day. Giving that up is a big deal, but you do have to get there, slogging through levels which may have scaling you dislike. Barbarians probably have the worst scaling of the core classes, in terms of their good abilities being primarily front-loaded and then later levels being largely inferior to ducking out to something else (like Fighter, which generally all Barbarians qualify to MC into, or Rogue, which most Barbarians qualify to MC into). It takes a lot of commitment to stick with Barbarian past level 8, and even that assumes you want a tasty ASI - Barbarian 8 is dead except for the ASI, and Barbarian 7 is inferior to a 1-level dip in something else (it's strictly worse than a 1-dip into Twilight Cleric, if you have the Wisdom for it). But Barbarian 9-19 is usually a clownshow in terms of abilities acquired - the ASIs are good like they are for everyone and L10 and L14 might be great depending on your subclass, but other than that, it's a pretty hard sell sticking with it over multiclassing into not-Barbarian and getting back into reasonable scaling.
Agreed I was thinking about it the other way around - it is session zero and your discussing the new campaign, given what the DM tells you you come up with a multiclass design you would like to try and putting it together building the character for the game not trying to find the game for the the character.
granted I all to often just take an idea and toss it into a random campaign and see what happens, but then that IS the challenge - can some cockamame idea I’ve had be played (by me) successfully. Just/ nearly like real life where you don’t know the future and take whatever skills and abilities you have and find a way to make it work and get the job done.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.