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.
Time magic used to be more common (and usually terribly wonky) and some editions did have age modifiers, but by and large time and age are not really a concern in D&D - and if they are, there’s almost certainly magic available to render heroes ageless or rejuvenate them or whatever.
The theoretical justification behind short lived humans achieving as much as near-immortal elves is that humans are ambitious and long lived races are not because they don’t see time as a precious commodity. It’s a bit silly (especially since most humanoids have always felt a bit like dressed-up humans to me anyway, this near-immortality just gets paid some lip service and that’s it), but there you have it.
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I start out with a basic idea for what I want to play, then let the character develop from there. I don't normally start out as a multiclass (We tend to start at level 2 or 3 most of the time) but I have multi-classed characters when it makes sense for the character to turn down a new path or when a single class just doesn't work for the concept.
For example:
My current character (my Avatar) started out life as a Rogue and because we allow everyone to take a Feat at level 1, I gave her Telekinetic as it made sense for her backstory and I planned to go Soulknife. Well at level 4 I took a level in Aberrant Mind Sorcerer as a way to show her Psionic abilities growing. She no longer just pushed people or moved small objects, now her Telekinetic abilities are stronger and allows her to manipulate the environment in more impactful ways (Mold Earth, Shape Water, and Control Flames) and she could now move those small objects at a greater distance (Mage Hand). She also gained a limited ability to defend herself with a telekinetic barrier (Shield) and whisper into the minds or her enemies and speak to her allies (Dissonant Whispers and Telepathic Speech). All of these things made sense for the character because the class selection is really just a backdrop for the character and not the full show. She isn't a Rogue because she steals things, but because the Psionic abilities of Soulknife fit the idea of the better than Psi Warrior did and Aberrant Mind allowed me to expand her already existing Psionic abilities in a natural way (Not Magical Gifts).
Some times it just isn't about the class combo itself, but the fact that one class doesn't cover all aspects of a character in the right way.
edit: If there were a proper Psion class, multi-classing might not have been necessary to begin with, but that is another topic of discussion.
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."
Hello again midnight. Yes I am well aware that 5e is not 1e or 3.xe especially in multiclass leveling. Let’s take things one paragraph at a time. First I’m not really sure exactly what I’m suggesting so yes the goalposts are going to move some as I think over folks replies - sorry but at least you have some warning. I don’t like the way you just magically get a whole new set of skills and abilities - I’ve seen too many times in my own life that it doesn’t really work that way so I would love to see (or maybe workout for my own hombrew) a way to fit that training into the present leveling process.(obviously it’s going to be homebrew but maybe when we are done it will be something others will try. I see it (again based on my on life to a large extent) not as either focused discipline OR diverse experience but rather focused discipline to achieve successful diverse experience. Yes L1-3 go very fast in 5e so maybe the rules need to be different for different tiers. In tier 1 I can see actually having to do 1 level just as the new class to sort out (in character) how to do the new class and how it can integrate into the old (or the other way around). Since the experience at L5 is @1.5 times the experience of L4 and more than 12 times the experience needed for L1 I can see splitting the experience so you have to earn say 1/5 of the level’s experience working solely in the new class and the rest in the old class. (Exact ratio open for discussion).
I am well aware of the many different ways and speeds we learn at ( you can’t be a teacher for 30+ years and not learn about and how to work with them) and the benefits of cross training. However, while yes you can learn multiple things at once (multitasking) you always miss bits and pieces. This is where the focused discipline at the start is so important. Immersion learning is great for getting to speak so folks understand you, but you miss the actual rules that when followed allow you to express your self fully and completely (the grammar of a language shows the logical patterns of thought in the language). Cross training is great - once you know what your doing and why in each discipline so you can fit them together to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. But when you don’t really know what your doing you are more likely to injure yourself than help yourself. That is part of why I am raising this topic for discussion.
About the early bard - you may well be right but I don’t have those books available anymore either so I’ll leave that for an archivist that does.
the racial limits were definitively punitive and I have no interest in bringing them back. Subclasses were very different - ranger and paladins were fighter subclasses, Druid was a cleric subclass. Then they added monks and psionics and bards and we started down the road to 5e. Yes the DM should maintain a “plausibility” for what players want to mix together and why and how they get to it in game. The ideas here are really part of that plausibility in the how do an.
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!
Which your welcome to use this thread to explore as well
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.
Time magic used to be more common (and usually terribly wonky) and some editions did have age modifiers, but by and large time and age are not really a concern in D&D - and if they are, there’s almost certainly magic available to render heroes ageless or rejuvenate them or whatever.
The theoretical justification behind short lived humans achieving as much as near-immortal elves is that humans are ambitious and long lived races are not because they don’t see time as a precious commodity. It’s a bit silly (especially since most humanoids have always felt a bit like dressed-up humans to me anyway, this near-immortality just gets paid some lip service and that’s it), but there you have it.
I think the main purpose was to make humans more attractive as they were the only class that was the unlimited. Turns out folks soon realized that most games didn’t go past L15 and racial limits didn’t rally matter so they eventually disappeared.
I start out with a basic idea for what I want to play, then let the character develop from there. I don't normally start out as a multiclass (We tend to start at level 2 or 3 most of the time) but I have multi-classed characters when it makes sense for the character to turn down a new path or when a single class just doesn't work for the concept.
For example:
My current character (my Avatar) started out life as a Rogue and because we allow everyone to take a Feat at level 1, I gave her Telekinetic as it made sense for her backstory and I planned to go Soulknife. Well at level 4 I took a level in Aberrant Mind Sorcerer as a way to show her Psionic abilities growing. She no longer just pushed people or moved small objects, now her Telekinetic abilities are stronger and allows her to manipulate the environment in more impactful ways (Mold Earth, Shape Water, and Control Flames) and she could now move those small objects at a greater distance (Mage Hand). She also gained a limited ability to defend herself with a telekinetic barrier (Shield) and whisper into the minds or her enemies and speak to her allies (Dissonant Whispers and Telepathic Speech). All of these things made sense for the character because the class selection is really just a backdrop for the character and not the full show. She isn't a Rogue because she steals things, but because the Psionic abilities of Soulknife fit the idea of the better than Psi Warrior did and Aberrant Mind allowed me to expand her already existing Psionic abilities in a natural way (Not Magical Gifts).
Some times it just isn't about the class combo itself, but the fact that one class doesn't cover all aspects of a character in the right way.
edit: If there were a proper Psion class, multi-classing might not have been necessary to begin with, but that is another topic of discussion.
Now that is the way to grow a character 😁👍
please don’t start me on psionics and wanting a solid psion class for 5e
Which brings me to my personal anecdote about my current character. I was a veteran roleplayer, but still pretty new to D&D. My DM had tried to run a game of 3.5, but it died after one session so when I recycled the character for his 5Ed game, I still thought of him as my first D&D character. I love bards and wanted to play a gish, someone who uses magic to enhance their swordplay rather than a spellcaster who occasionally swings a sword, so I chose to play a College of Swords Bard. I requested that we start at level 3 because I wanted everyone to have some sort of signature style inherent in their gameplay and I saw the subclasses as adding that, just my personal view. After half a dozen sessions and hitting level 4 I finally had gained enough knowledge about 5Ed to stop pulling out the books for basic stuff like attack rolls and spells and could think more critically about my gaming experience. I looked ahead and realized a bit glumly that Bards are full spellcasters and that I wasn't really going to be getting much better at swinging a sword than I already was, while my spells would far outstrip and outshine my martial skills. I could keep playing the same way I had been and start to look like a low level minion compared to my partymates, or I could switch my tactics and completely go against the playstyle that I wanted to play. Neither of these seemed fun for me, so I started looking around for options. My actually DM let me completely rebuild my character in another class for one session to try it out and I really enjoyed playing as a level 4 Swashbuckler Rogue, but I did miss all of the social utility that I had become accustomed to as a Bard, which was the other half of the playstyle I wanted, a charming gish. So after awhile I came up with a plan to have my cake and eat it, too.
I had always been a fan of Eilistraee and her sword dancers and wanted that grace to be a part of this character's gish style, so I reverted my character back to the 4th level Swords Bard and when I hit level 5 I took 1 level of Hexblade, reskinned as Eilistraee's Moonblade. Now my Dex and Cha were even at this time so there was no sudden disparity in sword skill to smooth over. We had also just escaped from a foray into the Underdark. The session was unavoidably cut short due to a scheduling issue and my DM was forced to handwave and teleport us back to Waterdeep and I asked him if it was okay to say that the sound of mysterious hunting horns led us back to the surface, which allowed me to write a dream sequence where my bard met Eilistraee and received her blessing. This allowed me to pick up Shield as well as proficiency with shields, which I reskinned as a cloak wrapped around an arm so I could be a spanish style rapier and cloak fencer. Booming Blade rounded out my magical melee skill set.
Then I started taking levels of Rogue, becoming a Swashbuckler at level 8, and getting my second ASI at level 9, which I put into Charisma. This means I'm using Charisma for melee, for spellcasting, and as an initiative boost, which allows me to grow as a swordsman and a spellslinger at the same time. Plotting out my levels ahead of time I intended to end roughly at Swords 6/ Hexblade 3/ Swashbuckler 11 because that maintains a character who is mainly a charming swordsman (I love Panache and the idea of just being that silver tongued that I can do that without a spell) but also has enough magic tricks up his sleeve to make that swordplay flashier. I wouldn't have any spells higher than 3rd level, which I viewed as a benefit since I mostly wanted spells that were utility and enhancement and not spells that were huge game changers in and of themselves, that didn't fit the character concept I wanted. At level 9 (Swords 4/Swashbuckler 4/Hexblade 1) any level I took would result in meaningful growth, which allowed me to still be responsive to the plot in how I progress in my plan. I just hit level 10 in my game, for example, and we're currently in a plot arc that has open terrain and military leanings so I took that level in Bard, allowing me to better support my Fighter partymate in his quest to take over as warlord of the local orc horde.
In general I felt good playing this character through most of the levels and only felt a little bad with it at level 8, when I was a level behind for an ASI. Once I hit level 9, it was all good and my character came together as the gish that I wanted, which was definitely a half caster and not a full caster.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
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.
It was more the fact that non-human characters were generally more powerful than human characters thanks to things like Infravision, racial ability score modifiers, and other racial abilities. A dwarf fighter or a halfling thief in 2nd Edition rules was strictly better than a human of either class at the same level: the dwarf had more HP, better saves vs spells and poison, infravision, an AC bonus to attacks from giants and giantkin, and an attack bonus against orcs and gobliniods. Racial caps on levels were allegedly a way to fix this but they didn't actually work: either you didn't hit the cap (in which case the non-human character was better) or you did (in which case the non-human character quickly stopped being useful).
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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.
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.
Time magic used to be more common (and usually terribly wonky) and some editions did have age modifiers, but by and large time and age are not really a concern in D&D - and if they are, there’s almost certainly magic available to render heroes ageless or rejuvenate them or whatever.
The theoretical justification behind short lived humans achieving as much as near-immortal elves is that humans are ambitious and long lived races are not because they don’t see time as a precious commodity. It’s a bit silly (especially since most humanoids have always felt a bit like dressed-up humans to me anyway, this near-immortality just gets paid some lip service and that’s it), but there you have it.
I think the main purpose was to make humans more attractive as they were the only class that was the unlimited. Turns out folks soon realized that most games didn’t go past L15 and racial limits didn’t rally matter so they eventually disappeared.
They disappeared because once the game updated to 3.0, Wizards of the Coast realized that racial level caps didn't work and changed things to give humans their own racial bonuses (extra skill points and a bonus feat, in this case). But then they tried to "fix" multiclassing by having the system of you taking an XP penalty if your classes were ever two or more levels apart from each other, unless one of them was your favored class, in which case it didn't count. Which in practice I don't actually believe anyone bothered following those rules at all.
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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.
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.
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.
There is nothing wrong with power gaming.
BTDT There are 2 aspects to power gaming - power building and power playing. I like power playing more than power building I’m having fun taking plain or crazy builds and seeing if I can play them to their maximum. That is power playing, trying to design “the most powerful player” is power designing. I would like to see the back stories explaining why these power builds happen. And, as some folks have pointed out many times the power builds look great all worked out but don’t play out as well es expected and other builds that don’t look great but played right turn out to be effective and powerful builds.
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. :-)
In 2e, Bard was a Rogue subclass, the other was Thief.
I suppose I should have specified that I was talking about the first edition of AD&D. I only have vague memories of the evolution of the various classes.
I suppose I should have specified that I was talking about the first edition of AD&D. I only have vague memories of the evolution of the various classes.
Oh, I remembered you were a 1e player. That’s why I was letting you know/reminding you what happened next. By 3e they were their own class. (I also skipped 4e. 🤷♂️)
I suppose I should have specified that I was talking about the first edition of AD&D. I only have vague memories of the evolution of the various classes.
Oh, I remembered you were a 1e player. That’s why I was letting you know/reminding you what happened next. By 3e they were their own class. (I also skipped 4e. 🤷♂️)
I think I remember Bard anger at 2e since as a Rogue subclass, it lost a lot capabilities IIRC, like not even a spell caster?
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I suppose I should have specified that I was talking about the first edition of AD&D. I only have vague memories of the evolution of the various classes.
Oh, I remembered you were a 1e player. That’s why I was letting you know/reminding you what happened next. By 3e they were their own class. (I also skipped 4e. 🤷♂️)
I think I remember Bard anger at 2e since as a Rogue subclass, it lost a lot capabilities IIRC, like not even a spell caster?
Bards could cast spells in 2E, using the wizard list, but they maxed out as 6th level spells. They had a lot of other limitations, though.
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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.
I suspect that a number of folks think I’m against multiclassing - I’m not, I am against multiclassing just to build a super powerful character. Here is the story of one of my multiclass characters so far (Mendartis was created as a level 2 character: level 1 ranger, level 1 sorcerer)
Mendartis was trained as a ranger and started in his home forest hunting and trying to spot monsters and humanoids that might attack his village. After several months he made some mistakes and found himself facing 4 Orcs without any help. He was able to cut down 2 of them but the other 2 knocked him down and were about to kill him when he shouted in fear and a huge burst of sound erupted smashing the Orcs and lifting them ten feet in the air only to fall back to the ground away from him. Not being sure of what was happening he wanted to scare them away and pointed his finger at the first to start rising and yelled “Burn”. Much to his (and the orc’s) surprise a bolt of fire flew from his hand at the closest one burning him to death. Looking at the other he saw he was climbing to his feet and told him “ freeze” when a blue-white beam of light streaked from his hand hitting the last orc and freezing him death. Unsure of what was happening he took off for his village and spoke to the Elder who pointed out that tiny greenish scales now seemed to lie in his skin and told him that his draconic heritage appeared to have come to the fore and that was not only a ranger but a sorcerer and sent him to be trained in controlling that power by the village sorcerer. Once he had learned what his abilities were and how to control them his wanderlust drove him to leave heading out to see the world and what he could do in it. He acted as a caravan guard and scout, that brought him to Waterdeep where he became involved in countering a Xanthar guild plot to introduce a plague and take slaves from Waterdeep. One of the people the aided was the/a current RatKing of Waterdeep. After several months in the city he tired of it pass g on the ratking status to a different more urban oriented ranger. In doing this he found he also lost the skills and experience that went with the title (he went back to level 3 (Ranger 2/sorcerer 1) from reaching level 4). He left the city and while resting at a reputedly Fey pool he found himself transported to a different world. Here he took a job from a wealthy family that put together a team of adventurers to try to solve some problems with “barbarians” in an area they had interests in. The barbarians turned out to be a pack of goblins that had driven folks out of a brewery and were terrorizing local communities demanding food and beer (brewed in the brewery they now inhabited). When confronted by a party of these goblins in the town bar he used his thunder wave spell to blast them against the back wall killing them. The next day they headed to the brewery where they took out the rest of the pack of goblins there along with their leader. He recovered a wand and a great axe as well as scroll of Eldritch flame. The wand proved to be a magical focus and the great axe was nice but not magical. While resting following this he again found himself transported to a new world. There he joined a small group of adventurers hired by one of the nations of the new world to find and recover magic items for the nation to examine. On the way to the site they had to fight of a band of goblins that tried to ambush them as well as scatter a school of large fish that nearly capsized the vessel they were traveling on. In this case he made repeated use of his frost cantrip to chill the waters in front of the boat driving the fish to veer around the boat rather than directly under it. When they reached the site they discovered a rival group was there ahead of them. He was able to negotiate a truce where each took half the town to explore and loot. However, that evening the other party tried to burn them out of the house they were in and take whatever they had found. In the ensuing battle they ( the 2 of them present) killed 4 of the five members of the other band taking the last prisoner. He told them what and where the treasures they had found were and warned them to leave the ruined village right away as midnite was fast approaching and sea ghouls would come and attack anyone living. They took their prisoner to a spot they had found about a mile away where they turned out to be safe from the sea ghouls. In the morning they found the bodies dragged into the sea but the goods were still where they were supposed to be. After taking the combined treasures and splitting them between the two party members they returned to the spot where the vessel had dropped the. Off and waited for the vessel to pick them up. While waiting he again found himself transported to a new world and is currently resting by a Fey pool in a forest. He has found that has developed a new spell he is testing. ( he has again reached character level 4 and advanced as a level 2 sorcerer this time.)
You will notice that it points out time to master the sorcerous abilities after they manifested - this is the kind of thing that the old rules (suitably modified) put not a character’s story. They don’t just appear full blown and fully understood and mastered. He has the elven accuracy and wood elf magic racial feats (wisdom and shillelagh) then took the Druidic warrior fighting style (magic stone, primal savagery) so he typically shoots arrows at long range, throws stones at medium range and fights unarmored (AC 16) with his staff or claws at melee range. At this point the world jumping is going to lead him to become a Fey wanderer at R3 next go round an I suspect I will do R3-5 to get the ASI and the second attack and then go go back to get S3- 6 or maybe 8 then back to ranger to finish out as a R12/S8 if he ever gets that far.
Time magic used to be more common (and usually terribly wonky) and some editions did have age modifiers, but by and large time and age are not really a concern in D&D - and if they are, there’s almost certainly magic available to render heroes ageless or rejuvenate them or whatever.
The theoretical justification behind short lived humans achieving as much as near-immortal elves is that humans are ambitious and long lived races are not because they don’t see time as a precious commodity. It’s a bit silly (especially since most humanoids have always felt a bit like dressed-up humans to me anyway, this near-immortality just gets paid some lip service and that’s it), but there you have it.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I start out with a basic idea for what I want to play, then let the character develop from there. I don't normally start out as a multiclass (We tend to start at level 2 or 3 most of the time) but I have multi-classed characters when it makes sense for the character to turn down a new path or when a single class just doesn't work for the concept.
For example:
My current character (my Avatar) started out life as a Rogue and because we allow everyone to take a Feat at level 1, I gave her Telekinetic as it made sense for her backstory and I planned to go Soulknife. Well at level 4 I took a level in Aberrant Mind Sorcerer as a way to show her Psionic abilities growing. She no longer just pushed people or moved small objects, now her Telekinetic abilities are stronger and allows her to manipulate the environment in more impactful ways (Mold Earth, Shape Water, and Control Flames) and she could now move those small objects at a greater distance (Mage Hand). She also gained a limited ability to defend herself with a telekinetic barrier (Shield) and whisper into the minds or her enemies and speak to her allies (Dissonant Whispers and Telepathic Speech). All of these things made sense for the character because the class selection is really just a backdrop for the character and not the full show. She isn't a Rogue because she steals things, but because the Psionic abilities of Soulknife fit the idea of the better than Psi Warrior did and Aberrant Mind allowed me to expand her already existing Psionic abilities in a natural way (Not Magical Gifts).
Some times it just isn't about the class combo itself, but the fact that one class doesn't cover all aspects of a character in the right way.
edit: If there were a proper Psion class, multi-classing might not have been necessary to begin with, but that is another topic of discussion.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Hello again midnight. Yes I am well aware that 5e is not 1e or 3.xe especially in multiclass leveling. Let’s take things one paragraph at a time. First I’m not really sure exactly what I’m suggesting so yes the goalposts are going to move some as I think over folks replies - sorry but at least you have some warning. I don’t like the way you just magically get a whole new set of skills and abilities - I’ve seen too many times in my own life that it doesn’t really work that way so I would love to see (or maybe workout for my own hombrew) a way to fit that training into the present leveling process.(obviously it’s going to be homebrew but maybe when we are done it will be something others will try. I see it (again based on my on life to a large extent) not as either focused discipline OR diverse experience but rather focused discipline to achieve successful diverse experience. Yes L1-3 go very fast in 5e so maybe the rules need to be different for different tiers. In tier 1 I can see actually having to do 1 level just as the new class to sort out (in character) how to do the new class and how it can integrate into the old (or the other way around). Since the experience at L5 is @1.5 times the experience of L4 and more than 12 times the experience needed for L1 I can see splitting the experience so you have to earn say 1/5 of the level’s experience working solely in the new class and the rest in the old class. (Exact ratio open for discussion).
I am well aware of the many different ways and speeds we learn at ( you can’t be a teacher for 30+ years and not learn about and how to work with them) and the benefits of cross training. However, while yes you can learn multiple things at once (multitasking) you always miss bits and pieces. This is where the focused discipline at the start is so important. Immersion learning is great for getting to speak so folks understand you, but you miss the actual rules that when followed allow you to express your self fully and completely (the grammar of a language shows the logical patterns of thought in the language). Cross training is great - once you know what your doing and why in each discipline so you can fit them together to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. But when you don’t really know what your doing you are more likely to injure yourself than help yourself. That is part of why I am raising this topic for discussion.
About the early bard - you may well be right but I don’t have those books available anymore either so I’ll leave that for an archivist that does.
the racial limits were definitively punitive and I have no interest in bringing them back. Subclasses were very different - ranger and paladins were fighter subclasses, Druid was a cleric subclass. Then they added monks and psionics and bards and we started down the road to 5e. Yes the DM should maintain a “plausibility” for what players want to mix together and why and how they get to it in game. The ideas here are really part of that plausibility in the how do an.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Which your welcome to use this thread to explore as well
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I think the main purpose was to make humans more attractive as they were the only class that was the unlimited. Turns out folks soon realized that most games didn’t go past L15 and racial limits didn’t rally matter so they eventually disappeared.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Now that is the way to grow a character 😁👍
please don’t start me on psionics and wanting a solid psion class for 5e
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
A thank you to all the posters here, I was scared this would be a dead thread but we are almost done with page 2 and seem to be going strong.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I can share my experience with multiclassing.
In general I felt good playing this character through most of the levels and only felt a little bad with it at level 8, when I was a level behind for an ASI. Once I hit level 9, it was all good and my character came together as the gish that I wanted, which was definitely a half caster and not a full caster.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
It was more the fact that non-human characters were generally more powerful than human characters thanks to things like Infravision, racial ability score modifiers, and other racial abilities. A dwarf fighter or a halfling thief in 2nd Edition rules was strictly better than a human of either class at the same level: the dwarf had more HP, better saves vs spells and poison, infravision, an AC bonus to attacks from giants and giantkin, and an attack bonus against orcs and gobliniods. Racial caps on levels were allegedly a way to fix this but they didn't actually work: either you didn't hit the cap (in which case the non-human character was better) or you did (in which case the non-human character quickly stopped being useful).
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.
They disappeared because once the game updated to 3.0, Wizards of the Coast realized that racial level caps didn't work and changed things to give humans their own racial bonuses (extra skill points and a bonus feat, in this case). But then they tried to "fix" multiclassing by having the system of you taking an XP penalty if your classes were ever two or more levels apart from each other, unless one of them was your favored class, in which case it didn't count. Which in practice I don't actually believe anyone bothered following those rules at all.
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.
There is nothing wrong with power gaming.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
BTDT There are 2 aspects to power gaming - power building and power playing. I like power playing more than power building I’m having fun taking plain or crazy builds and seeing if I can play them to their maximum. That is power playing, trying to design “the most powerful player” is power designing. I would like to see the back stories explaining why these power builds happen. And, as some folks have pointed out many times the power builds look great all worked out but don’t play out as well es expected and other builds that don’t look great but played right turn out to be effective and powerful builds.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
In 2e, Bard was a Rogue subclass, the other was Thief.
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I suppose I should have specified that I was talking about the first edition of AD&D. I only have vague memories of the evolution of the various classes.
<Insert clever signature here>
Oh, I remembered you were a 1e player. That’s why I was letting you know/reminding you what happened next. By 3e they were their own class. (I also skipped 4e. 🤷♂️)
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I think I remember Bard anger at 2e since as a Rogue subclass, it lost a lot capabilities IIRC, like not even a spell caster?
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Lyman, thank you for the history of racial limits 😁 now does anyone have the bard history so we can move past that?
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Bards could cast spells in 2E, using the wizard list, but they maxed out as 6th level spells. They had a lot of other limitations, though.
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.
I suspect that a number of folks think I’m against multiclassing - I’m not, I am against multiclassing just to build a super powerful character. Here is the story of one of my multiclass characters so far (Mendartis was created as a level 2 character: level 1 ranger, level 1 sorcerer)
Mendartis was trained as a ranger and started in his home forest hunting and trying to spot monsters and humanoids that might attack his village. After several months he made some mistakes and found himself facing 4 Orcs without any help. He was able to cut down 2 of them but the other 2 knocked him down and were about to kill him when he shouted in fear and a huge burst of sound erupted smashing the Orcs and lifting them ten feet in the air only to fall back to the ground away from him. Not being sure of what was happening he wanted to scare them away and pointed his finger at the first to start rising and yelled “Burn”. Much to his (and the orc’s) surprise a bolt of fire flew from his hand at the closest one burning him to death. Looking at the other he saw he was climbing to his feet and told him “ freeze” when a blue-white beam of light streaked from his hand hitting the last orc and freezing him death. Unsure of what was happening he took off for his village and spoke to the Elder who pointed out that tiny greenish scales now seemed to lie in his skin and told him that his draconic heritage appeared to have come to the fore and that was not only a ranger but a sorcerer and sent him to be trained in controlling that power by the village sorcerer. Once he had learned what his abilities were and how to control them his wanderlust drove him to leave heading out to see the world and what he could do in it. He acted as a caravan guard and scout, that brought him to Waterdeep where he became involved in countering a Xanthar guild plot to introduce a plague and take slaves from Waterdeep. One of the people the aided was the/a current RatKing of Waterdeep. After several months in the city he tired of it pass g on the ratking status to a different more urban oriented ranger. In doing this he found he also lost the skills and experience that went with the title (he went back to level 3 (Ranger 2/sorcerer 1) from reaching level 4). He left the city and while resting at a reputedly Fey pool he found himself transported to a different world. Here he took a job from a wealthy family that put together a team of adventurers to try to solve some problems with “barbarians” in an area they had interests in. The barbarians turned out to be a pack of goblins that had driven folks out of a brewery and were terrorizing local communities demanding food and beer (brewed in the brewery they now inhabited). When confronted by a party of these goblins in the town bar he used his thunder wave spell to blast them against the back wall killing them. The next day they headed to the brewery where they took out the rest of the pack of goblins there along with their leader. He recovered a wand and a great axe as well as scroll of Eldritch flame. The wand proved to be a magical focus and the great axe was nice but not magical. While resting following this he again found himself transported to a new world. There he joined a small group of adventurers hired by one of the nations of the new world to find and recover magic items for the nation to examine. On the way to the site they had to fight of a band of goblins that tried to ambush them as well as scatter a school of large fish that nearly capsized the vessel they were traveling on. In this case he made repeated use of his frost cantrip to chill the waters in front of the boat driving the fish to veer around the boat rather than directly under it. When they reached the site they discovered a rival group was there ahead of them. He was able to negotiate a truce where each took half the town to explore and loot. However, that evening the other party tried to burn them out of the house they were in and take whatever they had found. In the ensuing battle they ( the 2 of them present) killed 4 of the five members of the other band taking the last prisoner. He told them what and where the treasures they had found were and warned them to leave the ruined village right away as midnite was fast approaching and sea ghouls would come and attack anyone living. They took their prisoner to a spot they had found about a mile away where they turned out to be safe from the sea ghouls. In the morning they found the bodies dragged into the sea but the goods were still where they were supposed to be. After taking the combined treasures and splitting them between the two party members they returned to the spot where the vessel had dropped the. Off and waited for the vessel to pick them up. While waiting he again found himself transported to a new world and is currently resting by a Fey pool in a forest. He has found that has developed a new spell he is testing. ( he has again reached character level 4 and advanced as a level 2 sorcerer this time.)
You will notice that it points out time to master the sorcerous abilities after they manifested - this is the kind of thing that the old rules (suitably modified) put not a character’s story. They don’t just appear full blown and fully understood and mastered. He has the elven accuracy and wood elf magic racial feats (wisdom and shillelagh) then took the Druidic warrior fighting style (magic stone, primal savagery) so he typically shoots arrows at long range, throws stones at medium range and fights unarmored (AC 16) with his staff or claws at melee range. At this point the world jumping is going to lead him to become a Fey wanderer at R3 next go round an I suspect I will do R3-5 to get the ASI and the second attack and then go go back to get S3- 6 or maybe 8 then back to ranger to finish out as a R12/S8 if he ever gets that far.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
But as long as they also have a good story reason for it, it's okay if they are also powerfully multiclassed?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!