So I'm still new to DMing and a thought crossed my mind. How can deal with players who have an annoying multiclassing character? Currently they arent multiclassing, but just wanting to know what to watch out for.
Whether the classes synergize or not does not matter, so long as it's difficult to build a challenging encounter around.
As a rule of thumb, multiclassing usually means the character gets "weaker" but at the same time more versatile, so you shouldn't have trouble creating challenging encounters.
That is especially true in the lower levels. A lot of multiclass builds only "come online" somewhere between level 7 and 10.
The most important thing imho is that you actually do the math, if you believe someone is weak or strong.
My entire group believes my Artificer is insanely strong, because she has a repeating crossbow... doing the math she really isn't. I don't hit harder or more often than the other characters, just the fluff how I describe her sounds overpowered.
And the added versatility from multiclassing means that such characters have more options to contribute to the party. More options, not stronger ones, though. Still that might seem like they are somewhat imbalanced because they will more often find a way to help and therefore be in the spotlight. If that happens, and it annoys the other players, talk to the multiclassing player and ask them to help the specialists instead of trying to replace them.
My frustration with multiclassing is less mechanical and more that it's not narratively earned "aaand my rogue's just gonna get religion and go be a cleric now." Keep in mind that multiclassing is an optional rule, if you're worried about problems you can choose not to use it in your game.
That said, grappling builds can be annoying and often use multiclassing, but it's not OP and can be a lot of fun in my opinion.
As a rule of thumb, multiclassing usually means the character gets "weaker" but at the same time more versatile, so you shouldn't have trouble creating challenging encounters.
That is especially true in the lower levels. A lot of multiclass builds only "come online" somewhere between level 7 and 10.
The most important thing imho is that you actually do the math, if you believe someone is weak or strong.
My entire group believes my Artificer is insanely strong, because she has a repeating crossbow... doing the math she really isn't. I don't hit harder or more often than the other characters, just the fluff how I describe her sounds overpowered.
And the added versatility from multiclassing means that such characters have more options to contribute to the party. More options, not stronger ones, though. Still that might seem like they are somewhat imbalanced because they will more often find a way to help and therefore be in the spotlight. If that happens, and it annoys the other players, talk to the multiclassing player and ask them to help the specialists instead of trying to replace them.
I agree with Naivara... multiclassing needs to be supported with story. In my current campaign, several PCs ended up multiclassing against their will when a demon overpromised things... they began to take on warlock levels they did not even want.
My character spent his early life in a monastery training to be a monk, but then sh*t happened. His alignment switched from LG to CG and became instead a rogue assassin in order to set things right - classic "death wish" trope. Years later, a monk from his monastery makes a brief appearance in story and it prompts him to return to his origins, taking on monk levels and slowly shifting his alignment back towards LG. I know many say that Monk/Rogue is not an effective multi-class solution... but I have no desire for "effective" ... I am after story.
As DM, I would require a compelling story-based idea in order to allow any multiclass to go forward. If the player is just after a cool new feat... maybe you can find alternate ways to provide that - like through subclass advancements (or even custom homebrew subclasses).
You don't have to "multiclass" if you allow subclass customization. I'm building another character right now that is also essentially a monk. I thought about multiclassing with either ranger or druid because I wanted the characters story to be very "nature" aligned - a protector of the wild - traits common to rangers and druids but never considered to apply to the monk class. I am building a background called Forest Temple and a subclass Monastic Tradition called "Natures Warden" that gives the monk the story-flavor of a Ranger along with some of it's feats without ever taking on a single level of the Ranger class.
I'm a new DM with a new player party other than one guy I had to kick out. I had to limit multiclassing to only narrative reasons such as my fighter was an Aasimar but not aware of it but when he was told of his ancestry by a god he became a paladin, I also limit it to only one multiclass because for new players(myself included) this gets confusing fast.
Sorlocks, coffeelocks for me. I had someone who was a power gamer and I straight up told them at session 0 that that kind of build was a big no.
Whoa. What was this issue with this particular multiclass build?
If done right, a really cheesy way to get near infinite spell slots in RAW.
Dang. That sounds broken. Sounds almost like this other build I found out just an hour ago. The Assassin Rogue/Berserk Barbarian build, if you can make the build just right, you'll definitely be a monster on the battlefield. Sneak attack with rage, and relentlessly attack, and evasion and uncanny dodge.
Sorlocks, coffeelocks for me. I had someone who was a power gamer and I straight up told them at session 0 that that kind of build was a big no.
Whoa. What was this issue with this particular multiclass build?
If done right, a really cheesy way to get near infinite spell slots in RAW.
Dang. That sounds broken. Sounds almost like this other build I found out just an hour ago. The Assassin Rogue/Berserk Barbarian build, if you can make the build just right, you'll definitely be a monster on the battlefield. Sneak attack with rage, and relentlessly attack, and evasion and uncanny dodge.
It is broken... which is why Xanathar's shut the combination down:
Basically if you try to exceed your intended spell slots per day you will gain exhaustion, which will quickly render you useless and eventually after ~7-8 days kill you, depending on your constitution. :-)
Yep. Rage and then wild shape. The rage carries over. You basically double the hp pools of the wild shapes.
say your a level 2 druid level 2 barbarian that wild shapes into a giant hyena. That’s 45 hp and most enemies can’t penetrate the resistances so the 45 becomes 90. You can wildshape 2x. That’s 180 hp while your normal hp is untouched. You also have reckless attack and since your giant hyena ac is only 12 might as well spam it so all your attacks are with advantage.
Note that you can reverse that, you can't cast spells in wild shape but you can use other class abilities. A paladin-2/druid can use divine smite (and can do it with his multiclass druid slots, not that burning a 9th level spell slot on a 10d8 smite is a worthwhile use of that slot). A monk/druid can use unarmored defense, though that's still not going to get amazing AC.
Note that you can reverse that, you can't cast spells in wild shape but you can use other class abilities. A paladin-2/druid can use divine smite (and can do it with his multiclass druid slots, not that burning a 9th level spell slot on a 10d8 smite is a worthwhile use of that slot). A monk/druid can use unarmored defense, though that's still not going to get amazing AC.
Whoa. So alot of the melee heavy classes can synergize with druid well?
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So I'm still new to DMing and a thought crossed my mind. How can deal with players who have an annoying multiclassing character? Currently they arent multiclassing, but just wanting to know what to watch out for.
Whether the classes synergize or not does not matter, so long as it's difficult to build a challenging encounter around.
As a rule of thumb, multiclassing usually means the character gets "weaker" but at the same time more versatile, so you shouldn't have trouble creating challenging encounters.
That is especially true in the lower levels. A lot of multiclass builds only "come online" somewhere between level 7 and 10.
The most important thing imho is that you actually do the math, if you believe someone is weak or strong.
My entire group believes my Artificer is insanely strong, because she has a repeating crossbow... doing the math she really isn't. I don't hit harder or more often than the other characters, just the fluff how I describe her sounds overpowered.
And the added versatility from multiclassing means that such characters have more options to contribute to the party. More options, not stronger ones, though. Still that might seem like they are somewhat imbalanced because they will more often find a way to help and therefore be in the spotlight. If that happens, and it annoys the other players, talk to the multiclassing player and ask them to help the specialists instead of trying to replace them.
My frustration with multiclassing is less mechanical and more that it's not narratively earned "aaand my rogue's just gonna get religion and go be a cleric now." Keep in mind that multiclassing is an optional rule, if you're worried about problems you can choose not to use it in your game.
That said, grappling builds can be annoying and often use multiclassing, but it's not OP and can be a lot of fun in my opinion.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Ah. Okay.
I agree with Naivara... multiclassing needs to be supported with story. In my current campaign, several PCs ended up multiclassing against their will when a demon overpromised things... they began to take on warlock levels they did not even want.
My character spent his early life in a monastery training to be a monk, but then sh*t happened. His alignment switched from LG to CG and became instead a rogue assassin in order to set things right - classic "death wish" trope. Years later, a monk from his monastery makes a brief appearance in story and it prompts him to return to his origins, taking on monk levels and slowly shifting his alignment back towards LG. I know many say that Monk/Rogue is not an effective multi-class solution... but I have no desire for "effective" ... I am after story.
As DM, I would require a compelling story-based idea in order to allow any multiclass to go forward. If the player is just after a cool new feat... maybe you can find alternate ways to provide that - like through subclass advancements (or even custom homebrew subclasses).
You don't have to "multiclass" if you allow subclass customization. I'm building another character right now that is also essentially a monk. I thought about multiclassing with either ranger or druid because I wanted the characters story to be very "nature" aligned - a protector of the wild - traits common to rangers and druids but never considered to apply to the monk class. I am building a background called Forest Temple and a subclass Monastic Tradition called "Natures Warden" that gives the monk the story-flavor of a Ranger along with some of it's feats without ever taking on a single level of the Ranger class.
None.
I'm a new DM with a new player party other than one guy I had to kick out. I had to limit multiclassing to only narrative reasons such as my fighter was an Aasimar but not aware of it but when he was told of his ancestry by a god he became a paladin, I also limit it to only one multiclass because for new players(myself included) this gets confusing fast.
Sorlocks, coffeelocks for me. I had someone who was a power gamer and I straight up told them at session 0 that that kind of build was a big no.
Whoa. What was this issue with this particular multiclass build?
If done right, a really cheesy way to get near infinite spell slots in RAW.
Which is not a problem...
Dang. That sounds broken. Sounds almost like this other build I found out just an hour ago. The Assassin Rogue/Berserk Barbarian build, if you can make the build just right, you'll definitely be a monster on the battlefield. Sneak attack with rage, and relentlessly attack, and evasion and uncanny dodge.
It is broken... which is why Xanathar's shut the combination down:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/xgte/dungeon-masters-tools#GoingwithoutaLongRest
Basically if you try to exceed your intended spell slots per day you will gain exhaustion, which will quickly render you useless and eventually after ~7-8 days kill you, depending on your constitution. :-)
Druid/barbarian gets pretty OP
Really?
Yep. Rage and then wild shape. The rage carries over. You basically double the hp pools of the wild shapes.
say your a level 2 druid level 2 barbarian that wild shapes into a giant hyena. That’s 45 hp and most enemies can’t penetrate the resistances so the 45 becomes 90. You can wildshape 2x. That’s 180 hp while your normal hp is untouched. You also have reckless attack and since your giant hyena ac is only 12 might as well spam it so all your attacks are with advantage.
A lot of that is just moon druids being overpowered at low levels. I house ruled a CR limit of 1/2 for level 2-3 moon druids.
Dang. That sounds busted
Note that you can reverse that, you can't cast spells in wild shape but you can use other class abilities. A paladin-2/druid can use divine smite (and can do it with his multiclass druid slots, not that burning a 9th level spell slot on a 10d8 smite is a worthwhile use of that slot). A monk/druid can use unarmored defense, though that's still not going to get amazing AC.
Whoa. So alot of the melee heavy classes can synergize with druid well?