I am currently running a campaign that hit its 2 year anniversary. The entire party of 5 just hit level 12. My hexblade warlock, has asked if he could find a way to change his class without changing his character. 2 years is a long time to play a character and A LOT of campaign planning from a DM perspective. Now I can understand not wanting to change characters because there is a significant attachment that players form, and he really likes the backstory and his character arc, so I'm somewhat tempted to let him do it. Level 12 is super late, which is my first concern, but its also my munchkin player, so revoking his warlock powers and familiar and pact weapon wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing as far as balancing goes. His main complaint is that he feels like he is just stuck in the tanking and talking role (which he is, because he's a powergamer) and want's to be able to do other things, that he can't because he's built his warlock as heavy utility and damage.

HOWEVER, there are a few concerns, he wants to potentially switch to cleric, but none of his stats are optimized for a cleric build (WIS 14, CON 14, STR 12), so I don't know if it'd really be all taht fair to just allow him to entirely respec/reroll stats like that. They're all currently trapped in the Feywilds and ensued in a significant power struggle and conflict between the Wyld fae and the Winter Court, so the potential for deal making, pledging fealty, etc. is a possibility. I haven't fully fleshed out a plan or pitched the idea, but I think it could be interesting way to transition classes. I want people to keep having fun, and this seems like a rule of cool type situation for my homebrew campaign.

Anyone have experience with allowing players to change classes without changing characters? Any suggestions on how I could go about working with the stat changes?

If the player is not trying to change backstory, I just let them do it. It’s a game, and I want people to have fun. I’d even go so far as to let him fully respec as if he was starting from level 1, including redistributing ability scores, asi and feats. Then just go from there and don’t think about it. 

And if he wants to change backstory, that’s fine, too. Just retire the character and bring in a new one. 

Another thing to consider is wrapping up the campaign. As you said, 2 years is a long time. That’s usually around the time I start wanting a new story. 

Quote from Xalthu >>

Another thing to consider is wrapping up the campaign. As you said, 2 years is a long time. That’s usually around the time I start wanting a new story. 

I'm not sure about that one lol, but thanks for the other advice.

I'll probably let him change classes, but I'll try and find a better reason to allow for a full respec, maybe swap one stat for another, or retcon feats for ability scores

What about everything the character did over the past two years?  I mean how is it all that taken into account?  There are magical means a character can be transformed that radically I suppose.  

Or let them multi class.  

Perhaps make it a quest. They have to seek out a sphinx, who will send the character back in time, and another character to guide him, so that they still arrive in the same place, but the character is sent back and made younger, so can re-live their life up to this point (and so pick a different route).

Or have them recover an item for their patron, and then when they deliver it the patron declares that they are disappointed, and opens the item to reveal a gem (which is identified as a wishing-gem), and the patron says "I wish I had never invested in you". bam, wish goes off, guy never became a warlock. Make a new character, but the same guy. If you're clever about it, you can surprise him with it, at the end of a session, so he has time to make a new class to use.

It depends on how close is the story fiction of the game vs it a game is too you. Congrads on going 2 years. Being very nice, I always allow people to rebuild/replace pcs in a homebrew. Being nice. Rebuild with no problem but magic items own do not change, his former patron and npc friends are now mad at him. Reason for change he ticked off major Fey boss. Being not so nice. He can change but stats stay the same until out of fey wild. Major Fey Boss becomes his enemy. Being evil. Lose all magic. Drop a level and then do a complete rebuild. 

If the player is not trying to change backstory, I just let them do it. It’s a game, and I want people to have fun.

Being a college teacher, and having individual students try to "powergame" their classes (i.e., ask me to make exceptions so their grade can come up), I'm going to give the same response I would give if this were a student asking for something outrageous: If you let one player do it, you must, in good conscience, offer the same option to other players.

If Player A gets to change classes at level 12, then Players B through G need to be allowed to do it too. If Player A gets to switch stats around to optimize, then whatever optimization options at level 12 you give player A, you give the same options to players B through G. This includes if B-G don't want to change classes but just wished their stats were a little better organized. If Player A gets to re-pick feats, then B-G get to re-pick to get ones they might like better. If player A gets to decide he wants to change his character because he doesn't like his roles, B-G get the same.

Speaking of roles, if A is the tanker/talker and doesn't want to do that anymore, is this going to leave the party high and dry without that? Do they have another "face" character who could step in, like a Bard or a Sorcerer with high Cha *and* some Persuasion/Intimidation/Deception skill? Or is the party going to be "faceless" if this guy swaps over? And do they have a barbarian or fighter or some other character to be  a tank when he switches? Or are they going to be tank-less now? 

My point here is, Player A should get to have fun, but is not entitled to have more fun than B-G and is absolutely not entitled to destroy their fun to have more of his own. For example, what if none of the other players wants to be the talker? Is it fair to make one of them do it because A doesn't? Why does A get to have his way but not B, who would rather not be the talker either? If none of them have tanked before, do any of them want to take on that role? Or are we now going to force the Ranger who used to use bows and ranged attacks, to armor up and go in and tank because there's no one else to do it, thus ruining that player's character conception to please player A?

And finally -- although I think players should have fun, if someone purposely powergamed his character to be a Tanker/Talker by min-maxing to the Nth degree for that purpose, I also think that to some extent you need to lie in the bed you made. Maybe (although I don't have any real hope of this) being forced to keep playing in the role this player created for himself by his own munchkinization, it will teach the player a lesson: if you don't want to be pigeon-holed into a specific and critical role in a party, don't build your character to do be that specialized.

But my main concern here isn't the lesson -- it's the impact this player's request, if fulfilled, will have on the rest of the party. Are there other players (it's OK if it is more than one) who will be happy to (not grudgingly willing for party unity sake, but happy to) take on the roles of Talker and/or Tank? And do the other players want to re-imagine their characters also, and will they be given the same chance? Players should not be allowed to have special treatment and any options given to Player A need to be given to everyone else with equal availability. And if Player A is allowed to "just say no" to a role he doesn't like, every other player at the table should be allowed to refuse that role as well. Especially when A built for those roles, and B-G did not.

And if that then leaves the party tankless or faceless, your table needs to have a conversation about how to proceed. For example, Warlock-boy might be willing to play a tankless/faceless game after 2 years of a game in which the party had those things, but players B-G might not want to. Again, Warlock doesn't get to ruin the fun of everyone else just cuz he found a new build he wants to powergame into.

To be honest after 2 years and 12 levels my response to the player would probably be "Wait till next campaign," unless this is something EVERYONE is on board with. And again, if a bunch of them said they wanted new characters, I'd say "then it is probably time to wrap this campaign up" and look for a way to bring it to a close.

i'd let them...but they'd loose say 2 levels and it'd require 6 months of downtime or something. people retrain into new careers all the time and i don't think you need to start from scratch considering the character still has all the adventuring and combat experience under their belt.  if they're respecing into a caster class, maybe they get bonked in the head and it turns something powerful on.

Retraining new careers is the real-world equivalent of multiclassing. The Wide Receiver from college who is drafted to play Cornerback in the NFL, doesn't lose his Wide-out skills. He's a level 4 Wide Receiver who has switched classes and becomes a 4 Receiver/1 CB to start, and then has to level Corner Back. And since he doesn't just forget everything he learned as a Wide-out, the coach can call him in as a backup receiver if that's necessary. And he will retain those 4 levels and be a decent, but not super top flight, receiver.

I mean after all, on what in-character basis would someone just drop 12 levels of Warlock and switch to cleric and NOT start out as a 1st level cleric. You're telling me this guy who never prayed to Tyr (or whoever), not once touched a Tyr holy symbol, not once read any scriptures of Tyr, but instead was walking around linked to the powers of some Celestial being who doesn't even live on Tyr's plane (for instance), is going to become a priest of Tyr and suddenly have the powers of a High Priest without ever having been an acolyte, a junior priest, etc? He's just going to skip over all that, and be turning undead like an avatar of Tyr, when all the other clerics in the world had to work, and work hard, to get there? That makes no IC sense to me.

In character, the most logical thing to do is multiclass. Retain the 12 levels of Warlock and start gaining levels of Tyr worship (i.e. cleric). After a while, he'll be pretty good at cleric, but he will still have his Warlock stuff from before.

Letting him keep the character, but completely transform 12 levels of Warlock Patron knowledge abilities instantly to Tyr worship abilities, makes zero in-character sense. It's entirely a metagaming move. If you wanna let him make it, go for it, but again, all other players get to make the same choice and get the same options, or else it is massively unfair.

Quote from AbdanghisBabaganoushi >>

HOWEVER, there are a few concerns, he wants to potentially switch to cleric, but none of his stats are optimized for a cleric build (WIS 14, CON 14, STR 12), so I don't know if it'd really be all taht fair to just allow him to entirely respec/reroll stats like that. They're all currently trapped in the Feywilds and ensued in a significant power struggle and conflict between the Wyld fae and the Winter Court, so the potential for deal making, pledging fealty, etc. is a possibility. I haven't fully fleshed out a plan or pitched the idea, but I think it could be interesting way to transition classes. I want people to keep having fun, and this seems like a rule of cool type situation for my homebrew campaign. 

Normally if one of my players said they wanted to play a different class I'd say roll up a new character, however, I kinda like the idea of his patron abandoning him and then having some interaction with a deity. That being said, I'd be against fully allowing him to reroll stats. I could see shifting two and coming up with a narrative explanation but if he's fully rerolling all stats why not just make a new PC at that point?

Based on you saying "reroll" I'm assuming he rolled for stats, in which case would you let a player say something to the effect of "well I know I rolled a 16 strength but I really want my barbarian to have an 18 at level one so I'd like to reroll that"? If you as the DM are ok with that level of optimization than sure why not, but I think the uncertainty of rolling stats etc... is a core part of the game and I would be hesitant to let a player completely re-roll. Also personally I happen to think that playing against type or less optimized characters are a lot of fun narratively, so I dont see the issue with having a less optimized character but that's just me. That being said, you're the DM and should do what you feel is best for your table and players.

Quote from BioWizard >>

If the player is not trying to change backstory, I just let them do it. It’s a game, and I want people to have fun.

Being a college teacher, and having individual students try to "powergame" their classes (i.e., ask me to make exceptions so their grade can come up), I'm going to give the same response I would give if this were a student asking for something outrageous: If you let one player do it, you must, in good conscience, offer the same option to other players.

 I would actually give the other players the same option. Why not? Two years can be a long time with a character for some people. I know almost every time a new book comes out its got at least one subclass that I think looks really cool and I'd like to try out. After two years I've got a backlog of characters. Maybe not for others. But if everyone likes the story and wants to see it through to the end, but their characters are getting stale, let them all change if they like.

That gives me an idea. Have something strange happen. The party is caught in some kind of magical explosion or effect or zone. They're in the Feywild, so that shouldn't be too tough. When they wake up, some of them are different. Then let anyone who wants a new character make a new character, and anyone who wants to keep their old one do so. Do it at the end of a session and then explain out of character the meta-game aspects of it and what they can do, so they have time to make up a new character for the next session. Let them retain their memories, so the plot can carry on. And the new people will get to have interesting conversations with the NPCs they know. "Yes, I'm a gnome. Yes, last week I was a human. No, I don't know what happened."

Personally, I allow class changes/subclass changes if the player can justify it by the story of the campaign. However, you saying they're a munchkin means they might just be doing this to get a better build, so be careful with that. As for stats, I'd have them keep the same array but have the ability to change them around. So if they have a 16 base charisma they now have a 16 base wisdom if they choose to put it in that score.

If everyone is bored of their characters, then IMO it is time to end the campaign and start a new one with new characters. 

I would have no problem with a player saying "I don't want to play a Warlock anymore" and making a completely new character to replace the old one. That is fine, IMO. Happens all the time. But to keep the character and just have him forget his levels, change all stats, etc., is extremely meta-gamey. I'd allow it if everyone else could do it, but again, as a DM, I'd say my preference at this point is to start a whole new campaign rather than to have everyone just 'respec' their entire character.

To me (and this is just my preference), IC-ness and verisimilitude are extremely important, and I find a level 12 Warlock "just becoming" a level 12 Cleric and all his stats swapping around, to be verisimilitude-breaking.

I guess I would offer the table the following choices, if I were the DM:

Option 1 - Warlock-boy is unhappy with Warlock but everyone else wants to maintain status quo. In this case, Warlock-boy makes up a new PC, perhaps someone from the Feywild, and his old PC chooses to leave the party, perhaps to stay forever in the Feywild and pursue other things, whatever the player wants. His manner of exit is up to him, the new PC joins up, and the rest of the campaign continues as normal.

Option 2 - Warlock can multiclass into cleric. Nothing special needs to be done other than the basic "I am worshipping X god now" RP. All other players are allowed to multi-class if they want (I assume this is true).

Option 3 - Everyone wants to make new PCs... OK, we try to wrap this campaign up as quickly as possible, depending on how much patience people have to get it to come to a conclusion, and then we start a new campaign with new PCs. Personally, I would invite nominations for who gets to DM next, but if you want to keep DMing that's fine, time to start working on a new campaign, new setting, etc.

If someone is unhappy or bored with their character then it is something the DM and the other players should address with a bit of discussion.

1) If everyone is bored then consider a new campaign even one starting at a high level linked to your current one but looking at it from the perspective of another group of adventurers that could be involved somehow.

You could also start a second campaign for a few sessions and then come back to this one later if everyone is just looking for a break or a change of pace.

2) If everyone else is cool and one player has just had enough then there are a couple of options

- let them bring in a different character through some plot line adjustment ... perhaps the new character is introduced to the group as a protege of one of the NPC protagonists and the other character is sent off on a separate mission.

- the other option is to allow the character and character knowledge to remain but change the character. This could potentially be done via a high level spell like Wish or True Polymorph or through divine intervention. It is up to the DM to figure out what plot device fits the campaign. However, the end result would be a character with a different class, the stats to support that class, a different outlook on life but the same memories and continuity. They may remember once being a warlock but not remember how to cast or access the source of magic since they are no longer that person. The new version might wonder why they had ever wanted to be a warlock in the first place since being a cleric makes far more sense.

3) If the player only wants to tweak their character a bit then then might find multiclassing into cleric or divine-soul sorcerer might fit what they are looking for but if the player wants to give up on warlock and go all in on cleric, it is unlikely that some multiclassing would fix their concerns.

Quote from BioWizard >>

If the player is not trying to change backstory, I just let them do it. It’s a game, and I want people to have fun.

Being a college teacher, and having individual students try to "powergame" their classes (i.e., ask me to make exceptions so their grade can come up), I'm going to give the same response I would give if this were a student asking for something outrageous: If you let one player do it, you must, in good conscience, offer the same option to other players.

If Player A gets to change classes at level 12, then Players B through G need to be allowed to do it too. If Player A gets to switch stats around to optimize, then whatever optimization options at level 12 you give player A, you give the same options to players B through G. This includes if B-G don't want to change classes but just wished their stats were a little better organized. If Player A gets to re-pick feats, then B-G get to re-pick to get ones they might like better. If player A gets to decide he wants to change his character because he doesn't like his roles, B-G get the same.

Speaking of roles, if A is the tanker/talker and doesn't want to do that anymore, is this going to leave the party high and dry without that? Do they have another "face" character who could step in, like a Bard or a Sorcerer with high Cha *and* some Persuasion/Intimidation/Deception skill? Or is the party going to be "faceless" if this guy swaps over? And do they have a barbarian or fighter or some other character to be  a tank when he switches? Or are they going to be tank-less now? 

My point here is, Player A should get to have fun, but is not entitled to have more fun than B-G and is absolutely not entitled to destroy their fun to have more of his own. For example, what if none of the other players wants to be the talker? Is it fair to make one of them do it because A doesn't? Why does A get to have his way but not B, who would rather not be the talker either? If none of them have tanked before, do any of them want to take on that role? Or are we now going to force the Ranger who used to use bows and ranged attacks, to armor up and go in and tank because there's no one else to do it, thus ruining that player's character conception to please player A?

And finally -- although I think players should have fun, if someone purposely powergamed his character to be a Tanker/Talker by min-maxing to the Nth degree for that purpose, I also think that to some extent you need to lie in the bed you made. Maybe (although I don't have any real hope of this) being forced to keep playing in the role this player created for himself by his own munchkinization, it will teach the player a lesson: if you don't want to be pigeon-holed into a specific and critical role in a party, don't build your character to do be that specialized.

But my main concern here isn't the lesson -- it's the impact this player's request, if fulfilled, will have on the rest of the party. Are there other players (it's OK if it is more than one) who will be happy to (not grudgingly willing for party unity sake, but happy to) take on the roles of Talker and/or Tank? And do the other players want to re-imagine their characters also, and will they be given the same chance? Players should not be allowed to have special treatment and any options given to Player A need to be given to everyone else with equal availability. And if Player A is allowed to "just say no" to a role he doesn't like, every other player at the table should be allowed to refuse that role as well. Especially when A built for those roles, and B-G did not.

And if that then leaves the party tankless or faceless, your table needs to have a conversation about how to proceed. For example, Warlock-boy might be willing to play a tankless/faceless game after 2 years of a game in which the party had those things, but players B-G might not want to. Again, Warlock doesn't get to ruin the fun of everyone else just cuz he found a new build he wants to powergame into.

To be honest after 2 years and 12 levels my response to the player would probably be "Wait till next campaign," unless this is something EVERYONE is on board with. And again, if a bunch of them said they wanted new characters, I'd say "then it is probably time to wrap this campaign up" and look for a way to bring it to a close.

 They have a Vengeance Paladin, Four Elements Monk, Arcane Trickster Rogue/Lore Bard, and Necromancer Wizard. Everyone is able to hold their own, and I think it would be a nice change in dynamic to allow others the opportunity to "talk".

For everyone else who suggested, maybe the players are bored, or that I should wrap up the campaign:

I have a monthly 1-on-1  check in with each player to gauge their interest in their character as well as a review/critiquing session, and everyone very much still seems interested in their characters and want to see the end of their respective arcs, I've had 1 character (rogue/bard) just join in 5 sessions ago, so he is very new and hasn't had his story arc go anywhere, and I plan on going pretty heavily into the Paladin and part of the warlocks backstories once this fey arc (partly the necromancer's backstory) completes. So I don't think there is any desire to end the campaign, we all signed up for a long term campaign with a desire to get to lvl 20, although that's easier said than done. We've also only had 62 sessions in 2 years, so it's not quite like we have a super constant, although we've all made a joint commitment to play more often.

Here's my thought: Just let him multiclass. If he wants to start completely replacing his warlock abilities, here's a good rule: every time he gains a level as a cleric, he can add two cleric levels and remove a warlock level, and by the time he gets to level 20, he can continue doing so upon gaining an epic boon or something. And perhaps as a powergamer, playing a non-optimized character could be good for him.

Quote from Ithia_DungeonMaster >>

Here's my thought: Just let him multiclass. If he wants to start completely replacing his warlock abilities, here's a good rule: every time he gains a level as a cleric, he can add two cleric levels and remove a warlock level, and by the time he gets to level 20, he can continue doing so upon gaining an epic boon or something. And perhaps as a powergamer, playing a non-optimized character could be good for him.

 I like this solution.

My group has a few people who love trying out new builds and character concepts, so we end up doing a lot of PC switching. It's actually pretty cool to have a "stable" of past PCs that still act as party allies to fill different story roles. Sometimes they end up back in the party. A few times, they've ended up as antagonists to the party.

The downside to switching? Characters that stay in accumulate magic items, gold, social connections, and other story benefits.

Now wanting to totally repsec but still be the same person? That we have not done but I'd absolutely say yes. They may have to wait a few sessions for it to happen, but guys it's frickin' D&D - you can fall into a magic pond or get kidnapped by a powerful fey or put on some ancient armor or however you want to describe it and * M - A - G - I - C * now you've got a whole new body and spells and you get to roleplay someone who's world just got turned upside down. I find it a little weird that people think shutting the whole campaign down is a viable option but changing the story of one character is a dealbreaker.

Different tables are different and I would not expect the same treatment by default if I joined elsewhere, but my group is a bunch of adults who want to just have fun being creative and telling stories to each other for a few hours each week. In my situation to deny that because it infringes on the "realism" of the make-believe game that I have absolute godlike control over is simply a failure of the imagination. See it as a creative challenge. You have the tools to weave it into the world and explore some pretty cool concepts behind what a "class" even means from a character perspective and where the PC gets their powers.

Quote from scatterbraind >>

 I find it a little weird that people think shutting the whole campaign down is a viable option but changing the story of one character is a dealbreaker.

 

Different tables are different and I would not expect the same treatment by default if I joined elsewhere, but my group is a bunch of adults who want to just have fun being creative and telling stories to each other for a few hours each week. In my situation to deny that because it infringes on the "realism" of the make-believe game that I have absolute godlike control over is simply a failure of the imagination. See it as a creative challenge. You have the tools to weave it into the world and explore some pretty cool concepts behind what a "class" even means from a character perspective and where the PC gets their powers.

I appreciate your input, I thought I was going a little crazy. There seems to be a rather large number of people suggesting ending my campaign over something like this (Which is mind boggling) I don't know why any fellow dungeon master would recommend ending a 2 year campaign because 1 player wants to change classes haha.

I do have a couple ideas from this thread that I like, but I'm not sure if the player would even want to switch to cleric without picking a fitting god, nor do I think the hexblade warlock of Levistus would want to become the potential cleric of an archfey, one of the Seelie Fey / WInter Court nonetheless. But should he make a bargain with one of the Archfey for safety in exchange for his fealty, then I'd like to have the option in my backpocket.

Thanks for your help friend, (and backing me up on the idea of not cancelling a campaign over a player's request to change classes)