Multiclassing

[Lolzyking]

one of my players asked me a question in regards to multiclassing

He wants to multiclass two classes that get Extra attack, he does not want them to stack, he was asking if he could skip that level since its basically a dead level, he wouldn't get the extra hit die, he would just advance his class by one level (basically end up at 21 - a hit die) since a multiclass won't get a capstone I don't see an issue, but I'd like some input from others to see if there is


what he's trying to do

Favored soul sorc + paladin, tbh I'm just willing to change favored soul to something else though...

[Glimbur]

What system is this? And what is Extra Attack?

In D&D 3.5, base attack bonus from different classes stacks and you get an extra attack at every +5 of bonus. So paladin 5 sorcerer 12 has 5 + 12/2 (6) for a total of +11, for a full attack of +11/+6/+1.

[Karl Aegis]

Turn your aiki chits into agility.

[Lolzyking]

Its 5e, I thought got the subforum right, sorry, I lurk here a lot, finally got around to signing up

basically, at level 6 focused soul gets extra attack, paladin gets it at 5.

the multiclass is something about being a more magey paladin , I suggested warlock and making his patron be the guy his oath is to, but he wants sorcerer's spell list....



I was thinking war domain's channel divininity for adding charisma to hit and damage might be a good substitute to favored souls extra attack

[nedz]

This is the general RPG sub-forum, you will get much better answers if you re-post on the 5E sub-forum. OR, you can get the mods to move the thread by reporting the thread and asking them to move it. You can do this via the small triangular icon with the ! symbol.

[Gavran]

Its 5e, I thought got the subforum right, sorry, I lurk here a lot, finally got around to signing up

basically, at level 6 focused soul gets extra attack, paladin gets it at 5.

the multiclass is something about being a more magey paladin , I suggested warlock and making his patron be the guy his oath is to, but he wants sorcerer's spell list....



I was thinking war domain's channel divininity for adding charisma to hit and damage might be a good substitute to favored souls extra attack

Personally, if he's picky enough about the mechanics rather than the fluff to require a specific spell list, then I'd say no. Potential "dead" levels are an intended cost for multiclassing. I'm more willing to tweak numbers for someone who cares more about the fluff than someone who cares more about the crunch - not because of any value judgements about either preference - but because someone who cares more about the crunch is going to be more largely affected by anything I haphazardly tweak.

[Haruki-kun]

The Winged Mod: Moved to 5e.

[Giant2005]

I wouldn't let people start cherry picking which levels they get and which ones they don't if I were you... Or weird things might happen.
For example you would immediately go from Fighter 4 to Fighter 6 and get a feat one level after another.

[Shining Wrath]

He wants to go from Favored Soul 5 to Favored Soul 7 since 6 is useless to him?

What does he propose to give up in return? I'd say his spell progression, at a minimum, will always be one level behind. In fact, maybe two levels behind, since this is borderline munchkin.

[calebrus]

Potential "dead" levels are an intended cost for multiclassing.

This.
Tell him No. If he wants the benefits of Paladin 6, or Favored Soul 7, he needs to take that many levels in the class, period.
If you allow him this, then what's to stop the Barbarian/Fighter/whoever from multiclassing rogue and claiming that they don't need sneak attack, and that they really only want Uncanny Dodge, so why can't they just get it at level three?
It's a slippery slope, and it's a terrible idea.

[Xetheral]

Skipping a level introduces a lot of tricky problems. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with coming up with a new class feature to replace the duplicate Extra Attack. Sure, it will make the character a bit more powerful, but so long as you are similarly flexible with your other players a bit of extra power isn't necessarily a bad thing if it leads to your player having more fun.

[Mara]

one of my players asked me a question in regards to multiclassing

He wants to multiclass two classes that get Extra attack, he does not want them to stack, he was asking if he could skip that level since its basically a dead level, he wouldn't get the extra hit die, he would just advance his class by one level (basically end up at 21 - a hit die) since a multiclass won't get a capstone I don't see an issue, but I'd like some input from others to see if there is


what he's trying to do

Favored soul sorc + paladin, tbh I'm just willing to change favored soul to something else though...You can do as he suggested. He will end up stronger than intended. Idk a lot about favored soul, but spellcasting does stack, so there are no actual dead levels between two spell casting classes.

As a DM, I would just make him eat the "dead" level.

[calebrus]

I would absolutely make him "eat" the dead level. FvS is already broken because it bypasses the usual restriction on spells known that normal Sorcs have. Making him even more powerful is the worst idea pretty much ever.
Remember, FvS is from UA, which is not core. It's basically play test stuff and ideas. The things from those articles are not ingrained player options.

If he wants the Pally Aura, he needs to take 6 levels of Paladin.
If he thinks FvS Extra Attack is redundant, that's a choice he made by that particular multiclass.
Multiclassing needs drawbacks, and not being able to stack Extra Attack is one of them. He needs to deal with it. Especially in this case, because as I said, FvS is already broken. If you're going to allow him to play a broken class that hasn't been play tested yet, don't go out of your way to break it even further.

[Xetheral]

Multiclassing needs drawbacks

This isn't a given: it depends a lot on playstyle. If one wants to encourage multiclassing (perhaps to address perceived imbalances among the classes), it makes perfectly good sense to allow players to replace duplicate abilities with something that will actually help them. So long as one treats all the players similarly, there is no inherent problem in removing drawbacks to multiclassing.

[burninatortrog]

Will you also give a free additional level to the other players?

[Lolzyking]

Thanks guys what I basically what I came to was just changing favored soul a bit

Removed level 6 extra attack, Domain spells are not automatically known, You get the channel divinity

I felt scaling back the free spells for removing extra level was fair, he's also only getting clerics level 2

also I'm only to bend for thematics, He basically wanted a more magicky paladin with two weapon fighting that would throw all its spell slots at buffing its melee damage, his character actually has a compelling revenge story.

[calebrus]

You want fair?
Remove the free spells and instead of a FvS automatically learning their domain spells, those spells get added to the Sorc's spell list for them to choose with their normal spell choices.
That's fair.
The reason that FvS is broken is because they learn 10 more spells than any other Sorc, which brings them from 15 to 25. That's as many spells as a Wizard can prepare.
Wizards can prepare lots of spells.
Sorcs know less spells, but can do more with the ones they know.
Giving them as many spells (and therefore as much versatility) as a Wizard, while retaining Metamagic (which makes them even more versatile on top of all that) is the exact reason that FvS is broken.

The best fix, to make it fair, is to have those spells added to their list but not automatically learned. If you do that, then feel free to change whatever else you want, and it probably won't get broken. If you leave the domain spells as the UA article suggests, any change at all is likely to further break an already broken class.

[INDYSTAR188]

I have made accomodations for my players in the past in other editions (wanted to create spells or magic items, wanted to create new class features, etc.) and it has always turned into a huge net gain in player power which really skewed the game balance. I struggle because on one hand I want to facilitate everyone's fun but on the other hand I need to keep things in balance and reasonable. My inherent inability to say 'no' to these kind of homebrew system modifications has definitely bit me in the past. I'm not a game designer so I am not always sure the total cause-effect.

Since I have dealt with that in the past I would absolutely say no to this. My thought on this is simply that dead levels can be a cost of multiclassing, which your player saw before he chose the levels in Paladin. Of course, this is your game so you have to do what you think is best.

[Fyorl]

Removed level 6 extra attack, Domain spells are not automatically known, You get the channel divinity


You want fair?
Remove the free spells and instead of a FvS automatically learning their domain spells, those spells get added to the Sorc's spell list for them to choose with their normal spell choices.
That's fair.

Am I missing something or did OP not just do exactly that?

[Giant2005]

My general rule of thumb is the following: If a player is asking for something homebrew because the concept of his character cannot be emulated within the default system, then consider it. If the player is asking for something homebrew because the concept of his character simply isn't as strong as he wants it to be, then say no without question.
the game is pretty well balanced on its own - anyone that doesn't find their class to be powerful enough doesn't want balance, they want to tip the scales in their favour.

[Person_Man]

All 5E classes have all of their signature abilities front loaded, so that it feels like you're playing the class as intended, and do not have to suffer through multiple game sessions with a weak class in order to "pay for" getting to the "real" class abilities.

Because of this, multiclassing tends to grant you powerful up front benefits.

To compensate for this, Extra Attack doesn't stack, Pact Magic doesn't stack, spells known don't progress (though spell slots do), and Ability Score Increases/Feats are built into the class progression itself.

So I would either rewrite all of the classes and/or multi-classing rules into a more customizable system (Legend, FATE, GURPS, etc), or I would play with them as-is. I would not grant a particular player a major benefit, especially when he's already playing the most clearly overpowered custom subclass that is the Favored Soul.

[Lolzyking]

This particular extra attack was granted by the Fots archetype

replacing it with a bonus channel divinity and not givining him an extra channel divinity gives him another option for his limited channels (he is already paladin)

I also as mentioned took away the domain spells being automatically known.

[holygroundj]

Honestly, I think the multiclassing system is pretty much ideal. You have to really think about why you are going into another class, and it's not just all benefits with no downsides.

If it's just a roleplay thing, try fluff first. If it's to mechanically gain an advantage, then there should be downsides. Slower spell progression, duplicated abilities that don't stack, these are all good things about the multiclass system.

All my characters are multiclass for thematic and versatility so Far. A cleric/Warlock, a Barbarian/Fighter. I'm happy to have "dead" levels and duplicated features in order to increase versatlity in other ways.

[Xetheral]

My general rule of thumb is the following: If a player is asking for something homebrew because the concept of his character cannot be emulated within the default system, then consider it. If the player is asking for something homebrew because the concept of his character simply isn't as strong as he wants it to be, then say no without question.
the game is pretty well balanced on its own - anyone that doesn't find their class to be powerful enough doesn't want balance, they want to tip the scales in their favour.


All my characters are multiclass for thematic and versatility so Far. A cleric/Warlock, a Barbarian/Fighter. I'm happy to have "dead" levels and duplicated features in order to increase versatlity in other ways.


Since I have dealt with that in the past I would absolutely say no to this. My thought on this is simply that dead levels can be a cost of multiclassing, which your player saw before he chose the levels in Paladin. Of course, this is your game so you have to do what you think is best.

Avoiding dead levels was one of the goals of the system. If a DM wants to extend that theme to more-completely include multiclass characters, I don't see a problem, so long as all players have the option.

Admittedly, the full casters inherently don't have completely dead levels.

[Person_Man]

Avoiding dead levels was one of the goals of the system. If a DM wants to extend that theme to more-completely include multiclass characters, I don't see a problem, so long as all players have the option.

Minor Quibble: Avoiding dead levels was most certainly not one of the goals of 5E. Many iterations of the play test had lots of dead levels. Playtesters (including me) had to complain repeatedly and compare it unfavorably to Pathfinder (which did make it a specific design goal) before it was addressed.

And even then, the current version of 5E does include a few dead-ish levels where the character gets nothing but a fluff ability, or an ability that duplicates a spell they already have access to, or a slight improvement to a situational ability.

Plus damage scaling for weapon attacks were broken up into many different fiddly individual class abilities when they could have been self contained Actions, like Cantrips or 4E Powers.

And many people would argue that Ability Score Increases should have been independent from the class chart.

[Xetheral]

Minor Quibble: Avoiding dead levels was most certainly not one of the goals of 5E. Many iterations of the play test had lots of dead levels. Playtesters (including me) had to complain repeatedly and compare it unfavorably to Pathfinder (which did make it a specific design goal) before it was addressed.

Good to know, thanks! I was inferring the goal from the drastic reduction in dead levels from 3.5. I'm glad that it ultimately was (mostly) realized, even if it took the playtesters clamoring to get it included.

Thanks for helping to make sure we got as few dead levels as we did. :)

[DanyBallon]

...And many people would argue that Ability Score Increases should have been independent from the class chart.

Multiclassing should have a cost. In order to get access to powers out of what your class allow you, sou need to pay somehow. I like how they built ASI in the class itself instead of being independant as it was in 3.P. You want a two level dip into an other class to grab some neat abilities, then you won't have access to your last ASI and also you'll get them a bit later than other characters that went from 1 to 20 in a single class.

In past editions, there always been some kind of trade back to getting more power via multiclassing. In 2e you were gaining level at a much slower rate, or if human, you couldn't progress into your former career. In 3e you had to keep your classes within a certain range otherwise, you had xp penalties. Pathfinder got rid of any penalties for multiclassing,m but tried to give each class a good capstone ability so if you dipped in an other class you'll lose something nice in the end.

5e does a good job with built-in ASI and somewhat decent capstone ability to favor going all the way to level 20 in a single class, but won't be too punishing for someone who wants to multiclass.

[Demonic Spoon]

Multiclassing should have a cost. In order to get access to powers out of what your class allow you, sou need to pay somehow. I like how they built ASI in the class itself instead of being independant as it was in 3.P. You want a two level dip into an other class to grab some neat abilities, then you won't have access to your last ASI and also you'll get them a bit later than other characters that went from 1 to 20 in a single class.

In past editions, there always been some kind of trade back to getting more power via multiclassing. In 2e you were gaining level at a much slower rate, or if human, you couldn't progress into your former career. In 3e you had to keep your classes within a certain range otherwise, you had xp penalties. Pathfinder got rid of any penalties for multiclassing,m but tried to give each class a good capstone ability so if you dipped in an other class you'll lose something nice in the end.

5e does a good job with built-in ASI and somewhat decent capstone ability to favor going all the way to level 20 in a single class, but won't be too punishing for someone who wants to multiclass.

The fact that ASI are class features is meaningless to this point. Presumably, if ASI were tied to character level rather than class level, then classes would get some other feature at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 which the multiclassed character would be giving up.

ASI are just a 4th level class feature that happens to be shared by all classes. For some levels, an ASI is better than what you normally get, and worse in other cases.

[Person_Man]

Multiclassing should have a cost.

Under the current setup, I absolutely agree with you. But they could have written the classes differently (like Legend or Tome of Battle) where it would have been much easier to customize your character without any cost/penalty. But doing so would have trampled on some of the traditions of 1E/2E/3E (simple Fighters, Vancian-ish casting). So they didn't.