First time Dm help

[Yungbob56]

Hello all,
I started playing D&D about 6 months ago with a group of friends. We are now about halfway through the Tyranny of Dragons storyline and I offered to DM our next story.
One of the players had a request that you would be able to choose two of the specializations offered in the PHB (a Druid would be able to choose two circles). I don't mind this, though I want to make sure that one class wouldn't be way too powerful compared to others. I realize that this is an odd request, and I really don't know how to know how certain classes would scale without seeing it in action. Basically I was wondering what you guys thought, if there were any classes that came to mind that would be incredibly over powered at some point.
Thanks for your help!

[Erys]

Hello all,
I started playing D&D about 6 months ago with a group of friends. We are now about halfway through the Tyranny of Dragons storyline and I offered to DM our next story.
One of the players had a request that you would be able to choose two of the specializations offered in the PHB (a Druid would be able to choose two circles). I don't mind this, though I want to make sure that one class wouldn't be way too powerful compared to others. I realize that this is an odd request, and I really don't know how to know how certain classes would scale without seeing it in action. Basically I was wondering what you guys thought, if there were any classes that came to mind that would be incredibly over powered at some point.
Thanks for your help!

Don't do this.

You would basically be allowing someone to play two classes for the price of one.

[Mikey P]

It would be super over powered. And It would have very different impacts on different classes if you tried to let others do it (to "balance it out"), which would make some even worse, and some feel shafted.

[Yungbob56]

Thanks for the replies.
The one thing I am worried about is player balance, which would be almost impossible to deal with in the beginning, and I'm not even sure what to do when we realize one class is complete garbage compared to another.
To me the power of the players is irrelevant, I can always adjust monster' to fit their power. But like you said, balance would be a definite issue, and I'm not really sure how to fix that mid game.
Thanks again.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Perhaps have a search here and in the homebrew section for 'gestalt rules'. Different people do it differently and sometimes share their approaches here. At least that way you know someone's put some thought into the system.

Gestalt is usually about having two full classes at once, but I'm sure you could make it work with subclasses too.

[Sjappo]

First time DM? And you started playing 6 months ago? I would go for a bog standard game. You're going to be keeping track of lots of things. Try to keep as much of the game to what you already know. As standard as possible. I would go so far as to allow only PHB options. Nothing from SCAG or UA or whatnot. Keep It Simple S... never mind ;)

[Specter]

Oh, the player made a 'request', huh? Well, he deserves a good slapping for that. Maybe he wants to get levels in two classes at the same time too, who knows.

But you did the right thing in asking others how this would play out. If you have any other questions related to plots or game design, feel free to PM me.

[lperkins2]

One thing I have done in the past with this sort of thing is let them multiclass druid (moon) / druid (land). There may be some broken edge cases, but in practice it has worked reasonably well. All the usual multiclass rules apply (delay ASI, multiple sources of the same feature do not stack, et cetera).

A slightly riskier version, which involves a little more care tracking, is to have their overall druid level increase normally, and choose which sub-class to increase on each level. (Druid 6 (moon-3, land-3)) General class features which scale with level then use the total-druid-level in their calculation. Circle specific features use the sub-class-specific-level. For example, the max CR for wildshape increases to 1 when the character gets its second moon-level, and then follows the moon-level/3 rule once he reaches level 6. This doesn't make the character miss out on the capstone ability, and is more powerful than a simple druid/druid multiclass, plus it may prove seriously broken with other classes, so I wouldn't allow it in a group with power gamers. YMMV.

[Yungbob56]

One thing I have done in the past with this sort of thing is let them multiclass druid (moon) / druid (land). There may be some broken edge cases, but in practice it has worked reasonably well. All the usual multiclass rules apply (delay ASI, multiple sources of the same feature do not stack, et cetera).

A slightly riskier version, which involves a little more care tracking, is to have their overall druid level increase normally, and choose which sub-class to increase on each level. (Druid 6 (moon-3, land-3)) General class features which scale with level then use the total-druid-level in their calculation. Circle specific features use the sub-class-specific-level. For example, the max CR for wildshape increases to 1 when the character gets its second moon-level, and then follows the moon-level/3 rule once he reaches level 6. This doesn't make the character miss out on the capstone ability, and is more powerful than a simple druid/druid multiclass, plus it may prove seriously broken with other classes, so I wouldn't allow it in a group with power gamers. YMMV.
This is very helpful. Ill present this to the player and see what he thinks. The player in question is a defenite power gamer so there is a pretty big chance he would take advantage of this format.
Thanks for the reply!

[lperkins2]

Glad to help; let us know how it goes (I've not done it in 5e yet, so I am somewhat curious how it actually plays out).

[retaliation08]

A slightly riskier version, which involves a little more care tracking, is to have their overall druid level increase normally, and choose which sub-class to increase on each level. (Druid 6 (moon-3, land-3)) General class features which scale with level then use the total-druid-level in their calculation. Circle specific features use the sub-class-specific-level. For example, the max CR for wildshape increases to 1 when the character gets its second moon-level, and then follows the moon-level/3 rule once he reaches level 6. This doesn't make the character miss out on the capstone ability, and is more powerful than a simple druid/druid multiclass, plus it may prove seriously broken with other classes, so I wouldn't allow it in a group with power gamers. YMMV.

This will lead to some broken stuff for sure. Being able to get every subclass's starting abilities, for instance, would be a very front loaded power boost. Wizards with multiple school specialities, assassin swashbucklers, multidomain clerics, etc.

Depending on how many players you have, and what type of players they are, this could be fine. Overall, I would say that it is pretty risky, though.

As a new DM, you will be tested in many unforeseeable ways, and if your players are prone to challenging you, I would avoid this.

[CaptainSarathai]

Multiclassing into your own class isn't too bad, it doesn't mess with balance much - but you must treat the second subclass as a true Multiclass.
So he would take Druid 1, 2, and then pick Moon Circle at level 3.
At level 4, he'd take Druid 1 - for zero benefit. He'd do the same for Druid 2 (his lvl5) and then finally go Land Circle at 6th.

Losing all the little stuff in between subclass bumps is horrible, so by all means let the powergamer shoot himself in the foot, lol.

Lastly, I agree with the others: run a very basic campaign. From level3, to level7, maybe. That's pretty easy, and then go from there