Multi-Subclassing

[the_brazenburn]

I had an idea to work with multi-classing. I know it's technically not in the PH, but, in theory, could you take extra levels in a class in order to gain another subclass? Sorry, this is confusing. Here's a scenario.

5th level Wizard, Abjuration subclass wants to get the Evocation subclass. Can he take levels 1, 2, and 3 in wizard again to get Evocation? If so, which abilities stack?

[JBPuffin]

I had an idea to work with multi-classing. I know it's technically not in the PH, but, in theory, could you take extra levels in a class in order to gain another subclass? Sorry, this is confusing. Here's a scenario.

5th level Wizard, Abjuration subclass wants to get the Evocation subclass. Can he take levels 1, 2, and 3 in wizard again to get Evocation? If so, which abilities stack?

A lot of people want to see something like this in place, but honestly? There's a reason this isn't okayed by the PHB, and not just because of balance issues. The point of subclasses/Archetypes is specialization and locking people out of doing absolutely everything. If you want to allow it, I say replace their next Archetype feature with the first Evocation feature (not the scribing, they lose that for sure, but the other bit) and make it so they have to continue down Evocation. You forsook Abjuration, sorry, man. Can't get the best of both worlds. Having them take Levels 1-3 again comes with too many crippling redundancies to be fair to the player, even if they are getting something they want out of it.

Another option, if they want to switch to Evocation, is to allow them to rebuild, although I'm guessing they specifically want to combine the features of the subclasses.

Another another option, if your group does magic items, is to create a staff or something which provides something similar to the evocation feature they want as a magic item. It ought to be their major loot (however you classify that) for awhile - maybe comes as their share of a dragon's hoard or something - but doing it that way allows you to rebalance it if you need to without crumbling several hours minimum of house ruling.

[lperkins2]

With some classes, it isn't too terrible. The safe way to do it is to make it a proper multiclass. You lose out on max spell level, are seriously delayed on higher level class features, and duplicate features do not stack.

Letting them advance in their core class features, and either pick and choose subclass features, or gain different subclass features in order is probably abusable. I looked at it for druid, and I don't think it would be game breaking, but wizard is heavily front loaded on subclasses, so to balance it, it really needs to limit max spell level known.

[tkuremento]

The only way I could see this working is if you were to play pseudo-gestalt and get everything from two subclasses. Of course even then there are going to be some issues, but you need to come at this example as though it were gestalt, IMO. And the reason I say it like that is I'm even looking at how something like PF does it where you can't take a class twice for archetypes so you'd need to gestalt and allow the overlap but otherwise treat it as gestalt with the idea that the DM knows this (obviously, they'd need to okay it) and plans around it.

[Elminster298]

I have twice ran campaigns where each character was "the best of the best" at what they did. Choose a class. You gain all the benefit of two subclasses from that class. No multiclassing allowed. It made the players feel truly special and upped the overall power level by just a little allowing me to design some truly epic story arches...

[tkuremento]

I have twice ran campaigns where each character was "the best of the best" at what they did. Choose a class. You gain all the benefit of two subclasses from that class. No multiclassing allowed. It made the players feel truly special and upped the overall power level by just a little allowing me to design some truly epic story arches...

Yea, this is sorta what I was thinking of in my post above. I'm sure there are some combinations that could be more powerful than others though.

[PeteNutButter]

It’s important to understand the subclass balance before attempting anything like this. Some subclasses get their strongest features at different levels. Champion 7 is pretty weak but it’s capstone is amazing. Allowing an ala carte for subclasses for this reason could be disastrous, especially if not every PC is doing it.

Gestalt on the other hand comes with its own set of problems. Certain classes get more out of their subclass than their base class. So awarding this to every PC could result in some very disparate power levels. An assassin/thief gains far less benefit out of this than say a battlemaster champion who can expend his maneuver dice on those 19-20 crits for an extra 2d8 damage.

[clash]

See I always thought creating a fighter 2 class would be cool where the purpose was for a fighter to multiclass into it to get another fighter subclass. And so on for each other class allowing you to increase your breath in an area rather than depth

[robbie374]

I had an idea to work with multi-classing. I know it's technically not in the PH, but, in theory, could you take extra levels in a class in order to gain another subclass? Sorry, this is confusing. Here's a scenario. 5th level Wizard, Abjuration subclass wants to get the Evocation subclass. Can he take levels 1, 2, and 3 in wizard again to get Evocation? If so, which abilities stack?

There is no RAW way to do it, but it is easy to implement. Simply replace ASI/Feat taking with subclass features. You could use this homebrew feat:

Well-Rounded
Prerequisite: Level 4 in one class
- Choose one of your classes, then choose one of that class's subclasses. You gain the lowest-level features that you do not have of that subclass.
- Your level in that class must be high enough to be eligible for those features.
- If the subclass gives new features at more than four levels, your DM decides which levels to merge such that taking this feat four times would give you all of the subclass's features. For example, a Life Cleric learning about the War Domain might gain both the 1st- and 2nd-level features at the same time.
- You may take this feat more than once.

[HoodedHero007]

Another possible way to do it would be to think of subclasses as their own class. What I mean is that when a player gets a subclass feature, it could be thought of as "gaining a level" in that subclass. So you could take a different subclass feature whenever you could get one, but you would start from the beginning of that subclass. I don't think I described this well, but meh.

[BaronVonAxe]

There is no RAW way to do it, but it is easy to implement. Simply replace ASI/Feat taking with subclass features. You could use this homebrew feat:

Well-Rounded
Prerequisite: Level 4 in one class
- Choose one of your classes, then choose one of that class's subclasses. You gain the lowest-level features that you do not have of that subclass.
- Your level in that class must be high enough to be eligible for those features.
- If the subclass gives new features at more than four levels, your DM decides which levels to merge such that taking this feat four times would give you all of the subclass's features. For example, a Life Cleric learning about the War Domain might gain both the 1st- and 2nd-level features at the same time.
- You may take this feat more than once.


I had asked this same scenario in another post, obviously missing this one, but I really like this method.

nice work

[Asensur]

Variant Rule: Multi-subclassing

With the allowance of your DM, you can use the following system when deciding the specialization of your class. Some examples includes clerics devoting to a divine pantheon instead of a god, sorcerers obtaining multiple magic sources and druids looking for balance with the flora and fauna.

When your character reachs a class level where he/she is going to obtain a subclass feature, he/she receives a subclass point of his/her class instead. Each class can receive a different number of subclass points (fighters/clerics 5 points, bards 3 points, rest of classes 4 points) at different levels.

The features you receive for any subclass point of each subclass are divided intro tiers. You can't spend a subclass point in a tier feature if you didn't spend points in the previous tier features of the same subclass.

The following example is made for barbarian.

BARBARIAN.
You receive a subclass point at levels 3, 6, 10 and 14.

Features of the path of the berserker.
Tier I. Frenzy
Tier II. Mindless Rage
Tier III. Intimidating Presence
Tier IV. Retaliation

Features of the path of the totemic warrior.
Tier I. Spirit Seeker + Totem Spirit
Tier II. Aspect of the Beast
Tier III. Spirit Walker
Tier IV. Totemic Attunement

This way, you can spend your first point in "Frenzy", your second point in either "Mindless Rage" or "Spirit Seeker + Totem Spirit", and so on. At level 14, you can have the 4 tiers of a subclass, the first 3 tiers of a subclass and the first of another, or the first 2 tiers of two subclasses each. There is no limit to the number of subclasses you can spend your points on (so, you could have the first tier of 4 subclasses at level 14).

[BaronVonAxe]

Variant Rule: Multi-subclassing

With the allowance of your DM, you can use the following system when deciding the specialization of your class. Some examples includes clerics devoting to a divine pantheon instead of a god, sorcerers obtaining multiple magic sources and druids looking for balance with the flora and fauna.

When your character reachs a class level where he/she is going to obtain a subclass feature, he/she receives a subclass point of his/her class instead. Each class can receive a different number of subclass points (fighters/clerics 5 points, bards 3 points, rest of classes 4 points) at different levels.

The features you receive for any subclass point of each subclass are divided intro tiers. You can't spend a subclass point in a tier feature if you didn't spend points in the previous tier features of the same subclass.

The following example is made for barbarian.

BARBARIAN.
You receive a subclass point at levels 3, 6, 10 and 14.

Features of the path of the berserker.
Tier I. Frenzy
Tier II. Mindless Rage
Tier III. Intimidating Presence
Tier IV. Retaliation

Features of the path of the totemic warrior.
Tier I. Spirit Seeker + Totem Spirit
Tier II. Aspect of the Beast
Tier III. Spirit Walker
Tier IV. Totemic Attunement

This way, you can spend your first point in "Frenzy", your second point in either "Mindless Rage" or "Spirit Seeker + Totem Spirit", and so on. At level 14, you can have the 4 tiers of a subclass, the first 3 tiers of a subclass and the first of another, or the first 2 tiers of two subclasses each. There is no limit to the number of subclasses you can spend your points on (so, you could have the first tier of 4 subclasses at level 14).


I like this method also, much appreciated