Three-Quarters Casting Progression.

[Phryll123]

Hello all! My question is as above. I know we have half-casters, third-casters and full casters; but why do we not have 3/4 casters?

[MaxWilson]

Hello all! My question is as above. I know we have half-casters, third-casters and full casters; but why do we not have 3/4 casters?

Same reason we have halflings and humans but not 3/4lings. :-)

More seriously, a paladin/bard with equal levels in both is a 3/4 caster, and some people consider warlocks sort of like a 3/4 caster in terms of power (with invocations making up the gap).

[Falcon X]

The primary reason is because classes share spell slots when you multiclass.
It’s easy to say “you grow spell slots at half the speed.” It’s harder to do so at 3/4 progression.

A few have tried though. DawnforgedCast made a great homebrew alchemist that tries.

[Unoriginal]

Hello all! My question is as above. I know we have half-casters, third-casters and full casters; but why do we not have 3/4 casters?

Because they wouldn't add anything to the game aside from unneeded complications, probably.

[DireSickFish]

Because 6-9th level spells are basically epic level spells and encounter enders on their own. full casting classes get access to these and don't have much in the way of class abilities. Half casters get a plethra of class abilities but don't get the big hitters. 1/4 casters have the core of their power in class abilities and get a minor boost from spellcasting.

With a 3/4 caster you'd have big encounter ending stuff coming on to late, so you'd need to ingrain their power into abilities. But not make them so strong as 1/2 caster core abilities. It's a tricky balancing prospect. Especially with the way 5e has dedicated power spikes at 5, 11, and 17. Those work well for full casters because 3rd and 6th level spells are big power spikes. And half casters get 3rd level spells so late that you just build in a core feature to be the power spike (ie Extra Attack).

The spell scaling doesn't work out well for 3/4th casters in the same way.

[Cynthaer]

I mean, there are a lot of fractions we don't have. No 2/5 casters, no 1/4 casters, no 2/3 casters.

More to the point, I see no evidence that the existing caster patterns are the result of the designers trying to fill mechanical niches—nobody woke up one day and said, "My god, we don't have any 1/3 casters in 5e! Quick, maybe we can make it a Fighter subclass..."

Rather, you start with what are historically full casters (Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, Wizards), which are self-explanatory. And then you have the classic secondary casters (Paladins, Rangers).

In 3.5e, these secondary casters were basically "1/2 casters, rounded down", maxing out at 4th-level spells, while Bards got their own special "2/3 caster" category with 6th-level spells. That's one way to go about it.

In 5e, they settled on making Bards full casters and making the secondary casters "1/2 casters, rounded up" (getting 5th-level spells). I would guess the idea of 1/3 casters came after they decided they wanted single-class gish characters to be a part of the core game and added the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster subclasses.

Since Fighter and Rogue are both classes where most of their power is in the base class, not the subclass, a 1/2 caster spell progression would probably be way too powerful. Making it roughly 1/3 specifically makes the multiclassing rules relatively simple and is fairly intuitive, so might as well go with that.

So to come back to "why no 3/4 casters"...why do we need it? What design problem does it solve? If it's just for the sake of saying you've got something between 1/2 and full casters, why would we want that specifically? You could say it's good for a Bard-like class that does a little of everything, but 5e's already demonstrated you can handle that just fine with a full caster anyway.

[Eric Diaz]

Well, I can only speak for myself, but my game does indeed have 2/3 casters. Not 3/4 though, sorry. :smallwink:

But seriously, if you're MCing, you don't need any fraction of casters - just build your own fraction by taking one level of Fighter, etc., every fourth level.