Changing a level in a class already acquired to another level or removing it.

[MrDDT]

Looking to advice on rulings about removing a class level from a toon, or changing that class to another class.

Say if you have a 2nd level Rogue Multiclass with a 1st level Wizard and want to lose one level of that Rogue you already have to pick up Wizard 2nd level instead. So you would be 1st Level Rogue, and 2nd Level Wizard.

Are there any rules out there to support this option to change classes over. Or as another option to just simple remove one of the levels and just be a 1st level Rogue Multiclass into a 1st level Wizard.

Why this is important is that there is overall a 20 level cap (mostly standard rules). If a character made a mistake on playing a toon or feels like their toon is more roleplay wise not really a rogue but wanted to be more wizard, is there anything supporting this?

Thank you for all advice. Both my GM and I are new to D&D 5e and had some questions for it on advice.
I've done a few searches and looked at all the rules that I saw in the PHB and DMG but I couldn't see anything that said it.


PS First thread ever for me.

[Sigreid]

Our group plays that up till level 5 you can shift anything around you want and we'll just pretend it was always that way. You can do it again if new options are published you want to use. But it's a table decision.

[Kazuel]

If you and your GM are cool with it, do it. Plenty of people retcon stuff all the time so that things make sense or people are having fun.

[Shonuff]

I don't think there are rules, but I find even experienced players make mistakes in builds, and it's simply no fun to play something you don't want to play.

[Jophiel]

Adventure League allows you to make unlimited changes to your build until level 5. Not mid-game, of course, but you could go to each Tier 1 adventure as a different class if you wanted. So the concept is officially supported (but ask your DM for home games)

[MrDDT]

Thanks for the replies and info.

I didn't know if there was more info on it with rules that I missed and good to know that I didn't miss any, bad to know that there isn't really any saying either way.

Seems like the answer is sorta what I thought it was, up to the DM.

[Jophiel]

Have you talked to your DM about it? I would ask, point out that the official league rules allow it, and hopefully you can come to an agreement. Especially for something like "I wanted to be 2/1 instead of 1/2" it seems like a very minor change.

From the AL rules (https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/ALPGv82.pdf):
Character Rebuilding.
You may choose to rebuild your character prior to playing their first adventure as a 5th-level character (levels 1–4). You can change any of your character’s statistics but their name. Other, non-mechanical aspects of your character such as their alignment, sex, gender, or personality traits can be changed between sessions regardless of their level. Your character keeps any rewards and equipment earned to that point. If you change your characters class or background, they lose any equipment (along with the proceeds from selling it, or benefits derived from it, such as copied spells) associated with the class or background. Similarly, if you change their faction, you also lose any renown from their former faction.

Your DM has every right to turn down the request and it's not explicitly allowed in the PHB/DMG but at least the above shows that someone at WOTC thinks it's a fair idea.

[Unoriginal]

If you want to gloss over it, rebuilding a character -to a reasonable extent- can be done. If you're changing the character extensively I'd probably ask you to change the whole character, as in retire the one you have and play a new one, if only for the campaign's consistency.

If you want it to happen in-story, meeting with an entity with that kind of power is possible.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I fully endorse the AL rebuilding rules (with retcons rather than in-character adjustments), especially for new players. The point is to have fun, and people make mistakes/change their minds/want to experiment.

[Keravath]

In D&D there are no rebuilding rules. You make your choices, roll the dice and suffer or enjoy the consequences.

However, this is real life and D&D is a game. The DM is responsible for making any and all decisions of this type so if you decide you aren't happy with your character and you'd like to make some changes ... talk to the DM and they will then decide whether it is reasonable or possible in the context of the current campaign and other players in the party. It could be that other players would get upset at one character being allowed to make changes that the others don't get .. so the DM has to juggle a number of factors when making decisions like these.

Finally, to reinforce the comments above, Adventurers League allows completely rebuilding characters until they advance to level 5. At level 5 the decisions you make as you progress are final. However, in many cases, by level 5, you will have an idea if the character concept will be interesting and fun to play.

[MilkmanDanimal]

I'm playing in one campaign with experienced players, and I'm DMing another with newbies. In the experienced campaign, there's no shifting; if your character concept changes around, figure out a way to play it or multiclass or whatever. A lot of the players are enjoying playing less optimal builds, so we're all rolling with whatever comes up at the time, and it's working really well. In my new campaign (running Dragon Heist), I've told everyone they can shift around anything they want up until they hit level 3, which is likely end of next session. The Rogue in particular isn't sure what he wants to go for in his subclass, so I told him he has time to play around and figure it out, because I want him to really get an idea to think about his character before setting it in.

In your case, as a new player with a new DM, yeah, I'd completely allow that. The first campaign is a learning experience for everyone, and letting people play around with different options is useful both in terms of coming up with a character you like, as well as with helping everyone learn the system better. Think of the first campaign as "D&D University", and switch things around.

[MrDDT]

Thanks for all the advice.

I talked with my DM more about it and she is with what most of you guys are saying of just changing the one level over to the other, we have a good roleplay story for it and going to do it that way.

Just FYI to the last post. I'm not new to the game only new to 5e. I've played 20 years ago a lot, 1000s of hours.

[Man_Over_Game]

To make it fit with existing "rebuild" rules related to known spells, consider allowing players to do so when they level up.

Something like allowing them to change over one level at a time when they level, on top of the level that they would normally gain. So a 2 Rogue, 1 Wizard, taking 1 level into Fighter can also choose to move one level of their Rogue class into the Fighter or Wizard class.

In most cases, this isn't a big deal, as you're only adjusting one level at a time. At level 1, this can be a big deal, as this means something like a Barbarian 1 can change into a Druid 2, completely changing playstyles and builds in the matter of a level (or even a session) but it's still not super broken.