How does not allowing multiclassing and/or feats impact the game?

[HappyDaze]

Despite the fact that it is considered an optional rule, including multiclassing and feats seem to be (almost) universally accepted as the default way of playing D&D 5e. Much of the game balance and optimization threads I've seen hinge on either or both of these options. But what about games played without them?

I'd like to start with Classes. Which classes are most impacted in games that:

Do not allow multiclassing (Type A-)
Do not allow feats (Type B-)
Do not allow either multiclassing or feats (Type AB-)

Rules/mechanics analysis and commentaries are welcome, as are opinions that talk about how a certain feature might be viewed as more/less valuable in certain game types. OTOH, "I would never play in that type of game" statements are not really helpful, so if that's all the input that can be offered, start by not playing in this thread.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Despite the fact that it is considered an optional rule, including multiclassing and feats seem to be (almost) universally accepted as the default way of playing D&D 5e. Much of the game balance and optimization threads I've seen hinge on either or both of these options. But what about games played without them?

I'd like to start with Classes. Which classes are most impacted in games that:

Do not allow multiclassing (Type A-)
Do not allow feats (Type B-)
Do not allow either multiclassing or feats (Type AB-)

Rules/mechanics analysis and commentaries are welcome, as are opinions that talk about how a certain feature might be viewed as more/less valuable in certain game types. OTOH, "I would never play in that type of game" statements are not really helpful, so if that's all the input that can be offered, start by not playing in this thread.

As a note, the default is no multiclassing and no feats. I'd say that (assuming a by-the-guidelines adventuring day averaging at least one short rest and multiple fights between each rest) balance is better in a Type AB- game for all classes. The power level decreases significantly (especially missing the combat feats), but you're closer to design standards so you can expect more of an authentic challenge.

You lose a lot of the "must have" optimization tricks--sorlocks, sorcadins, PAM/GWM or SS/CBE martials, SAD paladins (hmm, what class has come up the most so far?), life/knowledge cleric dips for wizards (and thus remove most easy access to armor for wizards). You also lose a lot of the "tricks" like

I'd say the effect is noticeable but not overwhelming at most tables.

@Tanarii is the go-to here--Type AB- are what he runs constantly.

[Lunali]

Part of the reason why it seems so prevalent is that without multiclassing and feats, there's very little to talk about with regards to balance and optimization.

[Max_Killjoy]

Part of the reason why it seems so prevalent is that without multiclassing and feats, there's very little to talk about with regards to balance and optimization.

And because there are a lot of concepts that don't fit well into any one of the extant classes... and custom classes are less commonly allowed than multiclassing.

[Rusvul]

Feats help martials... quite a lot, and they help casters relatively little. 5e has done a lot to cut down on caster supremacy, but it still exists. Removing feats will serve to make martials less interesting and casters more dominant. I can see running 5e without feats if your party is new--and restricting what feats PCs are allowed to take with variant human is a sensible houserule--but as far as I'm concerned, 5e is a less interesting and worse-balanced game without feats.

Classes/character archetypes that become worse when you remove feats:

Anyone who primarily uses weapons instead of spells (TWF, GWM, PAM, Sharpshooter, and Crossbow Master are all pretty important for some characters)
Anyone who intends to mix "I cast spells" with "I use weapons" (anyone who would have taken Warcaster)
Non-spell battlefield control becomes the almost exclusive to Monks and grapplers (Sentinel and/or PAM)
Casters are impacted only in that their Constitution saves (and thus concentration checks) will be worse. Sorcerers are less impacted than most.)
Character concepts that involve just a little bit of magic become harder to achieve. (Ritual Caster, Magic Initiate)


Multiclassing... probably screws with balance a little. I personally like it a lot, but you'll probably have a better-balanced--if less interesting, IMO--game with stronger niches if you run a Type A- game.

In any case, the game will run just fine, but if you have ex-3.5 players who like the char-op subgame, they will probably grumble a bit.




Edit: I screwed up and my post didn't match the blood-type scheme in the OP

[Vogie]

It depends on your players. If they're new to the game, and are a tabula rasa, it won't impact it at all.

For more entrenched players, it'll feel overly limiting.

Simple things like:

Crossbow Expert allowing a martial to use their extra attack feature if they're holding a light crossbow rather than a longbow.
Non-hexblade blade warlocks starting with Paladin or Fighter to gain armor proficiencies
Casters having to choose either Sorcerer or not having proficiency to Con saves for their concentration spells (as there is no Resilient: Con or Warcaster)
Among other things.

It'll feel like "just" DnD. You won't have deep character concepts that can be created through mixed classes. All the fighters will be fighters, because none of them will have a couple levels in cleric so they could feel like a field medic. Druids will only be able to communicate in humanoid form, because they can't dip into GOOlock for telepathy. A magical thief would have to be Arcane trickster, because they can't be a thief or assassin with wizard dip or the magic initiate feat... they just get the one choice.

[Malifice]

Despite the fact that it is considered an optional rule, including multiclassing and feats seem to be (almost) universally accepted as the default way of playing D&D 5e. Much of the game balance and optimization threads I've seen hinge on either or both of these options. But what about games played without them?

I'd like to start with Classes. Which classes are most impacted in games that:

Do not allow multiclassing (Type A-)
Do not allow feats (Type B-)
Do not allow either multiclassing or feats (Type AB-)

Rules/mechanics analysis and commentaries are welcome, as are opinions that talk about how a certain feature might be viewed as more/less valuable in certain game types. OTOH, "I would never play in that type of game" statements are not really helpful, so if that's all the input that can be offered, start by not playing in this thread.

Fighters get hurt the most without feats (they get more of them than anyone else, and most of the great feats are either linked to 'fighting' like GWM, Sharpshooter, Crossbow expert, PAM, HAM etc OR are useful to a Fighter by giving him something other than Fighting to do - Actor, Ritual Caster, Skilled etc).

In fact, if you run a game where Martials are still considered 'weak', then I would suggest allowing Fighters (and only Fighters) the ability to select Feats with their ASI (make selecting feats with ASI instead of increasing a stat, a unique feature of the Fighter class).

[HappyDaze]

I can see running 5e without feats if your party is new--and restricting what feats PCs are allowed to take with variant human is a sensible houserule

Even if I run a game using Feats, I have no love for the Variant Human and do not allow it. In 5e, I don't like having Feats available at 1st level.

[HappyDaze]

In fact, if you run a game where Martials are still considered 'weak', then I would suggest allowing Fighters (and only Fighters) the ability to select Feats with their ASI (make selecting feats with ASI instead of increasing a stat, a unique feature of the Fighter class).
I have considered having a Feat (only, not optional) be the Fighter 6, Fighter 14, and Rogue 10 class abilities. Other ASIs for all classes must be ASIs.

[Jerrykhor]

Type A - Every class is affected, but i think Warlock is affected the most. No Sorcadins, no Bearbarians, no warlock dips.

Type B - Fighters. They get the most ASIs, and once their STR/CON are maxed, there's hardly any reason to pump ASI in other stats. It gets worse if they start with high ability scores from rolled stats. Without feats, fighters are very weak and boring to play.

Type AB - I won't even consider it. I can live without multi-classing, but not without feats. I'll admit that I am biased, I love feats. They are important for character customisation, to make certain character concepts possible. Even though this mode is technically the most 'vanilla', its also quite rare. I personally am too used to being in kitchen sink games where DMs allow homebrew stuff. Type AB seems awfully restrictive to me.

[Malifice]

Even if I run a game using Feats, I have no love for the Variant Human and do not allow it. In 5e, I don't like having Feats available at 1st level.

I love having them available at 1st level. It opens up some concepts from 1st level.

I ban Vuman, but grant everyone a feat at 1st (and Humans +1 to all ASI as normal, but I also give them an additional skill or tool proficiency at 1st level as well).

[LordEntrails]

Despite the fact that it is considered an optional rule, including multiclassing and feats seem to be (almost) universally accepted as the default way of playing D&D 5e. Much of the game balance and optimization threads I've seen hinge on either or both of these options. But what about games played without them?

I think your presumptions are just wrong.


Part of the reason why it seems so prevalent is that without multiclassing and feats, there's very little to talk about with regards to balance and optimization.
Yes, just because feats and multi-classing are talked about so much online in places like GITP is because these places are overwhelmingly frequented by optimizers and mechanical analysts.

Optimizers talk about the need to multi-class and use feats because they are tools to optimize, and hence are effectively required to optimize.

Most players of D&D do not discuss D&D on forums. Most don't read the forums. Most just play the game, and don't worry about playing it "better". They have fun, they enjoy it.

Though I don't restrict the use of multi-classing, most games I play in and run, only about 10% of the characters multi-class, and only about 25% use feats. And even though some of the players know how to optimize, maybe only 1 in 20 actually bother to optimize. Most of the several dozen gamers I play with have played for 20 or more years. I suspect most of us have passed through the optimizing and competitive phase of RPGs, and now play concepts and characters that are just fun and interesting.

[Rusvul]

I think your presumptions are just wrong.
Yes, just because feats and multi-classing are talked about so much online in places like GITP is because these places are overwhelmingly frequented by optimizers and mechanical analysts.

Optimizers talk about the need to multi-class and use feats because they are tools to optimize, and hence are effectively required to optimize.

Most players of D&D do not discuss D&D on forums. Most don't read the forums. Most just play the game, and don't worry about playing it "better". They have fun, they enjoy it.

Though I don't restrict the use of multi-classing, most games I play in and run, only about 10% of the characters multi-class, and only about 25% use feats. And even though some of the players know how to optimize, maybe only 1 in 20 actually bother to optimize. Most of the several dozen gamers I play with have played for 20 or more years. I suspect most of us have passed through the optimizing and competitive phase of RPGs, and now play concepts and characters that are just fun and interesting.

You're right that feats and multiclassing are critical to optimizing. I would argue, however, that they also vastly widen the number of fun, interesting character concepts for players with a reasonable degree of system mastery. Feats and/or multiclassing are essential for "cognitive dissonance Paladin/Hexblade doublesmite" but they are also essential for fully mechanically realizing concepts like "rage mage," or "big sword guy with a touch of Fae blood," or "diviner stealth assassin." While I'm not sure that you mean to imply it--and if not, sorry, I don't want to put words in your mouth--I think it would be pretty fallacious to say that only minmaxers would miss multiclassing and feats in a game without them.

[HappyDaze]

Type A - Every class is affected, but i think Warlock is affected the most. No Sorcadins, no Bearbarians, no warlock dips.
Is this because the Warlock isn't attractive enough on it's own for people to stick with it fully (i.e, full Warlock isn't good enough), or because it's too attractive as a dip option (i.e, a little Warlock makes other things so much better)?

If the former, that's not good as it would mean the class will be unlikely to be played. If the latter, that's less of a concern to me.

[Particle_Man]

I have played without feats/multiclass and with both. People seem fine with it in play either way and adapt in the way one might adapt in a game that allows variant stat rolling methods or high point buy or low point buy. As a player I can see the benefit of simplicity but also the benefit of tweaking to fit a theme. As a dm it helps me avoid a headache from a player that wants to exploit a particular combo, altough again I would be more sympathetic to a player that had a theme in mind.

[Mr.Spastic]

It honestly bothers me that people have been talking like this weakens the game and restricts character concepts. Sure, you have less access to some very fun and strong things that could shape interesting and unique character concepts but you can already make some very fun character concepts anyways. One person mentioned that that they couldn't make a battlefield medic because they couldn't be a cleric/fighter multiclass but there are several waus to make this work namely War Clerics, paladins, and fighters with a medicine skill through a background. But generally all clerics are combat medics by nature. The same person mentioned a magic thief character could only be a Arcane Trickster but you could get a similar effect from a Wizard, Warlock, or Sorcerer with the criminal background. My point is that claiming that denying multiclassing restricts character concepts is wrong.

Another thing of note is that people will have higher stats. This allows for MAD classes like Monk, Paladin, and other less mainstream builds to be able to keep pace without stretching them self too thin between ability scores and feats.

Another point about not having feats or multiclassing is that it makes the classes feel more unique. You can play a the character who weaves between enemies with ease unless you play a Monk or Rogue. Nobody else can wield a weapon quite as well as the fighter who will probably have the main attack stat maxed out by level 6. Nobody gets smites except the paladin. The sorcerer will be the only caster with a really good con save. Clerics and Druids are the only full casting healers. Wizards will never wear armor. There are a few exceptions to these kinds of things but most of those are through subclasses or being a Warlock.

I personally don't use multiclassing at my tables because I like my players to feel like they're special. It's makes the player feel more important to the group when their character is the only one who can something the others can't.

I do use feats in my games but my players never use them to optimize. One of my players took Tavern Brawler and another took Skilled grabbing two tool proficiencies. The really only took them to make more fun characters and not out of any need to make themselves stronger.

[Malifice]

I dont get why optimisation matters in 5E.

It's not like Pathfinder where the difference between an unoptimised PC and one thats optimised is a vast yawning gulf, where it's impossble to DM a 'vanilla' Monk or Fighter with (say) some optimised 'build' in the same party.

There really isnt much difference in 5E between an optimsed PC and one that's an 'out the box' PC, and there arent any trap options like in PF (the Monk, Rogue and Fighter Im looking at you).

Can someone care to provide an optimised PC using feats and MC that clearly (or even remotely) outshines a vanilla PC without feats or MCing out the box at levels 1-11 (where the game is played)?

[HappyDaze]

Type B - Fighters. They get the most ASIs, and once their STR/CON are maxed, there's hardly any reason to pump ASI in other stats. It gets worse if they start with high ability scores from rolled stats. Without feats, fighters are very weak and boring to play.

Those extra ASIs might not make you better at one avenue of fighting once STR/CON hit the ceiling, but they can help make a very broadly-capable everyman. Even Strength-based Fighters can benefit from high Dexterity if they want a strong alternate in non-Thrown ranged combat along with a valuable save, Initiative, and some useful skills. Increasing Intelligence is not bad if you're an Eldritch Knight, but otherwise isn't really all that useful. Increasing Wisdom gives a useful save bonus and helps with a few more popular skills. Increasing Charisma is mainly for the skills it grants, but it's probably not a first choice for most.

[Mr.Spastic]

Is this because the Warlock isn't attractive enough on it's own for people to stick with it fully (i.e, full Warlock isn't good enough), or because it's too attractive as a dip option (i.e, a little Warlock makes other things so much better)?

If the former, that's not good as it would mean the class will be unlikely to be played. If the latter, that's less of a concern to me.

It is the latter. Warlocks just happen to be the most front heavy of the classes but they don't ever feel weak or that they are falling behind as they level up. They just get the most dip worthy stuff a levels two and three.

[ad_hoc]

Despite the fact that it is considered an optional rule, including multiclassing and feats seem to be (almost) universally accepted as the default way of playing D&D 5e.

Mike Mearls recently stated that less than half of the tables use feats.

I doubt multiclassing is used more than feats.

[Malifice]

My point is that claiming that denying multiclassing restricts character concepts is wrong.

My character concept is Martial artist/ Assasin. A Ninja.

I mean; I guess I could (presuming you're allowing feats) select the tavern brawler feat on an Assasin, but by god.

What on earth is wrong with a Shadow Monk/ Assasin MC? What on earth is broken about or why wouldnt you let a PC who wants to play a 'Ninja' play that MC combo?

My current PC is a 'Darkmoon Knight of Elistraee.' He's a half-drow, who was gifted a 'Moonblade' (a singing silver Greatsword that radiates moonlight) by his Patron (the Masked Lady - a vestige of Elistraee during her time merged with Vhaerun). Now Vhaerun and Elistraee are seperate again, he's formally adopted Elistraee as his patron and devoted himself to her cause (freedom, liberty, racial harmony, gender equality, beauty and joy). He's a Knight (skilled in battle) of the Darkmoon order, who has been trained in Bladedancing by the Clergy (not being a cleric himself) and is gifted in both Arcane and Divine magic, and is highly resistant to both (thanks to his Drow ancestry and gifts from Elistraee).

He's recently travelled to Waterdeep to help build the temple on the surface. Knighted for his service, he's been selected to establish diplomatic relations with the Drow of the Promenaide of the Dark maiden on the 3rd level of Undermountain (we're playing Undermountain at the moment).

He's been gifted a vial of constantly moonlight holy water to pour into the Promenaides Moonspring portal to connect it to the surface temple portal.

His mother is non other than Vicona DeVir (of Baldurs gate fame).

The PCS mechanical build is an Ancients Paladin 7/ Hexblade -blade pact - Warlock 3/ Swords Bard 5/ Divine Soul Sorcerer 5.

Can I ask what the heck is wrong with that Multiclass? Why would any DM say 'no'?

[Malifice]

It is the latter. Warlocks just happen to be the most front heavy of the classes but they don't ever feel weak or that they are falling behind as they level up. They just get the most dip worthy stuff a levels two and three.

A 2 or 3 level 'dip' IN Warlock is a huge deal in 5E.

Those levels dont stack with other caster levels (unlike Cleric/ Wizard/ Bard/ Sorc etc) so you're always 2-3 levels behind in your casting.

They dont stack with martial levels for Extra attack either (unlike in 3.X where BAB stacked granting extra attacks).

They also delay feat selection by 2-3 levels.

You do that 3 level 'dip', and you're 2-3 levels behind in feats, ASI and the 'game changing' class features all classes get at 5th and 11th level.

Bear in mind most games dont go past 11th level. Delaying extra attack, stunning fist, bardic inspiration on a short rest, 3rd level+ spells, uncanny dodge etc by 2-3 levels is a huge deal. Yeah, you get a slightly better ranged attack with eldritch blast, and 2 x 2nd level slots per short rest, but It comes with a massive cost.

[Mr.Spastic]

My character concept is Martial artist/ Assasin. A Ninja.

I mean; I guess I could (presuming you're allowing feats) select the tavern brawler feat on an Assasin, but by god.

What on earth is wrong with a Shadow Monk/ Assasin MC? What on earth is broken about or why wouldnt you let a PC who wants to play a 'Ninja' play that MC combo?

Nothing is wrong with it and I never said it was broken. I think you missed my point. My point was that it is not nessecary to use a multiclass to fit a theme. A martial artist assassin could also just be a shadow monk. You don't need the rogue MC, it just makes it a stronger class.

Also, my players don't have a problem becaus they know that I don't use multiclassing before they make their characters. I have never had to tell a character no to a concept because they already new the parameters before they created a character.

[Jerrykhor]

Those extra ASIs might not make you better at one avenue of fighting once STR/CON hit the ceiling, but they can help make a very broadly-capable everyman. Even Strength-based Fighters can benefit from high Dexterity if they want a strong alternate in non-Thrown ranged combat along with a valuable save, Initiative, and some useful skills. Increasing Intelligence is not bad if you're an Eldritch Knight, but otherwise isn't really all that useful. Increasing Wisdom gives a useful save bonus and helps with a few more popular skills. Increasing Charisma is mainly for the skills it grants, but it's probably not a first choice for most.

Yeah but +2 Wisdom is so lame compared to just taking Resilient (wisdom). Want some skills? There's the Skilled feat. The thing is, with the bounded accuracy of ability scores, a +1 modifier dont matter most of the time.

I am still not sold on the feat-less idea. I've heard the argument that DM ban feats for less MinMaxing and more RP. But martials without feats do considerably less damage, and with the HP scaling of monsters at higher levels, it means longer fights since monster take longer time to die. Which might make fights a slog, considering PCs also have less interesting options without feats.

[Mjolnirbear]

Off-topic, I have doubts about Mearls' stats, but only because my anecdotal experience says otherwise. Actually, on second thought I have another reason: one of his databases include AL, which starts every character at 1st. Not all those players show up every week; there's bound to be more (in my mind, a lot more) low-level characters that just never got high enough for an ASI; and not all that did get that high chose a feat.

We also all play multiple characters. Just because Twinkie was a pure caster (less need for feats, multiclassing loses spell slots) doesn't mean Janette won't be a lockadin or sorlock or gish or be a fighter/rogue thug. The first one doesn't mean you're playing in an AB game.

Just because half of the characters he has are neither multiclass nor have feats doesn't mean half of all games/tables eschew feats and multiclassing.


Back on topic. I could play in an A game. But I won't give up feats. My pally wants more magic, or my blade lock also wants ritual casting. In the unlikely event I ever make a pure non-caster, feats are the only way to change up your play options. "I Rage. Attack. *roll* Done. *yawn* Your turn."

Also, poor fighter or rogue in am AB game. Once you've maxed your attack stat, you can... Increase your intelligence! Which has no practical benefit. You could...increase your Charisma! But there's already a Face. You can't get more skills with those ASIs, and bumping stats are useful for constitution, attack stat, or casting stat (which latter doesn't apply here, and the first you probably already pumped to something you were comfortable with).

[Malifice]

Nothing is wrong with it and I never said it was broken. I think you missed my point. My point was that it is not nessecary to use a multiclass to fit a theme. A martial artist assassin could also just be a shadow monk. You don't need the rogue MC, it just makes it a stronger class.

No, it doesnt make it stronger.

It makes the concept work better for the player. He wants to be a shadow oriented Martial artist that is sneaky, hiding all the time and capable of killing blows. It's best realised with Rogue [expertise in stealth, cunning action hide, sneak attack] and Monk [martial arts, shadow arts].

Multiclasing doesnt make either the Monk better, or the Rogue better.

A 5th level Monk (or a 5th level Rogue) is far stronger than a Monk/ Rogue with 5 levels split between them.

[Malifice]

Also, my players don't have a problem becaus they know that I don't use multiclassing before they make their characters. I have never had to tell a character no to a concept because they already new the parameters before they created a character.

That doesnt mean that you're not limiting concepts though. Your decision to ban multiclassing limits the concepts.

I mean it's your table so fill your boots, but multiclassing is the least of your problems if you're worried about multiclassed PCs being stronger than vanilla classes.

[Mr.Spastic]

I am still not sold on the feat-less idea. I've heard the argument that DM ban feats for less MinMaxing and more RP. But martials without feats do considerably less damage, and with the HP scaling of monsters at higher levels, it means longer fights since monster take longer time to die. Which might make fights a slog, considering PCs also have less interesting options without feats.

I think your approaching this from the wrong direction. None of what you are saying is wrong but I think you have a bit of a skewed perspective. The game was made to be playable and enjoyable without the feats(or multiclassing). Feats are an optional rule to make your characters stronger not the core game itself. Treating the game like it needs feats to function normally kinda like acting like you need a sports car to drive to work. Sure it's faster, more powerful, and has unique features, but you can get to work just fine with the average car and that was has no extra features but still gets you to work on time.

[Stygofthedump]

We run a type A game and it’s great. Much later we might allow multi classes and splat books but for now it all seems pretty well balanced.

[Mr.Spastic]

That doesnt mean that you're not limiting concepts though. Your decision to ban multiclassing limits the concepts.

I mean it's your table so fill your boots, but multiclassing is the least of your problems if you're worried about multiclassed PCs being stronger than vanilla classes.

It doesn't limit concepts though. You can still come up with infinite characters concepts without them. Saying that this infinite is small because this other infinite is technically bigger is inherently convoluded and makes sense only on a surface level. You don't limit character concepts you just set parameters.

Also, I never said I was worried about stronger characters at all. Now you're putting words in my mouth. I don't use multiclassing for various reasons and character strength is very low on the list.

[Malifice]

It doesn't limit concepts though.

I want to play a Knight of the Mystic Fire (a canonical Paladin order of Mystra, that uses both Arcane and Divine magic).

How do I do that in your game?

In my game I would play a Paladin (likely Devotion) and MC with Divine Soul Sorcerer. Mixing arcane and divine spells, with smites, auras, and heavy armor and Paladin goodness.

How do I get the same concept running in your game?

[Mr.Spastic]

I want to play a Knight of the Mystic Fire (a canonical Paladin order of Mystra, that uses both Arcane and Divine magic).

How do I do that in your game?

In my game I would play a Paladin (likely Devotion) and MC with Divine Soul Sorcerer. Mixing arcane and divine spells, with smites, auras, and heavy armor and Paladin goodness.

How do I get the same concept running in your game?

The answer is you don't and you aren't supposed to. You could create a character that is new and unique with an interesting personality and backstory. My players and I run what works for us and you can stop being such an a**hold because we don't use an optional rule. You don't limit a players creativity by restricting MC and Feats, you just have them use a less expansive toolbox. This leads to my players running actually interesting characters who are more than just a concept that has been adapted into the game. Also, now that I've thought about it, if you wanted to make and Arcane/Divine warrior, Hexblade is just about what you want so you could make it work with some refluffing.

[Skylivedk]

I'd like to start with Classes. Which classes are most impacted in games that:

Do not allow multiclassing (Type A-)
Do not allow feats (Type B-)
Do not allow either multiclassing or feats (Type AB-)

Rules/mechanics analysis and commentaries are welcome, as are opinions that talk about how a certain feature might be viewed as more/less valuable in certain game types. OTOH, "I would never play in that type of game" statements are not really helpful, so if that's all the input that can be offered, start by not playing in this thread.

I've theory crafted tons of classes. So far, I've never done any multiclassing. Might do a Sorcerer or bard dip on my hexblade at some point because I'm missing buttons in our short rest light Tomb of Annihilation campaign. I could live easily without it.

A-

I'd say the charisma based classes are overall the ones who lose most flexibility by disallowing multiclassing. They have the easiest time doing it now and with great synergies between them either shoring up on utility (bard), martial prowess (Paladin), short rest/at will viability (warlock) or casting flexibility and spell selection (Sorcerer).

Wizards, druids and clerics lose quite little.

B-
Martials take a heavy hit. I'd definitely consider allowing the bonus ASI for rogues and fighters to be feats. Rangers and Paladins are better off than fighters. Sword and board is pretty much the supreme choice for all martials. Before modifiers: With a greatsword and GWF you do an average of 7,something. With dueling and a longsword you do 6,5.

Full casters are not very affected. In particular sorcerers as mentioned. Moon druid is stronger for longer in comparison to martials.

Monk and frenzy barbarian are a lot better this way. So is war cleric. I still wouldn't play a frenzy barbarian. I'd be more prone to do a monk.

In B- the pala multies become super super strong. A few dips into Wiz/sorc becomes better for all non-spellcasters due to scag cantrips and low level spells being comparatively better. Battlemaster+rogue is relatively better... In general the rogue dip is better for martials since they have less bonus action competition.

AB-
Much of the same as B-, but accentuated. Moon druid really shines. Frenzy barbarian climbs a tier. Monk maybe climbs two tiers. Casters are very very strong.

[Skylivedk]

The answer is you don't and you aren't supposed to. You could create a character that is new and unique with an interesting personality and backstory. My players and I run what works for us and you can stop being such an a**hold because we don't use an optional rule. You don't limit a players creativity by restricting MC and Feats, you just have them use a less expansive toolbox. This leads to my players running actually interesting characters who are more than just a concept that has been adapted into the game. Also, now that I've thought about it, if you wanted to make and Arcane/Divine warrior, Hexblade is just about what you want so you could make it work with some refluffing.

You sound like you take it personally that Malifice is pointing out that certain characters aren't easily done without multiclassing. Malifice isn't being anything negative by pointing that out, it's part of the point of the thread, so drop the name-calling and act civilised.

[Malifice]

The answer is you don't and you aren't supposed to.

Hold on there mate. You were the one making the claim that your refusal to allow MCing doesnt limit creativity and options.

Yet here you are, expressly admitting it does limit creativity and options, and conceeding this concept cant be made in your games, and apparently Im not supposed to make a Knight of the Mystic Fire, despite them being around in the game for decades.


You could create a character that is new and unique with an interesting personality and backstory.


The Stormwind fallacy? Really?

Is there any reason a Knight of the Mystic Fire cant also have an interesting personality and backstory?

Heck, I posted above a Half Drow Darkmoon Knight, devoted to Elistraee and seeking to unite the Promenade of the Dark Maiden in Underdark with the surface temple to the Drow Goddess in Waterdeep, who is also the Half elven son of Vicona De'Vir (of Baldurs Gate fame, who adventured with both the Bhaalspawn and Drizzt). He's the last remaining male of house De'vir (the house wiped out by house DoUrden on Drizzts birthday). He was born in Neverwinter to a Drow mother, and Mintarn Human (a mercenary) father, and has been exploring ruins of ancient Illefarn his whole life. He follows Elistraee (as does his mother, after turning her back on Shar and Lolth berore that).

Is that not enough of an intresting personality and backstory for you?

Hes a Multiclassed Ancients Paladin and Hexblade (Elistraee is his patron) who was gifted a Magical sword by the Dark dancer, and the grace to wield it (Hex warrior). He's training in the arts of music, dance, song and swordplay (About to MC as a Swords Bard) as a Bladedancer.

Backstory and character dont live seperate from choice of class (or multiclassing); they inform it. In this PCs case, I felt ([Ancients] Paladin/ Hexblade/ Swords Bard/ Divine Soul Sorcerer) best fit the fluff/ theme/ mechanics of the character I was trying to represent


My players and I run what works for us and you can stop being such an a**hold because we don't use an optional rule.

Im not being an *******, and there is no need for that kind of abuse. You stated something as fact (denying multi-classing doesnt limit character options). I'm highlighting the falseness of that statement (if it wasnt already self evident from the statement).

If it works for you (and your table), then great. I already said just that above. But dont make a claim (it doesnt limit options) that you cant back up (because you've now had to admit that it does limit options).


Also, now that I've thought about it, if you wanted to make and Arcane/Divine warrior, Hexblade is just about what you want so you could make it work with some refluffing.

With sufficient re-fluffing you could possibly make that work to some small degree. My current Paladin has levels of Hexblade (fluffed as the Dark Dancer) Blade lock (Moonsword) to fill the 'Dark elven woman of the moon, gifts young man a great sword of silver' cliche.

It doesnt work anywhere near as good at matching the fluff as a Paladin/ Divine Soul does though (an Arcane/ Divine Paladin), so it limits options. There are not only fluff things that shutting down MCing does, but intresting mechanical things as well.

Again; before you hurl abuse anymore, if it works for your games go nuts. Just dont make the claim it doesnt limit options, when it (self evidently, by very definition) does limit options.

[SteelArcana]

Despite the fact that it is considered an optional rule, including multiclassing and feats seem to be (almost) universally accepted as the default way of playing D&D 5e. Much of the game balance and optimization threads I've seen hinge on either or both of these options. But what about games played without them?

I'd like to start with Classes. Which classes are most impacted in games that:

Do not allow multiclassing (Type A-)
Do not allow feats (Type B-)
Do not allow either multiclassing or feats (Type AB-)

Rules/mechanics analysis and commentaries are welcome, as are opinions that talk about how a certain feature might be viewed as more/less valuable in certain game types. OTOH, "I would never play in that type of game" statements are not really helpful, so if that's all the input that can be offered, start by not playing in this thread.

In a game that doesn't allow feats, the fighter takes a relatively large blow to their performance. One of their strong suits is additional ASIs, but they are only dependent on two attributes in STR/CON or DEX/CON. What do you do after those are both maxed? Usually the answer is a feat.

Among the fighter subclasses, the one that gets uniquely butchered by a lack of feats is the eldritch knight. Their two most important spells are shield and absorb elements, both of which require a somatic component and no material component. That means that even if their weapon or shield was a spell casting focus, they still wouldn't be able to cast these spells without having a free hand. This is specifically bad because both spells are also done via a reaction. Warcaster fixes this problem entirely, but in a game without feats this is clearly not an option.

[ad_hoc]

Off-topic, I have doubts about Mearls' stats, but only because my anecdotal experience says otherwise. Actually, on second thought I have another reason: one of his databases include AL, which starts every character at 1st.

They get 6 digit responses to their surveys.

They had to shut the latest one down early because they were getting too many responses.

Your anecdotal experience is very limited.

[Mr.Spastic]

*snip

The problem we are having is from our different philosophies on character creation. I don't see it as limiting options because I don't create characters to fulfill a concept. You clearly create characters from the concept down starting with an idea and finding mechanics that work for that idea. By your logic I would be limiting your options because certain concepts would only work with a MC. However I create character from the opposite angle starting with mechanics and building upon it with character and story to make it interesting. The difference is that you start woth a finished product and fill on the gaps. The way I create characters is inherently limitless which is why I said the denying multiclass doesn't limit character concepts. Also your language and tone have been very rude and I have been nothing but covil in this debate apart from when I called out you acting like an a**hole. You come across as being very arrogant and entitled and do nothing but deny what I am saying without seemingly understanding it. I get your point and your not nessecarily wrong but that's not my interpretation. It does deny some options of character creation but from my point of view this isn't the problem your language and tone would suggest.

[Malifice]

The problem we are having is from our different philosophies on character creation. I don't see it as limiting options because I don't create characters to fulfill a concept.

Were not talking about you, we're talking about your players.

Your players might have a concept that mechanically works best (or mechanically only works) via multi-classing.

I see no reason to stop them from exploring that concept, and helping them get that concept off the ground.

Heck, (as DM) if a player came to me with the concept of an 'Arcane Paladin' I'd point them to Sorc/ Paladin, and mention the Knight sof the Mystic fire as an option (Knight of the Order background). I'd work with the player to get the best mechanical representation of that concept at the table.

That's just our differing styles, and what seems to work at your table, wouldnt work at mine. I prefer to enable my players, and enable their concepts, rather than shut down something for no real reason.


You clearly create characters from the concept down starting with an idea and finding mechanics that work for that idea. By your logic I would be limiting your options because certain concepts would only work with a MC. However I create character from the opposite angle starting with mechanics and building upon it with character and story to make it interesting.

Again, we're talking about you as if you were a player. You're the DM.


The difference is that you start woth a finished product and fill on the gaps. The way I create characters is inherently limitless which is why I said the denying multiclass doesn't limit character concepts. Also your language and tone have been very rude and I have been nothing but covil in this debate apart from when I called out you acting like an a**hole. You come across as being very arrogant and entitled and do nothing but deny what I am saying without seemingly understanding it. I get your point and your not nessecarily wrong but that's not my interpretation. It does deny some options of character creation but from my point of view this isn't the problem your language and tone would suggest.

What language have I used? You're the one calling people names. I actually referred to you as mate above, and said 'whatever works at your table, go for it.'

You then called me an a-hole and had a tantrum.

Im forthright in my comments, because you made a statement (limiting - or outright banning - multiclassing 'does not limit options'). It's self evidently a false statement. Im calling you out on it. If that angers you, so be it.

If I limited all races other than human, am I limiting options and concepts? If I limited all classes other than Fighter, am I limiting options and concepts? If I only used the Basic rules of the game (only the 4 classes) am I limiting options and concepts?

Yes, yes, and yes.

By limiting (banning in this case) multi-classing you're limiting player options. Aint nothing you can say or do to make that statement any less true.

Now (again, just so we're clear): If it works at your table, go nuts. Have a blast, what works for you, works for you. More fun to you. Go crazy.

Just as long as you're aware you're limiting options is all.

[Mr.Spastic]

My apologies if it seemed like I was throwing a tantrum. It is currently 3:47 am and I misinterpreted some of what you were saying and am not the most coherent or reserved state right now. I'll just say a few things.

I am completely aware that I am limitimg options for character concepts for my players.

However...

Both me and my players have the same thoughts on characters and don't see a lack of multiclassing as an issue or being restrictive.

As I have mentioned, we prefer ground up characters where we take mechanics and build a character rather than building a character and finding mechanics.

There is nothing wrong with what you are suggesting but we have all agreed that we won't play with MC. Part of why I snapped is because the way you conveyed said I should allow multiclassing made it seem that I have no respect for my players and that I was somehow suppressing them.

That is all. Sorry for the miscommunication and bad eticate.

[HappyDaze]

I've theory crafted tons of classes. So far, I've never done any multiclassing. Might do a Sorcerer or bard dip on my hexblade at some point because I'm missing buttons in our short rest light Tomb of Annihilation campaign. I could live easily without it.

A-

I'd say the charisma based classes are overall the ones who lose most flexibility by disallowing multiclassing. They have the easiest time doing it now and with great synergies between them either shoring up on utility (bard), martial prowess (Paladin), short rest/at will viability (warlock) or casting flexibility and spell selection (Sorcerer).

Wizards, druids and clerics lose quite little.

B-
Martials take a heavy hit. I'd definitely consider allowing the bonus ASI for rogues and fighters to be feats. Rangers and Paladins are better off than fighters. Sword and board is pretty much the supreme choice for all martials. Before modifiers: With a greatsword and GWF you do an average of 7,something. With dueling and a longsword you do 6,5.

Full casters are not very affected. In particular sorcerers as mentioned. Moon druid is stronger for longer in comparison to martials.

Monk and frenzy barbarian are a lot better this way. So is war cleric. I still wouldn't play a frenzy barbarian. I'd be more prone to do a monk.

In B- the pala multies become super super strong. A few dips into Wiz/sorc becomes better for all non-spellcasters due to scag cantrips and low level spells being comparatively better. Battlemaster+rogue is relatively better... In general the rogue dip is better for martials since they have less bonus action competition.

AB-
Much of the same as B-, but accentuated. Moon druid really shines. Frenzy barbarian climbs a tier. Monk maybe climbs two tiers. Casters are very very strong.

This is a well-done response. Thank you.

[HappyDaze]

Just as long as you're aware you're limiting options is all.

I believe that the best DMs limit options all the time. When I choose which sources to allow, I'm limiting options. When I choose a setting, I'm limiting options. When I tell a player that they can't roll stats in private, I'm limiting options.

The title of the thread makes it clear that options will be limited in some fashion by the choice to disallow the optional multiclassing and/or feat rules. That's not something that needs be be harped upon; the focus should be in how it impacts the options that remain.

[Skylivedk]

They get 6 digit responses to their surveys.

They had to shut the latest one down early because they were getting too many responses.

Your anecdotal experience is very limited.

True. Still, hardly an unbiased way of collecting feedback.

@Mr.Spastic: you've got to separate your feelings from what you believe to be true if you are to do any debating; at least if you want to grow from it.

[Mjolnirbear]

They get 6 digit responses to their surveys.

They had to shut the latest one down early because they were getting too many responses.

Your anecdotal experience is very limited.

I know anecdotal experience is limited. That's why it's anecdotal, and that's *why* I said it's anecdotal. It's like me saying 'I haven't done enough research' and you repeating that I need to do more research. I'm picturing Snape drawling "Clearly" with a look.

My understanding of is that, for his numbers, he was drawing on D&d Beyond data, and optionally on logged composite data from AL. My second comment is based on this understanding. If my understanding is in error, certainly a possibility, that would be one point. But I fail to see how surveys affect that point: furthermore you need to elaborate on what you mean by digitsdigits. Each survey has six data points? He has xxxxxx number of surveys to go through? Each survey has a 6-digit unique identifier?

Surveys, in any respect, are *also* anecdotal. Take a survey asking men how big their penis size is, if you want an example of how much surveys are useful for collating data on penis size.

[Azgeroth]

well, disallowing options, reduces options.. thats just basic logic..

anyone who has read the feat section will know the 'best' feats are the martial feats, so inherently they would/could suffer the most. and without giving a breakdown on which feats i feel are the 'good' feats i think we can all agree more options is a good thing.

multi-classing, is very much a pandora's box. it can as malifice stated simply be the medium by which a concept is realised mechanically, it can also be the road by which one, or a few players at a table seriously outpace the rest of the party and im sure we all agree that's not cool.

however, all of that is purely subjective, i like feats for all, i'm not strictly opposed to multiclassing, i want ALL THE OPTIONS!!!

you might not, and thats great! variety is as important as mediation, in all things. lets not get bogged down into a, 'my good is better than your good, your fun is wrong' argument.

[Glorthindel]

My character concept is Martial artist/ Assasin. A Ninja.

Sounds like a Monk to me, there is even a Subclass that handles that.



My current PC is a 'Darkmoon Knight of Elistraee.' He's a half-drow, who was gifted a 'Moonblade' (a singing silver Greatsword that radiates moonlight) by his Patron...

A greatword-weilding holy knight, I can't imagine what class that might be... its a Paladin.


I want to play a Knight of the Mystic Fire (a canonical Paladin order of Mystra, that uses both Arcane and Divine magic).

How do I do that in your game?

Cleric - either Arcane or Light (medium has enough metal armours to provide the Knight look).

I firmly believe there isn't a character concept that can't be handled by the basic classes. We did this for years in earlier editions, just because 3rd eds prestige classes and rampant multiclassing made it easier doesn't mean we lost the ability to do it.

Don't get me wrong, I love feats and multiclassing, never play a character without feats, and rarely one without multiclassing, and would seriously hesitate about playing in a game where both was banned, but pretending there are any character ideas that cannot be realised by the basic classes is just folly.

[HappyDaze]

I firmly believe there isn't a character concept that can't be handled by the basic classes. We did this for years in earlier editions, just because 3rd eds prestige classes and rampant multiclassing made it easier doesn't mean we lost the ability to do it.

I agree to a point, but I also think it's important for the players to make character concepts that fit the mechanics of the game rather than trying to force the mechanics to fit their character concepts. IOW, learn what the game (and the DM) will allow, and then come up with a concept that works within those bounds.

[HappyDaze]

i think we can all agree more options is a good thing.
I do not necessarily agree. Not all options are good ones, and if they simply create the illusion of choice through trap options, then I'd rather they not be available.

[Mjolnirbear]

I firmly believe there isn't a character concept that can't be handled by the basic classes. We did this for years in earlier editions, just because 3rd eds prestige classes and rampant multiclassing made it easier doesn't mean we lost the ability to do it.

Whereas I disagree. You can approximate many, but then I say "gish".

And you say EK.

I say EK is a fighter with a couple magic tricks. You say bladesinger. I say I hate elves, and also a bladesinger is a wizard with a couple melee tricks. You say paladin, I say 'too much nobility, also not arcane'. And you, as a reasonable DM, maybe say you'd be willing to reflavour a paladin to something arcane, switch out spell lists... But while generous, that requires a DM buy-in, which à) only works at your table and b) is less likely to be granted by a DM that won't even let you multiclass and c) I want cantrips too.

None of your hypothetical answers were wrong even. Those are all great ways to make a gish. But you can't cover every option.

I've never played a ninja. You immediately mentioned shadow monk, which is, again, an excellent ninja. But while the teleport is admittedly cool, I want mine slightly armoured and be a backstabber and expert stealther. But he needs to be able to do weird things like cast magical darkness, and see in magical darkness. Only one class can do that.

I want to play a lycanthrope. Obviously I can't play the monster manual werewolf, not most games and not one that doesn't allow feats (edit: to clarify, if feats are unbalanced, then so darn well is MM lycanthropy). But I can build one. Two levels of druid and one of barbarian, and I have a bear claws, a savage bite, and resistance to a lot of damage.

And there are things that can come up mid-game.

How do you do an experienced fighter, who then makes a bargain with a tricksy Fey? How about a paladin who takes up a life of prayer and healing and takes a vow to touch no weapon? Perhaps after six levels of wizard, you realize you're still too squishy and feeling a little sickly, so you put down the book for a while, and go out to get some sun and broaden your horizons and learn to take a punch.

Both the gish and the lycanthrope concepts are real, not contrived, thought processes I've had. I really hate elves. I am extremely dissatisfied with EK. And I haven't got to play a lycanthrope yet but I can legally (and fairly) approximate it if only I can multiclass.

Someone will say I have a special snowflake syndrome. Whether I do or not, the fact remains that allowing feats (and multiclass) can both help you pin down a concept more precisely than if neither were and option. I'm playing the game to have fun; if the best way (to me) to play my character is blocked by a big Wall Of Nope when I can clearly see a perfect solution on the side where more options exist, the game will be less fun, and the restriction unreasonable to me.

[diplomancer]

arcane gish= Pact of the Blade Warlock, specially with the Hexblade patron

[Ignimortis]

All of the options reduce the number of player options. 5e is already very content-starved and doesn't have a lot of moving parts, and if you remove feats and multiclassing, the actual mechanical choices basically boil down to maybe three or so for martials and "what do I want on my spell list" for casters. Which is, well, not good at all, because at this point the only thing left in the game is a combat system and some archetypes for characters, and at this point you might just pick a different system that's better and simpler.

The more options there are, if they are meaningful and not trap options entirely, the better, because that means players can create their concepts closer to how they envision it, and not have to either bargain with the DM or mash their unique concept into one of the few existing frameworks.

[Max_Killjoy]

It honestly bothers me that people have been talking like this weakens the game and restricts character concepts. Sure, you have less access to some very fun and strong things that could shape interesting and unique character concepts but you can already make some very fun character concepts anyways.

Classes shaping character concepts -- for some of us, that's exactly backwards, and that's part of the dispute here.

For us, the system should be enabling character concepts, not shaping the character.

E: and I see the subsequent conversation covered some of this in more detail.



All of the options reduce the number of player options. 5e is already very content-starved and doesn't have a lot of moving parts, and if you remove feats and multiclassing, the actual mechanical choices basically boil down to maybe three or so for martials and "what do I want on my spell list" for casters. Which is, well, not good at all, because at this point the only thing left in the game is a combat system and some archetypes for characters, and at this point you might just pick a different system that's better and simpler.

The more options there are, if they are meaningful and not trap options entirely, the better, because that means players can create their concepts closer to how they envision it, and not have to either bargain with the DM or mash their unique concept into one of the few existing frameworks.

^ This.

[HappyDaze]

All of the options reduce the number of player options. 5e is already very content-starved and doesn't have a lot of moving parts, and if you remove feats and multiclassing, the actual mechanical choices basically boil down to maybe three or so for martials and "what do I want on my spell list" for casters. Which is, well, not good at all, because at this point the only thing left in the game is a combat system and some archetypes for characters, and at this point you might just pick a different system that's better and simpler.

The more options there are, if they are meaningful and not trap options entirely, the better, because that means players can create their concepts closer to how they envision it, and not have to either bargain with the DM or mash their unique concept into one of the few existing frameworks.

Ignoring the "reducing options is bad" stuff and the "if you do that, pick another system" derail, what do you mean "maybe three options for martials" in the above? There are three (mostly) non-caster classes (Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue) and each of them offer at least five subclasses. That's no less than fifteen options.

[Citan]

Despite the fact that it is considered an optional rule, including multiclassing and feats seem to be (almost) universally accepted as the default way of playing D&D 5e. Much of the game balance and optimization threads I've seen hinge on either or both of these options. But what about games played without them?

I'd like to start with Classes. Which classes are most impacted in games that:

Do not allow multiclassing (Type A-)
Do not allow feats (Type B-)
Do not allow either multiclassing or feats (Type AB-)

Rules/mechanics analysis and commentaries are welcome, as are opinions that talk about how a certain feature might be viewed as more/less valuable in certain game types. OTOH, "I would never play in that type of game" statements are not really helpful, so if that's all the input that can be offered, start by not playing in this thread.
Hi!

First of all... :)

Part of the reason why it seems so prevalent is that without multiclassing and feats, there's very little to talk about with regards to balance and optimization.


And because there are a lot of concepts that don't fit well into any one of the extant classes... and custom classes are less commonly allowed than multiclassing.
Both posts sum things up well imo.

TYPE A
You mainly limit how easy you can translate some character concepts into mechanics.
It's overall a bit easier to manage (provided you can manage the short rest problem) and at least you avoid a few "cheeses" that could be bothersome depending on player wisdom, like Coffeelock.

I would be a bit saddened myself to play such a game though, because I love dips for quick expanse of options. Just me though, and truthfully not a big deal. :)

TYPE B
I wouldn't care myself, but it would definitely impact some classes.
Fighter as everyone said is the prime target, feats being a big chunk of customization for them.
We could also quote Monk, for which Mobile is kinda the prime feat to take whatever happens: you can perfectly live without it past level 9-10, but at low levels it really gives breathing air to a class that doesn't usually have that high a resilience unless spending Ki on Dodge.
And there is of course the Resilient feat which is near mandatory for many martials (Wisdom) and all casters except Sorcerers (Constitution).
Note, I'm saying "mandatory" as far as optimization goes.
Game is of course perfectly playable without them, I'd dare say potentially even more interesting because players would need to be even more smart about how they act. :)

By the way on that note I think your idea of making "extra Fighters/Rogues ASI" feats a perfect way to "balance" games without feats. FWIW.

TYPE AB
Simple concatenation of the two above. Doesn't ruin anything, apart from making some concepts harder. But 5E is largely rich enough that most players can enjoy it as is. Only experienced players that already played dozens or more of characters may feel a little tight. ^^

[HappyDaze]

Classes shaping character concepts -- for some of us, that's exactly backwards, and that's part of the dispute here.

For us, the system should be enabling character concepts, not shaping the character.


In classless game systems, I generally go from concept to mechanics. In class-based game systems like this one, I find it better to go from the class mechanics to the concept. Different approaches fit better into different systems.

[Ignimortis]

Ignoring the "reducing options is bad" stuff and the "if you do that, pick another system" derail, what do you mean "maybe three options for martials" in the above? There are three (mostly) non-caster classes (Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue) and each of them offer at least five subclasses. That's no less than fifteen options.

So the choices you get to make are:
1) Class
2) Archetype
3) Fighting Style, maybe

There. Three choices. Oh, well, there's also your weapon and armor, I guess?

[Max_Killjoy]

So the choices you get to make are:
1) Class
2) Archetype
3) Fighting Style, maybe

There. Three choices. Oh, well, there's also your weapon and armor, I guess?

For all characters, with no Feats or Multiclassing, the basic choices are:

Race.
Background.
Class.
A couple of Skills.
Archetype/Subclass.
Weapons and/or spells.

And according to some, that's enough to do any concept, any character?

[HappyDaze]

For all characters, with no Feats or Multiclassing, the basic choices are:

Race.
Background.
Class.
A couple of Skills.
Archetype/Subclass.
Weapons and/or spells.

And according to some, that's enough to do any concept, any character?

In some cases, there is also subrace.

I'm not saying that is enough to do "any concept, any character" -- I'm saying it doesn't need to do so. It is enough to hit the archetypes of D&D. Sure, you can get increasingly weird corner cases covered with added bits, but even then, you can't actually cover "any concept, any character" because a game's codification of imagination will always be more limited than unfettered imagination.

[Ignimortis]

For all characters, with no Feats or Multiclassing, the basic choices are:

Race.
Background.
Class.
A couple of Skills.
Archetype/Subclass.
Weapons and/or spells.

And according to some, that's enough to do any concept, any character?

So, six choices, of which four made at chargen, and the fifth is probably too.
Wait, no, there's a seventh one, ASIs.

[Pelle]

Classes shaping character concepts -- for some of us, that's exactly backwards, and that's part of the dispute here.

For us, the system should be enabling character concepts, not shaping the character.


That's understandable, but makes a class and level based game a totally bad fit. If you know the stats and abilites the character should have, just write them down on the character sheet. IMO, increasing the amount of options in a class based game is working against the strengths of system (which is making it easy for new players to just pick something and for designers to keep the options balanced).

Also, not every imaginable character concept needs to be available for every game though. It's fine to set some limits if you envision something specific for the game. I mean, pot luck dinners can be great, but it's also ok to make a three course dinner with a menu that actually fits together, or just to organize the pot luck sufficiently so that not everyone bring dessert.


For me, the character creation mini-game is not the most important of the game. I don't need to play that one specific concept to have fun. There are hundred concepts that I want to play, and probably some of them are going to fit into the current game even with limitations imposed on it. Thus, D&D works well enough. I have an easy choice of archetypes to play, and then I can develop the character further from there and enjoy playing the game.

[Jerrykhor]

I think your approaching this from the wrong direction. None of what you are saying is wrong but I think you have a bit of a skewed perspective. The game was made to be playable and enjoyable without the feats(or multiclassing). Feats are an optional rule to make your characters stronger not the core game itself. Treating the game like it needs feats to function normally kinda like acting like you need a sports car to drive to work. Sure it's faster, more powerful, and has unique features, but you can get to work just fine with the average car and that was has no extra features but still gets you to work on time.

I know the game is playable without feats, but I think the game is more balanced with feats, even if the feat themselves aren't.

You can technically drive a car from point A to point B that don't have doors, radio, air-conditioning, HUD or any accessories, but it won't be an enjoyable experience.

[KorvinStarmast]

No multiclassing, no feats.
Our first game was like that until fourth level. We seemed to do OK.
Only one person took a feat at 4, the rest of us improved ASI ... casters all bumped their primary casting stat. Why? Spell save DCs are tied to it. We didn't like how often monsters saved versus our spells like web, hold person, (the greatest sucking chest would of all time, sacred flame), and so on.

Humans: they need a boost to make up for lack of darkvision. Given how many races have dark vision, and special skills, I'd like to see the vHuman be the default human, which means that only humans would get feats. I can live with that. But I can see a lot of places that would not work.

I very much agree with the idea that feats are only available to Fighters. (Though I'd argue that Barbarians could use a few at higher levels).

With one exception: resilient. Someone in the fighter thread made a point about wisdom saves and high DCs late in the game. Getting a proficiency based save boost seems to be a solid tool, though maybe more spells that boosts saving throw rolls (and thus you have to pay a proce) might be as good a way of dealing with that as any.

[Vogie]

To reframe the argument - I could see a game where multiclassing and feats are not allowed... in pre-planned character creation.

If you were to frame your game where the players can gain multiclass levels and/or feats as a byproduct of playing, most of the arguments supplied in the thread would go away.

For example:

a player who is actively using a crossbow for their first three levels to various levels of mastery is much more likely to gain Crossbow Expert at 4. A player who happened to find a magic crossbow at 2 or 3 and has it stored in their bag while using a longbow, would not.
The Lucky feat is given to a PC who seems to have got out of a series of hijinks through roleplay and lucky rolls, and the feat is awarded to connect to it.
An assassin can seek out and begin studying magical texts over a long period of time, to unlock either the ability to pick up the initiate and/or multiclass into wizard.
A druid may feel like they understand the wholeness of nature, but upon discovering the existence of eldritch abominations, their mind begins to warp, and seek out Great Old Ones to broaden their view of reality, eventually dipping into warlock.

One way you would allow players to signal this desire ahead of time is through the choosing of backgrounds. A Criminal background would indicate that the PC is open to a multiclass of Rogue, Folk hero backgrounds indicate they're open to multiclass into barbarian or bard, an acolyte or hermit is more likely to become a druid, et cetera.

Then, it'd be on the DM to craft a story to allow the players to build towards their desired builds, without being locked into a normal character progression. A PC may desire to be a Sorlock, for example, but they wouldn't be certain WHEN they'd find that patron to forge a pact with - It may be early on, or it may be after level 10... it'd be dependent on the story, and the actions of the group as a whole.

[Mikal]

Boringly. That’s how the game would go.

[Laserlight]

New DM and/or new players? Sure, no problem, I'll go along with it. In fact, when I started my first 5e campaign, I said "everyone take a martial"...although I also said "you'll have the opportunity to change later".
You're worried that I'll overshadow the other players who don't optimize? That's generally not an MC/feats problem, that's some being good at tactics and some being the reason DMs have T shirts printed with "are you sure you want to do that?" But tell me what you're concerned about and I'll build a buffer / support character who will make everyone else look fabulous.
But I would be very leery of a game where an experienced DM said "no feats, no MC". I've had experience of a control-heavy DM who wanted you to play the class he wanted, and wanted you to make the decisions he wanted, and if you did something else, it inexplicably didn't work, and "no feats no MC" feels to me like it's heading down that road, and "no gaming" is better than "bad gaming". Not saying I would never play in an AB- campaign but it would have to be with a DM who'd earned my trust.

I'll note:
a) sometimes character concepts change. I started my current CoS character with every intent of going straight Tempest...but as I got more into the background (Exalted air-aspect Terrestrial), I said "it would make sense for her to have Message and Sending and other charms and air spells that clerics just don't get". So I MC'd into Sorc, although bard was also a contender.
b) sometimes players want to play something a bit different. If Tom has run a rogue up until L6 and decides he's had a religious experience and wants to convert to paladin, I'm not going to say "No" to that; I'd far rather DM a pala-rogue who's been with the party for six levels and is now trying to deal with his past than write off the old character and start a fresh-out-of-the-box one.

[Willie the Duck]

So, six choices, of which four made at chargen, and the fifth is probably too.
Wait, no, there's a seventh one, ASIs.

Initial Stat distributions. An all-dex, dedicated rapier and bow character is a lot different from an all-str, dedicated melee and javelin character. Both are decidedly different from the character that went for moderate to high scores in both stats (and presumably let some of their off-stats suffer for it). Also, skills.

[Maxilian]

Not Multiclassing is not that bad, and won't affect most people, as in the end, all classes are balanced in the idea of going full build, but the lack of feat, hurts, mostly martial classes (that in the long run get the short stick in the game), mostly Fighters (as they get many extra ASIS that normally take advantage of the feats to be more unique)

[Hail Tempus]

For the DMs who are limiting feats and/or multi-classing, what are you trying to accomplish by limiting player choices? I think the general rule for DM's should be to try and maximize player fun, and limiting player choices seems to go against that goal.

[Vorpalchicken]

I absolutely think the "majority of tables don't allow feats or MC" is an erroneous conclusion. It's simply a bad analysis of the data.

When you pull numbers from mountains of free accounts that 1) don't include variant humans (because they aren't free on DnD Beyond) 2) don't include most of the PHB feats (also not free) and 3) are mostly first level characters and are rarely 4th level and even more rarely 8th or 12th level (If you are Standard Array for example you will often not use Feats until 12th) then it's going to look like the vast majority of tables don't use Feats.

The DnD Beyond data also skews for the absence of MC because most of the characters on there are made as first level and left as such. Multi classing is most popular after 5th level and there are fewer and fewer examples of characters of particular level characters as you increase level past 1st.

It's like looking at soaring head wound rates after the introduction of helmets in the First World War without considering that those with head wounds would have otherwise have been KIA.

I've probably played with a hundred different groups (conservative estimate) in the last couple years and I would say only about 10 per cent didn't allow multi classing and probably 5 per cent didn't allow feats.

That said, I feel beginners should probably avoid Feats and multi classing. And I personally tend to not multiclass much and not take feats except with variant humans and high level characters.

But completely prohibiting feats and multiclass is pretty rare.

[Max_Killjoy]

I absolutely think the "majority of tables don't allow feats or MC" is an erroneous conclusion. It's simply a bad analysis of the data.

When you pull numbers from mountains of free accounts that 1) don't include variant humans (because they aren't free on DnD Beyond) 2) don't include most of the PHB feats (also not free) and 3) are mostly first level characters and are rarely 4th level and even more rarely 8th or 12th level (If you are Standard Array for example you will often not use Feats until 12th) then it's going to look like the vast majority of tables don't use Feats.

The DnD Beyond data also skews for the absence of MC because most of the characters on there are made as first level and left as such. Multi classing is most popular after 5th level and there are fewer and fewer examples of characters of particular level characters as you increase level past 1st.

It's like looking at soaring head wound rates after the introduction of helmets in the First World War without considering that those with head wounds would have otherwise have been KIA.

I've probably played with a hundred different groups (conservative estimate) in the last couple years and I would say only about 10 per cent didn't allow multi classing and probably 5 per cent didn't allow feats.

That said, I feel beginners should probably avoid Feats and multi classing. And I personally tend to not multiclass much and not take feats except with variant humans and high level characters.

But completely prohibiting feats and multiclass is pretty rare.

Well, I'd tend to say that the very fact that Variant Humans and Feats aren't free on DnD Beyond completely invalidates the data for analyzing how many tables or DMs or players use or don't use either one.

An example of the other side of the coin... an MMO recently ran missions that required special content that the devs thought might be introduced to the general game later. The missions were a key part in unlocking some pretty hefty rewards. The special content itself was greeted with a mix of apathy and disdain by the overall playerbase, but the raw numbers show that a lot of players tried the special content at least X number times during the event. So, the MMOs devs declared the special content a huge success and said this proves they should bring it to the general game going forward.

Only... either as spin or as actual self-deception, they refuse to admit that they had to literally bribe the playerbase with a significant set of mission rewards to get those results.

[Max_Killjoy]

As for Multiclassing itself, I actually have a question.

When the MC rules in the PHB note that not all the Proficiencies from the second Class are gained, does that limit just the armor and weapons Proficiencies, or take away Skills, Saves, etc as well?

[Hail Tempus]

As for Multiclassing itself, I actually have a question.

When the MC rules in the PHB note that not all the Proficiencies from the second Class are gained, does that limit just the armor and weapons Proficiencies, or take away Skills, Saves, etc as well? It's the latter, as I understand it. You only get proficiency in whatever is specifically listed in the new character class in the MC section.

[Max_Killjoy]

It's the latter, as I understand it. You only get proficiency in whatever is specifically listed in the new character class in the MC section.

Regardless of what people do or don't do at actual tables, the designers went out of their way to take the wind out of multiclassing's sails. Few if any added Skills, no added Saves, delayed ASI/Feats, etc.

[Pex]

I see nothing wrong with a player wanting to have a game mechanics thing for the sake and fun of having the game mechanics thing. It is the game part of the game. If that helps to make it fun for the player then so be it. The roleplaying/story/character concept can be developed to explain the game mechanics thing existing for the character or not, just to be the story for the game meanwhile the player also enjoys the game mechanics thing.

[Hail Tempus]

Regardless of what people do or don't do at actual tables, the designers went out of their way to take the wind out of multiclassing's sails. Few if any added Skills, no added Saves, delayed ASI/Feats, etc. Yeah, I think the cost of MC versus the benefits are pretty well balanced. Looking at the various groups I've played in, I think typically 1-2, at most, out of 5 party members has multi-classed. There are plenty of classes (Wizards, Clerics, Fighters, Paladins, Barbarians etc.) where multi-classing seems to come with more negatives than benefits.

[Sception]

If the former, that's not good as it would mean the class will be unlikely to be played. If the latter, that's less of a concern to me.

It's is both. Arguably a warlock gets too much in the first 1 to 3 levels. This is /especially/ true for the hexblade warlock, which is a fully featured warlock subclass /before/ you add on extra equipment proficiencies and cha-based melee attacks.

But warlock also gets too little from levels 4 to 10, and then again from levels 12 or 13 to 20. It's not unplayable or anything, but even with scaling slot levels, not getting additional casts per rest for most of your career means warlocks don't really get to rely on actual spells so much, which drops them back to relying on eldritch blast for most of their round-by-round actions, which both scales with character level rather than class level, so it doesn't provide any motivation to stick around in games that allow multiclassing (less of an issue if your game doesn't) but also just kind of gets boring turn in, turn out over the course of an entire campaign, a problem that a lack of multiclassing and feats makes worse.

The other thing warlocks get is invocations, but there just aren't a lot of these, and very few of them are level locked, so a typical casty warlock will have taken pretty much all of the invocations they actually care about by mid levels anyway, after which extra invocations, while never a bad thing, get less and less exciting. Bladelocks get around this problem by having a lot more relevant invocations that they'll want to take, many more of which are restricted to higher levels, but in this case the cure is arguably worse than the disease, as the bladelock invocations are mostly obligatory flavorless number-increasing taxes that get in the way of interesting choices.


AGAIN, pure warlock is not unworkable or bad, and as long as the DM makes sure the party can actually take short rests, and the player is ok with doing the same thing over and over again in most combats (some players claim to prefer this, though I find that somewhat fewer actually do in practice, especially over a long campaign), then warlock as is can be both effective and fun. But compared to a number of other classes, it can definitely feel a bit lacking as a game runs on and levels pile up and other classes make interesting mechanical choices that significantly change how they play while the warlock still mostly spamms eldritch blasts or generic weapon attacks.


It's a little bit like (although not at all as bad) as playing a champion fighter in a featless game. Yeah, the numbers get better, and you swing more times, but little else changes.

[OracularPoet]

arcane gish= Pact of the Blade Warlock, specially with the Hexblade patron

Or Valor Bard. Could even work for Knight of the Mystic Fire by nabbing Pally spells like Circlr of Power, Find Greater Steed, Aura of Purity, some smites.

I’m sure there are other examples which are harder to fit in a single class. E.g., approximating 4e Warlord is best done as 1 Order Cleric (Voice of Authority) / 3 Mastermind Rogue (Help action as bonus action) / Battlemaster Fighter 3+ (Commander’s Strike, Rally, action surge) / Lore or Glamour Bard 5+ (Cutting Words or free ally movement, short rest recharged) focusing on buffing spells. Battle Master fighter would be closest on its own.

[ad_hoc]

He has xxxxxx number of surveys to go through? Each survey has a 6-digit unique identifier?

Last time they gave a number was that they get over 100 000 responses on each survey.

In the most recent one (which was long and detailed) Mearls said that they got 3 times as many responses as their target number before closing it down early. So likely over 300 000 responses to the last survey.


Surveys, in any respect, are *also* anecdotal. Take a survey asking men how big their penis size is, if you want an example of how much surveys are useful for collating data on penis size.

Right, but the question is: Do you play with feats?

People in general are not going to lie about that.


This also shouldn't be a controversial finding. I'm actually surprised at how high it probably is as feats are an optional add on to the game. Mearls said under half which implies that it is close to half. I would have guessed closer to 25-30%.


I absolutely think the "majority of tables don't allow feats or MC" is an erroneous conclusion. It's simply a bad analysis of the data.


They're getting their data from surveys.


I've probably played with a hundred different groups (conservative estimate) in the last couple years and I would say only about 10 per cent didn't allow multi classing and probably 5 per cent didn't allow feats.

Your experience is both insignificant and highly biased.

[Citan]

But warlock also gets too little from levels 4 to 10, and then again from levels 12 or 13 to 20. It's not unplayable or anything, but even with scaling slot levels, not getting additional casts per rest for most of your career means warlocks don't really get to rely on actual spells so much, which drops them back to relying on eldritch blast for most of their round-by-round actions, which both scales with character level rather than class level, so it doesn't provide any motivation to stick around in games that allow multiclassing (less of an issue if your game doesn't) but also just kind of gets boring turn in, turn out over the course of an entire campaign, a problem that a lack of multiclassing and feats makes worse.

The other thing warlocks get is invocations, but there just aren't a lot of these, and very few of them are level locked, so a typical casty warlock will have taken pretty much all of the invocations they actually care about by mid levels anyway, after which extra invocations, while never a bad thing, get less and less exciting. Bladelocks get around this problem by having a lot more relevant invocations that they'll want to take, many more of which are restricted to higher levels, but in this case the cure is arguably worse than the disease, as the bladelock invocations are mostly obligatory flavorless number-increasing taxes that get in the way of interesting choices.


I get where you're coming from but I think you're painting it a bit darker than need be.
I'd daresay most of the limitation you may feel comes from the risk associated with short-rest management, because as far as spells go, my opinion is that you access enough spells that can be used in many different situations to have fun with (Suggestion, but also simply Invisibility, Major Image, Misty Step -with familiar-, Unseen Servants, Disguise Self, Comprehend Languagues)...

That's why I'll tend to...
1) Either play a Warlock primarily in a party that has many short-rest dependent classes (Monk, to some extent Bards or some Clerics, Battlemasters, Druids).
2) Or play any kind of Warlock when I know there is a friendly Bard, Wizard or "worst-case" Sorcerer in party (Catnap but also Rope Trick, Leomund's Tiny Hut).
3) Or play a Tome Warlock, because there are many many nasty great things you can do with rituals in order to achieve a short rest (obvious are Leomund's Tiny Hut and Water Breathing, but I'll let you think about what to achieve with Floating Disk, Speak with Animals -and Persuasion ;)-, Silence -and Mold Earth or plain shovel-, Meld Into Stone -with optionally Find Familiar-). Of course, picking also the "cast Polymorph once a day" and "cast Conjure Elemental" can help too, as well as the classic Mold Earth.
As well as (far-strechted situation here admitedly since depends on party cooperation) using Instant Summons to get, in emergency, scrolls/rings of Rope Trick / Teleportation / Tiny Hut / whatever filled up by you or friends.

[claricorp]

In 5e I don't really think that multiclassing allows all that much in the way of build creativity that isnt already available. Most multiclassed PCs I've played with seem less defined and interesting than monoclassed characters. Not to mention frustration of newer players navigating multiclassing optimization.

I find feats generally fine because they help to define a character, offer some good gameplay creativity without being overly restrictive, and are easy/painless to implement.

[sithlordnergal]

Is this because the Warlock isn't attractive enough on it's own for people to stick with it fully (i.e, full Warlock isn't good enough), or because it's too attractive as a dip option (i.e, a little Warlock makes other things so much better)?

If the former, that's not good as it would mean the class will be unlikely to be played. If the latter, that's less of a concern to me.

As someone who is playing a single classed Hexblade Warlock, I'm gonna say the issue is the fact that the Warlock sucks on its own. I lack the spell slots to do anything interesting or fun outside of casting spells that last longer then a single encounter. Usually I am stuck just attacking with a +1 weapon or Eldritch Blast with Hex, or buffing myself with Armor of Agathys.

[Citan]

As someone who is playing a single classed Hexblade Warlock, I'm gonna say the issue is the fact that the Warlock sucks on its ownis very incompatible with my way of playing. I lack the spell slots to do anything interesting or fun outside of casting spells that last longer then a single encounter. Usually I am stuck just attacking with a +1 weapon or Eldritch Blast with Hex, or buffing myself with Armor of Agathys.
Fixed that for you. :)

[Damon_Tor]

Even if I run a game using Feats, I have no love for the Variant Human and do not allow it.

I kind of felt the same way until I started thinking of the human bonus feat as less of a personal choice and more of an element of their culture, and encouraging my players to do the same. Racial bonuses aren't just biological, they also reflect the traditions of the species in question: dwarves aren't born knowing how to swing an axe or a hammer, they get that proficiency because their culture demands every individual be proficient with those weapons. So a human with Mounted Combatant has that feat not because he as an individual took up up horsemanship, but because he's from a culture that values horsemanship. In a sense, each feat is potentially a different "subrace" of human.

[Max_Killjoy]

I kind of felt the same way until I started thinking of the human bonus feat as less of a personal choice and more of an element of their culture, and encouraging my players to do the same. Racial bonuses aren't just biological, they also reflect the traditions of the species in question: dwarves aren't born knowing how to swing an axe or a hammer, they get that proficiency because their culture demands every individual be proficient with those weapons. So a human with Mounted Combatant has that feat not because he as an individual took up up horsemanship, but because he's from a culture that values horsemanship. In a sense, each feat is potentially a different "subrace" of human.

In a way I'd be tempted to separate inherent physical elements from cultural elements on all the "races".

[HappyDaze]

I kind of felt the same way until I started thinking of the human bonus feat as less of a personal choice and more of an element of their culture, and encouraging my players to do the same. Racial bonuses aren't just biological, they also reflect the traditions of the species in question: dwarves aren't born knowing how to swing an axe or a hammer, they get that proficiency because their culture demands every individual be proficient with those weapons. So a human with Mounted Combatant has that feat not because he as an individual took up up horsemanship, but because he's from a culture that values horsemanship. In a sense, each feat is potentially a different "subrace" of human.

There is a Planeshift supplement that does this (and also dictates where the two +1 Abilities go), and it works out OK. However, for most campaigns, I don't want to have to make 50 different subraces (cultures) of one race to put on the map. Besides, IME, the players that make Variant Humans only look at the optimization of their own character, they don't care at all for defining a culture and part of the world. Task them with that, and they'll likely complain that it's not their job. So, I do mine and Sharpie over the Variant Human.

[sithlordnergal]

Fixed that for you. :)

Nooo, I wouldn't say its incompatible. While I have not played every subclass, I have played every class at least once. Even with my Ranger, I found I had enough resources and abilities to do something interesting and fun.

The warlock though? They lack resources to do anything. Yeah, the resources come back on a short rest...but what of it? I still only have a max of 2 spells to use per encounter, and once I use those up I'm stuck using Eldritch Blast and swinging at things with a +1 weapon. I may as well have chosen to play a Valor Bard. I'd be just as effective, but with more options to use during an encounter.

Invocations are nice, but you get so few of them that you can't really take the super fun ones.

[Inscrutable]

Despite the fact that it is considered an optional rule, including multiclassing and feats seem to be (almost) universally accepted as the default way of playing D&D 5e. Much of the game balance and optimization threads I've seen hinge on either or both of these options. But what about games played without them?

I can only speak from my own experience, but I have never played a game as either a player or a DM where anyone multi-classed. I've played in about 100 sessions with about five different groups. It was discussed, but it just didn't seem very interesting to the people I've played with.


I think your presumptions are just wrong.


Yes, just because feats and multi-classing are talked about so much online in places like GITP is because these places are overwhelmingly frequented by optimizers and mechanical analysts.

Optimizers talk about the need to multi-class and use feats because they are tools to optimize, and hence are effectively required to optimize.

Most players of D&D do not discuss D&D on forums. Most don't read the forums. Most just play the game, and don't worry about playing it "better". They have fun, they enjoy it.

Though I don't restrict the use of multi-classing, most games I play in and run, only about 10% of the characters multi-class, and only about 25% use feats. And even though some of the players know how to optimize, maybe only 1 in 20 actually bother to optimize. Most of the several dozen gamers I play with have played for 20 or more years. I suspect most of us have passed through the optimizing and competitive phase of RPGs, and now play concepts and characters that are just fun and interesting.

This guy has it absolutely right. HappyFace, this forum is a microcosm, and as you should have figured out by now, heavily biased by people who spend much of their time here, chewing the cud of optimization for years.

As far as impact on players, a lack of feats and multiclassing don't limit you, your imagination does. I've never felt limited, wishing I could do more. But this is a perspective of a non-forumite.

[Naanomi]

In no-Feats games, high level fighters do end up with not much benefit from their extra feats (once Attack stat and CON are both maxed)... not totally worthless, but not the big boost it is intended to be

[ad_hoc]

Nooo, I wouldn't say its incompatible. While I have not played every subclass, I have played every class at least once. Even with my Ranger, I found I had enough resources and abilities to do something interesting and fun.

The warlock though? They lack resources to do anything. Yeah, the resources come back on a short rest...but what of it? I still only have a max of 2 spells to use per encounter, and once I use those up I'm stuck using Eldritch Blast and swinging at things with a +1 weapon. I may as well have chosen to play a Valor Bard. I'd be just as effective, but with more options to use during an encounter.

Invocations are nice, but you get so few of them that you can't really take the super fun ones.

You get 1 high level spell per encounter. Or in other words, you get an encounter defining spell every encounter. That is more power earlier in the encounter than any other class.

Then for the next 2 rounds you use cantrips and such, that's true.

If the playstyle isn't for you there are plenty of other spellcasting classes to choose from. That doesn't mean the Warlock is bad.

[Citan]

Nooo, I wouldn't say its incompatible. While I have not played every subclass, I have played every class at least once. Even with my Ranger, I found I had enough resources and abilities to do something interesting and fun.

The warlock though? They lack resources to do anything. Yeah, the resources come back on a short rest...but what of it? I still only have a max of 2 spells to use per encounter, and once I use those up I'm stuck using Eldritch Blast and swinging at things with a +1 weapon. I may as well have chosen to play a Valor Bard. I'd be just as effective, but with more options to use during an encounter.

Invocations are nice, but you get so few of them that you can't really take the super fun ones.
Well, that's why I respectully says Warlock is incompatible with your playstyle, unless maybe you didn't get a chance to play one high level enough. :)

Yeah, true, you will usually cast one spell at most per encounter on average. But you know what? IMX, it's true of most casters, even those with more spell and slot variety.
The only big deal for a Warlock is when his first (only?) cast didn't work as expected because the cost of trying again may (or not) be higher than for another caster, since he depends on a short rest.
But as soon as a concentration spell sticks, 99% casters will hold it as long as possible. And I don't see many of them using things other than 1st or 2nd level spells for the remaining rounds and usually it's after they reach level 7-8. Before that resources are just too scarce to allow full depletion no hold barrel unless you're 100% certain a (long) rest is coming shortly after. So Warlock is not that far from others. ^^

But, besides that, I have the feeling you didn't really try to use all Warlock abilities.
First of all, outside combat, you should have ways to be useful to party without feeling too much stress (cast Invisibility on scout pal so his job gets easier while you're taking the short rest -per RAW nothing says concentration prevents resting-, try a fancy Suggestion before grabbing lunch -you can try and make that pass off as a mundane thing with a Deception check, even if DC may be high depending on who you're trying to dupe, maintain Disguise Self and Comprehend Languages over a day to pass off as a diplomat, etc).

Other fun things include finding unorthodox ways into a place (Levitate for free or simply Jump, Misty Step into a place you're seeing through a familiar's eyes), be creative with some basic cantrips (create a diversion, dupe people into buying things of little value etc).

Second, inside combat: Hexblade does not bring really interesting spells, although it does bring solid buffs. Nothing though prevents you to try and play with Darkness (works better with a familiar), Fear, or try an Hypnotic Pattern in coordination with pals.

I'm saying it's incompatible because you picked not only the most combat focused (Hexblade bringing only defense and weapon buffs while Fey or GOO would bring interesting, creative spells), you also probably picked the Blade pact which is even more "just simply strike mindless guy" (and maybe even you picked only spells and invocations that directly enhance fight, but that may be a big stretch from me).

You cannot hold a class responsible for making, yourself and of own free will, building choices all focused into reducing it to a magically empowered fighter (as good as it may be). :)
You want a Warlock that has many things to do whatever situation he's in? Pick GOO (or Archfey), Tome (or Chain) pact, you'll see a world of possibilities.

[Chronos]

My group doesn't allow multiclassing, mostly for the sake of simplicity, because some of the folks aren't very good at managing rules that get too complicated. I suppose that it does restrict character concepts some, but it seems to me that, between subclasses and backgrounds, there's still plenty of conceptual space.

We do, however, use feats. And if the game was designed by default to not use feats, then that's just bad design. What's a fighter supposed to do with all those ASIs? Pumping unnecessary stats won't make him any more effective, and while they might make him more interesting, they won't make him as much more interesting as feats would. I can make my fighter a little more knowledgeable, or I can make him able to cast a few minor spells. I can make him a little more charismatic, or I can make him use the charisma he has to inspire the whole party to be tougher. I can give him a +1 to a few skills that he's not very good at anyway, or I can give him +prof to three skills, which might be enough to actually make it worth it to use those skills.

We also allow the variant human, because the "default" human just sucks, for the same reason: Nobody cares about pumping their tertiary stats, and that's all the standard human gets. Without the variant human, you'd almost always be better off to build your "human" character concept as a half-elf and hide your ears, even if you're not using Charisma.

[Vorpalchicken]

They're getting their data from surveys.
Forgive me if I got this wrong but what I garnered from video interviews with Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford is that they got their data pertaining to this aspect of the game from DnD Beyond analysis. I can't seem to find any survey results when I search for it.



Your experience is both insignificant and highly biased. Of course my experience is anecdotal and not conducted scientifically. I have no idea how many 5e groups their are in existence so I have no idea how big a sample group would have to be to be significant but I am sure that I would not have the time or resources to conduct such a survey. (And I'm not conducting a survey- I am playing games.) So yes technically it may be "insignificant."

What I am saying is that I am able to reliably predict that the likelihood of feats and/or multiclassing being disallowed in any given game that I randomly join is consistently low. Really 5 and 10 percent is probably high too.

Why do you feel that I am highly biased?

I am confident that the vast majority of player that post on here (yes I agree there may be some bias) would report that their groups indeed do not prohibit feats or multiclassing.

[ad_hoc]

Forgive me if I got this wrong but what I garnered from video interviews with Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford is that they got their data pertaining to this aspect of the game from DnD Beyond analysis. I can't seem to find any survey results when I search for it.

They utilize their survey data in their findings. Why would they just discard them? They don't share their survey results. They do make comments here and there such as the number of respondents and broad findings (like the less than half of groups playing with feats).

Hundreds of thousands of respondents is large enough to come to reasonable conclusions about the player population. WotC has professionals who do this sort of thing. Even the order of the questions on a survey will change its results which is why people make their career out of creating and analyzing them.

Discounting their data and using your limited experience instead is absurd.



Of course my experience is anecdotal and not conducted scientifically. I have no idea how many 5e groups their are in existence so I have no idea how big a sample group would have to be to be significant but I am sure that I would not have the time or resources to conduct such a survey. (And I'm not conducting a survey- I am playing games.) So yes technically it may be "insignificant."

The last count that was given was in the range of 12-15 million players.



What I am saying is that I am able to reliably predict that the likelihood of feats and/or multiclassing being disallowed in any given game that I randomly join is consistently low. Really 5 and 10 percent is probably high too.

Why do you feel that I am highly biased?

Because you will be playing in groups you are compatible with and are available to you and that is inherently limited.



I am confident that the vast majority of player that post on here (yes I agree there may be some bias) would report that their groups indeed do not prohibit feats or multiclassing.

This board represents an extreme end of the player population.

Most people here also probably play in Adventurer's League but AL can't be more than 1% of the player population.

[Angelalex242]

Eh.

I don't multiclass much anyway, but that's a personal choice. Also, I'm a paladin player.

I would be a sad panda without feats though.

[Pex]

My group doesn't allow multiclassing, mostly for the sake of simplicity, because some of the folks aren't very good at managing rules that get too complicated. I suppose that it does restrict character concepts some, but it seems to me that, between subclasses and backgrounds, there's still plenty of conceptual space.

We do, however, use feats. And if the game was designed by default to not use feats, then that's just bad design. What's a fighter supposed to do with all those ASIs? Pumping unnecessary stats won't make him any more effective, and while they might make him more interesting, they won't make him as much more interesting as feats would. I can make my fighter a little more knowledgeable, or I can make him able to cast a few minor spells. I can make him a little more charismatic, or I can make him use the charisma he has to inspire the whole party to be tougher. I can give him a +1 to a few skills that he's not very good at anyway, or I can give him +prof to three skills, which might be enough to actually make it worth it to use those skills.

We also allow the variant human, because the "default" human just sucks, for the same reason: Nobody cares about pumping their tertiary stats, and that's all the standard human gets. Without the variant human, you'd almost always be better off to build your "human" character concept as a half-elf and hide your ears, even if you're not using Charisma.

If you roll for stats and get a lot of odd scores normal human is tempting.

[Laserlight]

As far as impact on players, a lack of feats and multiclassing don't limit you

That turns out not to be the case. A lack of feats and MC limits you, by definition, to not using feats and MC. It is clearly preventing players from using some options.

To say "you can use your imagination" is only true if your imagination doesn't have to interact with rules. For example, without the Keen Mind feat, I can still say "I have eidetic memory", but the rules don't support that. Of course, I can try to get my DM to agree to "I have this feat but it isn't really a feat because you banned them", but that would take a better Deception check than I'm up for.

[Misterwhisper]

My first thoughts were:

Someone might actually take two weapon fighting style.

A lot fewer sorcerers.

Full casters really won’t care much.

Neither will monks.

All warlocks will be hexblades, not that I have seen any others in a long time anyway.

Not being able to get resilient is not great for some builds. Similar with warcaster.

Fighters get beat with a nerf bat even more.

I would very much play a game like this.

[Inscrutable]

That turns out not to be the case. A lack of feats and MC limits you, by definition, to not using feats and MC. It is clearly preventing players from using some options.

To say "you can use your imagination" is only true if your imagination doesn't have to interact with rules. For example, without the Keen Mind feat, I can still say "I have eidetic memory", but the rules don't support that. Of course, I can try to get my DM to agree to "I have this feat but it isn't really a feat because you banned them", but that would take a better Deception check than I'm up for.

If the only thing you can imagine has already been imagined and put in a book for you and thousands to copy, I pity your imagination. Creating more rules does not expand freedom of creativity, it binds and structures it. You're welcome to play only RAW, but don't try to say it is the only way. You're missing the beauty of the game and its superiority over all video games. We get to write the rules and choose what to follow. :-)

[Max_Killjoy]

If the only thing you can imagine has already been imagined and put in a book for you and thousands to copy, I pity your imagination. Creating more rules does not expand freedom of creativity, it binds and structures it. You're welcome to play only RAW, but don't try to say it is the only way. You're missing the beauty of the game and its superiority over all video games. We get to write the rules and choose what to follow. :-)

It's not about lacking imagination, although that's a nice fallback ad hom I guess.

It's about the rules set not supporting a way to translate the imagined character into the mechanics of the game.

We're not just playing make-believe here, if the character can't be brought into the structure of the game, that's not the fault of the player's imagination.

[Inscrutable]

It's about the rules set not supporting a way to translate the imagined character into the mechanics of the game.

Don't you see the ridiculousness of this statement? If we follow this logic, there are innumerable amounts of people sitting around with innumerable amounts of imagined characters, just waiting for Swords of the Coast to write more rules so they can play them?! What kind of people are those?

In reality, when multiclassing and feat rules were added, these can certainly serve to stimulate the imaginations of those who are discontented with the standard classes. But just like all rules, we are simply consuming them to introduce order. Just because someone opens a door for you, doesn't mean the outside didn't exist before you perceived it.

[sithlordnergal]

As far as impact on players, a lack of feats and multiclassing don't limit you, your imagination does. I've never felt limited, wishing I could do more. But this is a perspective of a non-forumite.

I mean, having imagination is all well and good, but unless your DM is really, really giving, you can't always just refluff single classes. For example, how would you create an Oath of the Ancients Paladin who has absorbed enough chaotic, uncontrolled magic that their Aura of Warding has gone haywire, and now causes small bursts of Wild Magic while giving the Paladin a bit of arcane power?

Now, with multiclassing, I simply made a Paladin/Wild Magic Sorcerer. You can't really do that without multiclassing.

[Chronos]

Quoth Misterwhisper:

All warlocks will be hexblades, not that I have seen any others in a long time anyway.
I'm having a hard time imagining the table that would ban both multiclassing and feats, but which would still allow splatbooks.

Inscrutable, did you buy the rulebooks? Why? Why not just play the game without them?

[Inscrutable]

For example, how would you create an Oath of the Ancients Paladin who has absorbed enough chaotic, uncontrolled magic that their Aura of Warding has gone haywire, and now causes small bursts of Wild Magic while giving the Paladin a bit of arcane power?

This is a rather cyclical example combining specific rules against each other. How would you create a thirteen tentacled PC with unlimited range ink blasters who could only breathe xenon? You just make some crap up.


Inscrutable, did you buy the rulebooks? Why? Why not just play the game without them?

I did, because I concede my inferior ability to create my own structure compared to the monumental construction that the creators of this game put into it. But, I also don't think that EVERYTHING the creators make is worth utilizing. Isn't that what makes the game uniquely enjoyable? The ability to reject and create content? It is for me, at least. I have enough rules without multiclassing.

[Zuras]

Feats w/no Multiclassing—
All the powerful multiclass charisma builds are unavailable, so Gish builds are significantly more limited.

Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters are relatively more desirable.

Bards and Blaster Clerics are more popular among players who want flexibility.

Paladins are significantly weaker, or at least more one dimensional, as they have no ability to multiclass to pick up ranged attack cantrips.

Multiclassing, no feats—
Melee Clerics, Hexblades and Moon Druids are all relatively weaker. Controller Wizards, Blaster Clerics, and any spell caster who plans to stay out of melee are relatively stronger. Fighters are much weaker without the weapon feats to use their extra ASIs in.

With no Resilient:Con or warcaster feats, wading into combat as a caster is much harder, and Casters are squishier. For example War Clerics won’t keep up Spirit Guardians as long.

No Multiclassing, No Feats—
Classes have a feel closer to older versions of D&D. Wizards are significantly more powerful than other classes, but don’t have many tricks to become tankier. Building a Gish better than a Swords Bard or Eldritch Knight isn’t really possible.

Eldritch Knights always go with two handed weapons.

Moon Druids are much closer to other Druid subclasses in power because keeping concentration in beast form is harder for them.

Smaller parties will find play more difficult, as characters are not as versatile. Larger parties will still have less overlap in player abilities.

[Max_Killjoy]

Don't you see the ridiculousness of this statement? If we follow this logic, there are innumerable amounts of people sitting around with innumerable amounts of imagined characters, just waiting for Swords of the Coast to write more rules so they can play them?! What kind of people are those?

In reality, when multiclassing and feat rules were added, these can certainly serve to stimulate the imaginations of those who are discontented with the standard classes. But just like all rules, we are simply consuming them to introduce order. Just because someone opens a door for you, doesn't mean the outside didn't exist before you perceived it.

Get over yourself. This has nothing to do with you have some sort of superior imagination, or other people sitting around waiting for the exact rules they need to be printed. If you want the ridiculous part of this conversation, go find a mirror.

[sithlordnergal]

This is a rather cyclical example combining specific rules against each other. How would you create a thirteen tentacled PC with unlimited range ink blasters who could only breathe xenon? You just make some crap up.

Not at all. That example happens to be a current character of mine. He's a multiclass Paladin/Wild Magic Sorcerer. He became a Wild Magic Sorcerer after going trough a curious mansion in Storm King's Thunder that was defended by powerful magic, and in the end he had to face down a Shadow Dragon. I used that bit of adventure to make him more interesting. Mechanically, you couldn't do it without multiclassing. And while I can fluff as much as I want, the Oath of the Ancients has nothing remotely close to what I described on its own.

You can certainly make stuff up...but aren't you just multiclassing under a different name?


How about this for a character example: You have a Half-Elf that was living in the Jungles of Chult. Their father was a Wood Elf, their mother a Silver Dragon. She was raised learning the ways of being a Druid to help protect her home from the Undead that wanders Chult, and eventually learns of the Order of the Gauntlet. A group of Paladins and similar people who try to bring peace and order, and are enemies of the undead. She goes to their camp, and starts training to become a Knight of the Forest, while retaining her Druidic upbringing and looking into the magic granted by her draconic heritage.

Mechanically, I made this into a Paladin/Druid/Sorcerer. Not the easiest multiclass to pull off, but for a character with a backstory like that it fits perfectly.

[Ignimortis]

Don't you see the ridiculousness of this statement? If we follow this logic, there are innumerable amounts of people sitting around with innumerable amounts of imagined characters, just waiting for Swords of the Coast to write more rules so they can play them?! What kind of people are those?

In reality, when multiclassing and feat rules were added, these can certainly serve to stimulate the imaginations of those who are discontented with the standard classes. But just like all rules, we are simply consuming them to introduce order. Just because someone opens a door for you, doesn't mean the outside didn't exist before you perceived it.

Actually, I'd like to have some options that aren't there. My only two options to play a teleport-spamming character are Shadow Monk (needs shadows to teleport) and Horizon Walker (which didn't exist until this year and needs level 11 for that, by that point most games are over or almost over; also his teleports are like 10 feet long, which isn't much).

That's just one concept. I'd also like a Red Mage-style of affair, with 1/2 arcane spellcasting and rapiers. No, Warlocks don't work, even Hexblades.

[djreynolds]

I played a wizard with out feats or multiclassing. Obviously it was fine.
Some classes do not need feats.

But feats and multiclassing are really needed, because of optimization but also personalization.

Otherwise, every character is the same. Something like ritual caster allows a barbarian to grow. To evolve.

It shows growth, especially when the feat allows the players to participate in all three pillars.

Our fighter took the healer feat, it's been a huge boon for the party, and allows increased participation.

Now that player can do more than just battle.

Feats like ritual caster, inspiring leader, skilled, and the healer really are great feats that allow non caster characters to participate but not lose their identity.

Nothing quite like a bloody barbarian put a band-aid on your booboo, but no kissing booboos

[Glorthindel]

Not at all. That example happens to be a current character of mine. He's a multiclass Paladin/Wild Magic Sorcerer. He became a Wild Magic Sorcerer after going trough a curious mansion in Storm King's Thunder that was defended by powerful magic, and in the end he had to face down a Shadow Dragon. I used that bit of adventure to make him more interesting. Mechanically, you couldn't do it without multiclassing. And while I can fluff as much as I want, the Oath of the Ancients has nothing remotely close to what I described on its own.

You can certainly make stuff up...but aren't you just multiclassing under a different name?


How about this for a character example: You have a Half-Elf that was living in the Jungles of Chult. Their father was a Wood Elf, their mother a Silver Dragon. She was raised learning the ways of being a Druid to help protect her home from the Undead that wanders Chult, and eventually learns of the Order of the Gauntlet. A group of Paladins and similar people who try to bring peace and order, and are enemies of the undead. She goes to their camp, and starts training to become a Knight of the Forest, while retaining her Druidic upbringing and looking into the magic granted by her draconic heritage.

Mechanically, I made this into a Paladin/Druid/Sorcerer. Not the easiest multiclass to pull off, but for a character with a backstory like that it fits perfectly.

What inscrutable is saying, and I agree, is your mind has locked on specific mechanics, and rule titles in order to create your vision, but these things are merely gameplay abstractions.

To play a character "trained in the druidic arts" does not in any way require a level in the Druid class. Just take proficiency in Nature, and act the part. You will immediately answer that that doesn't give you shapechanging, and you'd be right, but nothing in the lore says that every Druidically-trained NPC in the campaign world can (or chooses to) shapechange. You can explain your lack in any way that fits the character (maybe she feels transforming would be an insult to her Draconic heritage), or not, no NPC is going to say "you can't shapechange, you can't possible have been trained in a Druid circle".

Now, if you want to be a shapechanger, then play the Druid, and the reverse applies about your "training in the Paladins way" - you get Divine themed spells and combat ability from being a Druid anyway, so you can easily reflavour some to appear to key off your paladin training (Shillelagh and Magic Weapon can easily pretend to be the other), and your druidic beliefs preclude wearing metal armour anyway, so that explains that lack away. Sure, you wont have Paladin Smites, but what is a Smite but a sheath of Holy Energy in your attack, and Shillelagh covers that. Sure, you wont have the damage dice, but that is an abstraction, to all in-character appearance, you do the same thing.

As for the sorcerer levels, you definitely don't need that. Genetic heritage can be a fickle thing, and you don't need a level in draconic heritage sorcerer to claim draconic heritage. Give yourself a strange eye colour or skin patternation, and you're good to go, it doesn't need a gameplay mechanic attached to it.

Your character is entirely creatable using either of the classes, and fine without the others. You don't have the mechanics you nessercerily want, but that is the problem, you are thinking in terms of the mechanics. If your reasoning for pushing the need for multiclassing is "you can't get the mechanics you want" then that is a fine arguement to put forward, and one I would actually wholeheartedly agree with (I love multiclassing myself for that very reason) but don't disguise it under "I can't play the concept I want" because you absolutely can.

[Willie the Duck]

If the only thing you can imagine has already been imagined and put in a book for you and thousands to copy, I pity your imagination. Creating more rules does not expand freedom of creativity, it binds and structures it. You're welcome to play only RAW, but don't try to say it is the only way. You're missing the beauty of the game and its superiority over all video games. We get to write the rules and choose what to follow. :-)

Please point out where someone else described something as the only way. Yes, we are going to hold you to it. If you want to be taken seriously, point out where this was done. We'll be here waiting.


Don't you see the ridiculousness of this statement? If we follow this logic, there are innumerable amounts of people sitting around with innumerable amounts of imagined characters, just waiting for Swords of the Coast to write more rules so they can play them?! What kind of people are those?

No, because house rules are a thing and always have been. This is entirely a (very theoretical) discussion about official rules and rules structures. Do you like using this optional material WotC has provided in your game, and does it help you realize character concepts?


You can certainly make stuff up...but aren't you just multiclassing under a different name?

Well, at this point I'm going to diverge. The thread topic is pretty much the actual multiclassing and feat rulesets. So making stuff up isn't really the same. Although, having to state, 'no, of course we don't feel the need to MC or use feats, because if someone wants to do something with their character, we just homebrew a new archetype that does pretty much the same' does take a lot of the wind out of their arguments' sails. So maybe I just convinced myself I agree, nevermind.


What inscrutable is saying, and I agree, is your mind has locked on specific mechanics, and rule titles in order to create your vision, but these things are merely gameplay abstractions.

To play a character "trained in the druidic arts" does not in any way require a level in the Druid class. Just take proficiency in Nature, and act the part.

We've always had the ability to re-fluff things. That isn't specific to this rules question. In a group amongst non-religious players, we've refluffed clerics as white-mages many a time. What you say is true, but not clearly relevant.

Look, I was around for the 'no dwarven spellcasters' and 'all elves are fighting man/magic user hybrids' era. I am fine with not having MC or feats. But the argument that you don't need mechanical openness because you can just refluff what is there as needed doesn't obviate rulesets that exclude certain concepts mechanically. We saw that in '74 the first time someone wanted to play a Gandalf character, and tried to look up how a magic user could wield a sword. I like non-MC games, particularly because of some of the overused (/abused) cha-based combos (and what a nightmare 3e turned into)*. But if I were to argue for that position, it would be based on an argument of game balance, not on a nebulous case that we don't need added mechanical build options because you can just refluff what you can build into what you wanted to do in the first place. That's a non-starter.
*personal opinion.

[HappyDaze]

Feats w/no Multiclassing—
All the powerful multiclass charisma builds are unavailable, so Gish builds are significantly more limited.

Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters are relatively more desirable.

Bards and Blaster Clerics are more popular among players who want flexibility.

Paladins are significantly weaker, or at least more one dimensional, as they have no ability to multiclass to pick up ranged attack cantrips.

Multiclassing, no feats—
Melee Clerics, Hexblades and Moon Druids are all relatively weaker. Controller Wizards, Blaster Clerics, and any spell caster who plans to stay out of melee are relatively stronger. Fighters are much weaker without the weapon feats to use their extra ASIs in.

With no Resilient:Con or warcaster feats, wading into combat as a caster is much harder, and Casters are squishier. For example War Clerics won’t keep up Spirit Guardians as long.

No Multiclassing, No Feats—
Classes have a feel closer to older versions of D&D. Wizards are significantly more powerful than other classes, but don’t have many tricks to become tankier. Building a Gish better than a Swords Bard or Eldritch Knight isn’t really possible.

Eldritch Knights always go with two handed weapons.

Moon Druids are much closer to other Druid subclasses in power because keeping concentration in beast form is harder for them.

Smaller parties will find play more difficult, as characters are not as versatile. Larger parties will still have less overlap in player abilities.

This is a good response. Thank you.

[HappyDaze]

We do, however, use feats. And if the game was designed by default to not use feats, then that's just bad design. What's a fighter supposed to do with all those ASIs? Pumping unnecessary stats won't make him any more effective, and while they might make him more interesting, they won't make him as much more interesting as feats would. I can make my fighter a little more knowledgeable, or I can make him able to cast a few minor spells. I can make him a little more charismatic, or I can make him use the charisma he has to inspire the whole party to be tougher. I can give him a +1 to a few skills that he's not very good at anyway, or I can give him +prof to three skills, which might be enough to actually make it worth it to use those skills.


I don't think "interesting" is the right word. A character without feats can be plenty interesting, and a character with feats might be terribly uninteresting. What feats do is give the character more moving parts. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view.

[HappyDaze]

But feats and multiclassing are really needed, because of optimization but also personalization.

Otherwise, every character is the same.
That's nonsense. There are over 60 class/subclass combinations, dozens of races, and a range of ability score and skill selections that could be used with any of them. The characters only look the same only if you always go for the optimized options.

[Max_Killjoy]

Some tables don't allow hardcore re-skinning / re-fluffing.

And sometimes no matter how hard you re-skin, and how much you squint and turn things sideways, the mechanics just don't fit the character concept.

[Ignimortis]

That's nonsense. There are over 60 class/subclass combinations, dozens of races, and a range of ability score and skill selections that could be used with any of them. The characters only look the same only if you always go for the optimized options.

Subclasses and races don't influence your gameplay enough. I'd say that getting a good feat at level 1 can change your gameplay much more than choosing a subclass does sometimes - Mobile definitely shakes up melee combatants much more than most of their archetype features, the exceptions being BM/EK/Beastmaster (it's bad but still a novelty tactically)/AT/maybe Thief if your battlemaps are complex enough. The same can be said about Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster.

[Max_Killjoy]

Subclasses and races don't influence your gameplay enough. I'd say that getting a good feat at level 1 can change your gameplay much more than choosing a subclass does sometimes - Mobile definitely shakes up melee combatants much more than most of their archetype features, the exceptions being BM/EK/Beastmaster (it's bad but still a novelty tactically)/AT/maybe Thief if your battlemaps are complex enough. The same can be said about Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster.

Depends on what you mean by "gameplay", and why you're playing that subclass and "race".

The idea of picking a "race" or class/subclass to obtain the best numerical values / mechanical results is way off my approach to building a character.

[Vorpalchicken]

They utilize their survey data in their findings. Why would they just discard them? They don't share their survey results. They do make comments here and there such as the number of respondents and broad findings (like the less than half of groups playing with feats).

Hundreds of thousands of respondents is large enough to come to reasonable conclusions about the player population. WotC has professionals who do this sort of thing. Even the order of the questions on a survey will change its results which is why people make their career out of creating and analyzing them.

Discounting their data and using your limited experience instead is absurd.



The last count that was given was in the range of 12-15 million players.



Because you will be playing in groups you are compatible with and are available to you and that is inherently limited.



This board represents an extreme end of the player population.

Most people here also probably play in Adventurer's League but AL can't be more than 1% of the player population.

You don't need a sample size anywhere near 100 000 to get significant results for a group of 15 million. That's about 2.5 million groups. I would need about 900 groups to get acceptable results so I'm not that far off. However I have acknowledged that my "limited" experience is anecdotal.

What is "absurd" is not using common sense when interpreting results.

I'm quite open minded in joining games. I definitely don't reject games if they ban multiclass or feats. I always respect the DM.

[Ignimortis]

Depends on what you mean by "gameplay", and why you're playing that subclass and "race".

The idea of picking a "race" or class/subclass to obtain the best numerical values / mechanical results is way off my approach to building a character.

Sure, I don't use them that way either. But what I meant was mechanical gameplay, and in my group we invariably found that mechanical gameplay is affected by VHuman's feat choice in general than by racial abilities of other races or our subclass choice. So people either picked VHuman if they didn't have a specific race-bound concept in mind or the other races for narrative. Subclasses mattered a lot on maybe two or three of our characters, and mostly narratively, since the DM connected them with specific organizations in his setting (so a Shadow Monk was connected to a secret temple of bad guy ninjas, etc).

Mobile alone can change your tactics on a melee, because now hit-n-run is way more possible, GWM makes you evaluate enemies' AC and try to decide when its' worth it (unless you're a Barb, then it's always worth it with Reckless Attack and Rage on), etc. In general, options influence tactics more than numbers, and feats usually give you more options and some numbers, while subclasses might only give you options or only numbers.

[EggKookoo]

My group doesn't allow multiclassing, mostly for the sake of simplicity, because some of the folks aren't very good at managing rules that get too complicated. I suppose that it does restrict character concepts some, but it seems to me that, between subclasses and backgrounds, there's still plenty of conceptual space.

We do, however, use feats. And if the game was designed by default to not use feats, then that's just bad design. What's a fighter supposed to do with all those ASIs? Pumping unnecessary stats won't make him any more effective, and while they might make him more interesting, they won't make him as much more interesting as feats would. I can make my fighter a little more knowledgeable, or I can make him able to cast a few minor spells. I can make him a little more charismatic, or I can make him use the charisma he has to inspire the whole party to be tougher. I can give him a +1 to a few skills that he's not very good at anyway, or I can give him +prof to three skills, which might be enough to actually make it worth it to use those skills.

We also allow the variant human, because the "default" human just sucks, for the same reason: Nobody cares about pumping their tertiary stats, and that's all the standard human gets. Without the variant human, you'd almost always be better off to build your "human" character concept as a half-elf and hide your ears, even if you're not using Charisma.

Just piping in to say this almost perfectly mirrors my table.

[Trustypeaches]

Well, that's why I respectully says Warlock is incompatible with your playstyle, unless maybe you didn't get a chance to play one high level enough. :)

Yeah, true, you will usually cast one spell at most per encounter on average. But you know what? IMX, it's true of most casters, even those with more spell and slot variety.
The only big deal for a Warlock is when his first (only?) cast didn't work as expected because the cost of trying again may (or not) be higher than for another caster, since he depends on a short rest.

But, besides that, I have the feeling you didn't really try to use all Warlock abilities.
First of all, outside combat, you should have ways to be useful to party without feeling too much stress (cast Invisibility on scout pal so his job gets easier while you're taking the short rest -per RAW nothing says concentration prevents resting-, try a fancy Suggestion before grabbing lunch -you can try and make that pass off as a mundane thing with a Deception check, even if DC may be high depending on who you're trying to dupe, maintain Disguise Self and Comprehend Languages over a day to pass off as a diplomat, etc).The issue with warlocks for me is that I always feel like I’m on the brink on running out of spells, so I never feel like casting them as liberally as other casters would. I don’t want to get caught with my pants down with 0-1 spells when the next combat starts.

Maybe your groups are much more liberal about when you can take a short rest and how often: in mine you only get 1-2 per day and revolves around the group’s needs rather than the Warlocks.

That said, I don’t think the balance is that far off; they just need a few more options or ways to work around pact magic to feel less restricted.

On my groups I houserule Hex as a class feature so it doesn’t eat a warlock’s spell slot, and spells gained from invocations don’t take a spell slot (still limited to once per day). Little tweaks like this help fill out a warlock’s options once he’s burned his two slots.

[ad_hoc]

You don't need a sample size anywhere near 100 000 to get significant results for a group of 15 million.

Why won't you believe their findings?




However I have acknowledged that my "limited" experience is anecdotal.


Also hugely biased.

For example, a person who plays at conventions may end up playing with hundreds of people but all of those people are ones who play at conventions. Similarly with Adventurer's League.

Both of those are such a small corner of the population as to not matter.

You would need a sampling across the population to get accurate results. Something that 1 person cannot do.

[djreynolds]

Magic initiate and ritual caster and healer make you feel like you multiclassed almost, but you didn't.

The wizard gave you a spell book and taught you how to ritual spells.

Maybe the sorcerer taught you to cast firebolt by tapping into the weave, who knows

Feats are great, and do take some effort in the fact you have to adventure to level up.

We all have concepts and character paths, but once a long adventure starts you realize players are not optimizing always, and I'm grabbing feats or even multiclassing, if possible, just to survive to the next long rest.

Almost never have I ever played or DMd an optimal party, we have no powergamers.

As for multiclassing, only a few at our table do it, and it's usually because we started at a higher level or it was party need

I have DMd two paladins. One wizard.

Mostly players run moon druids, bards, rangers, monks, barbarians, clerics, and eldritch knights... a regular who plays a sorcerer

[Vorpalchicken]

Why won't you believe their findings?




Also hugely biased.

For example, a person who plays at conventions may end up playing with hundreds of people but all of those people are ones who play at conventions. Similarly with Adventurer's League.

Both of those are such a small corner of the population as to not matter.

You would need a sampling across the population to get accurate results. Something that 1 person cannot do.

I still don't know why you think I am hugely biased. Do you think I only play Adventurers League games?

Many of the games I play are on roll20 so I do in fact play with a global cross section of the D&D playing population.

The conclusion that most groups don't use Feats or multiclass just doesn't match what I (and I expect many others) have experienced.

[Naanomi]

There is a lot of reason to expect that data drawn from DnD Beyond and the like isn’t representative of actual play data; though in which ways those errors lie and to what degree would take further research and sampling

[Malifice]

As someone who is playing a single classed Hexblade Warlock, I'm gonna say the issue is the fact that the Warlock sucks on its own. I lack the spell slots to do anything interesting or fun outside of casting spells that last longer then a single encounter. Usually I am stuck just attacking with a +1 weapon or Eldritch Blast with Hex, or buffing myself with Armor of Agathys.

And yet you have just posted a thread where you've stated that you've never played warlock before, and specifically asked for advice on how to play a fey pact tome warlock.

Two spell slots/ short rest add up to roughly one slot per encounter.

For an adventuring day featuring around half a dozen encounters, you are doing better than a wizard or cleric of your level.

[Pleh]

It looks like we've more or less got the answers we were looking for (as specified in the OP).

Fighters (and somewhat also Rogues) would suffer from the limitations to the use of their ASI. Full casters wouldn't be largely affected. Short rest classes (monk and warlock it seems) might be least affected.

But then we got into a bunch of more sentimental arguments that seem not to be the best hill to die on.

"But what if I want to play a Ninja?"
"Shadow Monk."
"Nuh uh! I wanna wear armor! I gotta MC Rogue"
You just shifted the goalpost.

There seems to be some kind of fear (Max just about stated it somewhere) that if the rules don't explicitly support elements of your concept, you can't use them. But this is Session 0 stuff. The DM should be announcing prohibitions on optional rules before you make your characters.

Now I'm picturing a group that meets up to make characters, the DM announces No Feats (no Vuman), No MC (shouldn't be a big problem since they're probably level 1). Are you really gonna be the guy that complains that you don't want to use any of the dozens of available characters because you think your ninja should be able to wear armor? Why allow yourself to get obsessed with all of the options you can't have rather than looking at the ones that are available? Can you not accept the game if other people want to play it more simply?

Now, I get that most people here would probably be polite enough that if you felt this way, you might argue your case respectfully and opt not to play if the DM isn't persuaded. I'm not presuming there'd be a childish tantrum, but forgive me if the insistence that your game needs maximum versatility to be fun or playable strikes me as effrontery.

Then we get into the arguments about data and Average Table Experience. Gosh, what an unhelpful point to belabor. Yes, on average, removing feats and MC won't affect many tables because many tables don't get very high in level in addition to several classes just not needing it. Yes, this forum represents a minority of tables that would be disproportionately affected. I don't really see these points going much further in the analysis of the OP's interests.

[Citan]

The issue with warlocks for me is that I always feel like I’m on the brink on running out of spells, so I never feel like casting them as liberally as other casters would. I don’t want to get caught with my pants down with 0-1 spells when the next combat starts.

Maybe your groups are much more liberal about when you can take a short rest and how often: in mine you only get 1-2 per day and revolves around the group’s needs rather than the Warlocks.

That said, I don’t think the balance is that far off; they just need a few more options or ways to work around pact magic to feel less restricted.

On my groups I houserule Hex as a class feature so it doesn’t eat a warlock’s spell slot, and spells gained from invocations don’t take a spell slot (still limited to once per day). Little tweaks like this help fill out a warlock’s options once he’s burned his two slots.
Your tweaks are interesting indeed. :)

I bolded the parts that imo are the crux of the problem.
On the feeling that you are always gasping for "spellcasting breath", I'd say Warlock are equal to other spellcasters until level 3-4. After that indeed short rest management and using long-duration spells becomes crucial. And some of the most interesting long-duration spells are more often used outside combat than inside (at least those I have in mind such as Suggestion or Dream).

Which brings to the next point: imx, the fact that the (few ^^) players that used a Warlock (or Monk for that matter) were fine was that because the group took everyone's needs into account, or in other words, they perceived the interest for the group as a whole to have their short-rest pals replenish their resources.

I sadly have no miracle thing to say or bring on that matter of party ignoring and focusing on long rest instead. Maybe they act so because a Warlock player focused too much on damage although everyone else is already dealing good damage. Maybe the spell selection of Warlock fits unwell with encounters or is just not flashy so party does not realize how helpful those spells can be.
To enjoy a Warlock there are certainly a more peculiar context required than when playing very self-reliant classes such as Clerics or Rogues.
But frustration imx comes mostly from lack of short rest or too much focus on plain combat, which are issues that are broader than a class mechanic problem, and rather a setting/campaign/players problem.

Hence my above comment: either play a Warlock whenever you know there will be support from allies in deciding short-rests, or when you can at least guarantee one with Catnap, or pick Tome to get chances at managing short rests yourself, or be the main caster in party. ^^

[Pelle]

Now I'm picturing a group that meets up to make characters, the DM announces No Feats (no Vuman), No MC (shouldn't be a big problem since they're probably level 1). Are you really gonna be the guy that complains that you don't want to use any of the dozens of available characters because you think your ninja should be able to wear armor? Why allow yourself to get obsessed with all of the options you can't have rather than looking at the ones that are available? Can you not accept the game if other people want to play it more simply?


I much agree with most of your post. For my own current game I try to encourage the players not to bother with feats and MC, because even without there are too many rules for the majority of my table anyways. For our game, I believe less options are better. But if a player really wants to use those optional rules, because that feat fits well for their character concept or taking a new class really makes sense due to events in the game, it is hard to say no to that.

Using extra options is opt-in for the other players, and one person wanting more options doesn't have to affect the other players who want to play more simply. The only times I hesitate is when the player only wants to use those options to powergame and get a more powerful character than the other players, or when I feel that the player has enough trouble already remembering the abilities of their character.

I prefer playing without MC and feats; less options having to consider, reducing the mental overload and prep required of the players. If someone don't buy-in to this at the beginning of the game though, do you have any good arguments for why you should deny it? For me, the reasons for why they want the extra options are more important than using the options or not.

[EggKookoo]

I prefer playing without MC and feats; less options having to consider, reducing the mental overload and prep required of the players. If someone don't buy-in to this at the beginning of the game though, do you have any good arguments for why you should deny it? For me, the reasons for why they want the extra options are more important than using the options or not.

I would discourage MC at my table if any of my players were ever interested in it. Luckily for me (as I'm not a fan of MC personally), none of my players ever brings it up. I think I have one player with enough D&D experience that he might someday try it out just to see how it fits, but I don't think he's particularly dying to in general.

For myself, multiclassing implies a mindset that your actions as a player are constrained by the mechanics, or that your concept is constrained by the build. Take the ninja/assassin thing. I could happily run that as a champion fighter. Or a hunter ranger. The guy just dresses up as a ninja, his longsword is fluffed to a katana or something, and he's always "ninja-sneaking" around. I would take the challenge of playing any concept using any class without multiclassing. I think the only obstacle there would be if the concept had a hard requirement and the class was literally unable to provide for it (ninja swordsman using wizard, for example, although I'd still enjoy trying).

Feats are a different story. I liked the concept of feats back when 3e introduced them. The amount of featsplat (and 3.x splat in general) kind of soured me on them. Plus 3.x approach to NPCs as PCs meant a lot of feat management for me as a DM. But 5e's approach to feats is much more restrained, and it's approach to NPCs is not at all like 3.x's. So I like feats again and encourage my players to check them out. For the most part, though, most of my players aren't all that interested in adding more fiddly bits to their characters. There's less disinterest than with multiclassing but it's still not a major attraction.

[Spiritchaser]

I wouldn’t DM a campaign like this but in terms of the strength of my dislike, this rule set would likely not stop me playing in such a campaign, presuming I liked the DM players etc.


The reasons have been stated by others but still:

Feats and multiclass characters do lend themselves to mechanical optimization. This is not bad. The group I play with has been mechanically optimizing things for over 30 years. I wouldn’t suggest we always optimize well, or for the “correct” things, but we’ve been having fun doing it.

Feats and multiclass characters can fill a wider range of concepts. There’s no bad side to this.

Feats and multiclass characters can, at least somewhat, close the gap between full casters and martials. 5e doesn’t seem awful in this regard, but whatever balance issues you might create by adding GWM or sharpshooter, they’ll be smaller than the overall balance issues between full casters and martials.

[darknite]

How does not allowing multiclassing and/or feats impact the game?

Makes it more boring. Heroes should be interesting and dynamic. Restricting players to one class puts their characters on rails, developmentally, with little option for differentiation. You can do it but it's like saying you can have ice cream, but only vanilla.

[Zuras]

It looks like we've more or less got the answers we were looking for (as specified in the OP).

Fighters (and somewhat also Rogues) would suffer from the limitations to the use of their ASI. Full casters wouldn't be largely affected. Short rest classes (monk and warlock it seems) might be least affected.

(Snip)


I don’t think you can say “full casters would be unaffected”.

Full casters seeking to be less squishy will be significantly affected in a no-MC no-feat game. Traditional squishy wizards will be almost entirely unaffected, but any full caster with class features that encourage them to mix it up in melee (heavy armor Clerics, Bladesingers, Sword Bards) will get less use from those features without the ability to support them with War Caster/Resilient:Con or multiclass dips into a martial or half caster class.

[Pelle]

How does not allowing multiclassing and/or feats impact the game?

Makes it more boring. Heroes should be interesting and dynamic. Restricting players to one class puts their characters on rails, developmentally, with little option for differentiation. You can do it but it's like saying you can have ice cream, but only vanilla.

Many people here seems to enjoy playing with feats and MC. That's ok and understandable. If a DM wants to restrict these options, it's usually not to spite you. It's because it is too complicated for other players at the table. Should you then agree to restrict yourself to the simpler rules like everyone else, or insist that you can use the optional rules since it doesn't hurt anyone else? What is best for the group?

[Sception]

How does not allowing multiclassing and/or feats impact the game?

Makes it more boring. Heroes should be interesting and dynamic. Restricting players to one class puts their characters on rails, developmentally, with little option for differentiation. You can do it but it's like saying you can have ice cream, but only vanilla.

I agree with this, and it applies even though a few of my preferred builds dont even use multiclassing, and don't typically take feats until past the point where most campaigns end. Sort of like how i prefer to play in diverse, cosmopolitan worlds eith a variety of fantady races even when I'm playing a human. More variety is good.

IMO, the only cost to allowing feats and multiclasding is a lowered power floor. Someone with low system mastery can make a character who is kind of bad via multiclassing and feats, mostly because both provide ways to accidentally neglect your primary stats, where as in a no-feat, no-mc game, that doesnt happen. As long as players know to avoid that, things are fine. What edge you can get out of multiclassing and feats isnt so great as to break the game or invalidate other party members.

With the exception of coffeelocks, which I'd argue is more a problem with the rest mechanics more than multiclassing anyway.

[EggKookoo]

Many people here seems to enjoy playing with feats and MC. That's ok and understandable. If a DM wants to restrict these options, it's usually not to spite you. It's because it is too complicated for other players at the table. Should you then agree to restrict yourself to the simpler rules like everyone else, or insist that you can use the optional rules since it doesn't hurt anyone else? What is best for the group?

In addition, MC can appear to cause complications for encounter (and general game) balance down the line. Whether or not that's literally true, or true for all MC combos, or whatever, the DM is basically making a decision to allow it or not based on predictions for how the game will work out later on. It's not like a DM can say "I'll allow multiclassing but if it turns out to cause problems in eight levels I'm going to turn it off." Once you decide to allow it, you're stuck with it unless you want to wipe everything and start over.

I would discourage it at my table (if my players ever asked about it, which they don't, because I think they share my mindset about it) mainly because I don't want to have to deal with that kind of prediction. It's hard to set your campaign up for failure in the context of encounter balance when everyone plays a single class. It's possible but there are plenty of safeguards against it. But when you introduce MC it's possible to get into that kind of trap.

I also don't really accept MC as a way of realizing a concept. I almost never (well, literally never) see people asking about MC on this forum, for example, in the service of fulfilling a concept. It's always in the quest for maximizing character power. You can realize just about any concept with the existing classes and subclasses.

[Chronos]

There seems to be this attitude that there's a conflict between "role-playing" and "optimizing". But really, there isn't. The problem is that too many people think that "optimizing" means maximizing power, or even more specifically, maximizing combat power. But you can optimize towards any end.

Consider, for example, my first 5e character. My concept for him was that he was an archaeology student obsessed with unearthing ancient secrets and making them known to all. I then optimized him, by which I mean that I set out to make him fit my concept as well as possible. Picking up Comprehend Languages through the Ritual Caster feat, for instance, helped him fit that concept, because now he can decipher obscure inscriptions in long-lost tombs. It doesn't give him much power, and certainly isn't useful in combat, but it was still optimization. And it also gave me an opportunity to develop his backstory further, in explaining how he came into the possession of a ritual book, and learned to use it (backstory which, as it happens, later became relevant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?420162-Wherein-I-inadvertantly-give-an-NPC-exactly-what-he-wants)).

[darknite]

Many people here seems to enjoy playing with feats and MC. That's ok and understandable. If a DM wants to restrict these options, it's usually not to spite you. It's because it is too complicated for other players at the table. Should you then agree to restrict yourself to the simpler rules like everyone else, or insist that you can use the optional rules since it doesn't hurt anyone else? What is best for the group?

Players all have a range of expertise with the rule system. Locking them out from exposure to MCing and Feats seems parochial to me. No one is forcing players who aren't initially familiar with these rules to use them. However I have no issue with restricting MCing and Feats in a game if ALL players and the DM agree to do this. D&D should be a permissive environment, not restrictive. Real life is restrictive enough...

[Pleh]

I don’t think you can say “full casters would be unaffected”.

Full casters seeking to be less squishy will be significantly affected in a no-MC no-feat game. Traditional squishy wizards will be almost entirely unaffected, but any full caster with class features that encourage them to mix it up in melee (heavy armor Clerics, Bladesingers, Sword Bards) will get less use from those features without the ability to support them with War Caster/Resilient:Con or multiclass dips into a martial or half caster class.

A fair point, I suppose. Perhaps it might be helpful to look at it as, "each class will be more constrained to their Niche and less able to pick up secondary roles outside their class."

From there, classes would be affected primarily by how much it hurts to be stuck in their niche.

But again, it's just mechanical. PCs in 5e are far less dependent on mechanical support anyway.

[Pelle]

Players all have a range of expertise with the rule system. Locking them out from exposure to MCing and Feats seems parochial to me. No one is forcing players who aren't initially familiar with these rules to use them. However I have no issue with restricting MCing and Feats in a game if ALL players and the DM agree to do this. D&D should be a permissive environment, not restrictive. Real life is restrictive enough...

Yeah, it wasn't meant as a rhetorical question, but something everyone should consider for themselves and their situation. I tend to land on the same as you, there is no point in restricting it if someone really wants to use it, even though I prefer to play without. My expection is if allowing it is going to affect the other players negatively. For example by abusing it to build a much more powerful character than the others, or if it leads to the player having too many options for what he can digest and that slows down the game with analysis paralysis.

[Jophiel]

I almost never (well, literally never) see people asking about MC on this forum, for example, in the service of fulfilling a concept.
I see a number of "How would you build this character" questions which seem to be inviting multiclassing suggestions since the model they're tying to emulate is a mixture of archetypes (otherwise why ask?). But, if you already have a MC concept in your head, you also don't need to ask about it. I have a Life Cleric/Divine Soul where the concept was simple "She was an acolyte until her deity came to her in a vision and touched her directly". I know another guy who is playing a warlock with a fighter dip because he wanted "Looks like a regular brute fighter, then surprises you with magic". These aren't ideas that call for a lot of discussion, neither are they the most optimized (or else that warlock would be dipping paladin)

[PhoenixPhyre]

I see a number of "How would you build this character" questions which seem to be inviting multiclassing suggestions since the model they're tying to emulate is a mixture of archetypes (otherwise why ask?). But, if you already have a MC concept in your head, you also don't need to ask about it. I have a Life Cleric/Divine Soul where the concept was simple "She was an acolyte until her deity came to her in a vision and touched her directly". I know another guy who is playing a warlock with a fighter dip because he wanted "Looks like a regular brute fighter, then surprises you with magic". These aren't ideas that call for a lot of discussion, neither are they the most optimized (or else that warlock would be dipping paladin)

But neither of those need multiclassing at all.

For the first, a straight Divine Soul with the acolyte background works just fine. For the second, a particularly-beefy Hexblade warlock works or so does an EK.

------Aside-----------
Personally, I don't like the conflation of "character concept" with "set of mechanical buttons to press." It feels very unsatisfying and artificial. My best characters come from trying to figure out who the person was in universe and from thus how they became an adventurer and what their focus is. Sometimes that requires MC, other times (the bulk of cases) it doesn't. Normally, most real characters fit within the broader archetypes pretty well, especially since there's significant overlap.

I'm playing a Celestial Warlock 2/Bard X right now, mainly because I normally DM and I wanted to play around with MC. The concept was that the character had been cut from a court minstrel school (not bard, but minstrel, playing to the rich and famous of Waterdeep) for being too low class and not having the right voice. So he turned to a servant of Milil and bargained for "the best voice in the land" in exchange for serving the god as an adventurer. The servant decided that the best voice in the land belonged to a particular woman (the peril of making a deal with a chaotic creature) and so decided he (now she) needed a body to match. She re-upped her contract once for a bit more power, but since then has been focusing on her bardic talent. Yes, I could have done that straight warlock or straight bard. Not an issue.

[Max_Killjoy]

There seems to be this attitude that there's a conflict between "role-playing" and "optimizing". But really, there isn't. The problem is that too many people think that "optimizing" means maximizing power, or even more specifically, maximizing combat power. But you can optimize towards any end.

Consider, for example, my first 5e character. My concept for him was that he was an archaeology student obsessed with unearthing ancient secrets and making them known to all. I then optimized him, by which I mean that I set out to make him fit my concept as well as possible. Picking up Comprehend Languages through the Ritual Caster feat, for instance, helped him fit that concept, because now he can decipher obscure inscriptions in long-lost tombs. It doesn't give him much power, and certainly isn't useful in combat, but it was still optimization. And it also gave me an opportunity to develop his backstory further, in explaining how he came into the possession of a ritual book, and learned to use it (backstory which, as it happens, later became relevant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?420162-Wherein-I-inadvertantly-give-an-NPC-exactly-what-he-wants)).

That's how I approach character creation and "optimization", or would at least like to approach them.

I'm having a very hard time translating a character into 5e, thus the "how would you build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?576050-How-Would-You-Build-This-Character-in-5e)" thread I posted -- because everything feels very narrow and constrained and linear. There aren't a lot of tradeoffs to be made within the details of the build in 5e, just tradeoffs between which package of things you take.

Finding it a real challenge to build a character who is heavy on Skills, Dex-based in melee, has the appropriate smattering of magic and abilities for an artificer/tinkerer/researcher (while being Int-based or even Wis-based), while not being bogged down with the Bard's musical bent or the Cleric's religious bent, and has good Saves across the board to fit with her hardened "determinator" personality (I'd trade off something else for the Saves, but there's no way to do that).

I've looked at heavily re-skinning a Swords Bard or Forge Cleric or other ideas, but each one quickly runs into abilities I can't really re-skin to fit the character, and that I can't just trade off for something else.




I also don't really accept MC as a way of realizing a concept. I almost never (well, literally never) see people asking about MC on this forum, for example, in the service of fulfilling a concept. It's always in the quest for maximizing character power. You can realize just about any concept with the existing classes and subclasses.

A large amount of the "how would you build" thread I linked above comes down to using MC to try to match a concept in the 5e system.

[Jophiel]

But neither of those need multiclassing at all.

For the first, a straight Divine Soul with the acolyte background works just fine. For the second, a particularly-beefy Hexblade warlock works or so does an EK.
Whether or not it "needs" multiclassing, the fact remains that neither concept needs a thread asking how to perform it. So the lack of such threads isn't evidence that people only MC for mechanical reasons, just that people don't often start threads for things that are obvious and don't need answering.

[darknite]

Yeah, it wasn't meant as a rhetorical question, but something everyone should consider for themselves and their situation. I tend to land on the same as you, there is no point in restricting it if someone really wants to use it, even though I prefer to play without. My expection is if allowing it is going to affect the other players negatively. For example by abusing it to build a much more powerful character than the others, or if it leads to the player having too many options for what he can digest and that slows down the game with analysis paralysis.

Understood and appreciated! I'm a bit more lenient in the 'IT CAME FROM THE PH!' power gamer department because I've rarely had a problem where players were effected by another player at the table because of rule options. As a DM I have a full toolbox for dealing with such hi-jinx. If you're running a game and run into a damaging situation, it's probably time for a discussion with the players rather than preemptively protecting them from themselves.

That's just me. I like to expand the palette where possible, though, like 3e taught me, there's a limit to what can be rationally juggled!

[Pelle]

Finding it a real challenge to build a character who is heavy on Skills, Dex-based in melee, has the appropriate smattering of magic and abilities for an artificer/tinkerer/researcher (while being Int-based or even Wis-based), while not being bogged down with the Bard's musical bent or the Cleric's religious bent, and has good Saves across the board to fit with her hardened "determinator" personality (I'd trade off something else for the Saves, but there's no way to do that).


Sounds like an Arcane Trickster Rogue with an appropriate (custom?) Background. Yeah, that probably fails on some other criteria not mentioned here.

When using a class based system, it's beneficial to know what the possibilities are before developing a super narrow character concept. Otherwise, you are just bound to get features that don't fit from the prepackaged archetypes. That's going to be a problem whether you use MC or not.

[EggKookoo]

A large amount of the "how would you build" thread I linked above comes down to using MC to try to match a concept in the 5e system.

Oh, hey, cool. I'll check it out. I'll resist the temptation to try to recast the MC builds as single-class in an attempt to prove a point. :smallwink:


Sounds like an Arcane Trickster Rogue with an appropriate (custom?) Background. Yeah, that probably fails on some other criteria not mentioned here.

Or a Dex-based dual-wielding eldritch knight with lots of feat-selection over ASIs. Or are feats out?

[Max_Killjoy]

EK's spellcasting selection is too narrow unless swapouts are allowed by the DM.
AT's progression is two focused on the "trickster" part.

[EggKookoo]

EK's spellcasting selection is too narrow unless swapouts are allowed by the DM.
AT's progression is two focused on the "trickster" part.

So in the case of converting a preexisting character into a 5e character and needing to do it verbatim, sure, I wouldn't be shocked to learn your only path is MC. But if you're going to accept the mechanical changes that come with going from non-5e to 5e (features that grant advantage, the implications of bounded accuracy, possible race variations, etc.), why not accept some fuzziness in class concept and build?

If I had a player who wanted such a customized build I would feel more confident homebrewing an entirely new class than going the MC route. Which isn't to say I would prevent the player from going MC, I just mean it's the last option I would use before abandoning 5e and just playing the old system that accommodates that specific build.

A few years back I revived an old 2e WoD Werewolf game using 5e. I didn't attempt to literally copy the Garou characters over. The systems don't mesh wonderfully and they'd be insanely overpowered as D&D PCs anyway. But also trying to replicate each specific mechanical feature started looking like a fiddly-bit-nightmare, so instead I took the 5e classes and either refluffed or hybridized them to create Auspices, created a Garou "race" with three subraces for the Breeds, gave them a 5e-style "rage dice" mechanic, and accepted that the new versions of their characters would be far less overtly powerful than the originals. The players had no problem with it because by and large they still felt like their originals even if they perceived the power decrease (although it wasn't too bad because the encounters were still balanced). As it is, I look back at my early inexperience with 5e and think I could have done it even more smoothly...

[RedMage125]

I love having them available at 1st level. It opens up some concepts from 1st level.

I ban Vuman, but grant everyone a feat at 1st (and Humans +1 to all ASI as normal, but I also give them an additional skill or tool proficiency at 1st level as well).

Just out of curiosity, does that end up increasing the power level of those first few levels?

Specifically, does it make lower level encounters significantly easier for the first Tier of play? I imagine that helps with survivability in those levels. I like to "pad" the first few levels myself. I give max hp at level 2. Helps keep characters from dying because some monster got a lucky shot in.


Most players of D&D do not discuss D&D on forums. Most don't read the forums. Most just play the game, and don't worry about playing it "better". They have fun, they enjoy it.

I suspect most of us have passed through the optimizing and competitive phase of RPGs, and now play concepts and characters that are just fun and interesting.
I quite agree that most players do not frequent the forums.

But this second sentence here...you are kind of conveying with your tone that you think optimization is something that gamers "grow out of", like it's a transitory phase leading up to a more "dult" way of playing. This is kind of condescending. There's nothing wrong with optimizing. Nothing about optimizing makes someone a "lesser" or "less mature/evolved" gamer than anyone else. There's nothing wrong with not optimizing, either. It's all a matter of preference, much like preferring creamy or chunky peanut butter. There are very few matters of preference that can be judged to be objectively "better" or "worse".

Examples of such that DO exist are: Which way the toilet paper goes on the roll (roll DOWN), and the kinds of degenerates who put pineapple on pizza. :wink:



Another point about not having feats or multiclassing is that it makes the classes feel more unique. You can play a the character who weaves between enemies with ease unless you play a Monk or Rogue. Nobody else can wield a weapon quite as well as the fighter who will probably have the main attack stat maxed out by level 6. Nobody gets smites except the paladin. The sorcerer will be the only caster with a really good con save. Clerics and Druids are the only full casting healers. Wizards will never wear armor. There are a few exceptions to these kinds of things but most of those are through subclasses or being a Warlock.


You forgot Bard. And Divine Soul Sorcerer (which may be redundant with "cleric", since they draw from that list).

[Max_Killjoy]

Sounds like an Arcane Trickster Rogue with an appropriate (custom?) Background. Yeah, that probably fails on some other criteria not mentioned here.

When using a class based system, it's beneficial to know what the possibilities are before developing a super narrow character concept. Otherwise, you are just bound to get features that don't fit from the prepackaged archetypes. That's going to be a problem whether you use MC or not.

For that particular character, it's an old character being used in a new project, so I'd probably have to make a significant alteration to the character for an easy single-class fit.

[Chronos]

Quoth Max_Killjoy:

...while not being bogged down with the Bard's musical bent...
What musical bent? Honestly, one of my annoyances with the 5e bard is that you have to work at it to get a musical bent into the character. About all that's actually in there by default is being allowed to use a musical instrument as an arcane focus, and if you don't want to do that, you can just use a component pouch or a magic stick or something, just like a wizard. Oh, and I suppose that you get proficiency in some instruments, too, but then, so does my outlander ranger, and I've never once used it.

[Max_Killjoy]

What musical bent? Honestly, one of my annoyances with the 5e bard is that you have to work at it to get a musical bent into the character. About all that's actually in there by default is being allowed to use a musical instrument as an arcane focus, and if you don't want to do that, you can just use a component pouch or a magic stick or something, just like a wizard. Oh, and I suppose that you get proficiency in some instruments, too, but then, so does my outlander ranger, and I've never once used it.

I was using it as shorthand.

Performance-based?
Charismatic bent?
Social-based?

The point being that the Bard is build on interaction and inspiration... and the character in question is not.

[Willie the Duck]

What musical bent? Honestly, one of my annoyances with the 5e bard is that you have to work at it to get a musical bent into the character. About all that's actually in there by default is being allowed to use a musical instrument as an arcane focus, and if you don't want to do that, you can just use a component pouch or a magic stick or something, just like a wizard. Oh, and I suppose that you get proficiency in some instruments, too, but then, so does my outlander ranger, and I've never once used it.

If you don't want to, you can also play a cleric as agnostic, a wizard as only being scholarly in that they read from a book to swap out their spells, and a barbarian can be the most civilized member of a party. What exactly would you like to see, particular to the bard or otherwise, as a form of role enforcement? Make them unable to use other foci? Have specific magic-themed spells?

[EggKookoo]

I was using it as shorthand.

Performance-based?
Charismatic bent?
Social-based?

The point being that the Bard is build on interaction and inspiration... and the character in question is not.

Refluff it as a form of inspiration through determination.

Bardic Inspiration: Rather than handing out Bardic Inspiration dice because you inspire through words and music, you're inspiring through your never-say-die attitude.

Song of Rest: You don't sing a song to heal people, you're experienced with obscure knowledge about treating wounds. You're more helpful than you like to let on...

And so on...

[Pelle]

For that particular character, it's an old character being used in a new project, so I'd probably have to make a significant alteration to the character for an easy single-class fit.

I agree with ChrisBasken, you're probably better off just making a homebrew class that fits the old instead.

Weirdly enough, I'm much more positive to using homebrew stuff than MC or feats in my games. Because my resistance to latter is mainly due to the increased complexity it brings to the whole table.

[Max_Killjoy]

I agree with ChrisBasken, you're probably better off just making a homebrew class that fits the old instead.

Weirdly enough, I'm much more positive to using homebrew stuff than MC or feats in my games. Because my resistance to latter is mainly due to the increased complexity it brings to the whole table.

I'll be working on that as an option, then -- will post update to the other thread.

[Max_Killjoy]

What musical bent? Honestly, one of my annoyances with the 5e bard is that you have to work at it to get a musical bent into the character. About all that's actually in there by default is being allowed to use a musical instrument as an arcane focus, and if you don't want to do that, you can just use a component pouch or a magic stick or something, just like a wizard. Oh, and I suppose that you get proficiency in some instruments, too, but then, so does my outlander ranger, and I've never once used it.


Refluff it as a form of inspiration through determination.

Bardic Inspiration: Rather than handing out Bardic Inspiration dice because you inspire through words and music, you're inspiring through your never-say-die attitude.

Song of Rest: You don't sing a song to heal people, you're experienced with obscure knowledge about treating wounds. You're more helpful than you like to let on...

And so on...

Well, here's the "musical bent", if no where else -- Tools: Three musical instruments of your choice.

Would you allow that to be swapped out for different tools?

Would you allow Charisma to be swapped out for Int or Wis as the spellcasting ability?

[EggKookoo]

Well, here's the "musical bent", if no where else -- Tools: Three musical instruments of your choice.

Would you allow that to be swapped out for different tools?

Would you allow Charisma to be swapped out for Int or Wis as the spellcasting ability?

Swapping out musical instruments for other tools would be a no-brainer. I'd barely consider that a houserule. But I also allow "spells known" spellcasters to swap out their entire set of known spells when they gain new spells, instead of just one, so I'm not terribly strict about those kinds of things. I also let a player use a handaxe with his Dex mod, as if it was finesse. Mechanically it's the same as a shortsword so that also was barely a houserule -- possibly not even if I thought of it as just refluffing the latter weapon.

I would be open to allowing Int or Wis instead of Cha. I would have to do a quick check to make sure it didn't imbalance anything but my gut says it wouldn't. This is also a pretty simple conceptual switch since 5e already lets DMs swap out abilities for skills. It's not exactly the same but it's along the same lines.

I would find both of these changes less cognitively disruptive than multiclassing, and if were DMing your game I'd encourage you in that direction. As I've said before, though, I don't outright ban MC, I just try to exhaust other options first.

[Xetheral]

I also don't really accept MC as a way of realizing a concept. I almost never (well, literally never) see people asking about MC on this forum, for example, in the service of fulfilling a concept. It's always in the quest for maximizing character power. You can realize just about any concept with the existing classes and subclasses.

Three responses. First, character concepts can be expansive, and trying to squeeze in abilities to model different facets of an expansive concept has a ton of overlap with maximizing power. In both cases you're trying to find a way to fit as much capability into the available levels as possible, but the underlying motives are different, as are the resulting characters. (Usually, modelling expansive concepts leads to mechanically-broad characters, whereas optimizing for power leads to mechanically-deep characters.) Threads trying to fit x and y abilities into z levels thus aren't necessarily about maximizing power.

Second, escapism is a pretty common player motivation and, as such, being a badass in one way or another is commonly part of a concept. Trying to reach a high enough level of competence to support the concept again looks an awful lot like trying to maximize power, especially if you're currently far from your goal. Threads trying to find a way to make a character good at x are similarly not necessarily about maximizing power.

Finally, I would note that the relative number of threads devoted to multiclassing for power vs multiclassing for concept is probably not a good proxy for how often multiclassing is used in pursuit of each goal. Asking about mechanical optimization (which can be measured to some extent) is much more striaghtforward than asking about how well different builds model a particular concept, which is entirely subjective. Similarly, asking optimization questions of a group of experts is more likely to show a large net positive gain than asking those same experts for assessments of character modelling sufficiency when those experts can't know your personal tastes in characters.

[Max_Killjoy]

Three responses. First, character concepts can be expansive, and trying to squeeze in abilities to model different facets of an expansive concept has a ton of overlap with maximizing power. In both cases you're trying to find a way to fit as much capability into the available levels as possible, but the underlying motives are different, as are the resulting characters. (Usually, modelling expansive concepts leads to mechanically-broad characters, whereas optimizing for power leads to mechanically-deep characters.) Threads trying to fit x and y abilities into z levels thus aren't necessarily about maximizing power.

Second, escapism is a pretty common player motivation and, as such, being a badass in one way or another is commonly part of a concept. Trying to reach a high enough level of competence to support the concept again looks an awful lot like trying to maximize power, especially if you're currently far from your goal. Threads trying to find a way to make a character good as x are similarly not necessarily about maximizing power.

Finally, I would note that the relative number of threads devoted to multiclassing for power vs multiclassing for concept is probably not a good proxy for how often multiclassing is used in pursue each goal. Asking about mechanical optimization (which can be measured to some extent) is much more striaghtforward than asking about how well different builds model a particular concept, which is entirely subjective. Similarly, asking optimization questions of a group of experts is more likely to show a large net positive gain than asking those same experts for assessments of character modelling sufficiency when those experts can't know your personal tastes in characters.

Three great points -- well said.

[Malifice]

Just out of curiosity, does that end up increasing the power level of those first few levels?

Specifically, does it make lower level encounters significantly easier for the first Tier of play? I imagine that helps with survivability in those levels. I like to "pad" the first few levels myself. I give max hp at level 2. Helps keep characters from dying because some monster got a lucky shot in.

It does help a little (a Feat is worth around half a level in terms of power - effectively its an ASI without the increase in slots/ day, proficiency bonus, HP and HD one also gets in leveling up).

As you point out though levels 1-3 are pretty rough on most PCs so it's not that noticable, and it helps them get through the first few levels a little safer (in addition to enabling concepts).

It also lets PCs grab a half-feat at first in their +2 racial Stat, enabling starting stats of 18 for most races. Those half feats linked to your prime requisite ability score look very tempting at 1st level.

I just like it because it helps players get mechanical or thematic concepts off the ground quicker.

The only downside is it slows down character creation a little, but with experienced players its no biggie.

[Max_Killjoy]

I love having them available at 1st level. It opens up some concepts from 1st level.

I ban Vuman, but grant everyone a feat at 1st (and Humans +1 to all ASI as normal, but I also give them an additional skill or tool proficiency at 1st level as well).

I really like the idea of everyone getting a Feat at level 1 -- opens up a lot in terms of concept and differentiation.

[EggKookoo]

I really like the idea of everyone getting a Feat at level 1 -- opens up a lot in terms of concept and differentiation.

It's one reason why I tend to encourage vHuman over regular human.

[Pelle]

Second, escapism is a pretty common player motivation and, as such, being a badass in one way or another is commonly part of a concept.


Fair points, but this argument I don't buy completely. Wanting to play a badass character is legitimate, but if you want to play a powerful character you can just play at a higher level. If a part of the concept is being powerful relative to the other PCs, then that's bad behaviour in a social cooperative game. Classes and levels don't mean anything in-game, and needing to take the most powerful options at a given level is at best fooling yourself. Now, if everyone in the group find solving character building puzzles fun and agree about the power level, no harm.

[EggKookoo]

Fair points, but this argument I don't buy completely. Wanting to play a badass character is legitimate, but if you want to play a powerful character you can just play at a higher level. If a part of the concept is being powerful relative to the other PCs, then that's bad behaviour in a social cooperative game. Classes and levels don't mean anything in-game, and needing to take the most powerful options at a given level is at best fooling yourself. Now, if everyone in the group find solving character building puzzles fun and agree about the power level, no harm.

I didn't want to prolong this topic unnecessarily but I agree here. A good DM is going to balance encounters around your actual power levels. If you MC into a stronger build, expect tougher fights. The problem there is mainly in relation to the other players at the table. Are you now carrying encounters for them? I mean sure, if a given class is kind of gimped (*cough*ranger) you could shore it up with another class, but that's generally not the case in 5e.

I get the desire for concept but I'm a big fan of refluffing, and I feel more confident making small crunch tweaks to a given class (such as the bard discussion above). Heck, I just posted a ninja concept using the wizard class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23581894&postcount=36) in another thread.

[Xetheral]

Fair points, but this argument I don't buy completely. Wanting to play a badass character is legitimate, but if you want to play a powerful character you can just play at a higher level. If a part of the concept is being powerful relative to the other PCs, then that's bad behaviour in a social cooperative game. Classes and levels don't mean anything in-game, and needing to take the most powerful options at a given level is at best fooling yourself. Now, if everyone in the group find solving character building puzzles fun and agree about the power level, no harm.

I entirely agree that wanting to make a character more powerful than the other PCs isn't good behavior. But I don't see anything wrong with trying to, for example, get fighting styles, Extra Attack, or sources of extra damage when trying to model a character who is, whatever else they may be, also a badass swordsman. My underlying point it that if a poster seeks help trying to improve their character's swordfighting abilities, one can't (necessarily) infer that the underlying motive is maximizing power over supporting the concept. Striving for "good enough to support the concept" and "as strong as possible" will sometimes appear similar, even though the goal is different. That makes it hard to draw conclusions on underlying motives from the preponderance of threads looking to increase power.


A good DM is going to balance encounters around your actual power levels. If you MC into a stronger build, expect tougher fights.

Here I disagree to an extent, but I admit it's a question of DM style. If a player signals to me that they want their character to be badass in a particular area by devoting substantial build resources to that goal (necessarily in lieu of using them elsewhere), then as a DM I'm going to make sure the character gets opportunities to show it. That can mean including easier opponents than I might otherwise. It can also mean giving the character opportunities to face harder opponents, but only if the increased difficulty is readily apparent in the game world, so that the characters (and NPCs!) are aware of the significance of the challenge that the badass faces.

I would not invisibly increase the strength of the opposition (either by numbers or stats) to counteract the strength of the characters, so I can't agree that stronger characters should expect the same fights to be harder than if their characters were weaker. But that's an aspect of my style of DMing. Under a more Combat-as-Sport style where the DM is expected to tailor encounter difficulty to maintain a specific level of challenge, then yes, stronger characters should expect harder fights.

[EggKookoo]

Here I disagree to an extent, but I admit it's a question of DM style. If a player signals to me that they want their character to be badass in a particular area by devoting substantial build resources to that goal (necessarily in lieu of using them elsewhere), then as a DM I'm going to make sure the character gets opportunities to show it. That can mean including easier opponents than I might otherwise. It can also mean giving the character opportunities to face harder opponents, but only if the increased difficulty is readily apparent in the game world, so that the characters (and NPCs!) are aware of the significance of the challenge that the badass faces.

I was speaking generally, meaning that over time the encounters should, on average, be tailored to the power level of the party. Individual encounters may be easier or harder depending on narrative need. I often like giving higher-level players a palate-cleanser by having them mow down a bunch of mooks once in a while. And of course it's good to put the fear of death into the players when needed. So just clarifying that I don't mean each encounter should be engineered to be the same level of challenge.

But if a player asks to have their character be especially badass in some particular way, I'm okay with that as long as the PC has some unusual limitation to offset it, or the aspect in which the PC is badass is the kind of thing to come up so infrequently in the game that it doesn't unbalance everything, or (ideally) all my players' PCs have one or two such things. I'm far less concerned about badassery in the sense of balancing the crunch than I am concerned about making sure each player feels like their character has something significant and unique to contribute. It doesn't have to be a combat aspect but in practice it tends to work out that way, probably because that's when the crunch of the rules comes closest to the surface.

So my player won't say "I want to be the strongest man in the world" so much as "I want to be the 'tough guy' in the group." Each player likes being the "go to" person for something.


I would not invisibly increase the strength of the opposition (either by numbers or stats) to counteract the strength of the characters, so I can't agree that stronger characters should expect the same fights to be harder than if their characters were weaker. But that's an aspect of my style of DMing. Under a more Combat-as-Sport style where the DM is expected to tailor encounter difficulty to maintain a specific level of challenge, then yes, stronger characters should expect harder fights.

Right, we're in agreement this is very much a playstyle thing. I have and will "invisibly" alter numbers to make sure the fight feels challenging and fun, often in real time as we're playing. I do this most often in the service of assisting the players, as I find it easier to overpower an encounter and then dial it back, than to make a weak encounter suddenly feel more dangerous (although that has been done). I usually just have creatures drop before they hit 0 HP. But at our table I think we like to treat D&D as a game, even if we enjoy reminding ourselves that the characters don't see it that way. It's fun to hold both concepts in our heads and play with the weird disassociation it causes.

[Amdy_vill]

Despite the fact that it is considered an optional rule, including multiclassing and feats seem to be (almost) universally accepted as the default way of playing D&D 5e. Much of the game balance and optimization threads I've seen hinge on either or both of these options. But what about games played without them?

I'd like to start with Classes. Which classes are most impacted in games that:

Do not allow multiclassing (Type A-)
Do not allow feats (Type B-)
Do not allow either multiclassing or feats (Type AB-)

Rules/mechanics analysis and commentaries are welcome, as are opinions that talk about how a certain feature might be viewed as more/less valuable in certain game types. OTOH, "I would never play in that type of game" statements are not really helpful, so if that's all the input that can be offered, start by not playing in this thread.

A: not much. i find very few player multi classing in my game. it does bring down the power level of the game. most of the powerful build need multi classing.
B: Alot. feats are very useful in digitizing characters and making player feel unique. I would not do this.
AB: same problems as B.

[Max_Killjoy]

The potential danger of advancing challenge precisely with the PCs as they advance is that the game can feel less like progress, and more like a treadmill.

[Malifice]

The potential danger of advancing challenge precisely with the PCs as they advance is that the game can feel less like progress, and more like a treadmill.

Thats how the game has always worked.

You fight Kobolds to an Ogre to Giants to Dragons to Demons to a God.

[HappyDaze]

B: Alot. feats are very useful in digitizing characters and making player feel unique. I would not do this.


What does "digitizing" mean in this reply?

[PhoenixPhyre]

The potential danger of advancing challenge precisely with the PCs as they advance is that the game can feel less like progress, and more like a treadmill.

This depends a lot on how you do it. If, at character creation I see that the party is all super optimized, I know I can (and should) kick it up a notch. This is just matching their declared wish for challenge. If, however, I counter each attempt to succeed with crushing force then it feels cheap and adversarial. Etc.

Personally, I go more narrative and less challenge focused and so do my players. They consider it a "hard fight" if one of them gets dropped to 0. Which is good, because my dice like them much more than me.

[Chronos]

Bards cast spells using Charisma, true, but then, so do sorcerers, warlocks, and paladins, and nobody thinks of them as particularly related to performance. There's nothing at all in the bard class that references the Perform skill in any way. Music is occasionally mentioned in the fluff, but even then, it's only one of the options: Inspiration uses "stirring words or music", Song of Rest uses "soothing music or oration", and Countercharm uses "musical notes or words of power".

[Max_Killjoy]

Thats how the game has always worked.

You fight Kobolds to an Ogre to Giants to Dragons to Demons to a God.


This depends a lot on how you do it. If, at character creation I see that the party is all super optimized, I know I can (and should) kick it up a notch. This is just matching their declared wish for challenge. If, however, I counter each attempt to succeed with crushing force then it feels cheap and adversarial. Etc.

Personally, I go more narrative and less challenge focused and so do my players. They consider it a "hard fight" if one of them gets dropped to 0. Which is good, because my dice like them much more than me.

Just pointing out that there's a flipside to constantly and perfectly scaled challenges.

And as PhoenixPhyre points out, "perfect" is subjective here.

[EggKookoo]

Thats how the game has always worked.

You fight Kobolds to an Ogre to Giants to Dragons to Demons to a God.

There are also many ways to mitigate the treadmill feel.


Don't rely too much on combat as the source of content
Combat itself feels different at 15th level than at 5th, just by virtue of how many features/options a PC has
NPCs treat higher-level characters very differently compared to lower-level characters
Change the feel of the game to be less dungeon-crawly over time (or the reverse!)
Have the PCs go back and deal with lower-level threats once in a while as they advance, to demonstrate to their players how powerful they've become

[Benny89]

Lack of feats hurts most martial classes. Sorcerers or Wizards or Bards get their power creeps regardless of feats.

While it's feats that make martial classes comparable vs casting classes.

Multiclassing imo doesn't really hurt anyone as in most cases (excluding some like Sorcadins or Fighter/Wizards) pure classes are better than multiclasses in the end.

Between Multi and feats I would never run game without feats but It wouldn't make a difference imo without multi. Generally I don't like multiclassing, but it's neither strong or necessary apart from few exceptions.

The other thing is: feats allow to customize PCs when they share same class. The best example is fighter.

If you have 3 fighters in party, without feats they are pretty much same characters, which is very lame in any RPG.

However with feats one can be control PAM/Sentinel/Battlemaster tank, one can be Duelist/Lucky trickster with rapier and one can be X-bow Expert with SS and be your range DPR.

That makes 3 PCs with same class totally different fighters.

Playing without feats imo does not make sense as 5E customization is already reduced vs older editions and without feats that customization would be totally bland.

[EggKookoo]

Just pointing out that there's a flipside to constantly and perfectly scaled challenges.

And as PhoenixPhyre points out, "perfect" is subjective here.

And I'd like to point out I was not trying to say encounters should be constantly and perfectly scaled. Just in general over time. There should be plenty of bumpiness to add variety. Honestly I don't think it's possible to perfectly scale an encounter. The dice will unbalance it for you. :smallwink:

[Max_Killjoy]

And I'd like to point out I was not trying to say encounters should be constantly and perfectly scaled. Just in general over time. There should be plenty of bumpiness to add variety. Honestly I don't think it's possible to perfectly scale an encounter. The dice will unbalance it for you. :smallwink:

Of course.

I just posted without quoting because it wasn't meant as a refutation of your comment, just as a general observation. :smallsmile:

[PhoenixPhyre]

The other thing is: feats allow to customize PCs when they share same class. The best example is fighter.

If you have 3 fighters in party, without feats they are pretty much same characters, which is very lame in any RPG.

However with feats one can be control PAM/Sentinel/Battlemaster tank, one can be Duelist/Lucky trickster with rapier and one can be X-bow Expert with SS and be your range DPR.

That makes 3 PCs with same class totally different fighters.

Playing without feats imo does not make sense as 5E customization is already reduced vs older editions and without feats that customization would be totally bland.

This is entirely my opinion, but I don't find feats (especially the combat ones) to do much for customization. That's mainly because I find mechanical customization to pale in comparison to character customization. Two featless Thief rogues can be completely different characters, even if mechanically they're capable of doing the same things.

Feats do give great capabilities--my parties love lucky and mobile. I find the "combat" feats to be quite bland from a narrative point of view. Sure, they're mechanically powerful. But they're just numbers. And numbers are relative.

This isn't to say I don't like feats--even with my newer players I play with feats. Technically I allow multiclassing, but no one ever does it. Mainly because they're not working from a "concept" or "build", but from an initial character. The combination of background, class, race, and sub-class are plenty of "customization" for most of my players, because they're more focused on narrative customization rather than mechanical customization. Heck, one of the more useful characters is a fighter who, at level 8, has only 16 STR and forgets his maneuvers not infrequently. Does he do the most damage? No. Is he very good at thinking outside the box and manipulating the environment to his advantage? Yes.

[EggKookoo]

Between Multi and feats I would never run game without feats but It wouldn't make a difference imo without multi. Generally I don't like multiclassing, but it's neither strong or necessary apart from few exceptions.

I don't disallow either, but I steer the players to feats (even if they shrug), whereas I try to avoid going to MC unless I absolutely have to, or the player just wants to experiment.


Of course.

I just posted without quoting because it wasn't meant as a refutation of your comment, just as a general observation. :smallsmile:

And I'd like to point out I like the cut of your jib.


This isn't to say I don't like feats--even with my newer players I play with feats. Technically I allow multiclassing, but no one ever does it. Mainly because they're not working from a "concept" or "build", but from an initial character. The combination of background, class, race, and sub-class are plenty of "customization" for most of my players, because they're more focused on narrative customization rather than mechanical customization. Heck, one of the more useful characters is a fighter who, at level 8, has only 16 STR and forgets his maneuvers not infrequently. Does he do the most damage? No. Is he very good at thinking outside the box and manipulating the environment to his advantage? Yes.

I will say I find many of my players -- especially the 1e/2e grognards like me -- often forget about their features. OD&D didn't have so much of that. You brought most of your uniqueness with you in the form of your imagination. But before this gets too "get off my lawn!" I do want to say I really like how 5e handles class features, and how they make each class feel distinct from each other and give the player a lot of toys. I just wish I could keep them all straight...

[Pelle]

This is entirely my opinion, but I don't find feats (especially the combat ones) to do much for customization. [...]

Agreed with your post 100%. I encourage my players to if they really want to take feats, to take the fun ones that can be used creatively, not the boring combat stuff that gives you extra damage. Every D&D character is a combat powerhouse anyway, taking a combat feat adds very little characterization.

Heh, the guy in my group who really insist on using feats, only wants it so he can take Tawern Brawler. That's cool and all, fits perfect for his drunken master character concept. But it doesn't really give him any new abilities he did not have before. And you don't need a feat to start fistfights in taverns. He just want to play with feats so he can write the feat name on his character sheet. That's not necessary IMO, the character has plenty characterization as is. And this is the guy in the goup who the least need extra rules complexity...

[Xetheral]

I was speaking generally, meaning that over time the encounters should, on average, be tailored to the power level of the party. Individual encounters may be easier or harder depending on narrative need. I often like giving higher-level players a palate-cleanser by having them mow down a bunch of mooks once in a while. And of course it's good to put the fear of death into the players when needed. So just clarifying that I don't mean each encounter should be engineered to be the same level of challenge.

But if a player asks to have their character be especially badass in some particular way, I'm okay with that as long as the PC has some unusual limitation to offset it, or the aspect in which the PC is badass is the kind of thing to come up so infrequently in the game that it doesn't unbalance everything, or (ideally) all my players' PCs have one or two such things. I'm far less concerned about badassery in the sense of balancing the crunch than I am concerned about making sure each player feels like their character has something significant and unique to contribute. It doesn't have to be a combat aspect but in practice it tends to work out that way, probably because that's when the crunch of the rules comes closest to the surface.

So my player won't say "I want to be the strongest man in the world" so much as "I want to be the 'tough guy' in the group." Each player likes being the "go to" person for something.



Right, we're in agreement this is very much a playstyle thing. I have and will "invisibly" alter numbers to make sure the fight feels challenging and fun, often in real time as we're playing. I do this most often in the service of assisting the players, as I find it easier to overpower an encounter and then dial it back, than to make a weak encounter suddenly feel more dangerous (although that has been done). I usually just have creatures drop before they hit 0 HP. But at our table I think we like to treat D&D as a game, even if we enjoy reminding ourselves that the characters don't see it that way. It's fun to hold both concepts in our heads and play with the weird disassociation it causes.

I agree with all of that. :) Even though I don't focus on balance when designing encounters (I ignore CR in favoring of focusing more on what makes sense in the game world), I'm perfectly willing to adjust an encounter on the fly to maximize fun. I find that combination makes me somewhat unusual amongst DMs with otherwise-similar playstyles.

[Malifice]

Just pointing out that there's a flipside to constantly and perfectly scaled challenges.

And as PhoenixPhyre points out, "perfect" is subjective here.

They dont always have to be perfectly CR-ed encounters in the medium to hard range.

Some encounters should be intentionally difficult (and some adventuring days should only feature a single encounter). Some should be there just so the PCs can showcase their abilities and feel awesome, or for humorous effect. Some should be designed to be overcome the easiest by means other than combat (riddles, social or skill challenges etc). Some should be a smaller part in a larger longer adventuring day.

And so forth.

But the general rule is half a dozen or so medium-hard combat encounters per long rest, often bracketed by periods of downtime, social pillar and roleplaying.

[RedMage125]

It does help a little (a Feat is worth around half a level in terms of power - effectively its an ASI without the increase in slots/ day, proficiency bonus, HP and HD one also gets in leveling up).

As you point out though levels 1-3 are pretty rough on most PCs so it's not that noticable, and it helps them get through the first few levels a little safer (in addition to enabling concepts).

It also lets PCs grab a half-feat at first in their +2 racial Stat, enabling starting stats of 18 for most races. Those half feats linked to your prime requisite ability score look very tempting at 1st level.

I just like it because it helps players get mechanical or thematic concepts off the ground quicker.

The only downside is it slows down character creation a little, but with experienced players its no biggie.

Ok, follow-up question. Does it impact the power level of the PCs to such an extent that you, the DM, find yourself needing to increase the "difficulty" of encounters to compensate?

Or would that defeat the purpose?

[jas61292]

I personally see nothing wrong with a featless game. Contrary to what a lot of people say, I do not believe that this hurts martial characters all that much. The feats commonly cited as being super important fir martial characters are combat feats, but these feats are not necessary to cement martial characters as the kings of their role. All combat feats do is change how you compare to other martial characters.

If anything will be missed, it would be feats like magic initiate and skilled which allow a martial to expand their horizons. But as nice as those are, outright adding points to your ability scores is also powerful and worthwhile.

D&D is not a game where you can make and do anything, as far as character concept. If players can accept that and make character concepts with the limitations of the game in mind, there is absolutely no issue with not using feats or multiclassing.

[Willie the Duck]

I personally see nothing wrong with a featless game. Contrary to what a lot of people say, I do not believe that this hurts martial characters all that much. The feats commonly cited as being super important fir martial characters are combat feats, but these feats are not necessary to cement martial characters as the kings of their role. All combat feats do is change how you compare to other martial characters.

Mind you, I highly dislike how prominent those feats are, but there is no denying that the relatively ability of a martial character to do what is routinely asked of them (do damage to the enemies) is greatly influenced by the presence or absence of those feats. It changes how you compare to other martial characters (a battlemaster's power relative to Eldritch Knight, or Fighter's power compared to a paladin, or a sword and board's relative power to a halberd-wielder), but it also changes how you compare to non-martials (whether the party wants another martial or another caster). They are strict power upgrades


If anything will be missed, it would be feats like magic initiate and skilled which allow a martial to expand their horizons. But as nice as those are, outright adding points to your ability scores is also powerful and worthwhile.

I'd say magic initiate, ritual caster, healer, inspiring leader, or prodigy, but yes your point stands. Increasing the number of things you can do (or do well enough to count on) is a huge benefit of feats, especially for martials.

[Xetheral]

I would argue that sword-and-board Gishes suffer the most if you don't allow feats. Without Warcaster, such a character is limited to (V) spells. Certain classes can use a weapon or shield as a focus (although not all of them get shield proficiency), but that only lets you additionally cast (V, S, M) spells. For (V, S) spells Warcaster is the only method I can think of to cast while wielding a sword and shield.

(Well, Subtle Spell metamagic would work too, but that's limited in usage and single-class sorcerers aren't usually what people have in mind when they want to play a Gish.)

[jas61292]

Mind you, I highly dislike how prominent those feats are, but there is no denying that the relatively ability of a martial character to do what is routinely asked of them (do damage to the enemies) is greatly influenced by the presence or absence of those feats. It changes how you compare to other martial characters (a battlemaster's power relative to Eldritch Knight, or Fighter's power compared to a paladin, or a sword and board's relative power to a halberd-wielder), but it also changes how you compare to non-martials (whether the party wants another martial or another caster). They are strict power upgrades

Oh, I agree they are power upgrades, plain and simple. But I see people say all the time things like how they are needed to keep up with casters, and I think that is patently false. A Fighter without any feats is still going to be way better at the role of strict damage dealing than a caster, over the course of an adventure. And that's even more true for melee martials if you think of the role as a that of frontliner, and not simply damage dealer.

The ways that casters are "better", if you consider them better, is in all the other stuff. A Fighter having better damage numbers isn't suddenly changing how they compare to a Wizard, when the wizards advantage had nothing to do with damage.

If anything, these combat feats hurt by distracting from the other feats that can actually close the gaps somewhat.

[Vorpalchicken]

To address the actual question here (instead of going off on a tangent like I normally do)...

I think games run fine without multiclassing and parties are usually better for it (however I don't like limiting player options so that's not something I would choose to take out.)

I think feats are important at mid to high level especially for martial types. High CR monsters have a ton of hit points and combats can be a real slog without giving warriors the tools to deal a respectable amount of damage to take them down. Even the mooks can be annoyingly tough to bring down.

I'm not a fan of combats lasting hours because the DM doesn't want his monsters to die. Let the martials feel useful.

[Naanomi]

I personally see nothing wrong with a featless game. Contrary to what a lot of people say, I do not believe that this hurts martial characters all that much.
At high levels I disagree. You are a traditional strong/tough race fighter. Your starting STR and CON are 16. At level 14, when many classes are getting final Subclass features or archetype altering abilities (Diamond Soul?); you get... +1 to a save and maybe a skill! Look forward to level 16 and 19 for more of that!

[Benny89]

Thing is: for martial classes a magical items can easly substitute for ASI attributes. Most martial classes are STR-based. Belt of Hill Giant Strength is very easy to obtain in mid-levels of game as it's just a rare item. It's also fairy easy to buy using XGtE downtime buying items option as paladin because they have high CHA + Persuasion.

However things like: GWM which gives +10 to damage can't be substitute untill maybe last 2 levels as +10 on items is super strong. Next: PAM or XbE - extra attack is always worth more than +2 to attribute. Mounted Combatant - advantage on attacks, can't be substituted. Warcaster - can't. Resilent - item can't give you proficiency unless some really high-tier item.

[Rebonack]

Our table decided to go no multi class after several campaigns and some discussion. Though with one very important caveat.

We work together to build subclasses for concepts that otherwise wouldn't work.

Given how easy it is to compare most subclass features to feats or spells it isn't that hard to find a rough balance point on most concepts. Then the subclass gets play tested and adjusted as needed.