ASIs/feats are now tied to total level. What breaks, if anything?

[Phhase]

You can now multiclass without worrying about missing out on feats or ASIs. We can say the extra one Fighter gets is a class feature exclusive to them. What changes?

[Sorinth]

I don't think anything breaks, but most classes are front-loaded so there would likely be a power boost.

[Chronic]

Honestly? Probably not that much. I'm not a multiclass expert but I don't think people often forgo more than one asi usually. It does makes multiclassing more powerful, but it also makes some character concept easier to create. I suspect that the scale of the eventual problems might vary from one player to another. For people who do not care much about optimization it won't change much, for optimizers, it's cherry on top.

[Gurgeh]

Spellcasters get even better than mundanes because everyone without spellcasting now has a bunch of dead levels.

[Phhase]

Spellcasters get even better than mundanes because everyone without spellcasting now has a bunch of dead levels.

How so? You'd still get the asi/feat at the same point. Hm, I suppose if you had an off number of levels multiclassing yeah, that might be a bit off.

[Gurgeh]

Only if you're single-classed (or follow a highly specific levelling sequence when multiclassed).

If you take two Rogue levels and then go straight Fighter, you're getting nothing but a extra hit die at sixth, tenth, fourteenth, and eighteenth levels. You get to double-dip at other levels, yes, but it's still a bitter pill to swallow and runs counter to 5e's approach of giving everyone something at every level.

:thog: fighter level 3 4 is dumb level. thog not take.

One way you could handle it would be to compress every class to fifteen levels by deleting every universal ASI level (4, 8, 12, 16, 19), and giving an ASI every third character level; keep the Fighter and Rogue bonus ASIs where they are.

The small number of genuine class features that also pop up on an ASI level (Slow Fall, Quickened Healing, etc.) can be shunted one level forward or backward, and spellcasters can either get a revised spell progression or shrug and accept that ninth level spells are a epic boons or simply don't exist.

[Pex]

An ASI is all a class gets at the level. A 4th level cleric gets an ASI. Now you say a 2/2 fighter/cleric gets an ASI. Ok, then what happens when the character is 2/4 fighter/cleric? Does he get another ASI? The 6th level cleric isn't getting an ASI. If you are to grant an ASI based on total level then you have to separate them from the classes. If you don't replace them they become dead levels. There's no net change for a single class but now the 2/4 fighter/cleric gets nothing special. There's an increase in spell slot progression, but that's not really the point.

[TyGuy]

How do fighter 6 & 14 and rogue 10 work?

[furby076]

Is this official from the new errata or just a forum question?

[Mastikator]

The effect would be that ASI levels are now actually empty levels. Instead of being tempted into taking 4 levels of a class you now only want 3 and only go for 4th if you're also taking 5th for extra attack.

[quindraco]

How do fighter 6 & 14 and rogue 10 work?

OP already said those stick around as class features.

[Bohandas]

Feats and ASIs based on total character level is how they did it in 3.5 and it worked fine

[Psyren]

I don't mind personally. My big hesitation for this is it might throw me off when I go to a table without this houserule, or AL etc.


Is this official from the new errata or just a forum question?

It appears to be a hypothetical forum question.

[Zhorn]

The big thing I think is just the 'cost' of multiclassing no longer being there.
Most builds this doesn't cause any issues.
There might be some edge cases where class/subclass pairings that synergize very strongly might push on the powercurve a bit more than intended, but those will be outliers.
It's not for me, but being as the counter is entirely in DMs control, that's the only person actually being effected. And when it does influence the power scale, it's in lategame where that's already out of skew.

[Rukelnikov]

Overall, some MC breakpoints may change, taking a 3 level dip becomes much more doable than before, since normally thats pretty much costing an ASI.


An ASI is all a class gets at the level. A 4th level cleric gets an ASI. Now you say a 2/2 fighter/cleric gets an ASI. Ok, then what happens when the character is 2/4 fighter/cleric? Does he get another ASI? The 6th level cleric isn't getting an ASI. If you are to grant an ASI based on total level then you have to separate them from the classes. If you don't replace them they become dead levels. There's no net change for a single class but now the 2/4 fighter/cleric gets nothing special. There's an increase in spell slot progression, but that's not really the point.

The Ftr2/Clr4 doesn't get anything at that level cause he got it two levels prior

[Amnestic]

The Ftr2/Clr4 doesn't get anything at that level cause he got it two levels prior

They get an extra cantrip, an extra spell prepared, and an extra 2nd level spell slot.
It's not gamechanging, but it's not nothing either.

[Rukelnikov]

They get an extra cantrip, an extra spell prepared, and an extra 2nd level spell slot.
It's not gamechanging, but it's not nothing either.

True

10chars

[Slider Eclipse]

The big thing I think is just the 'cost' of multiclassing no longer being there.
Most builds this doesn't cause any issues.
There might be some edge cases where class/subclass pairings that synergize very strongly might push on the powercurve a bit more than intended, but those will be outliers.
It's not for me, but being as the counter is entirely in DMs control, that's the only person actually being effected. And when it does influence the power scale, it's in lategame where that's already out of skew.

Not entirely there's still plenty of very notable costs if you move ASI/Feats to character Level. you'd still be delaying Extra Attack on Martial Characters and Spell Levels on Casters, on top of sometimes delaying important class features like the Artificer's level 10 Upgrades to Infusions or a Rogue's Sneak Attack Dice.

The main change from my own experience with theorycrafting Multiclass builds is that players will be more likely to stop at odd class levels and better balance out there concepts. For example putting a Bladesinger 2 Dip on a Rogue or Artificer comes online slightly faster at the start of T2 Play instead of needing to wait for 6th level if you need a specific feat. Or perhaps an Endgame character can reasonably get to a Third Multiclass without sacrificing anything of note from there main class (this is less an issue with changing to Character Level as it is an issue with how few features non casters get in the higher class levels)

[Khrysaes]

Not entirely there's still plenty of very notable costs if you move ASI/Feats to character Level. you'd still be delaying Extra Attack on Martial Characters and Spell Levels on Casters, on top of sometimes delaying important class features like the Artificer's level 10 Upgrades to Infusions or a Rogue's Sneak Attack Dice.

The main change from my own experience with theorycrafting Multiclass builds is that players will be more likely to stop at odd class levels and better balance out there concepts. For example putting a Bladesinger 2 Dip on a Rogue or Artificer comes online slightly faster at the start of T2 Play instead of needing to wait for 6th level if you need a specific feat. Or perhaps an Endgame character can reasonably get to a Third Multiclass without sacrificing anything of note from there main class (this is less an issue with changing to Character Level as it is an issue with how few features non casters get in the higher class levels)

I would attest to this.

My next game I want to play a Rogue/Ranger/Fighter.

Currently, even if unlikely, he is planned to take 12 fighter (samurai)/4 Rogue(Mastermind)/4 Ranger{Feywarden).

Ostensibly, the difference between 12/4/4/ and 14/3/3 would be 1 extra ASI from the bonus fighter one at 14, but he would also still get the level 16 and 19 ones.

[Zhorn]

ok, not 'the' cost, just 'a' cost.
The topic being on ASIs, so that was the cost I was meaning to refer to. My bad for not being more clear.

[Gtdead]

This change, which is one that I fully endorse, would benefit martials a lot, but it would homogenize the builds too.

Common martial dips are
Assassin 3
GS 3
BM 3
Samurai 3
Barbarian 2-3

Any time you dip, you lose an ASI. If that wasn't the case, we would see something more akin to what happened in 3.5e. Builds like GS 5/Fighter 3/Assassin 3 would become commonplace. There is 0 reason not to do this if you can stay on the progression curve while building for weapon damage. Someone may argue that Ranger 9 gets Conjure Animals which is better DPR wise, but the problem here is reliability. You don't want a bunch of melee minions when you plan on attacking and kiting at 100+ range. If you could combine action surge, pass without trace, BM's superiority dice and guaranteed critical, with high dex and perhaps an initiative feat on the other hand, it could worth it more than CA.

ASIs are comparatively more important to martials than casters. Casters don't gain DPR increases and they don't exactly need ASIs to shine. For example, an Artificer 1/Chronurgist 4 gets GoA and CON proficiency without feats. This is something that the majority of caster builds optimize through ASIs but even then, the most feat heavy classes (Cleric comes to mind), rarely ever dip, and if they do it's just one level. Even if we were to ban feats, the usual dips would just become more prevalent while martials would want to maximize their class features, because advantage on non power attacks isn't that amazing. Sorlock, due to needing CHA as a dpr build, could be an exception if the player wanted to do a Sorcerer 3/Warlock 2 build, but this is the worst case scenario and there are better levels for the Warlock entry than Sorcerer 3.

Martials gain their dpr increases through feats and for most mundanes, feats are the only way to branch out into a different role, with feats like Inspiring Leader, Ritual Caster etc.

So the only thing that could break would be martial class identity which IMO is a small price to pay since I don't care about class identity anyway. I only see classes as mechanical choices to fit a concept.

[Ralanr]

This is how my group ran it in college and for the longest time I thought this was how it was ran.

Honestly? I don't see it breaking anything. It turns any 4th level into your second class into basically an empty level (outside of maybe a spellcasting class gaining access to a higher level spell, but that's not really as big as it sounds since they could normally get that and a feat anyway).

It actually discouraged me from multiclassing because of how level ups are hard to plane as a player with Milestone.

[BerzerkerUnit]

You can now multiclass without worrying about missing out on feats or ASIs. We can say the extra one Fighter gets is a class feature exclusive to them. What changes?

Depending on MC build, you’ll have a bunch of dead levels.

[Arctus Tyrvar]

So, in my games we have done something like this. All characters get the Fighters progression of ASI's/Feats tied to their player level. So far? It has broken nothing. Its barely much stronger than normal play honestly. But it has increased my players overall amount of fun by allowing them to more freely explore the builds and ideas they have. Of course though, others experiences may vary.

[Phhase]

Feats and ASIs based on total character level is how they did it in 3.5 and it worked fine
Really! Can't believe I didn't know that. Neat! Another thing to be hipster about I suppose.

[Psyren]

Really! Can't believe I didn't know that. Neat! Another thing to be hipster about I suppose.

What's really going to blow your mind is that they were separate - you didn't have to choose one or the other.

But beyond that ASIs sucked in 3e (only one stat point at a time.)

[MachineWraith]

I'm of the same mind as some here; it won't break anything, but it will cause some mightily boring levels. You'd have to make changes to every class to get around that.

I've been toying with allowing players to take both an ASI and a feat at every level they're normally allowed to choose. Disregarding the obvious power spike, how do you think it would work out to allow feats by character level and ASIs by class level? Or perhaps vice versa?

[Rukelnikov]

I'm of the same mind as some here; it won't break anything, but it will cause some mightily boring levels. You'd have to make changes to every class to get around that.

I've been toying with allowing players to take both an ASI and a feat at every level they're normally allowed to choose. Disregarding the obvious power spike, how do you think it would work out to allow feats by character level and ASIs by class level? Or perhaps vice versa?

That's alright.

If you do ASIs by level, Feats by class then most builds may be good with one or two feats, this facilitates build that MC a lot

If you do Feats by level, ASIs by class then everyone gets feats at the same rate, and your class choices influences your stats, this encourages taking levels in the same class to get those extra stats.

Fluffwise, maybe ASIs by level is more appropiate, as you level up you have better stats (inherently). However, I'd do Feats by level, becuase I think that frees up more space when building a character.

[Akal Saris]

IMO, 5E already does not give access to enough feats soon enough, so this change would be a positive one.

[Cyclops08]

Not to sound like a total dweeb, but what is an ASI, and where is the new information found?

[Amnestic]

Not to sound like a total dweeb, but what is an ASI, and where is the new information found?

ASI is short for "Ability Score Improvement", the 'class' feature that all classes receive at certain levels (4/8/12/etc.).

I believe the proposal in the OP is a hypothetical, rather than stating it as a new fact.

[Dualight]

Not to sound like a total dweeb, but what is an ASI, and where is the new information found?

ASI is shorthand for the Ability Score Improvement that all classes get at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16rth and 19th levels, and that some classes (fighters, rogues) gain extra of. As for the rule mentioned in the thread title, it is a hypothetical house rule the thread is discussing, not something that is actually in any official product. The purpose of this thread, as I understand it, is to come up with where this house rule would cause issues compared to the official rule (ASI tied to class level).

I hope this clears up your confusion.

[Cyclops08]

ASI is short for "Ability Score Improvement", the 'class' feature that all classes receive at certain levels (4/8/12/etc.).

I believe the proposal in the OP is a hypothetical, rather than stating it as a new fact.

ASI is shorthand for the Ability Score Improvement that all classes get at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16rth and 19th levels, and that some classes (fighters, rogues) gain extra of. As for the rule mentioned in the thread title, it is a hypothetical house rule the thread is discussing, not something that is actually in any official product. The purpose of this thread, as I understand it, is to come up with where this house rule would cause issues compared to the official rule (ASI tied to class level).

I hope this clears up your confusion.
Thanks guys. That helps a lot!

[MrCharlie]

You can now multiclass without worrying about missing out on feats or ASIs. We can say the extra one Fighter gets is a class feature exclusive to them. What changes?
Fighters get two, at 8th and 14th. Rogue gets an extra one at 10 as well. Not really important.

Multiclassing becomes easier for martials, although you have strong incentives to take precisely 5 levels in one class and 3 levels in all others, to avoid dead level 4. This is the main problem, as others have pointed out. It does not fix caster multiclassing (I.E. that they either don't care 'cause it's a 1 level dip or don't do it because it delays spells known too much).

I think you'll end up with a lot of insanely complicated DEX based builds, maybe with some more incentive to have an even point buy so you can keep adding classes. For instance, Paladin 5+Rogue 3+Fighter 3+Ranger 3+Barbarian 3, gets you a host of on hit abilities, including numerous ways to attack more often and resources to dump into a hit (spell slots, superiority dice, hunters mark...). Half-casters are obvious choices for the class to take above 5, as they still get spellcasting progression at 4.

I'm not sure that build is better than going into an actual class, or a more sane multiclass like fighter/rogue, but it's interesting at least.