Multiclassing/Dipping Shame

[Max_Killjoy]

That's not even something 5e does. Class skills are on different class lists, so you absolutely can have Decipher Script (or whatever it is in 5e) without having any particular other ability.



That's exactly how being smart works. If you're smart in D&D 3e, you get a bonus to Search and Craft. If you're smart in other systems, you get other bonuses, but the nature of attributes is that they bind together multiple competencies that are not inherently related (consider that different games have different "smart" stats and different relationships between them and skills). You can say you find that less offensive than having to get Sneak Attack to unlock Evasion, but it's a difference of degree, not kind. Saying that "Intelligence Skills" is a justifiable relationship for the game to enforce but "Rogue Abilities" is not is not really a principled distinction. Especially if you look at transitionary things on the spectrum like "Shadow Magic unlocks these abilities in this order because that's how Shadow Magic works".

The examples I gave are so clearly NOT about 5e's skills... that I'm having a hard time finding a way to NOT chalk up you referencing them here to deliberate conflation or obfuscation on your part.

[OldTrees1]

The examples I gave are so clearly NOT about 5e's skills... that I'm having a hard time finding a way to NOT chalk up you referencing them here to deliberate conflation or obfuscation on your part.

@Max could you repeat the examples. When I went back to look for them, the ones I found could have been interpreted to be skill adjacent.

Wait were you talking about this one instead of your post about Str, Int, Cha?

We're not talking about a direct sequence of bigger and bigger variations on the same basic spell.

We're talking about things that are completely unrelated beyond being assigned to the same predetermined supposed "concept", such as "you must take armor-wearing skill to take weapon-using skill" or "you must take Fast Hands to take Supreme Sneak" or "you must take Uncanny Dodge at level 5, before you can take Blindsense at level 14", or "you have to take ability X on the tree to unlock ability Y, even though the two aren't in any way related."

Okay that is talking about non skill abilities. But shortly thereafter it sounds like the conversation shifted towards ability scores / skills

The reasonableness of "you have to be smart to shoot lightning from your hands" depends entirely on how people gain the ability to shoot lighting from their hands in that setting.

The reasonableness of "you have to be able to backstab people and balance on narrow beams in order to be able to pick pockets or read scrolls" is... well, I can't find a way to make that reasonable.

I am confused. I was not following the conversation very attentively so some confusion is expected. However maybe 3rd party confusion might be relevant to your judgement.

For example, a Warrior/Cleric/Paladin/Monk from 3.5 D&D, taking descriptions of the classes at face value, implies a very specific background, ethos, limitations and abilities, something you could create in a classless point-buy system, but why would you ever?

An aside:
Warrior/Cleric/Paladin/Monk sounds like a mechanical adjustment (limitations and abilities) to the Paladin/Monk without significantly impacting the background, ethos, etc. If someone else sees this example this way, I recommend we focus on the intended example. The intended example is of a 4 class multiclass where each class significantly impacts the concept.



I agree with you Vahnavoi. Classless systems generally can support the more chimeric character concepts. In general I would assume a classless character to be more likely to be a hybrid but less likely to be a complex combination. Some of this is because the core of a character concept might be easier to implement in the classless system. Whereas a class based system adds additional context onto the character.

To give a mild example. Dun the Dungeon Tour guide was a Rogue and thus knew about vulnerable parts on dungeon denizens that could be exploited in combat (sneak attack). However that is not part of Dun's core character concept. In a classless system Dun would not know sneak attack. In 3E, where Rogues can trades away Sneak Attack, Dun would not know sneak attack. However Dun hails from 5E so Dun does know sneak attack (which adds additional characterization onto the core concept).