Thought: Homebrew where you pick two subclasses instead of one and both evolve normally. No multiclasses cause it'd be kinda nuts as is
this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
576 points (98.6% liked)
RPGMemes
11897 readers
579 users here now
Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
It's like a toned-down gestalt. I'm going oathbreaker/vengeance paladin both because it'd do silly damage and because I can say that I broke my old oath in order to take vengeance on someone
Because 5e is a simple game made for adolescents. It's easy to pick up, easy to build a character, and easy to run. The problem is once you start trying to do anything particularly interesting, it crumbles. It foists basically all mechanic decisions that aren't directly related to combat onto DM adjudication, and provides very little guidance. I mean, last I checked you have the option to be proficient with various sets of craft tools, but the system doesn't actually explain what that actually does mechanically.
If you want to make interesting character builds, you have to transition to a more detailed system. I'm partial to GURPS myself, but Pathfinder 2e is a nice middle ground of detail while still being fairly familiar to someone used to D&D.
I mean, last I checked you have the option to be proficient with various sets of craft tools, but the system doesn't actually explain what that actually does mechanically.
Chapter 8, "Between Adventures," "Downtime," "Crafting." Page 187 in the 2014 version of the Player's Handbook. It tells you exactly how long it takes and how much it costs to create items using artisans' tools. I concede that it's pretty generic and would benefit from some refinement, but it does explain what you can do, mechanically, with your proficiency in artisans' tools.
(If the 2024 version of the Player's Handbook removed this guidance then I'm not sure what to say, except that I don't personally consider that version to be "5e.")
Xanathar's Guide to Everything also has an extensive section in Chapter 2, beginning on page 78, that does a great job fleshing out each type of tool proficiency and providing novel ways to use them. I highly recommend that if you're interested in crafting.
I concede that it's pretty generic and would benefit from some refinement
That's my point. A couple paragraphs on one page, and an addendum in another book to consider giving the player advantage and maybe an "added benefit", again left entirely up to the DM. The Xanathar's content is nice, if again a bit vague, assuming your DM uses it. But that's still buried in an appendant text.
And that's just one example. Called shots are another good example. Anything outside the narrow scope of the written rules is left up to the DM. That's not fundamentally problematic in a ttrpg, the game master always has the final say anyway, but it's lazy game design, and it's only getting worse with each release. I said elsewhere that I quit D&D after buying the 5e Spelljammer set, which dumped all mechanical decisions onto individual DM decision. I don't buy rulebooks to get permission to run my game how I want. I buy rulebooks for playtested rules.
load more comments
(8 replies)
It foists basically all mechanic decisions that aren't directly related to combat onto DM adjudication, and provides very little guidance.
The idea here is that the D&D ruleset is supposed to be permissive, not restrictive:
- permissive - anything not explicitly prohibited is allowed
- restrictive - anything not explicitly allowed is prohibited
The gameplay experience depends greatly on which of these directions you interpret rules from. So, when you say that it "provides very little guidance", that's intentional, because it allows the DM and the players to use the basic structure of the game to support and inspire having fun and being creative. It should be a foundation, not a cage.
D&D was always intended to be an open framework for actual roleplaying. The munchkin concept of gaming the rules for min-maxing stats came later.
Rules lawyers, be they DM or player, make playing less fun.
I don't need to buy a set of books to give me permission to use my imagination, and I don't need it's permission to disregard rules that don't serve my campaign, or homebrew my own. Every ruleset of every tabletop game is optional. Sure, ignoring some rules can unravel the system, but every table is free to make that choice.
I buy a set of books because I want an exhaustive set of balanced and playtested rules. I am under no obligation to use every rule, but I want to have them so I know if I choose to use them, I'm not going to break the balance.
For instance, I've fully moved to GURPS. It has a reputation for being complicated because there are lots of mechanics available. I ignore the vast majority of them most of the time, but when a player wants to do something out of the ordinary, I can count on having a balanced mechanic available for guidance. I don't have to worry about being too strict, or too lenient, or inconsistent the next time the same situation arises.
5e isn't "permissive", it's lazy game design. I quit after buying the Spelljammer set, which provided basically zero guidance for any of the actual spell jamming stuff. When the answer to every question is "The DM can decide to do it however they want :)”, you're not actually releasing a game system.
Again, I don't need to buy a book to have permission to use my imagination however I want. I buy a book to give me balanced and playtested mechanics. WotC doesn't seem particularly interested in that.
load more comments
(2 replies)
No, the idea is that 4e basically imploded the brand, so they pushed some unfinished stuff out the door before the axe came down and suddenly and unexpectedly they discovered that the brand was printing money.
Rules aren't restrictive, because every rule is optional. A lack of guidance is WotC asking you to do their work for them.
Warlock: I promised my soul in exchange for great power.
Rogue: To which great power?
Warlock: All of them. Let them fight over it when I am dead.
load more comments
(10 replies)
I'm gonna respect to 1/1/1/1/1 fighter/fighter/fighter/fighter/fighter so I can action surge 5 times in a round.
Your fighter is gonna be very disappointed when they find out which level they get action surge at
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(5 replies)
The short answer is the game wasn't balanced around it.
I feel like Rogues (sneak attack) and Wizards (spell sculpting) in particular could abuse this heavily. Also any class that gets their subclass at level 1 or 2.
Also any class that gets their subclass at level 1 or 2.
To be fair those are also troublesome for regular multiclassing, or at least they are if you're not using the 2024 "definitely not 5.5E" classes. The paladin with one level in warlock or sorcerer is a perennial favourite for a reason.
I'll always love a paladin rouge multi even if it's not the "best". there's just so many interesting story possibilities there.
Multiclassing because it's fun even if it doesn't work that well will always have a place in my heart. I'm currently playing a barely-functional monk/druid. I think I can get him to work, but right now his tiger wildshape is more of the paper variety
load more comments
(1 replies)
The game isn't balanced around multiclassing, either. If it were, everyone and there dog wouldn't have difficult to explain backgrounds that involve blood magic, mysterious patrons, and devout faith in something.
This is the anwer. You could always homebrew your own game and try to balance it, and you'd start to find where the game breaks. Play 10,000 games like that, and patterns will emerge. Game developers spend a lot of time playtesting, and they still miss things. Just thinking of a new twist and asking why it doesn't work is like asking why cars don't have six wheels.
load more comments
(5 replies)
I bet some obsessive nerd has converted DND to point buy (like wod, gurps, etc) instead of class and level based.
You get XP for stuff, and you can spend that as you like on all the stuff you'd get from leveling. Follow the recommended route and get a standard looking fighter. Or go crazy and buy nothing but hit dice. Or make a glass cannon by buying all the sneak attack dice and second attack (in case you miss) and nothing else.
Or, per this meme, buy superiority dice and maneuvers, and then also buy extended crit from champion.
It would be a mess. I think part of why dnd is popular is its comparably small decision space. There's just not a lot of room to fuck up your character
Or just play one of those systems. GURPS is great.
Yeah, I mostly play Fate or nWoD. But a lot of people are really emotionally invested in D&D, so sometimes I think of ways to try to trick them into playing something different while they think they're still playing D&D.
I suppose I'm lucky enough to have enough friends into ttrpgs to build a group of players open to the system I like. I lost some who were emotionally invested in D&D, but frankly they were the least fun ones to play with (min-max munchkins and rules lawyers undercut by an unfamiliar system), so I'm not too upset about it. Plus I've been empowered with many more options for creative play, and blessed with players interested in creative play.
that is one way of making people try out other gamea
load more comments
(2 replies)
(Assuming D&D 5E here)
I wonder what the best way to go about it would be? It can't just work the same way as regular multiclassing since you'd effectively get no base class features for your second subclass
Pretty simple, just treat it like spellcaster multiclassing. Wizard/sorcerer/cleric/ 1/1/1 translates to a level 3 spellcaster for the sake of spell slots. Rogue 3/3 translates to class features level 6 and archetype feature level 3/3
That doesn't work.
A Spellcaster multiclassing always gets something on level up, be it a feature, more spell slots, or higher level slots.
A rogue multiclassing into rogue and splitting the levels would have dead levels at each subclass level.
To explain what I mean: a Rogue gets its subclass features at 3rd, 9th, 13th and 17th level. By going with your math, a 9th level rogue would classify as a 4/4 rogue (by rounding down) as far as the subclass is concerned, which means that the rogue gets nothing at 9th level.
Not only that. A 50/50 split for the multiclass progression would imply that a multiclassed rogue is precluded from getting any subclass feature higher than the 9th level one. By comparison, a Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric multiclassed character can absolutely attain 9th level spell slots (although not 9th level spells, confusingly enough).
That still sounds balanced-ish. If anything, it’s too front-loaded. A 9th level rogue would still have its typical kit of sneakiness, skill proficiencies, and sneak attack at 9th level, but it wouldn’t have a 9th level bump via archetype because it received a 6th level bump via archetype.
A more typical example- a level 3 fighter/level 2 paladin wouldn’t get a second attack despite being a level 5 martial character, and they have to live with that mechanically poor decision. But they can instead choose to play until they become a level 5 fighter and then branch out instead, if they care to min/max.
And what gives you the impression it has to be 50/50? A sportsman can be great at throwing or hitting a ball, but it’s vastly different between one sport and another. You can be an incredible baseball pitcher and a garbage basketball player. Level 3 arcane trickster/level 17 assassin makes perfect sense to me.
I suppose an approach that takes the general intention of your design but is a bit omre mechanically rigorous could be to separate out subclass levels? You level up in one class as always, and every few levels the thing you get on levelling up is a subclass level. Subclasses then only get four or so levels, so you could be a warlock 11 (archfey 1 / fiend 2)
The difference is pretty minor either way. I’ve never had more issues balancing this than I have with sorcerer burst damage or creation bards collapsing economies.
I have actually personally done a subclass multiclass for a player in a game I run, but it was a very ad-hoc "okay it makes sense for your character to do this, so you're just getting the level 3 feature from that subclass and the level 7 from this one, and this is how they interact" deal
I suppose I'm trying to think of how I would present it for games that I'm not involved in or don't know the other players in. Something worded cleanly enough to stand up (at least a little) to situations when you can't necessarily fall back on trust between the people at the table
Level 3 arcane trickster/level 17 assassin makes perfect sense to me.
That's not a multiclass as intended in 5e rules. That's just a 20th level rogue that got all the features from one subclass and the first feature of a second subclass for free.
If you know anyone who has actually reached 20th level in a campaign, it might make a difference. I’ll put you in my will if I hit the lottery.
I ran a campaign that lasted several years and everyone went to 20. Technically past 20, though we never did any of the epic stuff.
It was 3.5 though
I've never touched anything beyond level 20. I thought that's what the epic stuff was? Are there regular class features and such published for those levels too, or were you homebrewing by then?
load more comments
(1 replies)
I've actually done it! I started at level 4, so I didn't quite do the full 1-20 journey, but I did indeed go to 20 on xp per enemy killed and not milestone levelling
How long did that take you?? The highest we’ve ever gone is level 11, and that took a couple of years.
About a year and a half. It was a game explicitly intended to just be full of difficult combat encounters all of the time, so it was pretty much the ideal circumstances for levelling quickly. Her last encounter had about 60,000 xp worth of enemies in it per player, without using the multipliers for multiple enemies
Oh, wargaming dnd? How’d you like it? Did 5e stand up well or did it need a lot of homebrewing?
I enjoyed it enough to play it for all that time, at least! I'm not particularly keen on D&D as a system (regardless of edition) and don't care for the Forgotten Realms as a setting, I just enjoy playing TTRPGs with people I like and D&D is the easy one to get people together for. Since I had a good crowd, I was having fun. There were usually plenty of interesting tactical decisions to make, and all of us know the game well enough to get through complicated turns smoothly. Everyone involved would still RP in combat so it wasn't just dice rolling. Gotta talk some shit to the hideous aberration that just deleted half your hp, right?
It was mostly RAW, but with some exceptions. For the sake of everyone being able to tailor their builds to combat, magic items could be purchased at will with prices agreed upon out of character
For war gaming, which system do you personally prefer, if you don’t mind my asking? I’m looking to molest some people with something fresh and pathfinder doesn’t always work out. I used to ask people on Reddit, but I’d rather not use that site again.
I'm not gonna pretend that I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of what's available, but my limited experience with Mythras 6E has been very positive and I really like how Lancer plays. Mythras has Runequest as its high fantasy counterpart, so if you want a D&D-ish experience that's probably where to look. I've not played Runequest though, I had been doing a worldbuilding project and grabbed Mythras as something that looked suitable for there being no magic involved. Lancer comes with a really cool setting, but it's obviously way off in a different direction to D&D and the like. It does at least have the benefit of outstanding art to get people interested, and it's very good at making players feel cool even at low levels
Lancer seems interesting but terrifyingly involved between the fresh setting, combat that feels like two legendary monsters fighting, and the host of new adjectives I’ll have to incorporate into my vocabulary. I’d only heard about it once before, from a zee bashew video, and it seems far more fleshed out than what I expected.
Mythras significantly cuts down on one of those, so I’ll probably try to figure that one out first. Multiple degrees of success and more gradation between the cost of actions seems pretty neat. Thank you for the recommendations! I’ll almost certainly need to chew on them for a while to really understand them, but I adore both setting and the mechanics behind them!
I will admit to being biased towards Lancer because I was already a big fan of one of the author's other work beforehand. Tom Bloom (ne Parkinson-Morgan) writes and illustrates Kill Six Billion Demons. I promise I do genuinely like the mechanics though. If you do decide to take a look at Lancer, there's a really powerful thing that makes it a lot simpler: COMP/CON. It manages character creation, initiative, tracking values in combat etc just like all the non-store parts of D&D Beyond, but it's a lot smoother to use
If you get a go at Mythras, have fun! I will have to quietly envy you because I don't a group to play it with
load more comments
(3 replies)
Well you see, one time an evil wizard cast a spell on the whole world...
Took me longer than it should have to realize this was about D&D, not programming.
load more comments
(2 replies)