D&D 5E Has anyone ever had a PC take multiple subclasses?
- Thread starter Stormonu
- Start date
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
Do you mean some kind of house rule where a character could gestalt subclasses? Or a house rule where someone could MC into a class twice? (Be a wizard 2 (abjurer)/wizard 2 (necromancer).)
I mean, no matter what, you would need to house rule something.
Quickleaf
Legend
I have a house rule for when/if I run another 5e game (could be a while, really digging indie and OSR stuff now), but I haven't had the chance to playtest it yet. So take this with a biiiiiig grain of salt.
Hybrid Subclass (feat)
Prerequisite: You must have a subclass, and you must meet the multiclassing prerequisites for your own class
You weave together two different subclasses within your class. When you take this feat for the first time, gain the first subclass feature of your 2nd subclass.
From then on, when you achieve a level in your class that gives you a new subclass feature, you choose which subclass to advance to that subclass’ next feature. Features must be taken in sequence. For instance, a Rogue (Thief/Swashbuckler) who took Supreme Sneak at 9th level, could, upon reaching 13th level either take Use Magic Device or Panache.
Alternately, you can select this feat multiple times to progress your second subclass provided you are at the class level where the corresponding feature would normally be available.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times, but only to advance your 2nd subclass.
Hybrid Subclass (feat)
Prerequisite: You must have a subclass, and you must meet the multiclassing prerequisites for your own class
You weave together two different subclasses within your class. When you take this feat for the first time, gain the first subclass feature of your 2nd subclass.
From then on, when you achieve a level in your class that gives you a new subclass feature, you choose which subclass to advance to that subclass’ next feature. Features must be taken in sequence. For instance, a Rogue (Thief/Swashbuckler) who took Supreme Sneak at 9th level, could, upon reaching 13th level either take Use Magic Device or Panache.
Alternately, you can select this feat multiple times to progress your second subclass provided you are at the class level where the corresponding feature would normally be available.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times, but only to advance your 2nd subclass.
RoughCoronet0
Dragon Lover
For my current campaign we are running, the Barbarian has three subclasses (all homebrew), and he has been having a blast with it.
Clint_L
Legend
Do you mean that a character might do, say, 10 levels in fighter, with 3 in Battlemaster and 7 in Runic Knight, to get features from both subclasses?
If so, how does that work out? It seems like a reasonable option.
Stormonu
NeoGrognard
That's partly what I'm trying to figure out, how would you handle if for some reason they wanted abilities from different subclasses within the same main class. Would you make them take the 3 or so (dead) levels in each prior to getting abilities? Alternate at the various levels from which subclass they can take abilities (as in fighter at 3, 7, 10, 15 ,18) or would you count the level independently (@Clint_L 's lvl 3 Battlemaster/7 Runic Knight)? @Quickleaf seems to have a solid plan, but I've never even had any of my players consider attempting doing this, and it seems such a basic idea I'm surprised it wasn't touched in the 2014 rules or even Xanathar's.
Willie the Duck
Hero
Yes. Someone asked and we tried it to see how it would go.
As a strange coincidence, it was almost Clint's example of a Battlemaster/Rune Knight (in this case Edritch Knight). They went EK 1-5, then BM 1-3, then EK 6-... I think 9 or 10 before the campaign petered out. As you can imagine, the delay in getting your third attack (and before that the 3-level delay in your F8 and F8 ASIs) was hugely significant, mathematically (perhaps a little less so because of EK's attack+BB). However, the benefits of both EK and BM abilities (and getting 2 action surges super-early) did eat into that deficit. And it certainly felt like there was a lot more decisions the fighter got to make (in combat, and out, since they took some of the skill-boost BM maneuvers).
It worked really about the same as those builds where you take a martial up two two attacks and then drop into something else (Ranger5/Druid 1-..., Fighter5/Rogue1-..., sorcadins, etc.). By that I mean:
- The 'build' only really takes off at level 8+. Since you really don't want to wait until level 8 or so for multi-attack as a martial, you likely will power-level whichever you want to take 5+ levels in. This means your first tier looks very much like a single-class advancement.
- At level 8 (L5/L3), you get all the cool benefits of the second archetype, which certainly feels more significant than what you might otherwise get at levels 6-8 (maybe 7-9 for paladins, who really want that aura).
- When you hit the upper tiers, those nifty level 11+ abilities classes get seem really delayed.
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Honestly, this just sounds like powergaming to me.
A (sub)class is designed and balanced around the entirety of the class. Some abilities are a little more powerful than others, some are a little more fun than others, some are a little for flavorful than others. The #1 reasons I see for a player to ask for this is because they have found a couple of very front-loaded subclasses, and want to get the benefits of the early stuff from both without waiting for the future benefits.
This would be especially tempting in a game where you know you start at a high enough level to get past the worst of the "dead" levels where you would be weak, but you know is highly unlikely to get to the very high levels (18+) where the top tier abilities of of a subclass come into play. (EDIT: Exactly like @Willie the Duck said, there is a "sweet spot" where these builds will shine).
All that being said, I might allow it on a case-by-case basis. But I would never approve of a set of the rules for it. Too many opportunities for weirdness or abuse.
A (sub)class is designed and balanced around the entirety of the class. Some abilities are a little more powerful than others, some are a little more fun than others, some are a little for flavorful than others. The #1 reasons I see for a player to ask for this is because they have found a couple of very front-loaded subclasses, and want to get the benefits of the early stuff from both without waiting for the future benefits.
This would be especially tempting in a game where you know you start at a high enough level to get past the worst of the "dead" levels where you would be weak, but you know is highly unlikely to get to the very high levels (18+) where the top tier abilities of of a subclass come into play. (EDIT: Exactly like @Willie the Duck said, there is a "sweet spot" where these builds will shine).
All that being said, I might allow it on a case-by-case basis. But I would never approve of a set of the rules for it. Too many opportunities for weirdness or abuse.
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Do you mean change subclasses? if so yes. I don't think you can take more than one subclass at a time in a given class though.
I don't think there is a good RAW way to do this, you could homebrew it of course.
