30:55 TL; DW For those racing to the comments before watching the video. Cheers!

"Why you should ban multiclassing"
Dudes subtitle: "in certain situations"

Oh it is ON! We’re fighting in the Game Haven parking lot after school. I get to bring @dndshorts and we’ll tag team it. WWE style.

My thing with multiclassing is... I guess i don't perceive class like most other people.  To me, a class is just a metagame construct.  You gain these mechanical abilities in this particular order.  Your character doesn't know he has a class, he just knows he can do things.  You might be a fighter/ranger/rogue in class, but in-character, you'd say 'I'm a scout' or something like that.  My philosophy of character design is: "Determine what you want your character to do, then pick the game mechanics which most closely enable you to realize those abilities, reflavoring where needed'.
That said, if I were to change multiclassing, it would be to designate certain abilities as 'core abilities' that you only get if you started in that class. Action Surge would probably be an example of an ability I'd designate as a core ability.

“Know your players, know yourself, and in 1000 encounters, you will never be in peril.”
-Sun Tzu, The Art of DM

I think banning multi-classing when the DM is inexperienced is also a good idea.  It's hard enough to start DMing, let alone trying to setup encounters for a tougher, multi-classed party

Love how Colby immediately dismisses the "Canadians are nice" stereotype.

The dudes: "Why you should ban multiclassing"
Colby: Dies

Edit: I wrote this before I realized he had a cameo 😂

That illusionist wizard bit by D4 got me laughing so hard 🤣

@0:35 Multiclassing is a pathway many consider to be...unnatural

The only multiclassing I've ever done was for very specific story reasons. And for overpowered one-shots. But outside of those, my only multiclass was a bit of paladin added onto a rogue. He had always thought he was a Paladin, and justified his lack of magic abilities as "I must be doing something wrong." It felt so good to finally actualize that. And in case anyone is wondering, yes, we did waive the strength requirement.

One way to prevent "level dipping" is to have early features scale with class level, not proficiency or total level. Paladin's Lay on Hands, for example, gets 5hp added to the pool for each Paladin level exclusively. Things like Eldritch Blast, which gets extra beams based on total levels rather than Warlock levels, is an egregious offender

i feel like the best thing a DM could do would be to require a story/campaign reason for multiclassing, especially for classes like warlocks, paladins, clerics that are taking oaths etc.

I think multiclassing is okay if you can justify it in the story.

In our current campaign for example we escaped a demon by teleporting away but as my character did it by essentially overleveling a spell before he would've had access to it the backlash was causing him to decay. He ended up making a deal with a Fae.

He's now a lvl 3 Soulknife Rogue & will be an Archfae warlock going forward

Edit: I hadn't watched the full video when commenting & our group is all experienced players so we're ok with it

Keeping character balance is the most valid point for sure. As a DM that allows homebrew the #1 rule I hold everything to is: Make sure all the PCs are evenly balanced with eachother.

My biggest problem with multiclassing is the need for it.  There's not enough customization with each class to make the character I have in mind. Outside of subclass choice, spell selection, and warlock invocations the base classes dont offer enough variety imo.

If you got rid of multiclassing but had a skill tree approach to feats (using prerequisites) and allowed feats to be selected each level you could have a much more customizable experience.

The front loading of class features is the reason I’m such a huge fan of scaling core class features. I love a class feature that grows as your character does and imho not enough classes have a scaling ability that feels rewarding enough at those higher levels to offset the reward of more abilities from a multiclass.

I enjoy seeing other systems approach to the desire for multiclassing and am learning more every year I play other games!

I've never multiclassed once, only because I want to be a singular class for one campaign to its end. An actual end, not because it fizzled out. Feels bad man.

Thanks for pointing out a narrative way for multiclass rather than mechanics only, go Dungeon Dudes!

That little aside by Colby was amazing 😂🤣😂

One of the great things about multiclassing is that it allows you to customize your play style to your liking, rewarding people for understanding the rules. Such as creating a way for a class like arcane archer to be more helpful/interesting.