#5E is probably the best D&D system to restrict multiclassing with

[asquared-ohgodnotthehorrors]

Ya know, I have a setting I would love to run a D&D campaign in - specifically a D&D 5E campaign in. The setting specifically requires so many assumptions that are baked into the rules that were given, and without that anchor, that mechanical core, everything sorta falls apart.

The problem is two things however:

1. 5E has a lot of problems. Problems I can no longer overlook- because I’ve played other systems. I’ve seen how much more freeing and fun it is to run other systems, and I simply don’t feel like I can go back to 5E. I don’t want to go back to 5E, despite how crucial the class assumptions and species are to what I want to run. I don’t want the game to be as crunchy, and I don’t want to have to struggle to make my players feel like they’re challenged or forcing a narrative onto a system that isn’t designed to make the narrative I want to run.

2. 5E is dying. Not because of the fan base or anything- no, WotC is actively killing off the rules that were and replacing them with what will be. It’s changing the thing I want into something else rather than making something new. And it’s not like I can just ignore that either- if I somehow found players who wanted play in this system, they would inevitably use those resources, rely on them. And they would be stranded. Few of my friends want to go back to D&D- and I don’t feel comfortable reaching out to that community to play either. Because I don’t think they’d want to play in the world I want to run.

All in all, I just feel… a little lost on what I want to do. There are a few systems that are able to do what I want. And I just feel a little lost.

[soleminisanction]

I kinda joked about this a few weeks ago, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the Bad Kids are Pathfinder 2e characters trapped in a Dungeons & Dragons 5e world.

Gonna start with Riz here because he's the one who put the idea in my head in the first place. Riz Gukgak and his parents are clearly closer in concept and design to the green, sneaky, tech-and-fire loving Pathfinder Goblins than they are the yellow, burly mobs of the official D&D goblins. (This is probably because most of the art you find when you google "Dungeons & Dragons goblins" is actually of Pathfinder goblins.) Riz also uses guns, weapons which are uncommon but well-established in Pathfinder, but barely exist at all in D&D.

Most importantly, Riz is fundamentally an Investigator, which exists as its own class in Pathfinder but not in D&D. You know what other classes D&D doesn't have? Oracle and Swashbuckler. The former of which is mechanically way closer to the way Brennan already plays Adaine's oracle powers narratively (and has its own built-in narrative hook to play with, a curse), while the latter has entire fighting styles built around dance and makes you a more effective fighter the more you show off.

For Gorgug you have to dig a little into the gritty details, because Barbarian is a class shared by both systems, but the big one is that unlike D&D, Pathfinder has actual technology rules. Non-magical technology rules, so taking on the Artificer equivalent, the Inventor, as an archetype wouldn't have had that particular synergy problem. There's also a feat, Adopted Ancestry, that would give him mechanical access to culture-based gnome feats to reflect his upbringing with his adopted parents.

Similarly, with Fig, Bards exist in both games (Warlocks don't, but multiclassing into Hexblade is mechanically similar to taking the Magus archetype) but you know what doesn't, RAW? Tieflings that are also elves, because of how D&D's races work. In Pathfinder, however, the tiefling equivalent (nephilim, specifically hellspawn) are a versatile heritage, a secondary template that can be applied to any ancestry, so "elf hellspawn nephilim" is legal RAW. And it's something where you can choose how much of that heritage is expressed in your character's appearance so, again, the mechanics line up better with the narrative re: it only being something she learned about later in life.

Finally, you've got Kristen, who is, on paper, the one who fits comfortably in either game -- a human cleric. But I will attest that, given what she's capable of, she's not just a human cleric. Given the shit Kristen has pulled off over the last three seasons, I maintain that she would be best represented by, at bare minimum, taking the archetype for the upcoming Exemplar class (playtested last year and releasing officially in War of the Immortals, Oct 2024), the only rare class in Pathfinder 2e because they're meant to be literal, actual demi-gods, legendary heroes on the same level as Hercules, Gilgamesh, Cú Chulainn and Maui. It's a class designed to essentially break the game in select ways to make the players feel awesome (hence why it's rare, so GMs can restrict access if they choose), and well. Tell me that doesn't sound like Kristen Applebees.

So yeah, there's the rational behind my crack theory that makes way too much sense: the Bad Kids are Pathfinder characters. Or growing up to be Pathfinder characters. Something like that.