Fine. Every time you change classes, you forfeit all exp and start from scratch.
This is an experienced DM.
Truly experienced is to only drop one level with each change. Then you get to watch them try to weigh cost/benefit.
I was thinking every time you change class you lose 1 level, to a minimum level of 1. After a long rest you regain your original level, and 1 ‘charge’ of your next class change (you’re level 8, you changed classes three times before rest, you rest at level 5 wake up at level 8 (whatever class you want to be, sure), but when you change class today your new class is only level 6. Maybe after level 8 you recover 2 charges per rest.
Edit, fixed my after 10 bonus, changed 10 to 8 to be more in line with when other classes get their bonuses
Would it be close enough to balanced if all the classes simply have their own level and xp? So you effectively can get the abilities of every class at level 1, which I don’t think would be overpowered. You’d also be effectively penalized for staying too long in any class except your main one, cause you’d be earning XP for an alt class.
Each class’s first level features are at least as potent and useful as a Feat. Getting 13 of them off the bat, with a combined like 15 cantrips and first level spell slots, rage, two different unarmored defenses, a hundred first level spell slots, Eldritch Blast… Early game, you’d be wildly overpowered, but late game you’d be struggling to keep up with your more specialized team mates
You wouldn’t have 13 feats at a time, though. It’d be one at a time and you just get to choose which one. Perhaps could be further limited by only allowing changing once per short or even long rest.
But yeah, it definitely starts stronger than it ends. I was thinking the main ways it could sorta be used is as a jack of all trades, because you could probably have proficiency in any given thing so long as there’s no combat involved.
If you can only do this on long rests it basically doesn’t affect balance, right? You don’t ever get extra resources, just different ones.
We let somebody do this in our 4e campaign and it was fun. They had like 4 different character sheets that all represented the same character, they just picked one for each adventure. It let us vary our party composition without having to introduce new characters to the narrative.
(The conceit was that they were experimented on by a mad mage who imbued them with elemental essences in a failed attempt to create a pan-elemental being; instead they manifested one element at a time, and each of their forms had its own abilities. Mechanically their race was genasi, with a different elemental aspect for each class.)
That’s like changing your major in college from music theory to advanced physics in one turn
I think this would be pretty cool with some more rules behind it. Like they can shift into another body within range and literally gain everything that creature has, but it has limited range and a save to resist being taken over based on the hitdie, level, both, etc.
we can go further: what if the ONLY way they have to progress is copying another creature? and they can’t just go back, they’d have to find the creature they previously copied to do so again.
now they can become powerful sure, but most powerful creatures aren’t something you can just walz into a town as, and every time you change form you have to abandon your previous powers.
