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Hey, so I'm a relatively new player of D&D (just started in 5E a few months back) and had a question for the more experienced players out there. How kosher is it with most DMs to use custom classes for play? I'm sure several of you have experience with this and I would love to hear some feedback on the subject.

Hmmm. I would say it is okay if the DM is cool with it, but it's not a common expectation. I'd try to base it on a class that already exists to keep it fairly in spec.

A lot of DMs will say no if they don't know you and you arrive with a custom character, but if you've been gaming together for a while and there's some trust and the understanding that you're a reasonable sort, most DMs will agree I think.

 Da Boss wrote:
Hmmm. I would say it is okay if the DM is cool with it, but it's not a common expectation. I'd try to base it on a class that already exists to keep it fairly in spec.

A lot of DMs will say no if they don't know you and you arrive with a custom character, but if you've been gaming together for a while and there's some trust and the understanding that you're a reasonable sort, most DMs will agree I think.

That's kind of what I was thinking, but I just wasn't sure of the viability of it on the whole. The group I'm with is pretty small, but we all know each other quite well.

Really depends on your DM. And what I mean is that your DM should be very comfortable with the rules and be able to see where issues may arise as things progress.

How "custom" are we talking?

Is this a scratch-built class that fills an empty niche or simply cherry picking abilities for the sake of a "build"?

 Manchu wrote:
How "custom" are we talking?

Is this a scratch-built class that fills an empty niche or simply cherry picking abilities for the sake of a "build"?

Loosely modeled after the Ranger (sans spell casting), but almost 100% custom from the ground up.

As a DM, my next question would be why not play a fighter?

 Manchu wrote:
As a DM, my next question would be why not play a fighter?

We already had a Warrior in our group and I was looking for a class that was a little more akin to the Witcher, hence the custom class.

I wouldn't allow custom classes on that basis. If you want to play the Witcher, play the character. Nothing about the fighter class will get in the way of that.

What stuff does the Witcher need to be able to do? Lightly armoured fighter/spell caster?

I think that can be achieved with Fighter going into Eldritch Knight, or a Paladin reskinned to have a different flavour, or even a Warlock built in a particular way with certain invocations.

But I guess it just depends what the abilities are that you feel are important and so on. I would be more comfortable letting people build for themselves in 5th than previous editions I think, due to the fact that it has fewer moving parts and interactions.

There's a huge amount of versatility when building a character with all the cross-classing you can do.

I as a GM would allow, or as a player might request, very minor character mods like allowing a feat, prerequisite, or or some broad game (rather than class-specific) variants, but at the point when you're homebrewing an entire class progression, you're probably either overthinking things or not understanding your options or trying to be a unique snowflake, none of which are really a good direction.

It depends on the GM in question, everyone has really different tastes.

I think I've run all of 1 game of D&D without someone using a custom class. I've built custom classes for my players in the vast majority of the games I've played. Usually what happens is either they've got a character concept that's super specific and has no implementation in the rules. Another common reason is they have a concept that's totally covered by an existing class but that class has an implementation I think is really bad for one reason or another.

For example I'd probably direct a player to a custom class if they wanted to play a Warrior/Caster in 5e that's something around what the EK is trying to do. I tend to think the EK is awkwardly designed and a bit under powered and I'd rather build something from the ground up than work than existing implementation. In fact I've already built an entire custom Arcane 1/2 caster class to present as an option in any future 5e games I might run, just so players have something I'd approve of as a go-to option from the start.

Every time these have been ground-up projects, never minor modifications. Though I often did have small class mod house rules in previous editions like "Rangers Choose any two fighting styles instead of 1" in pathfinder or "Don't use the core paladin/fighter/monk, use Crusader/Warblade/Swordsage from tome of battle instead" in 3.5.


Other GMs are going to want you to to stick to official sources. A lot of home brew out there is poorly written and vetting things takes precious time. Depending on their player base it may also be hard for them not to assume these requests are being made in bad faith, and simply an attempt to break the game. (Though I'd seriously suggest those GMs find better people to play with).


EDIT: Though reading subsequent posts I'm not sure this case requires any action. I've only played part through the Witcher 1 but nothing about it screamed anything more than "Fighter" with a ton of potions to drink. Maybe language proficiency in "Strings of profanity"

I'd say no in general, simply because it can cause problems for the DM in terms of game balance, and for the rest of the party if your custom is (or is perceived as) better than their 'normal' ones

that said there are plenty of circumstances where it could work out (a more experienced DM running their own stuff rather than published material , a party who have all agreed to why the custom character is a good idea, if the custom is clearly worse than a stock class etc)

In my games, custom classes are allowed on a case-by-case basis, and I usually require the player to give me a good reason to use it instead of an existing class.

I usually try to adapt an existing class before allowing something completely new. For example, making a new pact for the warlock, changing the spell list for the cleric, etc. There is a purely martial version of the ranger and a favored soul classup on WotC's site that is essentially the same technique I use to modify classes.

I will sometimes allow 3rd party classes, but even those are hit or miss.

Have you looked into multi-classing, or any of the class options that are scattered around WotC's site? And don't forget that flavoring something that already exists can go a long way towards the feel you want.

All this said, it really depends on the DM. I've met DMs that will allow custom content into their game with nary a look at it, and others who won't even entertain the thought.

I've learned to be very wary of custom-built classes. Usually because the player wants to do A, B and C, but ends up also taking X, Y and Z and tries to be a self-contained party. This ends up either as a really bad jack-of-all-trades class or, depending on the game system, a class that can do basically anything and everything.

I would allow anything that WotC release, such as the ranger variant. Other than that, I don't think there is a need to, you can make pretty much any character you like with a mix of feats, multi-classing and some "re-wording" for flavour.

Post up what your custom class is here, you say its pretty much 100% from the ground up, but I am pretty positive we could work something that fits with a class that is already available.