#but then get weird about minor homebrew changes of monsters and magic items

[utilitycaster]

w/r/t the holy avenger, but also, as per usual, one of my general D&D soapboxes, I don’t think Yasha will in any way have to multiclass into paladin to be able to attune to the sword, and I think that’s a much better way to play it.

One thing that I enjoy in D&D canon is that the PCs abilities are considered rare and exceptional. Not everyone who is devout is a cleric or paladin; not everyone who plays an instrument is a bard; not everyone who can use a sword is a fighter. You do just have people who are religious, or musicians, or trained in the basic use of a sword. In a kind of weird way it’s like the irl idea about not needing to monetize your hobbies; you can just jam on a lute or whatever and enjoy yourself without necessarily tapping into the music of creation.

I often side with rules as written, but when you break the rules, go with the spirit of the law and not the letter. Which is to say: Yasha is by virtue of her subclass dedicated to a deity already; becoming a paladin wouldn’t actually represent any kind of change in that relationship and it feels arbitrary to push someone into a class change (let alone one that would require a significant stat change, bringing a low mental stat to high; I don’t feel it’s comparable to a minor strength improvement).*

It makes much more sense to treat attuning holy avenger with the same rules as awakening or exalting a vestige, and to require an RP/character growth moment instead.

*I also don’t know the exact situation but I would assume that had he so chosen, Fjord did not have to take a level in paladin to switch his patronage to Melora and could have remained a warlock, particularly since he’s taken two levels of warlock since. In general, it’s not great DM-ing to require a very specific class build of a PC to permit character growth. As a DM, you do rely on your players not being apathetic to the world you set up and willingly engaging with it in a true and reasonable manner, but you absolutely cannot rely on them taking any specific path. This doesn’t mean you allow everything. By all means, require that the RP effort be put in to permit a mechanical change that doesn’t otherwise fit the rules as written leveling structure, but you should never require that the player make a specific mechanical change to permit character growth.