So I should hamstring my creativity and enjoyment from creating effective builds because the game doesn't have a challenging difficulty level?
Ok I guess
Multiclass is a thing that would have been done in tabletop according to particular character and the events. A monk isn't going to suddenly pick up sorcerer levels because you want to have a melee caster unless events literally happen to justify the acquisition of sorcerer levels. Second, only singleclassing is not going to hamstring your creativity. Restricting to singleclass can force you to be more creative with the build since you have limited your options to what can be normally acquired within that class rather than deciding to dip into monk out of the blue if you want more AC/free feat, paladin for higher saves, or vivisectionist for mutagen and sneak attack die.
As for your moronic argument about dumping stats,
I explained why exactly dumping stats is nothing but abusing the overall lack of development in this game. Dumping is pretty much nothing but abuse of the game's deficiencies.
none of my characters have less than 10 INT
So what about your character's int? Dumping int is still common in builds so it deserves a mention and as mentioned, the game does not punish it.
I could easily make it so that none of them have less than 10 WIS/CHA without impacting on their effectiveness whatsoever.
Then don't dump if there's no reason to.
Lastly role-playing, it is a great fallacy that role-playing means you have to take less effective builds, or that dipping classes automatically means you are role-playing wrong.
It's not a fallacy. Roleplaying means taking actions with a character according to what happens in game. It's an important part of a ROLEPLAYING game.
Nothing happens within the game's story or any character's personal development in most cases to justify multi-classing so it simply shouldn't be done. That's what roleplaying is. The scenarios and events the GM presents can lead to a fighter picking up some wizard levels or perhaps the campaigns starts at level 3 and a wizard character gets a little bit of combat training via a fighter level. But the character doesn't pick up Eldritch Knight levels unless the character actively seeks out training related to it in their downtime are coinciding with contact with a specific characters who provide the instruction in the campaign questline.
Another example is an evil cleric or maybe fallen paladin getting the ability to become blackguard after making a pact with an evil outsider that they came into contact with in the questline or purposely sought out and the player roleplayed through it in game. Still, the multiclass can happen. It just requires things to actually happen in game to justify it. That's part of roleplaying.
Something like weapon master build given that the character is played that way up to the point where they can get access to it the weapon master class is fairly appropriate for a fighter since its along the lines of what the corresponding character normally does anyways. So that would be roleplaying.
Starting as a scaled fist, then picking up two paladin levels for divine favor, then four thug levels because it's optimal, then a 3 two-handed fighter levels, a sword saint level for the free proficiency, two archeologist levels, then four dragon disciple levels, and finally four freebooter levels for example isn't roleplaying since nothing happens in game to justify why the character would pick up those levels. The likelihood for example is that the character would lose his paladin abilities as maintaining all those other class related skills would cause him to neglect his duties. To get the abilities back, he'd have to do some attonement and return to his duties which cause him to neglect studies that would hinder his archeology skills. Finally, Dragon Disc may not even be appropriate for the archeologist as bards do not rely on bloodlines.
Bardic Valerie is another example, it's a convenient build but it has nothing to do with her character. It's contrary to her character since she departed from anything related to that when she became a fallen paladin (she probably should've started at 2nd level with a dead paladin level and then the fighter level as her second level). Plus she dislikes that type of thing. So the bard build is not role-playing since it contradicts the character.
