Pathfinder 1E Multiclassing - Make 'em train for it, or just give it away?

paradox42 said:

Regardless of what feels "realistic," the fact of the matter is, PF is a game first and foremost. You have to be fair to all the players, and that means that if you don't require training to level up in even one class, then you shouldn't require training to level up in any class at all. Conversely, if you do require training to level up in one class, then you should always require training to level up in all of them.

Click to expand...

Well, I'd amend that to say "PF is a game. It's meant to be fun for the players. Take what the players will find enjoyable into consideration when making a ruling." I imagine that some players will enjoy the role-playing aspects of arranging for training.

That said, in my current PF game, my human rogue street rat has been threatening to pick up some basic training in sorcery, cleric magic, or paladinhood (!) to his fellow adventurers every chance he gets, because "it doesn't look that hard." If I *did* carry through with taking a level of any of their classes, I don't think I'd argue if the DM wanted to build in some in story logic.

Dannyalcatraz said:

I must confess I find multiclassing into a class described as being an innate manipulator of magic due to their blood-heritage is a bit more problematic.

Click to expand...

Mom lied about who dad was - turns out it wasn't Sven the blacksmith, it was the half-demonic Ollie from the next village older. Our poor hero doesn't find out until, like some late blooming mutant in the Marvel universe, he wakes up one morning in camp screaming because he accidentally started the place on fire due to a nightmare. Look, all kinds of powers!

Ignoring of course all the training it takes to control them, blah, blah, blah. But the RAW multiclassing already ignores things like that for the save bonuses, the weapon and armor proficiencies, and class skills that took the single class character a huge chunk of their teen-age and early adult years to get.

But if I'm already compromising my ideals and allowing the shaman's Barbarian ritual to pass (it is just a game) is this _that_ much worse. Of course now we're on the slope to getting a wannabe multi-class Wizard who managed to be visited by the spirit of a long-dead arch-mage who was looking for someone to psychically train in the mystic arts overnight. Blech! Maybe it would be better to have the harsh rules and give each player a "metagame trick card" once every couple years.

My thing is, it shouldn't matter to me as a DM what a player plays if it makes him happy and it doesn't mess with the baseline assumptions or power level of the campaign. As a result, I almost never put out a blanket ban on a class, and Feats & spells just need to be Pre-approved. So far, I've only barred a couple in the past decade+.

In the games I run, you have to train to take a new class. Not only that, I set prerequisites in addition to time and convincing someone to train the character. For example, to multi-class into a spell casting class that grants first level spell at first level, you need to be able to cast spells of that classes given type. For some characters, this means taking a feat that grants 3 0-level spells.

that said, I also use variant spell lists (3.0 DMG), UA style class variants, some third party classes, and 0/0 level multi-classing at 1st level (3.0 DMG) to help avoid a lot of multi-classing later.

To reply to the original post. Multiclassing explicitly trades your character's best goodies for a little versatility and niche-filling...or in other words, you give up power for flavor and personality, both of which are good things to have when you have players willing to make their PCs more well-rounded. Why make it any harder to invoke the multiclassing rules than it already is? "Training" to learn a new class ...why? Do you require training to learn new feats, add skill points, increase level in a class you already have?

I haven't read the previous replies so if it has already been stated, then just ignore my repetition. But you might structure your campaign so that characters have some amount of "off screen time" when nothing interesting is happening. It seems fairly common to do this already when all characters have fallen asleep (or been rendered unconscious), and rather than play out the "dead air" in real time, the gaming group fast-forwards to the next moment of anything interesting happening to a PC. Do the same thing with the occasional period of "down time" when the PCs have to show up at their day job, go visit the relatives, check in at the temple, drop by the local thief guild headquarters to settle back debts, etc.

To me, character classes are a game-mechanics contrivance, not something that really exists in the world. As long as the result fits into a character concept in the mind of the player, I didn't really see multiclassing as anything other than a game mechanic. Sure, a single-class character has a more narrow field of specialization than a multi-classed one, but are classes really something that exists in the game world? If you asked a martially-inclined spellcaster if he was a wizard/fighter/eldrich knight or if he was a magus, would he be able to answer? Are these game terms or actual orders and training paths available in the world? It might be hard for someone grown up in a civilized setting to be Conan, but then again is Conan really all barbarian, doesn't he have both rogue and fighter levels to become the very versatile character he is?

My view is that witches, sorcerers and wizards are sufficiently different in method to be know in-world, but that magi are considered wizards and and both bards and summoners are considered sorcerers, if less focused on their magical studies. I feel this view is at supported by the existence of Hexcrafter archetype for the magi, which turns the class from an almost-wizard to an almost-witch.

As for ways to combine sorcery and rage, there used to be a rage mage prestige class in 3E and/or 3.5 that allowed the combination of these specific abilities.

That said, the archetypes and new classes of pathfinder means many concepts that used to require multiclassing can now be gained with an archetype, which is generally much easier in game terms. So perhaps the best solution here is a magus archetype with rage?

TwoSix said:

As always, the OOTS knows.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0126.html

Click to expand...

Yep, make him join the Barbarian's Guild first ...

Or just skip it ... let him play the character he'll enjoy without jumping through excessive hoops. Do you make other classes train to gain new feats, learn new spells, etc?

Used to be, you had to get trained *regardless* of the class in which you leveled up, because characters couldn't reasonably be assumed to learn genuinely new things by practicing old ones, even if you stayed singleclassed forever. Nowadays, the assumption is that you're constantly training yourself "in the background" for whatever your next level will be, so that you're "ready" for it whenever you garner enough experience. What's the argument for saying a caster can intuit genuinely new higher-level spells -- about which he is currently ignorant -- on his own, but can't intuit the genuinely new basics of another class without help? I don't see one as necessarily more plausible than the other.

I think one also has to consider the effect of selectively enforcing a training rule, which in this case would be to strongly encourage everybody to be a singleclassed character. Is there a reason why this would be desirable, and if so, why? Is the thinking that player options need to be restricted, or that multiclassed characters are overpowered, or that singleclassed characters are just the way the game ought to be played? I wouldn't agree with any of those -- and really, what's the point of playing Pathfinder rather than 4e if you think obstacles should be placed in front of character customization -- but they'd all be reasons grounded in something beyond one's own intuition for why a selectively enforced training requirement might be reasonable. Otherwise, you're probably best-served just letting characters multiclass without training, even if it personally seems strange to you that they could do it without a trainer nearby. (And if your concern is that a level of barbarian would somehow be game-breaking, then you are always within your rights as DM to make a specific ruling in his particular case that you won't allow him to take it.)

In general, if you're enforcing training, I would think that the 5th level of a single class should require much more training than the 1st level of a second class.

In this case (since both sorcerers and barbarians would require the least external training), it seems fine to let the player have it for free.

GX.Sigma said:

In general, if you're enforcing training, I would think that the 5th level of a single class should require much more training than the 1st level of a second class.

Click to expand...

Didn't the single class character go through years of training in the form of an apprenticeship or life-experience-equivalent to get to 1st level? From it they get the equivalent of a half-dozen to score of feats in the form of class skills, +2 bonuses on saves, and a load of armor and weapon training, in addition to the various class features.

In this case (since both sorcerers and barbarians would require the least external training), it seems fine to let the player have it for free.

Click to expand...

Should it depend on the classes being used and how they fit in the campaign then? How long should it take an illiterate Barbarian to learn to read, write, do math, understand spell theory, learn cantrips, learn spells, etc... versus a Wizard incrementally going from 4th level to 5th based on things they've been studying every day?