Multi classing Objections: Rules vs. Fluff?

Tony Vargas · Jul 18, 2018

cbwjm said:
From memory, in the 4e PHB1 when explaining the martial power source it was called out as magical, just not in the traditional sense of casting spells so even the martial power source was supernatural.

No, that was an oft-repeated willful misinterpretation by h4ters engaged in rampant, and intellectually dishoest edition warring. (Thankfully, the edition war is over, so anyone repeating such now can be charitably assumed to merely be misinformed or mis-remembering).
Exploits were not magical in the 'conventional' sense* of supernatural, but the were capable of superhuman feats and extraordinary effects, 'like magic' in the metaphorical sense.

And, at the bottom of all this edition war bs, like magic in the mechanical sense of being roughly on par with magic-using classes in term of resources & power. The closest the game ever came to balancing the classes.

* and it says something about just how pervasively high-magic D&D self-defined sub-genre of fantasy really is, that a phrase implying magic is "conventional" van even be printed.

MechaPilot · Jul 18, 2018

cbwjm said:
From memory, in the 4e PHB1 when explaining the martial power source it was called out as magical, just not in the traditional sense of casting spells so even the martial power source was supernatural.

And the 3e PHB says that Extraordinary (Ex) powers can break the laws of physics. That makes them magical, except that the book specifically says they're not. That's what 4e was conveying by saying that martial exploits aren't magic in the traditional sense. They're "magic" in that they break the laws of physics like 3e's Ex powers do, but they aren't magic because the book says they not.

TL;DR: 4e's martial exploits are 3e's Ex powers under a different name. Claims to the contrary are unconvincing, at best.

Tony Vargas · Jul 18, 2018

MechaPilot said:
TL;DR: 4e's martial exploits are 3e's Ex powers under a different name. .

Though also a pretty unfortunate name. Extraordinary (EX) and 5e's 'maneuvers' are both much nicer names for the same things.
"Exploit" had been used in the community for years to describe broken combos and abuse of mechanics.

TheCosmicKid · Jul 18, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
Though also a pretty unfortunate name. Extraordinary (EX) and 5e's 'maneuvers' are both much nicer names for the same things.

In the run-up to 4E I had hoped they would move the term "feat" over to mean active extraordinary abilities, the nonmagical counterpart to "spell". 3E's usage for its mostly-passive modular character features never fit quite right, and its apparent original intent, that these features were rewards for feats of heroism, didn't last much beyond some noncommittal verbiage in the 3.0 PHB, as I recall. The 3E fighter was the feat monkey; the 4E fighter could have been a feat monkey too, but in a way that actually made sense.

Now, though, three editions and a Pathfinder later, the term is firmly entrenched in its 3E meaning. Oh well. Missed opportunity. #storyoffourthedition

Oofta · Jul 18, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
No one should have to. Factually false is factually false.

No Pre-Essentials power created an aura, the power you're alluding to, Rain of Steel, was not an aura or a Zone - Dispel Magic would have had no effect on it.

Anyone with stealth could gain the invisible tag. It just means you can't be seen, not that light is magically passing through you.
He didn't have to actually say a word, 'verbal components' were an implement thang, C&GI was a weapon power. You're confusing fluff with rules, the former is just an example, so it's up to the player to choose a fluff description that works for his vision of the character.

Or a different power, if he doesn't feel the mechanics fit whatcha wants his character to be able to do...

Factually false* again, Oofta, if you used a thrown weapon to attack more than one creature, you needed at least one weapon per target - or a magical thrown weapon.

'Martial Exploits,' actually.

Only arcane powers were officially spells, though any PC power that wasn't martial or downright mundane was likely supernatural.

* If anyone's wondering about this odd phrasing, it's an artifact if the CoC, under which lying - even to the point if legal slander/libel, is OK, but calling someone who repeatedly says something that us provably false 'a liar' is just impolite. So I am politely pointing out that, after some 10 years Oofta has perhaps come to miss-remember the minutiae of weapon-keyword powers and weapon qualities and magic weapons and how all those apply to the rather over-the-top Rogue exploit, 'Blinding Barrage." Just like everything else in that last post.

Right. They were labeled as martial so there is no way anyone could possibly consider them spells with a different label. Having a "martial power" that let me automatically distract everyone in the room so that I could waltz past them without provoking attacks wasn't magical at all. No-sirree. I'd call them supernatural, but of course the text of the books may not have called them that so I'd be "factually wrong" about that opinion as well.

Wait a minute ... these are just an opinion. That 4E martial powers were really effectively the same things as spells with a different label. Huh. Well thank you for telling me that my opinion cannot possibly be valid because of a label. I'll have to tell my group of people I played 4E with that we should all hang our heads in shame.

Oh, and somebody needs to tell that Bill Shakespeare guy he was wrong too when he said "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

TwoSix · Jul 18, 2018

Oofta said:
Wait a minute ... these are just an opinion. That 4E martial powers were really effectively the same things as spells with a different label. Huh. Well thank you for telling me that my opinion cannot possibly be valid because of a label. I'll have to tell my group of people I played 4E with that we should all hang our heads in shame.

It's OK, we all make mistakes. Just own it and you'll feel better.

JonnyP71 · Jul 18, 2018

Back to the OP, I've disliked every form of multiclassing since 3E because it has just been made too easy. It's a drug to the theorycrafters, a side of the game I'll admit I despise - every part of it, from the terms 'dip' and 'build' themselves, through attempts to 'break' the game, to the arms race style of game this type of approach tends to produce. I have to avoid playing with or DMing for this type of player as I'm afraid it will cause conflict.

Whatever happened to the simplistic approach of "I pick a fighter, I want him to be wild and barbaric so I'll give him Hide Armour and a massive axe, and roleplay him as such"? It seems so many people nowadays are not happy unless they have special abilities to back up the concept... and often they multiclass to get those abilities.

My ire lessens somewhat if it is clear the multiclassing is for genuine, believable and consistent story reasons. We had a flamboyant fighter take a level in Bard because it fitted the way the character had been portrayed from the very beginning, he was a flashy showman and wanted to learn a musical instrument, and he roleplayed him trying and failing to play it, then going to find someone to teach him the basics when he was next in a city. That feels organic and is not a problem to me.

Of course multiclassing existed back in 1E days, but it was arduous and had strict limitations. Race/level restrictions, and the hoops Humans had to jump through to operate in 2 classes, and I LIKED THOSE RESTRICTIONS! You couldn't just wake up one morning and decide to gain a level in fighter so you could wear better armour!

Warpiglet · Jul 18, 2018

JonnyP71 said:
Back to the OP, I've disliked every form of multiclassing since 3E because it has just been made too easy. It's a drug to the theorycrafters, a side of the game I'll admit I despise - every part of it, from the terms 'dip' and 'build' themselves, through attempts to 'break' the game, to the arms race style of game this type of approach tends to produce. I have to avoid playing with or DMing for this type of player as I'm afraid it will cause conflict.

Whatever happened to the simplistic approach of "I pick a fighter, I want him to be wild and barbaric so I'll give him Hide Armour and a massive axe, and roleplay him as such"? It seems so many people nowadays are not happy unless they have special abilities to back up the concept... and often they multiclass to get those abilities.

My ire lessens somewhat if it is clear the multiclassing is for genuine, believable and consistent story reasons. We had a flamboyant fighter take a level in Bard because it fitted the way the character had been portrayed from the very beginning, he was a flashy showman and wanted to learn a musical instrument, and he roleplayed him trying and failing to play it, then going to find someone to teach him the basics when he was next in a city. That feels organic and is not a problem to me.

Of course multiclassing existed back in 1E days, but it was arduous and had strict limitations. Race/level restrictions, and the hoops Humans had to jump through to operate in 2 classes, and I LIKED THOSE RESTRICTIONS! You couldn't just wake up one morning and decide to gain a level in fighter so you could wear better armour!

I cannot disagree with some of what you say. Some of the terminology makes me a little ill...but then so does any MMO speak. I do not like multiclassing to simply crank out bonuses in a way that has no real story or reason behind it. I hated and I mean hated seeing people try to take multiple prestige classes in 3e in ways that did not make sense. Sometimes you would laugh at their mime-construction worker-alchemist-warrior-priest character.

I can also say that any time I have been tempted by mechanics alone, I have quickly lost interest in the character. Once you figure it out and try it out, it gets old and fast (for me anyway) UNLESS they have some fun character and uniqueness aside from the mechanical choice.

Where I have no objection to multi classing is where it simply provides some variety of play that suits my aim. I really like the fighter-magic-user of old (played some elves here and there) and as a result find multiclassing scratches the itch.

I do not think it is bogus that my character has learned both magic and swordplay. Frankly, it is no big advantage either in terms of power. I want to play a guy that throws fire bolts from one hand with a hammer in the other. I like the image and I like the options.

So I am not sure what the real solution is short of banning multiclassing. For me, I make sure that the character has a plan. I have one that started out as a henchman for a wizard. He has Arcana skill at first level as well as magic initiate as a fighter. I am an eldritch knight. And likely I will take wizard at level 4.

I would be fine with making it harder to multiclass. Perhaps you must take your second or an early level in the other class. I am not really down with 12 levels of class A and then when most advantageous and out of the blue level 13 is something I would not have predicted.

That is merely my opinion of course, but there is a big difference in these two approaches. One makes more in game sense to me.

Tony Vargas · Jul 18, 2018

Oofta said:
Right. They were labeled as martial so there is no way anyone could possibly consider them spells with a different label.

No one speaking in the context of the game could call exploits 'spells' without being objectively wrong, yes, because they would be saying something explicitly contradicted by the facts.

'Martial' was not just a fluff label but a keyword, so whether a power was an exploit or a spell had real meaning within the game. How powers, feats & items interacted, for instance, could hinge on what the source keyword was.

Not only that, but while all classes received powers in comparable numbers and of similar effectiveness, certain sources tended strongly in some directions rather than others. The most dramatically (in keeping with D&D tradition, ironically), were Martial and Arcane, and, specifically Fighter & Wizard. The former did not simply use the same powers labeled 'exploit,' instead of 'spell' and attacking using STR instead of INT. The differences go much deeper than that. All fighter attacks have the Weapon keyword, all wizard attacks use Implements. The rules for implements & weapons are distinct. 'Casting' - vocalizing & using gestures - is an aspect of using an implement power, but not a weapon power, for instance. Dispel Magic, a classic spell, is on the wizard list, and it keys off Zone & Conjuration keywords - something no Fighter power actually has, for another example. So saying "fighters cast spells" is objectively wrong on more than just the factual label of the martial & arcane keywords and the jargon meaning of 'spell,' it is also quite wrong on the mechanical and narrative levels.

Having a "martial power" that let me automatically distract everyone in the room so that I could waltz past them without provoking attacks wasn't magical at all. No-sirree.

You see a bad-ass action hero zip through a crowd of foes, often cutting them down as he goes, all the time. It's positively cliché in chambara, for just one instance, and hardly out of place in fantasy. Nothing magical about it, except maybe the metaphorical movie magic of camera angles, editing, and stunt men.

So your sarcasm is misplaced.

I'd call them supernatural, but of course the text of the books may not have called them that so I'd be "factually wrong" about that opinion as well.

Dropping 'IMHO' at the end of a false statement doesn't make it true. "The World is Flat, IMHO," says the flat-earther, but the world's still round. So, yes, you are making as false a statement as the flat-earther or the holocaust denier. Whether your are deluded, trolling, confused, misremembering, inadvertently presenting an opinion in metaphor as if it were a statement of fact, or lying I can't tell - I will, of course, because we are being polite, here, assume the least offensive possibility. But, I'm sorry, I cannot, with any amount of respectful politeness, assume that a false statement is true. Instead, I would encourage you to correct your misapprehensions and stop making false statements (or resorting to poorly assembled metaphors with the appearance thereof), and simply state your opinions in a clearer way.

Tony Vargas · Jul 18, 2018

Warpiglet said:
I cannot disagree with some of what you say. Some of the terminology makes me a little ill...but then so does any MMO speak. I do not like multiclassing to simply crank out bonuses in a way that has no real story or reason behind it. I hated and I mean hated seeing people try to take multiple prestige classes in 3e in ways that did not make sense. Sometimes you would laugh at their mime-construction worker-alchemist-warrior-priest character.

PrCs were a great idea that was notoriously abused, though maybe to a degree that didn't deserve so much notoriety. Really, you could get just as OP a character as you liked prettymuch out of the PH. Three out of the 4 Tier 1 classes were right there. If your PrC juggling costs you even one caster level in whichever of those classes you're building off of, you've blown it.

The concept of PrCs, if they'd been able to stick to it, instead of using it to kludge multi-classing (or just pad out supplements), was actually pretty good. Create a way for a character's 'build' to directly draw him into the setting and events of the campaign. Becoming a Purple Dragon Knight means being involved in the affairs or Cormyr, being or becoming part of it's aristocracy & military. There's a tremendous potential to use a mechanic like that for characterization, story hooks, player buy-in to the campaign, verisimilitude, and so forth.

I can also say that any time I have been tempted by mechanics alone, I have quickly lost interest in the character. Once you figure it out and try it out, it gets old and fast (for me anyway) UNLESS they have some fun character and uniqueness aside from the mechanical choice.

Agreed. You can powergame a character to the nth degree and find it boring, or RP a fantastic concept with inadequate mechanical support and still have some fun in spite of the failure of the system to support it.

Where I have no objection to multi classing is where it simply provides some variety of play that suits my aim. I really like the fighter-magic-user of old (played some elves here and there) and as a result find multiclassing scratches the itch.

So MCing is not OK unless used to call back old-school race-based class combinations?

So I am not sure what the real solution is short of banning multiclassing.

I don't want to sound pedantic (but I am, so I'm going to in spite of not wanting it), but no DM needs to ban multiclassing in 5e. It's an optional sub-system not 'turned on' by default. A DM must opt-in to multiclassing if his players are to use it. If you don't want Battlemasters or Assasssins or GOO Warlocks in your game, you'd have to ban them. If you don't want EK's in your game, you'd have to ban them - but you don't have to ban GWM or multiclassed fighter/magic-users, because they're opt-in optinal.

OK, I feel better having split that hair.