Multiclassing Feats & Powers

[NorthSaber]

Chances are.... if you need rituals to do your healing... it's a bit late for healing (raise dead)

Well obviously you wouldn't be any good as a leader who heals others during combat, but you can cure diseases and other negative conditions, which is what healers (in the traditional sense of the word) are all about.

 

[Zetesofos]

Agreed, especially paragon multiclassing. So, I'm thinking about:

Paragon Multi-classing
If you have all 4 multi-class feats, you can choose the “Multi-class Paragon Path”. This has the following benefits:
1) Can swap 1at-will per PHB
2) Get a 7th level, 10th level, and 19th power of your 2nd class instead of Paragon powers per PHB
3) Instead of other Paragon features, you also get more of the class features of your 2nd class per below. These features replace any features from the multi-class feats when overlapping. For example, when a multi-class Rogue gets Sneak Attack at 16th level, the 1/encounter Sneak Attack from the feat is no longer valid.

Cleric
11th: Channel Divinity, Healer’s Lore
16th: Healing Word

Fighter:
11th: Combat Challenge, Combat Superiority
16th: Fighter Weapon talent

Paladin:
11th: Channel Divinity, Lay on Hands
16th: Divine Challenge

Ranger:
11th: Fighting Style, Prime Shot
16th: Hunter’s Quarry

Rogue:
11th: Rogue Tactics, First Strike
16th: Sneak Attack

Warlock:
11th: Warlock’s Curse, Shadow Walk
16th: Pact Boon

Warlord
11th: Combat Leader, Commanding Presence
16th: Inspiring Word

Wizard:
11th: Implement Mastery, Cantrips
16th: Spellbook (only for Wizard spells)

This really would produce more of a 1/2 and 1/2 multi-class by level 20, and seems ok at first glance.

You pay:
4 feats
Give up paragon features
Give up paragon powers

You get:
1 trained skill
3 swapped powers
3 lower level "paragon" powers
Most class features of your 2nd class

I haven't thought through all the combinations, though, so this might be too much (especially for striker multi-classing into striker).

I had considered adopting this for paragon multiclassing, though it might give a little to much. Mostly, in any case where a class can double up, be it two strikers damage, two taunts, two sets of healing (inspiring word AND healing word XP ) So, I would tone it down to this.

Cleric
11th: Healer’s Lore
16th: Channel Divinity (Turn Undead)

Fighter:
11th: Fighter Weapon talent
16th: Combat Superiority

Paladin:
11th: Channel Divinity (Divine Mettle)
16th: Lay on Hands

Ranger:
11th: Prime Shot
16th: Fighting Style

Rogue:
11th: Rogue Weapon Talents
16th: Rogue Tactics

Warlock:
11th: Prime Shot
16th: Shadow Walk

Warlord
11th: Combat Leader
16th: Commanding Presence

Wizard:
11th: Ritual Master (Starts at 11th Level)
16th: Implement Mastery (Wand, Staff, or Orb)

I like these because the still give you that feel of having the second class, with a couple more perks, but you should never have your second class be able to outshine someone who took it as their primary one.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Honestly, I think any combination of the various ways of houseruling multiclassing in this thread are all worth trying. I think the default rules are intended to keep your second class as a side focus, but if your home table wants something a bit more mixed, it should work out fine. Good stuff!

 

[zookeeper]

I'm glad we have the same understanding of the rule here. It shows we can agree on some things, at least.

OK - Maybe I misunderstood. I thought you had stated previously that you could swap between classes. Maybe it was someone else.

Back to the Wall gives you multiple bonuses conditionally. So, although it is competing with a permanent +2 to a defense, it is better than a conditional +1 to damage. As are the others. That was my point.

Gotcha - thought you were trying to say a conditional +1 was better than a permanent +2.

Again, comparing 4th edition feats to their 3rd edition versions will almost always make them seem very weak. They are different kinds of things, and comparing them directly is unfavorable to the 4th edition feats.

So what you seem to be saying here is that 4.0 feats make weaker characters.

I know they are different, but comparing a new system with an older one is just nature. You compare the systems to see if it is better. You buy a new computer you compare thier features.

Right. Quick draw is one of the rare occasions when a 4th edition feat is more powerful than its 3rd edition counterpart. The rules have been changed in a way that makes it stronger, changing them back will make it weaker again.

Agreed, but some of the interesting parts of the game were taken out. Example: You have an opponent badly injured, he tries to take a potion you get the AoO on him and possibly take him out. Now; same situation, he drinks his potion and heals some, and continues to take potions until he runs out of them or until knocked out. You lose the possible treasure of obtaining another healing potion because you can't take him out before he swallows it.

Okay, lets consider Bob the fighter. He's a level 4 fighter, and with no weapon or shield he's got an AC of 19 and a reflex defense of 15. He likes axes, so his level 1 feat was Weapon Focus: Battleaxe or Weapon Focus: Greataxe, depending on which he uses. Damage amounts below do not include strength bonuses, which will be the same across the board.

With a greataxe, he has AC 19, reflex 15, and 1d12 + 1(avg. 7.5) damage.

With a battleaxe and a heavy shield, he has AC 21, reflex 17, and 1d10 + 1(avg 6.5) damage.

If he takes both two-weapon feats, then uses a battleaxe with a handaxe, he has AC 20, reflex 16, and 1d10 + 2(avg 7.5) damage.

The two-weapon feats cost a little, but they give him a happy medium between the defense-priority fighter and the offense-priority fighter. Also, he has a ranged weapon readied at all times and suffers none of the check penalties associated with using a heavy shield.

Nice example, just one thing - Weapon Focus would apply to a group, not to individual weapons - lol. And actually in your example above, you spent 3 feats to get the happy medium, did you forget you also took Weapon Focus?

While it is true that you rarely get a second attack each round, you do get better attacks, as your training and experience permits you to perform more complicated maneuvers. Higher level powers are significantly better than lower level powers, even if they don't include multiple attacks.

Yes, you get better attacks, which was also true in 3.5. An example of my point would be something like: Sam the contractor when he first becomes a contractor takes an hour to build a set of stairs. After building those stairs for a period of time, he can now build 2 sets in the same hour. Yes Sam has gotten more training and experience and even pay for doing this. Now eventually Sam will get to a point where the best he can do is maybe 2 or 3 sets in the hour.

In 4.0 No matter how much training or experience you recieve you can not do any more that what you start at.

Now that's something I can understand. Let me recommend that you give some of those situational bonuses at try. You may find that they grow on you.

I may have no choice; they do not sound like anything I would ever have taken in 3.5. As a fighter why in the blue blazes would you ever consider Linguist - you don't need to communicate to fight you only need to swing your weapons.

This is not a part of the game designed to be realistic. As far as I can tell, the reason characters lose old powers as they gain new powers is so that the player never has so many powers that they forget what some of them are. I had a lot of trouble remembering the details of my second level spells by the time I got eighth level spells, because I didn't cast them very often once I had fifth level spells.

That is a good point, but you probably had 3 or 4 low level spells that you remembered and possibly used occasionally (Magic Missile is a very popular one of those). And from a list that was 100's of spells long, everyone possibly had some trouble remembering lower level spells they didn't use often. Now you're limited to 17 as it is now or 25 if you just learn new without losing old. And as with the 100's you will probably have lower level powers you will remember well. Even 20th level casters popped out Magic Missile occasionally.

If it helps, you can think of it in this way: when you reach 13th level, 7th level spells become avaliable to you, along with the special ability that you can use your 1st level spell slot in conjunction with your new 7th level spell slot to get an 8th level spell. The intermediate steps have been removed, and what 4th edition calls 13th level spells are akin to the 8th level spells of 3rd edition. This is not a suggestion from any official source, just an idea I had to make it more palatable.

See above paragraph.

This is actually my point. Without Improved Disarm, disarm attempts were a very bad idea. Without Improved Sunder, sunder attempts were a very bad idea. You were permitted to attempt those special moves, but without the feat were nearly destined to failure. This is what I mean when I say feats controlled what the fighter could do. They didn't control what he could attempt, but what he could achieve.

Thats not quite true, Improved Disarm let you make the attempt without provoking AoO. And it was almost always bad to try, but the bad parts were the AoO and if the opposed rolls were lower on yours than his, he could attempt an immeadate disarm against you. The feat only took away the AoO. Same type of thing applies to sunder. And just for the record he could achieve these actions without the feats.

In 3rd edition, you could get a good feel for a fighter's tactics by reading his feat list. In 4th edition, you get that same feel by reading the power list.

I suppose this could be true.

I did mention that they were more limited, as you have noticed. However, please note that (save ends) is a duration. Spell Focus makes such spells last longer.

I suppose with the way you worded this, I have to give it to you. I was still thinking Save either effects you or does not depending on made or failed.

Astral Fire boosts radiant damage, which is the kind of damage Turn Undead does.

Ok - this daels extra (1,2,or 3) damage, does not give you extra turn attempts, more targets, etc.

Sneak Attack damage is lower than it used to be, but it now works on more targets. Many of the numbers have changed with the edition switch. Rogues still do impressive damage, though, it just comes from powers as much as from sneak attack.

I'll have to take your word for this. Although a rouge (I still think of as) was the scout, trapfinder, opened locked doors and chests, lifted items off people, and sometimes got into trouble if found on scouting expedition but was usually within a double move action of the other characters.

Ooh! What character will you be playing in your first game? My first character is a dwarven paladin of Moradin. He's pretty fun.

Not sure. Was thinking about the fighter/wizard combo. But also thinking I might wait and see what the group needs before making character.

Great Fortitude is situational. It only gives you a bonus if a monster attacks your fortitude defense.

It is not situational, it does not rely on you being next to a wall or only apply if attacked by a giant. It is there all the time, it is a permenant bonus to your fortitude defence and applies anytime your fortitude defence is attacked. It's like your AC, your armor is always there its bonus is always there, even if the opponent attacks your reflex defence your AC is not lower because of it.

Note also that you can pick up neck slot items that increase your defenses in the same way that magical armor increases your AC, and at least some of the powers that increase your AC also increase your other defenses.

OK - granted. Didn't read all items yet. Still working on all the new rules.

This is exactly why balance is important. If the wizard is able to stand in the front lines and take the brunt of things while throwing spells, the fighter is superflous. So measures need to be taken to ensure that a character cannot be built with the fighter's ability to take hits and the wizard's ability to toss spells. That's what class balance is all about.

But you can't stand in the front lines and toss spells (in 3.5) you have spell failure, AoO's, and lower (flat-footed) AC's. If your going to toss spells you would most likely move out of combat or only toss one spell while in combat. (Well actually you could stand in front lines and toss spells around but would not be very good for you.)

You may find that a fighter/wizard works surprisingly well for you in 4th edition. If a fighter goes for a two-handed weapon, he can still soak damage pretty well while dishing out damage pretty significantly. A few wizard powers will give you a handful of solid control options. As a 4th edition fighter/wizard you'd be a better defender than a wizard, a better striker than a wizard, and a better controller than a fighter. Admittedly, you wouldn't be as good a striker as a rogue, as good a defender as a fighter, or as good a controller as a wizard, but if you could be all of those things, that wouldn't be very fair to the single-class players at the table.

This would be true of any multiclass you would make a better (insert first class role here) than a (insert your second class name here) unless both classes are of the same role.

 

[Jion]

Yes, you get better attacks, which was also true in 3.5.

I'm not sure that's what he meant; in both 3e and 4e, you get better at attacking, but in 3e your damage was pretty much always the same, for every attack: weapon + strength + additional feat/item modifiers. In 4e, the damage done by your attack powers increases as you gain higher level powers - I think that's what he meant by better attacks.

An example of my point would be something like: Sam the contractor when he first becomes a contractor takes an hour to build a set of stairs. After building those stairs for a period of time, he can now build 2 sets in the same hour. Yes Sam has gotten more training and experience and even pay for doing this. Now eventually Sam will get to a point where the best he can do is maybe 2 or 3 sets in the hour.

In 4.0 No matter how much training or experience you recieve you can not do any more that what you start at.

You'll have to change your thinking from one attack roll=one attack, as 4e combat is more abstract than that. As damage goes from 1[W] to 2[W] on up to 6[W] and 7[W], consider each [W] an attack, but you only rolled once for confirmation of hit.

This took me some time to adjust to, as well. The basic philosophy in 3e was that fighters (and other non-caster classes) will deal more damage by the benefit of having more attack rolls, and thus chances to deal damage.

In 4e, fighters, etc., deal more damage by dealing more damage.

The difference is, to use your analogy, 3e Sam the contractor gets more chances to build more stairs as he gets better, but his second set is 20% less likely to be made. Sam in 4e is either successful at all of his stairs, or none of them, with one flat probability of success rate.

A 4e character has a better chance of dealing the expected damage in a round than a 3e character does.

 

[Grantor]

Roles and multiclassing

I have a concern about the suggested house rules for multiclassing. It excessively dilutes the concept of roles in 4E.

The player that starts with a defender is a defender. While you can give up some of your powers in order to spread out into other roles, you are still supposed to be playing the character as a defender. I believe that this was one of the core goals of the designers: make a characters role in the party clear.

Multi-classing mucks up this design goal. To me it seems that the current system (where you can get up to 45% of the other class's abilities) is there to enforce the concept of character roles.

The one element that deriders of the RAW multiclassing all seem to agree on is that there is no way to fully swap out starting class abilities. And that this is desirable.

I would assert that giving a Fighter backstab confuses whether he should be performing defender functions in combat or defender functions. Sure, giving him occassional back-up healing with a power-swap feat or two is one thing, but keeping his focus on being a defender seems to be the design goal with the multiclass rules, as I read them.

 

[Grantor]

I skipped a page, so I don't know if someone commented on this.

When you decide to Paragon "into" your second class, the powers that you gain are the highest level power of that type available.

In order to "trade out" the 11th level paragon encounter power for a class power of equal or lower value, you end up trading for a 7th level power. Trading your 12th level paragon utility obviously gives you a 10th level utility. There just aren't any 12th level utility powers in the class lists.

On the otherhand, while you could go for the base Fighter powers (or whatever class you like), Wouldn't you just be better off aiming for Pitfighter paragon powers? Unless you really wanted to trade that action point power for an At Will power. Doesn't this make you just as much "half fighter" as any of the base class powers? I would think that it does.

If my Warlord has a Fighter heavy blade power, a Fighter utility, a whirlwind attack (is that 9th, I forget) and all of the Pitfighter powers, to me I would very much feel that I was half Fighter and half Warlord. Sure, I wouldn't be marking foes, but if I want to be a defender, I should either make a new character that starts as a fighter.

 

[DM_Blake]

The tangible benefit is getting access to powers and combinations of powers that wouldn't be allowed if you only could pick powers from your primary class.

The level of benefit of those 'non-standard' combinations of powers is variable. But I find it hard to believe that there's no tangible benefit to a melee character being able to throw a fireball or meteor storm, even at the expense of losing a fighter power. Heck the benefit doesn't even have to be that high given that feats, by and large, now give relatively small benefits as a whole.

I think this system works fine. But that's my current opinion. We'll see how it plays.

I remain unconvinced; please convince me.

At any given level you have access to powers of your class.

By spending a feat, you gain access to some other powers you couldn't access before.

But you can still only choose one power. Sure, your list is longer because of the extra powers you accessed through the feat, but you still only get the one power.

The guy who does NOT multiclass also gets one power (from a shorter list) and he also gets to take a feat that he can, theretically, use to his advantage when he needs to.

The only way I see this being a benefit (at least to a power gamer, but also to any gamer who wants his character to make choices that help him survive) is if the newly accessed powers are more powerful than the ones on the class list.

But, if they are, then the whole concept of game balance has failed. Why does one class have hugely superior powers while another class has significantly inferior powers at the same level? Why is the difference so great between these two classes that it is justified to spend a whole feat for nothing more than the ability to access the better powers of the better class.

And if such a game balance disparity exists between the two classes, why wouldn't every power gamer, and every adventurer who wants to survive, simply choose the superior class? Then he would get automatic access to all the superior powers and could use his feats on whatever he wants.

So all it really leaves is the possibility that the system is vastly imbalanced, or maybe these multiclass feats were simply put here for roleplaying purposes, for the player who says "I really want my religious warlock who can blast stuff and can heal his minions, so I will play a warlock who multiclasses into cleric, even though I know I will be weaker for doing so."

If that's the case, shouldn't the DMG have some cautionary text for DMs, something like "Since multiclassing makes the characters weaker, make sure to tone down your encounters if many of the player characters chose this option."

Have I missed the warning text?

 

[DM_Blake]

I too, think the multicalssing feats are quite powerful. Of course, if you choose powers that do not synergize well, you will not do well, but who would choose that? So for a simple 13 in a non-prime ability score(if that) and four feats, you get a four powers that can give you a significant advantage in combat.

And being able to switch them out at higher levels is even better.

But, the guy who doesn't multiclass also has 4 powers that can give him a significant advantage in combat. Unless we are to assume that there is a class in the PHB that has powers that do not synergize well with other powers of the same class? Certainly, at any level, you can pick something from your own class list that synergizes with the other stuff you have already picked from your own class list?

Remember, the guy who doesn't multiclass also has four feats that can give him a significant advantage in combat.

If we're going to compare apples to apples, from an "in combat" point of view, 4 synergized powers is probably never going to be as strong as 4 synergized powers AND 4 feats.

It might be an interesting exercise to build a character from the ground up, all powers and all feats and all other tweaks and upgrades. Make him multiclass into whatever you want. Build another character of the same class and level (using the same starting ability scores, though you might trade out the 13 score in the multiclass requirement) but don't have him multiclass.

Then put them in an arena.

Dice are funny, so maybe moderate the rolls a bit. Don't want a lucky streak to skew the results of the test.

Let em fight a handful of times and see if who wins.

I suppose finding a good combo from multiclassing might grant an edge in combat, even considering the loss of feats.

But I bet most multiclass options end up the losers in the arena.

So it all might just boil down to the winning card combo, er, uh, multiclass combo. If you can find one.

 

[MyISPHatesENWorld]

If we're going to compare apples to apples, from an "in combat" point of view, 4 synergized powers is probably never going to be as strong as 4 synergized powers AND 4 feats.

It might be an interesting exercise to build a character from the ground up, all powers and all feats and all other tweaks and upgrades. Make him multiclass into whatever you want. Build another character of the same class and level (using the same starting ability scores, though you might trade out the 13 score in the multiclass requirement) but don't have him multiclass.

Then put them in an arena.

Dice are funny, so maybe moderate the rolls a bit. Don't want a lucky streak to skew the results of the test.

Let em fight a handful of times and see if who wins.

I suppose finding a good combo from multiclassing might grant an edge in combat, even considering the loss of feats.

But I bet most multiclass options end up the losers in the arena.

So it all might just boil down to the winning card combo, er, uh, multiclass combo. If you can find one.

Your arena standard is rubbish. Why not do something useful, like run through a wide variety of scenarios as part of a party against a wide variety of challenges with mixtures of multiclass and singleclass characters? You'll see pretty quickly that picking up additional ways to move, defend yourself and/or or project force via new powers is worth sacrificing incremental increases in something you can already do sometimes. It works as it should. Sometimes you're better off, sometimes you're worse off.