Excerpt: Multiclassing (merged)

[Caliber]

Without having to retype what I mentioned in another post, I don't think powers alone define a class. Or at least I hope it's not the case in 4e. I might be wrong, but we've seen abilities in classes that are not powers, and the multiclass doesn't get these. I also think that many powers are going to be very similar in a way, just affecting a different defense, for example, and that to make feat multiclassing work you'll need to very carefully select the powers you want. Is a fighter with the rogue multiclass feat and the tumble power a rogue? I don't think so. Having the ability to tumble doesn't define being a rogue.

Pinotage

But said Fighter would also be Trained in Thievery and Sneak Attack 1/encounter, assuming he only spent the two feats required to gain his Tumble ability. A Fighter that tumbles into the thick of melee and stabs someone in the kidney (or liver, spleen, you pick the organ) sounds pretty Rogue-ish to me. Two more feats will give him what I imagine would be equally Rogue like abilities, which as others have pointed out, will constitute a large percentage of his abilities. And since he can trade out his Rogue abilities every level, he can always pick from the cream of the crop, and even drop off abilities that don't work out.

What doesn't sound Rouge-y about that to you? What do you think he needs to be more Rogue-like? The ability to catch people flat-footed? There was another feat that offered that ...

 

[HeinorNY]

***forget it***

QFT

 

[Stormtalon]

The question I have boils down thusly:

The three power-swapping feats have minimum level limits.

They can presumably be taken after level 11.

which leads to the question:

Is there anything which would prevent the feats from being taken more than once, if you want to do a bit more than merely dabble (and yet still go down a Paragon Path)?

If I were inclined to houserule anything, it would be to explicitly state that, "These feats can be taken more than once. Each time you take it you can swap another power of the same type."

 

[dimonic]

As you said, "If you can't pick up the ability to fulfill a second class role (even crappily), yes, it is dabbling." You can, in fact, fulfill a second class role, even if it is crappy. Therefore it's not dabbling.

Besides, fulfilling the role is entirely dependent on the numbers of your opponents. If you're fighting a Solo creature then you're performing it just as well as any full-fledged Paladin. Even with greater numbers, you can still target the biggest, most powerful creature with Divine Challenge and keep him from attacking the weaker characters. That is fulfilling your role. You may not be able to do it twice or more per encounter, but so long as you use it on the toughest opponents, I doubt you'd have much cause to use it more then once.

I would suggest that I don't think these multiclass characters are intended to be able to play two roles equally. The player should choose which one is to be filled as a primary, and accept that the secondary role will be sub-optimal. That is Ok with me.

True "equal" multiclassing may never be possible with 4e. However, as I look at the various multiclass combos I have created, many of them (the pure martial ones) I can create better in 4e, sometimes within a single class, and the cross power cores (arcane + martial) work much better than they did in 3e. So far, I am delighted.



Truth is, 3e multiclassing for martial characters worked because most of the class features required actions to use, so at any instance, you were either one class, or the other. In fact, those "dips" that were most broken were those that gave abilities that were not "actions required", such as Rage. 4e cannot use the same mechanic because more class features are always on, or do not require actions to employ.

 

[AlphaAnt]

Truth is, 3e multiclassing for martial characters worked because most of the class features required actions to use, so at any instance, you were either one class, or the other. In fact, those "dips" that were most broken were those that gave abilities that were not "actions required", such as Rage. 4e cannot use the same mechanic because more class features are always on, or do not require actions to employ.

QFT. Non-action features should come from feats, not classes.

 

[Kraydak]

I would suggest that I don't think these multiclass characters are intended to be able to play two roles equally. The player should choose which one is to be filled as a primary, and accept that the secondary role will be sub-optimal. That is Ok with me.
...

While I would argue that the preview suggests that the secondary role will be more than merely suboptimal, I am in agreement with the above. On the other hand, I feel that calling this mechanic multi-classing is misleading. You aren't gaining the ability to act as multiple classes. In previous editions, you did. If WotC had admitted that they weren't including multiclassing, but might later, and were providing mechanics for dabbling in other classes as a way to tweak (rather than fundamentally modify) your character, they would have been honest. As it is... they are misrepresenting the mechanics. They appear decent at what they were designed to do, and it isn't the mechanic's fault that their design parameters are at odds with their name.

In the above I am assuming that, say, most/most of a striker's extra damage *isn't* coming from their Powers being better, but rather the extra dice abilities, which aren't relevantly picked up by the multi-classing feats, or most of the fighter's defender abilities are, as appears in the DDXP, wrapped up in non-exploit abilites.

 

[Stalker0]

Alright, ALRIGHT!! I've gotten some sleep, and calmed down. Man, I don't normally rant on the boards, but I saw this article and it just infuriated me for some reason, as my path of heated comments from yesterday will show.

But now I can hope to look at this a little more rationally.

Thinking about it more, I recognize that the initial feats can't be too good, else everyone will want to multiclass. I still think that the powers feat requires too much. I think one feat for 3 powers would be good, 3 for 3 seems too much. But hey, I can wait to see the powers list before I can say that for sure.

Lastly, to me my biggest peave with it right now is that the multi classing feats don't seem to balance with each other.

Compare the ranger one with the rogue.

Ranger: I can mark a target, and a do a permanent extra d6 of damage to it the entire combat.

Rogue: I can 1/encounter attack a guy for an extra 2d6 damage, assuming I have a light blade (which many classes that would want to multiclass into rogue probably wouldn't want). However, I also have to get combat advantage. Since I don't get the rogue's first strike ability, I have to work to make this happen. And of course, if I miss, I've wasted my ability for the whole fight.

Those two aren't even close. In fact, I think the ranger's is the strongest one on the table. Its prereqs are easy to make as you can have one or the other. It lasts for a long time, and it works with anyone, whether its magic missile or a sword blow.

I don't understand why they couldn't make sneak attack 2/encounter or 3.

Take the cleric for example. When the other multi class abilities grant per encounter abilities, this one gives you a once per day. Once per day is such a HUGE gap, that's the difference between an ability being used 2-6 times a day or once. Further, the cleric can normally gives his party a big bonus to healing after combat when they are using surges. This guy can't do any of that.

Why couldn't the feat provide a 2/day healing? I mean, the cleric can use healing word twice per encounter, so why not bump it to twice per day?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

On the "nefarious WotC plans to create a large amount of new core classes" - is that so different from 3E? Okay, there were not so many core classes, but there were tons of prestige class. If you add 3 prestige classes together, you also get 30 levels of class.

Interestingly, most of the new base classes seem to come in the Player Handbooks. That basically means we won't see as many base classes as we saw PrCs, and that might mean they could be generally useful. Most PrCs in most splatbooks I own will never see play, since they fit none of my character concepts. Heck, most where so hard to qualify for that I never got in a reasonable level range to do it, especially not with a "organically" growing character. Yet I still bought these books. And I am sure I am not alone. Because there were sometimes interesting things - a few nice feats, maybe one of of 8 PrCs, a interesting core class, a good spell.

But I suspect you will always be able to make a character concept for Druid, a Bard, a Illusionist, a Swashbuckler or a Swordmage.
If anything, this means we might get more bang for our buck with this approach.

And is that such a bad thing? In most fiction with an ensamble cast you are divided into "competent" (PCs) and "not as good, but come in handy once in a while" (NPCs/Hirelings).

Yes, it is a bad thing. Most fiction doesn't have ensemble cast, actually.
But the little that have (like maybe the Fantastic Four) are very distinct in what they can do. Invisiblity and Force Fields lead to very different combat uses then great strength and resistance.

If every character _has_ to pick up Dodge and Firearms (as a typical example), something is wrong. Any character concept that doesn't contain these skills is automatically less used, since it's suboptimal.

Every character should be competent, but not every character should be good at the same things. Heck, every character should be special, but they shouldn't be special in the same ways!

 

[Stalker0]

On the "nefarious WotC plans to create a large amount of new core classes" - is that so different from 3E?

I'm seeing this argument a lot, and its getting old. While there's a section of people who think 3e is the most godly thing ever, most of us liked 3e but agreed their were flaws. So in a new edition, we want things to be...better!! If something is the same as 3e and its considered a flaw, well all your saying is that 4e is just as crappy in certain ways as 3e, and that's not what you want to hear out of a new edition.

 

[Crosswind]

I think it's more than a bit funny that the "I can't create my concept with this system!" group, when explaining what their cleric/rogue/divine seeker concept is, almost invariably uses a prestige class that wasn't in the PHB.

...really? You think that 10 extra books piled with options might help you nail your concept better?

Because tell me: How did you all create a good fighter/mage from the 3.5 PHB?

-Cross