Excerpt: Multiclassing (merged)

[Victim]

Maybe I can make my unhappiness clear by looking at what 4e MCing doesn't give you. It doesn't give you at-will Powers, or (with minor exceptions) other non-Power class abilities. What does this mean?

If you want to MC into a defender you:
1) don't gain Armor, HP or Healing surges: you don't get any tougher, a key defender characteristic. Sure, you can spend even more feats on those things, but then you would have been better off not MCing and getting those feats instead.
2) don't gain the ability to defend allies reliably. While you do get the ability to (possible miss change w/fighter) mark 1 person/encounter with the initial MC feat, and might be able to pick up other defender abilities as encounter powers, your defender abilities will still be negligible. MCing with fighter, you *don't* get the fighters AoO root/anti shift abilities. WotC claims to have made paladin marks relatively unstable to prevent coward-pally tactics. With many enemy, long duration, mobile encounters supposed to be the norm, a single, weak per encounter mark+the option to spend a feat on a per encounter ability just isn't going to cut it.
It is lack of toughness improvements that really galls me: MCing into a defender, by costing feats, effectively *weakens* your defenses (those feats could have been spent on increasing your own defense). The inability to pick up significant party-protection abilities doesn't help any either.

If multiclassing is a tool for getting the powers of another class, going after the non power features (like weapons, armor, HP, skills, etc) with multiclassing feats seems like a mistake. Just take Toughness, and proficiency feats, Skill Training and so forth straight out to achieve your wizard/fighter or X/rogue multiclass.

 

[Shroomy]

Maybe I can make my unhappiness clear by looking at what 4e MCing doesn't give you. It doesn't give you at-will Powers, or (with minor exceptions) other non-Power class abilities. What does this mean?

If you want to MC into a defender you:
1) don't gain Armor, HP or Healing surges: you don't get any tougher, a key defender characteristic. Sure, you can spend even more feats on those things, but then you would have been better off not MCing and getting those feats instead.
2) don't gain the ability to defend allies reliably. While you do get the ability to (possible miss change w/fighter) mark 1 person/encounter with the initial MC feat, and might be able to pick up other defender abilities as encounter powers, your defender abilities will still be negligible. MCing with fighter, you *don't* get the fighters AoO root/anti shift abilities. WotC claims to have made paladin marks relatively unstable to prevent coward-pally tactics. With many enemy, long duration, mobile encounters supposed to be the norm, a single, weak per encounter mark+the option to spend a feat on a per encounter ability just isn't going to cut it.
It is lack of toughness improvements that really galls me: MCing into a defender, by costing feats, effectively *weakens* your defenses (those feats could have been spent on increasing your own defense). The inability to pick up significant party-protection abilities doesn't help any either.

If you MC into a striker: (the following is written under the assumption, borne out in the very limited info we have, that a striker's extra damage comes from their abilities that give extra damage dice, Sneak Attack/Hunter's Quarry/Warlock's Curse)
1) You don't get significant extra damage: you get 1 use of the striker's extra damage ability/encounter (unless you are a warlock, then you lose completely). Given the goal of long fights with many enemies, you aren't gaining even weak striker damage.
2) You aren't getting much mobility, the other striker feature. The warlock can get a per encounter movement ability with his MC feat. All can get per encounter movement abilities with further feat investiture, but 2-3 movement abilities/encounter, with 4e encounter durations, won't play like a high mobility character.
MCing into strikers won't get you either the flavor of a high DPS character, or the flavor of a high mobility character. Yay? Also, like the defender MC armor issue, MCing into strikers doesn't seem to net you weapon proficiencies... which can pose problems. Forcing extra feat expenditure to be able to use the weapon your MCed class requires is asking too much.

The cases of leaders and controllers is less clear, because we don't have much information about higher level healing, or any real idea on how the controller is supposed to control the battlefield.

However, the system is "multi-classing", not "multi-roling", which is what you appear to be asking for. There is no way a system like 4e is going to allow you to seriously gimp your actual starting role, which is why you are seeing restrictions on the number of classes you can MC into, why you don't get access to at-will powers, and why you can only devote 1/3 of your total powers to the new class during the Heroic Tier. To give full access to another role makes your character way over-powered and negates the idea of roles in the first place; heck, unfettered access to the same role has the same effect.

Its clear that 4e MC is intended to add versatility while keeping you largely in the bounds of your chosen role. I think it is a smart trade-off because it avoids the problems at both ends of the power spectrum since you can't make a MC character who will outshine another PC at his role but you also can't divide your levels into a useless mishmash of abilities.

I also think it is clear that we are not seeing the full picture of character conception and design, given that we have largely discussed multi-classing solely in terms of roles, classes, and powers, and to a much lesser extent feats (more or less centered on opportunity cost). Personally, I think that while feats are ultimately weaker than their 3.x counterparts, the sheer number you get makes them an extremely potent force in the conception of your character, which is why I think that the "pre-requisite rule" of MC'ing will probably be one of the most important aspects of the system.

 

[jeffhartsell]

don't get access to at-will powers

Do we know that humans won't get access to a bonus at-will from a second class if multi-classing at 1st level?

 

[Plane Sailing]

God, you're such a tool. This doesn't make any sense. You know it, I know it, they know it.

Completely inappropriate behaviour, muffin_of_chaos. Don't post in this thread again. Any similar use of bad language towards other people will result in a suspension.



Heh, after a short flurry of emails it turns out that muffin_of_chaos was actually insulting himself for a joke, so no harm done. (the quote hopefully be changed soon to make it's attribution clear... at the time the post was originally reported and responded to there was no attribution for the quote).

Cheers

 

[Shroomy]

Do we know that humans won't get access to a bonus at-will from a second class if multi-classing at 1st level?

Nope, but I thought it was half-elves that got that particular ability (I'm not sure if its racial or not). I was just going off the charts provided in the excerpt.

 

[Victim]

Completely inappropriate behaviour, muffin_of_chaos. Don't post in this thread again. Any similar use of bad language towards other people will result in a suspension.

The amusing part is that he was quoting his own post.

 

[Kordeth]

The amusing part is that he was quoting his own post.

When self-criticism is outlawed, only outlaws shall be self-critics.

 

[JohnSnow]

It is lack of toughness improvements that really galls me: MCing into a defender, by costing feats, effectively *weakens* your defenses (those feats could have been spent on increasing your own defense). The inability to pick up significant party-protection abilities doesn't help any either.

Umm...I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that's sort of the point. If the average wizard has a choice between multiclassing to fighter to gain all those class features and blowing a feat to gain armor proficiency, which is he going to take? Without the "hit" to casting, which everyone agrees sucks, the choice is a no-brainer. No-brainer choice = bad design.

If you want to improve your defenses, you should have to take feats to improve your defenses (toughness, armor proficiency, and so forth). If you want to improve your combat ability, you should take feats that improve your combat prowess (weapon proficiency, weapon focus, and the like). That's the way competency expansion is SUPPOSED to work. You aren't supposed to be able to get all the front-loaded features of a class in exchange for dipping into it for one level. That's pretty freaking stupid. You want more hit points? Take toughness. It's the gift that keeps giving. More surges? There's probably a feat that boosts the number of surges you get. I guarantee there's armor and weapon proficiency feats (which probably aren't nearly as "painful" to the character as they were in 3e).

Just want skill training in Thievery? Don't multiclass to Rogue, just take the Skill Training feat.

MCing into strikers won't get you either the flavor of a high DPS character, or the flavor of a high mobility character. Yay? Also, like the defender MC armor issue, MCing into strikers doesn't seem to net you weapon proficiencies... which can pose problems. Forcing extra feat expenditure to be able to use the weapon your MCed class requires is asking too much.

Again, this is not a bug, it's a feature.

Most people splashed rogue for the skill points, not the sneak attack. If you just want Thievery trained, spend a feat to do that. For the character who really wants rogue flavor, take Sneak of Shadows.

It's not complicated. If you want to be able to sneak attack every round, you should be a rogue in the first place. If any class could acquire the features of any other, we'd quickly end up where everyone has all the relevant features of every class, and the concept of roles (and teamwork!) would lose all meaning.

That's not a game I'm interested in. Stop trying to fill the role of two classes. If you insist on doing so, you're not "creating a character concept," you're being a spotlight hog.

 

[Michele Carter]

*says true things*

A little more bluntly honest than I'm generally supposed to be (and believe me, the self-edit is a harsh master), but...yeah.

I very rarely played multiclassed characters in previous editions, because they were just too much of a pain. Different hit dice, different attack bonuses, spellcasters fuggetaboutit. It wasn't beyond my capability to figure out, it just wasn't worth the trouble most of the time.

4E, I'm finding, lets me make the characters I always wanted to, to the degree I want. A rogue with a taste for warlock powers, a warlord with a talent for wizardry, a wizard who can heal. All without giving up my primary role and function in a party, and without taking useless levels in another class and nerfing my primary abilities.

Shiny!

 

[neceros]

4E, I'm finding, lets me make the characters I always wanted to, to the degree I want. A rogue with a taste for warlock powers, a warlord with a talent for wizardry, a wizard who can heal. All without giving up my primary role and function in a party, and without taking useless levels in another class and nerfing my primary abilities.

Shiny!

Exactly.