Multi classing Objections: Rules vs. Fluff?

[ad_hoc]

You couldn't just wake up one morning and decide to gain a level in fighter so you could wear better armour!

The optimal way to have better armour is to be a Fighter first so you have heavy armour. If you pick a level of Fighter later you only get medium armour.

Which is yet another reason why Multiclassing is terrible.

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

I prefer to think of it as not choosing to use that particular variant.

 

[Oofta]

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.


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.

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.

Saying that your opinion matters more then mine doesn't make it a fact no matter how long your response.

In my opinion, powers in 4E were effectively spell-like supernatural abilities. Don't like my opinion about a dead edition of D&D? Take it up with someone that cares. Label a cow a pig all you like. It's still going to moo.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Saying that your opinion matters more then mine

Is not something I have done. Opinion doesn't even enter into it.

You made statements that were false, I corrected them, you backed up and claimed they were 'opinions' rather than just admitting your mistake. Now you're trying to paint the facts that disproved your statements as my opinions. They're facts, they're right there, in the book, in slightly smudged print. Anyone can check them. (And selectively quote them out of context - "magic in the conventional sense!!!!" - to set off another cycle of misrepresentations and corrections).

In my opinion, powers in 4E were effectively spell-like supernatural abilities.

In the opinion of the flat-earther, the world is flat. You are both objectively wrong. You are entitled to hold an opinion that is contrary to the facts, of course. You are free to express that opinion. And you have every right expect to have it explained to you, each time you do so, that you are saying something that is flatly, factually false.

If you want to relate an opinion in an intelligible way, try doing it in the form of something other than a factually false statement.

 

[Satyrn]

Label a cow a pig all you like. It's still going to moo.

My druid wildshapes into a cow and infiltrates the pasture. Just to mess with you, he teaches the herd to oink.

 

[Oofta]

Is not something I have done. I've said, don't hide behind opinion, just admit to the facts.

In the opinion of the flat-earther, the world is flat. You are both objectively wrong.

If you want to relate an opinion in an intelligible way, try doing it in the form of something other than a false statement.

I've never said they were not labeled "martial". I, and people I played with considered them spell-like supernatural abilities.

Or are you saying that it's not a fact that my opinion is different than yours?

P.S. you're crossing the line into bullying here.

 

[Oofta]

My druid wildshapes into a cow and infiltrates the pasture. Just to mess with you, he teaches the herd to oink.

If he had multi-classed into wizard he could make them fly too!

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've never said they were not labeled "martial". I, and people I played with considered them spell-like supernatural abilities.

Then you, and they are considering them to be something they are not. They are explicitly not spells, and not supernatural.

Spell-like did not have a meaning in 4e, but in other editions it refers to magical powers (which exploits explicitly were not), which among other things, might have the exact same effects (both mechanical resolution & 'fluff') as a specific spell, but without components, would not function in anti-magic, would be subject to magic resistance, and could be dispelled if the spell they called was subject to dispel magic.

None of those things applied to 4e exploits.

I accept that you and your fellows suffered from that misapprehension, and if there is a valid underlying opinion, and you can find a way of expressing it without contradicting the facts, I would be open to hearing it.

P.S. you're crossing the line into bullying here.

I am cutting you miles of slack in the name of courtesy.

 

[Satyrn]

If he had multi-classed into wizard he could make them fly too!

Well, this is the multiclassing thread so of course he did! He's also got levels of paladin with the oath of the ancients, to strengthen his role as champion of the wilds. Warlock, too, and for that I chose a great old one pact, because I wanted the telepathy . . . and so when I smite I can holler out "Cthulhu f'taghn!" as my battlecry.


Anyway, yeah, he can indeed cast fly on them "pigs."

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, this is the multiclassing thread so of course he did! He's also got levels of paladin with the oath of the ancients, to strengthen his role as champion of the wilds. Warlock, too, and for that I chose a great old one pact, because I wanted the telepathy . . . and so when I smite I can holler out "Cthulhu f'taghn!" as my battlecry.
Anyway, yeah, he can indeed cast fly on them "pigs."

To be fair, in the absence of anything like 3.5 Natural Spell, he'll have to resume his humanoid form to do so.

 

[Warpiglet]

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.

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.

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

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.

In answer to the question, no, I don't hold to old combinations as restrictions. I just like to play some of them in the newer ruleset.

I don't want to ban multiclassing at all. It is my preference that unless the desire or need to multiclass happens in emergent play (rare in my group), a character telegraph some skill or interest in the thing they will level into.

I think backgrounds are great. Acolyte is perfect for the future cleric addition and sage is fun for someone who learns to cast (makes some sense if they were an apprentice in the early years).

For me, that is the limitation really. I prefer telegraphing of intent and early adoption of a level in the second class when there is a desire to multiclass.

The last point I would make about this is simple: sometimes people just want to play certain abilities in the context of the game. We might say you have to be single class so as to stay true to character and I call BS on that (for my games). The decision to take a single class fighter instead of a rogue is pretty straightforward and few people would suggest that the player is wrong for wanting to use heavy weapons!

"I don't see how that greataxe which is 1-12 does anything for your personality! You are just a min-maxer! You want better AC! or whatever....makes as much sense to me as you want to play a fighter wizard?! If you were a TRUE roleplayer (tm) you would take wizard and like it! You just want a few extra hit points!"

Uh...yeah. I prefer to play with more ability to be in close...its bad for me, but OK for the fighter's player?

So I am down with a DM regulating what makes sense for his game, restricting what he thinks is "off" for his world or restricting combos he thinks mess up challenges. But I cannot swallow the argument of it being "less" to have a character with a less stereotyped abilities in an of itself.

(this is coming from a person who despises cheese, struggles to stomach game dominating behavior, etc.).

And to the other issue, prestige classes...if they were used to build a world or create variety in a way that meshes with the world, I have no issue. Stacking them up when the combination seems implausible ? Not good for me. I do not see 3 disparate and un linkable prestige classes to be similar to a fighter/rogue.

And maybe we are defending against the former by banning the latter in some cases? It seems a little reactionary. But I very well could play in a game with no optional rules if I knew this to be the case from the outset.