Multiclass Feat Weirdness?

[theNater]

First, I didn't say attack spells, I said "casting spells." In a world where everyone can heal but only a precious few can cast spells- and of those, Clerics are one of the few full casters- a cleric who can't cast spells is much less cleric-y. Spellcasting is the scarcer PC resource by far.

Everybody can cast spells. Everybody. Every single character. The only difference between a fighter spell and a cleric spell is the power source keyword, which, unless I've missed a rule somewhere, has no effect on the game mechanics at all. It's flavor. It makes the spells sound and feel different, but that's it. We can turn the fighter's Reaping Strike power into an arcane power by changing the flavor text to "As you swing your sword, lasers fire from your hair, striking those who dare to dodge your attack." It is mechanically identical, it just looks different.

On the off chance that there is some mechanical effect to power source that I've missed, I'll also point out that any character can become a spellcaster with no more than two feats. Skill Training(Religion) and Ritual Caster are open to everyone. No prerequisites, no class or race requirements. Your suggestion that spellcasting is hard to come by is ludicrous.

Considering that it opens up Turn Undead and other abilities, I'll disagree as well.

Healing Word merely bolsters other PC's inherent abilities. Spellcasting and Channel Divinity bring a resource to the table that almost no other PC has- the Paladin is the sole exception at this point.

You mean when you multiclass into a leader class, you gain the ability to bolster your allies? And that bothers you?

And of those, which of them makes your PC more cleric-y? Answer- NONE.

I think what Lore Raithbone was suggesting there was not that the Backstabber feat makes you more cleric-y, but that multiclassing works in a more flexible way with many other classes.

And when you find that the abilities your PC from the earlier edition cannot be emulated by having only 2 4Ed "classes" (which describes probably 75% of my PCs) you're out of luck.

Heck, even some of my 2 class PCs have abilities that you can't have in a single 4Ed PC, because they have all of the abilities of those classes (at their relevant levels), not just a cherry-picked few.


3.X allowed a lot of flexibility in PC development- I mean that both from a mechanical and RP standpoint.

That we cannot at this point in 4Ed do a PC who splits his attentions and abilities evenly between 2 or more classes, dabbles in one class then finds his true calling for the rest of his life, and a host of other design choices seems a great step back, not just from 3.X, but even from the 1Ed rules. While multiclassing/dual-classing in that edition wasn't particularly elegant, even then you could choose more than 2 classes for your PC.

Simply put, 4Ed multiclassing rules don't support 75% of my PC concepts from 30 years in the game.

I accept your challenge.

A PC who splits his abilities evenly between two classes: From level 20 on, each character has 4 encounter powers and 4 daily powers. If you get the encounter and daily power swap feats, and take a paragon path from your multiclassed class, at level 20 you will have 2 encounter powers from your primary class, 2 encounter powers from your second class, 2 daily powers from your primary class, and 2 daily powers from your second class. Given that encounter powers and daily powers are your best moves, that's pretty evenly split.

A character who dabbles in one class, then finds his true calling for the rest of his life: Let me introduce you to my friend Pavel. Pavel's family has long been entwined with the local wizard's college, so it seemed natural that he would enroll and begin learning the ways of magic. He was quite good with magical theory, but he didn't really have the gift for spell weaving. He is able to draw up a great deal of magical energy and release it, but he never developed control, and was eventually removed from the college. Despondent, he went to the local tavern to drown his sorrows in drink. And then fate stepped in, in the form of a bar fight. No one knows who started it, but by the time the town guards arrived to restore order, Pavel had bested two of the participants and was fending off three others. Impressed by his skills, the guards offered him a job, which he accepted. He took to the sword like a duck to water, and was besting his trainers in short order. He would now like to offer his strong sword arm to your little band of adventurers in exchange for an opportunity to see the world. And a fair share of the treasure, of course.

In game terms, Pavel is a level 1 fighter with the Arcane Initiate feat. He took the Thunderwave spell as his once per encounter ability. He dabbled in magery, then found his true calling, the sword.

You say you've got more? A lot more? I'd be happy to take a shot at them. Please remember when describing the character concept to focus on what the character can do as much as you can.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Everybody can cast spells.

Everybody has abilities that are mechanically identical to spells.

Not everyone has spells that are sourced from the Divine. That matters, both mechanically and fluffily.

You mean when you multiclass into a leader class, you gain the ability to bolster your allies? And that bothers you?

No.

I mean that when I multiclass into the class that is supposed to model a divine being or philosophy's primary channel to his/its believers, I should have abilities that look like I'm connected to the divine. As a priest, I should be focused on the needs of my flock and potential followers first, and my adventuring buddies second. And I'd bet being able to do something like turn undead would probably be more important to a 4Ed flock-member who has minimal healing surges for the priest to bolster.

I think what Lore Raithbone was suggesting there was not that the Backstabber feat makes you more cleric-y, but that multiclassing works in a more flexible way with many other classes.

Which doesn't address my assertion that the IotF feat doesn't look like it makes you much of a cleric at all, meaning its at best misleading.

A PC who splits his abilities evenly between two classes <snip>

In 3.X, that PC has all the attendent abilities, skills etc. of his multiple classes.

In 4Ed, he has a cherrypicked list. At any given point, you can see a missing ability or something if for no other reason than because he has had to swap abilities from one class to gain some from the other. He definitely won't have the full range of skills as a PC with actual levels in each.

AND, he can only have 2 classes.

A character who dabbles in one class, then finds his true calling for the rest of his life <snip>

Pavel isn't at all what I was referring to.

If he were, he would have been someone who had at least one level of Wizard- with ALL of the abilities thereof- and then picked up the sword with which he became a fierce warrior.

The Pavel you described has all the abilities of a Fighter, with a little wizardry thrown in from the start. Many skills and the like are simply not there.

As to the rest of my stable of PCs, I frequently design PCs with more than 2 classes. One of my oldest PCs has full Druidic shapechange, full access to top level Arcane & Divine spells, and is a Ranger besides.

Seeing as how to gain TWF, he'd have to be a Ranger, that means he'd be losing out on either Arcane or Divine spellcasting...and he sure wouldn't be Shapechanging at any point in the near future. Oh yeah...his most common blast spell was Lightning bolt- most of his arcane spells were transmutation spells.

Another PC was a warrior and thief for many many years...then discovered that the practice of casting illusions made him an even more effective assassin. He's equally proficient in war, thievery, and arcane magic. Except there isn't much illusion magic in 4Ed yet.

My Githzerai polearm-flurrying PsyWar/Monk/PrCl (3rd party, but could have been a WotC one) is completely out in the cold. No psi (Inertial Armor, Expansion, etc.), no monk, seemingly gimped polearm rules. The MM PC version of the race seems much watered down.

My TWF (multiple warrior classed)/Diviner/SpellSword is also going to have to wait a long time before being realized- very few damaging/controlling spells in his repertoire, and no spell-channelling ability in the game as yet.

My Fighter/Cleric of Tyr? Despite having only 2 classes, this isn't a low-level PC, being well into the Paragon level (to use 4Ed lingo) in both. She's specialized in longsword and can turn undead well enough to destroy them. But before you look at her abilities, realize that she advanced as a human fighter for 14-15 levels before devoting herself to Tyr. This isn't mere mechanics, this was a result of the plot of the campaign. This means you can't design her as a cleric first with a smattering of warrior powers- she must be designed as a Fighter first, which in 4Ed means she never gets Channel Divine. Meaning those undead don't get turned and destroyed.

 

[theNater]

Everybody has abilities that are mechanically identical to spells.

Not everyone has spells that are sourced from the Divine. That matters, both mechanically and fluffily.

Fluff is freely rearrangable. How does power source matter mechanically?

I mean that when I multiclass into the class that is supposed to model a divine being or philosophy's primary channel to his/its believers, I should have abilities that look like I'm connected to the divine. As a priest, I should be focused on the needs of my flock and potential followers first, and my adventuring buddies second. And I'd bet being able to do something like turn undead would probably be more important to a 4Ed flock-member who has minimal healing surges for the priest to bolster.

I'm working out of the PHB, not the DMG or MM, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that NPC's and monsters encountered at heroic tier have 1 healing surge and no Second Wind ability. When the cow gets spooked and kicks pa, I'd rather the town priest had Healing Word than Turn Undead. When undead attack the town, I'm okay if the town priest defeats them with steel and magic, rather than godly power, as long as they're gone by morning.

Also, please note that that Healing Word has the divine keyword. Either it is a direct connection to the divine which all multiclass clerics have, or the presence of the divine keyword doesn't actually mean anything. You can't have it both ways.

Which doesn't address my assertion that the IotF feat doesn't look like it makes you much of a cleric at all, meaning its at best misleading.

When you treat a tangentially related statement as if it were intended as a direct refutation, it's at best misleading.

In 3.X, that PC has all the attendent abilities, skills etc. of his multiple classes.

In 4Ed, he has a cherrypicked list. At any given point, you can see a missing ability or something if for no other reason than because he has had to swap abilities from one class to gain some from the other. He definitely won't have the full range of skills as a PC with actual levels in each.

AND, he can only have 2 classes.

By this reasoning, you can't have a single-classed character in 4th edition. Every character has a cherrypicked list of their own class abilities. No fighter has all four of the at-will fighter powers. Does that mean they're not a fighter?

Being a member of a character class in means you have access to the powers from that class. Multiclassing gives you access to the powers from two classes. No ability gives you all powers from one class.

Pavel isn't at all what I was referring to.

If he were, he would have been someone who had at least one level of Wizard- with ALL of the abilities thereof- and then picked up the sword with which he became a fierce warrior.

The Pavel you described has all the abilities of a Fighter, with a little wizardry thrown in from the start. Many skills and the like are simply not there.

Let's compare a 4th level Pavel to a 3rd edition Wiz1/Ftr3, assuming that both of them have wholeheartedly abandoned wizardly activities.

Both of them are very good melee combatants for their level. Both of them have plenty of hit points, are proficient with most weapons and armor, and have a pretty good chance of striking an enemy with their weapon attacks.

Pavel can wear any of the armors he is proficient in without penalty. He has a single spell, which he can cast several times per day. The level dependent effects of his spell are appropriate to a 4th level caster.

Wiz1/Ftr3 has spell failure penalties, so has to choose between being poorly armored for a fighter or having a chance of wasting any spells he tries to cast in combat. He knows a big list of cantrips, and can cast 3 of them per day. He also knows 4-7 1st level spells, and can cast 2 of them per day(assuming int between 12 and 18, inclusive). The level dependent effects of all of his spells are appropriate to a level 1 caster. He is able to Scribe Scrolls, but doesn't do it very much, if at all. He is attended by a familiar with an int of 6, with the abilities, bonuses, and risks that implies. And, unless he's one of a select few races, he is suffering a penalty to all earned experience.

Pavel is more likely to succeed on Arcana checks, as his Arcana skill has been increasing at full speed while Wiz1/Ftr3's has dropped to half speed, as Knowledge is cross-class for a fighter. They are about equally likely to succeed on fighter skill rolls.

Both of their histories indicate that they were trainee wizards who gave up wizardry in favor of the sword.

Compared to Wiz1/Ftr3, Pavel has lost cantrips, a broad spell list, an unused Scribe Scroll ability, and a familiar. Note that single class wizards in 4th edition don't have all of those things, either. He has gained better Arcane knowledge, heavy armor, spells more potent in combat, and quite possibly a decent number of experience points. In combat, he's as good if not better as a fighter. In combat, he's as good if not better as a wizard. If he takes the Ritual Caster feat, he also has spells usable outside of combat.

How is he not part wizard, mostly fighter?

As to the rest of my stable of PCs, I frequently design PCs with more than 2 classes. One of my oldest PCs has full Druidic shapechange, full access to top level Arcane & Divine spells, and is a Ranger besides.

True, you can no longer have all of the abilities of a top-level druid, a top-level sorcerer, and a top-level ranger. This is a feature, not a bug.

Seeing as how to gain TWF, he'd have to be a Ranger, that means he'd be losing out on either Arcane or Divine spellcasting...and he sure wouldn't be Shapechanging at any point in the near future. Oh yeah...his most common blast spell was Lightning bolt- most of his arcane spells were transmutation spells.

Try a cleric/ranger. Many of the transmutations are buffs, clerics have plenty of those, and a good number of the others are save-or-die effects, which have been intentionally removed. A few of the others have turned into rituals, and clerics come pre-equipped with the ability to cast rituals.

Shapeshifting is out, but if you carry a handful of weapons and say "I'm turning into an alligator" when you pull out the greataxe, I won't argue with you.

Another PC was a warrior and thief for many many years...then discovered that the practice of casting illusions made him an even more effective assassin. He's equally proficient in war, thievery, and arcane magic. Except there isn't much illusion magic in 4Ed yet.

Rogue, with Ritual Caster. You'll have to carefully plan your illusions, but I'm sure you can handle that. You could multiclass into warlock or wizard for a couple more illusions. I'm mostly thinking invisibility effects, but Raven's Glamor(Warlock 22) is just too cool not to mention.

My Githzerai polearm-flurrying PsyWar/Monk/PrCl (3rd party, but could have been a WotC one) is completely out in the cold. No psi (Inertial Armor, Expansion, etc.), no monk, seemingly gimped polearm rules. The MM PC version of the race seems much watered down.

I asked you to focus on what the character does. I don't know what this character does, aside from wield a polearm and use the Inertial Armor and Expansion psi abilities. Polearms are avaliable. I can't speak to Inertial Armor or Expansion, because I only have the 3.5 PHB in front of me, but if they're buffs, cleric, warlord, and fighter have some nice buffs(fighter's are mostly self-only), and if they're attacks, well, wizards and warlocks have quite a variety of attacks.

My TWF (multiple warrior classed)/Diviner/SpellSword is also going to have to wait a long time before being realized- very few damaging/controlling spells in his repertoire, and no spell-channelling ability in the game as yet.

Two-weapon fighting comes from ranger, diviner comes from rituals. For the spellsword, why not multiclass into wizard for the Wizard of the Spiral Tower paragon path? All the spells you use will be being channeled through your longsword.

My Fighter/Cleric of Tyr? Despite having only 2 classes, this isn't a low-level PC, being well into the Paragon level (to use 4Ed lingo) in both. She's specialized in longsword and can turn undead well enough to destroy them. But before you look at her abilities, realize that she advanced as a human fighter for 14-15 levels before devoting herself to Tyr. This isn't mere mechanics, this was a result of the plot of the campaign. This means you can't design her as a cleric first with a smattering of warrior powers- she must be designed as a Fighter first, which in 4Ed means she never gets Channel Divine. Meaning those undead don't get turned and destroyed.

I never said I'd replicate your character career path, I said I'd replicate your character concept. To get the character she is now, I'd go cleric/fighter. But, since we're working for results, not names of abilities, try this. Start as a fighter, devote her to Tyr by becoming a fighter/cleric. Further devote her to Tyr with the Radiant Servant paragon path. Solar Wrath isn't named Turn Undead, but it does smite the undead with holy power, with the added bonus that it has additional effects on demons as well as undead.

 

[unobserved]

Try reflavoring Sacred Flame like this:
With a short prayer, you imbue your arrow with holy power.
Now you have an at-will ranged attack that uses your bow. It also provides "healing" in the form of temporary hit points. Similar reflavors can be done for many Cleric ranged attacks.

Sorry that does not cute it for me. I can reword the whole book then why stop at flavor text. Thing is that they said 4e had MCing at 1st lvl where you were both classes. That was a HUGE stretch of the truth.

As core books that was said to have MCing I find it VERY limiting and to say it will come in splat books is crap. I didnt buy the core books to need to buy splat books.

Cut it out already. Problem. Solution. Solution rejected to keep whining about having already bought the books. They lied to you. Got your hopes up. You hate them. We get it. Take the books back! Sell them on ebay! Show those WotC bastards you mean business!

If you're only purpose here is to be reject peoples ideas when they try to help you out, well then ... you're just taking up space. One trick pony, blah, blah, blah.

 

[Particle_Man]

Have you looked at the "Epic" multiclasser the Eternal Seeker?

There is a way (with half-elf) to have powers from all 8 classes!

Class A (base)
Class B (half-elf)
Class C (heroic level multiclass feat(s)
Classes D, E, F, G (Seeker of the Many Paths)
Class H (Seeker's Lore).

If you stick to two classes, I think you can manage a 30th level character that uses almost no powers (except the at will ones) from his base class.

Replace an encounter, a utility and a daily with the three heroic level "swap" feats. Take the paragon path of your multi for its 11, 12, and 20.
seeker of the many path takes care of all encounters and dailies from then on, and you swap out a utility using seeker's lore.

So we are at 3 utility, 4 encounter, and 4 daily powers from the special guest class. That leaves 2 (or 3) at will and 4 utility powers from the base class.

Looks pretty multi for me. Any more and you should flip the character over and make the other class the base class.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Pavel isn't at all what I was referring to.

If he were, he would have been someone who had at least one level of Wizard- with ALL of the abilities thereof- and then picked up the sword with which he became a fierce warrior.

The Pavel you described has all the abilities of a Fighter, with a little wizardry thrown in from the start. Many skills and the like are simply not there.

As to the rest of my stable of PCs, I frequently design PCs with more than 2 classes. One of my oldest PCs has full Druidic shapechange, full access to top level Arcane & Divine spells, and is a Ranger besides.

Seeing as how to gain TWF, he'd have to be a Ranger, that means he'd be losing out on either Arcane or Divine spellcasting...and he sure wouldn't be Shapechanging at any point in the near future. Oh yeah...his most common blast spell was Lightning bolt- most of his arcane spells were transmutation spells.

Another PC was a warrior and thief for many many years...then discovered that the practice of casting illusions made him an even more effective assassin. He's equally proficient in war, thievery, and arcane magic. Except there isn't much illusion magic in 4Ed yet.

My Githzerai polearm-flurrying PsyWar/Monk/PrCl (3rd party, but could have been a WotC one) is completely out in the cold. No psi (Inertial Armor, Expansion, etc.), no monk, seemingly gimped polearm rules. The MM PC version of the race seems much watered down.

My TWF (multiple warrior classed)/Diviner/SpellSword is also going to have to wait a long time before being realized- very few damaging/controlling spells in his repertoire, and no spell-channelling ability in the game as yet.

My Fighter/Cleric of Tyr? Despite having only 2 classes, this isn't a low-level PC, being well into the Paragon level (to use 4Ed lingo) in both. She's specialized in longsword and can turn undead well enough to destroy them. But before you look at her abilities, realize that she advanced as a human fighter for 14-15 levels before devoting herself to Tyr. This isn't mere mechanics, this was a result of the plot of the campaign. This means you can't design her as a cleric first with a smattering of warrior powers- she must be designed as a Fighter first, which in 4Ed means she never gets Channel Divine. Meaning those undead don't get turned and destroyed.

How about you stick to just those characters you could build and that would not totally suck in core 3.0? Hmm?? That would not be unreasonable, seeing as you're using 8 years of supplements there.

We have two books - TWO! - from which to take classes and races from. (I say two because you could use some of the monsters from the MM as races. For classes there is only one book and 8 classes.) To be dead honest, none of those characters you mentioned are doable in pure 3.0 core. The caster multiclasses will have utterly useless casting, except for utility spells, and the other ones use races/feats/classes that simply do not exist in 3.0 core. With pure 3.5 core there's maybe one or two - Mystic Theurge could get you your arcane/divine spellcasting multiclassing working somewhat. But the others still do not exist in 3.5 core either. You did not build these characters in a core-only environment, so why would you expect that 4e core can do it??

Please, be reasonable in your requests. Thank you.

 

[melkoriii]

Cut it out already. Problem. Solution. Solution rejected to keep whining about having already bought the books. They lied to you. Got your hopes up. You hate them. We get it. Take the books back! Sell them on ebay! Show those WotC bastards you mean business!

If you're only purpose here is to be reject peoples ideas when they try to help you out, well then ... you're just taking up space. One trick pony, blah, blah, blah.

Actually its that ppl are saying our upsetness is not justified.

I love most of 4e. I hate the MCing rules and feel lied to. Can you understand that?

To me its like if they said 4e had spell casters but then when you get the books there is no spell casting class and only 4 feats that give you weak spellish powers.

I disappointed that the with the classes they pigeon hole you into few concepts.

Even without Multi-Classing.

Cant have a Bow using Cleric or Warlord (all weapon powers are melee/str only)


I have not problems with swapping at-wills, encounters and dailies when MCing.

You lessen your ability to do one role to gain some ability to do another role.

How is that unbalanced?

 

[unobserved]

Actually its that ppl are saying our upsetness is not justified.

I love most of 4e. I hate the MCing rules and feel lied to. Can you understand that?

Sure I can understand that. But what are you going to do about it?

Someone offered you a way to make superficial changes that could help you along the path to enjoying the game the way you want to enjoy it. Saying "That doesn't cut it" isn't the point.

The person trying to help isn't a designer of the game; he wasn't asking for your input on what changes he could personally implement for PHB2 or the PHB Errata. He was trying to help you figure out a way to make your vision viable in your game.

If that doesn't "cut it" for you, too bad. Wait for splat books, make up your own rules or play another game. But give up on the axe grinding cause it's not getting you anywhere.

If you can't come to terms with decisions that were made without consulting you, then vote with your wallet and return your books and don't buy anymore in the future.

Complaining is not a solution. It's a distraction.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Complaining is not a solution. It's a distraction.

Or continued complaining after everyone has acknowledged your complaint and tried to assist you won't get you anywhere. We've read your complaint about 5 times in this thread. We know what it is. If you are unwilling to accept suggestions and advice on how to cope with the system until the option you want is actually built by the developers, then please stop restating it.

I'm not trying to be insensitive, it does suck that what you want isn't really built into the system yet. I'm just saying that making the same complaint over and over doesn't accomplish anything unless you're willing to listen to possible solutions.

 

[webrunner]

Fluff is freely rearrangable. How does power source matter mechanically?

Here's one: Arcane Reach, page 202, is a feat that only works with Arcane powers.