Multiclassing Feats & Powers

[zookeeper]

Multiclass so that you can be a fighter who can toss a fireball. Multiclass to get skill training in a skill you like, with the added bonus of a new power.

This is also assuming you meet the prerequisites for the power (some do have them).

A fighter who multiclasses into wizard is not an apprentice mage. He is a fighter who has picked up a few spells.

A wizard is not a stage magician. A stage magician is a performer. His ability to perform tricks is secondary to his ability to provide patter. A good stage magician can entertain a crowd for an hour with just 1 trick. A really good one can do it without any tricks at all.

OK - bad anology - but the point is still valid. A wizard (even a multiclassed wizard) that can only cast 3 spells is not worth having. (IMHO)

If you replace all of your fighter powers with wizard powers, you now have the armor, hit points, and healing surges of a fighter and the powers of a wizard. I fail to see how this is balanced.

But this can not happen. You only can have 3 powers. My thoughts were after you multiclass to be able to select either class power. Anything before that would still be fighter powers.

If we assume that the Skill Training feat is about as valuable as any other feat, the class specific feats are worth much more than one feat.

If we assume that, then your correct. I never thought Skill Training was worth a feat to begin with. There are alot of feats I don't think are worth a thing. But thats my opinion and I know others will disagree. A feat (IMO) should be special, a bonus to saves so you could possibly live longer, a bonus to attacks so you can hit easier, a bonus to AC so you might not get hit as often, a bonus on ranged attacks to reduce those penalities, armor and weapon proficiencies to reduce penalities, spell penatration to overcome SR, extra turning to turn more undead, basically things that help in combat situations. Things like Skill Training, Alertness, Animal Affinity, or other things like that (bonuses to skills) I never thought should be feats.

Now before anyone yells about this, I do know that there are times skills can help in combat. So please don't scream and shout about this, it's my opinion.

You are not required to spend all of the feats. You can select to only spend feats on power swapping if the new power is good enough to be worth a feat.

Then you would get even less powers.

Correct. You meet the class prerequisite for these feats and paragon paths, but not the other prerequisite.

OK - but thier example of the "a character who takes Initiate of the Faith counts as a cleric for taking feats that have cleric as a prerequisite" But that example is wrong so Why use that example? and Why multiclass to cleric if you can't take the feats?

OK - don't answer this because your going to say I count as a cleric, not the other prerequisites. But it does not make any type of sense.

It is possible that those thing were excluded intentionally, rather than accidentally. Even if that is an error, that does not make it more likely that the inability to select powers from your second class is an error. Those are both related to class features, not powers.

Yes, I agree this could have been intentionally ommitted, just wanted to open the possibility that it was accidental.

3 powers is a non-negligible chunk of your total power list. Also, a character who takes a paragon path from the second class ends up with 6 powers from their second class.

I have to disagree with this, 3 powers may seem like alot, but if you figure that its 3 out of 17 or 18 if human (2,4,4,7). And I believe the powers you get from paragon multiclassing are 1) considered the paragon powers because you get them because your not paragon. and 2) actually a total of 7 levels lower in power than you would get in a paragon path.

If I'm correct about part 1 then these powers can not be traded or retrained or swapped, and Part 2 assumes you select the highest possible level power at each selection.

You don't even have to acquire many abilities from your second class to make a meaningful difference. A fighter who can use Scorching Burst once per encounter is going to be quite distinct from one who cannot.

In the above comparison you are correct, but if you compare a fighter who can lob the Scorching Burst, to a fighter who can Lob a Scorching Burst one round and hit melee with Shocking Grasp through his sword on the next round. The second fighter is much more impressive.

 

[zookeeper]

Is there something that specifically addresses this question?

The wording can be read in such a way as to give access to the Ability as written (which normally gives the user two 'surges'), but limited only to only one use per day as opposed to once per encounter as gained by Clerics themselves.

The multiclass feat specifically states you may only use it once per day. If it was something else it would be spelled out that way.

 

[toxicspirit]

To be pedantic, the multi-class feat states that you can use the Power once per day. The Power itself grants two uses every time that Power is used, which for a Cleric could be once per encounter, but for an Initiate could be once per day.

I'm not saying this is the case, but the reason I asked the question in the first place is that the wording of the feat itself is not clear enough for me. Using only the feat's wording in response isn't terribly helpful in this case.

 

[Propheous_D]

The one thing people seem to be forgetting is that you don't have to bother multi-classing into the base class at al if you want you can go straight to the other classes Paragon Class. As long as you took the prerequisites needed you can switch from say a Ranger with Rogue multi-class feat into a Rogue Paragon Path with main Ranger.

I personally think that using your Paragon Path to multi-class into a base class doesn't seem worth the effort given the relative power of paragon path abilities. However, that is just me.

 

[Zurai]

To be pedantic, the multi-class feat states that you can use the Power once per day. The Power itself grants two uses every time that Power is used, which for a Cleric could be once per encounter, but for an Initiate could be once per day.

No. The power says it can be used twice per encounter, as a specific override to the general rule that Encounter powers can only be used once per encounter. Initiate of the Faith is an even more specific rule that specifically says you can use the power once per day. Using the power twice in one day clearly is not the same as using the power once in one day. The first is specifically disallowed by the feat.

If the feat said "You can use the Cleric's Healing Word power as a Daily Power", you'd be correct. It doesn't, however. It says "You may use the Cleric's Healing Word power once per day".

 

[lkj]

I personally think that using your Paragon Path to multi-class into a base class doesn't seem worth the effort given the relative power of paragon path abilities. However, that is just me.

Unless you can swap up your paragon multiclass powers.

AD

 

[Pickles JG]

But this can not happen. You only can have 3 powers. My thoughts were after you multiclass to be able to select either class power. Anything before that would still be fighter powers.

.....

If we assume that, then your correct. I never thought Skill Training was worth a feat to begin with. There are alot of feats I don't think are worth a thing. But thats my opinion and I know others will disagree. A feat (IMO) should be special, a bonus to saves so you could possibly live longer, a bonus to attacks so you can hit easier, a bonus to AC so you might not get hit as often, a bonus on ranged attacks to reduce those penalities, armor and weapon proficiencies to reduce penalities, spell penatration to overcome SR, extra turning to turn more undead, basically things that help in combat situations. Things like Skill Training, Alertness, Animal Affinity, or other things like that (bonuses to skills) I never thought should be feats.

.....


In the above comparison you are correct, but if you compare a fighter who can lob the Scorching Burst, to a fighter who can Lob a Scorching Burst one round and hit melee with Shocking Grasp through his sword on the next round. The second fighter is much more impressive.

If the most efficient multiclass is probably taking the 4 feats then choosing a Paragon path relating to the secondary class for 6 powers. the biggest issue with this is IMO that you do not get an at will from both classes.

The feat thing is 3 ed thinking -> feats are more common & generally less powerful in 4. Multiclass ones are amongst the best ones. Any melee character can MC into the warlord one for a once a day heal for example.

"Paragon" multiclassing does seem a bit too expensive. The powers are fine - to get your at will you get a level 7 encounter power (vs a level 11) a level 10 utility vs 12 & a level 19 daily vs level 20. This is a barely noticeable difference.
The loss of the level 11 & level 16 Paragon features is more of a hit.
I expect feats will let you buy some class feature at some point - but giving them all free cf the earlier post in the thread is far too much.

As with most of these themes the last quoted pargraph seems to imply that the OP just wants more power. I am not saying he does it's just that the context of multiclassing it is always "I want more" without stating what one is willing to give up for the flexibilty.

What you can clearly do in 4ed is refluff your powers. eg Anvil of Doom (F 13) could become Channelled Shock with the same effect - & your DM may let you alter the damage type to all or part Lightning or allow it with different weapons. (I would let the damage type change & would let the other bit work provided weapon based powers & feats were not being cherry picked)

 

[wayne62682]

In my opinion, the 4E multiclassing feats are probably the worst part about the new system. I admit that the 3.x version was needlessly clunky and nearly always resulted in a mishmash "build" with a couple levels in a half a dozen classes, but the 4E incarnation seems to make it all but worthless.

The first feat doesn't seem to be worth a Feat slot (although Feats in general seem to have been made ultra-sucky in 4E) since you get some very minor ability that you can't even use fully and a trained skill. No proficiencies, no class abilities, nothing but a crippled power. To add insult to injury, you then must *replace* your regular class's powers if you want to add a power or two from another class, instead of supplementing them. I think that 4E limited powers far too much to be useful, since 95% of the time you're just going to use your crappy at-will powers, saving the encounter and daily powers for "boss" monsters.

The point of multi-classing was so you could do two things equally well. 3.x never got this and thus forced taking various classes to properly mesh the skills together. 4E has crippled it completely in my opinion. You just don't get enough bang for your buck if you ask me.

 

[hamishspence]

given that a trained skill = a feat

the multiclass feats aren't any worse than Skill training, and can be at least a little better.

 

[toxicspirit]

A solution would be to give access to an additional Class Feature with every new multi-class feat (except the first, which already grants this bonus). This way, if someone is dedicated to multi-classing all the way, then they actually gain a benefit from those three 'wasted' feats and the loss of the Paragon Powers.