Multiclassing Feats & Powers

[Andor]

I remain unconvinced; please convince me.

At any given level you have access to powers of your class.

By spending a feat, you gain access to some other powers you couldn't access before.

But you can still only choose one power. Sure, your list is longer because of the extra powers you accessed through the feat, but you still only get the one power.

The guy who does NOT multiclass also gets one power (from a shorter list) and he also gets to take a feat that he can, theretically, use to his advantage when he needs to.

The only way I see this being a benefit (at least to a power gamer, but also to any gamer who wants his character to make choices that help him survive) is if the newly accessed powers are more powerful than the ones on the class list.

But, if they are, then the whole concept of game balance has failed. Why does one class have hugely superior powers while another class has significantly inferior powers at the same level? Why is the difference so great between these two classes that it is justified to spend a whole feat for nothing more than the ability to access the better powers of the better class.

And if such a game balance disparity exists between the two classes, why wouldn't every power gamer, and every adventurer who wants to survive, simply choose the superior class? Then he would get automatic access to all the superior powers and could use his feats on whatever he wants.

So all it really leaves is the possibility that the system is vastly imbalanced, or maybe these multiclass feats were simply put here for roleplaying purposes, for the player who says "I really want my religious warlock who can blast stuff and can heal his minions, so I will play a warlock who multiclasses into cleric, even though I know I will be weaker for doing so."

If that's the case, shouldn't the DMG have some cautionary text for DMs, something like "Since multiclassing makes the characters weaker, make sure to tone down your encounters if many of the player characters chose this option."

Have I missed the warning text?

The base multi-classing feats, while not without their problems *cough*ranger*cough* are about the most powerful feats available. Skill training, plus an extra encounter power, plus some other power, plus access to the followup feats and more paragon paths. Nice.

The followup feats let you make a straight across swap between the classes.

Why swap and not get new powers?

Kinda obvious. There are 3 levels of powers. From weakest to strongest:

At will
Encounter
Daily

If you give a character extra encounter and daily powers they have a greater depth of strong powers before they have to fall back on the at-wills. Such a character is strictly more powerful than one without. (This doesn't explain why it's so hard to get more at-wills...)

So that's why it's only swapping.

So why swap if all powers are equal?

Well first off not all powers are equal. They are each intended to work for a particular style and role. For example "Come and Get it" is a great power for a fighter. It would be a really, really stupid power for a Wizard.

They are also limited by their role. Big damage is mostly strikers. Healing is mostly leaders. Battlefield control is wizards.

So there are 3 reasons to Multi-class really.

1) You want a power not given to your role, for character concept, or to cover a missing role in the party, or just to exploit a broken combo.

2) Flavor.

3) To shore up a weakness. For example if you find you wizard keeps getting mobbed by fighter types then picking up 'Benign Transposition' may seem like a good idea.

 

[Jhaelen]

It might be an interesting exercise to build a character from the ground up, all powers and all feats and all other tweaks and upgrades. Make him multiclass into whatever you want. Build another character of the same class and level (using the same starting ability scores, though you might trade out the 13 score in the multiclass requirement) but don't have him multiclass.

Then put them in an arena.

Go ahead if you like, but, the thing is: This 'test' wouldn't prove anything meaningful. A one-on-one combat on a flat plain is absolutely meaningless - it has no relevance to anything you'll encounter in an actual adventure (unless of course you have to win a one-on-one arena fight ). You cannot judge the effectiveness of choosing to be more flexible with such a scenario.

If you're looking for pure power gain, multi-classing probably isn't the best choice - barring any 'killer-combos'. Multi-classing shines when a party is missing a member of a given role, either temporary (e.g., because a pc went down) or permanently (e.g. noone wants to play the leader).

 

[ryryguy]

I'm not sure if you've followed this discussion from the begining, the main discussion is technically not over the percentage of the powers, its about a wizard (or other caster) single classed only being allowed to know a total of 17 spells for thier entire career. Or a multiclassed caster only knowing 6 spells for his entire career. (or at least the part you quoted is)

So what exactly is the problem with a caster only having 17 spells, or a multiclassed caster only having 6 spells? In 4e spells are powers. All classes get 17 powers. Is the issue that you feel like casters should have more powers than everybody else?

(I'm not saying you're wrong to feel this way, it's just not clear exactly what about it bothers you.)

So what you seem to be saying here is that 4.0 feats make weaker characters.

I know they are different, but comparing a new system with an older one is just nature. You compare the systems to see if it is better. You buy a new computer you compare thier features.

Not to speak for theNater, but it's not that 4e feats make weaker characters. It's that 4.0 feats make up much less of a character's "strength" compared to how much the feats did in 3.5. More of the character's strength comes proportionally from powers and class features, less from feats. So yes, compared 1-to-1 against 3.5 feats, the 4e feats are weaker. But I think the point is that's not a useful comparison. (Also remember you do get more feats in 4e.)

I think this point actually may relate a little bit to your concern about "casters only get 17 spells". 17 spells does seem like a pretty paltry selection compared to the bulging spellbooks of a 20th level 3.5 wizard. But there are two things to keep in mind:

1) Yes, wizards and other major casters did lose some power and flexibility in 4e - intentionally. They were too good compared to the other classes when you got to higher levels. They were like swiss army knives, with a spell to handle any given situation. It made them fun to play, but the problem was that they tended to outshine the other player characters at the table. Now everybody has those 17 powers (though hopefully with distinct effects). Everybody is much more likely to get an equal chance to contribute.

2) Even given that, I think you might still be comparing apples to oranges, making the downgrade to casters seem more severe than it actually is. Have you checked the ritual section yet? Those are basically noncombat spells, and there's no limit to how many of them your wizard can learn. They probably cover at least 50% of the spells that 20th level 3.5 wizard had in his book. Magic missile is an at-will power that the wizard probably will be using all the way through level 30. Many spells actually scale up as you level (see Sleep for example), and combined with the retraining/swapping opportunities, all your spells should be "working", not just wasting pages in your spellbook.

I have a concern about the suggested house rules for multiclassing. It excessively dilutes the concept of roles in 4E.

The player that starts with a defender is a defender. While you can give up some of your powers in order to spread out into other roles, you are still supposed to be playing the character as a defender. I believe that this was one of the core goals of the designers: make a characters role in the party clear.

Multi-classing mucks up this design goal. To me it seems that the current system (where you can get up to 45% of the other class's abilities) is there to enforce the concept of character roles.

What Grantor said. You mentioned that you wanted a multiclass to give you a little bit of everything, so you could be a striker/controller/defender (I managed to mess up the multiquote and get the exact quote on that, oops). That is a definite change in 4e: a striker/controller/defender goes very much against the grain of the design. It is pretty much impossible to accomplish that with the rules as written. Again, the idea is to give everybody an area where they can shine; muddled roles works against that principle

Personally, I think the multiclassing rules look like a great way to relax the roles a little bit, to let you make a character that's not totally focused on the main role, without going too far in the other direction. But I haven't really played enough yet to be sure - that's just my feeling based on reading them.

Which brings me to my final point. There's nothing wrong or stupid about any of the stuff you want, or ways that the multiclassing or other rules don't feel right to you. It's totally understandable that you miss that wizard with a spell for every occasion, plus two on Sunday, from 3.x, or the ability to attack twice when you have two weapons, or any of the other stuff. There's lots of people who feel the same way, in fact.

I just think that if you really want to evaluate 4th edition, you have to check it out a bit on its own terms. Basically, play the rules as written for a while before you start house ruling things to make it more like 3.x. It's a radical enough shift that there are plenty of things that may just seem wrong when you look at them in isolation and compare them to 3.x, but in play, you may find their true value to be a lot different than you expect. Feat selection is a perfect example of this. The bare naked feat may seem weak and lame compared to a 3.5 equivalent. But in play, it may have a great synergy with a particular power that you have, or a power that one of your teammates has. It may work a lot better in the far more dynamic 4e battlefield, where everyone is moving around lots more than they typically did in 3.x. There are lots of things that aren't obvious on first read!

 

[theNater]

OK - Maybe I misunderstood. I thought you had stated previously that you could swap between classes. Maybe it was someone else.

I don't think that was me, but it has been a long thread. Who knows?

So what you seem to be saying here is that 4.0 feats make weaker characters.

Not exactly. What I'm saying here is that 4th edition feats have less of an effect on character power than 3rd edition feats. The feats are weaker, but overall, characters tend to be more powerful(in combat within their role).

I know they are different, but comparing a new system with an older one is just nature. You compare the systems to see if it is better. You buy a new computer you compare thier features.

Comparing feat systems is entirely appropriate. When you compare systems, it turns out that 4th edition's feat system provides more feats, but each feat is weaker. Thus comparing one feat from 4th edition to one feat from 3rd edition is generally unfavorable to the 4th edition feat.

Fighters do get fewer feats in 4th edition than they did in 3rd edition, but they make up that difference by getting powers.

Agreed, but some of the interesting parts of the game were taken out. Example: You have an opponent badly injured, he tries to take a potion you get the AoO on him and possibly take him out. Now; same situation, he drinks his potion and heals some, and continues to take potions until he runs out of them or until knocked out. You lose the possible treasure of obtaining another healing potion because you can't take him out before he swallows it.

Monsters(which in 4th edition are defined as "anything the party fights") have a fairly limited number of healing surges. Because healing potions consume healing surges, an opponent will not get to drink an endless supply of potions. Also, the party's damage in a single round is almost always going to be significantly more than the amount of healing a potion provides.

If the foe drinking a healing potion is part of the encounter design, then the potion wasn't planned as treasure anyway, so you're not missing out on anything. If your DM is in the habit of consuming your treasure, that's something the table should discuss.

Nice example, just one thing - Weapon Focus would apply to a group, not to individual weapons - lol.

Yup, had a 3eism in my brain. Good catch.

And actually in your example above, you spent 3 feats to get the happy medium, did you forget you also took Weapon Focus?

I didn't count Weapon Focus as part of the extra cost for getting the happy medium because Bob had it in all three setups. I did make him level 4 so that he'd have 3 feats, however.

Yes, you get better attacks, which was also true in 3.5.

When I say better attacks, I don't mean attacks with a slightly better chance to hit, I mean things like Warrior's Challenge(fighter 17), which lets you do triple damage to a single target, push him 2 squares, and mark all nearby enemies. Things like Devastation's Wake(fighter 19), which permits you to do triple damage to each adjacent enemy and take a bonus attack(for normal damage) on each enemy who is adjacent to the fighter at any time during their turn.

An example of my point would be something like: Sam the contractor when he first becomes a contractor takes an hour to build a set of stairs. After building those stairs for a period of time, he can now build 2 sets in the same hour. Yes Sam has gotten more training and experience and even pay for doing this. Now eventually Sam will get to a point where the best he can do is maybe 2 or 3 sets in the hour.

In 4.0 No matter how much training or experience you recieve you can not do any more that what you start at.

Yes, in 4th edition, instead of building two staircases, Sam will build a stairwell connecting multiple floors, or simultaneously build a stairwell in each of the buildings he's working on, or build a handicapped-accessible staircase, or some other such option. Given that in 3rd edition he'd be building 4 staircases at level 20, and the last few would be rush jobs that might not quite work out, I think he's come out ahead.

I may have no choice; they do not sound like anything I would ever have taken in 3.5. As a fighter why in the blue blazes would you ever consider Linguist - you don't need to communicate to fight you only need to swing your weapons.

Yes, Linguist is not a high-priority feat for a basher. Those who can get a bonus to diplomacy checks in skill challenges by speaking in the other person's native tongue are interested in it, though.

That is a good point, but you probably had 3 or 4 low level spells that you remembered and possibly used occasionally (Magic Missile is a very popular one of those). And from a list that was 100's of spells long, everyone possibly had some trouble remembering lower level spells they didn't use often. Now you're limited to 17 as it is now or 25 if you just learn new without losing old. And as with the 100's you will probably have lower level powers you will remember well. Even 20th level casters popped out Magic Missile occasionally.



See above paragraph.

Indeed they did, and indeed they still will. The at-will powers are your low-power frequent use options, and they never go away. However, when you've got Prismatic Burst(wizard 13), do you really need Ray of Enfeeblement(wizard 1)?

Thats not quite true, Improved Disarm let you make the attempt without provoking AoO. And it was almost always bad to try, but the bad parts were the AoO and if the opposed rolls were lower on yours than his, he could attempt an immeadate disarm against you. The feat only took away the AoO. Same type of thing applies to sunder. And just for the record he could achieve these actions without the feats.

Sunder is moderately achievable, but look at disarm. If you get damaged by the opportunity attack, you fail. If the disarmer and the target each have a 50% chance to succeed on attack rolls, then a character attempting a disarm without the feat has a 25% chance of succeeding. I don't count that as sufficiently likely, and if the character is fighting serious monsters, that opportunity attack may well have a better than 50% chance of hitting.

Ok - this daels extra (1,2,or 3) damage, does not give you extra turn attempts, more targets, etc.

Note that Turn Undead is self-improving in 4th edition. It never becomes usable more than once per encounter, but it hits larger areas and increases its damage as the cleric levels. You no longer need feats to do those things.

I'll have to take your word for this. Although a rouge (I still think of as) was the scout, trapfinder, opened locked doors and chests, lifted items off people, and sometimes got into trouble if found on scouting expedition but was usually within a double move action of the other characters.

Rogue still is all those things in addition to being a damage dealer. He gets training in Stealth and Thievery for free, and gets to pick four more skills from a list that includes Perception and Dungeoneering.

Not sure. Was thinking about the fighter/wizard combo. But also thinking I might wait and see what the group needs before making character.

Cool. I'm interested in knowing what you end up with. If you do go with the fighter/wizard, you may want to look at the Expanded Spellbook feat. It doesn't require that you have the Spellbook class feature, so you can use it to put another wizard spell into your repertoire.

It is not situational, it does not rely on you being next to a wall or only apply if attacked by a giant. It is there all the time, it is a permenant bonus to your fortitude defence and applies anytime your fortitude defence is attacked. It's like your AC, your armor is always there its bonus is always there, even if the opponent attacks your reflex defence your AC is not lower because of it.

Yeah, we can look at how some of those things work in various lights. I would like to point out that in a dungeon or a town, getting next to a wall isn't difficult. If you do a lot of your adventuring in wild places, you may want to ask your DM if you can include trees, cliffs, large boulders, and other such things as walls. Or if you've got a wizard in the group, he can make some walls for you to put your back to.

But you can't stand in the front lines and toss spells (in 3.5) you have spell failure, AoO's, and lower (flat-footed) AC's. If your going to toss spells you would most likely move out of combat or only toss one spell while in combat. (Well actually you could stand in front lines and toss spells around but would not be very good for you.)

Right. Those were the balance effects in 3rd edition. 4th edition uses different tools to balance things up, but they are both working to discourage wizards from getting up close and personal with the enemy.

This would be true of any multiclass you would make a better (insert first class role here) than a (insert your second class name here) unless both classes are of the same role.

That's exactly right. That's what multiclassing is for, to make the character better at certain activities than he would be otherwise.

But, the guy who doesn't multiclass also has 4 powers that can give him a significant advantage in combat. Unless we are to assume that there is a class in the PHB that has powers that do not synergize well with other powers of the same class? Certainly, at any level, you can pick something from your own class list that synergizes with the other stuff you have already picked from your own class list?

There's a limit to what you can do with abilities from a single class. Fighters, for example, have no powers that can affect a target more than four squares away. They also have few powers that provide impressive mobility. Multiclassing gives them the opportunity to pick up ranged options or huge mobility.

A fighter/wizard facing enemies 10 squares away can toss a Fireball(wizard 5) into their midst. Or he can Expeditious Retreat(wizard 2) right into the middle of them, then make them Come and Get It(fighter 7). A single classed fighter is limited to either charging or using a ranged basic attack.

 

[zookeeper]

So what exactly is the problem with a caster only having 17 spells, or a multiclassed caster only having 6 spells? In 4e spells are powers. All classes get 17 powers. Is the issue that you feel like casters should have more powers than everybody else?

(I'm not saying you're wrong to feel this way, it's just not clear exactly what about it bothers you.)

If your a single classed caster and the rules say you get 17 powers, so be it. My problem is with the multiclassed caster only getting 4. You gat a total of 17 powers for your career, by giving up powers from your primary class (losing power) you should be able to pick up powers from your secondary class (gaining power) effectively balancing out.

Not to speak for theNater, but it's not that 4e feats make weaker characters. It's that 4.0 feats make up much less of a character's "strength" compared to how much the feats did in 3.5. More of the character's strength comes proportionally from powers and class features, less from feats. So yes, compared 1-to-1 against 3.5 feats, the 4e feats are weaker. But I think the point is that's not a useful comparison. (Also remember you do get more feats in 4e.)

I think this point actually may relate a little bit to your concern about "casters only get 17 spells". 17 spells does seem like a pretty paltry selection compared to the bulging spellbooks of a 20th level 3.5 wizard. But there are two things to keep in mind:

1) Yes, wizards and other major casters did lose some power and flexibility in 4e - intentionally. They were too good compared to the other classes when you got to higher levels. They were like swiss army knives, with a spell to handle any given situation. It made them fun to play, but the problem was that they tended to outshine the other player characters at the table. Now everybody has those 17 powers (though hopefully with distinct effects). Everybody is much more likely to get an equal chance to contribute.

2) Even given that, I think you might still be comparing apples to oranges, making the downgrade to casters seem more severe than it actually is. Have you checked the ritual section yet? Those are basically noncombat spells, and there's no limit to how many of them your wizard can learn. They probably cover at least 50% of the spells that 20th level 3.5 wizard had in his book. Magic missile is an at-will power that the wizard probably will be using all the way through level 30. Many spells actually scale up as you level (see Sleep for example), and combined with the retraining/swapping opportunities, all your spells should be "working", not just wasting pages in your spellbook.

Feats were a big part of 3rd ed. Naturally when looking things over you hit the facts 1) casters (or anyone else) gets 17 powers. 2) Feats are very different from 3rd ed. 3) These tier setup (IMO) really stink. 4) You use different abilities for different attacks and I'm not talking about ranged attacks vs. melee attacks - your melee attacks use different abilities depending on the power used as do ranged attacks. 5) Your limited to a MAX of 3 (or 7) powers from your multiclass depending on your choices at paragon tier.

Then there are stupid little things that make no sense at all like - Why does a fighter need CON to swing an axe? He is using his hands and arms - that sounds like STR to me. And Multiclassing to Ranger can't take a paragon path. And why some feats were put in the Paragon Tier and/or Epic Tier respectively.

Anyway to sum up - I am not just looking at the feats, but everything overall. Although I do find myself comparing feats to feats, powers to spells, etc.

What Grantor said. You mentioned that you wanted a multiclass to give you a little bit of everything, so you could be a striker/controller/defender (I managed to mess up the multiquote and get the exact quote on that, oops). That is a definite change in 4e: a striker/controller/defender goes very much against the grain of the design. It is pretty much impossible to accomplish that with the rules as written. Again, the idea is to give everybody an area where they can shine; muddled roles works against that principle

This seemed to work (for the most part in 3rd ed) except that you got all the benifits of multiclassing. Armor Profs, skills, etc. The balance seemed to be OK.

Let me explain: a 5/5 fighter/wizard combo when compared to a single classed fighter or wizard, had the appropriate power. Had the spells that a 5th level wizard could cast (including the number of spells per day), and the STR (we will say) of a 5th level fighter. Even though he was a total of 10th level his class abilities were limited to the number of levels taken in each class. And also had the penalties for thing like casting with armor, loss of feats for multiclassing, loss of Attack Bonus, Saving throws, etc. So the balance seemed to be there. The overabundance of class features is what was broken with it. Now it seems like they fixed the class features problem and broke everything else.

Personally, I think the multiclassing rules look like a great way to relax the roles a little bit, to let you make a character that's not totally focused on the main role, without going too far in the other direction. But I haven't really played enough yet to be sure - that's just my feeling based on reading them.

The roles were pretty well set in 3rd ed. The fighter was the tank. Took the brunt of battle and dished it out also. Cleric was the main healer and support person through buff spells. Rogue was the scout, master of skills - he did most of the groups skill based things like bluff, diplomacy, gathering info, etc. The wizard and ranger were the back line combatants the used ranged spells and attacks on the enemies and dealt mostly with the enemies ranged combatants. The multiclassed characters would do whatever was needed more at the time EX: fighter/wizard could either front line as a fighter or back line as a wizard depending on what the situation called for.

Which brings me to my final point. There's nothing wrong or stupid about any of the stuff you want, or ways that the multiclassing or other rules don't feel right to you. It's totally understandable that you miss that wizard with a spell for every occasion, plus two on Sunday, from 3.x, or the ability to attack twice when you have two weapons, or any of the other stuff. There's lots of people who feel the same way, in fact.

I just think that if you really want to evaluate 4th edition, you have to check it out a bit on its own terms. Basically, play the rules as written for a while before you start house ruling things to make it more like 3.x. It's a radical enough shift that there are plenty of things that may just seem wrong when you look at them in isolation and compare them to 3.x, but in play, you may find their true value to be a lot different than you expect. Feat selection is a perfect example of this. The bare naked feat may seem weak and lame compared to a 3.5 equivalent. But in play, it may have a great synergy with a particular power that you have, or a power that one of your teammates has. It may work a lot better in the far more dynamic 4e battlefield, where everyone is moving around lots more than they typically did in 3.x. There are lots of things that aren't obvious on first read!

I have already said that I am holding final judgement on the system until I have played some to check it out as a whole, but the rules as I read them seem to be very sadly less than expected.

I don't think that was me, but it has been a long thread. Who knows?

I'm not sure either.

Not exactly. What I'm saying here is that 4th edition feats have less of an effect on character power than 3rd edition feats. The feats are weaker, but overall, characters tend to be more powerful(in combat within their role).

This was actually meant as a joke (the weaker character part), But I'm not sure about the overall more powerful term. I have not played to find out. Going to be starting a new group soon.

Comparing feat systems is entirely appropriate. When you compare systems, it turns out that 4th edition's feat system provides more feats, but each feat is weaker. Thus comparing one feat from 4th edition to one feat from 3rd edition is generally unfavorable to the 4th edition feat.

Overall, including the paragon path and epic path feats, then yes there are more, but remember that 7 of the epic feats are the same as one in 3rd ed. (Improved Critical). And you keep saying that each feat is weaker, doesn't that make the entire feat system weaker overall?

Fighters do get fewer feats in 4th edition than they did in 3rd edition, but they make up that difference by getting powers.

You keep saying this also, and I have said some of the powers look interesting. The thing is with the powers you seem to become more robotic, walk up use this power and swing, use next power and swing, etc. There are not that many other things you can do with them, and they only work once per fight (mostly).

Monsters(which in 4th edition are defined as "anything the party fights") have a fairly limited number of healing surges. Because healing potions consume healing surges, an opponent will not get to drink an endless supply of potions. Also, the party's damage in a single round is almost always going to be significantly more than the amount of healing a potion provides.

If the foe drinking a healing potion is part of the encounter design, then the potion wasn't planned as treasure anyway, so you're not missing out on anything. If your DM is in the habit of consuming your treasure, that's something the table should discuss.

Sorry, if I made it sound endless. The point was if by design or by coincidence (?? not sure of spelling) in 3rd ed, you could possibly get that potion. In 4th ed you can not.

Yup, had a 3eism in my brain. Good catch.

It is easy to catch 3eism - lol

When I say better attacks, I don't mean attacks with a slightly better chance to hit, I mean things like Warrior's Challenge(fighter 17), which lets you do triple damage to a single target, push him 2 squares, and mark all nearby enemies. Things like Devastation's Wake(fighter 19), which permits you to do triple damage to each adjacent enemy and take a bonus attack(for normal damage) on each enemy who is adjacent to the fighter at any time during their turn.

Yep, the powers sound interesting. I was talking about 3rd ed and the improved base attack, extra attempts to hit, extra damages from feats, different types of attacks (disarm, sunder, etc), and so on.

Yes, in 4th edition, instead of building two staircases, Sam will build a stairwell connecting multiple floors, or simultaneously build a stairwell in each of the buildings he's working on, or build a handicapped-accessible staircase, or some other such option. Given that in 3rd edition he'd be building 4 staircases at level 20, and the last few would be rush jobs that might not quite work out, I think he's come out ahead.

If Sam can build two sets of stairs in different buildings, that would be a feat (something special) - lol.
But the point is still there even after building the stairs for 20 years (levels) he still can only build one a day (round).

Indeed they did, and indeed they still will. The at-will powers are your low-power frequent use options, and they never go away. However, when you've got Prismatic Burst(wizard 13), do you really need Ray of Enfeeblement(wizard 1)?

Maybe, but you still might use burning hands or force orb.

Sunder is moderately achievable, but look at disarm. If you get damaged by the opportunity attack, you fail. If the disarmer and the target each have a 50% chance to succeed on attack rolls, then a character attempting a disarm without the feat has a 25% chance of succeeding. I don't count that as sufficiently likely, and if the character is fighting serious monsters, that opportunity attack may well have a better than 50% chance of hitting.

Thats what the feat was for - to eliminate the AoO, so that the opponent could not attack and damage you. So then it came down to a roll of the dice to see who was disarmed.

Note that Turn Undead is self-improving in 4th edition. It never becomes usable more than once per encounter, but it hits larger areas and increases its damage as the cleric levels. You no longer need feats to do those things.

But the overall effect is the same always. It is a burst 2, meaning you can get (I believe) 4 MAX hit and pushed away X squares and immobilized for 1 round. Then they can come after you again. You may need to turn them away again. In 3rd ed. the turned undead moved away and stayed away for 10 rounds. That left you free to deal with the other enemies (if any) that were not turned or not undead, or to pick off the turned undead one by one without them coming back again.

Rogue still is all those things in addition to being a damage dealer. He gets training in Stealth and Thievery for free, and gets to pick four more skills from a list that includes Perception and Dungeoneering.

Yea, I know - but the thing I was trying to get across was the role they played. I think I did a much better job with that when I answered the post from ryryguy.

Cool. I'm interested in knowing what you end up with. If you do go with the fighter/wizard, you may want to look at the Expanded Spellbook feat. It doesn't require that you have the Spellbook class feature, so you can use it to put another wizard spell into your repertoire.

I'll keep that in mind. But do you need to say "I'm preparing this power today"? I never liked that with the casters that had to pick thier spells to prepare. Neither did anyone I played with. So in (3rd ed) We house ruled you knew the spells in your book and could cast any of them, but were still limited to a certain number a day.

Yeah, we can look at how some of those things work in various lights. I would like to point out that in a dungeon or a town, getting next to a wall isn't difficult. If you do a lot of your adventuring in wild places, you may want to ask your DM if you can include trees, cliffs, large boulders, and other such things as walls. Or if you've got a wizard in the group, he can make some walls for you to put your back to.

True, but then we're back to talking about house rules again. And if your DM wanted to be a rules lawyer then back to the wall could really suck.

Right. Those were the balance effects in 3rd edition. 4th edition uses different tools to balance things up, but they are both working to discourage wizards from getting up close and personal with the enemy.

OK - I thought we were talking about a fighter/wizard getting close and personal and casting spells? My example was about that, not a single wizard class. A single wizard would have an INT score of 0 or 1 if he got close and personal - lol.

There's a limit to what you can do with abilities from a single class. Fighters, for example, have no powers that can affect a target more than four squares away. They also have few powers that provide impressive mobility. Multiclassing gives them the opportunity to pick up ranged options or huge mobility.

A fighter/wizard facing enemies 10 squares away can toss a Fireball(wizard 5) into their midst. Or he can Expeditious Retreat(wizard 2) right into the middle of them, then make them Come and Get It(fighter 7). A single classed fighter is limited to either charging or using a ranged basic attack.

Good Answer, but I still want more powers (wizard that is) lol.

 

[theNater]

Then there are stupid little things that make no sense at all like - Why does a fighter need CON to swing an axe?

I can field a possible answer to this one(though your others are mysteries to me as well). Axes are relatively heavy. Getting full use out of them will wear you down very quickly in combat unless you've got great endurance. Sure, you can attack with them with no problems, but the really valuable big swings are exhausting.

This seemed to work (for the most part in 3rd ed) except that you got all the benifits of multiclassing. Armor Profs, skills, etc. The balance seemed to be OK.

Let me explain: a 5/5 fighter/wizard combo when compared to a single classed fighter or wizard, had the appropriate power. Had the spells that a 5th level wizard could cast (including the number of spells per day), and the STR (we will say) of a 5th level fighter. Even though he was a total of 10th level his class abilities were limited to the number of levels taken in each class. And also had the penalties for thing like casting with armor, loss of feats for multiclassing, loss of Attack Bonus, Saving throws, etc. So the balance seemed to be there. The overabundance of class features is what was broken with it. Now it seems like they fixed the class features problem and broke everything else.

The 5/5 fighter/wizard was actually part of the problem. He had spellcasting appropriate to a 5th level wizard, which was fine, except for the fact that he was facing 10th level monsters. A fifth-level wizard casting 3rd level spells at a monster whose spell resistances and saving throws are ready for a 10th level wizard casting 5th level spells is going to have troubles. Also, his attack capability(BAB, number of attacks per round) is equal to that of a 10th level druid of equivalent strength, which always struck me as kind of strange.

In 4th edition, a 10th level fighter/wizard has access to 9th level wizard spells(highest level attack abilities available to any 10th level character), and uses them as effectively as a 10th level wizard with the same stats. He also continues to attack(in any round where he is using fighter abilities) as a 10th level fighter. Instead of using reduced fighter ability every round, he has 1-3 fewer fighter options each combat.

The roles were pretty well set in 3rd ed. The fighter was the tank. Took the brunt of battle and dished it out also. Cleric was the main healer and support person through buff spells. Rogue was the scout, master of skills - he did most of the groups skill based things like bluff, diplomacy, gathering info, etc. The wizard and ranger were the back line combatants the used ranged spells and attacks on the enemies and dealt mostly with the enemies ranged combatants. The multiclassed characters would do whatever was needed more at the time EX: fighter/wizard could either front line as a fighter or back line as a wizard depending on what the situation called for.

The roles themselves haven't changed much, though they've been formally recognized, with mechanics explicitly designed to assist a character in fulfilling its role.

The change to multiclassing is that fighter/wizards have changed from being okay defenders and okay controllers all the time to being good defenders most of the time and good controllers some of the time. They can go to their secondary role for a few rounds, but generally not for an entire combat.

Overall, including the paragon path and epic path feats, then yes there are more, but remember that 7 of the epic feats are the same as one in 3rd ed. (Improved Critical). And you keep saying that each feat is weaker, doesn't that make the entire feat system weaker overall?

A tenth level 4th edition character with no bonus feats has 6 feats at tenth level. A tenth level 3rd edition character with no bonus feats has 4 feats at tenth level. If each 4th edition feat makes a character 2 "points" more awesome and each 3rd edition feat makes a character 3 "points" more awesome, a tenth level character from each system will have the same number of awesome points from feats. If feats are 2/3rds as valuable, but you get 3/2s as many, the feat systems are equally powerful.

You keep saying this also, and I have said some of the powers look interesting. The thing is with the powers you seem to become more robotic, walk up use this power and swing, use next power and swing, etc. There are not that many other things you can do with them, and they only work once per fight (mostly).

Powers are very specific in terms of what they do, so the inventiveness comes into play in using that specific thing to its best effect. Powers with forced movement are some of the best examples of this, because where you choose to move the target can have a huge effect on play. Do you try to toss him over the cliff, which has a 50-50 chance of taking him out of the fight entirely, or drop him between the two rogues, who probably won't take him out this round but will almost certainly finish him off next round? Or do you knock him into the wedding cake, humiliating him in front of his minions? Can you herd all of the monsters into a nice Fireball target? Is that better or worse then separating them out if they get bonuses when they're close to each other?

Just because a power does something specific, doesn't mean there's no creativity to using it.

Sorry, if I made it sound endless. The point was if by design or by coincidence (?? not sure of spelling) in 3rd ed, you could possibly get that potion. In 4th ed you can not.

Well, there are no coincidences. Especially in tabletop games, where the gameworld is constructed and run by the DM.

If the monster has a potion, there are two possibilities: either that potion is part of the treasure the PCs are expected to acquire, or it is an effect that the monster is expected to perform. If the former, then the DM who has the monster drink it is reducing the character's treasure level below the expected amount, causing them to be weaker than the game expects. If the latter, then the PCs who claim it from the monster have increased their treasure above the expected amount, causing them to be stronger than the game expects. Either of these cases results in game balance being off, meaning challenge is harder to gauge, meaning fights are more likely to be too hard or too easy.

Is a single potion likely to make the game unplayable one way or the other? No. But with the understanding that the DM and the players are not opponents, there is no real need for the DM to thwart the players out of treasure or the players to force the DM into providing additional treasure.

Yep, the powers sound interesting. I was talking about 3rd ed and the improved base attack, extra attempts to hit, extra damages from feats, different types of attacks (disarm, sunder, etc), and so on.

Yup. Instead of those, you get better powers. Trust me, it's a good deal.

You may be interested in Exorcism of Steel(fighter 17). It includes a disarm effect. There are other effects available, though I don't think sunder comes up.

If Sam can build two sets of stairs in different buildings, that would be a feat (something special) - lol.

Well, I was assuming that he was managing a team, not doing all the work himself. I doubt Sam can build a whole set of stairs in one day by himself, no matter how long he's been practicing.

But the point is still there even after building the stairs for 20 years (levels) he still can only build one a day (round).

Yeah, but after 20 years, he's building waaay better staircases in that one day.

Thats what the feat was for - to eliminate the AoO, so that the opponent could not attack and damage you. So then it came down to a roll of the dice to see who was disarmed.

That's my point. Without the feat, your chances of succeeding are laughably low. Low enough that the attempt is almost never worth giving up an attack that is likely to do damage. So a fighter without the feat won't attemt to disarm, where a fighter with the feat will.

That's what I mean by feats controlling your options, and the effect that now belongs to powers.

But the overall effect is the same always. It is a burst 2, meaning you can get (I believe) 4 MAX hit and pushed away X squares and immobilized for 1 round. Then they can come after you again. You may need to turn them away again. In 3rd ed. the turned undead moved away and stayed away for 10 rounds. That left you free to deal with the other enemies (if any) that were not turned or not undead, or to pick off the turned undead one by one without them coming back again.

It starts as a close burst 2, meaning all undead within 2 squares of the cleric are subject to its effects. That's a 5x5 square, so a cleric can, if completely surrounded, target 24 undead with it(assuming a two-dimensional battlefield). At 11th level it becomes burst 5(11x11, for up to 120 targets), and at 21st level it becomes burst 8(17x17, 288 possible targets). They are also guaranteed to take radiant damage(unless they are minions, in which case they either die or don't), and many forms of undead are vulnerable to radiant damage. You get to steer where they go, and unless they have ranged attacks, they don't get to attack your party for the next round. Even if they do have ranged attacks, you can move them around corners or behind obstacles, to make it more difficult for them to make use of them.

It no longer removes all the undead from a battle, but that has the side-effect of making fights that consist entirely of undead events in which characters who are not the cleric can participate.

Yea, I know - but the thing I was trying to get across was the role they played. I think I did a much better job with that when I answered the post from ryryguy.

In 3rd edition, rogues played two roles. They were the so-called "skill monkeys", and with their sneak attack they were combatants capable of dishing out massive damage. They still fill both of those roles, and have fewer situations where they must choose between combat effectiveness and out of combat effectiveness.

As an example of that, if you like your rogue to be doing the bluffing and diplomacy, you can make a rogue that functions perfectly well in combat using only dex and cha, without feeling that you need to put points into strength for the to-hit and damage bonuses.

I'll keep that in mind. But do you need to say "I'm preparing this power today"? I never liked that with the casters that had to pick thier spells to prepare. Neither did anyone I played with. So in (3rd ed) We house ruled you knew the spells in your book and could cast any of them, but were still limited to a certain number a day.

Spell preparation is still alive and well, I'm afraid. However, given that you were willing to house rule it in 3rd edition, I see no reason not to apply the same house rule to 4th edition. The power boost may even be less than it was in 3rd edition, because of the reduced size of your personal spell list.

True, but then we're back to talking about house rules again. And if your DM wanted to be a rules lawyer then back to the wall could really suck.

Yup, Back to the Wall does depend on having handy walls or a helpful DM. 'Course, if he's gonna go all rules lawyery on you, try putting your back to a Wall of Fog. If that doesn't make him start adjusting the feat for reasonableness(in which case you can argue that a tree bigger around than your character is reasonably a wall), then you've got the ability to create your own walls when necessary at level 6. And it doesn't even eat into your attack spell selection.

OK - I thought we were talking about a fighter/wizard getting close and personal and casting spells? My example was about that, not a single wizard class. A single wizard would have an INT score of 0 or 1 if he got close and personal - lol.

Oh. Well, I have no problem with a character who is mostly fighter standing in the front lines and casting spells. In fact, I've always kind of figured that was the point of having a fighter/wizard: you get to be a big beefy front-liner who has some magical/explosive options.

What I have a problem with is a character who is mostly wizard being able to do the same thing. 4th edition holds that in check quite nicely, while there were workarounds(defensive casting, the Armored Caster special ability that showed up at one point, etc.) in 3rd edition.

Good Answer, but I still want more powers (wizard that is) lol.

Well, we all want more power. But even if multiclassing only permitted one power, there would still be times it would be handy.

 

[zookeeper]

I can field a possible answer to this one(though your others are mysteries to me as well). Axes are relatively heavy. Getting full use out of them will wear you down very quickly in combat unless you've got great endurance. Sure, you can attack with them with no problems, but the really valuable big swings are exhausting.

I suppose that may be a possibility, but it appears that Fatigue and Exhaustion are no longer a part of the game. I can find nothing in PHB about these conditions (unless they are not conditions anymore).

The 5/5 fighter/wizard was actually part of the problem. He had spellcasting appropriate to a 5th level wizard, which was fine, except for the fact that he was facing 10th level monsters. A fifth-level wizard casting 3rd level spells at a monster whose spell resistances and saving throws are ready for a 10th level wizard casting 5th level spells is going to have troubles. Also, his attack capability(BAB, number of attacks per round) is equal to that of a 10th level druid of equivalent strength, which always struck me as kind of strange.

Those conditions aren't that bad, slight problem occasionally overcoming SR. The actual problem like that comes at later levels, Thats why multiclassing in 3rd ed was both good and bad. You could do more at lower levels and eventually had to give up on one and go fully with the other. You also had feats that helped in those situations though (Practiced Spellcaster, Spell Focus, etc).

In 4th edition, a 10th level fighter/wizard has access to 9th level wizard spells(highest level attack abilities available to any 10th level character), and uses them as effectively as a 10th level wizard with the same stats. He also continues to attack(in any round where he is using fighter abilities) as a 10th level fighter. Instead of using reduced fighter ability every round, he has 1-3 fewer fighter options each combat.

Which brings us back to Doh. lol This was the original discussion, why the multiclassed fighter/wizard was so limited in spells.

The roles themselves haven't changed much, though they've been formally recognized, with mechanics explicitly designed to assist a character in fulfilling its role.

The Ranger has significantly changed. The Ranger was a back line archer type that usually hit the wizards and/or rangers of the opponents. And although they had the two weapon Ranger, I, personally, have never played with anyone that chose that option. (And I've played on and off for 30 yrs)

The change to multiclassing is that fighter/wizards have changed from being okay defenders and okay controllers all the time to being good defenders most of the time and good controllers some of the time. They can go to their secondary role for a few rounds, but generally not for an entire combat.

But, why can't they be good (or at least above average) defenders and controllers at the same time. Maybe not using the spells and fighting melee in each round or even every other round, but if they moved in or out of combat to use one or the other why can't that be done for the combat.

A tenth level 4th edition character with no bonus feats has 6 feats at tenth level. A tenth level 3rd edition character with no bonus feats has 4 feats at tenth level. If each 4th edition feat makes a character 2 "points" more awesome and each 3rd edition feat makes a character 3 "points" more awesome, a tenth level character from each system will have the same number of awesome points from feats. If feats are 2/3rds as valuable, but you get 3/2s as many, the feat systems are equally powerful.

Using those numbers sure, it works equally. If you use different numbers it don't work (unless multiples of 2 and 3 respectively). As example use 4 and 5 or 1 and 2 or 1 and 3.

Point is: the numbers don't really mean much, its all a matter of opinion.

Powers are very specific in terms of what they do, so the inventiveness comes into play in using that specific thing to its best effect. Powers with forced movement are some of the best examples of this, because where you choose to move the target can have a huge effect on play. Do you try to toss him over the cliff, which has a 50-50 chance of taking him out of the fight entirely, or drop him between the two rogues, who probably won't take him out this round but will almost certainly finish him off next round? Or do you knock him into the wedding cake, humiliating him in front of his minions? Can you herd all of the monsters into a nice Fireball target? Is that better or worse then separating them out if they get bonuses when they're close to each other?

Just because a power does something specific, doesn't mean there's no creativity to using it.

OK - but the movement aside for a second, its still robotic in nature. Do this, do that, etc. Now the movement dropping the opponent into a wedding cake sounds like the most exciting thing - lol. But seriously even after a while it too will become robotic depending on your group. Do this - move to rogue, do that move to rogue, etc. Or if no rogue move away for a ranger or wizard to get in a shot.

Well, there are no coincidences. Especially in tabletop games, where the gameworld is constructed and run by the DM.

If the monster has a potion, there are two possibilities: either that potion is part of the treasure the PCs are expected to acquire, or it is an effect that the monster is expected to perform. If the former, then the DM who has the monster drink it is reducing the character's treasure level below the expected amount, causing them to be weaker than the game expects. If the latter, then the PCs who claim it from the monster have increased their treasure above the expected amount, causing them to be stronger than the game expects. Either of these cases results in game balance being off, meaning challenge is harder to gauge, meaning fights are more likely to be too hard or too easy.

Is a single potion likely to make the game unplayable one way or the other? No. But with the understanding that the DM and the players are not opponents, there is no real need for the DM to thwart the players out of treasure or the players to force the DM into providing additional treasure.

Good points, but in all actually do you know how many potions of Cure Light Wounds it would take to skew the game the way your talking about? Saving 25 GP because you got an extra potion might get an extra quiver of arrows.

You may be interested in Exorcism of Steel(fighter 17). It includes a disarm effect. There are other effects available, though I don't think sunder comes up.

Without reading it, I'll bet it is only once and only against one possible opponent. Am I right? What if you want to disarm the second opponent as well?

Well, I was assuming that he was managing a team, not doing all the work himself. I doubt Sam can build a whole set of stairs in one day by himself, no matter how long he's been practicing.

Yeah, but after 20 years, he's building waaay better staircases in that one day.

Quality has never been a problem for Sam, he just want to do more to get paid more, keeping the same quality of course.

That's my point. Without the feat, your chances of succeeding are laughably low. Low enough that the attempt is almost never worth giving up an attack that is likely to do damage. So a fighter without the feat won't attemt to disarm, where a fighter with the feat will.

That's what I mean by feats controlling your options, and the effect that now belongs to powers.

I sort of see your point, but the option to try it is there with or without the feat, the feat does not grant the option of trying, it grants a better chance of success. The powers in 4th ed are limiting, you can only attempt a disarm once in a battle or day and only on one opponent, unlike in 3rd ed where you could attempt it in every round and on every opponent.

It starts as a close burst 2, meaning all undead within 2 squares of the cleric are subject to its effects. That's a 5x5 square, so a cleric can, if completely surrounded, target 24 undead with it(assuming a two-dimensional battlefield). At 11th level it becomes burst 5(11x11, for up to 120 targets), and at 21st level it becomes burst 8(17x17, 288 possible targets). They are also guaranteed to take radiant damage(unless they are minions, in which case they either die or don't), and many forms of undead are vulnerable to radiant damage. You get to steer where they go, and unless they have ranged attacks, they don't get to attack your party for the next round. Even if they do have ranged attacks, you can move them around corners or behind obstacles, to make it more difficult for them to make use of them.

It no longer removes all the undead from a battle, but that has the side-effect of making fights that consist entirely of undead events in which characters who are not the cleric can participate.

OK mistaken on the size, but the effect is the same. Push x squares and they come right back after you.

And in 3rd ed. The cleric that turned the undead could not attack the turned creature, the others could thereby involving all the characters.


In 3rd edition, rogues played two roles. They were the so-called "skill monkeys", and with their sneak attack they were combatants capable of dishing out massive damage. They still fill both of those roles, and have fewer situations where they must choose between combat effectiveness and out of combat effectiveness.

As an example of that, if you like your rogue to be doing the bluffing and diplomacy, you can make a rogue that functions perfectly well in combat using only dex and cha, without feeling that you need to put points into strength for the to-hit and damage bonuses.

Spell preparation is still alive and well, I'm afraid. However, given that you were willing to house rule it in 3rd edition, I see no reason not to apply the same house rule to 4th edition. The power boost may even be less than it was in 3rd edition, because of the reduced size of your personal spell list.

Kill the Spell Prep. (oops, did I say that outloud ) We probably will eventually do that, but we are (as far as I know) going to start as written.

Yup, Back to the Wall does depend on having handy walls or a helpful DM. 'Course, if he's gonna go all rules lawyery on you, try putting your back to a Wall of Fog. If that doesn't make him start adjusting the feat for reasonableness(in which case you can argue that a tree bigger around than your character is reasonably a wall), then you've got the ability to create your own walls when necessary at level 6. And it doesn't even eat into your attack spell selection.

Interesting thought.

Oh. Well, I have no problem with a character who is mostly fighter standing in the front lines and casting spells. In fact, I've always kind of figured that was the point of having a fighter/wizard: you get to be a big beefy front-liner who has some magical/explosive options.

What I have a problem with is a character who is mostly wizard being able to do the same thing. 4th edition holds that in check quite nicely, while there were workarounds(defensive casting, the Armored Caster special ability that showed up at one point, etc.) in 3rd edition.

OK - I see your point, can't really say any thing about that. Maybe impose that penalty that you can't cast in armor to avoid that situation.

 

[Jion]

2) Feats are very different from 3rd ed.

There were essentially 3 different classes in 3e: feat guy (fighter), skill guy (rogue), and spell guy (wizard, etc). The rest were combinations of these. Fighters were defined by the feats they chose; rogues by the skills they chose; and wizards by the spells they chose. Now, all classes are defined by the powers they choose, and their feats will follow those choices.

4) You use different abilities for different attacks and I'm not talking about ranged attacks vs. melee attacks - your melee attacks use different abilities depending on the power used as do ranged attacks.

Hmm... I think you're confused. All melee attacks I can find are Strength based, and all ranged weapon attacks are Dex based. Many fighter powers allow you to add damage based on a different ability score, depending on the weapon you are wielding. Maybe this is what you are thinking of. Those attacks are still d20 + 1/2 level + strength to attack, though. Damage is, for example, 2[W] + strength + con if wielding an axe for certain powers. You don't need Con, but it certainly helps.

5) Your limited to a MAX of 3 (or 7) powers from your multiclass depending on your choices at paragon tier.

Depending on your chosen 2nd class, it is actually 4 and 8, as you may gain a new encounter power from the first MC feat. This means you will have one more encounter power than normal for most of your character career. At 20th level, your powers will be split 50/50 among each class; 60% of your attack powers will be from your 2nd class. This drops some as you gain 2 more utility powers in the epic tier - at 30th level your powers will be split 50% 1st class/44% 2nd class/6% epic destiny. That's 9/8/1, if you're wondering. If you don't gain a new encounter power (like the fighter MC feat, for instance), this is then 53%/41%/6% (rounding up to the nearest whole number makes the epic destiny amount 6% for both) - 9/7/1.

Your choice then becomes, do I want to have more powers of class A, or class B? Start in that class - you'll have at least one more of that class's powers. That's as close to even as you'll really get.

Then there are stupid little things that make no sense at all like - Why does a fighter need CON to swing an axe? He is using his hands and arms - that sounds like STR to me.

He doesn't need Con. He can attack and deal damage just fine without it. It's just a bonus.

You keep saying this also, and I have said some of the powers look interesting. The thing is with the powers you seem to become more robotic, walk up use this power and swing, use next power and swing, etc. There are not that many other things you can do with them, and they only work once per fight (mostly).

More robotic than "I walk up and make a full attack. *roll*roll*roll*roll* Damage! *roll*roll*roll*roll*"?

The powers have such varied effects across classes, hopefully you'll find combat anything but robotic.

If Sam can build two sets of stairs in different buildings, that would be a feat (something special) - lol.

In 4e, a feat would be allowing Sam to add an extra stair to his case when building it.

But the point is still there even after building the stairs for 20 years (levels) he still can only build one a day (round).

I responded on this earlier - 4e, in its attempt to decrease the number of rolls made per session, rolled multiple attacks into one roll (power). 3[W] is essentially the same as 3 attacks. Whereas at a certain level, 3e Sam gets 3 chances to make 3 staircases, his actual probability of making all 3 is pretty low (depending on his initial chance, obviously); 4e Sam can make one roll to build all three staircases, and he has a better chance of doing so.

Which brings us back to Doh. lol This was the original discussion, why the multiclassed fighter/wizard was so limited in spells.

But he really isn't; in fact, a fighter multiclassing to wizard will have more wizard attack powers than fighter attack powers.

From feats:
Arcane Initiate: at-will as encounter
Novice: replace encounter
Acolyte: replace utility
Adept: replace daily

From paragon MC:
11th: replace at-will
11th: encounter
12th: utility
20th: daily

That's 6 wizard attack powers (1 at-will, 3 encounter, 2 daily) vs. 5 fighter attack powers (1 at-will, 2 encounter, 2 daily).

You could do more at lower levels and eventually had to give up on one and go fully with the other.

Your options are similar in 4e: dabble in low levels, and be able to do things other fighters can't; or go all the way with paragon MC. What you can't do in 4e that was possible in 3e is start in one class, MC for a while, and then proceed solely in your second class.

The Ranger has significantly changed. The Ranger was a back line archer type that usually hit the wizards and/or rangers of the opponents. And although they had the two weapon Ranger, I, personally, have never played with anyone that chose that option.

The archer/TWF paths are definite holdovers from 3e. You could be an archer, or you could be Drizz't. I've seen about equal play for each.

But, why can't they be good (or at least above average) defenders and controllers at the same time. Maybe not using the spells and fighting melee in each round or even every other round, but if they moved in or out of combat to use one or the other why can't that be done for the combat.

It could be done. In fact, I'd say a fighter/wizard could be; all of the wizard's controller-ness comes from his powers, but a lot of the fighter's defender-ness comes from his class features.

 

[kylone]

Just wondering

I'm kind of surprised that nobody's mentioned the Eternal Seeker Epic Destiny, and its relevance to Multiclassing. Towards the end of the adventuring career, it's definitely a way to expand your versatility.

 

[theNater]

I suppose that may be a possibility, but it appears that Fatigue and Exhaustion are no longer a part of the game. I can find nothing in PHB about these conditions (unless they are not conditions anymore).

I haven't seen any Fatigue or Exhaustion rules either. Given the focus on cinematic heroism, I'm okay with that. The "don't get tired" explanation was a fluff explanation, not crunch.

Those conditions aren't that bad, slight problem occasionally overcoming SR. The actual problem like that comes at later levels, Thats why multiclassing in 3rd ed was both good and bad. You could do more at lower levels and eventually had to give up on one and go fully with the other. You also had feats that helped in those situations though (Practiced Spellcaster, Spell Focus, etc).

So now those conditions aren't there at all, meaning you don't have to worry about them even at high level, and you don't need to spend (extra) feats just to make your second class functional.

Which brings us back to Doh. lol This was the original discussion, why the multiclassed fighter/wizard was so limited in spells.

A 4th edition fighter/wizard has fewer, more powerful spells than a 3rd edition fighter/wizard of the same level. They get fewer of them because each one is better.

The Ranger has significantly changed. The Ranger was a back line archer type that usually hit the wizards and/or rangers of the opponents. And although they had the two weapon Ranger, I, personally, have never played with anyone that chose that option. (And I've played on and off for 30 yrs)

The classes have changed to a meaningful degree, but the roles haven't. Rangers are still folks who deal heavy damage to their targets, and they still have the same two options they've had for quite a while.

But, why can't they be good (or at least above average) defenders and controllers at the same time. Maybe not using the spells and fighting melee in each round or even every other round, but if they moved in or out of combat to use one or the other why can't that be done for the combat.

A single action will generally be intended for a single purpose. During one action, a fighter/wizard can use a fighter power, generally for the purpose of attracting and absorbing damage(defender role), or a wizard power, generally for the purpose of changing the flow of the battle(controller role). He can alternate between those roles as much as he likes until he runs out of appropriate powers. If he has used paragon multiclassing, he has an at-will from each class, so he never runs out of appropriate powers.

Also note the existence of synergy. A fighter/wizard can, for example, use Thunderwave to rearrange the battlefield and mark all enemies in a 3x3 square.

Using those numbers sure, it works equally. If you use different numbers it don't work (unless multiples of 2 and 3 respectively). As example use 4 and 5 or 1 and 2 or 1 and 3.

Point is: the numbers don't really mean much, its all a matter of opinion.

The numbers I provided weren't intended to be definitive values of feats, but an illustration of how 4th edition feats being less powerful doesn't necessarily make the 4th edition feat system less powerful.

Whether the increase in numbers of feats makes up for the decrease in power of feats is indeed a matter of opinion, but considering both facts gives a more helpful comparison of the systems than just looking at one or the other.

OK - but the movement aside for a second, its still robotic in nature. Do this, do that, etc. Now the movement dropping the opponent into a wedding cake sounds like the most exciting thing - lol. But seriously even after a while it too will become robotic depending on your group. Do this - move to rogue, do that move to rogue, etc. Or if no rogue move away for a ranger or wizard to get in a shot.

Fights are very dynamic. At every step there are multiple things you want to do. Getting enemies into a position where they have a rogue flanking them is always a good goal. But it is not the only goal, and no power has the text "put the target into a position where it is flanked by a rogue." Knowing when to use your powers to get the greatest possible effect from them is at least as much art as science. Plus, when an attack power has been used enough to become boring, it can be replaced through retraining or by reaching a replacement level.

One of the many entertaining uses of a power I've seen was when our dwarven fighter ran up to the orc that was menacing our wizard and smashed him with a hammer so hard he was launched back a good 5 feet. This was done with an at-will fighter power, and flowed naturally from the combat. Just because the mechanics are specific, doesn't mean there is exactly one use.

Good points, but in all actually do you know how many potions of Cure Light Wounds it would take to skew the game the way your talking about? Saving 25 GP because you got an extra potion might get an extra quiver of arrows.

Well, if it's not a big deal, it's not a big deal. If it is a big deal, than it does skew the game.

This one kind of heroic moment is missing. There are plenty of new heroic moments available, and a lot of the old heroic moments are still in place.

Without reading it, I'll bet it is only once and only against one possible opponent. Am I right? What if you want to disarm the second opponent as well?

It is an encounter power that targets one opponent, yes. To disarm multiple opponents, you will need additional powers, none of which I can identify off the top of my head.

Of course, it is possible that upon seeing how you disarmed an opponent, your other oppenents will not fall for the same tricks, or will quickly tighten their lanyards, or what have you. There are reasons you might not be able to disarm multiple foes in rapid succession.

Quality has never been a problem for Sam, he just want to do more to get paid more, keeping the same quality of course.

Remember that under 3rd edition rules, Sam had a reduced chance of making a satisfactory staircase for each staircase after the first. Under 4th edition rules, while he only makes one staircase a day, he does get paid more when he makes a higher-quality staircase.

I sort of see your point, but the option to try it is there with or without the feat, the feat does not grant the option of trying, it grants a better chance of success. The powers in 4th ed are limiting, you can only attempt a disarm once in a battle or day and only on one opponent, unlike in 3rd ed where you could attempt it in every round and on every opponent.

Giving up an opportunity to do damage to have a 25% chance of disarming a target and a 50% chance of taking damage yourself is not a viable tactic.

One of the design goals for 4th edition was ensuring that everyone gets to shine, at least a little, in every battle. Some enemies are essentially out of the fight when disarmed. If the fighter locks down all of the enemies by disarming them all in the first round, or even by disarming one of them per round for five rounds, he's proving to be the only PC that matters during the combat.

OK mistaken on the size, but the effect is the same. Push x squares and they come right back after you.

And in 3rd ed. The cleric that turned the undead could not attack the turned creature, the others could thereby involving all the characters.

In 3rd edition, a turned undead is defeated. Smashing a skeleton who cannot fight back is not involvement in a fight.

Kill the Spell Prep. (oops, did I say that outloud ) We probably will eventually do that, but we are (as far as I know) going to start as written.

I've never been a big fan of spell preparation myself. I want to be able to use all the abilities I know. 4th edition provides that for most characters, by making them know exactly as many abilities as they get to use. Wizards are the sole exception in the PHB.

OK - I see your point, can't really say any thing about that. Maybe impose that penalty that you can't cast in armor to avoid that situation.

Yeah, but those penalties are murder on my dwarven wizards.

Hmm... I think you're confused. All melee attacks I can find are Strength based, and all ranged weapon attacks are Dex based. Many fighter powers allow you to add damage based on a different ability score, depending on the weapon you are wielding.

It doesn't show up in fighter powers, but most or all of the rogue's melee attacks use dex, and paladins have some melee attacks that use cha. The other classes use other abilities to attack with, though rarely with melee attacks.

He doesn't need Con. He can attack and deal damage just fine without it. It's just a bonus.

Con is required to become a top-of-the-line axe fighter, as axe fighting feats have con as a prerequisite.

I'm kind of surprised that nobody's mentioned the Eternal Seeker Epic Destiny, and its relevance to Multiclassing. Towards the end of the adventuring career, it's definitely a way to expand your versatility.

You know, I hadn't considered that. A fighter/wizard with paragon multiclassing could use Seeker of Many Paths to pick up wizard powers at 23rd, 25th, 27th, and 29th levels, replacing the remaining fighter encounter and daily powers. Ending up as a character with fighter class features and mostly wizard powers. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that.

I think I'm okay with it, considering that
a)it only completes at level 29, when he's likely to begin considering retirement, and
b)he's spent his entire career trying to make it happen.