Thoughts on Multiclassing

[Savage Wombat]

I've had two magus characters in my campaign, and I'm still not convinced they're not overpowered. Not so broken as to ruin the game, but just broken enough to notice.

I don't really think that's what I want a fighter-mu to be in 5th.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Ah, not surprised. When I was looking at the class it did seem quite good considering all the extras it got (beyond just being a warrior mage type.)

 

[Dandu]

From what I hear, spellcasting is still the best metric to determine how powerful a class is in PF.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

Ideally for me, modularity offering the 2nd ed and 3rd ed ways of doing things.

 

[steeldragons]

1) 1e multi-classing with options for XP distribution.
2) Multiclassing occurs: at characters creation or at certain "milestone" levels. Not possible every level.
3) Optional XP distributions: a) "traditional" 50/50. b) DM choice of 75/25 or 25/75 depending on which class you practice/use more c) Player choice of 75/25 or 25/75.

I know it'll never happen since they are almost certainly going to give...folks...3e style. Which I despise and think changed the nature of/ruined the game. So I'm not getting it how I want. I have accepted this. There simply will not be multiclassing in my games.

The idea that turning from a 6th level Fighter to being able to immediately cast as a 6th level Wizard (or worse, 7th) is just so many ways of broken and brain-hurt immersion-busting...I'd just assume there be no multiclassing in the game at all before something like that.

--SD

 

[SkidAce]

I like 3E in that you could learn to be anything, but they made a serious mistake in trying to push "every level is equal" - picking up 1 level in wizard is not of the same value as getting your 7th level of fighter, and the reverse is even truer (though the latter is mostly a fault in the inbalance between spellcasters and non-spellcasters in 3E).

I'd like to see something more along the lines of 2E's dual-classing rules, but that you can switch between class advancement. If your a 6th level fighter and you want to pick up your first level of wizard, it should only take about 1,000 XP - not the XP to be 7th level (as a fighter). However, this has an issue as well - you could abuse it by taking lots of 1 or 2 level class dips for the cost of one higher level in any given class.

There are issues, but I've always liked this.


Even in 3rd we tried it for a while. The fighter would spend so much of his XP on leveling in wizard. Like you said, there began to be a lot of little dips, so we made anyone "multi-classing" this way set up a standard ratio.

Say 50/50 for simultaneous advancement or 75/25 for dipping into wizard. And the max classes was three.

Probably not balanced enough for core rules, but working amongst a group of players at home it did well enough.

 

[SkidAce]

And [MENTION=92511]steeldragons[/MENTION] beat me to it...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I just looked up info on the duskblade. It had similar abilities to the magus, but less powerful... Seems these fixes existed in 3.x, but in non-core books.

 

[N'raac]

What tends to get overlooked in comparing 1/2e and 3e multiclassing is that 2e characters got the better saves and THAC0/BAB and averaged hp. They did not get the sum of both. 3e added a lot more abilities for non-spellcasters, making multiclassing more costly (eg. you have to split your stats resources, your feats, etc. between the two classes). [can't seem to get a paragraph break...]

 

[N'raac]

So, let's take a 8th/8th F/MU from 2e. He'd have a BAB equivalent of +8, 4th level spells and an average of 32 hp before any CON bonus (5.5 = 2.5 = 8/2 = 4 per level), 36 if we give him max hp for 1st level. An L8 wizard makes our base chassis, as he has the right spell suite. Only a +4 BAB, though. Adding 2 levels of Fighter only gets him to +6. Only 26 hp vs 32 (30.5 vs 36 if he started as a fighter). So unquestionably the 3rd Ed multiclass had to sacrifice more of one class to get the same in a second. That said, that +6 is only one short of a L10 Cleric.