D&D 3.x Favored Class

Tinker Gnome · 2026-03-21T04:22:30+0000

Did anyone use the Favored Class rule by enforcing experience penalties in 3.X? I never even thought about it, but I can only recall one character who was ever multiclassed last time I ran a game.

Brendan Byrd · 2026-03-21T08:25:33+0000

James Gasik · 2026-03-21T14:54:03+0000

I did, but in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have. First of all, it didn't reinforce that class x was "favored" in any way. If I'm a Dwarf, and my Favored Class is Fighter, because of a combination of "Dwarves are good Fighters" and "Dwarves have a proud military tradition", it should reward me for having many levels of Fighter, not propping up a Fighter 1 or 2 dip for my Dwarven Barbarian.

Pathfinder 1e solved this very neatly.

Second of all, it wasn't even really a mechanical penalty in any real way. The only time it ever came up in a game was when I had someone who was a Ranger/Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue multiclass, and all it was doing was saying "hey, at some point you have to take that Fighter 3 level that gives you almost nothing you'll want".

And even then, like all xp penalties, the system would make them irrelevant over a long period of time anyways, since if you managed to be lower level than the rest of your party, you'd start earning more xp, so you likely wouldn't ever get seriously behind- it's certainly not really a hindrance to being able to craft magic items for half cost if you happen to be a spellcaster, for example, which grants a great deal more power.

Oh and of course, if you can meet the requirements for a Prestige Class, which many characters would want to, those are exempt from the multiclassing penalty!

Which was inevitably what the quad-classed martial character did, he found a PrC for his level 9 that, even being somewhat mid, was still better than Fighter 3, lol.

Alzrius · 2026-03-21T16:36:01+0000

James Gasik said:
Pathfinder 1e solved this very neatly.

I'm 99% in agreement with this; the only 1% that I disagree with is that, whenever someone writes a new race, it's necessary (not strictly so, but it's prevalent enough to have become expected) to write a bunch of alternative favored class options for various classes. Likewise, when writing a new class you're expected to come up with favored class options for various races. So it added a bit of extra work to race and class design.

Celebrim · 2026-03-21T18:44:34+0000

Tinker Gnome said:
Did anyone use the Favored Class rule by enforcing experience penalties in 3.X?

Yes.

I never even thought about it, but I can only recall one character who was ever multiclassed last time I ran a game.

Multiclassing is common, but I've never had to enforce the experience penalty, because the rule serves its purpose of guiding the players to builds that suit the flavor of the race in question. Note that I don't have PrC's in my game, and I have a lot of custom classes.

The last party that I had ran had a Half-Elf Explorer/Sorcerer (4th/6th IIRC) that had basically made himself into an Arcane Archer type build through the use of feats.

I also had a character at one point who was a Hobgoblin Feyblood/Fighter who had basically made himself into a Barbarian with extra steps. His character possessed the spell-like ability of Increase Size, and so instead of going into rage he'd turn into a giant.

There was also a dwarven Fighter/Wizard at one point who was doing shocking grasp attacks channeled through his battle axe.

Li Shenron · 2026-03-21T20:41:49+0000

Tinker Gnome said:
Did anyone use the Favored Class rule by enforcing experience penalties in 3.X? I never even thought about it, but I can only recall one character who was ever multiclassed last time I ran a game.

Originally yes, but I am quite sure I have never seen a PC in 3ed take the multiclassing penalties: players simply complied with the restrictions and used multiclass combos that didn't incur in the penalties.

Then eventually I think everybody I know stopped enforcing penalties.

I am not a fan of multiclassing but the only thing thing I hate more than multiclassing is multiclassing penalties or restrictions (including the 5e ones).

James Gasik · 2026-03-21T22:37:31+0000

Alzrius said:
I'm 99% in agreement with this; the only 1% that I disagree with is that, whenever someone writes a new race, it's necessary (not strictly so, but it's prevalent enough to have become expected) to write a bunch of alternative favored class options for various classes. Likewise, when writing a new class you're expected to come up with favored class options for various races. So it added a bit of extra work to race and class design.

Of course all of that is unnecessary- the Pafhfinder core rules state your Favored Class is the class you start as at 1st level, and at each level, you can choose between 1 bonus HP or 1 bonus skill point. It's a nice feature to add alternate bonuses for various lineages, but it's not required.

Mon · 2026-03-22T01:02:28+0000

We did use the XP penalty when 3e first came out but quickly moved to a house rule I found somewhere online which worked pretty great:

You choose a benefit when you take your 1st, 11th, and 20th level in a favoured class. This gives you a small incentive to take some, most, or all of your levels in that class.

Benefits were things like extra skill ranks, hit points, or cantrip spell slots (cantrip slots were a thing in 3e). I’d need to dig up a very old house rules doc to be more specific than that.

D.

cbwjm · 2026-03-22T07:59:11+0000

I don't know if I ever used them or if they just didn't come up, though it was also a time of friends moving away after high school so we didn't get many games in.

If I went back to 3e, I'd use Conan d20's rule of granting an additional feat at 1st, 5th, and 10th level in your favoured classes. You can use this as a way of reinforcing archetypes like giving high elves fighter and wizard as favoured classes so that any combination of fighter/wizard grants the bonus feats.

Alzrius · 2026-03-22T12:20:47+0000

James Gasik said:
Of course all of that is unnecessary- the Pafhfinder core rules state your Favored Class is the class you start as at 1st level, and at each level, you can choose between 1 bonus HP or 1 bonus skill point. It's a nice feature to add alternate bonuses for various lineages, but it's not required.

I said it wasn't "strictly so" with regards to it being necessary, but it's become prevalent enough that not having it for a new race/class makes its absence notable. It's not a huge drawback if alternative favored class options aren't present, to be sure, but it's something that's at least somewhat conspicuous.

And, in fact, that's just part of the larger ecosystem of supporting options for new material that Paizo made fairly prevalent for PF1. You don't have to have any of them to make use of what's there, but not having them can be disappointing. For races, this includes: