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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6068788" data-attributes="member: 1465">Exactly as you mention, multiclassing will be a huge problem if two classes share one mechanic and two other classes share another. 3ed multiclassing was very convenient (more convenient than being single-class) for martial characters, and very inconvenient for spellcasters because their shared mechanic (spells) was not meant to stack, while martial mechanic (BAB, and then feats and class special abilities) naturally stacked perfectly, with BAB stacking &quot;vertically&quot; and feats/abilities stacking &quot;horizontally&quot;. But spells stacked only &quot;horizontally&quot; while at the same time taking levels in another class would have a serious &quot;vertical&quot; cost (sorry for the silly jargon here <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue&nbsp; &nbsp; :P"&nbsp; data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" /> ).So yes, multiclassing should be designed at the same time to ensure it works fairly for everyone. But I have to say that even before that, a game must make a clear decision on whether multiclassing will be an important feature of the game or not. Let's be frank, it's been a HUGE feature in 3ed but it doesn't have to be in every RPG. Some games don't have multiclassing at all, and they're fine. Once this is decided, it will have effects on the design of each class separately, and obviously if a game just doesn't even allow multiclassing, the designers then have much more freedom therefore it is more likely that each class will be designed better. Also, 3ed introduced very flexible level-based multiclassing, but it's not the only option.That said, I totally don't see the Rogue as a martial character concept. It's only &quot;martial&quot; in the sense that it's not magical. But to me it's not, and will never be, a warrior character. Quite the opposite, it will always be the guy who doesn't have any fighting training, and just manages to survive combat by being smart. Unfortunately the original D&amp;D Thief/Rogue concept has been abandoned in favor of the idea that Zorro is the archetypal rogue, so that swashbucklers and thugs should be rogue because they are not &quot;cleanly trained&quot; or &quot;academic&quot; warriors. Which incidentally does a very bad favor to the Fighter class, who is narrowed down a lot (see what 4e has done by identifying it with the &quot;tank&quot; role).Obviously I'm too old fashinoned, but if it was up to me, I would design the Rogue to be as far as possible in mechanics from the Fighter.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6068788, member: 1465"] Exactly as you mention, multiclassing will be a huge problem if two classes share one mechanic and two other classes share another. 3ed multiclassing was very convenient (more convenient than being single-class) for martial characters, and very inconvenient for spellcasters because their shared mechanic (spells) was not meant to stack, while martial mechanic (BAB, and then feats and class special abilities) naturally stacked perfectly, with BAB stacking "vertically" and feats/abilities stacking "horizontally". But spells stacked only "horizontally" while at the same time taking levels in another class would have a serious "vertical" cost (sorry for the silly jargon here :P ). So yes, multiclassing should be designed at the same time to ensure it works fairly for everyone. But I have to say that even before that, a game must make a clear decision on whether multiclassing will be an important feature of the game or not. Let's be frank, it's been a HUGE feature in 3ed but it doesn't have to be in every RPG. Some games don't have multiclassing at all, and they're fine. Once this is decided, it will have effects on the design of each class separately, and obviously if a game just doesn't even allow multiclassing, the designers then have much more freedom therefore it is more likely that each class will be designed better. Also, 3ed introduced very flexible level-based multiclassing, but it's not the only option. That said, I totally don't see the Rogue as a martial character concept. It's only "martial" in the sense that it's not magical. But to me it's not, and will never be, a warrior character. Quite the opposite, it will always be the guy who doesn't have any fighting training, and just manages to survive combat by being smart. Unfortunately the original D&D Thief/Rogue concept has been abandoned in favor of the idea that Zorro is the archetypal rogue, so that swashbucklers and thugs should be rogue because they are not "cleanly trained" or "academic" warriors. Which incidentally does a very bad favor to the Fighter class, who is narrowed down a lot (see what 4e has done by identifying it with the "tank" role). Obviously I'm too old fashinoned, but if it was up to me, I would design the Rogue to be as far as possible in mechanics from the Fighter. [/QUOTE]

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