D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 alternate ways of handling favoured classes and multiclassing

[Drowbane]

The D&D Elf is definitely Wizard. They're long lived, studious individuals with a passion for the arts and magic - perfect complement to the "book smart" Wizard archetype.
Druids are so rare that they couldn't be a favored class, and Rangers are more solitary than Elves (very social people) tend to be.
The only other thing that would make sense would be a Bard, but Elves tend to stick to their own kind rather than becoming worldly.

I can argue it, but I also don't use favored classes. I have a list of "nonstandard classes" which receive a 10% penalty to EXP for each race, but those are so absurd that it almost makes sense.

For example, Orc Wizards, Halfling Barbarians, Half Ogre Rogues, and other such combinations that are just absolutely silly.

Favored Class is a weak nod to previous editions. When demihumans could only reach a certain level in certain classes. Dwarves advanced furthest as Fighters (and couldn't even be Mages), Elves (iirc) advanced furthest in Wizard, Halflings as Thieves, etc. 3e swept aside the notion that the demihumans were second class citizens by letting everybody advance to 20 in whatever they want. Dwarves can now be Mages even! Anybody can be a Paladin (previously a Human-only class!)! This is a cow (probably not even sacred) that can be sacrificed, and so as I mention above I used Favored Class rules only during year 1 of 3e.

While the Fluff may be acceptable for some games, it does not match everybodies campaign anyways. And the Fluff is highly suspect when you compare the racial mechanics at times. Elf Wizard? Are you kidding me? Yeah, +2 Dex and -2 Con just screams "lets choose the class with the d4 HD!". And even if that wasn't character suicide, in my campaigns Elves are more likely to be priests of the Old Faith (read: druids and sometimes clerics with certain domains) or warriors of the Old Faith (rangers with Wild Shape at 5th level - See UA).

This leads me to another minor flaw with 3e... see in previous editions stats were simply not as important. If you got a -1 to Con (see 2e and earlier elves) is simply didn't matter all that much, even if you were a Fighter (the only class that could benefit from more than... a +1 or +2 to HP from Con - IIRC). With 3e stats are very important, and Con is perhaps the one stat that Everybody needs, so Elves getting a penalty there is now actually a big deal...

lastly, one of my favorite PCs of all time was a Halfling Barbarian. Guess what, he owned. Granted he was something like Fighter 2 / Ranger 1 / Rogue 3 / Barbarian 2... at level 8.

My point to all this? Favored Class is the purview of the DM anyways (my campaigns, Elves favor Druidism over other endeavors) and any DM worth his dice bag can do it better than WotC did. I choose to keep it a fluff thing - if you meet an NPC of a given race, they will have a 90% chance of being a certain class.

 

[BriarMonkey]

I agree that the multi-classing penalties are just something you ignore - they don't fit.

Tieing into that, the whole notion of favored class falls apart if you remove the multi-class penalties. So, if you really want them to still make a difference, then I think Pathfinder did it well enough. Really, the extra skill point or HP (or other option if you use the Advanced Player's Guide) does not make a huge difference - but it is noticeable over time. It is none-the-less, a nice little benne.

Similarly, at least for my games, I also removed the double skill point penalty for cross-class skills. Thus, all skills cost only one point. (Pathfinder does this.)

But, if you want to completely chuck the current construct, might I suggest instead of using the multi-class rules as written, you allow people who multi-class to use the gestalt rules from the Unearthed Arcana. But - those who use this variant also have their XP table upped.

I do this with Pathfinder and use the Medium advancement table for everyone. Those who multi-class use the Slow advancement table. On average, they are about a level behind the single classers. To keep things simple, once you multi-class, you are always a multi-class. Otherwise you will need to find a way to allow the XP table to deviate based on if they multi-class this level, but not next, then go back to it a couple levels later...

Just my two shekels.