D&D 4E 4e and Multiclassing

AyJayATL

First Post
Hopefully 4e will bring back the ability to effectively multiclass. In 3e even taking a single level in another class decreases the effectiveness of most characters (especially rogues and spellcasters). Rarely in my campaigns does anyone ever multiclass anymore. What's worse is that % penalty they should receive for not keeping class levels close to equal, if anything, since multiclass characters are weaker from the get-go, it should be a % bonus! I miss the olden days when a fighter/wizard/thief type character could actually be fun to play and not just the party pissboy.
 

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Actually, a good multiclass character is much, much better than the single-class character most of the time.

"Most of the time" almost never includes casters of any stripe, but it usually includes rogue-and-warrior-mixes.

I'd like to see that synergy - a Rogue 4 / Fighter 2 gives up little compared to a Fighter 6 and gains quite a bit in its place - expanded to the casting classes.
 


Dear God, no. They're trying to make the game play faster, and make building high-level characters easier; gestalt rules are exactly in the wrong direction. Besides, 3e-style multiclassing was fine for noncasters, and even imbalanced caster multiclasses (i.e. mostly one class with a one or two level dip in another). It was only the balanced caster multiclasses (i.e. two classes at about the same level) that were really problematic.
 

::shrug:: I'd prefer to see less multiclassing, or that the clearly better choice would be to be and remain single-class. If nothing else, a party of all single-class characters are by necessity forced to rely on each other to do what each alone cannot...and if you need a character of a different class, bring in another character (NPC or second PC).

Lanefan
 

I am guessing it will be something like book of nine swords:
Martial
Divine
Arcane
(Psionic- when it comes out)
Working like caster level, you get 1/2 your non-power source levels added to power source levels.
So for instance:
Fighter 12 wizard 8
would be:
Martial level 16 and arcane level 14

This single handedly fixes the awful multi-classing rules of 3.5.
 

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
Actually, a good multiclass character is much, much better than the single-class character most of the time.

"Most of the time" almost never includes casters of any stripe, but it usually includes rogue-and-warrior-mixes.

I'd like to see that synergy - a Rogue 4 / Fighter 2 gives up little compared to a Fighter 6 and gains quite a bit in its place - expanded to the casting classes.
Any rule which only applies to two classes (Fighter and Barbarian) can hardly be said to be "most" of the time. Any Monk or caster who multi-classes is out of his mind. The only reason multi-classing wasn't a totally bad idea for the Ranger and Paladin (if you allowed that) was because their spellcasting was so useless anyway as to be "no loss."

Sadrik said:
I am guessing it will be something like book of nine swords:
Martial
Divine
Arcane
(Psionic- when it comes out)
Working like caster level, you get 1/2 your non-power source levels added to power source levels.
So for instance:
Fighter 12 wizard 8
would be:
Martial level 16 and arcane level 14

This single handedly fixes the awful multi-classing rules of 3.5.
That's really good - for "two classed" individuals. Adding a third class totally fracks the math though. It would be an improvement over 3.x though.
 

AyJayATL said:
Hopefully 4e will bring back the ability to effectively multiclass. In 3e even taking a single level in another class decreases the effectiveness of most characters (especially rogues and spellcasters).


Sorry, but what the h... do you mean by bring back? DnD never had any rules allowing for effective multiclassing. Not ever. The 3.0/3.5 rules are by far the best, and they still leave much to be desired. Hoping they find a way to improve on it in 4e
 

Other than spellcasters and monks, multiclassing is fine in 3.5

Rogue/Fighter, Barb/Rogue, Barb/Fighter, Ranger/Fighter, Paladin/Ranger, etc, etc. The problem is that martial classes can multiclass, while spellcasters are cursed if they do.
 

It's a minor thing for me. I much prefer a game where single classes are great and multiclassing is not so good than the other way around. If they manage to make multiclass PCs be just as good as single class, fine. But I'm not going to complain if multiclass sucks... OTOH I certainly don't want multiclass combos to be stronger than single classes.
 

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