4E "Multi-classing": Someone please explain

[Pseudopsyche]

I don't think it's accurate to say that the new multi-classing rules only allow a character to dabble in a second class. Consider the case of a cleric multiclassing into fighter by taking every multiclass feat and selecting fighter as his or her paragon path. The cleric dabbling in fighter could have the following powers at level 20:

Fighter Daily 19 (x2)
Cleric Daily 15 and 9

Fighter Encounter 17 and 7
Cleric Encounter 13 and 7

Fighter At-will 1
Cleric At-will 1

Fighter Utility 16 and 10
Cleric Utility 10, 6, and 2

Although this character began life as a cleric, all of the best powers are now fighter exploits, including fully half of all the attack powers. Yes, this build costs four feats, but that is the price you pay in this system for versatility. (Note however that this power-by-power comparison looks best at level 20, for the purposes of maximizing the contribution of the second class to the character's powers.) At level 20, you still have, what, eight other feats to add more fighter flavor?

 

[moritheil]

To the contrary — they're very competent at the out-of-class features they know. In general, much more so than in 3E. They just don't have the full breadth of ability that someone with the base class would have.

Can you reconcile those two statements? I can understand that, using 3.x terms, you can be a competent fighter without having all the fighter bonus feats, as long as you have decent BAB and maybe burn some spell slots to give you an attack/damage bonus. But I can't see the converse being true - a fighter who picks up spellcasting ability but doesn't have metamagic feats is seriously going to fall short of a pure spellcaster in some situations.

What do you mean by "in general?" Are you comparing actual optimized builds (i.e. Wiz 4/Crusader 1/Jade Phoenix Mage), or just willy-nilly piling on levels (i.e. Ftr 10/Wiz 10)? Obviously the latter sucked in 3.x, but no competent player built that way, so it's not really a fair comparison.

Are triple threats possible? From what others have said the number of feat/option slots taken up in making a double threat is prohibitive.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I don't think it's accurate to say that the new multi-classing rules only allow a character to dabble in a second class. Consider the case of a cleric multiclassing into fighter by taking every multiclass feat and selecting fighter as his or her paragon path.

The problem with that is that Paragon multiclassing is significantly inferior to choosing a Paragon Path. Better for the cleric to simply choose one of the Fighter's PPs rather than his own, if he really wants some Fighter-like options.

 

[moritheil]

Multiclassing is pretty restrictive. Can't really disagree with that, and given the multiclassing standard in 3e, I can see why it bugs folks. While I liked the granularity of the system, it presented its own strange bugs (e.g., massive Save boosts) and in practice ended up being less free than I'd originally thought.

I thought of that more as a reward for spending a lot of time in character building.

For example, a Fighter 15/Wizard 5 is marginally good at buffing himself, while a Wizard 15/Fighter 5 is not very good at casting spells (less spells per day, no 9th level spells, smaller caster level check for SR) and does not having enough of the Fighter's good points (low hit points, no armor, poor BAB) to make up for the lost Wizard abilities. This kind of problem was somewhat mitigated by the "Fix" PrCs like Eldritch Knight, but either these fixes were pretty lackluster (EK) or they could be combined into some kind

On the one hand I'm torn, because I liked the freedom of 3rd edition. On the other, part of me feels like that freedom is actually very limited.

But that's not how actual builds were done once the fine-tuned PrCs came out. You would go Wiz 4, Fighter 1, Spellsword 1 dip to pick up saves and ignore 10% ASF, then into some other PrC that was better than EK. If you were using Bo9S, you'd substitute Crusader 1 for Fighter 1 and Jade Phoenix Mage for EK.

3.x wasn't really about what any one individual class offered. It was about what you could do with your character, given a certain number of levels to work with.

 

[moritheil]

The problem with that is that Paragon multiclassing is significantly inferior to choosing a Paragon Path. Better for the cleric to simply choose one of the Fighter's PPs rather than his own, if he really wants some Fighter-like options.

Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm leery of. You can't really call something a double or triple threat unless it can actually perform roughly as you would expect for its level. At 21st level in 3.x, it was entirely feasible to have 9th level spells, epic spellcasting, the ability to trade blows in melee with a 20th-level pure fighter and come out ahead, and the ability to detect traps and sneak around like a 20th-level rogue, all in one character.

In short, you could do it all. You didn't have to be deficient at anything unless you wanted to be. There were so many multiclassing options and feats to aid them that careful use of them would typically result in a double/triple threat that could do its job better than one of the base classes on one side, while not giving up anything on the other.

Can you do this in 4E?

 

[delericho]

At 21st level in 3.x, it was entirely feasible to have 9th level spells, epic spellcasting, the ability to trade blows in melee with a 20th-level pure fighter and come out ahead, and the ability to detect traps and sneak around like a 20th-level rogue, all in one character.

In short, you could do it all. You didn't have to be deficient at anything unless you wanted to be. There were so many multiclassing options and feats to aid them that careful use of them would typically result in a double/triple threat that could do its job better than one of the base classes on one side, while not giving up anything on the other.

In which case I take back my criticisms of 4e multiclassing. That sort of thing is an abomination.

Multiclassing should be about the range of options, traded against raw power. Your Fighter/Wizard should be on balance as powerful as Al's Fighter or Bob's Wizard, but he should be neither as good a Fighter as Al's character nor as good a Wizard as Bob's character.

This sort of carefully calculated multiclassing built out of a level here, a dip there, PrC on top of PrC, all held together with careful selection of feats to get the maximum raw power at the expense of the fun of everyone else at the table is one of the worst things about 3e.

Can you do this in 4E?

No, and that's a good thing.

What is less of a good thing is that it is impossible to build a triple-classed character at all, meaning that the Jack-of-all-trades concept is out. However, such characters were either massively overpowered (2nd Ed) or massively hampered by a lack of focus (3e), so I'm not terribly upset at its loss.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm leery of. You can't really call something a double or triple threat unless it can actually perform roughly as you would expect for its level. At 21st level in 3.x, it was entirely feasible to have 9th level spells, epic spellcasting, the ability to trade blows in melee with a 20th-level pure fighter and come out ahead, and the ability to detect traps and sneak around like a 20th-level rogue, all in one character.

In short, you could do it all. You didn't have to be deficient at anything unless you wanted to be. There were so many multiclassing options and feats to aid them that careful use of them would typically result in a double/triple threat that could do its job better than one of the base classes on one side, while not giving up anything on the other.

Can you do this in 4E?

You see, from my point of view, the answer is "Why would you WANT to?" The style of game that you are suggesting, where everyone is out to somehow beat the system by creating these monstrosities of mixed character classes is not what I want at all.

For me, D&D is a group game, whereby a group of characters with different powers come together as a team to have adventures. Once the sort of character build you mention above becomes available, you risk one player overshadowing every other player and making the game significantly less fun for them - and a complete nightmare for the DM.

I am personally glad that it seems like the 4e multi-classing system to (hopefully) going to avoid this kind of thing.

 

[Remathilis]

On the one hand I'm torn, because I liked the freedom of 3rd edition. On the other, part of me feels like that freedom is actually very limited.

Exactly my point!

 

[Pbartender]

What is less of a good thing is that it is impossible to build a triple-classed character at all, meaning that the Jack-of-all-trades concept is out. However, such characters were either massively overpowered (2nd Ed) or massively hampered by a lack of focus (3e), so I'm not terribly upset at its loss.

I know it it's a tired, trite response, but...

Since the two-"class" limit on multiclassing is essentially an arbitrary limit, is certainly would be easy enough to house rule it away, should you really want to.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

In short, you could do it all. You didn't have to be deficient at anything unless you wanted to be. There were so many multiclassing options and feats to aid them that careful use of them would typically result in a double/triple threat that could do its job better than one of the base classes on one side, while not giving up anything on the other.

Can you do this in 4E?

3e's Epic levels were tacked onto the original system, and can't really be compared to 4e's. Better to compare a 20th level 3e to a 30th level 4e. And even then, I wouldn't bother to make such a comparison because the systems are very different.

In 3e, yes once character can do everything (eventually). Particularly, there is one type of character that becomes important: spellcasters. The outcome of this is that you have a character that can "do it all" which a) makes specialized character classes like the rogue and fighter unimportant and b) led to 15-20 minute turns for a single character, as the player plots out all the correct spells and effects to use. This is a problem I encountered with the system, and I played to a maximum of 15th or 16th level... these issues were already starting to develop, and I had yet to reach the pinnacle.

So can one character do everything in 4th edition? Probably not. But the system doesn't seem to be built that way either.