Rechan said:
I took a high level "hong-class" feat.
Don't do that -- you'll stop thinking about fantasy *at all*, and The Rouse will eventually replace you with a programmed clone. I strongly advise that you report to the nearest grognard and let him retrain that feat for you!
Because there have never been stories where someone develops really, really potent abilities that suddenly surface which they can only use infrequently (read: daily).
'Wheel of Time'? IIRC many of the characters had very little control over their abilities and they could use them in controlled fashion only rarely in the first books.
You act as though this is suddenly new. In 3.0, all you had to do was take one level in Ranger and you got automatic two weapon fighting and track. Many people "Just stayed long enough for their apprenticeship before never touching it again"?
Or how becoming a wizard is a long grueling process that takes years of apprenticeship, but all anyone has to do is take a single level in Wizard after the fact and they get the same stuff that a standard 1st level wizard did. All because "They've been looking over the wizard's shoulder". If all one has to do is look over a guy's shoulder as you adventure, then there's little reason for Wizardry Colleges.
You're correct. Yet in my group you *have* to go through the apprenticeship period or have some logical reason why you could pick those abilities "instantly" (i.e. you need to inform the DM beforehand that you're going to multiclass). Occasionally you can do this if you've trained with other PCs for some time (for example, the party's ranger has trained you to track and fight with two weapons) *and* you are going to pick a "martial" class (i.e. fighter, rogue or ranger).
And hey, while we're on the topic of feats: A fighter who's 12th level and takes Power Attack for the first time can subtract 12 from his hit into his damage. Look at that; he gets a HUGE benefit for taking the feat later, rather than taking it at first level and using it the entire time.
Whatever fighter "tricks" you learn at 12th level should represent your combat training and adaptability, so it's far more realistic to assume that you've practised powerful swings as you progressed through the levels when compared to, say, picking 6th level wizard spells out of the blue when you hit 12th level.
Or a fighter 5/Wiz 1 can take 'Practice Spellcaster' and gets a caster level equal to level 5?
I'm not familiar with that feat, since we don't use every 3E accessory (and do not allow any stuff from the books we don't own). You're right -- that's not a reasonable Feat at all, and I wouldn't allow it anyway, *unless* you had to take some kind of prerequisite for it (e.g. 'Spellcasting prodigy' from FR).
Or hey, let's go earlier. In 1e, elves and dwarves didn't multi-class; they had the Elf and Dwarf class. In 2e, dwarves couldn't use class x or y. That's not realistic.
Never claimed it was, and personally I always felt that there was a lot of "wonky" stuff in D&D -- a lot of which 3E eventually fixed. Even in AD&D we had a huge number of houserules (e.g. that there were *no* level-limits for any race). As I said, 3E used a more simulationist approach to the rules, and made the system internally more consistent and coherent.
I could go through D&D and point out everything that doesn't match up "realistically" with "story". I'm sure your response to each of these would be explaining it away, story wise. Which is doable with 4e if you stretch it just like the above examples.
No. Again, I have never, ever claimed that (B)D&D or AD&D were very good at "realism" or balance -- quite the opposite. They were decent enough in their day, but I wouldn't want to play them (or systems similar to them) anymore. We had to modify so much stuff and invent new rules that I was very relieved when 3E eventually came out.
It ultimately does not matter. It's mechanically balanced. Make up whatever explanation you want for it. Don't like it? Don't use it. If you want some sort of in-game explanation that requires all sorts of hoops to jump through, that's the DM's job in putting that in, not the system's, just like PrCs, what spells are given out when, what treasure, what classes are available, the availability of magical items, and so on.
D&D: Bring Your Own Explanation.
I'm a veteran DM of 20 years, and 4E seems to be the first edition in which I just can't come up with in-game/in-story explanations for a lot of stuff (classes and their powers, namely). I hope it doesn't imply anything about lack of imagination, but rather about a different POV/gaming philosophy. I could throw the ball to the players, but that would feel a bit awkward to me. Of course, it doesn't help that the designers seem especially proud of how "compact" the writing is (which is silly -- it saves space, but there's also the danger that only the people who designed/wrote that stuff truly understand how the stuff works).
It may not matter to *you*, but it matters to me and my players (and, at least a few other people, I'd dare to assume). Balance is important, but I don't think it should ever surpass all sense of realism or consistency.
