A more gestalt approach to multiclassing

[Meeki]

Not quite sure I understand why you treat racial HD as NPC class levels. Anyways.

Last week when I read this post I liked the jist behind it so I stold it and made my own gestalt lite system, its easier to use but doesn't provide as much flexibility in customization. To summarize your secondary class is automatically 1/2 of your HD, you get all abilities, skills (not points), no HD, no BA, and have an option to gain a good save of your secondary class instead of when you would gain one in your primary(ies).

 

[Planeswalker Maloran]

Why not allow 2 levels in a primary class if it happens to be your favoured one?

Why should, say, an Elf Ranger be forced to take a level of Wizard when he'd much rather have 2 levels of Ranger?

Two reasons. First, you gain more from your second level of a primary class than from your first level of a new class (base attack increase, save increases, hit die increases, ect). By the same token, it takes 1000 exp to get from first level to second. A character with two levels of ranger would be one level ahead (or half a level, depending on how you look at it) of a character with one level each of ranger and wizard. I think giving him just 1 level and a feat balances it better than putting him one level ahead of everyone else.

Second, favored class in this system represents the training that all members of a society gain as part of their general education. If you don't feel that all elves in your campaign should learn basic spellcasting in school, just give them a different favored class. If you feel it is too limiting, give them a choice of favored classes. When using this system, I like to use the following:

HOUSE RULE - FAVORED CLASSES
'Civilized' Human: Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, or Wizard.
Human raised away from cities: Barbarian, Druid, Ranger.
High Elf: Bard, Cleric, or Wizard.
Wood Elf: Druid or Ranger.
Half-Elf: as whichever race he was raised by.
Dwarf: Cleric or Fighter.
Halfling: Bard or Rogue.
Gnome: Bard or Wizard.
Half-Orc: Barbarian.

Note that no race has the option of Monk or Sorcerer as a favored class. I typically don't allow monks in a non-oriental campaign, while a sorcerer's magic is innate and cannot be learned in school.

Sorry, but I can't see what you think you are gaining by imposing an extra 'flavour class'.

Why, the class abilities of the favored class, of course! Or, from a DM's perspective, a reason for favored class to exist in the first place.

 

[Planeswalker Maloran]

Not quite sure I understand why you treat racial HD as NPC class levels. Anyways.

Last week when I read this post I liked the jist behind it so I stold it and made my own gestalt lite system, its easier to use but doesn't provide as much flexibility in customization. To summarize your secondary class is automatically 1/2 of your HD, you get all abilities, skills (not points), no HD, no BA, and have an option to gain a good save of your secondary class instead of when you would gain one in your primary(ies).

I treat racial hit dice as NPC class levels because they aren't worth having as a favored class (which the MM says they are), but shouldn't give an experience penalty either. If the typical human has 1 commoner level, the typical gnoll has one monstrous humanoid level (yes, I know they're called Hit Dice not levels, but they're exactly the same thing), and the typical ogre has 4 giant levels, that sounds like NPC classes to me.

Your gestalt lite sounds interesting, but I don't think I'd use it. I'd rather have a flexible but complex system than a simple but limited one.

 

[Nifft]

For example, a Monk with high Dexterity and Wisdom, and one Sorcerer level for Mage Armor and Shield, gets ridiculous armor class without having to spend any money for it, and only slightly delaying his Monk abilities. A monk/rogue adds sneak attack damage to all his flurry-of-blows attacks when flanking his enemy.

Right, but you're paying for those 20 rounds of high AC (casting shield twice) by lowering your HP, your BAB, your skill points, your Monk abilities, and by putting ability points into Charisma -- one of the Monk's very few dump stats.

Warlock/Rogue. Take the Invocation that gives you +6 to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate checks; take the feat Improved feint, take the Hideous Blow invocation, and put maximum ranks in Bluff. Except for the rare occasion when you fight someone with high Sense Motive, you can make one attack per round that deals full Sneak Attack and Eldritch Blast damage, even when you aren't flanking. Particularly at low levels, that's severely broken.

Skill Focus (Bluff) will get you half the same benefit -- and very few folks put ranks in Sense Motive, so you're likely to make your Feint checks anyway. Rogues are balanced against the idea that they'll find a way to use Sneak Attack pretty often. Hideous Blow just mitigates the loss of Sneak Attack damage (but is inferior since you can't use it with TWF). I'm not seeing a whole lot of advantage here.


Multi-class characters seem to shine less than single-class characters. That's been my experience from levels 3 through 16.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Planeswalker Maloran]

Right, but you're paying for those 20 rounds of high AC (casting shield twice) by lowering your HP, your BAB, your skill points, your Monk abilities, and by putting ability points into Charisma -- one of the Monk's very few dump stats.

You certainly don't need high Charisma to cast Shield. You need 11, or 12 if you want one extra casting per day. And you're only putting yourself behind by one level of monk, which doesn't hurt you that badly in exchange for the AC boost.

Skill Focus (Bluff) will get you half the same benefit -- and very few folks put ranks in Sense Motive, so you're likely to make your Feint checks anyway. Rogues are balanced against the idea that they'll find a way to use Sneak Attack pretty often. Hideous Blow just mitigates the loss of Sneak Attack damage (but is inferior since you can't use it with TWF). I'm not seeing a whole lot of advantage here.

I agree, this one isn't as bad as the others. But in my experience, if you have max ranks in Bluff (and particularly if you have Skill Focus), the DM starts giving people Sense Motive. I'm undecided whether that's bad DMing, or making the world more realistic and the game more of a challenge, but it happens. Now imagine having 16 Charisma, Beguiling Influence, and Skill Focus (Bluff). That's a +12 bonus, not counting any ranks. +16 if you have max ranks for 1st level. DC 17 Sense Motive it you roll a 1 on Bluff. No one min/maxes their Sense Motive, so no one will ever see through your Feint (or other reasonable use of Bluff, for that matter).

Multi-class characters seem to shine less than single-class characters. That's been my experience from levels 3 through 16.

That's only if you're not playing combinations that work well together. I once played a sorcerer/rogue/monk in a level 3 campaign. I made no effort to min/max the character; actually, I was trying to build a perfectly fair and reasonable character and not make it overpowered. But even with a BAB of +0, I was the most effective combatant on the field. Dex 16, Wis 14, Mage Armor, and Shield: AC 23. High ranks in Tumble let me move around pretty freely. I'd just flank someone, and make 2 Sneak Attack punches in a round. They wouldn't always hit (it was about 50/50), but no one could hit me.

You might say taking levels of Sorcerer and Rogue delay the monk abilities too much to be easily broken, but I broke it without trying to. Lower hit points? *shrug* I never got hit. Lower BAB? Oh well, +2 bonus from flanking. I was hitting just as often as a standard 3rd-level monk, and doing twice as much damage. Nothing could ever hit me. It actually got kinda boring, because I like combat to be a challenge.

On the other hand, if you were to play a wizard/cleric/druid/bard, you'd be the most pathetically under-powered character in the game. You had access to every spell list, but you wouldn't get even 2nd level spells until you were 9th level. That's why I felt the multiclass rules needed a serious overhaul. Some combinations are equal or greater than single classes, while others (especially the interesting ones) just aren't worth touching with a 10-foot pole.