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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Planeswalker Maloran" data-source="post: 3745762" data-attributes="member: 55061">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. Traditionally, Monks who take other class levels cannot continue to advance in Monk levels; but taking the Ascetic Rogue feat (or other Ascetic feats) from Complete Adventurer solves this nicely. And even without them, there's nothing to stop a first-level Rogue or Sorcerer from then becoming a Monk.Of course, you could house rule that Monks can't be multiclassed, but there are other combinations that get nasty too. For instance, 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.I could list plenty of other examples if you want, but that could become its own thread.Admittedly, these are still possible with the new system, but they do not also gain the other benefits of the level (hit points, saves, etc.), and unless they start out this way at first level, they need to spend money and have significant downtime to accomplish it. Also, only humans and half-elves can start with two classes of their choice (favored class: any). Alternately, a favored class could be assigned to human and half-elf to prevent such combinations in the first place.The gain is that it is more versatile than simply playing a gestalt character, because you can have multiple classes, and more levels in one than another if you want. The other gain is that it strives to remain balanced with single-class advancement. If you ran a gestalt character in a campaign with single-class characters, the gestalt character would be significantly higher powered. You could apply an experience penalty, but that's effectively what this system does. You create a custom (albeit slightly more complicated) gestalt, and still remain balanced with the rest of the party.One complaint I've heard about multiclassing is that, while base attack bonus (and most other class-granted abilities) stack, spellcasting power does not. A Bard who wants to improve his combat ability can take a couple of Fighter levels, but a Bard who wants to improve his spellcasting ability is stuck. Sure, taking a Sorcerer level or two will give him a few more first-level spells (and a lot more spells per day, but that can only be used for his Sorcerer spells), but it'll also delay his higher-level spells (which are already late in coming) for two more levels. No gain whatsoever. Under this new system, it would give him more spells per day that could be used for either Bard or Sorcerer spells, with very little delay to his higher level Bard spells.True, but hit dice and levels are practically synonymous. And since this system treats racial hit dice as NPC class levels, there is nothing that would provide you with hit dice and not with levels. (Taking secondary class levels does not raise your total hit dice or effective level, but it does give you hit dice. They just don't stack with the hit dice of your primary class.)</blockquote>

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