Better with dip..

[Andor]

I'm playing a dragon shaman in my current game and I'm really impressed with how this character is turning out.

But... He's only as effective as he is becasue of a 1 level dip I took into another class, in this case Knight. So he's a Knight 1/Dragon Shaman 3 at this point, fighting Sword and board with a spiked shield and serving as party point man. He keeps up the energy shield aura until he drops below half, or another party member drops, and then switches over to fast healing. But if it wasn't for the heavy armour and martial weapon proficiencies he got froom the dip he'd be a completely different character, both easier to hit, more mobile, and less effective in combat. Devon the Bronze Knight is a highly effective, and enjoyable character, I doubt I'd like him nearly as much if he wasn't the take charge, point man sort of character he is.

Have you found any other classes whose whole character changes with a dip? Do you like this aspect of 3.5 multi-classing?

 

[Wik]

Our Dragon Shaman dipped right into Fighter, first chance he got. The fighter levels gave him heavy armour and a tower shield... making his AC incredibly high. HE acts much like yours does - DR aura on until someone's at half, and then it's healing aura, but he also draws a buttload of attacks that can't hit him. Meanwhile, his nemesis is a red dragon shaman that dipped into Rogue - a completely different character.

 

[Kelleris]

I actually have two characters like this, so obviously I'm fond of it. One is a "ninja" character made using the bard class, but with a one-level dip into Battle Dancer, from the Dragon Compendium, for the mad martial arts skills and the Charisma bonus to AC when unarmored. The other is a battle sorcerer flavored as a warrior with an innate ability to control his life energy and those of others (so he gets reflavored versions of non-polymorph, non-illusory buff spells and spells like enervation and escalating enfeeblement). He has 1 level of barbarian for proficiencies and the rage (augmented with Extra Rage and Reckless Rage), which is sort of an uncontrolled version of his usual spellcasting - fast and powerful, but it makes his other energy-control powers temporarily inaccessible. It's sort of like a non-crappy version of Tenser's transformation.

In both cases the dip makes a huge difference in the flavor of the character. I quite like having the option in 3.x.

 

[Nyaricus]

I made a jungle dwarf from Chult who was a barbarian at first. He was then met by a couatl who taught him the ways of the forest and how killing your enemies with wit and cleverness was a better path then pure berserk rage. He then took up ranger levels after that and was level 5 when I retired him, a hardy little bastard with a heart of gold and a nice little axe

Couldn't have make him like that without the barbarian levels.

cheers,
--N

 

[Sejs]

I'm quite fond of dipping to flesh out a character concept, particularly when done with base classes. Most PrCs have some degree of concept built in... kinda goes without saying... but base classes are a lot more free-form.

Two barbarians from completely different cultures are a bit similar with just straight barbarian levels. But Barbarian A, who comes from an ancestor-worshipping highly mysticized culture and dips a few levels into Binder (and works with the DM to cook up some low-level ancestor spirit type vestiges), and Barbarian B, the horse nomad with a few levels of ranger, the archery combat style, a horse animal companion, and the Natural Bond feat ... wildly different characters.


If there's something that makes your character more of a living, breathing person and less of a collection of stats, then I'm all for it.

 

[Quartz]

Multiclassing is what makes D&D so good and fun.

 

[Voadam]

I found multiclassing soulknife with a tank class to work really well. My paladin soulknife got heavy armor, a BAB boost and detect evil. The other way to look at it was my paladin had his own psionic sword that improved with levels.

 

[pawsplay]

I think it may be a flaw of the Dragon Shaman that it benefits so much from dips. Aura access is just not that huge a deal, considering you always have one up (and hence you are never "idling" from lack of something to do). But the class offers little to do other than buff, which means dipping into something else offers a lot more options. Gaining the benefits of heavy armor is huge, since most DSs are not stealth or tumbling oriented characters. Conversely, adding move silently and tumble via Rogue or Monk seems very effective, too, if you stick with the lighter armors. It seems like the occasional bard dip would result in a Charisma based juggernaut when combined with draconic persuasion.

 

[Andor]

I think it may be a flaw of the Dragon Shaman that it benefits so much from dips. Aura access is just not that huge a deal, considering you always have one up (and hence you are never "idling" from lack of something to do). But the class offers little to do other than buff, which means dipping into something else offers a lot more options. Gaining the benefits of heavy armor is huge, since most DSs are not stealth or tumbling oriented characters. Conversely, adding move silently and tumble via Rogue or Monk seems very effective, too, if you stick with the lighter armors. It seems like the occasional bard dip would result in a Charisma based juggernaut when combined with draconic persuasion.

You know, it might be to the detriment of the class that it can be bent in so many directions, but I think it's to the benefit of the game.

There are a lot of classes where dillution really hurts. It makes it hard use them to sculpt a variation on theme without greatly weakening the character's effectiveness in return for mere flavor. It's nice to see some new classes that go the other way.

 

[DreadArchon]

You know, it might be to the detriment of the class that it can be bent in so many directions, but I think it's to the benefit of the game.

Agreed. (Besides, it'd be awfully silly to play a Red Dragon Shaman without dipping Rogue or Scout to get Trapfinding.)