Casters and Multiclassing

[Minigiant]

Spellcasters sometimes cast off different mental ability scores.
Spellcasters sometimes cast off separate spell lists.
Spellcasters sometimes cast off their own spell per day lists.
Spellcasters sometimes cast with their own spellcasting strengths
Spellcasters all have separate training backgrounds.

Because of the above, player and non-player characters tend to not have multiple styles spell casting types.
So I was wondering. Would people be willing to sacrifice fluff to have different magic users stack the different aspects of spellcasting. Classes would count as a spellcaster of one of the 3 power sources (arcane, divine, primal) and simply add their levels together to determine their strengths and number of spells.

A 4th level ranger who joins a druidic order for 3 levels casts as a 5th rank primalist by adding half her ranger levels to his druid levels.

A sorcerer who decides to study the wizard method of magic doesn't have a sorcerer list and a wizard list. He or she is just an arcanist who can spontaneously cast these spells while those spells come form the spellbook. A feat lets her cast her wizard spells with her Charisma score.

A bard is starts as a 1st level arcanist (or primalist) and every 2 levels after her arcanist (or primalist) rank increases. Multiclassing to an assassin increases her arcanist rank instead of making a new list.

Simpler and less pages, tables, and extra character sheets.

 

[am181d]

There's a simpler way to do this:

For each class, have a progression by CHARACTER LEVEL. Spells are then always cast at character level.

So if Bob takes 10th level as a Cleric, he'll get 10th level Cleric spells. If he takes 11th level as a Wizard, he'll get 11th level Wizard spells. And when he's 20th level, he cast ALL of his spells as a 20th level caster.

Consider the legendary warrior who takes a level of wizard late in the game. He'll only have a few spells, but they'll be extremely powerful, as befitting someone of his stature.

This would keep everything balanced throughout, so I assume they'll do something else...

 

[Tallifer]

I still like most of the Fourth Edition hybrid and multi-class rules. They offer enough flexibility within fair limitations. I can see some lightening of the feat requirements for both of those options, but generally they worked very well at the table. You do not need huge attack ability scores all the time. Most multi-classing is done for versatility or novelty. Powergaming for crushing combinations has to be discouraged. (Even the Fourth Edition for all its attempts at balance still suffers from some outrageously abusive combinations: check out the Wizards forum 4e optimization board.)

My lengthy but long ago experiences with AD&D made me quite sour on multi-classing and dual-classing: the limitations in those cases were much too severe and made for little fun. I missed out on the next editions, so I do not know how they are better or worse than the Fourth Edition.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I find 4e multiclassing inadequate and over-priced, and hybriding baroque. Both are also still limitted in scope compared to 3e 'modular' multiclassing. But there were plenty of problems with 3e multiclassing, too - and gestalts were just nuts.

An elegant aproach to multiclassing would be to take a common advancement table, like 4e has (possibly a very different one, so long as it's for everyone), but allow fairly free-form multiclassing, like in 3e. So you have a character level, that determine how many abilities you have, and you have levels in one or more classes, that determine what lists you choose those abilities from.

 

[Raith5]

I still like most of the Fourth Edition hybrid and multi-class rules. They offer enough flexibility within fair limitations. I can see some lightening of the feat requirements for both of those options, but generally they worked very well at the table. You do not need huge attack ability scores all the time. Most multi-classing is done for versatility or novelty. Powergaming for crushing combinations has to be discouraged. (Even the Fourth Edition for all its attempts at balance still suffers from some outrageously abusive combinations: check out the Wizards forum 4e optimization board.)

My lengthy but long ago experiences with AD&D made me quite sour on multi-classing and dual-classing: the limitations in those cases were much too severe and made for little fun. I missed out on the next editions, so I do not know how they are better or worse than the Fourth Edition.

I think hybrids worked really well in 4th ed - one of the little unsung successes in 4th ed. Agree that the feat system was over the top and a little messy but mostly worked.

I also agree with your concern about powergaming - MC rules should be enabling players to customize or develop archetypes not covered in the rules. But the ultimate balancer on this should be the action economy, which in 4th ed imposed limits on what any character could do in a round and given the sharp reduction in buffs put MC characters on a level playing field with single classed PCs.

 

[Sunseeker]

Hybridizing should be minimal, classes either need to be complete ala pathfinder where the best route to a flavorful and powerful character was to stay 1 class. Or it should be through making a new class out of combining two others.

The reason casters use different scores for casting is to prevent them from becoming stupidly overpowered by being able to cast from 3 different schools(arcane/primal/divine) at the same level as someone who was just solidly a cleric for all their levels.

Allowing multiclassing in that manner would literally lead to a caster who can do everything.

 

[howandwhy99]

Here's how I understand OD&D and AD&D dual-/multi- classing.

Humans may retire permanently from a class and train for a 2nd one at 1st level 0 XP, so long as they have a 16 in the new class's prime requisite score.
Demi-Humans may switch between every class they are trained for and may train for more, but must have a 16 in all prime requisites but their first class.

All session play is performed in 1 class only. Switching classes is (almost always) done between sessions for simplicity. Therefore each class gains its own separate XP score and level.

A M-U7/CLR4 does not have their spells stack. They are effectively a 7th level M-U when running that class and a 4th level Cleric when running the other. If they use abilities from one class when playing another, they lose the possibility of gaining XP for its use. If used in conjunction with a number of other abilities in succession, like in a multi-round combat for instance, they lose the possibility of XP for the whole.

 

[Ratskinner]

Here's how I understand OD&D and AD&D dual-/multi- classing.

Humans may retire permanently from a class and train for a 2nd one at 1st level 0 XP, so long as they have a 16 in the new class's prime requisite score.
Demi-Humans may switch between every class they are trained for and may train for more, but must have a 16 in all prime requisites but their first class.

All session play is performed in 1 class only. Switching classes is (almost always) done between sessions for simplicity. Therefore each class gains its own separate XP score and level.

A M-U7/CLR4 does not have their spells stack. They are effectively a 7th level M-U when running that class and a 4th level Cleric when running the other. If they use abilities from one class when playing another, they lose the possibility of gaining XP for its use. If used in conjunction with a number of other abilities in succession, like in a multi-round combat for instance, they lose the possibility of XP for the whole.

I think that varied between editions. I seem to remember that Demi-humans could "multi-class" simultaneously between two (or more) classes if they met all the requirements for the them. Rather than stack, they would take the better value for saves, attacks, etc., but they also had to earn all the XP they would have to earn for all those levels. Humans had the sequential "dual-classing", but that might have only been in 2e. (I don't have any 1e books, anymore.) I do remember that multiclassing back then almost always really punished you for it, and was highly restricted by race and ability score. (You had really slow advancement and basically averaged your hp, IIRC.)

 

[Crazy Jerome]

There's a simpler way to do this:

For each class, have a progression by CHARACTER LEVEL. Spells are then always cast at character level.

So if Bob takes 10th level as a Cleric, he'll get 10th level Cleric spells. If he takes 11th level as a Wizard, he'll get 11th level Wizard spells. And when he's 20th level, he cast ALL of his spells as a 20th level caster.

For a solution that is halfway between that and the 3E solution, have "virtual levels" by several broad, common categories. For example, use the 4E power sources with 3E multiclassing. You can have "arcane," "divine," "primal," "psionic," etc. levels. These stack internally, no matter which classes provides a given source level, but don't stack with each other. So if you take levels of bard, sorcerer, and wizard, your "arcane" caster level keeps going up just fine. However, try to add on one level of cleric, and you've got no more divine ability than a 1st level cleric just starting out.

For simple classes, I'm not sure that avoiding certain stacking is such a bad thing. Then if you want to allow things like the cleric/wizard to be effective, make the character pay feats for that, instead of paying the feats for the multiclassing itself. You could make this a percentage, and set the max based on what is considered acceptable. Perhaps a wizard/cleric that really works at it can get 75% or 80% or so of the spell levels of a straight arcane or divine caster. So you might allow 20% to 25% per feat, up to that limit. A 50/50 caster at 20th level already has 10th level divine, 10th level arcane. Spend a couple of feats, and get to count 50% of divine (i.e. 5 caster levels) towards arcane and vice versa.

I'd cap such a system short of 100%, but I suppose that would be a setting everyone would pick differently. Also, you might have some more complex base classes that got those feat abilities as class abilities (in return for not getting other things).

Short of going back to 1E multiclassing or something like the 4E hybrid, I don't know of a way to have stackable multiclassing that doesn't run into either this problem, or handwave it away and step on niches of the single classes.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I do remember that multiclassing back then almost always really punished you for it, and was highly restricted by race and ability score. (You had really slow advancement and basically averaged your hp, IIRC.)

It didn't punish you much at all until the XP progression leveled out. And by then, the demi-humans were already hitting level limits, and getting pounded that way. At the earlier levels, the exponential progression meant that you could be a 5/5 fighter mage while your human allies were at 6th fighter or 6th mage. You never got more than 2 behind, except perhaps fighter/mage compared to single class thief--or of course if you triple classed. It was usually a good trade--and when it wasn't it was the level caps that did it in (e.g. halfling fighter/thief).

Sometimes I'd like to see a version that had 3E/4E unified, cleaned up, balanced classes, but with a 1E progression and multiclassing (i.e. a single XP chart that you had to use in the 1E way to progress, but wide open on choices, and each choice being valuable). One of the nice things about such a system is that you can go as wide or deep as the group wants to go. If you want to grab three levels of cleric instead of your next level of fighter, it might be worth it, even if you are only getting the power of a young 3rd level cleric in the bargain. You do need to work out how hit points and other such things will stack, but that is not insurmountable.