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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 2499030" data-attributes="member: 3051">Clarify, please:  If I've got a Rogue 5/Ranger 5 under your system, is his max Hide rank 8, or 13?  If it's the first, then yes, it's not really a big deal, but then you're REALLY penalizing a multiclasser when compared to a straight class.Plus, don't underestimate the effects of 5 ranks in an opposed skill.  Take Hide, for instance.If my Hide modifier equals my enemy's Spot modifier, I have a 47.5% chance of winning, a 5% chance of tying, and a 47.5% chance of losing a straight opposed roll.With a +5 modifier, that changes to a 70% chance of winning, 3.75% chance of tying, and a 26.25% chance of losing.Now, at 15th level you're not going to be able to use it to hide from another 15th level who's been raising Spot constantly, but it WILL allow you to greatly improve your chances against someone who doesn't have Spot as a class skill.  Remember, most players don't spend many points cross-class, so why would the NPCs?  Likewise, adding 5 ranks to Spot would greatly help you to see anyone who hasn't been raising their Hide skill.And then there's Bluff, Diplomacy, Tumble, Appraise, the various Knowledge skills... any one of these would benefit from a few extra ranks.  Oh, and how about Use Magic Device?  VERY handy to have.And my favorite: Speak Languages.  Sure, you have Tongues and such, but knowing extra languages is still useful.I see.  Not a bad idea, but then the question becomes, why don't skill points work this way?  That is, if your first class gets 2+INT skill points and you add a level of Rogue, why not just say that you only get 6 skill points for the Rogue level?  And if you then added a level of Fighter, you'd get no skill points since it's less than the Rogue amount?  This'd completely shut down the skill benefit of rampant multiclassing.A Sor/Wiz only gets one familiar already; the levels stack for determining its abilities.And, if you're already doing HP in the "best of each level" way, and switch skill points to the same, why not do this for BAB and Saves also?  You'd have to do it in a fractional way, and for saves you wouldn't want to allow the level 1 +2 bonus for your later classes, but it could still be done.  So, in this case: you'd gain +1 BAB since two Barbarian or Fighter levels give +2 instead of the Sor's +1.  You'd also probably gain a point in Fortitude or Reflex, although I'm not going to work that one out.That's not my real point, though.  When comparing a 15 Sor to a 14/2/2/2/1/1/1/1, then yes, you sacrifice some spellcasting, and that helps balance things a bit.  But as someone who played a multiclassed Sorcerer (Aristocrat 1/Sorcerer 14... and yes, I took a level of an NPC class, by choice!) at these levels, I can tell you that there's already plenty of reasons to do this.  Sure, you lose a few high-level spell slots, and delay access to the 8th and 9th-level spells, but by that point you've already got more spell slots than you know what to do with, and the most "fun" spells are all in the 3rd-5th range, IMO.  So the loss in spellcasting isn't bad, but the added skills and abilities of the side class are very nice.  Adding in all the extras your system only makes that nicer.But I'm not worried about the person who sacrifices a level of their caster class... I'm worried about someone who DOESN'T.  A Wizard in his teens requires more than 10,000 XP to gain a level.  Sacrificing only 1000 XP to gain the benefits of a level of Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, or Ranger is NOTHING.  Most of the time, you won't be comparing a 15th-level caster to a 14th with some side abilities; you'll be comparing a 15th to a 15th, because the sacrificed XP won't slow you down enough to be noticeable.Plus, most high-level Wizards I know are willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of XP on new magic items.  So it's not like this'd suddenly be a new situation.  If I could have spent 1000 XP on my Sorcerer to gain the abilities without sacrificing a whole level, I'd have done it in a second.So under your system, someone in his teens has no reason not to add another class or two.  It's not even a caster issue, really.  A Ranger will add a level of Barbarian for the HP and speed boost; a Fighter will add a level of Rogue for the skill points; a Rogue will add a level of Fighter for the weapon proficiencies and feat.  There's just no real downside to the system.</blockquote>

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