Does 3E/3.5 dictate a certain style of play?

[molonel]

Molonel, what dips do you see?

A rogue with 2 levels of ranger isn't uncommon, because the skill sets are complementary. If you combine these with the Wilderness Rogue variant that adds Survival to the Rogue's skill list, it's a very synergistic build.

Melee builds suffer the least from multiclassing. Two levels of monk on a lawfully-aligned character gives you +3 on all saves, Improved Unarmed Strike and a couple of feats.

Four levels of paladin gives you Cha to saves, and turning attempts to feed Divine Might.

A level or two of barbarian on a non-lawfully aligned fighter-type isn't uncommon, or a level or two of fighter on a barbarian for feats. A melee build with the first level in barbarian means you get maximum starting hit points with a d12 hit die.

A level of cleric with properly chosen domains can spice up a fighter build.

A divine spellcaster with a level of monk can eventually shed his armor, and gain that fat wisdom bonus to all sorts of AC (touch, FF and incorporeal touch), but in my experience this is more rare.

 

[Raven Crowking]

RC: A 1e elf fighter/magic-user can wear armour. There are numerous references in the 1e rules to this. There aren't "restrictions" on armour/weapons in 1e, rather you begin being unable to use any, and you are granted the ability to use them.

Well, if there is anyone closer to an absolute authority on the history of the game than MerricB, I've yet to meet him. I must be thinking of a house rule.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

A rogue with 2 levels of ranger isn't uncommon, because the skill sets are complementary. If you combine these with the Wilderness Rogue variant that adds Survival to the Rogue's skill list, it's a very synergistic build.

Melee builds suffer the least from multiclassing. Two levels of monk on a lawfully-aligned character gives you +3 on all saves, Improved Unarmed Strike and a couple of feats.

Four levels of paladin gives you Cha to saves, and turning attempts to feed Divine Might.

A level or two of barbarian on a non-lawfully aligned fighter-type isn't uncommon, or a level or two of fighter on a barbarian for feats. A melee build with the first level in barbarian means you get maximum starting hit points with a d12 hit die.

A level of cleric with properly chosen domains can spice up a fighter build.

A divine spellcaster with a level of monk can eventually shed his armor, and gain that fat wisdom bonus to all sorts of AC (touch, FF and incorporeal touch), but in my experience this is more rare.

So, then, even if you disagree with my (admittedly off the cuff) examples, would you agree that "One or more level dips, when taken, can provide an immediate benefit that aids a character in survival now with little or no (or shall I say, debateable?) long-term cost."?

 

[Storm Raven]

A rogue with 2 levels of ranger isn't uncommon, because the skill sets are complementary. If you combine these with the Wilderness Rogue variant that adds Survival to the Rogue's skill list, it's a very synergistic build.

Melee builds suffer the least from multiclassing. Two levels of monk on a lawfully-aligned character gives you +3 on all saves, Improved Unarmed Strike and a couple of feats.

Four levels of paladin gives you Cha to saves, and turning attempts to feed Divine Might.

A level or two of barbarian on a non-lawfully aligned fighter-type isn't uncommon, or a level or two of fighter on a barbarian for feats. A melee build with the first level in barbarian means you get maximum starting hit points with a d12 hit die.

A level of cleric with properly chosen domains can spice up a fighter build.

A divine spellcaster with a level of monk can eventually shed his armor, and gain that fat wisdom bonus to all sorts of AC (touch, FF and incorporeal touch), but in my experience this is more rare.

I've seen most of these at one time or another. I've also seen many of the players who made those decisions dissatisfied with the results. In my experience, many "dips" seem attractive, but when people start doing them, they don't work as well as desired, and the player ends up regretting the choice to do it. Sometimes they do work out, and the player is happy with the choice, but I've seen fewer and fewer of these as players become more experienced with the system. I've also never seen the "dip" strategy result in a character who was noticeably more powerful than his "non-dipping" companions (which, in my opinion, is why some of the "dippers" have been disappointed).

When the question is "does 3e reward dipping", my experience is that it does not - because dipping provides no noticeable power advantage over not dipping. It might slightly penalize dipping (many dips are subpar choices), but not so much that it would eliminate a character concept that used it to accomplish the player's vision (for example, a gray mouser based character, who would be mostly rogue with a little bit of wizard and maybe a little bit of fighter). But rewarding dipping? No.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Interesting. I'd always assumed that was why Elven chain ("elfin chain") was so rare and-or outrageously expensive, because it had been designed by the Elves so they *could* cast spells out of it. But from this it seems the base assumption was that a multi-classed Elf could cast arcane out of any armour. Fascinating.

You know, I thought the same thing.

MerricB, do you know of any source where this might have been true? I'm wondering if it was a carry-over in my mind from an earlier edition?

RC

 

[MerricB]

You know, I thought the same thing.

MerricB, do you know of any source where this might have been true? I'm wondering if it was a carry-over in my mind from an earlier edition?

RC

Yes. It's true in 2nd edition.

In 2nd edition, elven fighter/magic-users can only wear elfin chain when casting spells.

Cheers!

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yes. It's true in 2nd edition.

In 2nd edition, elven fighter/magic-users can only wear elfin chain when casting spells.

Cheers!

Thanks.

 

[MerricB]

When the question is "does 3e reward dipping", my experience is that it does not - because dipping provides no noticeable power advantage over not dipping. It might slightly penalize dipping (many dips are subpar choices), but not so much that it would eliminate a character concept that used it to accomplish the player's vision (for example, a gray mouser based character, who would be mostly rogue with a little bit of wizard and maybe a little bit of fighter). But rewarding dipping? No.

I will note that in 3e, dipping was a lot more attractive than 3.5e, due to the toploaded classes. A rogue taking one level of ranger would get Ambidexterity and Two-weapon fighting for free, which was extremely useful with sneak attack. One level of paladin did nice things to saving throws, and one level of monk could also be interesting to the right PC.

In 3.5e, these holes were plugged. 3 levels of a class is too significant to easily "dip" into now.

Cheers!

 

[molonel]

So, then, even if you disagree with my (admittedly off the cuff) examples, would you agree that "One or more level dips, when taken, can provide an immediate benefit that aids a character in survival now with little or no (or shall I say, debateable?) long-term cost."?

You asked me what I'd seen. I told you. You didn't ask me what was most advantageous. Like Storm Raven, I've also seen players become dissatisfied with all of those choices in the longterm. I'm in a campaign right now for the World's Largest Dungeon that's gone into Epic levels, and one of the things that everyone has been most grateful for is the retraining option the DM has allowed. And guess what? Everyone used the option to shed 1- and 2-level dips they'd made earlier in the campaign. Did they provide immediate benefits? Sure. With little or no longterm cost? No. Characters with less dipping started gaining bonus epic feats faster. People got to 20th level, and their BAB stopped wherever it was. Some characters never got their 4th iterative attacks because of sacrificed BAB. The spellcasters didn't dip because they wanted their spell progression.

I think your "off the cuff" examples arise out of the fact that you're building characters on paper rather than playing them out in actual gameplay. Does dipping happen? Sure. It can spice up a character and give it extra flavor. It can, and frequently does, create annoying and frustrating gaps or weaknesses in a character in the longterm, particularly if taken to excess. A fighter 2, barbarian 2 is just not ZOMG! Uberpowerful!!! when compared to a fighter 4. A fighter 1, rogue 1, monk 1, ranger 1 isn't, either.

Where dipping sometimes offers the sort of benefit you're talking about is when the synergy of special abilities from what is usually a diverse set of books creates a particular effect.

For example, one person who died came back as a Druid 5 (PHB), Warshaper 5 (Complete Warrior), Nature's Warrior 3 (Complete Warrior), Master of Many Forms 7 (Complete Adventurer). He does this frequently, and I should note that most of his creations have died a rather ignoble death due to the unbalanced nature of his creations and the lopsided weaknesses they contain. I think he's on character number 5, while my mostly straight PHB Rogue is still my first character, and I'm quite satisfied with him. It's also worth mentioning that my character has been the only one capable of performing the tasks he does in the group, and everyone can tell you about his personality and antics throughout the course of what is now a 25 level campaign. They could even tell you how tall he is (2' 10"), because it's a running joke. The guy playing the druid-warshaper-nature's warrior-master of many forms? I couldn't even tell you what he looks like. The other casters like to make fun of him because I think he can cast 3rd level spells.

It was also funny when he was saying, "Yeah, but I'm a tank" and I calmly described how I would kill his character if I had to, using Use Magic Device, some wands, and some scrolls. Yes, it would have taken some time, and yes, he could just run away. But the fact that my 2' 10" rogue could kill his uber creation bothered him.

I will note that in 3e, dipping was a lot more attractive than 3.5e, due to the toploaded classes. A rogue taking one level of ranger would get Ambidexterity and Two-weapon fighting for free, which was extremely useful with sneak attack. One level of paladin did nice things to saving throws, and one level of monk could also be interesting to the right PC. In 3.5e, these holes were plugged. 3 levels of a class is too significant to easily "dip" into now.

Yeah. The 3.0 Ranger was worthless. TWF was also way too expensive, requiring two feats, and so the 1-level dip made even more sense. Now it's two levels to get one feat on the Ranger, and Track doesn't make any sense unless you've got Survival ranks updated to make it a worthwhile feat.