Drawbacks and Advantages of multiclass spell casters in current D&D?

[Najo]

I want to get everyones feedback on what the drawbacks and advantages of the current multiclassing rules with the core classes and how they apply to taking two or more spellcasting classes. Essential what do you feel is broken or good about it, not using anything we know about 3.5 or the Mystic Theurge.

lay it out, everything. How it affects magic item creation, spell resistance the whole nine yards.

Nate

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

If the two classes are advanced evenly (L10/L10) then you only get up to 5th level spells.

 

[Technik4]

Advantages:

Spell Diversity, regardless of whether you took 2 arcane spellcasting classes or an arcane and a divine, you have more diverse spells than your single classed counterpart.

Better item makers, with more spells under your belt you are an excellent item crafter especially if you are dual arcane and divine as you fulfill most item creation requirements effortlessly.

You can still activate items on your spell list, so you can attempt to read higher level scrolls, use higher level wands, etc. Of course, this is an advantage for any spellcaster, not just multiclassed ones.

Drawbacks:

Your caster level is too low in either class to penetrate SR. You are relegated to casting Greater Dispel Magic and to buffing and healing allies.

You miss out on higher level spells, which you presumably traded for more diversity.

Your highest level spells (which may only be 5th level) wont have their power capped because your caster level is too low (IE- a sor10/clr10 casts a cone of cold at 10d6 damage, despite being a 20th level character and the cone of cold has a max of 15d6).

Technik

 

[MarauderX]

Depends what you want to do....

If you want a fighter with some magic, it's easy and better to take a level in cleric while at the low levels, then keep advancing as a fighter/barbarian/whatever. Granted you only get a few heal spells and a limited ability at turning, but it's much better than nothing. If you take a level in arcane, you are restricted by the armor in most cases... so it becomes more of a wasted level unless you are wearing light armor, i.e. rogues.

If you are aiming at a strong caster, it is a big advantage to take 1 level in fighter or rogue in order to get the extra skill slots and proficiencies. Not only that, but having 1 level in fighter early helps with the HPs and not getting KOed all the time in the lower levels. And with a level or two or even three of rogue gets you all sorts of abilities that are a bonus to have through the levels - backstab, uncanny dodge, etc.

Granted, multiclassing makes for a slightly weaker PC than a 'pure' class, but in adventuring it is always good to be multifaceted in case the main expert at something is out of commission. I think it is balanced pretty well, as a jack-of-all-trades is gonna be weaker than a character that has focused in one class.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Personally, I'm pretty happy with the current balance of multi- versus single-classed casters.

You shouldn't be able to have your cake and eat it too. If you want diversity, you should be willing to pay teh price in focused power. If you want focused power, you have to pay the price in diversity. Heck, that's the principle behind specialist wizards.

Sure the wiz10/clr10 is limited to 5th level spells, and has a harder time penetrating SR -- but in return he's got access to two full spell lists for those 5 spell levels, plus 10 levels of special abilities in each class. He's got attack, support, and healing spells -- just not as individually powerful as his wiz20 or clr 20 companion. Depending upon what you want to achieve, you could go wiz15/clr5 or wiz5/clr15 for a different balance.

I'm not in favor of adjustments like the Mystic Theurge class -- I think it gives the multi-classed caster too much (why be a wiz 15/clr5 when I can get more with wiz5/clr5/MT10?).

There's probably a happy balance in tradoffs -- what are the individual class special abilities worth? How many caster levels are the wizard's bonus feats and familiar abilities worth? If we could quantify that sort of thing, we could better figure out what the advantages/disadvantages are -- but I'm not sure how to go about that.

 

[Voadam]

Very good will saves, poor BAB unless very careful in number of levels.

Flexibility of casting multiple types of spells versus powerful ones. Also more low level ones because of the cap on spells per level per class.

Any dilution of a spellcaster's highest spell casting level is a serious power hit. Ditto for druid and cleric powers class powers.

 

[Voadam]

multiclass spell casters can become amazing buffers as many are low level and not that dependant on caster level.

In general the smaller the party, the better off it is to have a multiclass character, the more party members, the better off the party is at having each member do their one niche well.