Excerpt: Multiclassing (merged)

[drjones]

If the powers are balanced correctly, then a character who has 50% wizard powers and 50% cleric powers is not unbalanced. (This is probably a gross simplification, but as a general principle, I think it holds.)

Nope. All you have to do is ask yourself 'Is there any reason to play a pure character?' In a situation where a multiclass caster is just as good as a normal caster then only someone roleplaying would every play a pure caster. 3.5 'fixed' this by making all 50/50s garbage. 4e is taking a softer but less min/maxable approach to the same end:

To make all players at the table feel like they are contributing because joe next to you didn't come up with some brilliant combo that does everything you can do and a lot of other cool stuff as well so you might as well go home.

 

[Rechan]

You think that's weak?

Weaker than cherry-picking a power? Hell yeah.

 

[Rechan]

That just means you're down a feat. You still have the same number of powers.

You just cherry-picked the best power from a class's list, and you got to give away a weak power from yours.

 

[Falling Icicle]

There are a lot of people saying "If all powers of level X are balanced, there should be no cost (or less cost) for swapping them out!"

<snip>

My point? Powers are balanced in their assumed context. That doesn't mean they're balanced in a vacuum, and that there should be no cost for swapping them out.

Exactly. That was the point I was trying to make earlier. Multiclassing lets you get powers that your class normally isn't supposed to have. And it also allows for some very interesting synergies. Fighters can mark opponents that they damage, for example. So giving them a ranged AoE spell (like fireball) allows them to simultaneously mark several foes at once, at range, in addition to damaging them! I really doubt that fighters normally have such powers available to them.

Multiclassing has always been about sacrificing some power in your main class to get more versatility. The key is for it to be costly enough that people are discouraged from doing it as a default option, but not so expensive that it's crippling or just not worth it. I think that the 4e multiclassing-by-feats system succeeds at that goal.

 

[Mort_Q]

... giving them a ranged AoE spell (like fireball) allows them to simultaneously mark several foes at once, at range, in addition to damaging them!

Can fighters mark more than one opponent at a time?

 

[AtomicPope]

My 2nd edition character was a Fighter/Cleric/Mage Half-Elf. Being of mixed heritage he similarly applied himself in many areas. He casted Divine and Arcane Spells in addition to learning fighting techniques.

He did this at 1st level.

But fighters didn't have any abilities in 1e whatsoever. As is stands, your comparison just shows how much the game has evolved to give fighters a special role. Could a 1e fighter stop a moving monster dead in its tracks as a reaction? Nope. Could a 1e fighter hinder a monster so its attacks suffered penalties when not targeting the fighter? Nope. Could your FCM 1/2e take any amounts of serious damage? Nope. Hit Points were divided at 1st level to compensate. Could a 1e fighter heal himself in combat as a standard feature? Nope.

The 1e fighter possessed nothing but HP and Weapon/Armor profs. The same can't be said for the 4e fighter. He has more hitpoints, more abilities, and more features then ever before. Fighters have something to do besides 1D8+Str for the rest of their career.


BTW - you could still make a 4e FCM at 1st level and he'd be doing a heck of a lot more than a 1e multiclasser.

 

[Henry]

Something that I think isn't being considered fully by detractors of 4e multiclassing is the obvious slower power progression between levels, versus 3e. Those "wasted" feats will actually grant you some pretty powerful abilities that are usable over the lifespan of the character (sleep has been the obvious example, but given the choice of powers between 1 and 10 with the "swap-out" ability, I'm sure there are even better examples in the book).

The ability to keep updating the powers as time goes on is what makes the difference to me - retraining may allow this for single classed characters, but what if it doesn't? We know wizards can swap their dailies, but what if that's all they can swap on a regular basis, with retraining being more limited? In that case, the ability to use any of the encounter powers at one point or another would be a pretty significant boon in and of itself.

All in all, I'm actually liking what I'm seeing, because the 1e and 2e multiclassing rules struck me as not aiding their original purposes. 1e multiclassing was too powerful for the low levels, and totally stunted for the high. It was a game system where if you knew the DM was running for more than 6th or 7th level, no one in their right mind ran a demi-human, and if you knew the DM was probably only going to stop the game at 6th or so, then no one in their right mind ran a HUMAN. Mostly, in our games, it was the latter, and the game petered out at 5th to 7th level, when another player started getting the drive to DM something. Instead, if you were in for the long haul, you played a human with at least an 18 in the score for the class you were going to dual-class into later...

In 3e, among non-spellcasters, it practically encouraged multiclassing. The barbarian for the occasional rage, 1 or 2 rogue levels for the rapid skill increase in your main skill set (or factotum for the inspirations also!) and evasion, 2 levels of fighter for the feats, some swordsage or warblade for a splash of martial maneuvers and weapon switchout mastery, and maybe some levels of duskblade for the will saves and a few useful melee powers. In all, the only thing that would hurt hit points is the rogue, you'd have top notch BAB, and a LOT more skill points than the fighter, paladin, or barbarian.

 

[Rechan]

Can fighters mark more than one opponent at a time?

The text is thus:

Combat Challenge: When you attack you may mark the enemy, giving a -2 to attack targets other than you, only one mark per new mark supersedes old one.

So:

You may mark an enemy when you attack.

Another class's mark erases an old one (So you mark an enemy, the paladin marks, the paladin's mark overtakes yours).

No mention of a limit.

 

[AtomicPope]

Can fighters mark more than one opponent at a time?

Probably not w/o a feat. Everything I've seen (which is all questionable) states that fighters must hit in melee to mark and only one at a time. I'm sure as levels increase they'll have ways to improve.

 

[Mort_Q]

No mention of a limit.

Very interesting. Thanks.