Excerpt: Multiclassing (merged)

[Scrollreader]

The cost of going outside your role is not being as good in your primary role, and you already pay that cost by giving up one (or more) of your powers.

This feels like the "Mystic Theurge is broken!" argument all over again.

Not at all. Because losing three levels in your primary spellcasting class was horrid. Losing one power really doesn't compare to how /bad/ that was. This is more like the anima mage, really. No spellcasting levels lost, feat buy in for extra abilities. (I think it was the anima mage. The binder/spellcaster class with no lost caster levels from Tome of Magic. Don't have my books handy, atm.)

And again, YMMV, but having fireball avaliable when you don't have a controller is /definately/ worth a feat, as far as I'm concerned. Or the fact that each of the /first/ multiclassing feats is already at least as good as skill training (if with harsher pre-reqs and other limits, like only getting to have one). Or Eyebite. A clever rogue could get incredible amounts of mileage out of that power, easily getting a feat's worth. Or, Or, Or. I mean, just with the powers we have /already/ seen, I can see several cases where I think it would be worth a feat to get a power. And f you don't think so, there's always the option to multiclass in lieu of a paragon path, or use the first multiclassing feat to get into a paragon path that you like (Fighter into Stormwarden, for instances. or Rogue into Kensai). If there wasn't a price involved, then there's no roles, no niches, and no way for your character to shine. I've seen this happen in WOD and Exalted. A character who picks well in those systems can completely marginzalize someone else, or even multiple other players. Those games require a strong social contract outside the game to keep roles and niches safe. I don't think that's the direction D&D was going to be taken in.

 

[Xanaqui]

Well, there's a lot of fancy talk there about kicking system mastery in the teeth and making any combination work equally well, but it doesn't look likely to work out that way.

Take the Student of the Sword feat, for instance. If there are a limited number of attack bonus boosting feats--even if many of them are better than Student of the Sword, it's still an obvious power choice for a warrior type. And no matter how often the designers pretend that healing word 1/day is as good as +1 to hit (yes, it's presumably limited to certain weapons, but how frequently is that a problem?), there are a lot of characters for whom the +1 to hit is going to be a lot better. (Marking, etc, we'll wait and see on, but +1 to hit is an obvious and obviously useful benefit).

We've seen at least 1 feat (Dwarven Weapons Training) that grants quite a bit more than +1 to hit, so I'm under-convinced that Student of the Sword is the way to go for hitting.

Conversely, the power trading feats have a long road to hoe in order to avoid being traps for the unwary. If they work as described in the article, a character who takes a power trading feat gives up a feat and a power to get a power that wouldn't normally be available to him. Now, if everything works as advertised and all powers are equal (no really, I'm trying to be serious here, WotC designers said it, it must be so), then the character who sticks with his ordinary class powers gets a feat and a power but the character who wants to trade simply ends up short a feat in comparison. What is most likely to happen is that there will be a couple powers that are significantly better than other powers (at least for certain types of characters) and that characters who use the power trading feats to gain those powers will be somewhat stronger than they would without the power trading feat. At the same time, players who make more suspect choices will end up with a power that doesn't really help them do anything that needs doing and will have wasted a feat for the privilige of gimping their character like that.

We'll have to wait and see what all comes out of it, but it doesn't look particularly promising to me as a multiclassing system.

In the meantime, I'll note that saying at the same time that the new system does fighter/mages perfectly fine and that it only allows dabbling is complete and utter doublespeak.

You are likely correct, but note that with re-training, the player can correct such a bad choice.

This looks like a pretty good system to me, but I guess whether or not it's good depends on your goals. I'm guessing that you would have preferred a more equative split between two classes.

Frankly, I'm happy if most multiclass combinations are on the same order of power as most single-class combinations. The power level matchup doesn't have to be exact; just better than the C/F/M was in 1st ed AD&D.

 

[Spatula]

You are trading Specialization for Generalization.

And losing 1-3 feats in the process. The trade-off isn't the problem, it's the high cost of it that bothers me. Any power of a given level should be roughly equal to any other power of the same level. Now, going outside your niche has value, but you also have to consider that whatever multiclass powers that you pick up are probably not going to favor your best ability score.

I really wish there had been something about how the Paragon-level multiclassing works.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Do we know how many feats a character has?

There was a tenth level character with 6 feats. Their race and class was not known.

 

[FireLance]

Except that you're keeping the benefits from your earlier class.

For instance, if it was not giving up a feat, then it would be totally worth it to start as fighter, and then just cherry pick encounter and daily Wizard powers. That way, you had your Sweet defender HP, Defenses, Surges, etc, plus the Wizard encounters/dailies.

I'm not saying that it isn't worth a feat. I'm saying that swapping out an encounter, a utility and a daily is not worth three.

 

[hong]

Ultimately it depends on how good feats are, and how many of them you get. If you get a feat every 2 levels, and they're not as powerful as class features, then maybe you can afford to drop a feat to change class features. If feats are very good, then it may not be so affordable.

 

[muffin_of_chaos]

And your arguments in support of this assertion are?

Ever played 3.x with munchkins? This would be worse, considering how hard WotC is trying to balance the utility of each class.

 

[Rechan]

but you also have to consider that whatever multiclass powers that you pick up are probably not going to favor your best ability score.

Unless you multi-class cleverly.

An Int (Tactics) focused Warlord picking up Int-focused Wizard powers. A Brute-focused rogue picking up (Strenght) based Fighter powers, etc. Some of the paladin abilities are Charisma vs. Will; a Charismatic Rogue or an Inspiration-powered Warlord could milk that.

 

[Scrollreader]

Ultimately it depends on how good feats are, and how many of them you get. If you get a feat every 2 levels, and they're not as powerful as class features, then maybe you can afford to drop a feat to change class features. If feats are very good, then it may not be so affordable.

I'll concur with that.

 

[FireLance]

Ever played 3.x with munchkins?

No, but I've played with some pretty good powergamers.

This would be worse, considering how hard WotC is trying to balance the utility of each class.

Please elaborate.