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Excerpt: Multiclassing (merged)

Lord Mhoram said:
Not at all. As I mentioned upthread, I really like the new system. To get the versatility I want, I may make a few houserules, but I've never had any problems doing that. I'm actually looking forward to playing with the classes and multiclassing as presented. And that is from someone who D&D is a secondary game system. The MC rules moved the PH from a "yeah whenever" purchase to a "buy the week it comes out" one. :)

I was at "buy the week it comes out" before 4E was even announced. I got pretty tired of 3.X. :D

Although right now, what I'm really drooling to see is information on rituals. WotC has been very tight-lipped on that particular subject.
 

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muffin_of_chaos said:
What about mah Fighter/Cleric/Paladin/Ranger/Rogue/Warlord/Warlock/Wizard?
Sounds like Senior Vorpal Kick-asso (with two 4th edition base-classes added), the retarded goblin and absolute moron who got captured by some evil ranger-dude who specialized in killing goblinoids, and got tortured very very painfully, and then was going to be executed. Now his single-player character classed goblinoid fellows have to save his worthless butt, and they might die because of him.

Yeah, a good concept for a super-useless character who only gets everybody else in trouble. :D
 

Mustrum_Ridcully said:

*I really wrote Thief at first - why? I play D&D only since 3E, I don't even know how the Thief Classes looked like! Curse you, grognards, for slipping your dated terminology in my vocabulary!
Do not fight it. I am no 'back in good old days' dude but someone who stabs you in the back, unlocks doors and removes traps? Thief all the way baby, Expert Treasure Finder on the business card.
 

rowport said:
Presuming that you know your player, and/or can ask him directly, would you mind posting his rationale? I am genuinely curious, not looking for an argument.

As I said... Because we specifically and overtly decided to keep our characters relatively simple during our first 4E campaign, so we could learn and master the new system.
 

So, if you have a human and take the first multi-class feat at 1st level do you think you can take the bonus at-will power from the second class? That just would make humans pretty uber for multi-classing.
 

Maybe I can make my unhappiness clear by looking at what 4e MCing doesn't give you. It doesn't give you at-will Powers, or (with minor exceptions) other non-Power class abilities. What does this mean?

If you want to MC into a defender you:
1) don't gain Armor, HP or Healing surges: you don't get any tougher, a key defender characteristic. Sure, you can spend even more feats on those things, but then you would have been better off not MCing and getting those feats instead.
2) don't gain the ability to defend allies reliably. While you do get the ability to (possible miss change w/fighter) mark 1 person/encounter with the initial MC feat, and might be able to pick up other defender abilities as encounter powers, your defender abilities will still be negligible. MCing with fighter, you *don't* get the fighters AoO root/anti shift abilities. WotC claims to have made paladin marks relatively unstable to prevent coward-pally tactics. With many enemy, long duration, mobile encounters supposed to be the norm, a single, weak per encounter mark+the option to spend a feat on a per encounter ability just isn't going to cut it.
It is lack of toughness improvements that really galls me: MCing into a defender, by costing feats, effectively *weakens* your defenses (those feats could have been spent on increasing your own defense). The inability to pick up significant party-protection abilities doesn't help any either.

If you MC into a striker: (the following is written under the assumption, borne out in the very limited info we have, that a striker's extra damage comes from their abilities that give extra damage dice, Sneak Attack/Hunter's Quarry/Warlock's Curse)
1) You don't get significant extra damage: you get 1 use of the striker's extra damage ability/encounter (unless you are a warlock, then you lose completely). Given the goal of long fights with many enemies, you aren't gaining even weak striker damage.
2) You aren't getting much mobility, the other striker feature. The warlock can get a per encounter movement ability with his MC feat. All can get per encounter movement abilities with further feat investiture, but 2-3 movement abilities/encounter, with 4e encounter durations, won't play like a high mobility character.
MCing into strikers won't get you either the flavor of a high DPS character, or the flavor of a high mobility character. Yay? Also, like the defender MC armor issue, MCing into strikers doesn't seem to net you weapon proficiencies... which can pose problems. Forcing extra feat expenditure to be able to use the weapon your MCed class requires is asking too much.

The cases of leaders and controllers is less clear, because we don't have much information about higher level healing, or any real idea on how the controller is supposed to control the battlefield.
 

How exactly did Multiclassing in pre-3rd edition work, again? Wasn't it so that you started as a multiclass, and forever were a multiclassed character? Isn't D&D 3rd edition's approach rather more like dual-classing?
 

DandD said:
How exactly did Multiclassing in pre-3rd edition work, again? Wasn't it so that you started as a multiclass, and forever were a multiclassed character? Isn't D&D 3rd edition's approach rather more like dual-classing?

Yes, although 3e's approach is much kinder than the old dual classing rules which demanded very high stats and were a "no looking back" kind of deal where you could never advance in your old class again. In fact IIRC you couldn't even use the abilities of your old class untill your nex class was of equal level or you were 'backsliding'.

And of course as has been mentioned, the multi-classed characters of old were just flat out massively more powerful than a single classed character.
 


Dausuul said:
....
4E looks to be negating this, making arcane casters play the same basic game as everyone else--protect your hit points with AC/Fort/Ref/Will, defeat your enemies by chopping off their hit points.

I don't quite agree with you. For instance Bigby's Grasping Hands makes your AC/Fort/Ref/Will quite irrelevant against melee mobs. Blast of Cold does the same kind of thing. Fly can also be used to avoid melee mobs. The list goes on, and I think there will be spells that hinders ranged mobs as well.
 

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