Excerpt: Multiclassing (merged)

[RandomCitizenX]

If I ran 4e, I might houserule it that way, though -- the system works best to represent "prior training" or other pre-adventurer experience, rather than learning new things.

I have to disagree on this point since I could easily see the feat being picked up later and justified by study with one of the other party members (the fighter running nightly sword drills with the wizard for instance) at the point when the character has attained enough knowledge they pick up the feat.

 

[cdrcjsn]

While there is some truth to what you say, there is still the nature of the accrual of skills that 4Ed completely ignores.

A dabbler in 4Ed potentially gets access to a high-level ability, but without learning any of the foundational stuff that other practitioners need to learn in order to reach that point.

A person dabbling in guitar can't simply learn how to play Malaguena without learning many chords, progressions and techniques. A person dabbling in medicine can't simply learn how to do brain surgery.

Its like getting a roof without a foundation or support pillars.

Hmm...so I didn't really learn to play Pachelbel's Canon on piano despite not knowing how to sight read or know to play any other songs?

I think if a fighter practices to say "wingardum leviosa" while twisting their wrist and holding their magic wand in a certain way, they'll learn to be able to eventually float things. They don't need to learn an even more minor cantrip like "repairo" before thay can do it.

 

[Scipio202]

I like to cook, but its not my main profession. I don't have the breadth of skills of a professional chef. If you wanted me to make a 10 course dinner for 300, I'll be no where near as good as a trained chef. But I've got a few recipes that I make a lot, that I've practiced at, and that are probably within the ballpark of restaurant quality.

Some skills might really require you to get all of the fundamentals, but others certainly allow you to pick a particular sub-skill and master that.

 

[Voadam]

How well does it look like this handles wizards who multiclass into a melee class?

I currently play in a 3e game with a level 17 rgr/wiz eldritch knight/abjurant champion. He uses a lot of spells for defense, melee buffing, a little ranged attack, divinations, and utility spells. He has a big sword various melee enhancement spells and likes to melee as his main combat strategy. He has almost no wizard prestige class abilities but at 15th level wizard caster level he has a lot of spells and wizard items (wands, robe of archmagi, etc.). He is not as good at meleeing as the melee oriented party paladin, fighter/cleric, or the corner cases (grappling) that the vow of poverty master of many forms warshaper druid is, but he's decent and can hold his own and do some neat things in his two niches (magic and magic boosted melee).

In 4e I see this mechanically as a wizard dipping into some melee class features (whether it is general feats, multiclass feats, or whatever). Does this work out to an effective possibility?

I see the fighter dipping for a few wizard powers working effectively mechanically, but this concept is not just a few specific limited wizard powers so I think it needs to be a base wizard multiclassing into a warrior type.

Is this just the equivalent of the 3e Unearthed Arcana wizard variant who gets fighter bonus feats instead of wizard metamagic or item creation bonus ones (i.e. not enough to really turn a wizard into a decent melee concept)?

 

[Mokona]

The official word on dipping.

Dave Noonan, D&D Podcast Episode 20: "Mailbag, Nothing but Mailbag!", http://webcast2.wizards.com/podcasts_dandd/DnD_Episode20.mp3

"Yeah...I think, speaking as broadly as possible about multiclassing, I think it's accurate to say that it's more flexible in terms of splashing a multiclass...[uh]...of splashing a second class in to your mix.

It's probably not as flexible in 3rd edition for sort of deep multiclassing. However, a lot of those deep multiclassing options in 3rd edition were bogus. I mean would get you killed in the dungeon, a Wizard 5/Cleric 5 is in big trouble in a deep level dungeon."

 

[katahn]

How well does it look like this handles wizards who multiclass into a melee class?

I currently play in a 3e game with a level 17 rgr/wiz eldritch knight/abjurant champion. He uses a lot of spells for defense, melee buffing, a little ranged attack, divinations, and utility spells. He has a big sword various melee enhancement spells and likes to melee as his main combat strategy. He has almost no wizard prestige class abilities but at 15th level wizard caster level he has a lot of spells and wizard items (wands, robe of archmagi, etc.). He is not as good at meleeing as the melee oriented party paladin, fighter/cleric, or the corner cases (grappling) that the vow of poverty master of many forms warshaper druid is, but he's decent and can hold his own and do some neat things in his two niches (magic and magic boosted melee).

In 4e I see this mechanically as a wizard dipping into some melee class features (whether it is general feats, multiclass feats, or whatever). Does this work out to an effective possibility?

I see the fighter dipping for a few wizard powers working effectively mechanically, but this concept is not just a few specific limited wizard powers so I think it needs to be a base wizard multiclassing into a warrior type.

Is this just the equivalent of the 3e Unearthed Arcana wizard variant who gets fighter bonus feats instead of wizard metamagic or item creation bonus ones (i.e. not enough to really turn a wizard into a decent melee concept)?

Ok a character that is primarily a melee combatant, with little personal defenses and relying primarily on spells to enhance his offense without necessarily having big controllerish abilities like web, sleep, and so forth.

If I have summarized what you've described accurately, I'd either make this guy a ranger (2-weapon fighting variant) or a rogue (burly type rogue) and then multiclass into either wizard (if you want more controllerish type spells/abilities) or warlock (if you want more ranged strikey options). From what I've seen buffs aren't a major part of the game in 4e, at least not the way they were in 3e at any rate, so that aspect of the concept might not work out no matter what the multiclassing rules are or aren't.

The above would get you through the heroic tier, moving into the paragon tier it sounds like you'd probably grab the paragon path for the multiclass you selected rather than for your base class. Without knowing about epic tiers, it's impossible to say for sure.

I wouldn't see this character starting off as a fighter simply because you described him as a melee combatant who doesn't have big armor and a shield and doesn't try to fill a defender-type role. Instead you described a sort of classic melee striker who has some magic overlay.

 

[Torchlyte]

How well does it look like this handles wizards who multiclass into a melee class?

I currently play in a 3e game with a level 17 rgr/wiz eldritch knight/abjurant champion. He uses a lot of spells for defense, melee buffing, a little ranged attack, divinations, and utility spells. He has a big sword various melee enhancement spells and likes to melee as his main combat strategy. He has almost no wizard prestige class abilities but at 15th level wizard caster level he has a lot of spells and wizard items (wands, robe of archmagi, etc.). He is not as good at meleeing as the melee oriented party paladin, fighter/cleric, or the corner cases (grappling) that the vow of poverty master of many forms warshaper druid is, but he's decent and can hold his own and do some neat things in his two niches (magic and magic boosted melee).

In 4e I see this mechanically as a wizard dipping into some melee class features (whether it is general feats, multiclass feats, or whatever). Does this work out to an effective possibility?

I see the fighter dipping for a few wizard powers working effectively mechanically, but this concept is not just a few specific limited wizard powers so I think it needs to be a base wizard multiclassing into a warrior type.

Is this just the equivalent of the 3e Unearthed Arcana wizard variant who gets fighter bonus feats instead of wizard metamagic or item creation bonus ones (i.e. not enough to really turn a wizard into a decent melee concept)?

I think everyone on the thread would agree that these feats work well for dipping from either class. The argument is on whether or not they can achieve even greater depth.

A wizard grabbing fighter multiclass feats would work just fine (better than in 3.5 with the changes to BAB and removal of ASF).

 

[JohnSnow]

The thing is, if we're going to be honest about it, there shouldn't be any such thing as multiclassing.

You want a wizard with some fighter-y aspects? Start as a wizard and start spending all your feats on picking up fighter abilities. You won't be as good a wizard as a single-classed wizard (at least until Paragon level), but you'll be a better wizard than any character who picks up wizard as a second class. On the other hand, if you just want a little bit of wizard flavor for your fighter, you're better off starting as a fighter and splashing wizard. The more wizard you splash, the less good you'll be as a fighter. Honestly, I think that with retraining, you could get a character that advanced like this...

100% Wizard
90/10 Wizard/Fighter
80/20 Wizard/Fighter
70/30 Wizard/Fighter
60/40 Wizard/Fighter

So you can get up to maybe 60/40 with the class training feats. True 50/50 probably requires you to take the multiclassing option at Paragon level. I mean, true fighter/wizards are pretty rare, and most of them really ought to be paragon level. Until then, most fictional characters of that type are clearly dominant in one class or the other. Usually, they start in more mundane classes and their magic slowly dominates as the story progresses. To be fair, this is probably an example where retraining makes the most sense.

Is this "realistic?" No, not in the least. But it's pretty much in keeping with fantasy fiction. Consider a character like Rand al'Thor who starts as a ranger (basically), before retraining as a fighter (kinda) then picking up the blademaster paragon path...and then retraining as a kind of elementalist spellcaster.

Not to mention he's surely got some kind of heroic path or epic destiny that just makes him "different" (i.e. "broken" in D&D terms).

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

I think that Rand al'Thor is ranger->rogue(warlock)->warlock(rogue).

He has woodsman abilities and significant ability with the bow at the beginning. He then learns (retrains) to use a single sword verses single opponents very well, and at the same time discovers some arcane tallent (multiclass feat). Later the arcane tallent eclipses his ability with the sword (retrains), which remains formidable but not nearly as potent. This obviously ingores the paragon/epic destinies that are unknowns in 4e, but very prominant in WoT. He also has a version of Action Surge (taveren, sp?). Lews Therin in his head could be accounted for as a vestige pact.

I am very happy about how easy it will be to create characters that are more like literature characters compared to 3.x.

I also think that the complaint about the 50/50 split could go away if people started to think about powers as possible actions and not objects. Sure, if they were objects, then an exact 50/50 split might be impossible, but as possible actions, there is nothing to say that the character can't behave as a Large-part-class-one + Large-part-class-two. Thematically and narratively, what is the problem? The problem only emerges when the things written on a character sheet are treated as objects that are "owned" and then a perceived unfairness emerges.

 

[Kraydak]

A lot of this post will be rephrasing what I've said before, so I probably shouldn't post... but then, this thread is long enough that that is allowed, right?

Most (not all) of my problems with 4e MCing is the name (and what is in a name, really?). It is counter-intuitive to me that a process called multi-classing doesn't give you the aspects of the class you are multi-ing into. The bog-standard fighter/rogue, if started as a rogue, loses (by losing feats, not significant) toughness rather than improving on one of the defining characteristics of the class he is multi-ing into. Now, JohnSnow might say that if he did improve his hitpoints (like a 3e MC), it would be unbalanced because he didn't give up anything significant. While true, that is, to my mind an indictment of the process: 4e MCing *does not* let you "average" your two classes. You don't give up anything key to your class-role, and hence can't pick up anything important to your MCed class-role. How can you call that multi-classing?

I also expect that MC will come to be viewed as weak. Swapping equivalently powered Powers at the cost of a feat might be worth it for increased versatility. However, in 4e different classes use different weapon/implement sets. If you want to multi from Fighter into rogue, you *can't* make use of your sneak attack 1/encounter without either using a gimped weapon (thereby negating any advantage of sneak attacking) unless you spend an extra feat on SAing with a real weapon (which IIRC is possible?). That makes the initial feat +7 damage/encounter at the cost of 2 feats. With longer encounters, that is probably about .35 damage/feat/encounter, less if you have to declare the SA before attacking. Anyone remember if the other rogue Exploits are light-blade dependent?

Or rangers: melee rangers are dual-wielders. Multi-ing into ranger, you aren't getting the at-will dual wield mechanics for free, so when you want to use your cool MCed per/encounter ability, you need to draw an extra weapon, possibly sheath your (non-light) main weapon and, having spent time doing that, lost any advantage it might have earned you. Maybe you can spend feats on dual-wielding as a non-ranger, but then you have to add that feat cost to the MC feat cost.

A fighter that wants to cast fireball has to worry about spending a feat to use his sword as an implement (possible, IIRC), or maybe a feat for quickdraw...

Because (many) classes are distinct in their "weapon" of choice (paladins/fighters/warlords stand a good chance at using the same gear, warlock/wizard/cleric might be), and casters gained implements that serve the same purpose, you need to add in the logistical cost of swapping between main-hand gear sets/getting proficiency in MCed gear sets. If that cost exists, MCing is going to be somewhat gimped.