Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Excerpt: Multiclassing (merged)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="mneme" data-source="post: 4196546" data-attributes="member: 59248"><p>Ok, much slogging needed to make the comments I wanted to anyway.</p><p></p><p>1. Yeah, about what I expected. Except that the initial "dip" feats are somewhat stronger than I expected, and the power-switching ones a touch weaker.</p><p></p><p>2. Ok, I see the base problem with power switching. The real issue is that even in 4E, the classes -aren't- equal. Wizards get fewer HP with each level-up than Fighter, but receive stronger (yes, not equal -- stronger; a wizard daily will generally easily out-damage a fighter-daily and then some, and the encounter powers of a wizard are a good deal stronger as well) powers in exchange.</p><p></p><p> This means that even aside from questions of balancing the base training feats (which they aren't from this excerpt, but are probably more so in the actual printed material with more details), the Power switching feats cannot be balanced--the appropriate cost for letting a wizard swap his daily for a fighter's daily (for the most part, negative; the wizard should pretty much never do this) cannot be equivalent to the appropriate cost for letting a fighter swap his daily for a wizard's (in this case, the cost is two feats with some other benefits; that's probably about right). So rather than force every fighter to be a fighter/wizard just to keep up, they've made some combinations less than viable--sure, this means you're going to see a lot less multiclassing into fighter than the other way around (though the per-encounter abilities might be interesting enough to trade a wizard per-encounter, for the right class), and certainly far less power-trading in that direction than fighters grabbing up, oh, say, cleric, warlord, ranger, and wizard powers (for healing, tactics, striking, and AoE, respectively), but it does make all combinations viable even if they optimize very differently.</p><p></p><p>3. They deliberately overpowered the base multiclassing feats. Yes, they also slapped a stat requirement on them, but going from the right classes, that's not really a penalty. This, IMO, is why there's a restriction on two classes (though I'd guess that there will be Paragon multiclassing feats that let you grab a third class); getting a skill, a power, and futher qualification is quite good for just one feat, letting you do this for all your feats (well, three of them. Str=>3.5, Wiz=>1, Int=>1, Cha=>1.5, Dex=>2; clearly, martial classes are still better at multiclassing, or more flexible at it, anyway) would be too much. OTOH, several of these are quite good on their own (even aside from possible bonuses like Stealth & Thievery for Sneak of Shadows, which fits the flavor but not the text of the exerpt); I would guess, particularly given the lameness of many fighter powers compared to non-fighter powers, that in fact, the Fighter feat gives a straight +1 to attack, not per encounter -- so even a wizard->fighter combo isn't unlikely; she would just not bother taking power feats at all, instead taking Student of the Sword (thus getting +1 to her AoE spells!), Armor training, probably Toughness, and maybe taking a fighter-oriented paragon class. By contrast, a fighter might take Student of Battle just for the inspiring word and the skill (certainly, the qualification is free), but more likely will take some dailies at 10th level, trading a vanilla daily with Reliable for a tactical daily that helps in other ways if it misses (and if it hits).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mneme, post: 4196546, member: 59248"] Ok, much slogging needed to make the comments I wanted to anyway. 1. Yeah, about what I expected. Except that the initial "dip" feats are somewhat stronger than I expected, and the power-switching ones a touch weaker. 2. Ok, I see the base problem with power switching. The real issue is that even in 4E, the classes -aren't- equal. Wizards get fewer HP with each level-up than Fighter, but receive stronger (yes, not equal -- stronger; a wizard daily will generally easily out-damage a fighter-daily and then some, and the encounter powers of a wizard are a good deal stronger as well) powers in exchange. This means that even aside from questions of balancing the base training feats (which they aren't from this excerpt, but are probably more so in the actual printed material with more details), the Power switching feats cannot be balanced--the appropriate cost for letting a wizard swap his daily for a fighter's daily (for the most part, negative; the wizard should pretty much never do this) cannot be equivalent to the appropriate cost for letting a fighter swap his daily for a wizard's (in this case, the cost is two feats with some other benefits; that's probably about right). So rather than force every fighter to be a fighter/wizard just to keep up, they've made some combinations less than viable--sure, this means you're going to see a lot less multiclassing into fighter than the other way around (though the per-encounter abilities might be interesting enough to trade a wizard per-encounter, for the right class), and certainly far less power-trading in that direction than fighters grabbing up, oh, say, cleric, warlord, ranger, and wizard powers (for healing, tactics, striking, and AoE, respectively), but it does make all combinations viable even if they optimize very differently. 3. They deliberately overpowered the base multiclassing feats. Yes, they also slapped a stat requirement on them, but going from the right classes, that's not really a penalty. This, IMO, is why there's a restriction on two classes (though I'd guess that there will be Paragon multiclassing feats that let you grab a third class); getting a skill, a power, and futher qualification is quite good for just one feat, letting you do this for all your feats (well, three of them. Str=>3.5, Wiz=>1, Int=>1, Cha=>1.5, Dex=>2; clearly, martial classes are still better at multiclassing, or more flexible at it, anyway) would be too much. OTOH, several of these are quite good on their own (even aside from possible bonuses like Stealth & Thievery for Sneak of Shadows, which fits the flavor but not the text of the exerpt); I would guess, particularly given the lameness of many fighter powers compared to non-fighter powers, that in fact, the Fighter feat gives a straight +1 to attack, not per encounter -- so even a wizard->fighter combo isn't unlikely; she would just not bother taking power feats at all, instead taking Student of the Sword (thus getting +1 to her AoE spells!), Armor training, probably Toughness, and maybe taking a fighter-oriented paragon class. By contrast, a fighter might take Student of Battle just for the inspiring word and the skill (certainly, the qualification is free), but more likely will take some dailies at 10th level, trading a vanilla daily with Reliable for a tactical daily that helps in other ways if it misses (and if it hits). [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Excerpt: Multiclassing (merged)
Top