How terrible is the multiclass XP penalty?

[seans23]

I disagree. The player took a calculated risk and it didn't pay off, so now he should pay the piper. Taking a risk, failing, and then having the DM wave away the downside is what would be not fun.

PS While we're at it, I thought you lose a level from your highest class?

He is paying the piper. He's smaller, and his strength went down. Favored class is not a trait that changes with a reincarnation, so he's not waving away the downside. He's just interpreting the rule properly.

 

[Kobold Stew]

If your DM is adamant and doesn't want to accomodate you and you don't want to die to lose the other fighter level, find a prestige class ASAP. penalty goes (does it? I think so...) and all of a sudden you can discover what it's like to be a horizon walker (or whatever)...

Your reincanated halfling gets a great story and you try someting you never expected.

(Horizon walker just a suggestion, but it is rarely played I gather and if you don't have Kn (Geog) yet, whyou should be able to get it in a level or at most 2.

This all depends on whether you stop taking the penalty when you go prestige. If not, as Gilda Radner used to say, "Never mind."

 

[ARandomGod]

If your DM is adamant and doesn't want to accomodate you and you don't want to die to lose the other fighter level, find a prestige class ASAP. penalty goes (does it? I think so...) and all of a sudden you can discover what it's like to be a horizon walker (or whatever)...

Your reincanated halfling gets a great story and you try someting you never expected.

(Horizon walker just a suggestion, but it is rarely played I gather and if you don't have Kn (Geog) yet, whyou should be able to get it in a level or at most 2.

This all depends on whether you stop taking the penalty when you go prestige. If not, as Gilda Radner used to say, "Never mind."

Nope, you still get the penalty. You don't count your PrC in when figuring out if you GET a penalty (or if you get another one), but you still look at your non PrC levels the same and take penalties as appropriate.

I still say that you're better off just making an entire new character rather than taking the multiclass penalty.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Here's another way to look at it -- why does favored class exist at all?

I think it's to discourage people from loading up on one level of front-loaded base classes.
Then why apply the penalty retroactively, after the choice is already made?

Failing that, it looks like it'd be easier to lose another level, or retire the character, than to put up with the penalty. (That itself looks to me to be sufficient evidence to not apply the XP penalty.)

 

[Thanee]

I think it's to discourage people from loading up on one level of front-loaded base classes.

It does a pretty bad job at doing that, though.

They should have made a cumulative 5% XP penalty for each class obtained after the first, not counting the favored class (humans and half-elves count any one base class as favored (their choice); prestige classes should list a base class or a few, which they count as to figure out, whether they count as favored as well, or not).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Kobold Stew]

Nope, you still get the penalty. You don't count your PrC in when figuring out if you GET a penalty (or if you get another one), but you still look at your non PrC levels the same and take penalties as appropriate.

Thanks. And now I know.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Thanks. And now I know.

G.I. Joe!

 

[delericho]

Here's another way to look at it -- why does favored class exist at all?

I think it's a flavour thing, to encourage the player of a dwarf to consider taking a few levels of Fighter to round out his character's other skills.

I'm sure it's not a balance ruling - you'll have a hard time persuading me that an elven rogue 3/wizard 5 is okay, but a gnomish rogue 3/wizard 5 is not.

As regards the multiclass penalty, I would advocate dropping it (I don't use it in my games). I have never seen an issue with multiclassing, and wouldn't expect to see one. However, I can't guarantee that won't have odd effects in some extreme cases - but you'd only see a difference with a character with 3 different classes, with some combination of odd levels.

 

[Len]

I found some prior threads discussing the question of whether reincarnate changes your favored class, and the consensus is "probably not, but the rules aren't clear". So I'm going to ask my DM to reconsider the question.

Thanks for all the comments.

 

[ARandomGod]

Here's another way to look at it -- why does favored class exist at all?

I think it's to discourage people from loading up on one level of front-loaded base classes.

It does a pretty bad job at doing that, though.

...

Bye
Thanee

Yea, I'd almost go so far as to say it ENcourages people taking front loaded base classes. You can take one or two levels each of several classes with no penalty. But if you want to take four levels of ONE class (Edit: in addition to your "main" class) you're in for a penalty.