Hybrid Rules Question

[Delgar]

Okay in my campaign I've convinced my Deva Avenger player to accept the aid from a powerful creature from Xoriat (Far Realm). In game terms he will be multiclassing into warlock. Clearly not a powergaming option but is chock full of cool factor.

Anyway, the player felt that multiclassing into warlock didn't really seem to have much an effect on the player. So we started tinkering around with the hybrid rules.

Now in the end his character is definately weaker using the hybrid rules but I guess picks up some versatility. Originally when we were designing the character we figured he'd be able to spend some feats and pick up a few more features from each class, but on further examination it seems you can only take hybrid talent once. I guess to avoid stacking Armor and attack bonuses.

I was just wondering if you think it would be really all that broken to allow the character to pick up a few more class features from each class, basically allowing the character to take hybrid talent more than once?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You can take Hybrid Talent a second time if you pick the Paragon Hybrid option, IIRC.

There can be no general answer on whether an extra Hybrid Talent is unbalanced or not. Some Hybrid class options work better than others, and the designers do note so explicitely.

In your specific ase:
Avenger|Warlock suffers from a big ability score mis-match, I think, so allowing to take it multiple times might be just fine for this combination.

For your game in general you can always say that you might allow it after some careful investigation on your own, with the option to disallow it if the player has found some kind of loophole.

I remember a comment from one of the WotC designers on Hybrid Talent that indicated that the feat itself wouldn't have been broken if it also gave skill training in the hybrid's skill*. Maybe that would seem to you as a "safer" boost than taking Hybrid Talent multiple times?

*) I wonder if this will ever result in errata along those lines? Or wouldn't it be worth it? Or wouldn't they dare to issue errata so soon after the release - a change they basically could have or should have done before printing the books?

 

[DEFCON 1]

As Mustrum says... you can allow the "breaking" of the rules for your player at the beginning, with the understanding that you have the power to change your mind later on if things go spiraling out of control.

Of course... as DM you can greatly control whether or not things go spiraling, so it's not something I think you should be overly concerned about. My own method if I was DMing this would be to let the player have some of the Avenger class traits to start with (since that was his original class prior to hybridization), then slowly allow the player to purchase some of the warlock ones over time via feats as the character becomes more adapted to dealing with the voices from Xoriat.

For my money... the slight change in power (either more or less) that came from the change of pure Avenger to Avenger/Warlock hybrid... is more than made up for the awesome characterization of the deva becoming a conduit to Xoriat. I am always in favor of granting slight character awards due to fantastic roleplaying choices, because more often than not, those roleplaying choices aren't optimal selections and the player deliberately gimps his character because a particular selection makes more sense. So "breaking the rules" for them by giving other slight awards is the least I can do (since I have faith in my DM skills to keep any changes from spiraling out of control).

 

[On Puget Sound]

i think i would go further than that. i would have all his warlock powers use wisdom as their attack stat. After all, this is a unique character in a unique situation; you are not rewriting the hybrid rules for your game as a whole.


Telling him that "wow, I love your character's new concept, and now half your powers are usually going to miss" doesn't seem like fun.

Just be careful you're not making him "more special" than the other players, to the point that his character takes more than his share of spotlight time.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Just be careful you're not making him "more special" than the other players, to the point that his character takes more than his share of spotlight time.

Thankfully, spotlight time is easily adaptable and fixed. A specific encounter with a specific monster with specific powers that is inserted just to keep the "special" character from getting too much of a big head is one of the DMs prized possessions.

And sometimes, I want my players to think that a particular character is now "more special", especially if the player did a lot to deserve that recognition. Because that just inspires my players to take a more active hand in their character development in hopes of being rewarded for it too. And it's often a much better reward emotionally for them than just another pile of gold pieces.

 

[korjik]

Okay in my campaign I've convinced my Deva Avenger player to accept the aid from a powerful creature from Xoriat (Far Realm). In game terms he will be multiclassing into warlock. Clearly not a powergaming option but is chock full of cool factor.

Anyway, the player felt that multiclassing into warlock didn't really seem to have much an effect on the player. So we started tinkering around with the hybrid rules.

Now in the end his character is definately weaker using the hybrid rules but I guess picks up some versatility. Originally when we were designing the character we figured he'd be able to spend some feats and pick up a few more features from each class, but on further examination it seems you can only take hybrid talent once. I guess to avoid stacking Armor and attack bonuses.

I was just wondering if you think it would be really all that broken to allow the character to pick up a few more class features from each class, basically allowing the character to take hybrid talent more than once?

If you make 'class feature' a type of bonus, then they dont stack and the problem with armour and weapon bonuses goes away.

If you make the weapon bonus only useable with class abilities, then there isnt a problem either.

Other than that, you will need to be careful that the individual features arent too powerful.

 

[Delgar]

Thanks for all the advice so far.

Basically I was just curious if there were any obvious pitfalls I should look out for, but just from looking briefly I can't really see why allowing a hybrid character to pick up a few extra class features from each class would be all that broken.

I'm a huge fan of the campaign affecting the characters choices rather than the pre-planning your character from begining to end.

I'm also going to let him Channel his new power through his sword as it just seems like the thing to do. Of course his patron is going to push him towards getting his hands on Blackrazor at some point so it should be interesting.

Anyway thanks for the help

 

[eamon]

Allowing hybrid talent multiple times is potentially unbalancing in the general case. In this particular case - well you have at least two primary stats and one secondary stat.

In this specific case, I could well imagine that a feat that would be inordinately powerful powerful in general wouldn't be a problem at all. For example, a feat to reduce his MAD problems (use Wis as attack stat instead of Cha, say) would be a nice thing - I'm not sure which avenger build you're combining with which warlock build, but none of the options looks particularly viable. Some of them look downright terrible.

The rules disallow a whole host of perfectly reasonable and balanced things because they need to apply in other contexts too; I wouldn't be too worried.

 

[Wepwawet]

i would have all his warlock powers use wisdom as their attack stat.

I agree.
Also, it was your idea (right?) to make him mix such unsynergistic classes, so you should make his life easier.
I think making all his attacks use wisdom is enough, apply all rules as written for everything else.

Another way you could do that is hybridizing with Invoker and adapt the flavour, which is quite similar. So, instead of invoking a god, he invokes a powerful entity, but he does so the only way he ever learned: connecting to the divine.
Mechanically they'd mesh a lot better.

 

[Stuntman]

Basically I was just curious if there were any obvious pitfalls I should look out for, but just from looking briefly I can't really see why allowing a hybrid character to pick up a few extra class features from each class would be all that broken.

Depending on the hybrid combos, there may be some broken builds if you allow multiple uses of Hybrid Talent. You'll have to judge for yourself for your specific case. If you do house rule HT to allow it to be taken multiple times, you end up diminishing the usefulness of Paragon Tier Hybrid. One of the big rewards of PTE is a second use of the HT feat.

The other thing you must keep in mind is that hybrid characters are not a combination of two classes. It is a combination of two hybrid classes. A hybrid class does not have the full features of the normal class. You need to not expect the hybrid character to have full features of the normal class for both hybrids. The idea of losing some class features is so you can gain class features and powers from a second class.

Before you decide that the hybrid characters are missing too many class features of both single classes and house rule HT, I would suggest you just try out the rules as is first. If the backstory behind this character is he accepts aid from some outworldy being and thus is granted warlock abilities, you can easily say that in exchange for the rewards of some warlock abilities, he must give up some of his avenger abilities. How much stuff he wants from his warlock depends on how much he gives up from his avenger. Think of the HT feat as being his choice on whether he wants more warlock or avenger abilities. Paragon Tier Hybrid is something the player can strive for to gain more abilities of one or the other of his hybrid classes.