Hybrid Talent Feat

[RangerWickett]

I see that it's 'balanced' as is, but the 'balance bar' is set too low to the ground.

I'd rather they had designed class abilities from the get-go so that it's easy to chop each in half. Also, make it so that as a default, a single multiclass feat would give you some minor talent of the class, plus the ability to take powers of either your base or your multiclass. No need for power swap feats.

Then again, the WotC business model thrives on selling tons of fiddly options. Why allow easy multiclassing between fighter and wizard when you can sell a book by touting a new 'eldritch knight' class, complete with a whole swath of 80 new powers?

 

[keterys]

Oddly, I actually really like having a swordmage (well designed, coherent class) over a bastardized mashup of wizard and fighter.

 

[Wepwawet]

Then again, the WotC business model thrives on selling tons of fiddly options. Why allow easy multiclassing between fighter and wizard when you can sell a book by touting a new 'eldritch knight' class, complete with a whole swath of 80 new powers?

That has nothing to do with it. They just learned from the past that "easy" multiclassing leads to easy cheese or useless builds.
It's way better to limit the options while grantig their effectiveness and balance throughout the game.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Would it be balanced to let a character take Hybrid Talent a second time in exchange for TWO feats, a third time for THREE feats, etc?

 

[MrMyth]

In a home game, I could see trying that approach. I think it would be a dangerous precedent to set, and might still allow certain abuseable combinations, but a DM can always retract the rule if it becomes a problem.

I wouldn't want to ever see such a thing in open play, both because of potential abuses and the mechanical issues of feats becoming fractional in that fashion. (And the weirdness it causes with retraining and other areas of the rules.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Really, its fine the way it is. There are a whole slew of "Defender|Something" pattern hybrids that are already better mechanically than the vast majority of single classed builds. Most controllers also lose VERY little in the process of being hybridized. For example as a wizard you basically lose spell book, ritual caster, and cantrips. You can get ritual caster back for a feat if you want it, spell book is a highly subjective value feature that you can at least live without and many players consider worthless, and cantrips are a dead loss but not a core feature that impacts the characters overall effectiveness too much.

Similar analyses work for a number of other classes. Invokers lose very little, swordmages are virtually unscathed, fighters can easily be paired with classes like rogue or ranger that get many minor-action attacks to allow both striking and defending every round, etc. Honestly, even with just ONE hybrid talent, the better hybrid builds are already near broken. There is for instance very little reason for a wizard not to hybrid to swordmage or a warlock not to hybrid to paladin, or a fighter not to hybrid to rogue or ranger. The resulting character is almost certainly tactically superior to the straight class. Adding ANY other way to get more hybrid talents is going to be bad juju. Paragon hybrid is reasonable only because you lose a LOT by sacrificing a PP (more or less).

The idea with hybrids was to make a system that would be on a par with the standard classes or even marginally inferior overall but with interesting character concept potential and fun tricks. It wasn't intended to create a whole new power level for PCs.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Hybrid Talent is - generally speaking - way stronger than other feats. The fact that you want to take it three times is a pretty good indicator that this is the case.

-O

Well, at the moment the only way to get the extra hybrid abilities is through a feat, and that is clouding things. If you could get them at a certain level, like 11th and 21st without a feat slot spent, would it be balanced against a non-hybrid character. That is a far better question than is it balanced with other feats.