I Have A Problem With 3E

[Bacris]

Regarding Multiclassing, a big part of the problem is that just about every person has their own unique idea of what their character "does". Be it a warrior who kills people by throwing tiny daggers through their eyeballs or a mind-control psion who convinces that shopkeeper to give you the shirt literally off his back.

The problem is that not every base class with feat combinations match up to this idea. But a combination of classes might (base, prestige, paragon, whatever).

Variant classes are an option - but they're also a lot of extra work if what you want is simply a fighter mixed with ranger mixed with a dervish... So your guy swings two blades and spins and jumps and stabs people in the throat before doing a cartwheel and slicing another opponent's abdomen.

Can it be done without multiclassing? Sure, if you want to spend the hours making, tweaking, and revising variant classes. But multiclassing with the pre-made classes is far faster - and you have the added benefit of being able to look up what the viewpoints of class combinations are in the realms of the "overpowered" concern.

Me personally? I don't really want to spend hours on my character creation simply revising pre-existing classes if a combination already exists to do what I want... I'd rather spend that time on back-story and other parts of character development.

 

[The_Gneech]

Whereas, I would only consider multiclassing after the other existing tools have failed

But why? Seriously, what's so bad about multiclassing? I keep asking, and I keep not getting answers.

-The Gneech

 

[tvknight415]

Multi-classing

The one thing I've set on multi-classing is to keep it interesting, yet limit it. Basically, I divide the classes into several "groups" and PC's can only take one class per group. Here's my current breakdown (with the classes I will allow - classes that appear twice lock out both categories):

Warrior: Barbarian, Fighter, Swashbuckler, Knight
Divine: Cleric, Druid, Favored Soul
Arcane: Sorcerer, Wizard
Skills: Bard, Rogue, Scout, Monk
Warrior & Divine: Paladin, Ranger
Arcane & Skills: Bard
Warrir & Skills: Marshall

My rationale is that this will help reduce the power/metagaming by not letting each PC trip themselves out by stacking class features that were meant to make the classes more unique (no raging weapon specialists) without crimping PC's who want to build a true multi-class Figher/Magic User/Cleric a la the older editions. PC's can make themselves imitate other classes with skill and feat choices (barbarian can take ranks in etiquette and negotiator feat to make himself more 'courtly' but will always be a barbarian at heart). Exceptions can be made by major events in a campagin (a paladin who renounces his arms may be allowed to multi-class as a cleric, but if he violates his renouncement of arms would lose his clerical abilities).

Also, I actually strip the mechanical requirements of PrCs, and make them earn the classes through role-playing, rather than character build. If a PC torques off a priest of the church, the gossip will prevent him from getting into the order of radiant servants no matte how good he is with his religion and healing. They still have to have some degree of skill in required skills & feats, but not a fixed number.

Eric

 

[CRGreathouse]

1. I don't think that multiclassing is too easy, largely because I don't agree with you on what it means. It very seldom represents a changed profession -- more likely it's an intermediate position between two (or sometimes more) classes. Bacris and Aaron L, above, explain this well.

2. Agree. I don't use the MM rods.

3. I handle this by keeping a tight reign on what's allowed. It's more work but gives players flexibility.

4. Disagree, but I use feats that arguably strengthen other forms of combat. Also, I tend to disallow floating shields.

5. Reserve judgement; I haven't seen the scenerios you have. Care to elaborate?

6. 3.5 goes a long way toward removing these, for better or worse. I favor a different solution, as DwarvenDog's: I'd prefer stronger spells that are more situational, limiting characters to a small number of such spells active (probably just 1 or 2).

7. Disagree. If you can't keep up, don't take the feats. They're just simple addition and subtraction, after all.

8. Don't care. I've used point buy and I've rolled stats (mostly rolled), but frankly I prefer to have my players pick their own stats.

9. Haven't seen too many rerolls in play, probably because I don't use too many of the splats.

10. Disagree -- investment of personal power a la LotR, better than loss of Con in 2E, can't make you lose a level. This also discourages PCs from making too many items, or just going into business selling them (outside their own party, at least).

 

[Aaron L]

My rationale is that this will help reduce the power/metagaming by not letting each PC trip themselves out...

Were you having a problem with this before?

Because that seems just... unnecessarily restrictive. What's wrong with a raging weapon specialist?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Experience Points are a measure of a character's life force. Thats why undead suck out XP and levels. They aren't taking away memories, they're draining life force.

XP should really be left as a purely meta-game mechanic - the means by which PLAYER character advancement is regulated. By rights nothing else should toch it unless it is intended PURELY as a means of speeding up or slowing down the rate of that advancement for the same meta-game reasons that it is awarded in the first place. There's a reason why there are no longer XP FINES that are levied for having characters perform certain ways regarding their alignment. XP should be left as an out-of-game carrot, not an in-game stick.

If you want to muck about with "life force" as an in-game phenomenon then there are mechanics elsewhere in-game to do that - hit points above all, ability scores (especially constitution) and also simple general penalties would all be better approaches.

Undead do not directly drain XP. They drain CHARACTER LEVELS. XP are then adjusted to fit purely as a secondary effect. The reason for draining levels at all is simply because by doing so a wide assortment of "penalties" is then levied by the numerical differences between the lower and higher level. Hit dice/hit points are lowered, saves, base attack bonuses, and reductions to skills via lost skill points are all side effects of LEVEL reduction and it is THOSE penalties which represent the loss of life force.

However, the additional loss of class abilities that were LEARNED as a function of level gain are also effectively UNLEARNED by level reductions - not performed at a penalty, but unable to be performed at all because at the lower level the ability did not exist. It should still exist (now that the character is understood to have learned it over time) and simply be performed at a penalty if the analogy to life-force were to be properly carried over, but the analogy breaks there instead.

Yes, I definitely agree that the whole xp/hp/character level/life energy analogy is very messy and due for additional, genuine re-vision since 3E's, while an improvement, is still inadequate.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Don't believe me? I have substative proof with my friend Mark. We've gamed since 86, and have done so with many editions. 75% of his character bit it in combat and/or bad rolls.

No I don't believe you. There are 3 ways to die in D&D. In direct combat, old age, and disease/non-combat injury. I've gamed since '76 over many editions and I submit that 99% of all characters die in combat, and that has NOTHING to do with the method of ability score generation.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Wrong. As the DM it is part of my job to enforce the verisimilitude of the campaign. If I am using the optional training rules (or a variant thereof), I can deny you the multiclassing of your character if you don't have access to a trainer. I can also deny your access to a PrC if your character is unaware of the PrC, cannot find some person or organization to train them, or fails to secure training from said person or organization- let alone if the PrC does not exist in the world.
If it takes months or years of training (formal or informal) in my campaign setting to reach level 1 in a particuliar class, I want some method to represent that in game. It makes no sense that the PCs that started off at first level in a class had undergone months or years of training, but, after play starts, some other character can just instantly become level 1 in a new class.

All true. You're talking about campaign design issues and I agree up to that point. As far as I'm concerned that's a non-starter - the DM sets the multiclassing options as he wants them for the campaign. End of story.

However, it was my impression that this was not the complaint of the OP who seemed to be complaining that players, when GIVEN the option, had the temerity to actually TAKE the option, producing characters that were not then to his taste or expectation. Maybe I misread.

 

[Gundark]

I disagree strongly. It's the "jackpot syndrome" again. Let's roll up characters so I can get a chance of having a much more powerful character than everyone else. I'll risk the weak character for that chance (especially since I can often convince the DM my character is too weak and get another chance to roll a huge character).

In fact, I'd argue that randomness should go out the window in character creation. Maybe allow an optional method where you roll your stats, class, alignment, sex, etc.

QFT. I agreed with most of the OP except for this. When we rolled for stats all I heard was complaing at a bad roll and requests for rerolls

 

[JoeGKushner]

1. Multiclassing

To me, the ease of multiclassing shows that D&D has removed itself firmly from the archetype based game it used to be and really needs to move into the freedom of a pure point buy system.

Or it needs to provide strong reasons for staying in a single class the whole time. It needs to providee abilities worthy of having at higher levels.


2. Free Metamagic

As I think the D&D spell system itself is broken, Free Metamagic as it stands doesn't bother me. I've used additional variants like 'Sudden' feats as well as allowing Feats to allow action points to be spend to simulate metamagic.

3. Synergy
No way around this one. Because the game system is not one unified beast and it continues to grow with add ons and supplements, as opposed to being a unified machine that uses supplements to showcase examples of existing material in new formats, it's not going to go away.


4. Two-Handed Weapons
Not a problem. I've seen enough feats where you could use two weapons of medium size (like longswords) or when someone enters your AoO area, you can use both weapons, where it's not that big a deal.


5. Balancing Per Encounter Instead of Per Day
Depends on the mechanic. Since I think spellcasting is broken, I wouldn't have too many problems if non-campaign altering spells followed this pattern but the high fantasy nature of the D&D game provides some problems as it does in the Tome of Battle where you have some useful maneuvers that you really can't use outside of a battle.

6. Combat Expertise and Power Attack
No problem with this. I mean, am I going to start worrying about Dodge and shield use because they also provide modifiers?

7. Point Buy
My default value. Games can still be mighty unbalanced in a point buy system if you have players that DO know what they're doing playing with those that DON'T know what they're doing.

8. Rerolls
Action Dice to modify existing rolls seem okay but I'm not too crazy about the whole rolling again bit.

9. Magic Item Creation
Current method is too mechanical while older methods were too esoteric. Should be more default rules and discussion on it.