Is Multiclassing Balanced?

[Sejs]

Something I'm not sure I understand about the idea of it being unbalanced for casters.

If a caster multiclasses, they lose out on caster levels. Such is obvious. Is the idea then that a multiclassed caster should be as powerful in their primary spellcasting mode as a single-classed caster, and then get the other benefits of multiclassing on top of that?

 

[Felix]

I was torn twixt, "Balanced for all classes" and "Balanced for non-caster and too weak for casters". I voted for "all classes" because I don't think it's too weak for caster. Yes, it's suboptimal, especially if you split the class levels evenly. A Fighter 2/Sorcerer X can be a nicely effective combination. As can Sorcerer 1/Barbarian X.

So I think the best way to go is to either dabble in magic, or take only a quick detour out of magic.

But then, that's how I feel about multiclassing in general. I feel that your main class should be supported by the synergy only a level or two in other classes can bring; it should make your speciality somehow more effective instead of making the character, "less focused and more versatile". You might well become more versatile as a handy side-effect, but the function of the multiclassing should strongly support the balliwick of the character.

Like a Magic Attack Bonus (or MAB)?

Mongoose's Conan RPG has a Magic Attack Bonus that sets spell save DCs.

The magic attack roll which targets must beat to save vs the spell is not based on spell level because there is no such thing (though I think some spells specify penalties or bonuses to a target's save). Only the scholar has a 1/2 level MA bonus; everyone else has a 1/4. So if a high level thief takes a few levels of scholar, he'll have a better MA bonus than a 1st level scholar.

Now, this won't help that multiclass Thief/Scholar with the number of spells he knows, but it will make sure his spell does get harder to resist as levels go by. Slowly, but hey, he's not a spellslinger.


[digression]

Conan RPG's magic system is fantastic in my opinion. It's a power-point type system, and the total number of points per day is modified by your Wisdom. The difficulty to resist your spells is based on your Magic Attack Bonus and your Charisma. The number of spells you know is modified by your Intelligence. They make up for this M.A.D. by making the spells viscious.

Magic is very deadly in the Hyborian Age, as it is also hard to find. You either have to find tomes (quests, anyone?), apprentice yourself, or traffic with demons who will teach you.

Seriously great stuff. If you haven't seen it, it's worth the price of the sourcebook to mine ideas from.

[/digression]

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Something I'm not sure I understand about the idea of it being unbalanced for casters.

If a caster multiclasses, they lose out on caster levels. Such is obvious. Is the idea then that a multiclassed caster should be as powerful in their primary spellcasting mode as a single-classed caster, and then get the other benefits of multiclassing on top of that?

To be fair to the people who are lifting it up as a problem, I don't believe they want a multiclassed caster to be magically on par with a straight up caster. But they don't want their to be such an obvious disparity, either.

I really liked Hermanne the Wise's assertion using the MM rules. A fighter 5/wizard 5 is really probably an ECL 7 or 8. Even if you think multiclassing is fine the way it is (like I do) you have to agree that walking down two divergent paths does significantly impact one's abilities and effectiveness. They want the fighter 5/wizard 5 to be an ECL 10 in game terms but not on casting par with the wizard 10 or on fighting par with the fighter 10. Make sense?

So it isn't like they want the multiclassed character to have the same access to spells. That'd be more like a gestalt set-up. They just want the character to be effective with what they get.

Me - I think that the fact that the character's power level does drop significantly is a sigal to the player that it may not be a good idea no matter how cool the fighter/mage concept is. I'm happy with saying it is a cool idea but bad mechanically speaking and therefore not doing it except through PrCs like the EK. Others aren't quite so easy to let it go.

 

[Ranger REG]

Several people have mentioned the "bridgin" prestige classes. But suppose I don't want to use prestige classes in my game? Part of the problem I have with multiclassing is that it is virtually pointless for spellcasting characters without prestige classes. And I have to be honest, as cool as prestige classes are, I think they have a lot of problems with implementation.

If not prestige class, then use d20 Modern advanced classes. It has a much lower fast-track requirement (can be taken as early as 4th character level).

 

[FireLance]

Something I'm not sure I understand about the idea of it being unbalanced for casters.

If a caster multiclasses, they lose out on caster levels. Such is obvious. Is the idea then that a multiclassed caster should be as powerful in their primary spellcasting mode as a single-classed caster, and then get the other benefits of multiclassing on top of that?

Well, there are three ways in which multiclass spellcasters lose out with respect to their single-classed counterparts:

1. Spell level access: A cleric 10/wizard 10 gets access to 5th level spells in each class, while his single-classed counterparts get access to 9th-level spells.

2. Lower caster level: Setting aside the fact that a 20th-level cleric could cast mass heal when a cleric 10/wizard 10 is limited to mass cure light wounds, even when casting mass cure light wounds, the 20th-level cleric cures 1d8+20 points of damage, while while the cleric 10/wizard 10 cures 1d8+10 points of damage. When fighting spell resistant opponents, the lower caster level also affects spell penetration.

A character could work around these problems by selecting spells that do not allow spell resistance or which do not have level-dependent benefits, but this effectively reduces the versatility that is supposed to be the significant advantage of multiclassing for which he is giving up all the benefits of staying in a single class.

3. Spell slot access: Not in terms of number, but in terms of quality. An empowered mass cure light wounds is nowhere near as effective as mass heal, but a cleric 10/wizard 10 does not even have that option.

BAB stacks for fighting classes. Skill ranks stack for skill-using classes. Only spellcasters have to effectively start from square one in all aspects of their primary class abilities when they multiclass.

There are feats and PrCs that compensate for this, but in my view, it would be better to fix the base system for spellcaster multiclassing in the first place. Something like Unearthed Arcana's Magic Rating would do for starters, and maybe some system to give multiclassed spellcasters access to higher spell slots so that they can metamagic the lower-level spells they do know to increase damage or save DCs. I think lack of access to the higher level spells is enough of a sacrifice for multiclassed spellcasters.

 

[airwalkrr]

If not prestige class, then use d20 Modern advanced classes. It has a much lower fast-track requirement (can be taken as early as 4th character level).

I have two primary problems with prestige classes, neither of which are solved by this solution. The first is that a) prestige classes artificially inflate saving throws while usually watering down BAB, but a wizard/loremaster is still just a wizard specializing in knowledge, why should he have better saves and worse BAB? The second is that b) prestige classes, by and large, are inherently better than the base classes. Choosing to play a fighter is detrimental when you can be a pious templar, exotic weapon master, kensai, occult slayer or dervish.

The system encourages PCs to take prestige classes, but for all the wrong reasons. The idea of prestige classes is great, but it should be a decision based on style and unique character flavor, not mere power. A majority of PCs simply take prestige classes because they oogle at all the nifty abilities they can have, not because they want their PC to be a swashbuckling warrior with quick wit. I'm not saying prestige classes need to be weak, they just need to be comparable to the base classes.

Ok, I'll stop hijacking my own thread now. Back to multiclassing.

The problem with bridging prestige classes is that you might as well just build a new class. Why have an eldritch knight at all? Just build a class that gets proficiency with all armor and weapons, gets 3/4 spellcasting progression, and has a high BAB. Problem with that is it is a pain to have to come up with a new base class everytime someone wants to try a different class combo. And I don't want to have to think about taking a prestige class just to play a fighter/wizard, cleric/wizard, or rogue/wizard who is effective. I can play a fighter/rogue or barbarian/fighter who is effective without a prestige class (although a prestige class is certainly better). But I get hosed with a spellcasting multiclass combo unless I enter a prestige class. That seems inequitable to me. To me, the eldritch knight, mystic theurge, etc. is just a band-aid on a bigger problem with multiclassing.

And I don't think the magic level rules completely addresses the problem. I think it gets halfway there by addressing the caster level issue so that it is easier for multiclass casters to overcome SR etc., but caster level is only part of the equation. Besides all that, in a lot of ways it doesn't make much sense. A Ftr16 takes one level of wizard and suddenly his magic missiles do just as much damage as a Wiz5's? Why should the character who has spent all his life training as a fighter be better at magic just because he is older. He has no experience with magic. The young wizard fresh out of wizard school has spent his entire life studying magic and yet some old fart fighter can cast a better magic missile than he can. That doesn't seem right.

 

[Hussar]

Oddly enough, if vancian magic was not the core of the casting system I think the problem would not be quite as notable. A skill based system for instance, might work well if a feat were allowed with the following traits: Pre-req: the magic skill is already a class skill for at least one class level already taken; Benefit: the magic skill is considered a class skill for all further class levels taken. Have about a dozen or so magic skills, re-emplement exclusive skills so that a level of a caster class must be taken to gain use of them as class or cross-class skill (dependent on the caster type), and perhaps multiclassing casters would no longer be a major issue.

Just out of curiosity, since I haven't seen it done, nor looked at the numbers, but, how does a multiclass psion stack up? Psions use a point based caster system, pretty far removed from vancian magic.

The one problem I see with a caster skill is the same issue that came up with the 3.0 bard. Bardic music was not tied in any way to bard level in 3.0, only the characters ranks in perform. It was cheesy to take a level in bard, then level up in any other class while retaining all of the bardic music abilities all the way along.

Why take a single class bard? (never mind the cracks about why take a bard at all. )

Firelance hits it pretty well though. Because you only gain new spell levels every two levels (at best), splitting up caster classes HURTS. It's not a case of being somewhat less effective as it is being pretty much INeffective. Never mind that you pretty much lose any use of metamagic feats as well.

And, really, what are you gaining with a fighter/mage? Some more hit points and a better con save and some fighting abilities. However, because you can't cast in armor, you still can't stand in combat. Your hit points are far below what a single classed fighter has. And, while wizard buffs are nice, because you are such a low level, you simply don't have the staying power. The single classed wizards just have SO many more spells per day than the multiclass.

The problem is, IMO, wizards and clerics do not scale evenly. Every level their spells gain in power (if nothing else, in duration), they gain more spells and they gain more spell levels every other level. A 5th level wizard isn't half as strong as a 10th level wizard, he's a quarter.

As was mentioned, the f/wiz 5/5 isn't an EL 10, he's an EL 7. But the single classed is EL 10. This has a pretty significant impact.

 

[Deadguy]

Yes, Hussar, the power of the primary spellcasters advances geometrically rather than linearly. Their effective power is proportional to:

Caster Level x Max Spell Level x Number of Spell Slots

Since the multiclass caster loses out on all elements, it's hardly surprising that they fall far behind very quickly compared to the single-class caster.

Having a Base Magic Bonus (BMB) which improves Caster Level helps. I also wondered if it also ought to count for determining the Spell Slots the caster has available, so that e.g. a Fighter 5/Wizard 5 would cast as a Wizard 7 (BMB 5 + 5/2), and has slots available as a Wizard 7 (i.e. 4/4/3/2/1 before Int modifiers) without access to actual 4th level spells.

Another change that would certainly help would be to redistribute spells across 20 levels rather than just 9. This reduces the impact of the awkward reduced access to maximum spell level every 2 levels of caster level reduction.

Still overall it is probably Vancian magic that needs the overhaul...

 

[Sammael]

Another change that would certainly help would be to redistribute spells across 20 levels rather than just 9.

I have considered this idea. While it has a lot of merit (certainly, not all 1st level spells are equal... and this goes double for many higher-level spells), it's simply too much work.

 

[Hussar]

Having a Base Magic Bonus (BMB) which improves Caster Level helps. I also wondered if it also ought to count for determining the Spell Slots the caster has available, so that e.g. a Fighter 5/Wizard 5 would cast as a Wizard 7 (BMB 5 + 5/2), and has slots available as a Wizard 7 (i.e. 4/4/3/2/1 before Int modifiers) without access to actual 4th level spells.

The only real problem that solves though is one of duration, and possibly some damage dice. The fact that the wizard is losing out on 1 4th level spell, plus possibly one for int mods plus possibly another one for being a specialist, means that he's still nowhere near a 7th level caster.

A possible way to mitigate this might be to allow those 4th level slots to be used, but, not as 4th level spells. Metamagic'd spells would be fine, or any lower level spell could be memorized in those slots. This would go a long way to pushing that wizzie back towards 7th level caster. He's already basically a 7th level fighter, so, that would make him a CR 10 again.

A trifle hacky, but, it could work.