D&D 4E Love It or Leave It: 4E Multiclassing

[Brown Jenkin]

You don't really need a rule to go to your DM and say:

"My character started off as a fighter, and I picked up the cleric multiclassing feat to reflect his religious devotion to Bahumut. However as the campaign has progressed I have come to feel that the evolution of his character is better reflected by a cleric(fighter) multiclass instead. Do I have your permission to rewrite him as that?"

You could also make use of the fact that as a fighter(cleric) you could take the warpriest paragon path and a cleric epic path. You already have full access to cleric-class feats. The substitution of the paragon path is available if recreating a fighter(cleric) as a cleric(fighter) won't cover the concept and the DM won't allow a rewrite or if the retraining rules don't cover this.

While DM permission to rewrite a character is certainly an option, it doesn't really address the weakness in the rules.

Your example spectacularly fails if your first three levels were as a fighter or a rogue and you wanted to "change classes" to become a spellcaster of some kind. Is three levels of "no longer needed melee class" worth losing three caster levels and being a full spell level behind your other "single-class" brethren? I wouldn't say so.

Bringing up weaknesses in 3E rules to defend that 4E doesn't solve either doesn't really showcase how 4E is better. While this may not work spectacularly in 3E, at least that option is open.

Now of course we get into the debate about whether 4E restrictions are better than 3E options that allow sub-optimal builds.

 

[katahn]

While DM permission to rewrite a character is certainly an option, it doesn't really address the weakness in the rules.

A poster in another thread indicated according to "RAW" (someone translate that for me please) retraining could include class as well as feats. If "RAW" means something like "run as written" (ie. no houserules) then this is specifically an advantage 4e has over prior editions of D&D.

Bringing up weaknesses in 3E rules to defend that 4E doesn't solve either doesn't really showcase how 4E is better. While this may not work spectacularly in 3E, at least that option is open.

The weakness in 3e specifically undermines the validity of your argument that says "Here's a situation that I could have done in prior editions but can't in 4e". Yes it is technically possible to do what you describe, but the number of ways it can produce an underpowered result are staggeringly high. I refer you again to the example of the character who spends the first 3-5 levels of their career as a fighter before giving up the sword to become a wizard: at level 20 they will be a level 15-17 wizard with remaining levels in fighter; are 3-5 levels in fighter going to make up for their weakness relative to other level 20 wizards?

Now of course we get into the debate about whether 4E restrictions are better than 3E options that allow sub-optimal builds.

To each their own, I increasingly like the 4e mechanic for multiclassing and character development favoring concept builds over min-maxed munchkin builds and for doing what 3e failed to do without kludging on countless prestige classes: let a caster/melee or caster/caster multiclass not suck.

 

[DM_Blake]

Nope, don't like it.

I do like the idea of fixing it so that a 50/50 blend won't be crippled, but I don't like fixing it by getting rid of it.

I also don't like the fact that if you stick to your class, you gain a feat and a power. But if you want to muticlass, you spend a feat to gain a power from another class. So essentially you lose a feat. You could have had a new class power AND a new feat, but instead, all you get is a new multiclass power.

Which means, if you do this, you will cripple yourself. Not much - the loss of just one feat won't take you from powerful to crippled. But you will be weakened by burning a feat for no compensatory gain.

In the end, they've removed multiclassing, and replaced it by letting you weaken yourself to expand your options by gaining an ability of some other class, and a significant cost.

And further limited that to only one class, so there is no way for a cleric to learn, for example, a warlock power and a ranger power - not that it would be smart to do so, since you would give up two cleric powers AND two feats to get those two powers.

No, this is not a fix at all.

It's another broken, limited system that will require extensive houseruling to make it work in actual play.

Booooooo!

 

[DM_Blake]

A poster in another thread indicated according to "RAW" (someone translate that for me please) retraining could include class as well as feats. If "RAW" means something like "run as written" (ie. no houserules) then this is specifically an advantage 4e has over prior editions of D&D.

Pretty close.

Rules as Written.

Though your definition, in practical application (playing the game) means essentially the same thing.

 

[katahn]

Pretty close.

Rules as Written.

Though your definition, in practical application (playing the game) means essentially the same thing.

So retraining applies to class-choice as well then? I inferred something like that might be consistent with the rules, but I haven't caught any specific official rules to that effect.

 

[DM_Blake]

Two Words: Feat Retraining.

If no combination of feats/powers produces the desired effect then one can simply retrain the multiclass feats and drop that part of the concept.

Another reasonable response is the DM works with the (new) player to achieve a desired result or avoiding the worst pitfalls.

Rerolling a brand new character is also a possibility in some cases.

That's fine for what it is, but it doesn't fix the problem with multiclassing.

Basically, Celebrim pointed out that you give up a feat AND a power, to gain just a power (from another class, but powers are supposedly well-balanced), your net effectiveness is reduced by the loss of a feat that could have been used to positively improve your character.

And your response was that the character could retrain his feat.

The result is that retraining the feat means not multiclassing any more.

If the argument was "multiclassing makes me weaker and later in the campaign I will regret being weaker" and the answer is "retrain to a single class and pick a feat that doesn't weaken you", then basically your solution doesn't fix the problem with multiclassing - it just eliminates the mutliclassing in the first place.

Wouldn't we rather see a multiclass system that works without making the character weaker in the first place?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I had to think about it, finals and all, but I'm pretty dang positive.

It all seems part and parcel of the new class is no longer character feel. Seems more like class is the grammar of character.

And I'm also excited that fighters with wizard training are going to look pretty dang sweet.

There are some fun combos in there too.

A ranger with the paladin feat is looking pretty scary.

 

[Cadfan]

Basically, Celebrim pointed out that you give up a feat AND a power, to gain just a power (from another class, but powers are supposedly well-balanced), your net effectiveness is reduced by the loss of a feat that could have been used to positively improve your character.

And your response was that the character could retrain his feat.

The result is that retraining the feat means not multiclassing any more.

If the argument was "multiclassing makes me weaker and later in the campaign I will regret being weaker" and the answer is "retrain to a single class and pick a feat that doesn't weaken you", then basically your solution doesn't fix the problem with multiclassing - it just eliminates the mutliclassing in the first place.

Wouldn't we rather see a multiclass system that works without making the character weaker in the first place?

Celebrim's concern was that a new player would make a poor decision in selecting a multiclass power, and come to regret it. The proper response was to point out that 4e has feat retraining. This is no different than any other situation where a character chose a selectable ability poorly, and regretted it.

The complaint wasn't that multiclassing inherently made the character weaker, it was that a player who didn't know the system very well picked his multiclassing poorly, resulting in a weaker character. Celebrim was not denying that 4e multiclassing was capable of good outcomes, he was expressing a concern for those situations where it does not, and how that applies to newer players.

As for whether 4e multiclassing makes a character weaker? I don't think it does. Certainly there are ways you could multiclass poorly and end up with a weaker character- a Fighter who multiclasses into Rogue and trades out one of his per encounter abilities for the ability to do 2[W]+Dex with a light blade is probably making a poor decision if he has a better Str than Dex, and usually fights with a heavy ax. And it sucks for that guy that he spent a feat in order to choose powers that were worse than what he began with.

But that doesn't mean that all combinations are weak.

A Warlord might want to pick up a Wizard power that synergizes with his leadership abilities or his battlefield control. A rogue might want to pick up a ranged Ranger power to diversify his melee based portfolio. A Warlock might want a hold-out melee power from the Rogue list for when he can't slip away. There are a lot of options where having A and B at the cost of a feat is better than, or at least equal to, having A1 and A2 while retaining the feat.

 

[katahn]

That's fine for what it is, but it doesn't fix the problem with multiclassing.

Basically, Celebrim pointed out that you give up a feat AND a power, to gain just a power (from another class, but powers are supposedly well-balanced), your net effectiveness is reduced by the loss of a feat that could have been used to positively improve your character.

And your response was that the character could retrain his feat.

Actually, it was in response to "now you're stuck with a bad feat choice for a power". You aren't stuck with anything, you can always retrain feats and thus drop a bad multiclass option if desired.

The benefit of the feat is being allowed to do something your character could not previously do. Without a feat, you cannot choose 1 of your daily, encounter, or utility abilities from another class list. Without a feat you cannot select other feats that have a prerequisite class that is different from yours. The feat pays the "opportunity cost" that says "ok now you can pick from this list of stuff for your standard alotment of powers too". I find that perfectly balanced.

What I would find unbalanced would be just being able to take additional powers, or being able to completely select all powers in a category from a list of powers not in your base class. The former is just adding new powers, in effect giving more power to the multiclass than the single class enjoys. The latter if taken to its extreme begs the question of why one didn't just create a character of the class one has taken all of the abilities from. The only reason I can think of is to get better starting hit points, more healing surges, and quite possibly more skills. That strikes me of munchkining rather than role-playing.

The result is that retraining the feat means not multiclassing any more.

If the argument was "multiclassing makes me weaker and later in the campaign I will regret being weaker" and the answer is "retrain to a single class and pick a feat that doesn't weaken you", then basically your solution doesn't fix the problem with multiclassing - it just eliminates the mutliclassing in the first place.

Wouldn't we rather see a multiclass system that works without making the character weaker in the first place?

Because multiclassing is not supposed to make a more powerful character, it makes a more rounded and versatile one. Compared to a single-class character a multiclass character is going to be somewhat less powerful and/or have fewer options within their primary class's core role. This is balanced against them having abilities that are otherwise absolutely not available to their primary class.

 

[Falling Icicle]

My main argument, however, against the statement that 4E multi-classing requires very little preplanning has to do with attributes. It seems the trend is that the initial class training requires 13 in a given attribute.

A 13 ability score really isn't that hard to obtain. Most classes seem to prefer that you have a decent score in at least 3 abilities, which gives you plenty of multiclassing options.

The problem with this is that so far we have seen very little mention of ways to actually gain base attributes. We know for certain that they dont increase as you level, instead your attribute modifier increases.

Actually, the tiers of play article shows that you do get to increase ability scores as you go up in level.

3. Determine Ability Scores. Generate scores as for a 1st-level character, applying racial modifiers. Then increase those scores as shown on the Character Advancement table in the Player’s Handbook, with increases at 4th level, 8th level, 11th, 14th, and so on. (You can also use the NPC Ability Scores table on page 187 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.)