Multiclass-Penalty and Feats

[Jan van Leyden]

How did the player wind up with the XP penalty? What class combo? Was this a character concept multiclass, or a number crunch multiclassing.

The penalty came to bear due to negligence. As I said, it's the first time someone had her character run into this situation.

The culprit is a Changeling who started out with one level Barbarian before switching over to Wizard. The character hasn't changed the class since. There was a tad number crunching involved, to be sure. The decision on the race was due to the Changeling's linguistic ability.

The reasoning is as follows: The character grew up in the city of Sharn and was being conscripted into the Brelish army for the final battles of the Last War before she could complete her studies at Morgrave University. She was placed in the same platoon as a childhood friend of hers, so all seemed okay. One day she saw her friend critically wounded and was unable to reach him, because enemies separated the two of them. When she heard him crying and screaming something snapped inside her. Her vision narrowed, a wave of strength hit her and she hacked her way to the friend with reckless abandon. The moment she reached him, her new found strength left her as suddenly as it had come. Enfeebled, she sank to her knees only to watch her friend die. She doesn't know how she survived the day and the rest of the war. When returning home, she knew she had something inside her, something dangerous, powerful. She was sure she could call it up again, but was afraid to do so. She tried to return to her former life, but quickly came to the conclusion that she couldn't purge her experiences from memory. So she began looking for like-minded individuals who might comprehend her inner turmoil and accept her like she was now. She met such a group just before her final exams at the university.

Of course this story is constructed, but I like it. Of course she could have taken a level of Rogue and told the above tale with sneak attack instead of rage, but hey!

Huldvoll

Jan van Leyden

 

[Jan van Leyden]

IMO the feats should be written specifically for each class and tied into some sort of organization that promotes this type of multiclassing and should be taken at (or before) acquiring the first level of the class that is causing the issues.

As you can learn from my answer to frankthedm, the 'excuse' is her being drawn into the war. I think one can accept such a situation as valid reason, but players could also use it as a joker to circumvent any restriction.

Luckily my players won't care for a rule removed by a feat, and only one of them might start to think about effects on game balance.

On a meta-gaming level the hit die of the barbarian class were the main reason for starting out in this way. The character started out as the group's hit-man in the first adventure. Since 2nd level, she more and more withdraws from fighting, leaving such pursuit to the fighter and the ranger.

Huldvoll

Jan van Leyden

 

[irdeggman]

As you can learn from my answer to frankthedm, the 'excuse' is her being drawn into the war. I think one can accept such a situation as valid reason, but players could also use it as a joker to circumvent any restriction.

Luckily my players won't care for a rule removed by a feat, and only one of them might start to think about effects on game balance.

On a meta-gaming level the hit die of the barbarian class were the main reason for starting out in this way. The character started out as the group's hit-man in the first adventure. Since 2nd level, she more and more withdraws from fighting, leaving such pursuit to the fighter and the ranger.

Huldvoll

Jan van Leyden

Story fits even better with my recommendation to have the feat be organization specific.

That group of liked-minded individuals is the organization.

Works just fine to me and doesn't make it a blanket feat.

I would make the feat oriented around the barbarian class though. Something about resolving barbarian inner turmoil and focus such that the barbarian class does not count towards a multiclassing penalty.

 

[irdeggman]

Here are some questions over this specific situation.

Is this because of the suddenly discovered error and thus a recalcualtion fo exp due to the missed penalty being enforced?

What level is the character in question?

Are you trying to "fix" and error that was allowed to happen? Player missed the rule and DM didn't catch it, if I am understanding the situation correctly.

If this is an attempt to recover from an error - thus the history written - then you can go back and replace the character's 3rd level feat with the new one. While this definitely has game fairness issues involved the correction would in part be based on DM error (or a lapse in oversight) and could be justified that way.

If the character is just now picking up a level that causes the exp penalty then enforce the feat at that time.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Is this because of the suddenly discovered error and thus a recalcualtion fo exp due to the missed penalty being enforced?

What level is the character in question?

We perform our character maintenace with E-tools, but do not regularly update the data. Doing so, in fact, only when a new level is gained. Right now the character is Barb1/Wiz3. When levelling up to Barb1/Wiz4, the reduced XP weren't enough to take her beyond the 10k threshold.

Are you trying to "fix" and error that was allowed to happen? Player missed the rule and DM didn't catch it, if I am understanding the situation correctly.

If this is an attempt to recover from an error - thus the history written - then you can go back and replace the character's 3rd level feat with the new one. While this definitely has game fairness issues involved the correction would in part be based on DM error (or a lapse in oversight) and could be justified that way.

That's the way we decided to handle it. As the feat taken on her 3rd level didn't have any effect up to now, this re-engineering causes neither harm nor inconsistencies. And as I'm blessed with a tolerant group of players, the situation can be resolved without anyone becoming disgruntled.

irdeggman and all others in this thread: thanks for the discussion!

Huldvoll

Jan van Leyden