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Multiclassing Borked?
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6365772" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>I can't know for sure why the designers made multiclassing this way, but one possible additional issue is <em>complexity</em>.</p><p></p><p>Not only 3e multiclassed spellcasters lagged behind in terms of spells level, but since their spellcasting abilities from each class were treated separately, they tended to have a lot of spells slots. A lot of low-level spell slots to handle separately, sometimes with different rules (spontaneous casters vs vancian, or domain slots <em>in addition</em> to regular cleric's daily slots), are quite burdensome. In 5e you still have separate <em>prepared</em> spells, but at least your daily slots are merged. It's generally easier to play such character.</p><p></p><p>OTOH, multiple attacks complicate the game, slowing it down, especially if the player is quite tactical and wants to use special attacks rather than simply swing the weapon. During playtest, I had the feeling that a lot of discussions were going on behind the curtains among the designers, and contrasting feedback was given by playtesters, on the issue of multiple attacks. In some playtesting stage, there were no multiple attacks at all, and fighting superiority of the martial classes was represented by the Martial Damage Dice (but later this was apparently considered too tactical to force every Fighter player to have to manage this). Later, a lot of classes had extra attacks, IIRC also Clerics and Druids and Rogues (but I might be wrong). My impression is that they went back and forth until eventually settling for the current compromise idea: Fighters up to 4 attacks (but 3rd only in the heroic tier, and 4th only at 20th level), all other martial classes up to 2 attacks (Bards being an oddity), everybody else no multiple attacks.</p><p></p><p>Thus I don't think this was merely an issue of balance. They also specifically wanted to keep the amount of actions per turn limited. Instead of looking at the issue as "the others get less attacks than the Fighter ", if you try to see is as "the Fighter, and only a high-level Fighter, gets an attack or two more than everyone else", and so it is the Fighter which constitutes an exception, perhaps it may look more fair.</p><p></p><p>And also think that if you don't think it's fair, the designers will very likely suggest to <em>remove</em> those 2 more extra attacks from the Fighter (i.e. replace with other bonuses) rather than <em>adding</em> them to non-Fighters.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6365772, member: 1465"] I can't know for sure why the designers made multiclassing this way, but one possible additional issue is [I]complexity[/I]. Not only 3e multiclassed spellcasters lagged behind in terms of spells level, but since their spellcasting abilities from each class were treated separately, they tended to have a lot of spells slots. A lot of low-level spell slots to handle separately, sometimes with different rules (spontaneous casters vs vancian, or domain slots [I]in addition[/I] to regular cleric's daily slots), are quite burdensome. In 5e you still have separate [I]prepared[/I] spells, but at least your daily slots are merged. It's generally easier to play such character. OTOH, multiple attacks complicate the game, slowing it down, especially if the player is quite tactical and wants to use special attacks rather than simply swing the weapon. During playtest, I had the feeling that a lot of discussions were going on behind the curtains among the designers, and contrasting feedback was given by playtesters, on the issue of multiple attacks. In some playtesting stage, there were no multiple attacks at all, and fighting superiority of the martial classes was represented by the Martial Damage Dice (but later this was apparently considered too tactical to force every Fighter player to have to manage this). Later, a lot of classes had extra attacks, IIRC also Clerics and Druids and Rogues (but I might be wrong). My impression is that they went back and forth until eventually settling for the current compromise idea: Fighters up to 4 attacks (but 3rd only in the heroic tier, and 4th only at 20th level), all other martial classes up to 2 attacks (Bards being an oddity), everybody else no multiple attacks. Thus I don't think this was merely an issue of balance. They also specifically wanted to keep the amount of actions per turn limited. Instead of looking at the issue as "the others get less attacks than the Fighter ", if you try to see is as "the Fighter, and only a high-level Fighter, gets an attack or two more than everyone else", and so it is the Fighter which constitutes an exception, perhaps it may look more fair. And also think that if you don't think it's fair, the designers will very likely suggest to [I]remove[/I] those 2 more extra attacks from the Fighter (i.e. replace with other bonuses) rather than [I]adding[/I] them to non-Fighters. [/QUOTE]
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