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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7946169" data-attributes="member: 29398">The difference between 1e-era* and 3e-era multiclassing was that in 1e your classes advanced independently; you'd assign whatever ratio of your earned xp into each class (e.g. 60-Fighter 40-MU) and each would bump when it bumped.&nbsp; The J-curve advancement tables** meant that a typical 50-50 split would usually be about a level lower on each side than a single-class character with the same xp total...depending on which class(es) were being compared.This played in well with the fact that not all classes advanced at the same rate.&nbsp; It also, if the DM allowed it, gave the player much more flexibility on conceptualization: a 90-10 Fighter-MU, for example, is mostly a Fighter and only uses spells when camped at night to identify items and set alarms, for example.I think the decision to have all the classes use the same advancement table in 3e kinda boxed them in a bit.* - we gave demi-human multiclassing to humans and did away with two-classing ages ago.** - well, J-enough, and easy to smooth out.I found 3e's additive multiclassing to be an absolute horror show when it came to trying to make a couple of character concepts work, each instance being a mostly-martial, minor-caster character.Even with that, a simple limit saying a character could never have more than two base classes would have worked wonders; I'd have gone further and said that taking a prestige class replaced your base classes (and subsumed their existing abilities) and that a character could only ever have one of these.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7946169, member: 29398"] The difference between 1e-era* and 3e-era multiclassing was that in 1e your classes advanced independently; you'd assign whatever ratio of your earned xp into each class (e.g. 60-Fighter 40-MU) and each would bump when it bumped. The J-curve advancement tables** meant that a typical 50-50 split would usually be about a level lower on each side than a single-class character with the same xp total...depending on which class(es) were being compared. This played in well with the fact that not all classes advanced at the same rate. It also, if the DM allowed it, gave the player much more flexibility on conceptualization: a 90-10 Fighter-MU, for example, is mostly a Fighter and only uses spells when camped at night to identify items and set alarms, for example. I think the decision to have all the classes use the same advancement table in 3e kinda boxed them in a bit. * - we gave demi-human multiclassing to humans and did away with two-classing ages ago. ** - well, J-enough, and easy to smooth out. I found 3e's additive multiclassing to be an absolute horror show when it came to trying to make a couple of character concepts work, each instance being a mostly-martial, minor-caster character. Even with that, a simple limit saying a character could never have more than two base classes would have worked wonders; I'd have gone further and said that taking a prestige class replaced your base classes (and subsumed their existing abilities) and that a character could only ever have one of these. [/QUOTE]

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