Multiclassing via feats; I want to pole all of you

[tombowings]

Well, 134 members have already responded to his pole and it looks like they like it.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Two of the features that may ameliorate this are:
Feat re-training. You should be able to switch out "Magic Missile" for "Finger of Death" at higher levels.
Powers vs. Feats. If you have 10 Class Powers and 8 Feats, that means you'll be able to have 10 Fighter Class Powers and 8 Wizard Class Powers (at the cost of all your feats). As long as the number of Powers and Feats you can get are the same an "even mix" should be possible.

Thing is, you're going to want to take skill training arcana and Ritual Casting as well to get the feel of "fighter-wizard", and doing this kind thing is going to require even more feats if you start with Wizard, since things like hp and armour prof are a large part of the Fighter class, so you're not going to be able to spend all your feats on appropriate powers.

 

[Voss]

Two of the features that may ameliorate this are:
Feat re-training. You should be able to switch out "Magic Missile" for "Finger of Death" at higher levels.
Powers vs. Feats. If you have 10 Class Powers and 8 Feats, that means you'll be able to have 10 Fighter Class Powers and 8 Wizard Class Powers (at the cost of all your feats). As long as the number of Powers and Feats you can get are the same an "even mix" should be possible.

That would be insanely powerful. The game seems to be balance around the fact that you start with roughly 5 powers and end up with around 20. Getting new ones with feats would drastically change the power scale, and put anyone who doesn't pick up powers this way almost irrelevant.

Encounter and daily powers are more powerful than at will ones- if you can pick up new ones with feats, you start reaching a point where you never have to attack normally. That blows a lot of the balance out the water.

I suspect the multiclass feats will give you a piece of the class features and maybe the option to take a power from that class instead of one of your own. That adds to what you can do, but doesn't directly raise your power level.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Thing is, you're going to want to take skill training arcana and Ritual Casting as well to get the feel of "fighter-wizard", and doing this kind thing is going to require even more feats if you start with Wizard, since things like hp and armour prof are a large part of the Fighter class, so you're not going to be able to spend all your feats on appropriate powers.

Uh, yeah. You can't actually be both a 20th level Fighter and a 20th level Wizard at the same time with no compromises. Otherwise, who wouldn't multiclass? You'd be stupid not to.

We'll know better once we get the actual rules, but from what I've seen so far this seems way better than what 3E had to offer. This way you can actually get 16th level Wizard powers when you're a 16th level Fighter-Wizard. You can't have all the powers that a pure Wizard has, but that's the trade-off you've chosen to make. If you want to have Ritual Casting, and maxed out Arcana and all the other perks too you've got to give up the Fighter thing.

That would be insanely powerful. The game seems to be balance around the fact that you start with roughly 5 powers and end up with around 20. Getting new ones with feats would drastically change the power scale, and put anyone who doesn't pick up powers this way almost irrelevant.

Why? Think about the economy of actions. You get three actions per round (St, Mv, Mn) - no more, no less (unless you spend an Action Point, of course). Imagine you're a 15th level Fighter-Wizard. You can choose between using your 15th level Fighter power or your 15th level Wizard power, but you can't use them both, and either way it's a 15th Level power - just like everyone else in the group has.

Encounter and daily powers are more powerful than at will ones- if you can pick up new ones with feats, you start reaching a point where you never have to attack normally. That blows a lot of the balance out the water.

I'm assuming the 4E devs aren't morons, have realized this, and come up with a solution.

I suspect the multiclass feats will give you a piece of the class features and maybe the option to take a power from that class instead of one of your own. That adds to what you can do, but doesn't directly raise your power level.

You're power level isn't being raised - its been broadened, but it's also lower.

Look, imagine the Fighter-Wizard with both Fighter and Wizard powers. He has more powers than the pure Fighter next to him, but that pure Fighter has spent his Feats making his Fighter Powers even better and more effective. So your F-W can either Melee Attack at +12 or Wizard Attack at +12, but the pure Fighter can only Melee Attack ... at +15, and with a chance to Cleave. See what I mean?

The trick here (which I hope the 4E devs have pulled off) is balancing that "options" vs. "good at what I do." The guy with more options should be a little less effective at either option than a pure-class play alternative, but he shouldn't be so ineffective as to feel like a Fighter10/Wizard10 standing next to two Cleric20s.

 

[Kishin]

You want to "pole" us? That sounds dirty.

Are you willing to offer candy, at least?

Its in his van.

All the candy you like.

You just have to get in the van.

 

[Lacyon]

That would be insanely powerful. The game seems to be balance around the fact that you start with roughly 5 powers and end up with around 20. Getting new ones with feats would drastically change the power scale, and put anyone who doesn't pick up powers this way almost irrelevant.

It's not necessarily powerful at all. The one example of anything approaching multiclassing we've seen (the pre-gen half-elf) took an at-will wizard power and placed it in the per-encounter bucket. If you can spend feats to get per-encounter powers, but only by upgrading them to daily, that may not be a giant boost to your overall effectiveness, even if you take a lot of them.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Will you at least buy us dinner before you "pole" us?

 

[pawsplay]

Frankly, my hopes are that the way to create the most powerful and effective character is to concentrate on aspects of your original class and become the best darn Fighter/Wizard/Whatever you can. I would much prefer multiclassed characters be somewhat underpowered than have the "best" characters be those who used multiclassing to pick the best stuff from each class, buffet style.

Well, when it comes down to the compromise, I think most people would agree with you. But it would be nice if characters in general had a nice parity, and indeed, one of the 4e-isms is that it should be difficult to self-nerf.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Topic #1
Someone needs a girlfriend badly.

Topic #2
I sincerely hope that multi-classing is just replacing powers the character gets normally, not adding new ones. Granted, multi-classing characters will still be limited by the number of actions in a round, but having extra daily powers would be a huge boost. Most of those daily powers are amazing. Having double the number (and to a lesser extent encounter powers) means that the character will be able to 'nova' a lot better than the single class, and that should not be possible.

 

[Voss]

It's not necessarily powerful at all. The one example of anything approaching multiclassing we've seen (the pre-gen half-elf) took an at-will wizard power and placed it in the per-encounter bucket. If you can spend feats to get per-encounter powers, but only by upgrading them to daily, that may not be a giant boost to your overall effectiveness, even if you take a lot of them.

Attacking X number of times per day at +100% damage (which often seems to be the difference between at will, encounter and daily, 1x, 2x and 3x damage, respectively) is more powerful than not doing that. Its certainly more powerful, than say, getting +1 to AC and a -1 to penalties if you're wearing chainmail.