Multiclassing via Feats. Thoughts?

[Stalker0]

What does concern me is other things like hit points. A wizard taking defender options is ok on its own, but wizards just don't get the hp to be effective up close and personal going toe-to-toe, even with a fighter next to him it's gonna be rough. Sure, you can grab the new Toughness feat, but that'll only go so far. Methinks Gish builds are going to need high Con this edition.

With absolutely no real information on multiclassing, just from the inspecting the pregens and so forth I think starting as a fighter and multiclassing into wizard is the way to make a gish. That way you get all of that armor proficiency and hitpoints. You can add arcana training with a feat and then toss on some wizard powers. I think that would be more efficient than taking lots of armor feats and try to bump your con to have reasonable hp for a front liner.

 

[Gloombunny]

I think that going this route is definately a major improvement over any previous iteration of multi-classing I have encountered. I mean lets be honest multi-classing was about 1 of 2 things. It was either a way to min max your statistics to powergame and had no other purpose, or it was a way to get that one defining power or feature you didn't get in your own class.

Um, what about when you want to play a concept that isn't covered by any existing single class? Like gishes?

I intend to use multiclassing (or whatever we're calling it, I'm not sure that's the best word anymore) not to create complete hybrids, but rather to create characters who dip a bit into another class' space.

I think the feat-based multiclassing will work great for that. I'm concerned that it won't work as well for even-mix concepts, but hearing that it's more complex than "one feat = one other-class power" is heartening.

 

[Sojorn]

With absolutely no real information on multiclassing, just from the inspecting the pregens and so forth I think starting as a fighter and multiclassing into wizard is the way to make a gish. That way you get all of that armor proficiency and hitpoints. You can add arcana training with a feat and then toss on some wizard powers. I think that would be more efficient than taking lots of armor feats and try to bump your con to have reasonable hp for a front liner.

Huh.

Just realized that there *are* a number of feats that directly translate into class features, arn't there?

Toughness for example bumps you up one HP category. Armor training does the same for armor and weapon training for weapons. They'll probably also have the bonus to reflex/will/fort feats. Seems like because these feats exist, they have to balance class features in such a way so that you don't just take the class that gives you the most "virtual feats" first (fighter for example) and then multiclass into another one via feats.

It looks like the fighter has somewhere around 7 or so virtual feats up on the wizard, so that's a bit odd. What's the wizard getting in return? Cantrips, the spellbook, implement mastery? What else? Ritual casting? Skills?

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Wow. Maybe all the class feature translate into feats...

The really we are screamingly close to classless D&D.

 

[Cadfan]

It looks like the fighter has somewhere around 7 or so virtual feats up on the wizard, so that's a bit odd. What's the wizard getting in return? Cantrips, the spellbook, implement mastery? What else? Ritual casting? Skills?

At will ranged attacking that bypasses AC to hit a different, typically lower, defense.

I do agree with the rest of your analysis, though.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Wow. Maybe all the class feature translate into feats...

The really we are screamingly close to classless D&D.

Well they did say it wouldn't be hard to make classless D&D straight out of the box.

 

[katahn]

Feat-based multiclassing, if it is going to avoid min-max type exploiting, is going to have to depend on each individual class having the same number of "virtual feats" built into it. If starting off as class A of an A/B multiclass gives 3-4 more virtual feats than starting off as class B does, then I'd say the class design for 4e has fallen short of the mark.

Other than this concern, I have to say I am rather liking what I'm seeing of multiclassing thus far. Feat-based multiclassing for "little dips" and the possibility of taking a second classes' levels instead of a paragon or epic class for a stronger form of it. Then again, almost anything beats the horrid mess that 3e multiclassing was... being forced into a "prestige class" in order to actually make something like a fighter/wizard work was ludicrous.

 

[Sojorn]

Well they did say it wouldn't be hard to make classless D&D straight out of the box.

I recall that comment too.

I'll be very interested to see what they came up with in a week.

 

[Gundark]

Well I really like the concept of training feats thus far. It gives some choice over How far you go into a secondary class....while still keeping the core class strong.

 

[Gundark]

Well they did say it wouldn't be hard to make classless D&D straight out of the box.

They said it would take some tweaking, but was doable. One wonders how much tweaking would be neccessary.