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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5863158" data-attributes="member: 22424">I don't like either of these. Characters grow and evolve over time, and the game should reflect that - Conan starts his career as a Rogue with a hint of Fighter, then gradually becomes a Fighter with a hint of Rogue, and then becomes more and more a Warlord as his career progresses. The Gray Mouser starts as a Wizard, before abandoning that path entirely to become a Rogue with hint of Fighter.I think the game needs to recognise the limits of a class-based system, and therefore allow some method of gaining, changing and/or retraining classes as characters go.I think the way I would do it would be to have characters declare one class, and allow them to choose a number of cross-class powers. They would be limited both in the total number of cross-class powers they can take, and also in the number they can take from a single class (other than their primary, of course).However, the game should also allow a mechanism for the character to declare himself multiclassed to one (or indeed more than one) other class. Doing this would remove both the above restrictions on cross-class powers - a multiclass character could have as many powers from both his primary class and his multi-class(es) as he wishes. However, he remains first and foremost a member of his primary class.But then, if the character ever reaches a point where he has as many or more powers from his multi-class than his primary, he becomes eligible to retrain - switching from being "a Fighter multiclassed to Rogue" to being "a Rogue multiclassed to Fighter".I think this offers a decent amount of flexibility, while remaining principally a class-based system.(Alternately, they could rule that there is no concept of multiclassing in the Core Rules, and provide a point-buy module for people who want much more flexibility in character creation later.)This would work, but it isn't flexible enough for my tastes. In particular, I would want characters to have the ability to pick up an entirely new class later in their careers.The big problems with 3e multiclassing were two-fold: classes were front-loaded, so it was generally a good idea to go for a one or two level 'dip' into a class; and often players would take classes to 'cherry-pick' powers, rather than because they actually wanted to be a member of the class.The way to fix the first is to reduce the front-loading. Or, alternately, to only give the full set of first level class features for free if it is also the character's first level.But, also, the powers granted by classes should improve significantly with level - so, yes, the set of first level Ranger powers looks quite nice... but wouldn't you rather take the sixth level powers of the Rogue class instead?As for the cherry-picking, I don't think this is really a huge problem. But what I would like to see is a mechanism for PCs to pick up the odd power here and there, without having to invest a whole level in a class just to get a single power.</blockquote>

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