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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6016672" data-attributes="member: 996">3e's multi-classing was a quantum leap in character customizeability and a great innovation.&nbsp; As with healing surges &amp; hit dice, though, it looks like 5e is going to try to improve on something good, by averaging it out with something not quite as good.&nbsp; 3e class/levels were like modular building blocks, they quite efficiently and elegantly allowed you to build to concept using bits of each class.&nbsp; What's described here also builds-in some of the 'averaged out' half-classes of classic D&amp;D (you multiclass Fighter, you get half the hps of a fighter of the same level, you don't get the THAC0 of a character of your total exp) and 4e Hybrids.&nbsp; Those worked, in a way, thanks to the complexities of level advancement, but they lacked elegance, consistency, and flexibility.&nbsp; 3e multiclassing was a great idea, but it had a couple of little blind spots in the implementation.&nbsp; Like caster level.&nbsp; BAB increased for every class, even the wizard.&nbsp; Caster level didn't.&nbsp; If caster level had advanced like BAB, with non-casters getting 1/2 progression, hybrid casters like paladins 3/4, and casters full, multi-classing to and among caster classes would have been much more practical.&nbsp; Fixing those would not have been hard.&nbsp; I could have been done with 3.5, but it wasn't.&nbsp; 5e has changed some basic advancement around and has a sort of fetish for disparate sub-systems for each class, so it won't be that simple to just take the 3e aproach and drop it in.&nbsp; Without quasi-uinversal progressions like BAB and Caster Level or an actually universal progression like pre-E's (that is, with bounded accuracy), there's no way to let different classes build on eachother.&nbsp; Instead, MC'ing will give you a collection of unrelated abilities.&nbsp; You'll have a spell from list A and a spell from list B and a CS die and an SA die, and you'll be like a party of 1st level characters sharing a single set of actions.&nbsp; A better aproach, IMHO, would be to use a common advancement structure, and let multi-class characters pull options from each of their classes at each level.&nbsp; No need to worry about BAB or Caster Level (or the 5e equivalent damage progressions), or make multi-class characters wait multiple levels for the features they want most.&nbsp; Think of 4e Themes and Racial substitution powers.&nbsp; Being multi-classed doesn't need to give you more stuff, just more options.&nbsp; You could potentially retain most of the class balance that 4e achieved and most of the flexibility of 3e modular multi-classing with such an approach.&nbsp; That would be something.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6016672, member: 996"] 3e's multi-classing was a quantum leap in character customizeability and a great innovation. As with healing surges & hit dice, though, it looks like 5e is going to try to improve on something good, by averaging it out with something not quite as good. 3e class/levels were like modular building blocks, they quite efficiently and elegantly allowed you to build to concept using bits of each class. What's described here also builds-in some of the 'averaged out' half-classes of classic D&D (you multiclass Fighter, you get half the hps of a fighter of the same level, you don't get the THAC0 of a character of your total exp) and 4e Hybrids. Those worked, in a way, thanks to the complexities of level advancement, but they lacked elegance, consistency, and flexibility. 3e multiclassing was a great idea, but it had a couple of little blind spots in the implementation. Like caster level. BAB increased for every class, even the wizard. Caster level didn't. If caster level had advanced like BAB, with non-casters getting 1/2 progression, hybrid casters like paladins 3/4, and casters full, multi-classing to and among caster classes would have been much more practical. Fixing those would not have been hard. I could have been done with 3.5, but it wasn't. 5e has changed some basic advancement around and has a sort of fetish for disparate sub-systems for each class, so it won't be that simple to just take the 3e aproach and drop it in. Without quasi-uinversal progressions like BAB and Caster Level or an actually universal progression like pre-E's (that is, with bounded accuracy), there's no way to let different classes build on eachother. Instead, MC'ing will give you a collection of unrelated abilities. You'll have a spell from list A and a spell from list B and a CS die and an SA die, and you'll be like a party of 1st level characters sharing a single set of actions. A better aproach, IMHO, would be to use a common advancement structure, and let multi-class characters pull options from each of their classes at each level. No need to worry about BAB or Caster Level (or the 5e equivalent damage progressions), or make multi-class characters wait multiple levels for the features they want most. Think of 4e Themes and Racial substitution powers. Being multi-classed doesn't need to give you more stuff, just more options. You could potentially retain most of the class balance that 4e achieved and most of the flexibility of 3e modular multi-classing with such an approach. That would be something. [/QUOTE]

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