No multiclassing penalties?

[Mighty Veil]

Just goes to show how diverse people's opinions can be. The rules for class/levels with demi-humans was in my opinion one of the worst things


I like the idea of them. In a 3e game, if they had it. I envision it like this:

All PCs' levels max out at 20 (I'm not a fan of epic). If demi's had limits on their classes. They would have to fill the rest with something else. Maybe something similar.

I'm not a fan of PrC's, but I am with character class options. Maybe if PrC's were 3 or 5 levels then they'd be fine. I like the idea of a advanced class. So maybe dwarves have a fighter limit of 15. They have a barbarian limit of 5 (since they're a lawful race). A class option for barbarians might be "dwarven defender". So you might take 5 levels of defender to fill out your 20. Or 5 levels of bard.

 

[Felon]

I've wondered whether multiclassing penalties should exist, and I'm considering eliminating them from my game. My reasoning is that one is sacrificing growth in one class to grow in another area.

The multi-classing penalties prevent certain abuses, such as dipping into front-loaded classes. I saw this happen when I experimented with removing the penalty.

In general though, the purpose of multi-classing is pretty seriously undermined by the existence of favored classes. I mean, if I want to be a Scout3/Ranger2/Fighter1, that's somehow unbalanced for a halfling or elf to do, but perfectly acceptable for a human or dwarf? I don't see how that could be so (because it isn't).

Note that enforcing multi-classing and favored-classing goes a long way towards discouraging non-humans from utilizing base classes from sources other than the PHB.

Ultimately, I revised my decision and allowed all races to use the same favored class rule that humans do: the highest level class doesn't count.

Another option would be to simply let the player choose it for their character at creation.

 

[Odhanan]

Should there be multiclassing penalties? No. Never used those in my Third Ed games, never will. They're useless and are an obstacle to character advancement. I just trust my good judgment as well as the players to keep their character progression believable. Not everything that makes up balance has to be codified by rules (upon rules... upon rules...). That's it.

 

[Odhanan]

Well actually yes. Actual Fighters have rarely multi-classed.

A fair few people have added a level or two of Fighter to another class - for the BAB as much as the feats. That didn't bring the game crashing down.

In my experience the PCs that are heavily multi-classed have turned out to be broad in application but pretty weak in play. It's harder to get synergy between classes than many players realise.

QFT. What he said.

 

[Hjorimir]

I removed the penalties for my campaign as I prefer to let characters evolve in a more organic manner as opposed to having to adhere to a gameism.

 

[GreatLemur]

Yeah, I pretty much decided those rules were entirely retarded the moment I saw them. The same goes for class-specific multiclassing restrictions (such as what the Paladin and Monk have going on) and alignment-based class restrictions.