D&D 4E Problem with 4e Multiclassing

[Wolfwood2]

I think you'll see this is not a problem once we get more information on Rituals.

Hah! Good one.

 

[drjones]

The class does not define what kind of person you are, it defines what you do in a fight each round.

What you describe is not a problem with the multi classing rules unless you want to do something 'leadery' every other round when fighting. What is that again?

 

[Byronic]

(As an aside - this is why I hate that they named the role "Leader" instead of "Support". Sure Leader sounds sexier than Support but using the term "Leader" is going to make people think that the wizard can't be a party leader, or the paladin can't be a leader, or that the guy who picks the cleric automatically has to be the "party leader". Which, frankly, generally doesn't happen in my games. The support guy taking the cleric or the bard is rarely the guy who ends up standing in front of the village elders and apologizing for the way the rest of the party trashed the town square the night before...)

This is my foremost problem with the Warlord class... I know there are going to be players who think that because they're a warlord they're automatically the leader of the party. I'm already preparing my "Shut up you obnoxious clown, you almost got us killed" speech

 

[Spatula]

All right, so let's say I'm playing a warlock, a single-target blaster with high Charisma who derives her power from extraplanar beings. But she's not as selfish as the average warlock- her ultimate aspiration is to found her own House and start a dynasty, and to do that she needs to make a name for herself and get people following her. In other words, she has a splash of Leader ability, for all that her primary combat style is blowing things up from the back rank.

The logical way to do this would be a dip-multiclass into Warlord. But that...requires Strength 13, because it's a martial class, and every inspiration-related power we've seen has required you to bang on things with a weapon, which is not exactly the flavor of the character. Likewise, she's not a cleric- no gods are involved. I could ask the DM to let me reflavor the class, but even then, she'd need a high Wisdom to use any of their powers, which is certainly not appropriate for a stary-eyed kid with delusions of grandeur.

Possibly the unreleased rules will fix that, but I kind of doubt it. The way it seems to be going is that all martial classes use strength and a weapon for every action, and clerics use wisdom for every action. So if you're really charismatic but not strong or wise, forget it. I dunno, maybe they'll eventually release an arcane Leader. Obviously I could just go single class and roleplay like a warlord, but I thought the whole point of the new system was to make combinations feasible.

What would you all do about this in your games?

It sounds more like you want a version of 3e's Leadership feat, rather than levels in Warlord or Cleric, who are the party healers & buffers. If you're not interested in divine buffs via your Wisdom or martial buffs via your melee weapon, you probably don't want Warlord or Cleric powers.

 

[billd91]

If you simply want to roleplay your character having a great retinue, being famous and giving orders from far far away, you don't need any other leader-class-level.

But it helps add to the character's mojo to be able to translate the role-playing hook with something the character can do in the course of an adventure.

At least with 3rd edition, while you may not have been very good at multiclassing certain combinations because you didn't have the stats, you could still do it. There weren't any minimum requirements for the base classes.

 

[DreamChaser]

This is an inherent problem with any class/level based character design system. It's one sacred cow I wish they had done away with in 4e.

This is one of the things they talked about early on: the designers felt that one of the things that "defined" D&D was a class / level paradigm. It is one thing I firmly agree with.

A classless, point build, cherry-pick system is wonderful for some concepts but strongly favors veteran gamers who spend more time pouring over every nuance of the system and harshly penalizes casual gamers / non-rules monkeys who will never develop a sufficient understanding of the interactions of every power with every other power to effectively exploit them.

This puts DMs / designers in an awkward position: create a game that targets the bulge of the curve, which will regularly kill the low end and regularly bore the high end, or target the ends which exacerbates the problem.

I'm am glad they chose to go with a class-based system and I think the multiclass system works (read is fair to both the multiclasser and other members of the party) better than any past version.

DC

 

[Irda Ranger]

The problem with the OPs scenario isn't character classes, it's the approach. He's confusing combat roles (Leader) with character stories, histories and personality.

This. Anyone who makes it to Paragon level and has a decent Charisma will attract followers, if that's the kind of campaign you want to play. Class has nothing to do with this.

I'd probably point out to my player that the only reason the role is called "Leader" is because "Support Monkey" didn't test well with the focus groups...

Heh. This is true. Other poorly received Role names were "Meathead" and "Sucker-puncher".

 

[ZetaStriker]

I do think a Warlock/Warlord could work though, even though I agree that it's not necessary in this case. As a DM, I'd certainly allow a PC to bend the rules on a multiclass feat requirement(possibly swapping the primary stat requirement to one of that class' secondary stats) if he gave me a good reason for it. For instance, a Warlock who takes the Warlord Multiclass feat for the Inspiring Word and such, and then takes the At-Will swap multiclass feat to get the 'hey buddy, go hit that guy for me' at-will power, it'd still work as support for the party. They'd just still primarily be a Warlock. Which makes sense, since they obviously didn't want to make Warlord their primary class.

 

[Khaim]

I do think a Warlock/Warlord could work though, even though I agree that it's not necessary in this case. As a DM, I'd certainly allow a PC to bend the rules on a multiclass feat requirement(possibly swapping the primary stat requirement to one of that class' secondary stats) if he gave me a good reason for it. For instance, a Warlock who takes the Warlord Multiclass feat for the Inspiring Word and such, and then takes the At-Will swap multiclass feat to get the 'hey buddy, go hit that guy for me' at-will power, it'd still work as support for the party. They'd just still primarily be a Warlock. Which makes sense, since they obviously didn't want to make Warlord their primary class.

There's no feat to swap an at-will power. Not that we've seen, at any rate.

 

[DonAdam]

Skill Training: Diplomacy