Rodney Thompson on Multiclassing

[Shroomy]

I don't know about confirmed, but on my downloaded sheet it's showing as Wizard Attack 1, not Half-elf Racial Power.

I thought that the half-elf racial ability was that they could take one class power from another class.

 

[Vempyre]

The text I quoted is from the link I posted.

It's posted by Gamescribe (Rodney Thompson)

Summary here by FabioMilitoPagliara :

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=222311

 

[Vempyre]

I thought that the half-elf racial ability was that they could take one class power from another class.

Rodney Thompson stated that it's a Wizard multiclass power in the above link.

 

[drjones]

I thought his economy of actions thing was interesting but I think he overstated the value of additional actions a la summoning. It seems like if the additional action you are gaining can only be spent on a limited selection of low-power activities it is not nearly as big a hit to balance as an additional standard action for a PC.

So yeah a familiar who can scout, pick locks, breath fire, cast spells etc. can be really unbalancing but I don't see why a summon who is mostly there to get in the way of enemies and draw fire should cause consternation or require the summoner to lose actions.

 

[Incenjucar]

It would be entirely reasonable for a summoner to have to sacrifice an action to activate a special ability of one of its minions, like having a summoned dragon use its breath weapon.

 

[small pumpkin man]

One of the half-elf racial abilities is "the ability to multiclass well". The ability to take another classes power is the basic multiclassing they have. Thus, obviously, the ray of frost is both a multiclassed power and a hald-elf racial ability. You could continue to argue over terminology if you want, but it seems kinda pointless.

 

[Vempyre]

One of the half-elf racial abilities is "the ability to multiclass well". The ability to take another classes power is the basic multiclassing they have. Thus, obviously, the ray of frost is both a multiclassed power and a hald-elf racial ability. You could continue to argue over terminology if you want, but it seems kinda pointless.

I guess until we see the actual rules (which from teh develeoper's saying have changed quite a bit since those characters were made) we won't know if the playtest warlock half-elf's ray of frost was possible only because he was an half-elf or because of the new multiclass rules. Or both. Maybe the half-elf ability makes somebody able to multiclass without having to take a feat.

I think the final effect stays the same though. You gain a power from another class in lieu of one of your normal class. Wether it's through the normal "multiclassing" rules or the half-elf's racial ability. The fact that Rodney calls the half-elf's ability multiclassing tis a big hint on how this will work.

 

[Aegir]

IIt seems like if the additional action you are gaining can only be spent on a limited selection of low-power activities it is not nearly as big a hit to balance as an additional standard action for a PC.

I think thats exactly what he was saying. Even in building 3E it was understood that things like summoned monsters were essentially giving that PC extra actions, so to balance it they made the summoned monsters extremely weak compared to the level required to summon them.

If, instead, a summoner wizard had to give up some or all of his own actions for a summoned beasty to act, then the summons can be made significantly more powerful, and a summoner can serve as a kind of skeleton key controller: whatever is needed for the situation (extra defender? shifty beast for setting up flanks? maybe a bit of extra long range punch with an artillery monster?) can be conjured up and effectively replaces that PC to some extent.

Theres also the possibility that summons are minion beasts, and even that would be more effective than 3E summons. Minions may not hit hard, but their chance of hitting is pretty high, and are weak enough that they could go ignored long enough to get in several good smacks.

 

[Scrollreader]

I think you can see previews of the sort of summons we're likely to see in 4e near the tail end of 3.X. Things like Summon Elemental Monolith and the spells that /replaced/ the summoner with a specifc devil/demon/celestial negate the action economy inflation problem, and were the sort of things that allow a summon with actual combat power.

 

[Stogoe]

I wouldn't be surprised in the least if, when we eventually get Summoning powers, nearly all of them are 'Sustain Standard'.