The mechanical problems with Multiclassing

[Psion]

Well, me for one. Its a fairly archetypal fantasy archetype,

If you think so, great.

I, however, don't see it. In LotR you have your wizard and your fighters (and a few commoners). Grey mouser knew a little magic; he wasn't hurling fireballs. Etc. I don't consider a character strongly competant in both to be an everpresent archetype.

So, we differ. I think it's better we have options that we can use to craft the game to our preferences, rather than force an archetype on me that I don't agree belongs in my game.

 

[hong]

Or the funny idea a friend had... the wuxia campaign, where everyone was monk-something.

Been mentioned a few times, actually.

Although personally, I might just use Exalted, which I have been MEANING TO START for six months, but these damn PCs in my campaign keep refusing to get TPKed so I am forced, yes forced I say, to continue running my campaign and they don't even have the courtesy to get bored and start doing stupid stuff so I have an excuse to yell at them which would make them yell at me and it would turn into a yelling match and then we'd throw dice at each other and then we'd throw food at each other and then we'd throw furniture at each other and then the cops would come along and the judge would throw the book at all of us when Officer Obie came in with printed-out jpegs taken with a digital cam with arrows and circles and a label on the back of each one to be used as evidence against us and that's the tale, yes that's the tale of Alice's D&D campaign and massacree, because you can get anything you want in Alice's D&D game, you can get anything you want in Alice's D&D game, just walk right in it's around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track, you can get anything you want in Alice's D&D game.

Where was I?

 

[Will]

Psion: Well, yeah.

But, see, if an archetype DOESN'T WORK well in the system, then you don't have the situation you describe. You have 'some people can't run the game they want.'

It's always fairly easy to tailor a game down to specifics, like 'in my game, paladin can freely multiclass with rogue' or 'barbarians cannot multiclass with fighters' or 'clerics must actually worship a god' or 'clerics must have at least 1/3 of their levels in Expert' or whatever.

You are actually arguing for the other person's position, except that you disagree about what's a valid archetype. I find modern fantasy tends to have wizard/fighters more often than older. Grey mouser, for his part, doesn't throw fireballs... but then, very few (if any) Lankhmar wizards can do that, either. I call foul.

In any case, it'd be nice if the system could handle multiclassing casters decently in a balanced way, so it can be OUR choice whether it works or not.

 

[WizarDru]

...you can get anything you want in Alice's D&D game.

Excepting Alice.


Personally, I'm on board with sénor Kohler, here. I understand wanting to have a wizard/cleric, and I agree some choices are sub-optimal. However, I'm not sure it's worth the extra levels of difficulty and abstraction to pigeon-hole these combinations into the system. If every item that gets considered has to be examined in the light of "how abusive would this be if you had a spellcaster who could cast harm, true strike and tree stride at the same time, and then got this feat?"...well, I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the extra effort.

 

[iblis]

I know I have read popular fiction with fighter/sorcerers and such as protagonists - I just can't remember which ones at this moment... :\ Ah well. They are out there, dammit.

All said and done, I like the multiclassing in 3e. As is. I'd say at least 60% of PCs in my campaigns have multiclassed or will do so at some point. So the players seem to think it's a good - or at least appealing (maybe) - system too. So far, no character looks to be particularly advantaged or disadvantaged through it.

It's interesting to read others' opinions and accounts, though. To be honest, maybe I haven't devoted as many hours to 3rd ed. - yet! - as some other posters, and it might strike me later on that there are serious problems with multiclassing as it's written.

Not that I have any suggestions for 'fixing' 3E multi-classing, mind you, except to try to keep it "within reason" as a DM. Within the context of my campaign, I make sure that players "justify" in role-playing terms any multi-classing that takes place.

That gets a "me too".

 

[Li Shenron]

Seems to be that previous editions were having more specific rules while 3ed attempted a generalization. 1ed told you specifically which combinations were allowed, 3ed tells only about a couple of combinations which are forbidden (Paladins, Monks). Probably 1ed had its own good reason for being specific: to control that a multiclass character was good enough but not too much?
3ed sounds good to me for a different matter which is more freedom for the players. But at the same time, the same 3ed has chosen a terribly awful rule about multiclassing penalties & favored classes. Terribly awful because while it's a generic rule, it's a restriction that works out of control for the designers. I mean, it doesn't restrict from either too good or too bad combinations, it is just an arbitrary restriction with no reason. The reason how could such a choice have been made within the "option, not restriction" paradigm of 3ed is out of my comprehension

In 3E, there are no main restrictions as to which classes you combine (with the slight exception of alignment-based incompatibilities). This may lead many to thinking that they can combine any classes they like and get an effective character. This is not the case.

However, is this really a problem? Although the idea of freely multiclassing is attractive, conceptually there is not a problem with some classes not making good multi-class characters. Of course, there should be some combinations that must be addressed (such as the fighter/wizard example), but all in all it may not be the problem that it could be considered to be.

Yes, there's no point in pretending a system where every possible character combination is "the best". It's kind of hard topic to talk about, because on one hand it's a pity if too many combinations are poor, so one could well look forward to improve those poor combinations; at other end of the range you have to keep ensuring no combination is a winner over single-classing or it's possible that everyone would aim for that - we had awful experiences with OD&D elves

At the moment, multiclassing is a perfect choice for combat characters which can optimise their features by taking levels in 3-4 classes (since everything for combat stacks) while spellcasters get more disadvantages.

I haven't found any good idea to prevent the first or help the second, but I am afraid that at some point you always have to choose between freedom and control.

The ostensible freedom of 3e is instead restricted. There are classes, like the 1e Paladin, that cannot be multi-classed with effectively.

What bothers me about 3ed restriction, as i mentioned, is the fact they're arbitrary. I have a hard time to believe that a multiclass paladin would be better than a multiclassed fighter, barbarian or ranger (he's actually worse than all these). The reason for that restriction must have nothing to do with the game system.

With the recent flood of new classes from Wizards, the problems with the 3e multi-classing system have become readily apparent.

But honestly many new core classes always seem to me characters which are already since the start a multiclassed concept:

Hexblade, Warmage, Warlock = fighter/wizard
Spellthief = rogue/wizard
Swashbuckler = fighter/rogue

and some core classes are as well

Ranger = fighter/druid
Paladin = fighter/cleric
Bard = rogue/sorcerer

There's not even a real need for all this stuff. It's nice ok, but don't tell me that they are necessary "to fill a character concept" because truth is that they a character concept can almost always be covered by combining the good'ol 4 core classes.

Of course, these may not be considered as problems by all. However, the problems that the Eldritch Knight and Mystic Theurge were designed to fix have become what might be a troubling part of the 3.5e system.

Which is another thing that hasn't convinced me completely... :\ A fix? Now if it is a fix maybe it really deserved to be the exception and specify exactly that should be allowed with one or two particular classes combinations.

Although some prestige classes have mitigated this, whenever a new class ability is added the problem reoccurs.

It bothers me if the players actually think they cannot leave without a specific class ability. There is hardly an original ability or feature which cannot be covered by something already existing. The only thing which cannot be easily covered is a specific progression of features at the exact level you wanted; and a player who absolutely want that one, is hardly looking forward a "character concept"...

This is an issue that should be addressed over the coming years, and resolved when the 4th edition is published.

Let's hope so, but it doesn't seem an easy task. Can we take the fact that you mention 4ed as the fact you have already given up hopes for this edition?

 

[Mallus]

In LotR you have your wizard and your fighters (and a few commoners). Grey mouser knew a little magic; he wasn't hurling fireballs. I don't consider a character strongly competant in both to be an everpresent archetype.

And there's Elric. And practically every Draegaran in Brust's Taltos books. Or for that matter, there's the long D&D tradition of elven fighter/magic users and fighter thieves [wasn't the 'Elf' class in Basic D&D basically a fighter/mage?]. Attempts at playable multiclasses spellcasters have been part of D&D from the very beginning.

I think it's better we have options that we can use to craft the game to our preferences, rather than force an archetype on me that I don't agree belongs in my game.

See, the first part of that sentence puts us in agreement. I'd like better options for modelling multiclass spellcasters, because they belong in --most-- of my games. But the second part confuses me. How does the presence of of any given archetype in the core rules pressure a DM into anything? Plenty of people don't have paladins or monks in the their campaign settings because they "don't fit".

But its nice that the core rules are comprehensive enough to give DM's those options, if they choose to use them...

 

[billd91]

Well, spellcasting is the domain of the spellcasters. I don't think the fighter's training would help boost their training of the Art. That's like going to sniper school to learn how to sew (at least you can thread a needle on the first try).

I think the problem with this analogy is that, under 3E D&D, going to sewing school teaches you something that WILL benefit you as a sniper but there's nothing cutting back the other way. In other words, everyone gets some progression in BAB whether it's a class that fights or not, but there's no equivalent caster level increase to benefit spellcasters. At least not unless you're using the variant from UA.
The way I see it, even if you're picking up fighter levels, your probably still exercising your spellcasting abilities fairly frequently. I think adding an effective caster level for determining spell variables and overcoming spell resistance periodically would work out pretty well. Works as a nice counter point to adding BAB.

The other main problem with multiclassing that I see is the good save bonus. Pick up a bunch of classes and start to have really high saves. I think the +2 bonus as a starter save should be reduced to +1 after the first class.

 

[Mallus]

UA battle sorc r0xx0rs my b0xx0rs.

Haven't taken a look at UA... or your b0xx0rs, for that matter.

Think I will...

Err, that's a yes on 1) and a no on 2)...

 

[Psion]

See, the first part of that sentence puts us in agreement. I'd like better options for modelling multiclass spellcasters, because they belong in --most-- of my games. But the second part confuses me. How does the presence of of any given archetype in the core rules pressure a DM into anything? Plenty of people don't have paladins or monks in the their campaign settings because they "don't fit".

Sure, that's an example of an excludable option... much like Eldritch knight or Mystic Theurge is excludable if you so desire.

But if you write the rules so that fighter levels complement wizard levels by default, it's no longer a case of merely including or excluding a class. If you include fighters and wizards as character classes, you by necessity include the nicely synergestic combination between them short of house ruling the rules that where put in place to make multiclassing more viable. We can only theorize what such rules would look like, but messing with something as fundamental as magic system tends to be a bit more untidy and labor intensive than allowing or excluding a class.

If you have a warrior-mage class like AEG's Myrmidon, that's another matter, as I can include it or exclude it at my leisure.