The Weird Penalty of Core Classes

[Drowbane]

Pfui. Building a character to concept is not "min-maxing."

-The Gneech

Sure it is. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If not for EN's beloved grandma, I'd have some choice words for such elitist snobbery.

I've noticed that the biggest nay-sayers of Powergaming and Min/Maxing prefer point buy... where the fewer points you have the more you need to do both. Funny that.

 

[The_Gneech]

This is exactly why I ditched the favored class rules. Even if you feel that someone doing this is min-maxing (which I don't), you aren't really punishing the player...you are forcing him to look for yet more prestige classes to avoid the penalty. It's not really a solution...just a diversion. :\

This is what I was getting at by referring to the weird penalty of core classes. Forgetting the specifics of this particular character, I've discovered over time that the relative freedom of being able to take a wide variety of prestige classes without worrying about how it will muck up your favored/nonfavored progression leads to a reluctance to use core classes any more than necessary. As I said in my initial post, I found myself resenting those levels in Rogue, not because I was unlikely to use Sneak Attack and half of the class skills, but because I was railroaded into having to continue with Rogue later whether I wanted to or not -- my character's progression as a Ranger is "held hostage" by the multiclass penalty.

Compare this to Star Wars or d20 Modern, where all races can multiclass freely. In those games, the humans' advantage of "extra feat + skill levels" is plenty, and the idea of favored classes just seems odd. It may be that the nonhuman races in those games are less powerful than the nonhuman races in D&D, I haven't broken them down. But it seems there's something slightly wonky about a system where it's more advantageous to do the "cherry picking" that's so reviled in order to avoid penalties than it would be to just take the classes that suit your character.

In this particular case, when I got home I worked up a writeup of the character that traded the entire Favored Enemy tree to gain Evasion at 5th instead of 9th and Balance and Tumble as class skills, as "Ranger 6 / Thief-Acrobat 3 / Order of the Bow Initiate 1". He ended up with fewer skills overall, less damage potential (due to the loss of +2d6 Sneak Attack), but with higher BAB, a slightly tougher animal companion, Manyshot, and Precise Shot from OBI. Is that min-maxing? Is it anti-min-maxing? I dunno. I guess the people who don't like class dipping would say it's an improvement, and I'd be certainly glad to be rid of the multiclass penalty ... but it seems pretty arbitrary to me to say that one's better than the other.

It also required doctoring the class, which I hate to do because it seems to me that has a lot more room for unbalance and abuse than taking a level of X plus a level of Y in order to make hybrid Z.

-The Gneech

 

[smootrk]

I think the new PHB2 will have some feature swapping rules that may solve your problem and let you tailor the class(es) to your liking. It seemed to be one of the main features of that book - but alas, I have not seen an actual copy yet.

 

[Herobizkit]

Completely off-topic, but I miss the old Skills and Powers from AD&D2 "Redux". I would love to see the "build-from-scratch" character concepts re-done for 3. I remember seeing a supplemet called "Buy the Numbers" on EnWorld somwhere...

In any case, I completely agree with the Gneech. The concept of penalizing multi-classers really grates on me. I look at it this way... the further you try and stray from the original (ie WotC) race concept, the worse off your character becomes. In a sense, this means that Dwarves (for example) make the best Fighters but suck if they try and be more cosmopolitan. This means that "the game" is telling you that Dwarves are Fighters, so the fact that you don't want to be just a Fighter means you're not following the Dwarf mentality and thus you are penalized for trying to be original.

People can whine about min-maxers all they want... unless you roll 3d6 in order and make whatever character you want regardless of your ability scores, you're doing some min-maxing. So get over it already.

 

[Hussar]

Somewhere, I'm quite sure, there is a feat that will make ranger a favoured class for elves. It's around somewhere.

 

[delericho]

Scout is a really good alternative for rogue. If you built your character with spring attack, more the better. Boots of Springing and Striding? Now we're talking

I have a feeling Scouts get a bonus to speed, and it's an Enhancement bonus, so doesn't stack with the boots. That said, I don't have the book in front of me, and it's entirely possible I'm thinking of the Monk. (I was looking at a Scout/Monk multiclass combo a couple of weeks ago, using that very item.)

So you are making half-elves even weaker.

I used the favoured class rules in my first 3e campaign, and ditched them immediately thereafter. They made absolutely no difference to the game: no-one played half-elves before, and no-one plays them now. There has never been any difficulty getting people to play humans. I submit that the favoured class rules do very little for game balance, and exist almost entirely to give 'flavour' to the races. Since I prefer varied characters, ditching them improved my game.

 

[irdeggman]

YOu could use the variant ranger from Complete Warrior (the non-spellcasting one).

Or you could create your own Prestige Class to fit your needs. In fact this is probably the preferred method since Prestige Classes to fit campaigns and settings are one of the core concepts of Prestige Classes themselves.

 

[green slime]

Then again, with elves there is a sub-race for any possble class combination. Cleric/Barbarian/Bard? Be a swamp elf! Ranger/Paladin? Be a tidal-pool elf!

LOL

Tidal-pool elf!

 

[The_Gneech]

Net result:
I couldn't find a solution that didn't either (a) change the Ranger class just for my character (which I didn't want to do) or (b) change the character concept (which I also didn't want to do), so I'll just end up taking more Rogue or eating the XP penalty -- I'll make that decision at 13th level (how appropriate).

Frankly, I still consider it a bug, not a feature, and I don't see any compelling reasons why anyone thinks otherwise. But until I can find a GM willing to run Fantasy HERO, I'll live with it.

-The Gneech

 

[hong]

The experience penalty rule exists to discourage exactly the min-maxing class dipping you're trying. This rule is working as designed, no problem here. Suck it up.

The favoured class rule does almost nothing to discourage minmaxing level-dipping. An elf mnk1/ftr1/rog1/wiz (N-3) gets sneak attack, proficiency with all martial weapons and +2 on all saves, and still gets no XP penalty. Or if the reduced spellcaster level is too much, consider a dwarf brb2/clr1/ftr (N-3) who can use all cleric wands, rage, and uncanny dodge. All it does is enforce someone's preexisting concept of what is the most fitting class for a given race.