Top 10 Reasons to Take 20 Levels in A Base Class

[Timely Drought]

Rogue works better with 19 levels, at least pre-epic. Then grab either shadowdancer 1 if you can spare the feats, barbarian 1 if you have 20' move, fighter 1 if you need an extra combat feat, etc.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

#1 where I am: Because the DM only has the 3 core books.

 

[Driddle]

It proves to your girlfriend you're not afraid of commitment -- "Marriage is a prestige class after dating at least five levels, honey."

Less time deciding on your next multiclass = more time killing things. Booyah!

It's easier to describe on your fingers and toes -- "My ranger is this many levels."

George W. Bush has promised new tax breaks for single-classers.

It's easier to describe and sell your character on e-Bay without a bunch of pesky backslash symbols confusing the newbie buyers.

 

[Roger]

Shaper's Genesis: Creating your own personal demiplane is cool.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Voadam]

Greetings!

Well, it seems that for all of the base classes in general, staying with them for 20+levels pays dividends in the fact that you are usually getting more bang for your buck, level for level, than you get if you multiclassed. There's an economy of force at work, in that your strengths remain your strengths for the least cost. For example, if one considers multiclassing from Fighter to some particular prestige class, besides changing hit dice, BAB, uneven saving throws, uneven skill point and skill access, one is often confronted with the necessity of developing variant feat and skill choices in order to qualify for the prestige class to begin with, before the character even steps into the prestige class. Do you see what I'm saying? A pure character concentrates his strengths for a minimum of penalties.

Well, most fighters can stay focused on a specific martial concept and multiclass without sacrificing much except for a few fighter bonus feats.

Consider multiclassing with barbarian. Retains the strong BAB, fort save, increases hp, gives rage, speed if in light armor, and increases skill points and retains most of the fighter skills. So essentially rage, more skill points, and increased HD for the bonus feat level.

Similarly wizards and sorcerers often do not give up much more than familiar advancement and the necessity to meet prereqs to get decent prcs.

I would say multiclassing can be a viable path in sticking to a character concept that maintains mechanical focus. Prcs with their prereqs can muck things up, but there are a bunch where the prereqs work with the concept instead of being a mechanical "cost".

 

[jokamachi]

It proves to your girlfriend you're not afraid of commitment -- "Marriage is a prestige class after dating at least five levels, honey."

Less time deciding on your next multiclass = more time killing things. Booyah!

It's easier to describe on your fingers and toes -- "My ranger is this many levels."

George W. Bush has promised new tax breaks for single-classers.

It's easier to describe and sell your character on e-Bay without a bunch of pesky backslash symbols confusing the newbie buyers.

LOL!

I'm not a big fan of multi-classing, either; I'm more 1e than I let on.

 

[jokamachi]

Epic Paladins' smite is one of the most powerful damagers in the game. You can keep taking this feat that adds in your Paladin level to damage each time you take it. So by level 30, a Paladin can do +240 damage per hit just from the smite, plus whatever else he likes. By level 40, that's up to +560.

I must be missing something. Would you care to break that down?

 

[ThirdWizard]

I must be missing something. Would you care to break that down?

A 20th level Paladin does +20 damage with a Smite Evil.

With the Great Smiting [Epic] feat, the paladin adds their level twice. It can be taken multiple times. Take it four times and you add your level to your damage four extra times. A 30th level paladin can take Great Smiting seven times. That means they're doing 30x8 damage per smite, or 240 damage.