Lonely Tylenol
First Post
This bears repeating. The problem with many multiclass combinations is not that they're less effective at something in particular compared to a specialist. It's that they're less effective overall compared to a specialist or to a more optimal multiclass combination (e.g. fighter/barbarian). If a specialist or optimal multiclass is a 10, they're usually somewhere around a 5 or 6. That's a problem. Ideally, any multiclass combo should be as good a character as any other multiclass combo, and these should be as good as any specialist...overall. The benefits of multiclassing often do not outweigh the drawbacks. The benefits should, of course, exactly balance the drawbacks, to make multiclass characters just as viable as single-class characters, no matter what the multiclass concept is supposed to be.pemerton said:Second, the aim of any character build mechanic should be to make it as hard as possible for players, in pursuit of a legitimate character concept, to build a second-rate character. There is nothing illegitimate about the concept "casts a little bit, fights a little bit" - just see Gandalf, for example. It is a flaw in 3E that it is incredibly easy to build a second-rate character in pursuit of that concept.
Or to put it another way, why is it good for the game that players only get to play effective PCs if those PCs are specialists?
This is the reason why classes like Mystic Theurge, Ultimate Magus, and feats like Ascetic Knight, etc. exist. They artificially supplement known substandard multiclass combinations, so that they are brought more in line with the power levels of good multiclass combos and single-classed characters. The idea is that if you build a better multiclass system, you don't have to patch it with things like these.