ACOS wrote:Also, Mulit-classed is basically just gestalt, with just a slight bit of nerfage.
Well, I'm frankly okay with this. Gestalt is completely broken, unless everyone in the campaign plays one, so if we can agree multi-classing is that, but closer to being balanced, maybe we can actually get back to topic.
Although this doesn't change the fact that the context for what I said before was that someone claimed it was unclear what PHB said.
Yoda wrote:Too many people have opinions about things they know nothing about. And the more ignorant they are, the more opinions they have.
FrankTrollman wrote:icyshadowlord: your "friend" is on ignore, because he's a really shitty troll and a really shitty person. Get better friends.
-Username17
You make it sound like I'm somehow responsible for his behaviour. I'm not, and I have no reason to change that.
To be honest, even I'm annoyed by how this thread's been going down. Either way, I'll drop off from this thread for now.
Last edited by icyshadowlord on Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Lurker and fan of random stuff." - Icy's occupation
sabs wrote:And Yes, being Finnish makes you Evil.
virgil wrote:And has been successfully proven with Pathfinder, you can just say you improved the system from 3E without doing so and many will believe you to the bitter end.
ACOS wrote:Also, Mulit-classed is basically just gestalt, with just a slight bit of nerfage.
Well, I'm frankly okay with this. Gestalt is completely broken, unless everyone in the campaign plays one, so if we can agree multi-classing is that, but closer to being balanced, maybe we can actually get back to topic.
Tomawis wrote:Any thoughts on my lengthy rant about the issues of multiclassing? Or if you have a solution of your own, I'd like to hear that as well.
Funny. It was on topic the whole time. It's clear you're not interested in other people's thoughts on multi-classing (despite that being hte nominal point), so I'm not sure what topic you think we're going to get 'back to'.
It really seems like you have no objection to massive power disparities between players. Like, if a 20th level character joined a party of 1st level adventurers, do you think that would make for an interesting game for all players?
ACOS wrote:Also, Mulit-classed is basically just gestalt, with just a slight bit of nerfage.
Well, I'm frankly okay with this. Gestalt is completely broken, unless everyone in the campaign plays one, so if we can agree multi-classing is that, but closer to being balanced, maybe we can actually get back to topic.
Tomawis wrote:Any thoughts on my lengthy rant about the issues of multiclassing? Or if you have a solution of your own, I'd like to hear that as well.
Funny. It was on topic the whole time. It's clear you're not interested in other people's thoughts on multi-classing (despite that being hte nominal point), so I'm not sure what topic you think we're going to get 'back to'.
It really seems like you have no objection to massive power disparities between players. Like, if a 20th level character joined a party of 1st level adventurers, do you think that would make for an interesting game for all players?
I'm still waiting for his explanation as to how or why he thinks multiclassing works/is close to being balanced.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
I do have to applaud Tomawis. A few of the troll-y twists were quite good. I liked the call on Baldur's Gate as "support" for your position, knowing that it would be attacked viciously. Well-aimed, sir.
You have become bland in your last few posts though. Please do try harder.
I think the end part actually argues against him being a troll. He literally looked up the actual rules and realized that his entire argument is shit because things that worked in Baldur's Gate are expressly or implicitly XP penalties.
So then, like any good shitbag, he responded by refusing to say the dumb thing he looked up the rules to say was allowed, and instead to post blisteringly stupid declarations that it is obvious he is right about the thing he refuses to say.
Unrestricted Diplomat 5314 wrote:Accept this truth, as the wisdom of the Crafted: when the oppressors and abusers have won, when the boot of the callous has already trampled you flat, you should always, always take your swing."
Gestalt is completely broken, but 2e multiclassing is closer to being balanced. Really.
/facepalm
Ok, I'm going to assume that there's a huge reference problem at this point. Since you have previously quibbled over numbers as justification to completely dismiss an argument without otherwise interacting with it, I actually broke out my 2e PHB to get these numbers. They may still be wrong since I haven't played 2e in 14 years, but the point I'm making with them won't be much affected by them being off by a bit.
Anyway... Since 2e has varying advancement schemes for different classes, we'll start by comparing single classed characters with multiclassed characters with the same xp totals, and seeing where they fall in terms of effectiveness.
[*]You could take 0 xp and be a 1/1 Fighter Wizard, a 1 Fighter, or a 1 Wizard. The 1/1 is straight better than their alternatives, having all of the options and fewer of the weaknesses. But it's level 1 and life is cheap so I almost don't care.
[*]1M xp and you get to be a 10/11 Fighter/Wizard, a 12 Fighter, a 12 Wizard. The 10/11 is probably slightly better because of the non-granular save advancement and the fact that they just have slightly fewer level 6 spells than the 12 wizard, but they're not as much better as the 1/1 was.
[*]2M xp means you get to be a 12/12 Fighter/Wizard, a 16 Fighter, or a 15 Wizard. The 12/12 is one spell level behind the 15 wizard, having only up to 6th level spells rather than up to 7th. Like before it's a drop, but the extra level doesn't mean that much since saving throws are primarily on the defender side. So all of your spells fail about as often as the 15 wizard's do. The 12 fighter is a lot behind the 16 fighter, but since high level fighters don't get things outside of DM Option: High Level Campaigns or other splats it's not a huge concern on the fighter side. Their THAC0 and magic weapon and Str mod means they're probably hitting -10 on better than 50/50, which is good enough to compete with the 16 fighter probably. Your numbers are getting farther behind the single class guy's, but you've stopped getting big HP numbers and you still get the good Fighter progression for most of your saves, so it's probably decent.
[*]3M xp and you could be a 14/14 Fighter/Wizard, a 20 Fighter, or an 18 Wizard (assuming we're ignoring racial level limits anyway). This is a larger difference than the last set was, but the issues aren't really any different. Your spells aren't as shiny as the single classed wizard's (and 2 spell levels might be enough that it starts to show more obviously), but your existence is probably not a drain on the party.
I'm not sure if you noticed while I was going through those, but the reason those kind of sort of worked in 2e was because of system rules that are no longer included in 3e. Here they are in more detail:
[*]AC was capped, so a 5 point difference in THAC0 near the AC cap just meant you hit 60% of the time instead of 85% of the time (and you didn't get that difference until you were in striking distance of the cap). Without that cap, like in 3e, that 5 point difference is more often the difference between hitting 40% of the time and 65% of the time against level appropriate foes. The 50% line is important statistically in terms of effectiveness.
[*]Saves had little to no input from the caster side of things, and high level spells with saves were just expected to be saved against by high level targets. There is a large caster side component in 3e, so much that if you're doing things right a full caster will have a 55+% chance of hitting level appropriate foes with their highest level spells. Being behind on spell levels lowers your save DCs and thus overall effectiveness. Being 2 or more spell levels behind (3rd level spells when other classes are getting 5th levels) drops you at least under the 50% line and begins your spiral into ineffectiveness, which is why partial casters basically suck and generally don't cast spells at higher levels.
[*]HP was sort of capped in 2e, in that it scaled very slowly after a point. You could do less damage and it was still a decent contribution most of the time, and monsters did less damage overall. HP in 3e is uncapped, so monsters deal more damage and PCs deal more damage on hits and so on. And everyone gets their full con mod added to HP. Being behind on levels means you are more fragile than you expect.
[*]2e handed out items as it felt like, so you often gave underperforming characters some magic bling to help them out. 3e has expected wealth by level (though it often gets ignored) and substantially easier crafting, so everyone gets similar gear options and it's much more obvious when someone is pulling their weight with extra gear.
So let's say that you took 2e style multiclassing into 3e, and wrote an advancement that sort of matched the above progressions it would look a bit different. We'll round the level differences down so that the differences are smaller, since it makes the point just as well as the higher differences (which would be worse). Specifically:
[*]1/1 guy is about the same. He has twice as many options, but it's level 1 and life is still cheap.
[*]10/10 guy is 2 hit dice behind either of the single classed 12s, and at least 1 point behind them in saves. He is two levels behind them in class features, which means 2 BAB for the fighter and might mean someone else if the class wasn't made of ass. He's a spell level behind the wizard, which means he has fewer spells and what he has are saved against more often. If you were using a decent fighter class, I'd argue that this was a mostly acceptable place to be. You don't have level appropriate actions, but you have potentially twice as many things that are close to level appropriate instead.
[*]12/12 guy is 3 hit dice behind the single classed 15s, behind on saves, 3 levels behind on class features (1 or 2 spell levels behind in the wizard case). 2 spell levels behind basically relegates you to backup caster. 3 points of BAB means you probably need a combat effectiveness bump, like SA for rogues. You don't get to make this up with gear without violating WBL guidelines
[*]14/14 guy is 4 levels behind the 18s. He doesn't have much more hp than an 18 wizard with a decent con (or a con booster), he is well behind on the hitting people and magicking people spectrum, and his saves are 2+ points behind. You are actually a drain on party resources at this point (but not as much as a level 18 fighter on its own would be, so there's that).
So when people tell you that 2e multiclassing doesn't work because it doesn't keep you level appropriate, they're right in the 3e context. Because you're supposed to be, and falling too many levels behind causes you to actually suck instead of just potentially suck.
Gestalt just takes the 1/1 case and extends it over all levels. You have twice as many options, just they're all appropriate and you're not a drain on party resources. If you have non-combat or pre-combat options you might even be a net gain on party resources. The 2e alternative where you fall further behind at higher levels is actually broken in this context, not the gestalt system. Gestalt's just better, and easily reigned in without giving up too much level appropriateness to be viable. See the +1 or +2 LA suggestions, though you should probably give those with hit dice to make low levels survivable. And then you still have to solve the leadership cohort problem, which 2e doesn't have at all.
tl;dr - Even if 2e multiclassing's "fall further behind as you level" style of multiple specialization was functional in 2e (and I'm not conceding that it was), it is not functional in 3e because of system differences and priority differences. When people tell you that it does not work because it fails those priorities, priorities which 3e at least tries to reach, they are not wrong in the 3e context in which you asked. Even if their numbers were wrong (and I haven't gone back to check because I don't care).
So what if for a gestalt multiclassing solution, you did something like you keep your max hit dice and chasis, but each time you multiclass you lose progressively more levels worth of class features.
So a Fighter/Wizard 20 will still have 20 hit dice, all with d10 hd, good Fort and Will saves, and 2+int skill points per level; with 19 levels worth of Fighter features and 18 levels worth of Wizard feature.
A Fighter/Wizard/Rogue 20 gets 20 hit dice, with d10 hd, all good saves, 8+int skill points, and 18 levels of Fighter features, 16 levels of Wizard features, 14 levels of Rogue features.
This works a lot better when you're looking at classes that have notable class features, but you get the point.
Losing X numbers of levels will always run you into the cohort problem - rather than giving up those levels you can spend a feat to get a guy with the same or more levels that that in a class AND a second set of actions with which to use them. You can solve that by not using the feat or by setting cohort level lower than CR-X, but if you make X big enough you may as well not use the cohort.
I don't like your proposal Seerow, because it looks like it has weird level 1 behavior and the latter levels get driven down so far as to not offer interesting abilities. Part of that is triple classing though, and fuck triple classing. I don't really care if it's supported or not, and the numbers on it are actually annoying even in 2e.
Here's an alternate plan that's designed to let you buy into a secondary class at any point you could otherwise get a new level - wiki link. I suppose I could have put that up sooner, but didn't feel like it after the conversation went stupid. It lets you spend 1 level for CR X/2 class features of the class, or two levels for CR X-2 in the class (to match your starting class). And get all of the other gestalt number benefits.
Last edited by TarkisFlux on Mon Apr 28, 2014 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
1: flakiness or minmaxxers that can't make up their mind and want a little bit of everything
2: a way to try to shoehorn some fictional character into the game world from its own fictional world, though it doesnt really fit within the D&D game world that was not designed specifically for it.
the only way multiclassing can work in D&D is by one of two ways:
1) you accept it doesnt work mechanically to compare characters and probably doesnt fit well since the world design of the game is not made for such character to exist and play as such
2) you build the game with multiclassing as a part from the beginning. this means that a fighter, a wizard and a fighter/wizard must be built and designed at the same time, not fighter first, then wizard, then fighter/wizard.
It would probably be better suited to be done with a new game rather than to try to rebuild D&D for multiclassing since it is built on the hard classes. so for D&D, option 1 is really the only way to go.
Play the game, not the rules.
Swordslinger wrote:Or fuck it... I'm just going to get weapon specialization in my cock and whip people to death with it. Given all the enemies are total pussies, it seems like the appropriate thing to do.
Lewis Black wrote:If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.
good read (Note to self Maxus sucks a barrel of cocks.)
virgil wrote:Lovecraft didn't later add a love triangle between Dagon, Chtulhu, & the Colour-Out-of-Space; only to have it broken up through cyber-bullying by the King in Yellow.
FrankTrollman wrote:If your enemy is fucking Gravity, are you helping or hindering it by putting things on high shelves? I don't fucking know! That's not even a thing. Your enemy can't be Gravity, because that's stupid.
That's a good shadzar post. He's pretty much agreeing with what most of us have said, which I think is a first.
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
Kaelik wrote:I invented saying mean things about Tussock.
