Multiclassing and resource management systems.

[Username17]

As far as skills go, the 2nd edition AD&D skills system had a lot of flaws, but it actually did work at all, which is a plus.

Any chance you might enumerate some (or all) of these flaws, Frank?

echo

2nd edition AD&D had three separate skill systems:

Use What You Know
I am not making this up. They seriously had an optional rule where you simply declared that anything you personally knew how to do was something your character could do. So if you know how to swim, your character knows how to swim. And I guess if you're an electrical engineer you can start the industrial revolution? I don't really know. This system fell into a lot of Dunning-Kruger problems and arguments. The authors didn't really recommend this, and I honestly think it was included merely as an argument to use either the Secondary Skills or Nonweapon Proficiency systems. Sort of an "If the DM won't let you use the nominally optional skills rules, we're going full magical teaparty on this bitch and it's gonna be dumb motherfuckers!" debate position. That's my theory for why it comes first.

The biggest drawback to this method is that there are no rules to resolve tricky situations. The DM must make it up during play. Some players and DMs enjoy doing this. They think up good answers quickly. Many consider this to be a large part of the fun. This method is perfect for them, and they should use it.

Secondary Skills
This system was that you got handed a profession. Your profession was something like "Limner" or "Groom". Then you argued with the DM about what the fucking hell you could do as a Furrier or a Tailor or whatever. That was the whole system. While fundamentally stupid and unfair, it was actually surprisingly resilient. If you're going to do most of your actions as MTP based on "having thumbs", you might as well have an occupational title to base your magical teaparty declarations on.

Like the previous method ("Using What You Know"), this method has strengths and weaknesses. Secondary skills do not provide any rules for determining whether a character succeeds when he uses a skill to do something difficult. It is safe to assume that simple jobs succeed automatically. (A hunter could find food for himself without any difficulty.) For more complicated tasks, the DM must assign a chance for success. He can assign a percentage chance, have the character make a saving throw, or require an Ability check (see Glossary). The DM still has a lot of flexibility.

This flexibility means the DM must sometimes make up the rule to cover the situation, however. As mentioned earlier, some DMs enjoy this; others do not, their strengths being elsewhere. While secondary skills define and limit the player's options, they do not greatly simplify the DM's job.

Nonweapon Proficiencies

This is the "real" skill system of 2nd edition AD&D. If you used the subsequent materials like the complete books or the master race's handbook they pretty much assumed you were using it. It was "optional", but the word "optional" pretty much came prepackaged with finger quotes in this case.

The non-weapon proficiencies were a series of skills that you tagged in order to have. Once you had them, you could "do stuff" in an ill-defined way, and they had a generic check difficulty that was you trying to roll under a stat, usually with a penalty. What you could do without having to make a check, and what you could do with making a check were in neither case well defined. You can also have additional positive or negative modifiers to your check for a task being especially hard or easy (but easy tasks don't require checks, so this almost always involves you getting boned). Nominally, you could sink extra proficiency slots into a skill to get tiny bonuses, but almost no one ever actually did this (since 90% of most proficiency use is convincing the DM that you don't even have to roll, giving up a skill type for +1 on a d20 is just bad manners).

The skills don't scale to level for the most part (jumping adds 2d6+your level in feet to the jumping distance without a check roll and a few other stupid things like that). Some of them cost multiple slots just to buy, and their decisions about which of them are so good that they should cost more is frankly very hard to understand. Mining costs two slots and is basically worthless (it lets you supervise the construction and operation of mines), while Spellcraft is still Spellcraft and only costs 1 slot.

The skills themselves are hacked up into five categories (Rogue, Priest, Warrior, Wizard, and General), and depending on what kind of character you are, you get access to between 2 and 4 of the lists. The rules on riding airborne creatures are in here and are surprisingly decent for the time period (you can ride a griffin without a proficieny check until you take damage). The diplomacy skill is called "Etiquette" and it makes the DM tell you what you could do to get a bonus on reaction checks when meeting people (subject to the standard MTP bullshit of requiring a check or not based on whether the upcoming encounter is "rare" or not).

---

Anyway, the first system is so stupid that I don't think it merits real consideration. That's literally Zeb Cook trolling 1st edition DMs who are reticent to allow players to have skills written on their character sheet. The second and third systems have pretty much the same advantages and disadvantages. You're mostly playing magical teaparty, but players aren't having their abilities forced into an advancement treadmill - you just get a pile of low level everyman abilities and they pretty much stay that way your whole career.

In any case, I was thinking of something like an amalgamation of #2 and #3. You'd take some background (like Tailor or Swineherd), and that would open up lists of available proficiencies that you could then take during play. Other things would also open up lists of proficiencies, so people could go ahead and learn how to ride flying beasts at some later level when they actually got some riding hawks or whatever.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

In any case, I was thinking of something like an amalgamation of #2 and #3. You'd take some background (like Tailor or Swineherd), and that would open up lists of available proficiencies that you could then take during play. Other things would also open up lists of proficiencies, so people could go ahead and learn how to ride flying beasts at some later level when they actually got some riding hawks or whatever.

-Username17

As far as #2 goes, I don't recommend just throwing a huge pile of professions into the grab-bag and letting players just pick one. Rather, certain professions should be ranked by how much bullshitting you can do with them and the less bullshitty ones cost proportionately less.

For example, pirate costs more than sailor because pirate lets you credibly do a bunch of stuff like intimidate people and dig hardcore and see in the dark. Something like ninja would cost the absolute most. So it'd be something like:

Ninja (8 points)
Siege Engineer (7 points)
Field Officer (6 points)
Blacksmith (5 points)
Rancher (4 points)
Innkeeper (3 points)
Wainwright (2 points)
Homeopath (1 point)

[Whatever]

Profession: Adventurer should be the most expensive.

[Mask_De_H]

Adventurer should be a freebie.

And in a magical game, homeopathic quackery could work, or at least be parlayed into bullshitting, a vague knowledge of science and medicine and potion making, which is more than building wagons can do for you. You never know how players will use descriptive abilities or how your Mister Cavern will see them, so trying to arbitrarily rank them is difficult. For Lago's example: if the Ninja profession is the historical version, you get disguise, hiding, and are part of a peasant black ops group, which makes you a street-rat. If it's the fantastical version, you get all sorts of magic bullshit. In social situations, I could see a lot more bullshitting with a Field Officer than a Siege Engineer as well.

[Chamomile]

It's easy to make an argument that homeopath should come packaged with Bluff, which means it's decisively more useful than wainwright and probably on par with blacksmith or maybe even field officer.

[Username17]

In any case, I was thinking of something like an amalgamation of #2 and #3. You'd take some background (like Tailor or Swineherd), and that would open up lists of available proficiencies that you could then take during play. Other things would also open up lists of proficiencies, so people could go ahead and learn how to ride flying beasts at some later level when they actually got some riding hawks or whatever.

-Username17

As far as #2 goes, I don't recommend just throwing a huge pile of professions into the grab-bag and letting players just pick one. Rather, certain professions should be ranked by how much bullshitting you can do with them and the less bullshitty ones cost proportionately less.

For example, pirate costs more than sailor because pirate lets you credibly do a bunch of stuff like intimidate people and dig hardcore and see in the dark. Something like ninja would cost the absolute most. So it'd be something like:

Ninja (8 points)
Siege Engineer (7 points)
Field Officer (6 points)
Blacksmith (5 points)
Rancher (4 points)
Innkeeper (3 points)
Wainwright (2 points)
Homeopath (1 point)

First off: everyone is going to be an adventurer on top of whatever it is that their background is or does. So professions like "Ninja" actually suck, because they don't really open up anything that you don't have open by virtue of being an Illusionist. Secondly, what Fate and Gumshoe have shown us is that if your narrative control is limited by both the plausibility of your designators and an actual point/slot/whatever limit on how much Narrative Imperative you have to spend, then the difference between generally useful traits and narrower traits isn't as much as you'd think.

And thirdly, while it's definitely true that in abstract being a blacksmith is way more useful for adventuring than being a swineherd is, if you're writing up an actual list of things you can use it for that doesn't have to be the case. If the Swineherd list has got disease resistance and detect predators on it, prospective Berserkers might be lining up to be swineherds.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Secondly, what Fate and Gumshoe have shown us is that if your narrative control is limited by both the plausibility of your designators and an actual point/slot/whatever limit on how much Narrative Imperative you have to spend, then the difference between generally useful traits and narrower traits isn't as much as you'd think.

I have to say, this is news to me. In my opinion, most DMs will let someone with a profession of Siege Engineer check to locate a weak spot in the castle wall; few will let someone use their Profession:Potter or Profession:Courtier. I mean, yeah, there will be some players who wheedle out extra points by expertly bullshitting that their ranks in Courtier should allow them to pick up some general knowledge about where monarchs generally put secret passage, but on the whole I don't think that's the case.

[Mask_De_H]

Secondly, what Fate and Gumshoe have shown us is that if your narrative control is limited by both the plausibility of your designators and an actual point/slot/whatever limit on how much Narrative Imperative you have to spend, then the difference between generally useful traits and narrower traits isn't as much as you'd think.

I have to say, this is news to me. In my opinion, most DMs will let someone with a profession of Siege Engineer check to locate a weak spot in the castle wall; few will let someone use their Profession:Potter or Profession:Courtier. I mean, yeah, there will be some players who wheedle out extra points by expertly bullshitting that their ranks in Courtier should allow them to pick up some general knowledge about where monarchs generally put secret passage, but on the whole I don't think that's the case.

Disregarding a prospective DM's lenience for bullshitting descriptive skills, getting Profession:Potter might not let you locate a weak spot in the castle walls, but it will probably mean you have the tools or the ability to take advantage of one. Or it allows you to figure out what the caulk is made out of, so you know what to use to bring it down. Profession:Courtier would allow you to bullshit your way past the wall without breaking it down or blowing it up.

However, I'm not sure if people playing a (assumed high) fantasy heartbreaker give a good god damn about being a swineherd or a boatswain or a shitfarmer when they're proper adventurers. It fits in Black Forest, where you still are (or were recently) one of those things, but when you're stabbing shadows in the face it seems like there are more important things to worry about.

I know I can't be fucked to care about the civilian tier side of things.

[zeruslord]

Frank's claim specifically included spending fate points or whatever gumshoe's equivalent is. It's not that Siege Engineer isn't more widely applicable, it's that in the presence of an explicit resource that governs how many times you get to apply it, the potter can spend points to make pottery useful every time it's plausible, where the siege engineer is limited by the number of points he has. siege engineer is probably still better, but not by as much as in a system where both skills are at-will.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I was thinking more that you had a fixed pile of profession tokens (like 10) and you could grab as many professions as you wanted up to the limit of tokens. So you could be a sailor + blacksmith or wainwright + mason + tanner + porter. Thereafter you could at-will bullshit why you should be allowed to, say, use your blacksmith or detective skill on a locked door or murder weapon identification as long as it seems plausible.

[tussock]

man what

Did someone designate me as sounding board for whatever crazy bullshit they want to spew? Was I not informed of this?

You know, when I try to be brief, I end up having to clarify, and then people complain that I should've just said all that in the first place. When I do say all that up front, no one even reads it, because my formatting is a bit crap. Plus, all the crazy bullshit is distracting.

What you say you want and what you are doing/providing examples for are completely different things. You were the one to suggest that people should mix and match allocation systems in the first place you daft man. You're the one trying to put everything with everything while saying you should only use one or two resource allocation systems to keep shit tight, then when I say you should go with one or two resource allocation systems and stick with them you say it's stupid and bad. Well which one is it, motherfucker?

I forgive you for your misunderstanding. A lot of people have trouble with my crazy bullshit. You are but one of them. Let me try again.

[*] When designing classes (as a game designer) it's good to know that some subset of options is supposed to be the best thing players can take. It gives you concepts to build around and support, and a comprehensible set of numbers to test to destruction against. Level X+2 of Barbarian needs to work better than X levels of Barbarian with 2 levels of any other class does. That's testable. With thousands of potential build options you still need to make sure some small set of them are extremely likely to work better than the ones you can't test.

[*] When building characters (as a player), it's much easier for newbies and hurried one-off games if there's just a handful of choices to focus on that you can trust to deliver you competency. These can be called classes. Like being a full caster in 3e with the easy-spreading cheese, it's just going to work. Fairly narrow classes on a single and simple power scheme are good things to have in the game for that purpose.

Those bits are your single resource allocation method each. Tested to destruction, level appropriate, easily playable, readily comprehensible. All good things.


[*] But a lot of players want those thousands of theoretical mechanical options so they can play one of them and feel all special and unique. Lots of 3e players play Shifter Monks for style points. Hobbit Monks even. Gnome Barbarians. Celestial Eleven Monk/Rogue/Ranger/Clerics. Human Fighters. All sorts of rubbish. Heaps and heaps of your customers want to play pure-flavour jumble-sale options more than they want character competency, and almost all DMs will actually be nice about that and not kill their characters when they do so.

[*] It's nice for DMs if the PCs stay somewhat competent even when taking those bullshit flavour options. Stuff needs to be approximately level appropriate in combination to save the DM from sandbagging too heavily.

[*] Clear examples: some people really do want to play Gandalf the Wizard who's good with a sword from pokemon-horseback. Or Conan the Barbarian who can be a sneaky backstabber and surprise assassin. People left D&D in the old days to fundamentally worse games simply because D&D did not support people doing that sort of thing. It's a real concern for a game. They don't need it to work particularly well, they just want it to be possible without being a complete kick in the nuts.

Those things are why you want open choices anyway. People love playing something new, or deviating a little from their initial character concept once they're bored with it. Yes you can, and it won't work too bad either is a great answer to give those players.


But the cross-class power choices totally need to stay on their own resource tracks, simply because the delayed rage-meter ones have to do far more damage than the all-day and every round stuff to stay level appropriate in terms of threat reduction, you can't mix that shit up.

But you can totally mix first-round fireballs with late-combat whirlwinds of rage in one character as you would the two characters in one party. 2A+2B = (A+B)+(A+B). That is true if you're careful to measure the threat reduction correctly. You just have to have some in-class stacking effects to ensure the single-class characters technically work best, so 2A > A+A, just a bit. To preserve the validity of the design, testing, and build choices above.


[*] And it's super handy if the optimisers keep measuring things in GIGO models like DPR and find some combo that's actually a lot weaker than they think it is and have a big fan-wank over it. That shit is also super-good for your game, because the flavour builders get to play beside them and not suck.

Now, the first people to fan-wank over stupid numbers most of the time are the game designers, but let's assume otherwise for the sake of argument.

[Mask_De_H]

At least that's sensible. It bakes in a lot of game-breaking, screwy assumptions, but it doesn't make my brain hurt. Granted, you're saying that a multiclassed character is equivalent to two characters but a single classed character is better than that but still tested to a one character standard, you want to allow "style" players to fuck themselves over instead of reigning them in in exchange for allowing them to play the same game as other people, you are working towards making the class/race system fucked up like 3e/4e, and still think a lot of options that suck is more noble than making fewer options that work. All of that is still crazy bullshit, but it's followable crazy bullshit.

It's also solved by the simpler subclass idea that was floated earlier/the prospective Hero and Rogue.

[OgreBattle]

I like the proficiency choices in AdventurerConquererKing, though they use the same resources as the stuff that gives +1 to hit. Some skills have multiple ranks ( healing, alchemy) others are one time (tracking, diplomacy)

[Korgan0]

Tussock, we've been over this. (A+B)+(A+B) is not equal to (2A)+(2B), since having abilities from multiple different resource systems will necessarily result in synergies that either make you more or less powerful, as action demands overlap or conflict, as the case may be.

[Mask_De_H]

I like the proficiency choices in AdventurerConquererKing, though they use the same resources as the stuff that gives +1 to hit. Some skills have multiple ranks ( healing, alchemy) others are one time (tracking, diplomacy)

ACKS is NWPs pretty much straight up, if I remember correctly.

[Username17]

But you can totally mix first-round fireballs with late-combat whirlwinds of rage in one character as you would the two characters in one party. 2A+2B = (A+B)+(A+B). That is true if you're careful to measure the threat reduction correctly. You just have to have some in-class stacking effects to ensure the single-class characters technically work best, so 2A > A+A, just a bit. To preserve the validity of the design, testing, and build choices above.

As Korgan0 pointed out, this is complete and utter nonsense. Combats end, and in only a couple of actual rounds. The sum total of everything you can do is totally meaningless, because you are only actually going to do a couple of things.

If you really wanted to get math notation about it, you get like X selections from the set {A, a} or X selections from the set {A, B}. Because it's necessarily your first selections from A and then your second selections from A (which we will call "a") if you're single classed and your first selections from A and your first selections from B if you're multiclassed.

There is no simple way to compare those. To the extent that there is synergy or counter synergy between the As, Bs, and as, there may be a vast gulf in power. But in any case, that is based on actual in-game synergy. As Dr Praetor said, if multiclassing gets you the GTFO abilities of A and B, multiclassing is mandatory; while if multiclassing gets you the GTFO abilities of neither A nor B it is worthless. And no, you can't throw some Euclidian axioms to figure out which is which or to find a happy median between the two.

Fundamentally, multiclassing isn't at all like having two characters. It's you making the best selections allowed between two sets at the cost of whatever reduction in access you get to both sets. In 3e, it's worthless for casters (because every selection they make off the caster list powers up all of your caster abilities so a multicaster can only cast weak spells at a low caster level and they suck), and mandatory for warriors (because you cherry pick each list by taking the first two levels and the passive abilities all stack between warriors).

-Username17

[Ice9]

Re: Skills/Professions. I think assigning a point value to each is too granular for the limited knowledge about how useful they will be in a particular campaign. However, I think you probably could separate then into two or three categories, such as Minor/Major/Awesome. Since there's going to be some miscellaneous skills that don't really fit in a profession (or should be potentially available to all characters) you could use those as the balance, so for example, you could get:
A) Minor Profession and 5 Knacks
B) Major Profession and 2 Knacks
C) Awesome Profession

[John Magnum]

Frank, doesn't the fact that combats end very rapidly inherently put a boot on the face of some resource management systems? In particularly, doesn't Rage kind of suck if combats take place almost entirely during the period you're charging your rage bar? I mean, if your intended combat length is four rounds, how many of them is the Barbarian supposed to spend waiting for his actual abilities to come online?

[Username17]

Frank, doesn't the fact that combats end very rapidly inherently put a boot on the face of some resource management systems? In particularly, doesn't Rage kind of suck if combats take place almost entirely during the period you're charging your rage bar? I mean, if your intended combat length is four rounds, how many of them is the Barbarian supposed to spend waiting for his actual abilities to come online?

Balancing that sort of thing in abstract is actually very easy. If a battle is four rounds, then the value of a super move you only use on the fourth round has to be at least equal in value to the premium you paid on having weaker moves for the preceding three rounds. Balancing it in practice is of course very difficult, because however much a "generic" encounter might get done in four rounds, an actual encounter is still going to take some actual number that might as easily be 2 or 6 rounds.

One thing that I am simply unsure of is whether to proc gains in fury off of attacks or damage. If it procs off of attacks, the Berserker is slanted towards minion hunting, while it it procs off of damage, the Berserker is fairly agnostic to whether battles are against groups or bosses.

---

Anyway, after thinking about it more, I think I'm going with the following monster class types:

• Blaster - Ranged Attacks require charge-up, which makes it hard for them to pull hit-n-run maneuvers.
• Controller - Kiting powers have random refresh (like a 4e Monster). This means that they'll never stalemate, because it's always possible for them to randomly fail to refresh for several rounds in a row.
• Fighter - just hits things. Explicitly weaker than other monsters.
• Harrier - skirmishing powers require a round to get back, which causes the harrier to attempt to hit-n-run, but also causes the monster to collapse if they are pressed.
• Leader - has a pool of inspiration points that they can use to give bonuses to their allies and rally troops. The pool drops in half when the leader is wounded, and is wiped out when they are dropped.
• Ravager - brute powers that proc off of doing or taking damage. Becomes more dangerous in battle until they drop.
• Stalker - ambush powers that trigger on other characters' actions. They are puzzles, that when figured out can have their cool tricks neutralized.

4e had one more monster class than that, but I don't see what the point would be.

-Username17

[MGuy]

I want to know more about the "stalker" monster class.

[Red_Rob]

Are these roles simply power schedules, unrelated to the base monster stats such as hp and attack bonus? This seems necessary if the system is going to handle such basic things as a Fighter monster becoming a Blaster monster mid fight by picking up a bow.

[Orion]

I don't think it becomes a Blaster by picking up a bow. Presumably almost any monster can make a basic ranged attack by shooting a bow or throwing a rock or something. But a Blaster monster has trick shots or energy beams or some other "special" ranged attack they can do if they charge up.

[Mask_De_H]

I want to know more about the "stalker" monster class.

I'd assume the MC would say "you've activated my trap card" a lot. Sealing actions, traps, sneak attack like catches, stuff like that.

Are you using these mechanics for the Kitchen Sink Fantasy Heartbreaker, Frank?

[tussock]

But you can totally mix first-round fireballs with late-combat whirlwinds of rage in one character as you would the two characters in one party. 2A+2B = (A+B)+(A+B). That is true if you're careful to measure the threat reduction correctly. You just have to have some in-class stacking effects to ensure the single-class characters technically work best, so 2A > A+A, just a bit. To preserve the validity of the design, testing, and build choices above.

As Korgan0 pointed out, this is complete and utter nonsense. Combats end, and in only a couple of actual rounds. The sum total of everything you can do is totally meaningless, because you are only actually going to do a couple of things.

You'll forgive me for assuming one would fix the fucking combat length when designing a new game, even push it out toward 6 or 7 rounds for typical combats if we maintain simple enough resolution and tracking systems.

It's still true then that ~70% of the threat happens in the first 3-4 rounds, so getting 3 encounter powers strongly defines your contribution to combat. But those can't be allowed to be more than a tiny bit better than what a single-class Fighter does anyway. The ability to keep going strong against the last half of the fight (~30% of the threat) has very little value compared to the early rounds. Same as the Barbarian's early contributions can't be too small, or last too long before the benefits come.

If you really wanted to get math notation about it, you get like X selections from the set {A, a} or X selections from the set {A, B}. Because it's necessarily your first selections from A and then your second selections from A (which we will call "a") if you're single classed and your first selections from A and your first selections from B if you're multiclassed.

There is no simple way to compare those. To the extent that there is synergy or counter synergy between the As, Bs, and as, there may be a vast gulf in power.

When designing classes, they all have to reduce the threat of monsters (across many different encounters, bla bla) by a roughly equal proportion. Assuming combat balance.

If you have huge synergies or counter-synergies between scheme A and scheme B, that means you either need both of those characters in the party, or you need not to, respectively. Yes, this is also a problem for multiclassing between schemes, amplified a little by the action economy, but it's a problem you need to fix in testing with or without multiclassing.

Like your 3e example, high level Fighters in a party are counter-synergistic with casters, in that they add a bunch of negative spell slots to the party's total just to do stuff that's less use than what those spells can do otherwise. That's not just a problem for multiclassing. You need to control that shit up front, if you care about combat balance.

But in any case, that is based on actual in-game synergy. As Dr Praetor said, if multiclassing gets you the GTFO abilities of A and B, multiclassing is mandatory; while if multiclassing gets you the GTFO abilities of neither A nor B it is worthless. And no, you can't throw some Euclidian axioms to figure out which is which or to find a happy median between the two.

Oh, please. You're making a new set of character powers, you don't want to include the bullshit high-level Rock-Paper-Scissors stuff, or if you do then you ensure all high level characters and monsters have a way around it. All of them, so GTFO spam effectively defaults to a delay in the action, rather than ending fights on round one.

And that you can measure the value of, in terms of threat reduction. Splitting a fight in half to face separately has a real value (a huge one, at that, nearly half the threat immediately removed).

[Username17]

Are these roles simply power schedules, unrelated to the base monster stats such as hp and attack bonus? This seems necessary if the system is going to handle such basic things as a Fighter monster becoming a Blaster monster mid fight by picking up a bow.

As Orion surmised, the "roles" are classes. Creatures can and do have ranged attacks without being "blasters". The creatures who are blasters have ways to power up their ranged attacks by not moving. Your classic blaster is the Beholder.

I want to know more about the "stalker" monster class.

The archetype Stalkers are the Giant Spider and the Swarm. They have outright interrupt attacks that trigger if people go into the wrong areas (in the case of the spider it gets to web you if you activate its trap card, with the swarm it's rather simpler that it gets to sting you if you try to move through it). The Stalker can be as ridiculous as the Piercer (bonus attack if and only if the target is directly under it), or it can be a reasonably functional beast that happens to have an ambush attack they would like to use (like a tiger who gets a pretty good regular attack but gets a totally brutal pounce attack on enemies who are unaware of it).

You'll forgive me for assuming one would fix the fucking combat length when designing a new game, even push it out toward 6 or 7 rounds for typical combats if we maintain simple enough resolution and tracking systems.

No I won't forgive you for that, because that assumption changes absolutely nothing. The point about your stupid As and Bs mathfail is that combat is finite, and most importantly does not become twice as long when you multiclass. It could be one round or a hundred rounds, and it still wouldn't make your claims about character addition any less retarded. Each time you take an action you take an action, as in one. So any action you get the ability to use that you aren't using this turn is a wasted ability for that turn. Different character abilities do not add in a predictable way. Some of them replace each other, some of them add, some of them synergize to be more than the sum of their parts. Looking at things in terms of A+B is totally and woefully unhelpful.

-Username17