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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 9:11PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jul 22, 2007
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It's up hereNot sure what I think. I hope there's more feats than just the ones listed in the excerpt.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 9:22PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Nov 13, 2004
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I'm a little confused. If I'm understanding this correctly, you have two options:
1. You may forgo a paragon path, instead gaining abilities from a second class.
2. You can take a multiclass feat, which gives you a few bonuses and a level 1 power of another class. You may take additional feats which let you exchange a power from your main class for a power from your second class. You may change what that power is whenever you gain a level.
Can you use both these options to essentially triple class?
Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about this. A lot of the flexibility from 3e came from picking and choosing classes as you saw fit. Hopefully 4e will have enough character options to make up for it.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 9:47PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2008
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As I understand it so far, a class in 4e has the following elements:
1) A skill list
2) Class features (always-on things and the at-will powers)
3) Class powers (encounter, utility, and daily)
Multiclassing gives access, in very limited form, to the first two with one feat. You get one skill, and a class feature as a per-encounter or per-day ability.
Subsequent feats give access to one each of the encounter, utility, and daily powers. These require a minimum level (4, 8, and 10, respectively). This means at 10th level, 1/3 or your powers may be from your other class. Later, it's a bit less than 1/4, not counting:
At 11th you may take class features instead of a paragon path. We have very limited information on how this works or what exactly you get from it.
It seems fair to say that much of what separates one class from another is its suite of powers. One expects a Fighter to have abilities relating to melee combat, for example. The question for multiclassing is: how much does said fighter benefit from adding powers from another class to his repertoire? That's a question we're not likely to be able to answer until we've seen the entirety of the PHB, though I like the idea of a fighter with a fireball.
I read in another thread that there are people who want a character that is equally one class and another. Clearly, that is not going to happen before 11th level, and we don't have enough information to know if it will after. A fighter/cleric is mainly a fighter, but with the religion skill and a 1/day heal. I'm not sure I'd feel like a cleric, with that. Of note, a cleric/fighter is a completely different animal. That's good from a differentiation point of view. This system does allow for a staggering diversity of characters.
That same thread questioned the worth of spending feats for the ability to replace one power for another. I suspect those people still won't think it's worth it, but being able to reevaluate the power choice at each level at least means that you won't be stranded with a low-level ability.
The initial feat actually seems like a good value, as it includes a skill and a power. Of course, without seeing other feats, it's hard to say.
There are two base reasons to multiclass: concept and power.
People who want to multiclass to achieve a concept such as the Gish alluded to above, are likely to be disappointed by this system. People who want to play a rogue-y fighter or a magic-dabbling warrior should be happy enough. I suspect that happiness will depend on the concept in question and how picky the player is.
People who want to multiclass for power are likely to be disappointed to some degree. The designers' clear intent is to tone down the stacking that made some 3e combinations, uh, broken. There will likely still be room to find combinations that will be satisfactorily powerful, though.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 9:52PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jul 22, 2007
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I'm a little confused. If I'm understanding this correctly, you have two options:
1. You may forgo a paragon path, instead gaining abilities from a second class.
Right, but they didn't give us any examples of this, so still not sure how that works. I imagine there's some sort of table that lists what you get for each class.
2. You can take a multiclass feat, which gives you a few bonuses and a level 1 power of another class. You may take additional feats which let you exchange a power from your main class for a power from your second class. You may change what that power is whenever you gain a level.
It appears to be a skill and a class feature. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear you can choose which class feature, however, unless there are more multi-classing feats than they've listed. Hopefully there are, or I'm not sure how I'll make my dual-wielding, magic throwing minotaur character.
Can you use both these options to essentially triple class?
No, they specifically said
Second, once you take a multiclass feat, you can’t take a class-specific feat for a different class. You can dabble in a second class but not a third.
and since you apparently need the multiclass feat to take the power substitution feat, you can only ever get powers from your base class and one other (the one you took the multiclass feat for).
Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about this. A lot of the flexibility from 3e came from picking and choosing classes as you saw fit. Hopefully 4e will have enough character options to make up for it.
Yeah, I'm not sure either. I'll have to see what other options are available feat-wise and how the paragon path part works. But if you have to be, for example, a ranger as your primary class to get dual-wielding, I'm not going to be happy.
Subsequent feats give access to one each of the encounter, utility, and daily powers. These are level limited (4, 8, and 10, respectively).
Actually, I think those levels are supposed to be a part of the requirements. They apparently had art issues with this excerpt. This is because the article says
When you take one of these power-swap feats, you give up a power of your choice from your primary class and replace it with a power of the same level or lower from the class you have multiclassed in.[/quote]
which implies that the level of your power from a second class is not at all restricted.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 10:04PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Mar 14, 2006
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hmm, am I disappointed?
somehow, yes.
what do we lose?
- freedom of choice
- that's all? for example: sneak attack once per encounter? no more weapon
training for mc-ing into fighter?
what do we gain?
- a "class 1" still is effective in "class 1", while having a little bit of "class 2"
- no more level 3/2/1/5/2 cherrypicking builds
time will tell...
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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 10:09PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2008
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Actually, I think those levels are supposed to be a part of the requirements. They apparently had art issues with this excerpt. This is because the article says which implies that the level of your power from a second class is not at all restricted.
Apologies, it was a phrasing issue on my part. By level-limited, I meant the character, not the power, and lower, not upper.
I read it right, but failed to communicate.
Edited for clarity, I hope.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 10:10PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jul 22, 2007
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Apologies, it was a phrasing issue on my part. By level-limited, I meant the character, not the power, and lower, not upper.
I read it right, but failed to communicate.
No worries. I just had thought you were confused, so was attempting to clarify. No need to apologize 
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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 10:26PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2005
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...
Wow. I'm speechless.
I've been a huge fan of 4E and eagerly anticipating it. But this?
This is downright terrible.
This sole system has just obliterated pretty much everything I liked about 3rd edition character building. All of it.
Two classes. Stat requirements on the feats. Multiple feat requirements just to replace a smattering of abilities. Let me emphasize that further -- replace them. I get to replace one level appropriate ability with another level appropriate ability and nothing else. That translates to an outright loss in power (other feat options would be a straight increase in power, so I lose that). And if I'm going cross-role in my power selections, then I lose, because I probably picked up an ability that I can't even use to great effectiveness with the rest of my character build. And then there's the paragon path replacement -- I get to toss the fun choice of picking a paragon path in exchange for (maybe) actual multiclassing, but not until level 11 at the earliest. Gee, thanks. That sure solves the "I want to be a fighter/wizard" at level one problem!
I really can't think of anything good to say about this. I'm not usually one at all to prejudge snippets before seeing the full system, but it's pretty clear with this one that it isn't a balanced or fun choice at all. It's nothing more than a pretense of multiclassing, an after-the-fact attempt to kludge in something that kinda-sorta works. Mearls even admitted this in the opening text.
Yeah, absolutely no part of this trash is going into my game. I'm not quite sure if I want to open the doors to full classless, but it's damn well tempting after seeing this. I don't see many other options beyond maybe obliterating the three "Power" feats, rolling them all into the class feat, trashing the stat requirement, and tossing the "only one" garbage limit.
Mearls said a month or two ago that this game works as a classless system out of the box simply by ignoring the class restrictions on granted abilities. If that's even remotely close to true, why in the world is the default system so damned restrictive?! There's just no excuse for this.
Sloppy. Downright sloppy.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 10:28PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 10, 2004
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Hrm. Looks kinda limiting to me. I'll have to see just what kind of stuff you can get for these powers to see if you really get enough of your second class to feel like an actual multi-classed character instead of a normal character with a few strange powers.
We'll see though.
A wild EscherEnigma appears!
He looks on with disapproval.
ITS SUPER EFFECTIVE!
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5 years ago ::
Apr 29, 2008 - 11:13PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Mar 14, 2008
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I think the multiclassing is supposed to be limiting. One of they key phrases of the article is: The system also forced the core classes to delay abilities after 1st level to avoid cherry picking, where “clever” players simply took one level of as many classes as possible (or layered single levels on to a primary class) to reap the benefits of ungodly saving throws and bizarre but ultimately frightening combinations of class abilities that—like chocolate and pickle relish—were never meant to be combined by men and women of good taste.
Essentially, they dont want a repeat of 3ed because they dont want all of their work on balancing the classes to be messed up by multiclassing. Take it how you will.
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