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Drackcove wrote:

well i am running play tests through kobold hall. I create a 3 lvl 1 characters. a lvl 1 hybrid of two classes and lvl 1 members of those classes.

What ive run so far is the wizard fighter group(sword&board fighter,orb wizard, and hybrid sword &board wizard, all human). The two regular class accomplish their goal very well, but the hybrid cant defend nearly as well as the fighter nor control as well the wizard. the fighter still takes the brunt of attacks but the hybrid can defend enough to make sure the fighter doesn't get overwhelmed, and when extra control is needed he can do that.

when it comes to the ac question im finding it annoying that if i want to have good ac i need to take leather armor, which is why i ran it with the wizard with a heavy shield, which gave me the freedom to pick up the spell book from the hybrid feat and as the hybrid dailies were wizard dailies it made him more useful.

hybrids don't feel weaker they feel harder to play as they are secondary in their roles and have to learn to mix those roles in a meaningful way.

Stuntman wrote:

I decided to introduce and recommend the Hybrid Class play test rules to one of the players in my 4E campaign. He was rather unsatisfied with 4E because he was unable to make a character that resembled his character concept. This player in 3.5 played a rogue/wizard. He splashed a few levels of wizard to get some wizard spells that he liked such as many of the cantrips and some defensive wizard spells like shield and invisibility. He primarily likes to sneak around, pick locks, disarm traps and set traps. In combat he primarily stays in the back and used ranged weapon attacks.

When we started 4E, he was unable to really build a character that he liked. He was pretty much forced to choose between being roguish and not have access to cantrips or be a wizard and having to spend a bunch of feats (and many levels) to gain his roguish abilities. He eventually settled on being a ranger/rogue MC and forgo having access to cantrips.

His original 4E build is as follows:

Str 11, Con 14, Dex 18, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 10

Ranger 2

Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Dungeoneering, Heal, Perception, Stealth, Thievery (Rogue MC).

Feats: Sneak of Shadows, Quick Draw, Lethal Hunter

Powers: Twin Strike, Nimble Strike, Hit and Run, Two-Fanged Strike, Hunter's Bear Trap, Unbalancing Parry.

The ranger class fit his concept quite well as he tends to hang back and attack at range. He primarily wields a repeating crossbow so he can take advantage of sneak attack from his rogue MC feat. Since he is at range all the time, he does not have very much opportunity to use sneak attack. It is not much of an issue since he can only SA once per encounter. Although he does carry daggers, he has not had the need to use it. His armour of choice is leather as he does not want penalties to his skill checks.

His character after rebuilding using hybrid classing is as follows:

Str 10, Con 11, Dex 18, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 10

Ranger-Wizard 2

Skills: Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Perception, Stealth, Thievery (Rogue MC).

Feats: Sneak of Shadows, Armour Proficiency (Leather), Ritual Caster.

Powers: Twin Strike, Cloud of Daggers, Scorching Burst, Two-Fanged Strike, Flaming Sphere, Shield.

This build is similar to his original build in that he has many roguish abilities (skills) and he is a ranged attacker. The advantage of the hybrid build is that he has access to the wizard cantrips which he really wants. Also, he has never used Nimble Strike, Hit and Run, or Unbalancing Parry. By replacing these with wizard powers, he ends up making better use of his power slots.

This build gives up the ability to use the hybrid Hunter's Quarry with non-ranger powers. This is not that much of an issue. Normally he either wants to attack many creatures (Scorching Burst), create bottlenecks (Cloud of Daggers) or concentrate damage on a single target (Twin Strike & HQ). He also has to spend feats on Armour Proficiency Leather and Ritual Caster.

After the rebuild, my friend felt that the hybrid option allows him to build a character much closer to his character concept than before. I found that he also used his wizard powers much more often than the powers he replaced. He did not miss any of the features his old build had other than Armour Proficiency (Leather) which he used a feat to gain back.

After one session of seeing a hybrid character in action, my impression is that the player enjoyed playing his character much more than before. He felt in 4E his is constrained in how he can build his character (compared to 3.5). The hybrid character option opens up more possibilities for him and makes him feel less constrained (although not entirely unconstrained.) In terms of player satisfaction, hybrid classing is a success in this case.

In terms of game balance, I feel that the ranger-wizard hybrid character is very strong. The main strength lies in the flexibility of the (archery) ranger-wizard hybrid. All powers are ranged powers. The option of attacking multiple targets or high damage to a single target allows this build to make significant contributions in many combat situations. Of all characters in my campaign, the ranger-wizard hybrid seems to make the best use of all his power slots. Other characters tend to have powers that they do not use very often. Also, this character performs either role of this hybrid (striker or controller) at range, so the lack of armour proficiencies and hit points is not that much of a disadvantage. A single feat can improve the AC enough to lessen this disadvantage even more.

The wizard powers tend to be very strong. Even with just the cantrips class feature, any ranged hybrid class with the wizard hybrid class would be a popular choice. I can see a laser cleric-wizard or warlock-wizard hybrid to be popular as the weaker defences of such hybrid combinations is less of an issue. There is a lot of synergy with these combinations even though they use different attack stats. The fact that the wizard uses Int as an attack stat helps the AC greatly. The wizard utility 2 spell, Shield, is also very strong in that it can provide a temporary upgrade in defences to negate a hit every now and then.

The Hybrid Talent feat seems very strong. Every hybrid class other than perhaps the archery ranger, has a class feature that is worth spending a feat on. I cannot see very many hybrid characters not taking this feat even though this particular player hasn't taken it yet. Since my impression of this hybrid character is that it is pretty strong compared to single classed, I feel it should remain as a feat instead of given for free (as some others have suggested). I really feel that giving Hybrid Talent for free would make it even more powerful that it is.

The hybrid version of Hunter's Quarry works well as is. The restriction of using ranger powers only for HQ damage still makes HQ very strong. The reason is that the hybrid HQ is still usable multiple times in an encounter. It is quite likely that if you want to deal high damage to a single target, you will not be using non-ranger powers. Although the restriction also excludes basic attacks from dealing HQ damage, this restriction is not very restricting. Even though other effects can allow the ranger to make a basic attack, it is likely that the ranger had already use a ranger power (like Twin Strike) and has already hit and dealt HQ damage. There is already known way to get the hybrid HQ to stack with other hybrid class features that deal extra damage. It is not necessary to also allow basic attacks to deal HQ damage.

In the future for this character, I can foresee a few issues. The first is the need for both a weapon (for ranger powers) and an implement (for wizard powers). Since the weapon this character uses is the repeating crossbow, it is quite likely that switching between the weapon and implement will be an issue. Switching weapons and implements require minor actions. Rangers and wizards already have abilities that require minor actions, so going back and forth while using the ranger-wizard abilities will limit what the character can do in a round. Some of this can be negated by taking Quick Draw or other feat that speeds up the drawing or stowing of items.

Another issue that I can see is the dependency on both Dex and Int. The build now has Dex 18 and Int 14. I can see that this character may have some issues hitting with wizard powers. Also, his Fortitude and Will will suffer at higher levels. In any case, some other hybrid or multiclass options face the same issues as well. Overall, the benefits will likely outweigh the disadvantages.

I am generally very satisfied with what I have seen in our first session with this particular hybrid class character. I look forward to seeing how it develops compared to the other single classed characters in my campaign.

johnthedm7000 wrote:

I just recently completed a playtest involving a party of all hybrid characters (4 of them, all at 11th level). They were:

A Tiefling Hybrid Warlock/Fighter/Lifestealer THP monkey (with infernal pact hybrid talented).

An Elf Hybrid Wizard/Rogue/Flying Blade adept focusing on light blades and accuracy (with wand of accuracy hybrid talented).

A Longtooth Shifter Ranger/Rogue/Pack Runner focusing on mobility and on paired attacking powers.

A Dragonborn Cleric/Paladin MC Fighter Justicar focusing on being a decent leader and being moderately sticky.

I put them up against a level appropriate encounter of 4 Ogre Thugs, 2 Mezzodemons, and 2 Drow Warriors.

It went well, with the group being able to cover each other's weaknesses fairly well, and expending a moderate amount of resources (probably around 30%) to take care of the foes present. That being said, here are some of my impressions from the fight.

1. It's a pain in the ass not being able to mark or recieve sneak attack damage from BA's. The Warlock had to charge early on to get into melee quickly, and it would have benefited everyone if he had been able to do so.
My suggestion: For hybrid features say that they only apply to class powers, the powers of class specific paragon paths, paths requiring a the same role as the class the feature is from, non-specific paragon paths and ABAs (actual basic attacks, not powers that may be used as such). If two or more hybrid features could affect a single attack, choose one to apply. This would prevent abuse from minor-action attacks, allow fighters and pally's to mark on a charge or at range, and make hybrid characters more versatile without restricting them overly.

2. Heavy armor using classes that hybridize themselves with light armor classes are penalized unfairly. I really noticed this when I tried to make the tiefling warlock into a Hybrid Wiz/Ftr. It ate up most of his feats.
[b]Suggestion: Allow hybrids to purchase armor proficency feats without considering prerequisites, as long as one of their hybrid classes would have been proficient with it. This would solve hybrid AC issues, and would still include the feat tax-plus there are probably relatively few people who would choose say, chainmail armor for a wizard/fighter when you could get roughly the same AC with high intelligence and leather armor, so it doesn't cause balance issues.[/b]

3. Hybrid Classes feel like true "jacks of all trades, masters of none" This is an excellent thing, as it captures the feel of someone who trains simultaneously in differing fields and forces players to think about how their abilities build off of one another. I had great fun, for example thinking about how I could use my wizard spells to set up combat advantage for myself and create distractions so I could hide. But none of the combinations that I played really felt underpowered.

4. Defender/Controllers are rather fragile, unless they load up on THP The warlock/fighter was fairly durable, but that was only because of crushing surge, the infernal pact, toughness, and dark one's favor. A wizard/fighter would have been out of luck.
Suggestion:Simply add the level 1 HP of the two classes together and divide by 2, then round down and add con mod for the first level HP, then average healing surges and HP by level. It's simple, it's easy and it makes fighters feel a wee bit more like fighters while still causing them to not be as sturdy as true defenders.

By and large though, you guys did an amazing job on the hybrid rules-kudos to you for making jacks and jills of all trades that actually work!