One Word - Multiclassing!

[Doppelschwert]

I think the reason for some of the crazy builds had to do with the power curve of the base classes. If, say,  a fighter grows rapidly and then levels off after level 9,  then taking levels in other classes for flexibility is a no-brainer. If a fighter continues to grow super-linearly, then taking a level in another class would be a genuine trade off (particularly in a system like D&D v. 3.x where the cost of gaining a level is exponential and based on the sum of all of the current levels).

I agree on the power curves.

 

One problem in DnD 3.X were low-level abilities that scaled with attributes independent of class level, like the paladins Divine Grace (bonus to saving throws equal to his charisma bonus) at level 2.

Classes that were designed later introduced a cap on these kind of bonuses in terms of their class level to solve this problem, which made the dipping much less attractive. For example, the duelist prestige class has Canny Defense at level 1, which lets her add her intelligence bonus to armor class, but only as high as her duelist class level.

 

The other problem in DnD 3.X were the dead levels (that were removed by pathfinder):

Whenever a class neither improved an existing ability nor learned a new one, it was much better to choose a different class to level up in instead. The step-like progression of base attack bonus and saving throws had the same issue of dead levels due to being lines rounded to integer values.

 

However, both of these issues can be more easily evaded in a CRPG, since they can use rational numbers in progressions and let you increase your stats throughout every class-level. It's a bit generic to have everything scale with levels, but this shows that a proper trade-off is possible at the very least. I'm sure they can think up some other mechanics to properly balance things without making everything scale, and I think they are able to do it properly.

 

That being said, personally, I would actually prefer if they locked us down to 2 classes at most per character, and I wouldn't even mind if they forced us to level them up alternatingly instead of having arbitrary splits. With 11 classes, 121 combinations would be plenty to roleplay any concept sufficiently both in the narrative and mechanically, since you can still choose among subclasses and several feats in addition.

 

 

Regarding the exp progression in DnD:

As far as I know, DnD 3.X used a linear increase of exp (to next level = current level * 1000), but gave some multiplier like 2^d to exp gained where d is (enemy lvl - your lvl). DnD 2 used exponential tables.

[Yonjuro]

.....

 

Regarding the exp progression in DnD:

As far as I know, DnD 3.X used a linear increase of exp (to next level = current level * 1000), but gave some multiplier like 2^d to exp gained where d is (enemy lvl - your lvl). DnD 2 used exponential tables.

 

 

  I think you're right. I was mixing up DnD 2 and 3.x in my comment. Also, thanks for the good comments on other munchkin inducing aspects of 3.x.  

[hilfazer]

 

That being said, personally, I would actually prefer if they locked us down to 2 classes at most per character, and I wouldn't even mind if they forced us to level them up alternatingly instead of having arbitrary splits. With 11 classes, 121 combinations would be plenty to roleplay any concept sufficiently both in the narrative and mechanically, since you can still choose among subclasses and several feats in addition.

 

 

 

Because you're reasonable person who actually spent some time thinking about the problem instead of jumping to the conclusion that multiclassing in POE2 will work like in DnD 3.5 and allow us to do Foo 1 / Bar 1 / Baz 18.

 

Dualclassing adds HUGE amount of options, mixing more than 2 classes is absolutely unnecessary.

Thus allowing players to mix more than 2 classes is inviting them to munchkin and break the system.

 

Allowing to do Foo 1 / Bar 19 is another invitation to munchkin and break the system. However, i wouldn't be as restrictive as You are. Instead i'd require characters to maintain certain ratio of class levels. Which is technically same idea just with different numbers.

[Eurhetemec]

D&D 3.x's multiclassing system was one of its best aspects (though to be fair, the old AD&D system had some merits as well). For tabletop at the vey least, I had absolutely no compunction in "class" becoming and entirely metagame construct.

 

That's a bit of a simplification! 

 

3.XE's multiclassing was both great and totally rubbish, depending on what you were doing with it.

 

For doing "Gish"-type characters, it was totally horrible. You ended up being utterly terrible at fighting AND utterly terrible at casting spells, unlike 2E, did a pretty good job of making you okay at both without being OP.

 

Similarly mixing caster classes was a recipe for having a moderate number of low-level spells and generally poor capabilities.

 

But for mixing purely non-caster classes it worked extremely well.

 

Then later on we got all the band-aid classes and PrCs which finally completely unbalanced 3.XE. There were easy-to-obtain PrCs which "fixed" caster multiclassing by simply making you objectively better than a single-classed caster. There were Gish-y new base classes which were open to wild abuse. All in all, it was a mess. It started elegantly simple but really punitive on a lot of traditional AD&D multiclass setups, and ended entirely broken and silly (unless you were a DM who just banned half the stuff out there!)

 

Personally I think 4E and 5E did better jobs with multiclassing, but fewer people are familiar with their setups, and they're less immediately understandable.

 

 

Re: Pillars multiclassing, I agree with those suggesting that there should be some kind of restrictions. In 2E AD&D, one of the main initial restrictions with MCing, which worked pretty well, was you couldn't have Kits. Unfortunately later splat books (I blame elves... it's always the elves fault!) came with MC-specific Kits (many of which were OP on top of taking away a limitation!*). Still, if you made it so MC characters couldn't have subclasses in Pillars 2, that'd probably limit their power a bit, and encourage people to play single-class characters. I don't know how popular it would be though.

 

I suspect, given Pillars' mechanical design, we'll see something similar to 3E or 5E D&D's multiclassing. 5E basically does the same stuff as 3E but is much, much smarter at avoiding stupid stacking of abilities whilst also having a much nicer way of treating spellcasting classes that makes them weaker than pure casters but doesn't make them worthless.

 

* - The biggest entirely-official-rules-backed BS I ever saw when running 2E D&D was a Dwarven Fighter/Cleric. Sounds inoffensive right? By the original 2E PHB rules he can't have kits, can't have weapon specialisation, limits on multiple attacks, can't be a speciality priest, etc. But then there's the Complete Book of Dwarves, which offers up a kit for Dwarven F/Cs - a kit that explicitly re-allows their weapon specialisation. Well, still limits on multiple attacks and no speciality priest-ing, right? Uh-oh, here comes Speciality Priest of Clangeddin from one of the FR god books (Demihuman Dieties I suspect), and what does he explicitly allow? That's right, he allows you to be a speciality priest even if you're an F/C multiclass, to take any kit a Cleric or F/C could take, and de-limits the multiple attacks.

 

So we have a Fighter/SP of Clangeddin with full weapon spec, full attacks, the bonuses from being an SP (including more spells - and some nasty Clangeddin-specific spells!), and who is only like 1-2 levels behind a single-class fighter... Well, at least the guy RPing him was really fun!

Edited January 28, 2017 by Eurhetemec

[anameforobsidian]

I ran a multi-classed druid  / shaman in 4e and liked it quite a bit.  Given how Josh seemed to like 4e as much as 3.5, I wouldn't be surprised to see it again.  On an off-topic note, made respect for Feargus answering questions at 2 in the morning.

[Aotrs Commander]

 

D&D 3.x's multiclassing system was one of its best aspects (though to be fair, the old AD&D system had some merits as well). For tabletop at the vey least, I had absolutely no compunction in "class" becoming and entirely metagame construct.

 

That's a bit of a simplification! 

 

3.XE's multiclassing was both great and totally rubbish, depending on what you were doing with it.

 

For doing "Gish"-type characters, it was totally horrible. You ended up being utterly terrible at fighting AND utterly terrible at casting spells, unlike 2E, did a pretty good job of making you okay at both without being OP.

 

Similarly mixing caster classes was a recipe for having a moderate number of low-level spells and generally poor capabilities.

 

But for mixing purely non-caster classes it worked extremely well.

 

Then later on we got all the band-aid classes and PrCs which finally completely unbalanced 3.XE. There were easy-to-obtain PrCs which "fixed" caster multiclassing by simply making you objectively better than a single-classed caster. There were Gish-y new base classes which were open to wild abuse. All in all, it was a mess. It started elegantly simple but really punitive on a lot of traditional AD&D multiclass setups, and ended entirely broken and silly (unless you were a DM who just banned half the stuff out there!)

 

I will be the first to say 3.x has its serious flaws (and I have a vast liteny of my own houserules complied over the yeats which fix the majority of them at least for our play paradigm).

 

It just that the multiclassing system was a case of "it's so obvious, why did we never think of it before?" And it got better the more we looked at it.

 

But yes, the multiclassing system with regard to pure casters was not so effective. In AD&D, multiclass characters got awya with only being (usually) a level behind the single class casters, because of the way the XP increased more-or-less double each level (to a point). 3.x made everyone have the same XP (which was, frankly, a massive relief as DM. I don't even nother with individual XP anymore, it's SO much easier!)

 

In hindsight, it would be fairly easy to deal with, if one wanted to follow the same way Tome of Battle's martial adept did, whch multiclass extremely well. What one would do is say that each caster's caster level was equal to [Caster class]+1/2 other class caster levels, but extend that to (only!) the effective caster class level for number and level of spells, (E.g a cleric 6 wizard 6 would be cleric caster level 9 and have the same number of spells as a9th level cleric.) This would have obviated the need for mystic theurge-type "multiclass" PrCs.

 

 

 

(I haven't officially done that, because I a) have a policy of "here is a list of what's allowed" rather than "you can use anything you like" (thus the most abuseive stuff is just not allowed in - years of selecting from Rolemaster's inheritly incompatible optional rules meant that we have rarely adopted a splat book in its entirity) and b) am prepared to do a bit of gubbins to make a MT-like PrC if one is needed (like when we had a character that wanted to be a Cleric/Rogue).

 

I've also allowed MR-like PrC (i.e., those that basically don't give you a lot of features other than "some of this, some of that" of base classes) to be taken earlier, so the classes become what the player wnats at lower level - and it means that the slow-down in spell level acquisition from coming out the oher side of the class effects hgher level spels rather than lower ones. E.g, you can now take MT at level 3 (just need divine 1st and arcane 1st), but you will now finish the class at 12th instead of 16th. You get 2nd and 3rd level spells faster (at 4th and 6th instead of 5/6th and 8th - still behind most pure casters), but the rate at which you get 7th level spells is slower (since by that point, you are back to levelling each class seperately).

 

I could blither about this all day, but I probably ought to stop there....!)

[Eurhetemec]

In hindsight, it would be fairly easy to deal with, if one wanted to follow the same way Tome of Battle's martial adept did, whch multiclass extremely well. What one would do is say that each caster's caster level was equal to [Caster class]+1/2 other class caster levels, but extend that to (only!) the effective caster class level for number and level of spells, (E.g a cleric 6 wizard 6 would be cleric caster level 9 and have the same number of spells as a9th level cleric.) This would have obviated the need for mystic theurge-type "multiclass" PrCs.

 

This is pretty much similar to what 5E does with MC'ing, except 5E is more elegant and doesn't require specific classes. ToB tried out a lot of stuff that ended up working well in 4E and 5E. Mystic Theurge was, if you will forgive me, the purest indication of how totally broken both the MC and PrC systems were in 3E. They existed solely as an overpowered band-aid for the mechanics, but masqueraded as an actual PrC! And they weren't even the worst... The whole usage of PrCs as mechanics band-aids (which got heavier and heavier as 3.XE went on) was a total betrayal of the original PrC concept.

 

So I'd say what 3E prototyped clumsily, 5E largely got right.

 

4E initially did MC in a really limited and kind of bad way, with the multiclass-feat business, which was just tedious and ineffective whilst allowing some serious cheese. The later "hybrid" multiclassing system did a vastly better job and resulted in less-broken characters than both single-class and feat-based multiclassing. It was more akin to a powered-down version of the Gestalt system from late 3.XE.

[Aotrs Commander]

 

In hindsight, it would be fairly easy to deal with, if one wanted to follow the same way Tome of Battle's martial adept did, whch multiclass extremely well. What one would do is say that each caster's caster level was equal to [Caster class]+1/2 other class caster levels, but extend that to (only!) the effective caster class level for number and level of spells, (E.g a cleric 6 wizard 6 would be cleric caster level 9 and have the same number of spells as a9th level cleric.) This would have obviated the need for mystic theurge-type "multiclass" PrCs.

 

This is pretty much similar to what 5E does with MC'ing, except 5E is more elegant and doesn't require specific classes. ToB tried out a lot of stuff that ended up working well in 4E and 5E. Mystic Theurge was, if you will forgive me, the purest indication of how totally broken both the MC and PrC systems were in 3E. They existed solely as an overpowered band-aid for the mechanics, but masqueraded as an actual PrC! And they weren't even the worst... The whole usage of PrCs as mechanics band-aids (which got heavier and heavier as 3.XE went on) was a total betrayal of the original PrC concept.

 

So I'd say what 3E prototyped clumsily, 5E largely got right.

 

4E initially did MC in a really limited and kind of bad way, with the multiclass-feat business, which was just tedious and ineffective whilst allowing some serious cheese. The later "hybrid" multiclassing system did a vastly better job and resulted in less-broken characters than both single-class and feat-based multiclassing. It was more akin to a powered-down version of the Gestalt system from late 3.XE.

 

 

I'm afraid along with the concept of class and anything but meta-game concepts, PrC as anything but same went as well. (In fact, the first PrC to get dimissed from my allowed list are the flavour-heavy ones, since I do not ever for choice play on anything but my homebrew worlds (where D&D's default do not fit) or Golarion nowadays. So for me, PrC were simply misnamed from the get-go and should have been called something like "advanced classes" or something less impressive-sounding than even than that. Them as a concept as a sort of in-game order or group or something (and not just another meta-collection of abilities like classes) was ditched by us even before we ditched the multiclass penalties and restrictions and such.

 

(We also, despite a fairly mid-high optimisation environment, use fairly few PrCs - MT being one of the more common ones, as it happens. But the adjustments I've made been that even stuff like the fighter, monk and rogue can still be effective at high level (for our paradigm of play) and as pure classes, are usually picked by players who want something that isn't too mechanically demanding*. And I say this as we had a party actually reach Epic (21-22ish); the fighter was still a pure fighter, though th monk and rogue had both taken a few levels of swordsage at the end. Both fighter and monk were simply MONSTOUS in damage output. And given the advanture was a ludicrously overlevelled 3.5 version fo Dragon Mountain (this was before Adventrue Paths existsed and I was running on old AD&D modules converted), they were quite able to apply that damage.

 

Actually, tangenitally, this does show the problem with running a high level-campaign. As writing a whole campaign would have taken even longer, we went from an adventure that was 1st-10th dealing with kobolds, to an elite fighting force whose levels ran from about 8-12 and 16-20 for the bosses...! My dragon mountain, had it ever appeared on, say Eberron, probably could have, like, conquered the planet...!))

 

 

 

We play 4E, or rather one of the other chaps runs 4E from some of the official modules. He has a few splatbooks, but none of us were enthused enough to follow it like 3.5, so we've only seen the core multiclassing rules. (But then again, this is the only 4E party we've had, starting at first and up mto about 12th or something now.)

 

 

 

Almost everything I've heard about 5E (actually, the exception being what you just said about multiclassing) has convinced me it is not the system that I'm interested in. Especially given that we are now pretty set in our 3.x/PF hybrid and i'm primarily running either PF adventure paths (on a weekday) or my own homebrew (on day games, which is on a world even MORE house-ruled (Vancian casting is replaced by mana, for one thing).

 

 

 

*On the other hand, I had to do a table for that attack routines of the last monk PC (at level 15), because he did insist (despite my advice otherwise) on having TWF and wanting to use both unarmed and magic weapons and the various combinations of which ran to about twenty-six lines and require bold, italic, underline and colour fonts. But that was, as I explained the the player, just about the most complicated set of attack routines you could actually get before multiweapon fighting.

[Doppelschwert]

The newest update might imply that there are at most 2 classes available for multiclassing. All the examples they used involved 2 classes.

[anameforobsidian]

Why didn't they call it dual-classing then?

[Doppelschwert]

My guess would be that dual-classing invokes memories of DnD2, but what they called dualclassing works differently from multiclassing on a mechanical level. Afaik, in DnD2, dual classing meant:

- starting with class A

- at some level n, start dual classing into class B: lose everything from class A, start at lvl 1 in class B

- once your level in class B is n+1, get back everything that class A gave you

- proceed to level in class B for the rest of the game?

 

This is vastly different from multiclassing two classes from DnD 3.X, where you choose one of the classes at each level up, and how they will probably handle it here.

 

However, I might also be wrong, and they just used examples that they deemed sensible. Regardless, there will be some cap on the number of classes - NWN1 and NWN2 imposed 3 and 4 as a limit, although I can never recall which one had which limit.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Doppelschwert

[Aotrs Commander]

My guess would be that dual-classing invokes memories of DnD2, but what they called dualclassing works differently from multiclassing on a mechanical level. Afaik, in DnD2, dual classing meant:

- starting with class A

- at some level n, start dual classing into class B: lose everything from class A, start at lvl 1 in class B

- once your level in class B is n+1, get back everything that class A gave you

- proceed to level in class B for the rest of the game?

 

This is vastly different from multiclassing two classes from DnD 3.X, where you choose one of the classes at each level up, and how they will probably handle it here.

 

However, I might also be wrong, and they just used examples that they deemed sensible. Regardless, there will be some cap on the number of classes - NWN1 and NWN2 imposed 3 and 4 as a limit, although I can never recall which one had which limit.

 

I think it was three in NWN2, for memory, but I could be wrong.

 

Though to be fair, I think that's pretty reasonable. The most outlanding builds i've seen in practical 3.x play only hit about four total (Rogue/Ninja/Invisible Blade/Swordwage or Fighter/Ranger/Deepwood Sniper/Crusader) - same player - and I think maybe one one other, but I can't remember which ones it was other tha cleric and blackguard.)

[mumbogumshoe]

 

My guess would be that dual-classing invokes memories of DnD2, but what they called dualclassing works differently from multiclassing on a mechanical level. Afaik, in DnD2, dual classing meant:

- starting with class A

- at some level n, start dual classing into class B: lose everything from class A, start at lvl 1 in class B

- once your level in class B is n+1, get back everything that class A gave you

- proceed to level in class B for the rest of the game?

 

This is vastly different from multiclassing two classes from DnD 3.X, where you choose one of the classes at each level up, and how they will probably handle it here.

 

However, I might also be wrong, and they just used examples that they deemed sensible. Regardless, there will be some cap on the number of classes - NWN1 and NWN2 imposed 3 and 4 as a limit, although I can never recall which one had which limit.

 

I think it was three in NWN2, for memory, but I could be wrong.

 

Though to be fair, I think that's pretty reasonable. The most outlanding builds i've seen in practical 3.x play only hit about four total (Rogue/Ninja/Invisible Blade/Swordwage or Fighter/Ranger/Deepwood Sniper/Crusader) - same player - and I think maybe one one other, but I can't remember which ones it was other tha cleric and blackguard.)

 

I'm pretty sure that I played a Bard/Fighter/Frenzied Berserker/Red Dragon Deciple in NWN2 at one point... could be that I used mods to uncap the multiclass restrictions though...

[Eurhetemec]

My guess would be that dual-classing invokes memories of DnD2, but what they called dualclassing works differently from multiclassing on a mechanical level. Afaik, in DnD2, dual classing meant:

- starting with class A

- at some level n, start dual classing into class B: lose everything from class A, start at lvl 1 in class B

- once your level in class B is n+1, get back everything that class A gave you

- proceed to level in class B for the rest of the game?

 

This is vastly different from multiclassing two classes from DnD 3.X, where you choose one of the classes at each level up, and how they will probably handle it here.

 

However, I might also be wrong, and they just used examples that they deemed sensible. Regardless, there will be some cap on the number of classes - NWN1 and NWN2 imposed 3 and 4 as a limit, although I can never recall which one had which limit.

 

This summary of how dual-classing worked in AD&D 2E is correct, or very close to it. It was a very bizarre system that seemingly existed solely for the purpose of enabling players to emulate various literary fantasy human characters who clearly had multiple classes by AD&D standards. As these literary characters (largely from swords and sorcery stuff) pretty much all had a series of careers, rather than pursuing multiple careers at once, the designers created a system that resembled this.

 

Mostly it was just a very unrealistic-feeling pain in the arse, which lead to a lot of "What do you mean you can't pick the lock, you have five levels in thief, don't you?!" "Well yes but I'm dual-classed to fighter now so I'm not allowed to pick locks until I'm a level six fighter..." "Man what?!" etc...

 

I feel like it largely actually existed for the benefit of NPCs, who didn't have to go through the BS. Also I'd note that a not-insignificant number of dual-classed NPCs were actually illegal by the actual dual-classing rules but oh well... Like you'd have a Fighter 6/Thief 4/Mage 4, but his backstory would say he was a Fighter first, then a Thief, and by the MC'ing rules, he should basically only have low-level Wizard abilities - but of course his statblock assumed he had all three.

[Aotrs Commander]

 

My guess would be that dual-classing invokes memories of DnD2, but what they called dualclassing works differently from multiclassing on a mechanical level. Afaik, in DnD2, dual classing meant:

- starting with class A

- at some level n, start dual classing into class B: lose everything from class A, start at lvl 1 in class B

- once your level in class B is n+1, get back everything that class A gave you

- proceed to level in class B for the rest of the game?

 

This is vastly different from multiclassing two classes from DnD 3.X, where you choose one of the classes at each level up, and how they will probably handle it here.

 

However, I might also be wrong, and they just used examples that they deemed sensible. Regardless, there will be some cap on the number of classes - NWN1 and NWN2 imposed 3 and 4 as a limit, although I can never recall which one had which limit.

 

This summary of how dual-classing worked in AD&D 2E is correct, or very close to it. It was a very bizarre system that seemingly existed solely for the purpose of enabling players to emulate various literary fantasy human characters who clearly had multiple classes by AD&D standards. As these literary characters (largely from swords and sorcery stuff) pretty much all had a series of careers, rather than pursuing multiple careers at once, the designers created a system that resembled this.

 

Mostly it was just a very unrealistic-feeling pain in the arse, which lead to a lot of "What do you mean you can't pick the lock, you have five levels in thief, don't you?!" "Well yes but I'm dual-classed to fighter now so I'm not allowed to pick locks until I'm a level six fighter..." "Man what?!" etc...

 

I feel like it largely actually existed for the benefit of NPCs, who didn't have to go through the BS. Also I'd note that a not-insignificant number of dual-classed NPCs were actually illegal by the actual dual-classing rules but oh well... Like you'd have a Fighter 6/Thief 4/Mage 4, but his backstory would say he was a Fighter first, then a Thief, and by the MC'ing rules, he should basically only have low-level Wizard abilities - but of course his statblock assumed he had all three.

 

 

One of my players relates how he did a dual-class Fighter/Mage, by going out with a first (or lwo-level) party as essentially a wizard with a ridiculous number of hit points. Which is pretty cool, if your DM and the other players are okay with it.

 

I'm pretty sure that I played a Bard/Fighter/Frenzied Berserker/Red Dragon Deciple in NWN2 at one point... could be that I used mods to uncap the multiclass restrictions though...

 

 

A quick actual look* suggests it was four classes (including PrC, I think), by the end, at least. (The source seemed to imply that it had been lower previously, but itt wasn't very clear.)

 

 

 

*Because I've not got anything else to do today because [expletive]ing TurboCAD won't assemble that thrice-damned A7V tank model and Lichemaster forfend that it doesn't take it's time in not doing so to boot!!! GRAAAAAAAAARGH!!! *lays out nearby minion*

 

Ahem.

 

Sorry, it's been a long and VERY frustrating two days.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Aotrs Commander

[Doppelschwert]

I looked up some lists of powerful builds for both NWN and NWN2 to see that the maximum number of classes was 3 for NWN and 4 for NWN2.

Now that I read it up, it makes sense: I always wanted to make a Monk/Dragon Disciple/Pale Master to have visible wings and a skeleton arm for punching, but its not possible due to needing bard/sorcerer and a cap of 3 classes.

 

Regarding DnD2:

There was also multiclassing there, but it worked yet again differently from dual classing and DnD3.X multiclassing. You choosed several classes and then your experience was just evenly split among all of them and they leveled up individually. And for some reason, dual classing was only available for humans.

 

I theoretically like this concept of leveling up two classes in parallel, but this doesn't work well with the linear exp curves of DnD3.X and pillars. I wouldn't even know at which level the two classes should be compared to a single class for balance - both at n/2 seems too weak and both at n-1 too strong, when n is the level of a single class with the same amount of exp.

 

Bottomline, having it work similiar to DnD3.X multiclassing is probably the best way to do it, although I think a cap of 2 classes at most makes things more stable powerwise.

[Aramintai]

Multiclassing+2 subclasses sounds like a giant headache to balance. I hope devs know what they're doing.

At least my concerns about fewer companions and party slots were dissuaded - in the last update it was told that we can choose between two classes for companions, so while smaller, party composition will be more flexible. For example Eder now can be a fighter or a rogue.

[Gromnir]

Multiclassing+2 subclasses sounds like a giant headache to balance. I hope devs know what they're doing.

At least my concerns about fewer companions and party slots were dissuaded - in the last update it was told that we can choose between two classes for companions, so while smaller, party composition will be more flexible. For example Eder now can be a fighter or a rogue.

am doubting the subclasses will present a large problem.  obsidian described subclasses as being akin to ad&d or 2e d&d kits, yes? am suspecting bg2 were not the best example o' what josh and obsidian likely has in mind. iwd2 were gonna have kits and we saw their offerings.  if you are familiar with old pnp d&d, don't expect bladesinger or priest of mystra.  the subclasses will be different than the core class, but not clear better.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Boeroer]

Which is good. Why should they be better?

 

I just hope that Citzal's Spirit Lance is still in the game. Would love to unleash the Lance + Carnage combo with Aloth, the wizbarb.

[Doppelschwert]

I'm pretty sure the subclasses work like class archetypes from pathfinder. Those merely exchange/modify some core class features with a variant for a different styles of gameplay, and thats exactly what the examples given by josh sounded like.

 

Personally, I hope they introduce additional subclasses as further stretch goals. I want to play a monk, and I find the drug-subclass pointed at in the write up to be really off-turning already. It's nice that they put some effort into making a variation of monks for their setting, but I'd just like to be able to play a traditional martial artist without any drugs or mortification of the flesh stuff. Except for the paladins, the lore of the other classes support their traditional concepts much better.

A monk subclass that generates resources for their abilities by dealing damage instead of receiving it would be much more interesting and enable cool concepts, and it would be much more in-line with replacing a permanent ranger companion by a summon with different properties.

[Osvir]

Gotta love my cipher-barb. Soul Whip + Heart of Fury = Whoooohaaa!

 

Carnage+Focus/Soul Whip :D

 

​AoE melee+Gain Focus from all targets hit and deal extra damage (Soul Whip) = Unlimited Cipher powers

 

​Overpowered by Pillars standards, but at the same time I keep reading statements from Obsidian (Feargus & Sawyer) saying that combat has been re-worked (one of the reasons we start at Level 1 for instance, because the new system is different). Chances are that classes don't work as they used to do and Multi-Classing could even potentially weaken or nullify some old effects (for balance).

 

​Meaning, a Barbarian's Carnage or Cipher's Soul Whip might not work in a Multi-Class scenario, or be a weaker form. They might even have different statistical values and functionalities, the Carnage AoE might be single-hit, flurry type passive. Maybe even Zul'Jin inspired from Heroes of the Storm (the lesser health he has, the faster he attacks. Would be pretty cool if Carnage worked like that too).

 

​Focus and +Damage generation might not trigger on all targets damaged, but only triggers on the primary target hit (thus, AoE Carnage wouldn't trigger "Gain Focus" on all, only on the primary target).

 

​Soul Whip might instead be an active channel spell, "Gain X Focus every 2 seconds of Channeling, where X is the amount of creatures in range" or something, instead of the passive "Gain +Damage and +Focus".

 

​Who knows hm, I want more info on how exactly combat is changed.... when does Early Access start? xD

Edited January 29, 2017 by Osvir

[theBalthazar]

For multiclass it is ALSO "Number of overall classes" dependant.

 

Because, if you have 20 classes + 10 prestigious classes, it is not a problem. But if you have 10 classes like first pillars, I think there is not possibilities to accept 4 classes.

 

Because with 2 characters you cover nearly all the classes !

 

So, I think there will be a limit of 2 classes max by character.

 

Don't forget also, fighting is question of successive action. (Finish as soon as possible the fight)

 

So, cumulate all the spells is not very interresting if each classes work differently or there is necessity to place buff (priest oriented) or offensive spell (Wizard/druid oriented).

 

During this time, you don't use your "barbarian part" (second class).

 

Hope than multiclass may be more interresting than :

 

Priest + Wizard for cover all the spells.

 

And *choose a class physical oriented" + barbarian, for melee characters.

 

It is subtle to balance.

Edited January 29, 2017 by theBalthazar

[Sedrefilos]

Brief details about multiclassing
http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/156540101641/i-know-that-you-tried-to-avoid-trap-builds-in-poe

[Doppelschwert]

Brief details about multiclassing

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/156540101641/i-know-that-you-tried-to-avoid-trap-builds-in-poe

 

Can you copy the text? I disabled tumblr permanently.

 

EDIT:

My phone had still access.

 

 

I theoretically like this concept of leveling up two classes in parallel, but this doesn't work well with the linear exp curves of DnD3.X and pillars. I wouldn't even know at which level the two classes should be compared to a single class for balance - both at n/2 seems too weak and both at n-1 too strong, when n is the level of a single class with the same amount of exp.

 

Looks like sawyer came to the same conclusion.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Doppelschwert

[Sedrefilos]

This is the text. Question asked by mistercrowley101.
Btw it's from tweeter. If have an account you can follow Sawyer there and get the updates too

"There are a few keys to making Deadfire’s multiclassing work in ways that 2nd Ed/3E multiclassing generally does not.   I’ll go into this in detail in an update next week, but it was the subject of a large amount of design internally.

In the end, our math is balanced such that, e.g., a fighter 6/druid 6 (displayed collectively as a 12th level warden, btw) has about 75%-85% of the fighter power and druid power as a 12th level fighter or a 12th level druid.

That may seem odd, but what we found in looking at various multiclass combinations from different editions of A/D&D is that the 50/50 power splits (e.g. 3E wizard/clerics) are the ones that perform and feel the worst.  The ones that operate in the 90%+ efficacy band compared to single-classed characters feel like no-brainers.  The 75-85% range is powerful enough that the combinations don’t under-perform, but they don’t inherently outshine the single-class characters.

While the numbers for all of these calculations will be available for players in game, our goal is that someone who multiclasses because they have a specific character concept and isn’t going to min-max everything will have a viable and good and cool character.  Min-maxers can go to town and eke out marginal gains, but they should be just that: marginal."