PDA

View Full Version : Rules applications (selective)



cZak
2009-12-23, 12:43 AM
Caveat: I am primarily a DM. I do not consider myself an optimizer, but I do consider myself a pretty good tactician.

I am a fan of these forums and have noticed much posting in regard to balancing 3.X by the application of house rules.

But I'm wondering about the selective disregard of printed rules effect on determining CR against a party and the comparison of characters. Granted, group cohesiveness and tactics have the greatest impact, but...

Players can create significantly powerful characters where a 'dip' is sufficiently beneficial, and no further advancement is required; fighter - bonus feat, paladin - smite(?), cleric - turn undead for Divine feats, Mindbender - telepathy, rogue 2 - evasion, etc...

But there exists an xp penalty to multiclassing outside of the favored class (PHB 60). I do not think, though I can find no source to verify, that this applies to PrC's. But would the inclusion of this rule help mitigate CR calculations?

PinkysBrain
2009-12-23, 12:51 AM
Since XP is completely irrelevant to CR, no, multiclassing penalties for PrCs would do nothing to fix CR. If what you meant to ask is if multiclassing penalties for PrCs would help balance for players ... then also no, multiclassing is not the problem.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-12-23, 12:51 AM
Caveat: I am primarily a DM. I do not consider myself an optimizer, but I do consider myself a pretty good tactician.

I am a fan of these forums and have noticed much posting in regard to balancing 3.X by the application of house rules.

But I'm wondering about the selective disregard of printed rules effect on determining CR against a party and the comparison of characters. Granted, group cohesiveness and tactics have the greatest impact, but...

Players can create significantly powerful characters where a 'dip' is sufficiently beneficial, and no further advancement is required; fighter - bonus feat, paladin - smite(?), cleric - turn undead for Divine feats, Mindbender - telepathy, rogue 2 - evasion, etc...

But there exists an xp penalty to multiclassing outside of the favored class (PHB 60). I do not think, though I can find no source to verify, that this applies to PrC's. But would the inclusion of this rule help mitigate CR calculations?One of the stronges builds in the game is Druid 20. A core Wizard has no reason to PrC.

Meanwhile, the tier 4 and lower classes have no reason not to dip each other. Outside of specific builds, which take 6 levels of either, there is no reason to take Monk or Fighter past 2, or Paladin past 6. All XP penalties do is nerf the weaker classes further.

And no, XP penalties do not apply to PrCs.

Fishy
2009-12-23, 12:52 AM
The rule does not apply to PrCs, which is a good thing because it would render most PrCs more or less completely useless. A Ranger 5/Horizon Walker 10 would be taking an XP penalty for about half of his entire adventuring career.

Most DMs choose to houserule the multiclassing penalty out of existence, because it's essentially a tax on interesting characters with a broad range of abilities. 'Optimizing' isn't always done for raw power.

Incidentally, the 'real' reasons to dip Rogue and Paladin are massive skill points and Cha to saves.

Tokiko Mima
2009-12-23, 01:41 AM
Caveat: I am primarily a DM. I do not consider myself an optimizer, but I do consider myself a pretty good tactician.

I am a fan of these forums and have noticed much posting in regard to balancing 3.X by the application of house rules.

But I'm wondering about the selective disregard of printed rules effect on determining CR against a party and the comparison of characters. Granted, group cohesiveness and tactics have the greatest impact, but...

Players can create significantly powerful characters where a 'dip' is sufficiently beneficial, and no further advancement is required; fighter - bonus feat, paladin - smite(?), cleric - turn undead for Divine feats, Mindbender - telepathy, rogue 2 - evasion, etc...

But there exists an xp penalty to multiclassing outside of the favored class (PHB 60). I do not think, though I can find no source to verify, that this applies to PrC's. But would the inclusion of this rule help mitigate CR calculations?

Keep in mind, the multi-classing rules only penalize the XP of characters multi-classing beyond a level above or below another base class. They also never apply to Prestige classes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/prestigeClasses.htm), and that's part of the core rules.

Therefore a build like (Spirit Lion Totem)Barbarian 1/Monk 2/Fighter 2/Swordsage 2/Crusader 2/Warblade 1/Shadow Sun Ninja 2/Bloodclaw Master 3/Master of the Nine 5 has no multi-classing XP penalty, for any race. All the base classes are within a level of each other, and the Prestige classes don't count.

Strictly enforcing the multiclassing XP penalty means that classes that don't need to dip won't (full casters, but they will PrC to almost the same effect), but classes that need dips (i.e. melee's, archers, skillmonkeys) can do nothing but take dip levels until they can PrC.

CR is very general in what it means, and an optimized/well placed monster can be a dramatically more difficult encounter than WotC intended. Or they can just plain mess up, as they probably did with That Damn Crab. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56749)

I've seen a party easily take down a monster with a challenge rating 10 over their party level, and seen that same party nearly wiped out in a game two days later with an encounter with a CR half their level. The first fight was standup brawl up with a single huge melee brute, and the second fight we learned how important grapple checks are against several large sized beetles with Improved Grab claws and burrows nearby. It was a wild difference in difficulty, because of the tactics employed.

Anyway, my point is you can't always trust CR to tell you how difficult an encounter is. So you can't balance builds against a particular CR of monster, because the difficulty will vary depending on the circumstances. Some parties are weak against swarms, because they lack a reliable source of AoE damage. Some parties have trouble attacking incorporeal creatures, and some have trouble with constructs. Some parties are great and killing single powerful foes, and some specialize in killing many monsters at once.