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View Full Version : [Pathfinder] I wish classes were more dipable



harpy
2010-03-26, 02:23 PM
Having played systems like Star Wars Saga, which was pretty much built from the ground up to be a dip-friendly d20 system, I find Pathfinder's dipableness is kind of... meh.

I understand that Paizo was moving away from that, changing the multiclass penalty into a multiclass bonus, and giving capstone powers, but if you find the modular element of the game fun there just seems to be something lacking.

This isn't as big of an issue with spellcasters since they have always been geared towards rewarding deeper investment, but for the martial classes things can feel really constrained when your trying to create certain character concepts. Because the martial classes have much less flexibility than spellcasters you tend to have to invest in several levels to grab enough different class features that help round out the character concept.

I guess I feel like rather than playing with legos, I'm playing with an erector set. They both have a lot of modular parts, but the erector set isn't as fine grained in delivering certain effects, or you have to scale up the model (with characters it means needing to reach upper mid levels) to get the details you want.

Perhaps the APG will fix some of this feeling I have, perhaps we'll have some alternative class features that will make dips into various classes more worthewhile. Unfortunately the new base classes don't seem to tickle my dipable mood. A lot of those concepts seem to be coming into their own at higher levels rather than at first level.

It would be great to see some "limited base classes" which would be kind of an inversion of prestige classes. Rather than being a class with prerequisites, these are base classes that only go for 3 to 5 levels, designed to jump you into a concept and then let you branch out.

tyckspoon
2010-03-26, 02:35 PM
I don't really see how the Pathfinder classes are any less dippable. Spellcasters still want as many spellcasting levels as they can get and almost all the other classes give you the same or more as you would get for dipping them in your 3.5 builds. Unless you're only thinking of 'dips' as a 1-level investment, in which case.. you're still not getting anything less than you would have from the 3.5 versions. To wit, 1 level of Fighter gets you a bonus feat, 1 level Barbarian is Rage and Fast Movement, 1 level Ranger is.. well, nothing much notable.

PinkysBrain
2010-03-26, 02:38 PM
The problem is that all the non caster prestige classes are complete dreck at the moment. Pathfinder is basically where 3e was at the start. Only casters can have nice things.

Psionics will help a bit, the Warmind was always a pretty nice PrC to combine with non magic classes.

harpy
2010-03-26, 03:35 PM
It would have been great if more of the classes had been designed along the lines of the rogue, using the talent structure. That way you'd be able to get access to more abilities to customize the character without having to plod up several levels.

The Ranger is a good example of a class that could have been talentized. A lot of the features aren't necessarily worth unlocking at the levels they are given, but because the class can't frontload too much, you've got them rolling out at levels higher than they are worth. Something like Swiftracker is hardly an 8th level power. Rogues have a similar ability with stealth which they could take at 2nd level if the player so chooses. Endurance is a basic feat, but you have to go three levels to get it as a Ranger.

The Fighter, Barbarian and Rogue all are pretty modular characters in terms of what you want out of them, but they all have these quirky subsystems that define their modularity. If they'd been standardized more then you'd be able to have a much better building block system.

I guess in a lot of ways what I'm wishing for is a better way to handle the age old linear/quadratic problem. The martial classes in particular make you get funneled into more and more specialized routines, whereas the spellcasters keep becoming more broad and flexible. I like playing martial classes that are flexible, and putting aside the core system elements that make it hard to do that, being able to dip is an avenue to help with that.

randomhero00
2010-03-26, 03:54 PM
Yup, totally agree. Pathfinder's biggest failure is that they didn't take care of martial classes like they should have. Their feats have been heavily nerfed for some weaksauce class features and meh (compared to what casters get by then) crit feats that apply status effects.

harpy
2010-03-26, 04:39 PM
Another thing that I think could have helped make multiclassing more viable without interfering with the system much would have been fractional BAB.

It would be great to dip a level into both Monk and Rogue, but losing 2 BAB? That's brutal if you're trying to do some kind of martial character. If you wanted to spice things up with a level or Sorcerer or Cleric to make things more interesting and you're now down 3 BAB. That just shuts the whole build down, which is unfortunate as some interesting characters could get chiseled out of those combinations.