exp penalty

[CryptbornAkryea]

1001+ ways to screw with your DM/Party

92. Enforce experience penalties for multiclassing


I'm interested in hearing how the playground feels about this particular mechanic.

Please, giants, have at!

[The Oni]

It's dumb, arbitrary, and discourages creativity in character design. Furthermore, it's both more complicated for the DM and the players to keep up with, and leads to characters falling behind and encounters becoming lopsided.

[Karnith]

I find the rule is immensely amusing, because it doesn't penalize multiclassing very effectively (and actually encourages dip-based builds), punishes organic character growth, does little to nothing to restrain power levels, and can lead to situations where a character is incapable of gaining XP.

I used to enforce the rule as a DM (well, "enforce;" I didn't think about it much, really), until someone actually ran into the penalty in a game and my group realized how silly it was.

[TheIronGolem]

Bad mechanic. Doesn't fulfill its intended purpose, heaps unnecessary penalties and stigma on players who aren't doing the very thing it purports to prevent, just generally gets in the way.

Multiclass XP penalties do for game balance what "take off your shoes and throw away your shampoo" does for airport security.

[CryptbornAkryea]

Can anyone defend it?
ie play devil's advocate

[Rubik]

Can anyone defend it?
ie play devil's advocateNot with a reasonable logical argument, no.* It literally does the exact opposite of what it intends to do, and forces the game in a stupid direction.




*ie, I'm sure there are some people here who will defend it to the death using their standard modus operandi.

[Karnith]

Can anyone defend it?
ie play devil's advocate
Enforcing it can be a way to encourage players to play certain races or classes, I guess? I have seen at least one person say that they like the rule because it favors Humans.
I hope that said person was kidding
It's not a good rule, and most people that I have seen defend it do so without realizing that the rule does not actually do what they want it to do or what it was supposed to do (be that limiting multiclassing, making more organic/elegant/"simple" builds, limiting power levels, or whatever).

[CryptbornAkryea]

An impressively bad mechanic then. That's what I was thinking; just needed some backing on it.

[nedz]

We used to enforce it until someone accidentally tripped over it, when we threw it away.

I actually prefer the PF version: carrot not stick — though I'm not sure that it makes any more sense really ?
I'm curious what other people think about the PF Favoured Class rule ?

[Necroticplague]

As a dude that loves dipping, I think the Multclass penalty is both hilarious and stupid. By working based on how far levels are from each other, it actually encourages dipping. One level in 20 base classes? No penalty. 2 levels monk, one rogue, 17 swashbuckler ("I want to be a guy who sneaks up on people and knocks them out with a punch to the back of the head")? Unless your favored class is swashbuckler or any, you have a penalty.

[Firechanter]

I used to use xp penalties; presently I don't DM any group myself, but if I should do it again in the future, I'll think about whether to keep or kick it. Or possibly change it.

In the past, the threat of suffering an XP penalty was basically equal to saying "You must... / you must not". Because nobody ever felt like actually taking the penalty.

Indeed, the rule favouring Humans (for most builds; sometimes it can go the other way) was one of the points why I kept it. I just don't particularly like my games being swamped with all kinds of exotic races.

Note how various spinoff systems have changed the multiclass rules in different ways.

Nowadays pretty much everyone knows Pathfinder. There, races don't have Favoured Classes, characters do. You decide at character creation what your FC is going to be. Whenever you take a level in your FC, you can pick a boon: either +1HP or +1 Skill point or some other special defined by your race. Prestige Classes can never be Favoured Classes.
This is supposed to take away the "punishment for multiclassing", but in practice we have seen that PF discourages multiclassing in different ways. So I don't consider this rule ideal, either.

In Conan D20 they followed a similar mindset: they don't want to punish you for multiclassing, but reward you for sticking to your FC. Here every race has one or two FCs (and a few have "Any"). When you take the 1st, 5th and 10th FC, you gain a bonus feat every time. If your race has more than one FC, levels in all FCs stack. Conan D20 doesn't have PrCs, btw.
I found this actually pretty swell. It does reward you for taking levels in your FC, but does not restrict multiclassing either. It is a very strong incentive to use at least 10 levels of your FC, but nothing keeps you from filling the other 10 levels with whatever combination you like.

If you used the Conan rule in a D&D game, pretty much everyone could pick up 1 or 2 bonus feats that way. Most people take 5 levels of a core class and then branch out to PrCs -- these would lose out on the 3rd bonus feat. So that extra feat might be a little incentive not to go overboard with PrCs, while on the other hand not being such a must-have as to make taking a PrC unreasonable.

One way or other, I would allow certain FC substitutions. For example, if a race has Favoured Class Fighter, they could substitute that for Crusader or Warblade. For Rogue, classes like Scout or Factotum should also work. And so on.

[No brains]

In thinking about the penalty, I started to think that in certain groups, the mechanic backfires spectacularly. If someone can get to a good build at the time when they can't gain any more XP, then they sort of "win D&D"; they become the strongest at their own power level and are never forced to move to higher CRs due to blocked advancement. If the DM plays the game in a very specific kind of 'fair' then they player will only get encounters appropriate for their level without ever needing to think about the eventual sub-op levels that loom in the future.

In a less warped and cheesy way, the 'penalty' can reward players who just want to play D&D longer at certain levels, and bizarrely penalize those who make magic items, who IIRC are usually single-class anyway.

[ArqArturo]

Something in between cat hisses and dice-throwing.

At leas that's my reaction to it.

[nedz]

As a dude that loves dipping, I think the Multclass penalty is both hilarious and stupid. By working based on how far levels are from each other, it actually encourages dipping. One level in 20 base classes? No penalty. 2 levels monk, one rogue, 17 swashbuckler ("I want to be a guy who sneaks up on people and knocks them out with a punch to the back of the head")? Unless your favored class is swashbuckler or any, you have a penalty.

Consider the Build A 1 / B 1 / C 1 / D 1 / E 1 / F 2; where none of these classes are your FC.
Take an extra level of class F — now you take 120% xp penalty.

[Eldariel]

In thinking about the penalty, I started to think that in certain groups, the mechanic backfires spectacularly. If someone can get to a good build at the time when they can't gain any more XP, then they sort of "win D&D"; they become the strongest at their own power level and are never forced to move to higher CRs due to blocked advancement. If the DM plays the game in a very specific kind of 'fair' then they player will only get encounters appropriate for their level without ever needing to think about the eventual sub-op levels that loom in the future.

In a less warped and cheesy way, the 'penalty' can reward players who just want to play D&D longer at certain levels, and bizarrely penalize those who make magic items, who IIRC are usually single-class anyway.

Does any DM ever actually cater CRs neatly just for the party level? I've yet to see a longer campaign where that's the case.

[HunterOfJello]

Experience penalties make sense in the context of playing a 2nd edition D&D game. The people who played 2e wrote 3e and gave everyone the ability to multiclass like crazy, but put a penalty in if you got too weird with it.

The idea was to encourage people to create more even builds where they would be half and half (Ex: Rogue 5/Sorcerer 4) instead of crazy all over the place (Ex:Fighter 1/Rogue 3/Sorcerer 5).

The idea was based on old ideologies and a very different game. It doesn't belong in 3.5 at all as a valid or even useful mechanic for what its intentions were.



(The writers were the same people who nerfed sorcerers by giving them a slower progression than wizards, longer metamagic casting times, and no class features at all. They obviously were too ingrained in 2e to see the foul beast of a game they had actually created.)

[FidgetySquirrel]

1001+ ways to screw with your DM/Party

92. Enforce experience penalties for multiclassing


I'm interested in hearing how the playground feels about this particular mechanic.

Please, giants, have at!Hey, it's that thread!

In all seriousness, I tried it, I hated it, I decided to use the PF FC system instead. After all, if Gobble the sorcerer 9/ bard 5 suddenly wants to take a level in barbarian, who the heck am I to stop the poor fool?

[the_other_gm]

I think the worst part is that it would theoretically hurt the already hurting non-casters more then the casters proper. Non-casters often dip in between their classes to make builds work: fighter is a 2-or-4 level class, after all. get those few feats, get out and continue with your build. a few levels of fighter complements most barbarian or ranger builds to help speed up the feats you need to be the best power attacker/charger/archer/grappler/tripper/whatever you can.

full casters, however, rarely MC anyways since the loss of caster level AND spell progression hurts them, gishes and theurges being the exception and those probably benefit more from being human in the first place.

so yeah, XP penalties are silly.

[eggynack]

full casters, however, rarely MC anyways since the loss of caster level AND spell progression hurts them, gishes and theurges being the exception and those probably benefit more from being human in the first place.

Not to mention the fact that, if you're dealing with a caster anyway, you're much better off dealing with a gish or theurge than their full casting cousins. It's a rule that incentivizes more optimized characters in most situations.

[Elkad]

I use it, but I've nerfed the hell out of it. -10% forever when you take your 3rd class, irregardless of how you split the levels. No additional penalties if you add more classes.

[Endril]

if the 20% penalty causes you to fall a level behind the party, you'll slowly catch back up with the party, as you gain 25-30% more exp (approximately... it jumps around a lot) for the same CR. Then you'll be the same level and fall behind again because of the penalty. So you basically spend the whole campaign switching between the party's level and one level below it. Not much of a penalty imo.

[gooddragon1]

I use it, but I've nerfed the hell out of it. -10% forever when you take your 3rd class, irregardless of how you split the levels. No additional penalties if you add more classes.

Shoddy attempt at advocating:

Imagine someone in a very low op game and you've got a monk, fighter, cleric who prepares only heal spells and has the healing domain and the sun domain (never picks spells from here) decides to take a 1 level dip in every full BAB class. Suddenly they have bonkers saves and a smattering of class features. The other guys have sub par characters and now they're like: OMG he has +10 fortitude at 5th level from base features. That's crazy.

Yeah, it's not great, but remember that the designers made this rule when they started 3.5 and thought that full BAB was so good and druids were balanced because they only get 3/4 BAB.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Just look at any study on negative vs positive reinforcement, and you'll see why it's a bad idea.

If you want to use anything of the sort, switch to a favored class xp bonus. Make it so if your most recent level gained was your race's favored class, you get a 5% bonus to xp gained until you gain another level. If that's also in your race's favored class, you continue gaining that xp bonus until you take a level in something other than your favored class. Humans and similar would be at a distinct advantage, and prestige classes would be slightly more difficult to level up through, but the catchup mechanic of lower level characters gaining more xp per encounter would keep it from getting out of hand.

[Elkad]

Shoddy attempt at advocating:

Imagine someone in a very low op game and you've got a monk, fighter, cleric who prepares only heal spells and has the healing domain and the sun domain (never picks spells from here) decides to take a 1 level dip in every full BAB class. Suddenly they have bonkers saves and a smattering of class features. The other guys have sub par characters and now they're like: OMG he has +10 fortitude at 5th level from base features. That's crazy.

Yeah, it's not great, but remember that the designers made this rule when they started 3.5 and thought that full BAB was so good and druids were balanced because they only get 3/4 BAB.

Well I use fractional Bab/saves too so the +10 fort wouldn't happen either.

[eggynack]

Well I use fractional Bab/saves too so the +10 fort wouldn't happen either.
The fractional save rules don't stop high saves from multiclassing. In fact, they cause them to be higher, cause the initial bonus is 2.5 instead of 2. You can see for yourself by looking at the examples listed.

[LordBlades]

Personally I feel it sucks and as such never use it. As it's been said it doesn't fulfill it's goal (a fighter 1/wizard x must be a certain race to avoid xp penalties but a uy of any race that dips 1 level in any class never gets penalties) and it promotes stereotypes.

[Thurbane]

I'm going against the flow - my groups have always enforced this rule, and never found it a major hindrance.

Then again, my group don't multiclass a great deal, or cherry pick level dips.

Different strokes for different folks.

[eggynack]

I'm going against the flow - my groups have always enforced this rule, and never found it a major hindrance.

Then again, my group don't multiclass a great deal, or cherry pick level dips.

Different strokes for different folks.
It's pretty rare that it's going to be a hindrance if you know what you're doing. That's part of why it's stupid. It's only players who think that taking more than two levels in fighter (without ACF's) is the bee's knees that get hit in the face.

[Firechanter]

I use it, but I've nerfed the hell out of it. -10% forever when you take your 3rd class, irregardless of how you split the levels. No additional penalties if you add more classes.

I don't think that's actually "nerfed". I would perceive this as more of a ban of combining more than 2 classes. Sure, 10% isn't the world, but it's 10% I wouldn't want to get taken away from me.

Again, the typical problem with limiting MC is that it hurts mundanes while casters just don't care. Casters already get rewarded so much for staying in their main class (or taking PrCs) that they hardly ever get tempted to multiclass (exceptions of Gish and Theurge have been mentioned). Mundanes, unless they happen to be Warblades, practically have to multiclass to be decent at their job.

--

Be that as it may. You want baatezu's advocate? Here goes:

The MC XP penalty rule as written is not as bad as it is made out to be on these boards. Practically all groups I've known use it.
First off, it benefits races with Favoured Class: Any, i.e. primarily Humans. It's not that humans would be underpowered otherwise, it's that they are the predominant race in most fantasy settings, and I think this should be reflected in party composition as well. I want my adventuring party to be iconic, not a wandering freak show.

Secondly, it adds another dimension to character building. It's not just "How do I optimize the **** out of this guy?" but also "...while avoiding that xp penalty". It makes things a bit harder, but as a player I actually like it.

Then there's the question of "positive vs negative reinforcement" -- granted, carrot is better than stick, but at some point the absence of carrot becomes the equivalent of stick and vice versa.
Having Favoured Classes by Race and actively rewarding taking FCs promotes stereotypes. That can be desired or not, but if Dwarves get a bunch of boons for being Fighters, you'll very rarely see any Dwarf that is _not_ a Fighter.
Compared to that, by the standard rule, there is no downside to playing a Dwarf of any other class, as long as you stick with that one class (or dip only into Fighter). We see that every day with Elves, whose Favoured Class is one they are woefully unfit for (in 3.5).

We also see something similar in Pathfinder. Here, FC is not tied to Race; you can pick whatever you like. However, PF players hardly ever multiclass. Why? Well, I think it's partly because the boons you get for staying single-class are so significant that they are too good to pass up on. Depending on your build, it can amount to ~20% more HP or even up to 100% more skill points.
[Aside: another reason is that Paizo has actively backloaded the PF classes to make dipping ineffective; you'd have to take so many levels you'd give up too much stuff on your main class.]

So, we see that xp penalties are not so bad at all: they do not punish the thinking player (and here we have the converse, the absence of stick becomes a carrot of its own), they still allow for plenty of variety, do not perpetuate racial stereotypes, and may even keep your party from devolving into a sideshow of monstrosities.

There, are you happy now? ;)

[eggynack]

First off, it benefits races with Favoured Class: Any, i.e. primarily Humans. It's not that humans would be underpowered otherwise, it's that they are the predominant race in most fantasy settings, and I think this should be reflected in party composition as well. I want my adventuring party to be iconic, not a wandering freak show.
Humans are more than not underpowered. They're one of the most powerful races in the game, solid on any build in existence, and they tend to only come in second to other races that are specifically synergistic with their class. You're never doing wrong if you pick human. I think this may be solving a problem that does not exist.


Secondly, it adds another dimension to character building. It's not just "How do I optimize the **** out of this guy?" but also "...while avoiding that xp penalty". It makes things a bit harder, but as a player I actually like it.
Adding dimensions to character building in this fashion is a bit of a value neutral thing, as it's so arbitrary. You could easily swap it out for some other arbitrary rule, like, "If three classes you take in a row are in reverse alphabetical order, then you take a 20% XP penalty until you take a class that alters that trend. Taking a fourth class in that fashion increases the penalty by 10%, and so on," and you'd have a rule with the same degree of value. Complexity has a cost, and when you use it for something like this, you'd better make sure that you're incentivizing something you actually want to incentivize.


So, we see that xp penalties are not so bad at all: they do not punish the thinking player (and here we have the converse, the absence of stick becomes a carrot of its own), they still allow for plenty of variety, do not perpetuate racial stereotypes, and may even keep your party from devolving into a sideshow of monstrosities.
They are bad, and to some extent, for a few of those very reasons. The fact of the matter is, these rules are often completely ineffectual, not hurting most builds that get put together on these boards. It's not because of this rule either, because you could eliminate it entirely, and you'd end up in about the same place. This is a rule that only hits players that don't optimize particularly well, not because the "thinking player" really had to think his way out of this diabolical trap, but because the path incentivized is one that optimized characters take anyway.

It's a rule that hurts the characters you should least want to hurt, because those are the characters that are already the weakest in the game. If there's still plenty of variety, then it's because the rule does almost nothing in any direction. If there isn't a sideshow of monstrosities, then it's because the players didn't want to use those races in the first place. The multiclassing penalty rule does exactly one thing, and that thing is stupid.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

The pathfinder FC is certainly interesting, but can actually be a lot more harmful than the terribly thought out wizards rule, because the FC rule negatively effects every multiclass while the 3.5 rule often has no effect on multiclass builds that were made with no regard for it. Pathfinder already has much greater motivation to single class a character with many classes having key abilities that scale with class level and nothing else.

As in 3.5 mundanes stand to gain the most from dipping, so the FC is basically rewarding the Wizard for taking more Wizard levels while making mundanes choose between dipping or an extra HP. It could be viewed as helping balance dippers and non-dippers, but as with many caster nerfs that get tossed out it encourages more aggresive optimization; cool flavorful dips are out leaving only those that give 2 or more feat equivalents.

[Amphetryon]

I'm fascinated by the notion that the XP penalty is being cited as 'encouraging folks to play Humans.' Regardless of how fantastic you wish the Races in your Fantasy Role-Playing Game to be, I'd think the last thing you needed was another mechanical incentive to play Human in 3e/3.5e.

[prufock]

My group completely ignores it, and just eliminated "favored class" as a thing.

[Honest Tiefling]

I prefer to ignore it. If the DM wants to encourage something, I'd rather they outright say it or the fluff the world so I'd want to play a human. I don't find Favored Classes very immersive for standard fantasy races if it penalizes dwarven clerics or elven archers. That said, I am not fond of the Pathfinder system, as I feel some bonuses are waaaaaaay better then others while others are pretty meh.

I guess in the end I don't care how many classes the character has on their sheet, as long as the end result is coherent enough in play.

[RedMage125]

As far as the reasoning behind it...

Previous editions had racial limitations for demihuman races and certain classes (or the race WAS the class, in BECMI). In 2e, for example, Dwarves could only be Fighters, Clerics, and Thieves, and could advance to level 15, 10, and 12 respectively in those classes. Half-Elves could be just about anything but a Paladin (and certain Specialty Wizards), and still had racial level limitations (except for Bard). Humans could be any class and had unlimited advancement. Having a higher prime stat could raise your level cap by up to 3 levels.

Now, that, too was a rule a lot of groups did not play with. In fact, even though I never played a 2e game where we had players HIT that cap, the DM made it clear that there was no cap (but there were still race/class restrictions).

Now come 1999/2000 and enter 3e (now known as 3.0). 3e was (and is) the successor to 2e. So much of the game was focused on making it FEEL the same, but making the mechanics make more sense, and allowing for greater customization and variety. Level caps? Gone. Race/Class Restrictions? Gone. But in order to create a feeling of "these races have a marked preference for these classes", Favored Class mechanic was born. If you compare your 2nd edition DMG, Chapter 2, Table 7 (Racial Class and Level Limits) to 3e Favored Classes, you will note that the class in which those races could advance the highest in 2e was their FC in 3.0. Here it should be noted that in 3.0, a Gnomes's FC was Illusionist, not Bard.

Like many people here, I don't see it often used. In fact, I have been playing 3e since 3.0 was brand-new, and I have only ever seen the rule enforced by one DM (and that was about 2 years ago), and even that guy has since reconsidered.

I do like what PF did, though. While 1 or 2 levels dips can be fun, I'm kind of old-school and I don't see a character who's A1/B1/C1/D1/E1/F2 as having much character identity. So I don't mind that PF's method sort of encourages single-classing. Hell, they gave every base class some kind of capstone (some worth more than others), so they're definitely trying to encourage single-classing (or at least make it a somewhat attractive option).


Can anyone defend it?
ie play devil's advocate

Defend it? I guess the defense would be if you want to enforce a "classic D&D" feel to your games. The Favored Class almost seems a way to "punish" people who want to multiclass in a manner that does not enforce racial stereotypes (or partial adherence to them).

When I first started DMing, I threw out FC rules and re-imposed race/class restrictions. I was less strict than 2e, but some races I did not let be certain classes (unless a player could provide an exceptional backstory to explain why such a member of X race was Y class). As I grew more experienced as a DM, I realized what a terrible idea that was and ditched it.


... irregardless of how you split the levels.

This...this is not a word. And if it was, the way double negatives work in English, it would mean the opposite of what you meant.

You wanted the word "regardless" or "irrespective".

[Rubik]

irregardlessI don't think that word means what you think it means.*




*If you think it means anything, you're quite wrong.

[Elkad]

irregardless


I don't think that word means what you think it means.*

*If you think it means anything, you're quite wrong.

It's not proper, but it has a meaning, and it means exactly what I meant it to.

[Rubik]

It's not proper, but it has a meaning, and it means exactly what I meant it to."Anti-regardless"? What exactly does that mean?

[eggynack]

"Anti-regardless"? What exactly does that mean?
Maybe regardful, or something of that variety? Definitely not the intended meaning there. Also, it looks like my computer's spellchecker underlines regardful, and doesn't care about irregardless, which is silly. It is a particularly silly non-word, as it's one of the ones which seems to have come into existence on the basis of it sounding smart, instead of one of as a member of the other variety, born of apathy.

[Elkad]

Definition of IRREGARDLESS

nonstandard
: regardless

[RedMage125]

Or, you could, you know, use the proper word. Even the Online Dictionary you quoted for that further down says "use 'regardless' instead".

So why not use "regardless", or, if you want the extra syllable, use "irrespective"? Both mean the same thing.

[Rubik]

"It is a particularly silly non-word, as it's one of the ones which seems to have come into existence on the basis of it sounding smart"

Unfortunately, using it has the exact opposite effect.

[Synar]

This thread derailing...

So beautiful.

[nedz]

But, we this is the first such derail irregardless.

[the_other_gm]

But, we this is the first such derail irregardless.

"But, we this is the first such derail irregardless."
-Nedz 21/06/14, Unrepentantly murdering the English language

[Knaight]

Experience as a mechanic is odious enough as is - there's a bunch of accounting because the numbers are arbitrarily large (Seriously, it could have been 10 experience to level 2 instead of 1000, which makes it a lot less accounting heavy), and it's just a morass of tedious and simple math based on multiple table look-ups. The last thing it needs is yet another bit of accounting tossed onto the end of it in the form of keeping track of an exp penalty and doing some multiplication.

I mean, if I was trying to make a mechanic to slow down the game after every combat and create a break, I don't think I could do better than the experience system and experience penalty.

[nedz]

"But, we this is the first such derail irregardless."
-Nedz 21/06/14, Unrepentantly murdering the English language

-the_other_gm 21/06/14, Learning about Sarcasm.

[Synar]

I would like to point out that my intervention was in no way intended to derail the thread further. In fact, I had hoped it would have the opposite effect.

This post, however...