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View Full Version : Multiclassing: Useful skill or waste of time?



Raistlin1040
2007-04-18, 09:29 PM
I was talking to a friend of mine about classes and he stated he wanted to play a Barbarian/Cleric. I tried to show him some reasons why that would put him at a disadvantage, but he didn't care. RPing aside, do you consider Multiclassing generally useful in battles or a waste? This doesn't include "cherrypicking" a level for a prestige class qualification. I'm talking Class 1X and Class 2X

Eldritch_Ent
2007-04-18, 09:40 PM
Well, in some cases it CAN lead to horrific power abuse. (Like, say, taking levels in War Hulk and Hulking Hurler... Gah.) But for the most part it just comes down to the PC knowing what he's doing or not.

Zincorium
2007-04-18, 09:44 PM
Err, the examples you give, Mojotech, are Prcs and thus a bit different.

As far as multiclassing with base classes, the system isn't very supportive of it. Devoting all of your levels to a single class can be either frustrating (paladin) because you get all the new abilities up front, or vital (druid) because otherwise your options in combat suffer. In general, it hurts much less to multiclass out of the melee characters than spellcasters, since BAB and hit points keep accumulating to some degree no matter what you go into, while spellcasting isn't increased unless you continue with the same base class or go into a PrC that continues progressing it.

BardicDuelist
2007-04-20, 08:40 PM
Certain multiclass options are useful (barbarian with 2 ftr. levels) while others (like the one above) generally aren't. I suppose one level of barbarian won't hurt too much, as rage can be useful, but any more and you sacrifice way too much casting.

OzymandiasVolt
2007-04-20, 08:42 PM
It depends entirely on what two classes we're talking about.

Dhavaer
2007-04-20, 08:44 PM
Generally it's a much better idea for combatants than casters, because BAB stacks and caster level doesn't. Ranger/Rogue, for instance, isn't going to be particularly more or less powerful than a Ranger or a Rogue.

Hazkali
2007-04-21, 11:42 AM
Fighter 2/ Ranger3 is another good build. 5 feats for 5 levels.

It depends on whether the Barbarian is a) the only melee character in the party and b) if his cleric levels will be the only cleric levels in the party. If he is the only melee character then the cleric levels aren't a good choice. However, if he's going to be the only divine caster in the party, taking a couple of cleric levels (enough to dish out the healing) isn't going to hurt him too much because of the cleric's reasonable BAB.

Plus the idea of a barbarian/cleric is really cool....

:smallbiggrin:

magicwalker
2007-04-21, 12:21 PM
Rage Healer, heh.

Annarrkkii
2007-04-21, 12:51 PM
The idea of a barbarian/cleric, while cool, is crude, sine the cleric can't cast in a rage—nor can he turn undead or use magic items. In addition, he's dropping a level of spells to gain a 1/day class ability that nerfs his other class abilities.

But in some cases, multiclassing can be kinda nifty. Fighter/Rogues are generally decent, Scout/Barbarians or Scout/Rangers can work semiwell, Sorcerer/Monks are actually brutal with Ascetic Mage...

InaVegt
2007-04-21, 01:04 PM
The idea of a barbarian/cleric, while cool, is crude, sine the cleric can't cast in a rage—nor can he turn undead or use magic items. In addition, he's dropping a level of spells to gain a 1/day class ability that nerfs his other class abilities.

But in some cases, multiclassing can be kinda nifty. Fighter/Rogues are generally decent, Scout/Barbarians or Scout/Rangers can work semiwell, Sorcerer/Monks are actually brutal with Ascetic Mage...

Look at it this way, after the usual buffs for CoDzilla he starts to rage as a free action, yet another buff and the only thing it has cost him is a couple of spells, most of which he doesn't use anyway.

Person_Man
2007-04-21, 01:22 PM
Don't think of the classes as careers or roles or archtypes. Think of them as a discrete set categories that can be added up in different ways. Hit points, BAB, Saves, Skills, Feats, special abilities, spellcasting off of list X, spellcasting off of list Y, etc.

From a strictly crunch point of view, your goal is to pick a party role, figure out what categories need to be maximized in order to accomplish that role, and then find the class or combination of classes and feats to maximize those categories. Usually, that almost always involves taking two prestige classes, and it sometimes involves multi-classing as well. Multi-classing is particularly prevalent with melee and Skill builds, as they don't have to worry about screwing their caster progression. Melee builds just have to worry about full BAB, hit points, feats, and some abilities. Skill builds just have to accumulate a critical mass of Skill points in certain Skills, and then they have to decide what else they want to do with themselves.

Once you've maximized the proper categories, you can then create whatever fluff you want around that build. For example, your friend could just be a Cleric of Kord who uses the Rage spell a lot, and he'd be a lot more effective that a Barbarian/Cleric. And the fluff could be exactly the same.

Having said that, there's absolutely nothing wrong with playing a weak build. The DM can always adjust the difficulty of encounters. And many people actually prefer it, because they see classes as archtypes, not crunch. Problems only arise when you have a group of players playing optimized and non-optimized builds in the same party. Then players tend to grow to resent each other.

This problem is solved with beer. Or by creating your characters collaboratively with each other before the campaign starts. Or both.

Aquillion
2007-04-21, 11:37 PM
In general, it's almost always ok to multiclass out of fighter, especially into anything else that grants full BAB, because it's not like you get anything extra on putting a new level in fighter for having all those previous levels in the class--fighter level 20 gives you the exact same thing fighter level 2 did. In particular, of course, it's almost always a good idea to take a level or two in a class like ranger if it grants a feat you were going to spend your fighter bonus feat on anyway; then you'll still get the feat and the BAB, plus whatever fringe benefits the class offers at first or second level, and often better skills or saves than a fighter ('cause it's not like anyone has worse.)

That might be more an example of the problems with fighters than anything else, though...

Justin_Bacon
2007-04-21, 11:57 PM
I was talking to a friend of mine about classes and he stated he wanted to play a Barbarian/Cleric. I tried to show him some reasons why that would put him at a disadvantage, but he didn't care. RPing aside, do you consider Multiclassing generally useful in battles or a waste? This doesn't include "cherrypicking" a level for a prestige class qualification. I'm talking Class 1X and Class 2X

It depends.

Multiclassing spellcasters? Always underpowered.

Multiclassing classes with BAB = HD? Frequently useful.

For example, a barbarian's rage is as useful if not more useful than any feat. So if you're playing a fighter it probably just makes sense to dip in for a level of barbarian. And, in fact, I've seen many different players build various fighter/barbarian builds. Such builds are universally more powerful than a straight barbarian build, IME.

I had one campaign where basically everybody started with a level of rogue in order to benefit from the x4 skill points at 1st level. That was a little weird, but it seemed to work out for the most part. The melee fighters suffered an effective -1 penalty to their BAB, but gained a +1d6 sneak attack. The spellcasters probably got the worst of it again, but I run a campaign where skill use is highly rewarded on a frequent basis so even they didn't suffer too much.

PrCs, as you say, are a completely different kettle of fish. Spellcasters pretty much are TEH WIN when you deal with PrCs. Particularly arcane casters: "So... I get every single useful ability I would have gotten anyway? Plus a whole bunch of really awesome abilities on top of that?"

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

Tor the Fallen
2007-04-22, 12:12 AM
For example, a barbarian's rage is as useful if not more useful than any feat.

An ability you can use once per day that leaves you winded afterwards? Going to have to disagree....

Machete
2007-04-22, 02:21 AM
I suppose it depends on whether you are going for power or flexibility for a forte.

Consider the Cleric with 2 Ninja levels. Without armor he can turn invisible with ki whilst unarmored, do extra damage(kinda dependant on invisibility), and has a nice touch AC (unarmored and assuming high wisdom).

While for your average cleric encased in 3 inches of mithril this doesn't mean a whole lot usually consider what would happen if the party sneak were disabled or the party were captured and their gear taken away or even going up against a spellcaster using lots of ray attacks. Ninja cleric then seems really nifty.

Justin_Bacon
2007-04-22, 02:51 AM
An ability you can use once per day that leaves you winded afterwards? Going to have to disagree....

A +2 to hit and damage that stacks with Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization even at low levels where it makes a big difference? If rage was the only thing you were getting, it wouldn't be so powerful that it's a clear winner.

But the dip also comes with fast movement (+10 to base speed), extra skill points, and a better HD. Pick up an Extra Rage feat to make the most of the build and you've got a lot of advantages.

And since the fighter only picks up a bonus feat every other level, you're only behind a single-classed fighter of the same level 50% of the time when it comes to bonus feats. And even then you've got the rage, fast movement, extra skill points, and extra hit points to make up for it. (The other 50% of the time you and the fighter have the exact same number of bonus feats and you still have the rage, fast movement, extra skill points, and extra hit points.)

I'm not saying its the one-and-only way to build a character, but it's a pretty effective option as mild optimizations go.

The way it usually ends up going is Extra Rage as a feat (so that the rage can essentially be used in every encounter for the day) and then a mild investment in a Constitution boost item (so that you are essentially never fatigued because the rage lasts longer than a typical encounter). Spending a feat on Extra Rage ends up putting you permanently behind the single-classed fighter in terms of feats, but the rages end up being so useful at that point that it doesn't matter.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

warmachine
2007-04-22, 06:19 AM
Have to agree with others. The correct class to multiclass with Cleric is Cleric. Class power of spell casters is exponential against level, not linear. Level four cleric plus level four barbarian is less than level eight cleric. If the game is combat intensive and unforgiving, tell him the maths works against him.

Tor the Fallen
2007-04-22, 07:26 PM
snip

I misunderstood you. Yeah, multiclass fighter/barb is pretty good.