Favored class

[LordDeath666]

What does it mean to have a favored class

[Celestia]

Favored class plays into multiclassing. See, when you multiclass, you have to keep your classes within 1 level of each other or you suffer multiclass penalties on experience gain. So, for example, a Fighter 4/Ranger 3 is fine. A Fighter 4/Ranger 2, however, earns 20% less experience per encounter. This penalty also increases for each such class, so a Fighter 5/Ranger 3/Rogue 1 would be earning 40% less exp.

Favored class removes that class from the equation. So, for example, a dwarf who's favored class is Fighter, can freely multiclass with Fighter at no penalty. Neither a dwarven Fighter 4/Ranger 2 nor a dwarven Fighter 4/Ranger 2/Rogue 1 would have any multiclass penalty.

Of course, most people ignore multiclass penalties entirely, and if that's the case, then favored class does nothing.

[Goaty14]

Favored Class is the class that the designers felt that the race belonged to the most. I.e halflings have FC: Rogue because they thought they'd make good rogues (they do!). Humans and Half-Elves both have FC: Any because the designers figured that both of them could be slotted into any class reasonably well and etc.

Oh, and the dumb xp penalty, probably the #1 thing I'd convince my DM *not* to use, even if I never would encounter it anyways. At this point I've just forgotten about it anyways whenever considering a race/class combination.

[Darrin]

"Favored Class" is something of an artifact from the original 1st edition AD&D. At that time, there was no advantage to playing a plain ol' boring human. The non-human races all had racial abilities or advantages, and thus were much more popular with many players. To "fix" this, Gygax added "Class Level Limitations" for non-human races. Elves could only progress to 5th level fighter, unless they had very high Strength, in which case could get as high as 7th level fighter. Dwarves could not be druids, paladins, rangers, magic-users, or monks. Halflings could either be fighters (up to 6th level) or thieves (unlimited). Some of this was a hold-over from the white-box edition of D&D, where "Elf/Dwarf/Halfling" were not races but different classes entirely distinct from the other classes. To a certain extent, this engendered the idea that certain races were "good" at certain classes: Dwarves made good fighters, Elves were good at magic-user, and Halflings made very good thieves. Humans were the only race that had unlimited advancement in any class, and had exclusive access to the Paladin, Ranger, and Monk classes. Under the old 1st edition multi-class rules, non-humans were the only races that could multi-class into different classes, not necessarily because they were good at it, but because they were *forced* into it once they got into higher levels. Elves became fighter/magic-users because if you didn't want to take thief levels, those two classes were your only options, particularly at the higher levels. Dwarves became fighter/thieves because they didn't have any other options. Half-orcs became assassins because that was the only class they could take with no level cap. At the time, Gygax insisted that these level caps were necessary for "game balance", but most modern game designers look back on this klunky arrangement as one of the dumber rules in 1st edition AD&D.

2nd Edition AD&D kept the level caps at least in theory, possibly as a nod towards backward compatibility, but eased them somewhat with less restrictive classes and a "wink-wink" suggestion that maybe you could just ignore them as an optional rule? In practice, hardly anyone ever paid any attention to them outside of deliberately teasing old 1st-edition grognards.

In 3rd Edition, the designers introduced the idea of "Favored Class" mostly as a penalty to discourage multi-classing. They wanted to keep the idea that certain races favored certain classes: elves were good at wizard stuff, dwarves were good at fighter stuff, halflings were good at rogue stuff. Rather than cap the races at certain levels, they use an XP penalty to "slow" the PCs advancement. It's supposed to encourage certain races to fill a particular role based on some narrative or cultural stereotypes, and also supposed to encourage players to stick to "single class builds", but the designers didn't really anticipate some of the unintended consequences of the penalty. The biggest drawback is it perpetuates the dominance of spellcasters over mundane classes. Wizards/clerics/druids are usually penalized when they multiclass, as they may lose caster levels, and that throws off their "quadratic" power curve. Mundane classes have a more "linear" power curve, and by cherry-picking their way through dips into a lot of different base or prestige classes, they can wind up with much stronger PCs than a straight Fighter 20, Paladin 20, or Monk 20. For many mundane builds, multiclassing isn't minmaxing so much as it's a desperate attempt to stay relevant and useful in the mid-to-high levels.

For some DMs/designers, they hate multiclassing because it obfuscates what a PC is capable of: if you tell a DM you're playing an 8th level Fighter, then they have a ballpark idea of what the PC is capable of. If you tell a DM you're playing a Ranger 2/Monk 2/Sorcerer 1/Gothknight of Eldritch Wankery 3, it sounds like gibberish and the DM can't tell what your character concept or class abilities are supposed to be.

Pathfinder upends the 3rd edition favored class rules by abandoning the punitive system and using a minor reward instead. If you pick a class that is favored by your race, you get either +1 HP or +1 skill point. This is enough to encourage certain races to take certain classes, but is a small enough bonus that it doesn't make it overpowering.