What are the limits of cross classing and other things?

[WolvesbaneIII]

ok, I'm reading oots and I see that nale cross classed and such, with the one guy suggesting he sort of screwed himself by doing so.

I can only assume its some sort of meta xp kind of thing. I have some questions, and am curious.

1-What are the limits of cross classing? how many can you cross over to?

2- could you do all of them and if so...

3-what are the drawbacks of cross classing in general?

4-would a cross classed character with say 10 levels os fighter and 10 levels of wizard beat 1 fighter level 10 and 1 level 10 wizard team? supposing you had both teams optimized for general purposes, not to take down the other team, in your opinion.

5-any interesting tidbits on cross classing? would you recommend cross classing as a general thing like 2 or 3 spell caster classes, or specialize in 1 class and see it through to the highest level you can get ina campaign?

6-any interesting stories of your own campaign? in regards to cross classing or not cross classing and how it doomed/saved the party.

[Maat Mons]

The big problem with cross-classing is that class features can and should get better the further into a class you get.

Some classes, like Fighter, get features at level 20 that are no different from features available at 1st level. These classes suck. Or, at least, they suck when compared to good classes. Classes that get better at higher levels.

Here's the classic example to illustrate the problem. Let's imagine you built a Wizard 10 / Cleric 10. You'd get 0th through 5th-level spells from Wizard. And then you'd get 0th through 5th-level spells again from Cleric.

Alternately, if you played a Wizard 20, you'd get 0th through 5th-level spells from Wizard, and then you'd get 6th through 9th-level spells from more Wizard. Getting 6th through 9th-level spells is far better than getting 0th through 5th-level spells a second time. So clearly you want to stay wizard.

This is why prestige classes exist. They can't be started until higher level, so they can start out giving abilities that are suitable for high-level characters. Without this, any high-level character starting a new class would start by getting features suitable to a 1st-level character. Abilities suitable to a 1st-level character are much weaker than abilities suitable to a high-level character.

Now, some classes are exceptions to this. For example, Fighter, as previously mentioned, is so terrible that, even at level 20, you're only getting features suitable for a 1st-level character. Nothing even close to being suitable for a 20th-level character. So why not multiclass? You'll be horribly weak for your level, but that was already going to happen anyway.

But if you're taking a good class, a class that progresses, instead of stagnating, you'll want to keep on improving that. Or you'll want to rake a prestige class that stacks with your base class for the important things. Like something that says "+1 level spellcasting" in the advancement table. Or you'll want to take a prestige class that starts you on a new progression that's also good, and is just as good as what you're giving up by not progressing your base class.

[InvisibleBison]

1-What are the limits of cross classing? how many can you cross over to?

There are no inherent limits to multiclassing. Technically, there's a rule that if the difference between your levels in one class and in another class is greater than 2 you suffer an xp penalty, but it's such a bad rule that the overwhelming majority of people simply ignore it.


2- could you do all of them and if so...

I'm pretty sure that, between the PHB and various splatbooks, there are more than twenty base classes. But in an epic game there's nothing stopping you from taking a level in every base class (other than your inability to actually survive long enough to earn the necessary XP, of course - see the next point).


3-what are the drawbacks of cross classing in general?

In general, higher class levels give you more powerful abilities than lower class levels (at least, for well-designed classes like wizards or swordsages). Thus, extensive multiclassing is swapping one kind of high-level ability for another kind of low-level ability - not a good idea. Note that this primarily applies to spellcasters. Martial characters, who generally don't get impressive class features, benfit much more able to multiclass extensively, as they have less to lose from doing so.

The above is primarily talking about multiclassing between base classes. Prestige classes are a whole different situation, as they're designed to be taken at higher levels and have level-appropriate benefits (again, assuming that they were well-designed).


4-would a cross classed character with say 10 levels os fighter and 10 levels of wizard beat 1 fighter level 10 and 1 level 10 wizard team? supposing you had both teams optimized for general purposes, not to take down the other team, in your opinion.

I'd say a wizard 10/fighter 10 is all but guaranteed to beat a wizard 10 and a fighter 10, mostly because as a 20th level character she'd have almost 6 times as much money and thus would be able to buy better gear, both in quality and quantity. The actual benefits of having ten levels of fighter would be largely irrelevant to the outcome of the fight.


5-any interesting tidbits on cross classing? would you recommend cross classing as a general thing like 2 or 3 spell caster classes, or specialize in 1 class and see it through to the highest level you can get ina campaign?

I'd say that for spellcasters, your best bet is to stick with one base class and one or more prestige classes that complement what you want to do. For a martial character, taking one or two levels in several classes can be beneficial, as a lot of martial classes are heavily front-loaded.


6-any interesting stories of your own campaign? in regards to cross classing or not cross classing and how it doomed/saved the party.

Not really, no. I don't think I've actually played in a game where anyone multiclassed.

[Godofallu]

Cross classing with like a fighter or barbarian is very good if you know what you're doing and have a plan. With most spellcasters it is very bad.

For example a Fighter 2/ Barbarian 2 is probably better than a Fighter 4. But a Druid 2/ Wizard 2 is silly and worse than a Druid 4 or Wizard 4.

You can lookup dip handbook for 3.5 as an example of things you can get from dipping only a few levels in a class. Some builds may wish do multiclass a lot to grab a ton of low lvl class features. Some builds may never want to take a second class.

[Particle_Man]

Well I remember being in a party with a frenzied berserker and I started multiclassing to be able to tank the frenzied berserker. 😀

Currently I am playing a cloistered cleric 3/incarnate 1/sapphire Hierarch and loving it. The prestige class has flavour and losing a single level of cleric ain’t so bad compared to cool benefits I am getting.

[Biggus]

It depends what type of character you're playing. As InvisibleBison says, martial classes can often benefit from multiclassing assuming you're ignoring XP penalties as some of them are front-loaded with good class features.

For example, two levels of Fighter gets you two bonus feats and proficiency with all armour and shields and all simple and martial weapons. Paladin gets all its class features in the first five levels. One level of Barbarian gets you rage (and pounce if you take the Lion Totem variant). Two levels of Ranger gets you two bonus feats and a favoured enemy.

You can also dip into Rogue for sneak attack and evasion in the first two levels (take the Craven feat and your sneak attack will continue to increase with your total character level). One level of Cleric gets you two domain powers, turn undead (which can be used to power divine feats) and the ability to use wands containing Cleric spells. Even two levels of the much-maligned Monk gets you three bonus feats, evasion and +3 to all three saving throws.

While I've never seen anybody take all those classes at once, I've often seen people dip into one or more of them. For example, one campaign I'm currently running has a Ranger 11/Rogue 3/ Barbarian 1 in it, who's a significantly more effective combatant than if he'd stayed straight Ranger.

Full caster classes on the other hand are almost never better off multiclassing for the reasons Maat Mons mentions. There are prestige classes which mean you can make not-terrible multiclass casters, but they're still at least a little weaker in pretty much every case. Dweomerkeeper might be one exception, but that's because its class features are ridiculously good.

[WolvesbaneIII]

A lot of good answers so far.

The only question that was not really answered in spirit was the level 10 fighter/10 wizard vs a 10 fighter and 10 wizard.

The answer given was quite good and answered a different level of question than what I meant.

let me elaborate, though know the answer given was something I can appreciate.

Assuming the 10/10 cross classed character with the same gear fights the 10 and 10 wizard and fighter duo, which has the better chance of winning? usually?

this all really depends on what they have equipped, what spells, etc etc, but because this is a broad question in general, I'll understand if the answer can't really be answered on the basis of too vague.

lets say you statted each side up, with the same equipment pool to draw from.

and it doesn't have to be a wizard and fighter, it could be any 2 classes so long as they are the same 2 to the 3 people.

What is your opinion on that?

[ShurikVch]

Morgan Ironwolf - example "Advanced Adventurer" from "Ecology of the Adventurer" article (Dragon #342, April 2006) - is Neutral Human Barbarian 2/Cleric 1/Fighter 2/Monk 2/Paladin 2/Ranger 2/Rogue 2/Sorcerer 4/Assassin 1/Shadow Dancer 2

[tyckspoon]

Assuming the 10/10 cross classed character with the same gear fights the 10 and 10 wizard and fighter duo, which has the better chance of winning? usually?


So D&D 3.5 has a concept generally known as Wealth By Level. What it essentially sums up to is that in this particular game, a character's equipment is actually part of their progression just as much as their class levels - a level 20 character should have stuff appropriate to being level 20, and that stuff is going to make up a major part of that character's overall power. Restricting the 10/10 cross-class to just level 10 equivalent stuff is a pretty significant handicap.

The 10/10 split classer is still going to have some advantages - they will have the hit points, save bonuses, skill points, and attack bonus of a level 20 character. Depending on what the exact split is that can be a significant numeric bump over the 2 level 10 characters - the level 10 characters may find themselves having a hard time affecting the 10/10 split with saving-throw based abilities, or being hit by the 10/10s attacks a lot more easily than they would expect.

I think the answer for who would win that fight depends a lot on what the 10/10 split actually is. Two classes that offer synergy can probably leverage their higher level-based bonuses to win, and being stuck with level 10 equipment isn't as big an issue because they can make best use of what they get. 2 classes that don't combine well (like the Fighter/Wizard you started with - outside of some fairly specific tactics you don't do Fighter stuff and Wizard stuff at the same time, they want completely different gear, and the stats Wizards are good at don't have overlap with the stats Fighters are good at, so you just wind up kind of mediocre at everything) will probably lose out to the 2 level 10 characters, because both of those level 10s are going to be at least as good as the level 20 at what they do and they'll have the advantage of better action economy to pair against the level 20's sort of higher individual numbers. (Much like what happens when a party fights a boss, actually - being 1.5x times better than any individual party member doesn't win you the fight when you are dealing with being outnumbered 2 to 5 times over.)

[mattie_p]

A lot of good answers so far.

The only question that was not really answered in spirit was the level 10 fighter/10 wizard vs a 10 fighter and 10 wizard. <snip>

Assuming the 10/10 cross classed character with the same gear fights the 10 and 10 wizard and fighter duo, which has the better chance of winning? usually?

<snip again>

What is your opinion on that?

The question is based upon a flawed premise and really can't be answered in the manner you are choosing. So I'll attempt to re-phrase and answer.

Let's say for the sake of argument you have a Fighter 10 (Fig 5 / Prestige Class 5) and a Wizard 10 (Wiz 5 / Prestige 5). The martial type can attack twice per round and the magical type can attack once per round and has 5th level spells at their disposal. Opposite of these two strapping adventurers is a single cross-class opponent. This one is a Human Paragon 1/Fighter 1/Wizard 2/Human Paragon +2/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/(INSERT DIP HERE) 1-4/Eldritch Knight 4-7 (one example of several from the The Gish Handbook (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?321715-The-Gish-Handbook)). This character has 4 attacks per round and access to 9th level spells.

In this case the cross-classed "gish" has capabilities that far surpasses the combined strengths of the two individuals. Intelligently chosen multiclassing arrangements can offer synergy that provides added flexibility that combines the strengths of multiple classes.

But it isn't really fair under any circumstance (well, maybe a few) to pair 2 level 10 characters (encounter level 12) against a single level 20 opponent (encounter level 20).

[Maat Mons]

In the case of one X 10 / Y 10 vs one X 10 and one Y10, ignoring the benefits of wealth-by-level...

The group of two gets twice as many actions per turn as the lone individual. The lone individual has bigger numbers than either member of the group of two.

The two sides have the same options available to them. If you pick, for the comparison, classes that have good options available, like Cleric and Wizard, I think the side with more actions each turn will likely win.

The team of one Wizard 10 and one Cleric 10 can throw out a 5th-level Wizard spell and a 5th-level Cleric spell in a single turn. The lone Cleric 10 / Wizard 10 can either throw out a 5th-level Wizard spell or a 5th-level Cleric spell, not both.

If you pick classes that get next to nothing as they advance in level except for bigger numbers, like Barbarian and Fighter, then I think the side with bigger numbers will likely win.

If the Fighter 10 / Barbarian 10 focuses all his attacks on the Fighter, or focuses all his attacks on the Barbarian, then he should be able to kill that member of the duo while he still has half his hit points left. At this point, the duo, now a solo act, has had its offensive capabilities cut in half. But the Fighter 10 / Barbarian 10 fights just as effectively at half HP as he does at full HP. So now he's at an overwhelming advantage.

[WolvesbaneIII]

alright, you guys did a great job at answerign my question, and I agree it was a flawed premise to begin with but you well regarless.

Thanks!