When Duskblade came it out it removed the need for some of the dabbling you’d do to take things like Dragon Disciple…

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and a Halfling Paladin 2/ Monk 1/ Bard 1, a level 4 character with at LEAST +5 for each save, not particularly good in other respects but considering the amount of balance put into each class’ save progression, this breaks it right away.

As far as missing with 90% of your prayers goes, this should not be the case.

Let’s say the Ranger has an 18 Str. At level 4, that would give him a +9 bonus to hit with longswords (+3 weapon, +2 half level). Let’s also say this allows him to hit, oh, 70% of the time.

Since the Cleric and Ranger don’t have any difference in “Base Attack Bonus” (1/2 level) any more, it all comes down to weapon and stats.

So, if you’re going for a Battle Cleric, I assume you’re focusing on Strength and melee powers. Let’s say (conservatively, as it would be your primary [or secondary at worst] stat, and you got a bonus to it so it should probably be higher) your Str is 14 (+2) and you’re using a Mace (+2).

This gives you an attack bonus of +6. You will miss 3/20 of the time more than your ranger friend. Since every +1 is a 5% chance to hit, you will miss 15% more often, and using the theoretical numbers above you should hit 55% of the time.

If you’re missing with 90% of your attacks, that’s just bad dice.

If you want to improve your attack percentages, ask your DM to let you respec your stats to a higher Strength. (What is your Strength, by the way?)

While in 4e you can’t pick up a different class to improve your shoddy BAB, there is also no need to. Which also means that at level 30 you won’t face monsters that the Fighter can hit on anything but a 1, while the Wizard needs a 20.

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I’ve been playing a dragonborn cleric, going for a more “battle cleric, front line troop, my god will listen to me and give me aid to smite you and help my friends” sort of feel. My companions, a two-weapon ranger, and a warlock. By lvl 4, my role no matter how much I pray ( pun intended ) is to walk into the front lines, absorb the hits from the enemies, miss with 90% of my powers, and watch the bodies drop around me from sword pokings, strikes, or the dark magic barely missing me at times.

There’s plenty of role-playing reasons for wanting to get much much better at hitting things with my mace. I mean, the warlock is taunting me by offering to help me slay “my” enemy. The ranger has just resolved to look disgusted at my attempts to finish it off. So what’s a solution? Get training!

In 3e I could stop advancing as the cleric and pick up fighter lvls for the serious bonuses to hit (given time and levels). In 4e… I’m reduced to a single multiclass fighter feat granting +1 att with either one-handed or two-handed weapons. Now in all honesty I’m content to let my clerical abilities stop their advancement as I become a better foot soldier with a god on my side. Note again, this realization is coming from a lvl 4 character.

“I just wanna be able to hit the broad side of an ogre once and set it aflame….. *Tears persue* ” (In reference to Cleric Lvl 1 Daily Prayer)

In 3rd edition the base classes simply couldn’t compete with the multi-class options. There was no reason to just play a Fighter. After level 4, and often after level 2 (when you got the 2 bonus feats) it was just as easy to add your next class etc.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a great deal of satisfaction that can be derived from this sort of customization, but somewhere in the mix I feel that class identities became lost in 3rd edition. Many players never got beyond level 4-6 in any class, there simlply wasn’t a reason to, and in the end if you didn’t multi-class you weren’t as powerful as the rest of the group.

For new players this meant that if they just picked a class and played it, after a relatively short time they could no contribute to the group like more experienced players. From a play standpoint I found this hurting my ability to draw new players in.

With 4th edition I have found this worry largely assuaged. Yes there are concerns, and yes the customization levels aren’t the same, but they are simpler and they are less broken. A new player can step in and pick any class and play it to level 30 and not worry that by level 10 they won’t be able to keep up with the power-gamers and have to sit and watch the game go on around them.

I can understand from a RP standpoint that it is much harder to get all the tweaks you want for your character. Knowing WOTC thirst for revenue I am sure they will release tons of new stuff to customize your character to the nth degree, so I’m not worried about that moving forward.

Also, the angle I was coming from has to do with the whole role/class design of 4e – which is much more like a traditional CRPG, something I do know quite a bit about (unlike D&D in general). When you have class roles and functions so clearly defined and when a good mix of these roles is vital to party survival, I really don’t see the benefit in “gimping” a character just to diversify a bit.

I’d argue that having 5 character who are all highly specialized in their own role (maybe 1 or 2 feats into a multiclass system) is far superior than having a group where 2-3 of the members have chosen to go deep into the multiclassing system. In a game which functions much more like an MMORGP played on a tabletop, having watered down characters who aren’t fulfilling their roles to their greatest potential is only hurting their group.

There have been plenty of articles written on the issues of balancing “hybrids” in CRPGS – and the issues brought up in those articles resembles this debate very much.

And to go back to the Fighter example – the same advantages could be gained by: A) Being a dragonborn or B) Being a half elf or C) Only using 2 feats instead of several.

In its current form, I really don’t see the advantage of going deep into a multiclass system. There are a couple of exceptions such as the TWF Ranger who takes the Pit Fighter paragon path. And then, when you see those numbers crunched, it makes you cry baby jesus and wonder why in the hell can someone NOT backstab with a heavy blade ONCE per encounter?

“even a humble 4e feat needs to result in a net gain”

From a roleplaying point of view, that’s not necessarily correct. I know many players (including myself) who have multiclassed or taken a feat purely for ‘flavour.’

Also, whether or not a swapped power is a “gain” or a “push” is also quite subjective. For instance, a Warlord’s attacks target mainly AC. Using a multiclass feat to gain an attack that does the exact same damage you may consider a “push,” but what if it targets Will defense instead? What if you’ve swapped out a single target attack for a close or area blast? What if, like Bartoneus suggested, there’s a synergy with the new muticlass power and a main class ability?

The more I look at 4E, the more I’m coming to believe that it was 99% crunch and 1% fluff. That massive crunch factor satisfied a lot of people, but at the end of the day it doesn’t leave a lot of room for Role Playing.

My kind of math says that Role Playing is 2/3 of RPG.

Flaming

Baiting

I don’t really see how the methods of multiclassing are that different. The 4e method of multiclassing seems to be more gradual and perhaps a bit too gimped.

The 3e version allows for immediate power gain. Isn’t that one of the reasons why they moved a bunch of feats and such to the second level of classes? So you couldn’t take one level of multiclass to pick up all the feats, skills, and useful abilities in one go. The 4e multiclass system seems to be an extreme version of that.

My main disagreement with the 4e version is that it seems a bit gimped (as I said above) in that when you want to get a multiclass feat, you are one level away from getting it. I’m not sure if this is a numbers thing, but it is frustrating to be stymied by design.

What Felon seems to be referring to is the presence of this idea of only allowing certain combinations. I remember trying to make several multiclass characters and running into this same problem. Their core ability only works with a very limited range of things and there is no way to get around it. This leads to the somewhat justified criticism that things aren’t as customizable as they were in 3.5. The issue seems to lie somewhere between game balance and customizability (freedom?).

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Let’s keep it on topic about multiclassing and leave our numbers to me.

As far as the rest of what you said, blogging advice is always welcome and we highly appreciate it. By arguing that 4e multi-classing is less elegant and more brutish, I can only assume you’re talking about it in relation to previous editions of D&D, which in my opinion presents a lack in understanding of game design and elegance. That’s my opinion, my point still stands that it’s better to assume someone doesn’t understand what I’m saying then to flat out say that they’re wrong, like you did in your very first comment here.

I agree that “stooping to flaming” is a bad idea, in light of that you should probably go back and revise your first comments here and provide something constructive instead.

Please don’t talk about elegance in game design, when you seem to have little idea what it really entails.”

Bartoneus, you’re going to need a thicker skin if you really want your blog to be seen in the light that you seem to want it to be seen. If your blog becomes popular, you can count on many folks challenging your posts, and stooping to flaming anyone whose tone you don’t like isn’t going to make you stand out from the pack of bloggers out there. In this case, you did exactly what I said you were doing, and accused a person who didn’t agree with your notions of game design of having “little idea of what it entails”.

I’m not sure what’s so munchking about using a sneak attack once per encounter with a heavy blade when you’re not getting the benefits that a rogue gets (like the brutal scoundrel’s bonus damage). A ranger’s certainly better-suited not using a light blade in such a build, where he’s only getting the sneak attack once per encounter, but doing what you’re best-suited to do doesn’t make one a munchkin.

I initially took the Sneak of Shadows feat because we were not going to have a character in the party with thievery as a class skill, and I wanted to be able to take out the traps my scouting unearthed. I soon discovered that it worked out very well for combat as well, as I can quite easily lob a thrown dagger with an off-hand after taking Quick Draw at level 2. I don’t think I’ve had an encounter go by yet where I didn’t get an opportunity to add the sneak damage.

I don’t think I’ll be taking any of the power-swap feats, it’s just not really consistant with my character concept, but I’m really looking forward to taking the Master Infiltrator paragon path. I have always been reluctant to multiclass, even in 3.5, but against my expectations I’ve found it quite enjoyable in 4E.

Felon: So instead of thinking that people who don’t agree with me “just don’t get it”, I should be like you and flat out tell them they’re wrong? I don’t think so, I’m a much smarter person then that, but thanks.

But let us, for the sake of kindness, assume that you also “just don’t get it”. Perhaps you’ve missed the part in 4e where having a fighter who can take a power like Thunderwave, or even Fireball, and as a result mark up six or more enemies at once with one power, is a REALLY good option. All for just one simple feat.

As far as your issues with cross-classing from Ranger into Rogue, perhaps you could use a light blade with your ranger? Oh, I suppose you want to be able to sneak attack someone with a bastard sword? If so, perhaps munchkin should be a character class then also.

Please don’t talk about elegance in game design, when you seem to have little idea what it really entails.

Well, I’m pretty sure you won’t.

What does rolling the three power swap feats into a single feat do that’s too powerful? You’ll still have dumped a power for a power.

It’s not short-sightedness that makes people think multi-classing is a poor option. They think it’s poor because of its poorness. You can assert that a feat in the 4e isn’t worth what it was in 3e, but even a humble 4e feat needs to result in a net gain, while the power swap feats are a push at best. You lose a power that was custom-made for your class and gain something that wasn’t.

The initiate feats are a mixed bag. Multi-classing into warlord or cleric grants a useful encounter power, for instance. On the other hand, I recently tried to create a ranger that multi-classed into rogue. Then I had to stop and realize that the sneak attack ability I was getting didn’t work with any of the weapons my character would be using.

In general multi-classing is just another instance of 4e taking the easy route rather than an elegant one–the club instead of the rapier.

One of the things they mention that I haven’t seen mentioned here is the fact that once you have the Novice/Acolyte/Adept feats, you can re-swap a power every time you gain a level.

I’ll say that again for dramatic effect: You can ‘gain back’ the power you initially swapped out and replace it or another power of the same type EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU LEVEL UP, as if you had just taken the appropriate feat.

Oh, and it doesn’t count as using your ability to retrain one power every level either.

The only restriction is that the multiclass power you get can’t be the highest level power of that type, which makes sense from a roleplaying point of view.

The customization options from level to level are amazing, once you take that into consideration.

Of course, 4E still may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but once you really sit down and run a test character up to level 15 or so you may find that 4E’s multiclassing isn’t nearly as restrictive as you may think.