multiclassing and armor training


Pathfinder Online

Goblin Squad Member

It appears to me that I have to spend XP on an armor feat chain for each role I want to train- even if it's the same armor type. For example, if my Fighter 20 with maxed heavy armor (unbreakable?) wants to train Cleric, I'm going to have to train heavy armor all over again (Crusader).

We know that we'll have multiple options for armor training within each class- ie fighters can choose to train heavy or medium armor once this system is in effect. Should you be able to coast on another class's armor training, or should multiclassers just use this mandatory opportunity to train a different armor style?

Goblin Squad Member

No way!, heavy armor is heavy armor is heavy armor. Shortcuts and synergies are what make multiclassing desirable.

Are you sure this is intended? If so I'm rather unhappy about it. Arbitrary hoops to jump through are arbitrary.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Are you suggesting that Unbreakable should qualify as one of the armor feats required to get Cleric levels?

Goblin Squad Member

Not being part of Alpha makes me wonder if this isn't unintentional. As FOO pointed out heavy armor is heavy armor. It doesn't matter who's wearing it...and it's not like the Clergy have a "special" way of wearing it. It's probably a simple over site that will be taken care of in due time.

Fear not...is only Alpha.

Goblin Squad Member

First0f0ne wrote:

No way!, heavy armor is heavy armor is heavy armor. Shortcuts and synergies are what make multiclassing desirable.

Are you sure this is intended? If so I'm rather unhappy about it. Arbitrary hoops to jump through are arbitrary.

Heavy Armor Proficiency is a prerequisite for both Crusader and Unbreakable. So yes, Heavy Armor is Heavy Armor, but Crusader is not Unbreakable.

Goblin Squad Member

DeciusBrutus wrote:
Are you suggesting that Unbreakable should qualify as one of the armor feats required to get Cleric levels?

I'm not sure what I'm suggesting, other than that it feels odd to me to have to train armor-based feats twice in order to train 2 roles that wear the same armor.

I could probably be convinced that it makes sense, if someone has a sensible argument to offer. I could probably also be convinced to argue that the role level requirement for armor training should be satisfied by any role's armor training for an appropriate armor weight.

Goblin Squad Member

Guurzak wrote:
... if someone has a sensible argument to offer.

Does it have to be more sensible than the fact that Crusader requires and grants Wisdom while Unbreakable requires and grants Constitution?

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Aet Khorvak McTiernan wrote:

Not being part of Alpha makes me wonder if this isn't unintentional. As FOO pointed out heavy armor is heavy armor. It doesn't matter who's wearing it...and it's not like the Clergy have a "special" way of wearing it. It's probably a simple over site that will be taken care of in due time.

Fear not...is only Alpha.

But... clerics DO have a different way of wearing armor. That's why Crusader is different from Unbreakable.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
First0f0ne wrote:

No way!, heavy armor is heavy armor is heavy armor. Shortcuts and synergies are what make multiclassing desirable.

Are you sure this is intended? If so I'm rather unhappy about it. Arbitrary hoops to jump through are arbitrary.

Heavy Armor Proficiency is a prerequisite for both Crusader and Unbreakable. So yes, Heavy Armor is Heavy Armor, but Crusader is not Unbreakable.

Three questions:

1. Does Crusader apply a buff that is only functional with a Cleric focus?

2. Is Crusader/unbreakable always functional when wearing heavy armor?

3. Or is it heavy armor prof 2.0 that is just an xp sink to level up the cleric class levels more slowly and provide a touch of con/wis?

If its 1 or 2 then I'm fine with it. If its 3 then they need to trim some fat, I would much rather gain xp slower to spend on meaningful feats than gain it faster and have spend it on pointless prereqs that do almost nothing except to slow power progression. If slower progression is desired change the rate at which xp is gained and or spent.

Sovereign Court Goblin Squad Member

1. There are (or will be) dedication bonuses for slotting feats all related to a single class. General feats can be included. If you have anything slotted of a different class you don't get that dedication bonus. (There will eventually be feats which can count towards a few specific classes, like Channel Energy, but that is yet to be implemented.) Crusader counts towards Cleric and Unbreakable towards Fighter. Also, the feats provide bonuses of various types and the bonuses for Crusader and Unbreakable are different.

2. You need to choose which armor feat to slot and can (presumably) only slot one of them. So if you had both Crusader and Unbreakable you'd have to pick one or the other to benefit from at any given time. See 1 above.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

I am unsure if it is possible to e.g. get the Cleric dedication bonus while using the Unbreakable armor slot.

As far as I can tell, your armor feat is always active when slotted, and activates the keywords on appropriate armor. I'll check this weekend whether the secondary benefits apply when wearing the wrong armor.

Goblin Squad Member

Unbreakable and Crusader inherent bonus is different, they also only use 6 similar key words, and 5 different keywords gained at different intervals from each other.

They are different enough to warrant two different Feat Lines. Also, note that Heavy Armor Proficiency Allows you to wear your armor. The feat lines do serve a purpose and that is to differentiate play styles.


Feats aside, what happens when newer classes get introduced? Will I need to train the light armor line all over again for my Ranger, or the bow line? Will my barb need to train the hitpoint line or the fortitude save line all over again?

Goblin Squad Member

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They have different key words and they do different things....

There is an entirely separate line of Feats that are General Feats for Light/Medium/Heavy armor...So, no you won't have to retrain those feats, but you might have to train a "Ranger" Feat that gives you different bonuses to your armor/speed/accuracy than the Passive Feats that the OP is talking about.

And no to all your questions, all of those act as prerequisites for all classes, you only have to train them once.

Sovereign Court Goblin Squad Member

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Monty Wolf wrote:
Feats aside, what happens when newer classes get introduced? Will I need to train the light armor line all over again for my Ranger, or the bow line? Will my barb need to train the hitpoint line or the fortitude save line all over again?

There are currently 3 armor feats per class. As stated above those feats are all different in terms of what bonuses they grant and what keywords they look for on your armor.

There are attack bonuses tied to general weapon types (eg. heavy melee, arcane, ranged, etc.) Each class seems to require one of these to be trained up. So if you pick two classes which use similar weapon types you should be fine in that regards. Eg. Wizard needs Arcane Attack Bonus and it's probably a safe bet that that's what Sorcerer will also require it. You may want to train new role (class) specific attacks for your new role in order to get the dedication bonus, but those are relatively cheap by comparison to the attack bonuses.

Hit points and defenses (fort/ref/will) are common to all classes. Each class requires specific ones to be trained up to certain levels. If for example Barbarian requires Reflex and Fortitude and Ranger requires Reflex then your Barbarian will already meet the Reflex requirement for Ranger. Long term you'll probably want to train up all 3 defenses anyways. Maxing those 3 out should meet the defense requirement for every combat role in game.


Okay, so feats aside I should be able to train fighter and rogue lines that most likely apply to a ranger or barb and not have to duplicate anything when those classes are released. Good stuff!

Sovereign Court Goblin Squad Member

Overlap: possibly some defenses, hp, power, bab, possibly some attack bonuses

Non-overlap: possibly some attack bonuses, possibly some defenses, class features, armor, some skills, implement proficiencies

See here for the list of what's required for the first 4 roles.

The items in the overlap appear to be very expensive and consume a good chunk of the training time needed to get that role in comparison to some items in the non-overlap. Here's some xp numbers to put it in perspective (all numbers are to max out levels in the given feat):

BAB - 1,264,624
Defenses - ? (need new info)
Power - 653,984
Attack Bonus (one of the 6 types) - 484,115
Most 'skills' - ~438,000
Class Features - 218,991
Hit Points - 215,691
Armor - 213,046
Implement Proficiency - 34,997
Attack (will want 6 per weapon) - 18,207

2.5 years of xp (912 days) - 2,188,800 xp

Goblin Squad Member

Nightdrifter wrote:

Overlap: possibly some defenses, hp, power, bab, possibly some attack bonuses

Non-overlap: possibly some attack bonuses, possibly some defenses, class features, armor, some skills, implement proficiencies

See here for the list of what's required for the first 4 roles.

The items in the overlap appear to be very expensive and consume a good chunk of the training time needed to get that role in comparison to some items in the non-overlap. Here's some xp numbers to put it in perspective (all numbers are to max out levels in the given feat):

BAB - 1,264,624
Defenses - ? (need new info)
Power - 653,984
Attack Bonus (one of the 6 types) - 484,115
Most 'skills' - ~438,000
Class Features - 218,991
Hit Points - 215,691
Armor - 213,046
Implement Proficiency - 34,997
Attack (will want 6 per weapon) - 18,207

2.5 years of xp (912 days) - 2,188,800 xp

Interesting so you fully max 1 skill about every half a year if you focus solely on training that skill. Given the exponential training curve I wonder what time investment will be required to get it to 40-60% and 70-90% effectiveness.

Scarab Sages

Andius the Afflicted wrote:
Interesting so you fully max 1 skill about every half a year if you focus solely on training that skill. Given the exponential training curve I wonder what time investment will be required to get it to 40-60% and 70-90% effectiveness.

Besides the fact you won't max 1 skill in 6 months alone, because pre-reqs. It must be consider that maybe we even cant max those above in 2.5 years because those extra XP expenses and atribute pre-reqs that force us to generalize more.

Goblin Squad Member

I hope that clerics will be able to substitute medium armor feats for heavy, pursuant to my desire to make what is essentially a druid.

Goblin Squad Member

It looks like there are 3 lines of armor training for clerics, and 2 of them are medium based.

Goblin Squad Member

Really? Where are you seeing that, Guurzak?

I'm afraid I must still be locked into a classicist mindset, as it seems important somehow to attain cleric4, which requires heavy armor feats and doesn't seem to care a whit about medium armor.

Goblin Squad Member

Advancement Feats, in the Armor tab, shows three Armor Feats for each Role. Cleric Armor Feats are Evangelist (Medium), Healer (Medium), and Crusader (Heavy).

Achievements, in the Feats tab, shows that Cleric requires Crusader. However, I believe this is only temporary until they get the tech working to be able to require "Evangelist or Healer or Crusader".

Sovereign Court Goblin Squad Member

The training curve isn't actually exponential. There are a few examples where eg. level 18 is the most expensive skill level and 19 and 20 are slightly cheaper. Typically it does increase as you go up in level though.

I should point out that the roles don't require you to max out every related skill to get level 20 in the role. Fighter needs BAB at 10/10 while Cleric only needs 7/10 and Wizard 5/10. Wizard and Cleric need 40/40 Power while Fighter and Rogue need 20/40. Wizard needs only 10/20 hit points while Fighter needs 20/20. (Given the relatively cheap cost of hit points it's probably going to be necessary to max them out to be competitive in pvp regardless of role.) Defenses, attack bonuses, armor, implement proficiencies, and class features that a role asks for seem to need to be maxed out.

The reason you can't max out a single skill and train nothing else is due to ability score prerequisites. From my own tests instead of taking 1 skill to max it's more like 3 skills to max and 2 more to 11-12 to be able to meet all ability prerequisites along the way.

Goblin Squad Member

So, coming back to the original topic, I'm coming around to the view that the role armor feats like Crusader are more "how to do your job as a cleric while wearing heavy armor" than they are about "how to wear heavy armor". That latter bit is what the Proficiency feats do, and you wouldn't have to retrain those when multiclassing.

Sovereign Court Goblin Squad Member

Forgot to add weapon/armor proficiencies in the above list. They are dirt cheap (4327 xp to max out, less than 2 days worth). As has been stated they are cross role and only need to be trained once.

My interpretation of the armor feats is how you use a certain type of armor (cloth/light/medium/heavy) in some vague sense tied to your role that goes beyond just strapping it on. Based on the info we have:

Archer (Fighter, Medium) - speed and ranged attack
Dragoon (Fighter, Heavy) - crit and light/heavy melee attack
Unbreakable (Fighter, Heavy) - reflex and all resistances
Chameleon (Rogue, Light) - stealth
Scout (Rogue, Light) - perception
Swashbuckler (Rogue, Light) - reflex and light melee attack
Binder (Wizard, Cloth) - fortitude and energy resistance
Mage (Wizard, Cloth) - reflex and physical resistance
Scholar (Wizard, Cloth) - will and various wizard themed skill bonuses
Crusader (Cleric, Heavy) - all defenses and light/heavy melee attack
Evangelist (Cleric, Medium) - speed and ranged/divine attack
Healer (Cleric, Medium) - reflex and regeneration

Some are offense oriented including ranged (Archer, Evangelist) and melee (Dragoon, Swashbuckler, Crusader) styles, some are defensive oriented (Unbreakable, Binder, Mage, Healer), and some are special purpose (Chameleon, Scout, Scholar). Edit: Most are pvp oriented in some way, but Scholar strikes me as the standout pve build (increase skills which increase the loot you get from NPCs).

Goblinworks Game Designer

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Nihimon wrote:
However, I believe this is only temporary until they get the tech working to be able to require "Evangelist or Healer or Crusader".

This is correct. Honestly, we probably should have had clerics require Evangelist until we got the OR tech in for achievements, since it's the most classically clericy, but Crusader happened to be first in the list.

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