Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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I've never cared much for sticking with one class, unless of course it was a full spellcaster. Not only is it essential to stick with a spellcaster class for the long haul because of spell progression, but the spells themselves keep opening up a wider range of options to play with.
With martial class the system, unfortunate in my mind, is that it keeps narrowing you down towards specialization. Because of that I've long preferred to do a lot of multiclassing to give a wider base of options to play with as the character advances. It feels either more well rounded or allows for a particular concept to be better realized, say like Conan really being a mix of fighter and rogue.
The Magus is an interesting class in that it really is trying to balance between martial and spellcaster. While there is going to be a huge incentive to stay with Magus as you go up in levels, it would be great if those first two to four levels have enough "frontloading" to make dipping worthwhile. There have to be some abilities that aren't totally wedded to scaling so that it is worthwhile to, say be a fighter or rogue who dips into it for a bit to get an interesting new twist on doing things.
Now, I know that Pathfinder design was moving away from multiclassing, and that currently we have a Magus design that has a specific design intent, but I would just like to raise, from the dipping perspective, one of the real problems with medium BAB over full BAB.
With the APG we got a slew of new classes, with most of them medium BAB. That's fine and all, but it really does restrict multiclassing. Because we don't have a system that does fractional BAB, there is a huge disincentive to do a lot of interesting multiclassing, because in combining two or more medium BAB classes, you end up losing out so much on BAB that you can't function in martial circumstances well.
Take for example rogue/monk, or rogue/alchemist. Both of these combos in theory sound really interesting, with lots of blended class features that work well...
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A Rogue/Monk would only be a point behind a full Rogue, wouldn't they? And even then, only for half their levels, the other half they catch up and are the same.
You don't loose BAB if you dip every 4 levels, which is when they get there +0. Which is fine by me. I hate 1 or 2 level dips. At 3 levels you can at least argue you put a little time into the class before you switch to something else. I'd rather they didn't front load the classes.
The OP has a point.
I do wish Pathfinder would come out with multiclass feats like those found in 3.5e.
The feats Ascetic Knight (Monk and Paladin), Ascetic Psion (Monk and Psion), Ascetic Rogue (Monk and Rogue), Devoted Performer (Bard and Paladin), Devoted Inquisitor (Paladin and Rogue), Sacred Outlaw (Cleric and Rogue) are just some of the feats released that allowed the class levels to stack together for specific abilities from each class.
If Pathfinder were to release multiclass feats like those, I believe they'd establish a good middleground when it comes to multiclassing. Burning feats to make certain classes sync together as you level sounds like a fine trade-off.
One of the things I really disliked was the character that had 4+ classes. Rarely was this done for anything other than mechanics. I want the characters to be characters not spreadsheets.
I think that the multiclassing feats are a better way to do this. You can use a feat to realize your vision for your character. There is a price to pay but you also get a greater benefit. You still won't have characters with 4+ classes, but you will see more multiclassed characters.
I am glad that every class is something that I want to play from level 1 to 20 now.
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The Paizo team made it clear that they wanted all of the classes to be good/fun/worthwhile to play from 1 to 20.
They didn't actually do anything to discourage dipping (they didn't move any powers/abilities that were at levels 1 or 2 up the chart) they simply made it more attractive to stay with classes because things like the fighter actually got cool stuff as they leveled-up.
Of course, one of the consequences of making the classes cool enough to stick with is that this created a disincentive for dipping. I'm not sure how giving every class cool new stuff could be regarded as a nerf.
I, for one, am really glad that none of the classes are now regarded as just 'the class you take to qualify for prestige class X' or 'the dip you always take so your class Y character is extra good at Z'.
I'm not really sure how "underpowered" a fighter4/rogue4/magus4 is (good point from Seeker): maybe flexibility is a powerful tool in its own right?
One of the things I really disliked was the character that had 4+ classes. Rarely was this done for anything other than mechanics. I want the characters to be characters not spreadsheets.
I think that the multiclassing feats are a better way to do this. You can use a feat to realize your vision for your character. There is a price to pay but you also get a greater benefit. You still won't have characters with 4+ classes, but you will see more multiclassed characters.
I am glad that every class is something that I want to play from level 1 to 20 now.
i played a 4 class character that was a lot more than a spreadsheet. you would be creeped out by his story and description. it's technically not pg13. (it's not X either, more like barely a little below R.) and it wouldn't blend with many peoples opinion's of D&D 3.5. fantasy either. a 26 Year Old male human rogue1/ wizard5/ unseen seer10/ arcane trickster 4 that could have just as easily been easily represented as a straight wizard or an artificer. the latter being more appropriate.
there is nothing wrong with a 4 classed character.
One of the things I really disliked was the character that had 4+ classes. Rarely was this done for anything other than mechanics. I want the characters to be characters not spreadsheets.
I think many people confuse the mechanics of a character with the roleplaying of a character.
In 3.x I recall having two different PCs that had the same mechanical class makeup. One was my 'barbarian' and the other was my 'ranger'. They served completely different roles, and there was precious little that they had in common.
There's nothing that makes a classA 1/classB 3/classC 2 more or less of a character than a classD 6.
Multiclassing in 3rd edition is making your own character class. There's far more to a character than just the mechanics and the abilities granted thereby.
-James
I agree with you completely. One of the things I remember from the WotC boards was lists of classes with only one thing in mind: optimization for power. I'm glad that we don't see that here nearly as much.
I'm not really sure how "underpowered" a fighter4/rogue4/magus4 is (good point from Seeker): maybe flexibility is a powerful tool in its own right?
Flexibility is only a powerful tool when there's a certain probability of success. If you need to roll a 20 to hit with your sword (because you're not the fighter the Fighter is), and you need to roll a 20 to overcome SR for a spell your target needs to roll a 1 to fail the save for (because you're not the caster the Wizard is), and you can't even possibly make the roll to disarm the trap (because you're not the sneak the Rogue is)... it doesn't really matter what you can attempt.
I'm not even sure this is an issue that can be addressed by the makers of the game, though. It has more to do with party makeup than anything else; DMs tend to tailor the challenges to the party members most capable of handling them.
ETA: In 3.5, I built a melee sorceress whose plan for combat involved grappling things while on fire. This would have worked pretty well in most campaigns, but one of my fellow party members was a Blorg. You can just tell from the name that is a fellow with Grapple +56 or so, can't you? The DM had to compensate, or every single thing we met would have been blorged to death. Luckily, my build was flexible enough that I could switch to other tactics, but some classes and combinations of classes would not have had that option.