I would like to take this chance to apologize for derailing this thread so severely.
I think the question had been pretty much answered anyway. :)
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Heavens help me, the longer I'm here the more I agree with you TOZ.
Thinking about it, it's really a continuum. First you're The Rival. Then you become a Worthy Opponent. Finally, we're Vitriolic Best Buds.
Happened with Zurai, seekerofshadowlight, and plenty of others.
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Multiclassing is like the golden goose of roleplaying, or I could say as much. As Blackborn seems to think that multiclassing caters to meta-gamers, I think the opposite. I think it caters to roleplayers. The notion of "Class" is an entirely metagame concept of its own.
Multiclassing means you break out of the mold of a single class. For example, a friend of mind wanted to create a crane-clan samurai duelist who wore little armor, mostly walked around in a robe, had a killer-awesome iaijutsu technique, and was quick and skilled with weapons. This was for a Rokugan game we were running. I helped him represent that character mechanically.
The character basically was built using Barbarian 2 / Rogue 3 / Fighter X. The Barbarian provided the speed (+10 ft movement, uncanny dodge), the determined samurai spirit (AKA - rage) and so forth. Sneak attack filled in for his Iaijutsu technique, and Evasion and Rogue talents allowed him to go with the quick and nimble theme further. Fighter mostly rounded him out with combat feats and specializing in his dueling weapon.
Since he wanted his character to fight something like Rurouni Kenshin, he wanted a way to represent his character moving so quickly that he was hard to spot with your eyes before his sword met you. This was emulated via the Cloak Dance feat which he would use to gain concealment, and use Stealth to "fade from view". Enemies could remark with comments such as "Where did he go!?" or "Did you see where he went!?" or "Damnit, how can he be so fast!?". He would then strike them from being hidden, and get his weapon damage + sneak attack, representing his pinpoint blinding fast strike.
Also, I think most players should have an idea as to what they want to play, and how they want to play it. I've seen someone try to do the whole "organic" growth deal, and generally it caused them to multiclass like crazy and be wildly ineffective as they tried to decide the path their character was forming as they went. That's how one guy I played with ended up with a rogue 5 / wizard 1 / cleric 3 / ranger 2 / assassin 4. Before the end of the game, he lamented as to what a fool he was, and how he was bad at everything.
But, he wasn't really. I taught him how to make use of all those weird little quirks and abilities to be something decent. But I myself tend to have a fair idea as to where I want to take my character as I go.
But yeah, classes are entirely a metagame concept, and not-multiclassing makes you a bad roleplayer!*
*: This is hyperbole to illustrate the silliness of these sorts of statements.
Ashiel, have I ever told you you're my hero? :)
I feel like I've won all the internets. ^-^
ASH LADY AM WON ALL INTERNETS. ALL OF THEM.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Well, this was an interesting thread to catch up on. Especially seeing as no one seems to have caught on to what was really going on.
Basically, Blackborn is a traditionalist of sorts - something I've noticed among several players/GMs around the boards, to varying results (depending on context).
Although I don't recall him stating it, I'd venture a guess he's been playing for a while. Tropes have become habits, habits have become traditions, traditions have become canon. For instance, the game accommodates the trope of the sneaky-but-frail knife-wielding thief. He experiences it, and has fun. The "classic rogue" becomes a habit for Blackborn and/or his group (I'd say there's also a better-than-even chance that he does most of his gaming with the same people for years on end). Eventually, it's so well-established that it unconsciously becomes a sort of "canon" - a representation of how the game is "supposed to be". (Note his repeated references to how things "should" be, or things violating the "spirit" of the game, etc.) Same goes for the classic fighter, the classic wizard, etc.
But a multiclass character doesn't fit an obvious, long-running D&D trope and, therefore, violates this personal canon. It is therefore "wrong". His understanding of what d20 systems are all about (a standard to which he appealed more than once) is based on his habit-fueled canon, and any mold-breaking violates it. This of course comes with the extremely specific caveat that if your multiclassed character can very firmly embody a well-defined trope that's not otherwise covered, then it gets a pass.
Buuuuuuuuuut... This phenomenon of "habit-canon" that I keep seeing doesn't seem to be widely known/recognized. I've seen it happen in all kinds of situations (from playstyle discussions to rules debates), yet I've never seen it acknowledged. My conclusion, then, is that there's simply a deficit of awareness regarding traditionalism (perhaps people don't realize that RPGs are old enough for such a thing to apply?) and so they reach for whatever other terms they can to express their differences of opinion. With "roleplay versus min-max" being so well-known, that seems to be the most common framework in which people try to explain their differing opinions. But since that's not really what's at work, the debate fails to portray the real issue, and you end up with flabbergasted dialogues of "I can't believe you actually think that", much like this recent back-and-forth with Blackborn.
But I suspect that if the concept of RPG traditionalism was more widely known/acknowledged, it could have been more like this:
Blackborn: I'm a traditionalist; I like fighters to be fighters, wizards to be wizards, etc. Multiclassing doesn't fit that.
Someone else: Cool. To each his own.
And the last two pages wouldn't have happened (including the "sounded like you were being hateful stuff" that fortunately avoided turning into a flame war).
So in summary:
Support traditionalism awareness!
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But I suspect that if the concept of RPG traditionalism was more widely known/acknowledged, it could have been more like this:
Blackborn: I'm a traditionalist; I like fighters to be fighters, wizards to be wizards, etc. Multiclassing doesn't fit that.
Someone else: Cool. To each his own.
And the last two pages wouldn't have happened (including the "sounded like you were being hateful stuff" that fortunately avoided turning into a flame war).
I ought to be lumped in with the traditionalists, since I've been playing so long.
Yet if I were laying my cards on the table, it would be more like;Snorter: I'm a traditionalist, and I like my characters to resemble characters from the source literature that inspired the game. Single-classing often doesn't fit that.
Someone else: Cool. To each his own.
There seems to be a general belief in a false dichotomy, that all players must gravitate to one of two extremes; the younger players must all be Narutards, who try to cram more and more layers of awesome onto everything until it becomes a joke, like Dragonball "My saaaaves are at PLUS NINETHOOUUUSAAAAND!" "HAH! YOU ARE NO MATCH FOR ME! MY SAVE DCs ARE AT PLUS NINETHOOUSSAAAAND AND TWEEEEENTY!!!!!!",
or that anyone over thirty is a grognard fatbeard "If it wasn't in the original White Box in 1974, it's stupid, and you can't use it.".
Appeals to the 'original spirit of the game' come with the implication 'WWGD?' What would Gary do?
Well, what would he do?
Thing is, with the magic of our wayback machine, we can see what he would do. Check out The Rogue's Gallery (1st Ed). How many of those PCs, most from the original campaign, break the inviolable rules in some way, to better fit a concept, or reflect events in-game.
Check the Lankhmar setting, in which the multi-classing was a given for all races (even expected) and was enshrined in the stats of the iconic characters, as the only way to make them mechanically work close to the way intended by Fritz Leiber.
Check out the Deities and Demigods book, in which virtually every entry contains gestalt abilities, from the heads of the pantheons, down to the 'lowliest' mythic hero.
If someone doesn't want multiclassing in their game, they are always free to disallow it. But they really should avoid making it an issue of age, experience, or the edition one started with, since the feeling among older players really isn't as unanimous as they'd like.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Stuff
To clarify:
Note that my description of traditionalism is centered not around age/experience (though they're a subset of veterans), but rather around the establishing of a "canon" based on their own experiences. Not original (necessarily) original material, not (necessarily) Gygaxian-ness. Whatever they and their playgroup(s) eventually came to venerate as the norm (which could theoretically be anything from Gygax's first playtest on up to 3.5-era) becomes what they think is the "spirit of the game".So maybe "traditionalism" is a misnomer? Couldn't think of another succinct title off the top of my head. But the main idea is "person who sees the purpose of an RPG as being to enact a certain set of tropes, and any deviation from those tropes violates the spirit of the game". Those tropes might be classic fantasy concepts, Original D&D characters, or a number of other things. But it's the establishing of those tropes as canon that defines the concept I was talking about.
StuffTo clarify:
Note that my description of traditionalism is centered not around age/experience (though they're a subset of veterans), but rather around the establishing of a "canon" based on their own experiences. Not original (necessarily) original material, not (necessarily) Gygaxian-ness. Whatever they and their playgroup(s) eventually came to venerate as the norm (which could theoretically be anything from Gygax's first playtest on up to 3.5-era) becomes what they think is the "spirit of the game".So maybe "traditionalism" is a misnomer? Couldn't think of another succinct title off the top of my head. But the main idea is "person who sees the purpose of an RPG as being to enact a certain set of tropes, and any deviation from those tropes violates the spirit of the game". Those tropes might be classic fantasy concepts, Original D&D characters, or a number of other things. But it's the establishing of those tropes as canon that defines the concept I was talking about.
Kind of sad, really. I love RPGs because of their ability to break the limits. I started playing video games when I was 2, and have been playing them since. The problem is, with video games, even the most elaborate and awesome of video-game RPGs (or anything else) is you're ultimately limited. When I was 13, I discovered D&D and I've been hooked since. I love D&D and the d20 system because the sky is the limit, and when you hit the sky, break the limit and go further. The idea of people building their own prison of expected tropes makes me a sad panda. I think it's pity, really.
I love D&D and the d20 system because the sky is the limit, and when you hit the sky, break the limit and go further.A drill that pierces the heavens hmmmmm ;)
Hahaha. Yes, that's exactly what it is. It's like an epic thing of awesomeness. In fact, it's so awesome, we could stat galaxies in d20, and then throw them at each other. :P
EDIT: Then we could make them OGL, so they can be passed down the Armstrong Line. ;)
I love D&D and the d20 system because the sky is the limit, and when you hit the sky, break the limit and go further.A drill that pierces the heavens hmmmmm ;)
Sadly there are no combining super robot rules.
Sadly there are no combining super robot rules.I love D&D and the d20 system because the sky is the limit, and when you hit the sky, break the limit and go further.A drill that pierces the heavens hmmmmm ;)
...is that a challenge? :P
I think it is. We should so come up with a Pathfinder setting where warfare is primarily waged in piloted constructs that combine.
Shove those pesky mages to the side and minimize their impact :P
I've been up nearly 24 hours, but after I sleep, when I rise, I shall draft something up. :3
...is that a challenge? :PSadly there are no combining super robot rules.I love D&D and the d20 system because the sky is the limit, and when you hit the sky, break the limit and go further.A drill that pierces the heavens hmmmmm ;)
I meant produced by Paizo.
Pffffft, Paizo, as awesome as they are, are a little too limited when it comes to concepts. (That and a large portion of their fanbase has some peculiar arbitrary hatred of non-european concepts...)
Or at least what they perceive to be non-Euorpean.
Pffffft, Paizo, as awesome as they are, are a little too limited when it comes to concepts. (That and a large portion of their fanbase has some peculiar arbitrary hatred of non-european concepts...)Or at least what they perceive to be non-Euorpean.
Giant combining robots that throw drills that pierce the sky are totally European! I like, learned it from my D&D books, along with how Gorgons are giant metal bulls. History is awesome!
Giant combining robots that throw drills that pierce the sky are totally European! I like, learned it from my D&D books, along with how Gorgons are giant metal bulls. History is awesome!Pffffft, Paizo, as awesome as they are, are a little too limited when it comes to concepts. (That and a large portion of their fanbase has some peculiar arbitrary hatred of non-european concepts...)Or at least what they perceive to be non-Euorpean.
That wasn't what I was saying, but alright.
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That wasn't what I was saying, but alright.Giant combining robots that throw drills that pierce the sky are totally European! I like, learned it from my D&D books, along with how Gorgons are giant metal bulls. History is awesome!Pffffft, Paizo, as awesome as they are, are a little too limited when it comes to concepts. (That and a large portion of their fanbase has some peculiar arbitrary hatred of non-european concepts...)Or at least what they perceive to be non-Euorpean.
Such as?
I learned these people are level 7 fighters so you shouldn't mess with them.
Such as?That wasn't what I was saying, but alright.Giant combining robots that throw drills that pierce the sky are totally European! I like, learned it from my D&D books, along with how Gorgons are giant metal bulls. History is awesome!Pffffft, Paizo, as awesome as they are, are a little too limited when it comes to concepts. (That and a large portion of their fanbase has some peculiar arbitrary hatred of non-european concepts...)Or at least what they perceive to be non-Euorpean.
Powerful fighters (ones who can wreck mountains and such), gunslingers, the Monk isn't European, but they accept it anyway... for some reason, but balk at the classes and gear presented in Ultimate Combat. The Vancian magic system is American, because Jack Vance was born in California, in 1950. I'll think of some other stuff later.
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Powerful fighters (ones who can wreck mountains and such), gunslingers, the Monk isn't European, but they accept it anyway... for some reason, but balk at the classes and gear presented in Ultimate Combat. The Vancian magic system is American, because Jack Vance was born in California, in 1950. I'll think of some other stuff later.Such as?That wasn't what I was saying, but alright.Giant combining robots that throw drills that pierce the sky are totally European! I like, learned it from my D&D books, along with how Gorgons are giant metal bulls. History is awesome!Pffffft, Paizo, as awesome as they are, are a little too limited when it comes to concepts. (That and a large portion of their fanbase has some peculiar arbitrary hatred of non-european concepts...)Or at least what they perceive to be non-Euorpean.
Ah, I see where you are coming from now. Some of the comments from others threw me off for a bit.
I have always detested vancian magic, but see it for some of its usefulness.
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To reply to the OP:
My 1st PFRPG PC is (we're on hiatus from that campaign right now) a 10th level half-elf fighter (archer archetype) 6 / rogue (sniper archetype) 4 that does some insanely sick longbow damage. One of my favorite things about PFRPG is that they made half-elves worth playing again, and the perfect race for playing a 2-class multiclass PC.
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To reply to the OP:
My 1st PFRPG PC is (we're on hiatus from that campaign right now) a 10th level half-elf fighter (archer archetype) 6 / rogue (sniper archetype) 4 that does some insanely sick longbow damage. One of my favorite things about PFRPG is that they made half-elves worth playing again, and the perfect race for playing a 2-class multiclass PC.
hey i call shenanigans!! they had many redeeming qualities in 3.5 like for one they're pretty, 2 they live long, 3 they're pretty, 4 they had +2 to perception, they were pretty
see so many useful abilities in 3.5
Gorgons are giant metal bulls. History is awesome!I never have understood what they were thinking when they did that. If any knows, I'd love to be so enlightened.
They were Greek. They were also very strange.
The word Gorgon may be Greek, but the metal bulls were definitely not Greek Gorgons. . .They were Greek. They were also very strange.Gorgons are giant metal bulls. History is awesome!I never have understood what they were thinking when they did that. If any knows, I'd love to be so enlightened.
True enough, but it doesn't change how true my statement is....at least as far as the Gorgons were concerned. Now I'm not sure why they are metal bulls either, but it's no less weird than what the Greeks had.
The gorgons were the type of creature Medusa and her sisters were in mythology.
I think the 3.5 gorgon could turn you to stone. Why it became a bull is beyond me though.
edit:clarification.
I personally missed Multi classing. I tend to powergame though. I dont see that as a bad thing. I still roleplay.
Powergamer =/= Bad Roleplayer... though more than a few seem to feel that way. But anyways.... since I am the DM now I can have my cake and eat it too. I play Pathfinder which I find to be a superior product then 3.5 but I allow most 3.5 material.
A few changes I have to make.
For Sorc/Wiz/cleric prestige classes I usually convert it to progress bloodlines/school specialization/domain powers... that way you still get to have those neat powers.
For melee centric prestige classes there is usually very little needed to convert them over... but when needed I will add to them(such as adding a rogue trick progression to a rogue prestige class)
Again the group I run tends to powergame and roleplay and very rarely has one character overshadowed another. Thats the one trap to powergaming. If one or more of your party isnt any good at it they might tend to have less fun. Other then that I see no negative. I being a powergamer have very little problems dealing with my party.
So yes I miss prestige classes/multi classing. We had some really unique characters because of prestige classes.
I can give an example. I have a Marshal 1/Cleric 5/Prestige Paladin 1 in my game. He just leveled so he wont get his paladin powers till they get back from an adventure. In my game there are no level 1 Paladins. In my game Paladins are special. And if you meet one you know he is a bad mofo. So my player will have to go before his order and go though the initiation into the paladin order before he recieves his smite and such.
I have another that is a Sorc/Sword Sage/Jade Pheonix Mage... agian he has yet to recieve the bonuses for Jade Pheonix because he must go to another Jade Pheonix and learn from him.
In both cases the simple fact of taking a prestige class caused them to have to roleplay and take part in a side quest to further thier character. Both have been a hoot to run a campain for along with the rogue going Rogue/Invisible Blade/Ninja of the Cresent Moon, and the Druid going 20 Druid more then likely.
I think I rambled alot this post... forgive me lol.
Been multiclassing since 1st Edition. I loved it. Still love it. My wife multiclasses. Some of my other players like it too, some don't. I don't believe in the notion that multiclass characters are weak. I believe that there are a lot of people who do not know how to effectively build them, or who are not resourceful enough to make them work right. A single class character is definitely quicker and easier.
But anybody who wants to know if a multiclass character is weak, needs to fight one of my BBEGs. Most are multiclass, and quite optimal.
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For a game I'm about to play in, I recently made an Alchemist(Vivisectionist Archetype)5/Ninja 5
Since those two classes end up working really well together, I really love the combo... I've found that finding helpful combos really tends to work well. Archetypes are great at comboing, and while you lose the opportunity for a Capstone in the average game... That's what they make epic levels for.. *Cackle*
Those quotes are all mixed up. I was specifically stating how the traditional Greek Gorgon (basically monster girls) is really weird, the metal bull thing is also weird. Looking back I didn't exactly express that well.
Multi classing is alive and well, apparently. I personally come up with a character concept first and go from there. Much like Ashiel's friend from one of her earlier posts, most of these characters are literary in nature. I'm a writer, so many characters I design are designed first without game mechanics involved. Following this, I look at each and every class and archetype in an attempt to find something that fits to the concept. Afterwords, I will choose classes, feats, and all that until the character concept is completed. Most often there will be a history involved in each choice, at least until level five (I have yet to join a game in any of my groups where we did not start at lvl5). From there, I tie in planned feats and classes to the character's goals and preferences from their written history. If there are changes in between levels, such as another feat had to be taken, or goals changed, then the loose 'left over' selections get modded.
Sometimes, I find a game mechanic I really like that spawns an entire character concept. For example, I just recently designed a character based on the feat "fleet". I thought to myself, "what kind of character would want to be faster? To take Fleet multiple times?"... And came up with a concept for taking fleet every chance they got (that's 10 times, + any bonus feats if in one of my groups that has a DM that gives bonus feats for major plot arcs finished in his home brewed campaigns). This spawned a character type within my mind, which then tacked on compelling story events (orphan, tragedies, revenge), so on and so forth.
The speedster is a young halfling who was, in her mind, abandoned when she was younger. She lived as a street rat for several years, without a single shred of help from anybody (resulting 1 level savage rager barbarian), until she was picked up as prime recruit for a local assassin's guild. After a few more years of training (1 level ninja), her first mission was to assist her teacher in assassinating a target, a monk who had violated the tenets of his monastery, following the Sacred Mountain by day, and Hungry Ghost by night. It failed, and the monk took her in as his own. After teaching her how to be, well, normal, she regrets her past, and trains with the monk while seeking to atone through various vows to represent each of the wrongs she's commited in excess (3 levels Hungry Ghost Qinggong Monk of the Sacred Mountain/ Vows: Chains, Fasting, Silence, Peace, Poverty). During all of her training she learned one thing: The faster you are, the harder you are to kill. The guild finally got rid of the old monk, and she fled, vowing to one day return and find her vengeance. And, thanks to her young mind and understanding of things, she'll do that by increasing how fast she moves and strikes...
A (highly) shortened version of her background, but it covers 1 through 5, as I generally like to do. You might be able to see ideas that popped in my head as it developed, probably not, not sure. The projected plan for the rest of the levels would be follow the monk path, as she believes her sensei would have wished. However, odds are fairly good she'll pick up a few more levels, then something will happen in which she either has or decides to 'take another class'. Or, in-world terms, train and develop new necessary skills she learns on her travels, or refine and train old skills she already has.
I prefer to take a half pre-generated, half organic way of building my characters. This will quite often lead to multiclass characters. Unfortunately in my current group, I'm in a party of min-maxers who either A) come up with a basic character idea and minmax while keeping some semblance, or b) pick a type of character (blaster, basher, so on and so forth) and minmax that. Either case, the rest of the party be damned (I was once forced to take healing spells for my completely mad gnomish Oracle of the Dark Tapestry, whom I would personally roll the table for schizophrenia to determine what he might do, instead of inflict like the concept called for, since no one wanted to play a class with any potential for healing. Seriously, I was the only one with cure spells). Luckily my girlfriend plays and she doesn't do that, so I have some back up... The sad part is that they all say they love to do the RP aspect of the game, but more often than not they only care how much they can munchkin (One player broke Summoner/Monk in a gestalt, and now the DM does not allow summoner in any game of his at all). Much to the annoyance of our story-line loving DM who feels that his job as DM is to provide a compelling story, but let the characters do as they wish.
Not sure if I explained how that went correctly, but I'm horrendously tired. I also ramble when tired, especially worse when trying to explain a very simple point or concept...
PS: Ashiel is awesome for being able to fit a concept to relatively strict game standards. She wins a box of cookies. Given my addiction to cookies I cannot guarantee there will be any left in the box by the tame they arrive in the mail... Nabisco will one day fear my cookie teleporter....
I wouldn't blame them too much. Classes themselves are confining, stereotyping tropes and an intrinsic design of D&D. That's their purpose, and multiclassing used to be awful restricted to reflect that. D20 took a very restrictive system and opened it up significantly, but you're still hamstrung by class features bundled to taking X levels of a class, needing Y or Z to qualify for prestige class, XP penalties, etc. Really classless systems (or at least, generic/modern classes + custom feats) are the ideal for giving players the freedom to build whatever character they want, D&D has never been the best at that, instead guiding players towards certain established tropes. That fact very likely still has something to do with its enduring popularity though.
When I was 13, I discovered D&D and I've been hooked since. I love D&D and the d20 system because the sky is the limit, and when you hit the sky, break the limit and go further. The idea of people building their own prison of expected tropes makes me a sad panda. I think it's pity, really.
I think the thing I find sad is that basic d20 offers some very appealing things from a character creation standpoint. Class based systems are pretty simple, and make it very easy to build a character that you can (hopefully) expect to work pretty well. D20's open multiclassing gives us a system that is both highly versatile (a trait of classless systems like Shadowrun or Deadlands) while combining it with the simplicity and stability of a class-based system (like D&D and many derivative RPGs).
BESM D20 even shows you can do a "build your own" hero type of character with the class system. Their book gives a ton of abilities and rules to create your own abilities, along with a point value to those abilities. Then it gives you a set of pre-built "classes" tuned to certain archtypes. They even include an "adventurer" class which gets a set amount of points to buy their own abilities with, so you can customize.
It hurts me to see people basically ignoring the benefits of the system we're playing. We've improved upon the limited meta-gamist concept of class, and have moved forward. It's like listening to people in the Jetsons complaining that their cars can fly on what appears to be nothing, and harkening back to the days of expensive gas prices and pollution.