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The kender do not have this problem, as they all come from close knit communities and learn a bit about all the paths and options before apprenticeship with a master.
So much so that they (as a race) are able and often do multi-class on a whim.
I don't care WHAT class Kender take. And it doesn't matter WHAT class I am playing when I see one. Soon as I see kender, I kill kender. End of story. Wouldn't care if I lost my class as a result, or if I lost the character.
Had some baaaaaad experiences with them once upon a time!
Dragonlance elves are far more worthy of genocide than kender. Bunch of racist, xenophobic, arrogant jackasses.
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Remember, as I GM it is all about making sure your players are having fun, so you have to alter your expectations based on your group. If your players like background and explaining their character, then encouraging them to have it make sense it great as it will allow the players to have more fun through describing the process through which they achieved their new class.
On the other hand, if the players are more interested in rolling dice, killing goblins and spending gold, only to go out and do more slaughter, then they are going to have little interest in having things make sense and to impose it on them will only feel like slowing the game down and make it less fun for them.
Obviously that's the extreme end of the spectrum, but all groups are somewhere in between. In conclusion, what works for one group will not work for another.
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One of the many reasons why I don't like Ninja. They didn't have magic abilities, they didn't dress in black bathrobes, they didn't have large organizations, and for the most part they never used fancy tools.
I hate to break it to you, but historically speaking, nobody had magic abilities.
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If the player is doing it purely to powergame or gain game advantage with no thought of rationality, then I won't necessarily disallow, but I certainly won't make it easy for them afterwards.And here we get to the 'if you're not playing it my way I will MAKE you' problem.
Or, if you aren't willing to adapt to the table, I'm going to serve the needs of the many rather than you...
In my games, the class chosen during creation has to fit the world I'm running for. After creation, the mutliclass has to make RP sense for them. For instance, a player can say "Hey I'm interested in taking alchemist, I think it will fit." But if he hasn't run accross one, or even learned what it would take or the study involved to become one, in character, then no. For things like sorceror, if there's something in the backstory that makes sense for their sorcerous blood to activate, then ok, maybe. Otherwise, you want to learn arcane magics? Wizard or witch, and the latter will really take some story work.
On the other hand, if a player comes to me up front and says "this is the character paths I'd liek ot take" I can work them into the story.
Like all things in this game, it's give and take.
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Or, if you aren't willing to adapt to the table, I'm going to serve the needs of the many rather than you......while going out of my way to make sure you get served, in the negative sense.
No, I'm going to not play that game with them. You act like I'm taking people out to a woodshed by not spending hours of my life gaming with them.
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Maybe this story will help explain my position.
I have a player in RoTRL who started off as a Shoanti Cleric (Skull Clan). He multiclassed with Barbarian for awhile to about, I want to say it was above 10th level. Really into his character and the setting and the campaign.
He came to me out of game and discussed a concept he wanted to do where he would be able to turn into a grey wolf. He had an elaborate reasoning that fit into the campaign history, and there was no real mechanical advantage (although it saved his ass later in the game unexpectedly). It was an almost entirely flavor focused request based on his conception of his character in the game, as it had developed since first level.
We discussed polymorph and a few other things like custom magic items, but he really wanted to shapeshift as part of his character and was frustrated that he couldn't get that option because he went cleric rather than druid, and was asking me to consider letting him redo his character (something I am loathe to allow for Retcon reasons) or just going into druid for awhile, which he knew that would kill him mechanically and take possibly the rest of the campaign to accomplish.
We dug around and found the 3.5 shapeshifter druid variant class that lets you shapeshift into one form at 1st level (or something like that, I don't remember the specifics) and I said I would make an exception to the no 3.5 stuff because his taking a level of druid was more hurting him mechanically than helping him with his build. I didn't want to make him take several levels of druid just to be able to do this one concept which fit very well into the story as a whole.
I bent over backwards for that player because it was important to his story and more importantly it improved "the" story for everyone. He cared about "the" story, and so when we were able to make it work everyone at the table thought it was cool and that it really added to everyone's experience and made perfect sense in the context of the story.
I wouldn't do that for every player, one could argue it didn't "make sense". But it did make sense for that game, and it made the experience better for the table.
Now if the same character came to me with the same proposal, but no reasoning behind it other than "I want this"...not a shot in hell.
I would let my players change into anything they wished. However, for the scenario where they are stuck in a dungeon and a first level of a class grants items for free I would have them get them basically when they got to the next town. For verisimilitude reasons, if I automagically grant new items then I couldn't fault my other players for calling foul when they took 20 to loot rooms which results in perception results in the 30's and 40's.
I also have my players RP gaining familiars if the one they want has a distinct ecology or are particularly exotic in the case of Improved Familiar. This can be as simple as walking through a forest and having the new familiar follow you for "mysterious" reasons.
Generally, I allow anything as long as it makes sense for the setting.
I've never been pushed to give a hard stance re:multi-classing making sense, as most of my players share a similar viewpoint, but I do require a multi-classing make sense for the character.
For example, one of my players has an Oracle of Lore that recently multi-classed due to the player feeling there was too much overlap with the party cleric. He had narrowed down his options to Barbarian -> Rage Prophet, Harrower, or Magus. We discussed it, and both agreed that it would make no sense for a middle-aged woman who enjoys theater and collecting lost knowledge to suddenly decide to become a barbarian. Thus, that option was taken off the table by mutual agreement, though I would have blocked it completely if the player had pressed the point because it really didn't make sense for the character. At the same time, if there had been some trigger for the change and sudden appearance of rage(close friend dying, etc.), it would have been a different situation entirely.
Things I learned from this thread:
Setting expectations in advance = more fun in the long run.
People enjoy different levels of verisimilitude in their games (I won't use the term "reality", because... Dragons).
No one way is badwrongfun unless expectations differ (see the first point).
Adamantine Dragon and I might be the same person and not know it (degree in physics, check; wife has degree in mathematics, check; roleplayer, check... If I find out that AD is 37 and lives in the UK, I'm going to start looking into identity theft.)
Geeze you know--not hitting with every single die roll isn't fun.Umm...yeah, actually it is.
"A casino where I'm winning? I must be in heaven! A casino where I always win? That's boring; I must really be in hell!" The Gambler
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"A casino where I'm winning? I must be in heaven! A casino where I always win? That's boring; I must really be in hell!" The Gambler
Twilight Zone did it first. :)
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I did have problem with the wizard who assumed he was going to get two new spells every level just appearing in his spell book regardless of the situation he was in. I need some justification somewhere --and I'm fairly lenient--but some justification.
The reason for the two new spells would be the same reason why the majority of his spells increase in power step-wise.
At level 5, the maximum reach of a normal fireball is 620 ft. If someone was standing 625 ft away, the wizard wouldn't be able to hit them. And then at some precise moment, the wizard can suddenly reach 660 ft. The character can never reach 625 ft or 650 ft no matter how much he practices without also being able to hit 660 ft. It's a step-wise improvement.
It's also the same reason that no matter how much my character works out or hits the gym, his strength will never naturally improve until he hits one of the stat improvement levels (4, 8, 12, 16, 20). And then that's only if I choose to increase strength, but not increase one of the other five stats.
It's the same reason why all my skills seem to improve in steps of 5 percent, but never less or more.
Or you can just handwave it all away and claim that the character has been thinking about it, working out the magical writings using scrap paper, and practicing the news spells during his off time (while at camp, etc), and only now is he satisfied enough to write them into his spellbook. But if you're at that point, why even bother with requiring the player to come up with a reason at all? You didn't bother to require the player to explain his skill, stat, or spell range improvements. Focusing on that one thing as the "unrealistic" aspect just seems inconsistent.
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I'll admit I never understood why so many people are so very strongly against multi-classing to begin with; this whole debate seems to me like an offshoot of that one: "Prove to me that it 'makes sense,' because I personally hate it, so it will take some effort to convince me to allow it, regardless of what the rules say." Why so?
It's clearly not about power, because almost any multiclass combination in the world is less powerful than a single-class character of the same level -- even not counting the myriad unnecessary incentives that Pathfinder dangles in front of you to make sure you stay single-classed (not just favored class bonuses, but all the various bonus spells and other stuff that say "this is a class feature and you don't get it if you multiclass! So there!").
It's clearly not about making sense, because let's face it: is it more absurd that people would learn from their teammates, or that everyone would somehow spend their entire lives fanatically focused on doing only one thing only, as if living in a vacuum chamber? Realistically, most people are going to develop major hobbies and other interests that eventually effectively turn into bundles of abilities (i.e., another "class," when it gets to the point that Pathfinder's anemic skill system can't adequately model them).
Personally, I look for more ways to incentivize multi-classing, rather than discouraging it. I find that table after table of hyper-specialists, pigeon-holed into a few distinct roles, really grates on my fun. Then again, I don't tell the players not to do that, if that's what they want; I just try to make it clear that I won't jump all over them if they try to make a slightly more complex character.
The mechanical disadvantages of multiclassing are extreme enough that I don't need to add emotional blackmail disadvantages as well.
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I'll admit I never understood why so many people are so very strongly against multi-classing to begin with
I think the multi-class thing was just the context of the original dispute, and doesn't really have anything to do with the actual issue. Speaking for myself, as a GM for literally 15 straight years, twice a month, I require all mechanical decisions to make sense within the context of the world I'm running. It's fairly rare that there's any question of a rules-legal choice making sense, and I can't remember the last time there was any actual dispute over it, because all I have to do is ask, "How did that come about?" and my excellent players give me a rationale that's good enough.
But if one of them ever came back with, "It doesn't matter, because it's rules-legal, so I can do it," I'd literally laugh in his or her face.
(BTW, I also do some stuff to incentivize multi-classing. I use a Base Magic Bonus (analogous to BAB), for instance, to allow caster level to stay relevant when spellcasters multi-class. I've certainly got nothing against multi-classing. It just needs to, you know, make some sense. Like every other mechanical decision that hits my table.)
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To me, a single-class progression requires just as much explanation, if not more so, than multi-classing, if I'm supposed to believe that it "makes sense."
Which is more reasonable:
1. Group of people with different skills teach one another some of the tricks of each other's trades.
2. Group of people with different skills continue to hyper-specialize within their own fields, despite having no access to mentors, and never learn stuff from each other.
Most people are starting with the unspoken assumption that #2 always makes sense, and that #1 is more ridiculous. I sort of question that assumption.
That makes sense if the skills being picked up are from a party member.
That makes sense if the skills being picked up are from a party member.
Or, to my mind, if the skills are being picked up from some guy you've been hanging out with in town "off-camera," or from a spellbook you got from the bad guy and have taken to studying every night, or from the sword you got as loot and have been swinging around in your free time because you think it makes you look cool, or as a divine vision from the gods... or whatever. You can probably pretty much see where I'm going here -- when Adamantine Dragon says, "there are so many 'realistic' possibilities that there's probably no point in forcing people to make up a new one that fulfills some subliminal standard of the DM's," I pretty much have to agree with him.
And most especially so when the default standard of "realistic," the one that no one seems to have any problem with at all, is that "people don't usually learn from the people and objects and situations around them; they just get inexorably propelled to ever-greater specialization by some sort of divine impetus."
Geeze you know--not hitting with every single die roll isn't fun. Perhaps as a character I should just insist that my character never have to fail a roll again. Let's do away with that un-fun idea of failing a roll.
See, I called the "Hurr durr guess bad things never happen at your table durrrr" stuff like 3 pages ago.
Damn I'm good.
Baseline for anyone is a 'comfort zone', they stick with what they know, so I think it makes more sense for a person to pick a path and stick to it
Some characters focus on perfection of an ideal or way to be.
Nobody wants to be the bard, so...
I do agree, with most of what you're saying, but I still want my players to tell me what they are doing and why, rather than showing up the next session with class abilities I was unaware of.
Some characters focus on perfection of an ideal or way to be.
Sure, but an equal number of other people have all kind of interests and aptitudes that have nothing at all in common. Bruce Dickinson (of Iron Maiden fame) is a singer/songwriter, literary afficionado, professional pilot, and near-Olympic level fencer. I myself am a geologist, hydrogeologist, educator, technical writer, game enthusast and designer, wine snob, home brewer, failed Zen Buddhist, and past martial artist (a monk/druid/alchemist/expert, if you prefer!). Then again, I've worked with people who have only a single passion, and do stick to it as you describe. I don't see that one is fundamentally "more realistic" than the other.
I didn't say more realistic, I said it makes more sense.
You're also equating skill choices and hobbies to class abilities.
But there is no true translation to real life, so, whatevs.
I don't think it's too much to ask (or to demand, really) that a player keep his GM informed of what he's doing with his character mechanics wise.
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I'll admit I never understood why so many people are so very strongly against multi-classing to begin with; this whole debate seems to me like an offshoot of that one: "Prove to me that it 'makes sense,' because I personally hate it, so it will take some effort to convince me to allow it, regardless of what the rules say." Why so?
It's clearly not about power, because almost any multiclass combination in the world is less powerful than a single-class character of the same level -- even not counting the myriad unnecessary incentives that Pathfinder dangles in front of you to make sure you stay single-classed (not just favored class bonuses, but all the various bonus spells and other stuff that say "this is a class feature and you don't get it if you multiclass! So there!").
It's clearly not about making sense, because let's face it: is it more absurd that people would learn from their teammates, or that everyone would somehow spend their entire lives fanatically focused on doing only one thing only, as if living in a vacuum chamber? Realistically, most people are going to develop major hobbies and other interests that eventually effectively turn into bundles of abilities (i.e., another "class," when it gets to the point that Pathfinder's anemic skill system can't adequately model them).
Personally, I look for more ways to incentivize multi-classing, rather than discouraging it. I find that table after table of hyper-specialists, pigeon-holed into a few distinct roles, really grates on my fun. Then again, I don't tell the players not to do that, if that's what they want; I just try to make it clear that I won't jump all over them if they try to make a slightly more complex character.
The mechanical disadvantages of multiclassing are extreme enough that I don't need to add emotional blackmail disadvantages as well.
There are two separate issues, one of which I defend and one I don't.
""Prove to me that it 'makes sense,' because I personally hate it, so it will take some effort to convince me to allow it, regardless of what the rules say." is an unfair description of "Make sense".
As I said 99 times out of 100 I don't even blink. There is no approval process.
It is that 1 out of a 100 time when I go "Why?".
Because I don't know.
In my experience, with anyone who isn't going to be a big pain in the butt to game with, they have an answer to the "why?".
But some people are arguing asking why is wrongbadfun, player owns character, I do what a want!
And I'm saying, seriously? We can't agree trying to make sense isn't a goal we should be shooting for? Even that is sparking heated debate?
Really? Asking players to make an effort to make sense is too much now?
Like I said, why don't they have to make the same effort when staying single-classed?
If, as you say, things just need to make sense, that should cut both ways.
The fact that it's one-way only suggests to me that "making sense" is a rationalization and not the reason.
i don't care about justifying a multiclass unless it is something extremely strange.
going for a PRC is fine, as is dipping in unarmed combat themed classes to become a better brawler.
i also don't have problems with stat dumping. i just want to know why your onispawn tiefling multiclass martial artist has that 5 charisma. which is easy enough to justify in a variety of ways.
my issue would be why the good aligned aasimaar witch who binds angels, is using the blood of devils to heal, maybe if we changed the name of the spell to celestial healing, and the material component to angel tears, that could work.
i won't ask why your half orc or jungle human is a scarred witch doctor and won't mind. in fact, i won't even require racial heritage. nor will i question your dwarven mountain druid's preference for kobold geishas.
hell, i would allow the reslotting of any slotted item to another fitting or legacy slot, or the reskinning of a slot. Eyeglasses of intelligence? fine. bracers of ogre power? fine. Undershirt of resistance? fine. Garter of Charisma? fine.
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There are two separate issues, one of which I defend and one I don't.
""Prove to me that it 'makes sense,' because I personally hate it, so it will take some effort to convince me to allow it, regardless of what the rules say." is an unfair description of "Make sense".
As I said 99 times out of 100 I don't even blink. There is no approval process.
It is that 1 out of a 100 time when I go "Why?".
Because I don't know.
In my experience, with anyone who isn't going to be a big pain in the butt to game with, they have an answer to the "why?".
But some people are arguing asking why is wrongbadfun, player owns character, I do what a want!
And I'm saying, seriously? We can't agree trying to make sense isn't a goal we should be shooting for? Even that is sparking heated debate?
Really? Asking players to make an effort to make sense is too much now?
I highly applaud what you're aiming for. To me, story is king.
But it's not for everyone, and all this talk of "requiring" makes my skin crawl. I certainly don't discriminate mechanics-wise between those who are interested/good at RPing and those that aren't. I hate the idea of the GM setting hoops for others to jump through. If Bob wants to play Berk the Backstory-less Barbarian, and switch to sorcerer (or whatever), that's fine with me so long as Bob is pleasant and fun. If all Bob enjoys is the tactical game and the group hang, I don't require him to engage in this aspect of the game, as it's one he doesn't enjoy.
Dragonlance elves are far more worthy of genocide than kender. Bunch of racist, xenophobic, arrogant jackasses.The kender do not have this problem, as they all come from close knit communities and learn a bit about all the paths and options before apprenticeship with a master.
So much so that they (as a race) are able and often do multi-class on a whim.
I don't care WHAT class Kender take. And it doesn't matter WHAT class I am playing when I see one. Soon as I see kender, I kill kender. End of story. Wouldn't care if I lost my class as a result, or if I lost the character.
Had some baaaaaad experiences with them once upon a time!
Ever adventured with a kender? They are kleptomaniacs with zillions of pockets, claim they never steal (lie shamelessly) and routinely get you into massive trouble through either you coming up short when you need your gear, or doing something stupid like asking a red dragon for a light, or ticking something off that you KNOW is gonna get everyone else in the party dead, EXCEPT the damned kender.
Kender are a menace that should STAY dead with extreme prejudice!!!!!!!!!
One of the many reasons why I don't like Ninja. They didn't have magic abilities, they didn't dress in black bathrobes, they didn't have large organizations, and for the most part they never used fancy tools.I hate to break it to you, but historically speaking, nobody had magic abilities.
"I hate to break it to you, but historically speaking," there is nothing to distinguish ninja from the rogue class.
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Like I said, why don't they have to make the same effort when staying single-classed?
If, as you say, things just need to make sense, that should cut both ways.
The fact that it's one-way only suggests to me that "making sense" is a rationalization and not the reason.
I can't think of any scenario where "I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing" would not make sense.
"I hate to break it to you, but historically speaking," there is nothing to distinguish ninja from the rogue class.
I hate to break it to you, but Pathfinder is not based on historical fact.
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I highly applaud what you're aiming for. To me, story is king.
But it's not for everyone, and all this talk of "requiring" makes my skin crawl. I certainly don't discriminate mechanics-wise between those who are interested/good at RPing and those that aren't. I hate the idea of the GM setting hoops for others to jump through. If Bob wants to play Berk the Backstory-less Barbarian, and switch to sorcerer (or whatever), that's fine with me so long as Bob is pleasant and fun. If all Bob enjoys is the tactical game and the group hang, I don't require him to engage in this aspect of the game, as it's one he doesn't enjoy.
If story is king, and one player is disrupting the story and questioning it is wrongbadfun, story isn't king.
It's not even a Prince.
I highly applaud what you're aiming for. To me, story is king.
But it's not for everyone, and all this talk of "requiring" makes my skin crawl. I certainly don't discriminate mechanics-wise between those who are interested/good at RPing and those that aren't. I hate the idea of the GM setting hoops for others to jump through. If Bob wants to play Berk the Backstory-less Barbarian, and switch to sorcerer (or whatever), that's fine with me so long as Bob is pleasant and fun. If all Bob enjoys is the tactical game and the group hang, I don't require him to engage in this aspect of the game, as it's one he doesn't enjoy.
If story is king, and one player is disrupting the story and questioning it is wrongbadfun, story isn't king.
It's not even a Prince.
I can see a massive, gaping distance between "not directly adding to the story", and "disrupting the story. If Bob's not adding but not disrupting, and he's pleasant, courteous and tactically skilled, he still gets a seat at my game.
Unless he never brings snacks. Or belongs to the KKK. Or other comparable bad stuff.
Like I said, why don't they have to make the same effort when staying single-classed?
If, as you say, things just need to make sense, that should cut both ways.
The fact that it's one-way only suggests to me that "making sense" is a rationalization and not the reason.
Just once, at creation, when the player goes over his character concept and goals with the GM to see if it will fit.