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The rules clearly allow for multiclassing. A barbarian 3, say, with decent intelligence could at any point take a level of wizard and carry on happily Barbarian 3/Wizard 1, then return to further levels of Barbarian. This new level of wizarding in theory takes no time to acquire.
How do people justify this in terms of role play / character development / in-game reality?
After all, don't we expect the skill of beginning characters, particularly highly trained ones like wizards, monks and fighters, to be the result of years of hard study? I can easily understand picking up a level of sorcerer (the inherited trait just took a little longer to show), but not with trained characters. Surely to become proficient at a new trained class should take AT THE VERY LEAST a year of study, and more likely two to four years? Not likely something to be fitted in between adventures.
Has anyone house-ruled against adding certain classes later in the game?
Does any GMs require some downtime or story justification for dipping into another class? (i.e. next adventure takes place 18 months after the previous one).
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In theory, they are studying it while they are adventuring, so prior to actually getting the new class, they've been studying the skills and trying to learn the abilities and techniques.
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If we start this we could go back to leveling only in cities with trainers and when no trainer is to be found you can't level up. That's too much hassle for me and just burdens down the game.
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I leave the rules as they are, but I encourage players to roleplay working towards a new class. No penalty if they don't though.
For example, if the player was planning to take that wizard level, his barbarian might spend some time looking over the wizard's shoulder and eventually (when he levels) it all clicks together and he manages to cast a few spells.
So instead of people getting enough XP to level and then worrying about training, I encourage them to RP the training while they're getting close to a new level.
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My experience with traing after reaching level X, is that they might gain level X+1 before actually completing the level X training.
At that point it becomes smart for characters to stop adventuring and train first, before continuing to adventure. Which is not good: the rules shouldn't be pushing the PCs not to adventure.
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What a coincidence. I was contemplating this myself last night. I've been planning a rogue character who takes on summoner a little later on in the game. Being big into character backgrounds, I wanted to know how Pathfinder views multiclassing as in a roleplay sense.
I guess its as simple as it is when it comes to wizard, as GreyWolfLord pointed out: Studying to gain the profession later.
How about classes such as Sorcerer or Summoner? Having this innate ability to cast spells? Would this RP'd sort of the whole "Ever since childhood I've always felt different than everyone else" line??
It does make much more sense if the later additional class has already been built into the character's background/history.
"When he was an apprentice wizard, he practiced swordfighting with the squires from the castle, and wants the opportunity to try more of that style of fighting."
"He grew up on the streets, hanging out with the gangs and thieves who talked about their work."
"As a young elf, he had little success with magic despite many years of it in school, but feels if he returns to study it later in life he'll be more successful"
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You know that movie cliche how someone gets knocked unconscious and when they wake up their personality's changed just a bit? In RPGs that can be used to justify just about anything.
"Since I got raised from the dead I've taken an interest in religion."
"Since I got hit with a Charm spell I've been questioning my sexuality."
"After I got swallowed whole I decided some physical self-defense training might be in order."
"I'm sick of falling into pit traps all the time. I'm taking classes at the Thieves' Guild."
"I think the buff spells are rubbing off on me. Yesterday I think I accidentally cast a spell."
"After the lich possessed me, I think he left some memories behind on how to raise the dead."
I should start avoiding those charm spells
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Maybe you should read this excellent explanation. This is how it worked in 3.5 and probably does so in PF.
My feelings on multi-classing are that the training necessary to achieve first level in any class should be long and extensive as in several years with Sorcerer being a possible exception. Thus, if I were to DM a modern D&D game (3.x and later), I would insist that players who wanted to multi-class begin their careers as multi-classed characters. Basically they would be 1/2 level in each class with only some of the abilities of each class; they would not receive the full benefits of each class until they were a 2nd level character (1st level in each class). Any PC who wanted to change professions later in the game would pretty much have to drop out of the game for an extended period. Admittedly this is a rather draconian stance but any thing else just feels really weird and illogical.
My feelings on multi-classing are that the training necessary to achieve first level in any class should be long and extensive as in several years with Sorcerer being a possible exception. Thus, if I were to DM a modern D&D game (3.x and later), I would insist that players who wanted to multi-class begin their careers as multi-classed characters. Basically they would be 1/2 level in each class with only some of the abilities of each class; they would not receive the full benefits of each class until they were a 2nd level character (1st level in each class). Any PC who wanted to change professions later in the game would pretty much have to drop out of the game for an extended period. Admittedly this is a rather draconian stance but any thing else just feels really weird and illogical.
I'm inclined to agree ... 'suspending disbelief' can only go so far, and a character who (say) has trained all his life as a Ranger suddenly picking up the skills of another profession in practically no time would ruin the cohesiveness of the game world for me. Even sorcerers need time to learn how to control their abilities.
Giving them 1/2 a level in each class sounds a bit of a headache though, merging the classes like that ... but could produce some interesting and unique characters. (Another alternative would be to start all PCs as second level, insisting that if they ever want to have levels in a class, they must multi-class it straight away with one level in each. Afterwards, having already got the basic training in a class, they can add future levels to either class as desired when they level).
The original AD&D allowed for dual-classed characters - they had all the abilities of both classes - with both classes at the same level, and average hit points from the two classes, but required twice the number of experience points in order to level up. So, they could be very powerful initially, but over time lagged behind the rest of the party in hit points and level gains.
What would level 1/2 look like? No skills from the "Special" column of the character description? (That does seem exceptionally harsh on paladins, rangers and monks though. Maybe just allow the first entry from the "Special" column for each class). Spell casters have to make a check for every spell to see if they actually managed to cast it? (10 + spell level to beat, casting stat bonus on d20 roll. Natural 1 causes a spell "backfire"). Oh, and limit orisons and cantrips to 3 + casting-stat-modifier times per day. Only half the usual number (+ int modifier) of skills for each 1/2 level. Hmm, other than possible "level 1/2" multi classing, those actually make decent restrictions for a trainee NPC in a class.
Oracle levels are easy for this. Have a few weird dreams during the downtimes, one day wake up with your eyes cloudy for having caught some divine entity's attention.
The 1/2 level idea definitely would create greater work for the DM. For BAB and Saves it would be pretty easy: BAB would be +0 unless the PC was multi-classing in two classes that each got +1 BAB at 1st level. Thus a Fighter/Ranger would be +1 but a Fighter/Wizard or Fighter/Cleric would be +0. Saves would simply be 1/2 of the appropriate bonus for each category. Using the Fighter/Wizard example, the PC would have +1 Fortitude and +1 Will; a Fighter/Cleric would have +2 Fortitude (+2 from Fighter and +2 from Cleric divided by 2) and +1 Will.
The difficulty would be in deciding how to apportion the class specific abilities like spells (I would probably give '0' 1st level spells so they would need a bonus in the spellcasting ability to get 1 spell similar to a Bard), extra feats, lay on hands, etc. Ultimately, it would have to be a balancing act on the DM's part to try to get the appropriate power level. It might make sense to give the player the option to choose between certain abilities: a Fighter/Cleric can either choose to have a bonus combat feat from the fighter class or the channel ability from the cleric class, whichever one was not selected at 1st level would be gained at 2nd level.
a simple solution we have implemented is at character creation each player picks 2 classes for his character to be eligible to take as they advance, then season a background to fit the decisions.
Anything else will take some substantial downtime for re-training and such.
I guess we came to point that after Archetypes and alternate racial traits and a glut of feat possibilities, we really only needed 2 classes at best to build any character for our campaigns.
I think people just sorta moved outta the dip class phase and now are making more campaign integrated PCs.
But hey every table is different, and for the most part we have used the boards as more of a "what to avoid" source. :)
Roleplay it.
I love organic character evolution (as kyrt-rider put it), but the character has to evolve. My gunslinger would benefit mechanically from a level or two of inquisitor, but there's just no way the blasphemous little bastard is going to start bowing down to some two-bit outsider with confidence issues. If I were going to do it, then I'd require some sort of conversion experience--or at least a setup where I agree to do the deity's dirty work in exchange for those cosmic powers.
The gunslinger did take a couple of rogue levels, though, to improve his ability to deal with traps. He spent a couple of weeks setting up obstacle courses and training regimina in his "stronghold". Since he's a goblin, this wasn't much of a stretch to begin with.
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Rather than thinking of your character as a member of 2 or more classes with specific titles and very narrow roles that you feel clash with one another, try thinking of them as an organic collection of their knowledge and experience. I personally have skills and abilities that I didn't possess 15 years ago coming out of college, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with what I studied in college or what interested me in my youth; it seems perfectly reasonable for characters to also learn new and different things. People retire, people get bored, people find that what they thought they wanted was not what they really wanted, people get injured and have to change vocation, people discover religion or turn away from their god. When these things happen, they don't suddenly forget everything they knew and all they were capable of before their retirement/injury/revelation/what-have-you.
When I create a character, I generally decide what I would like them to do. I take the classes that best enable them to do those things then I figure out how a person would come to have all those abilities and make a suitable backstory to explain them.
All kinds of things change over time. Why does a fighter in PFRPG always have to be a fighter?
How do people justify this in terms of role play / character development / in-game reality?
Personally, when I'm GM'ing I don't care how people justify multi-classing. I only care that they do justify it. As part of that, I essentially require one level notice before taking a new class (that is not one of your favored classes).
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How do people justify this in terms of role play / character development / in-game reality?Personally, when I'm GM'ing I don't care how people justify multi-classing. I only care that they do justify it. As part of that, I essentially require one level notice before taking a new class (that is not one of your favored classes).
Eh, I wouldn't require this. It isn't like you need one-level notice to pick which spells you gain/feat you take/skill ranks you improve at level-up so that you have time to study those spells/practice that feat/practice those skills. Similarly, I see little reason to disallow someone from taking a different class level and retroactively assuming that they've been studying it during their downtime. Enforcing such a behavior wouldn't really add anything to the game, but it would take something away.
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In theory, they are studying it while they are adventuring, so prior to actually getting the new class, they've been studying the skills and trying to learn the abilities and techniques.
That's how we always went with it as well. In their down-time they've been picking through books and acquiring bits and pieces of the appropriate information building up to the actual culmination of their part-time studies at level-up time.
Unless there is an in character reason for a change (which should provide the justification for multiclassing), I prefer to choose a class that encompases my whole character from level 1. I wouldnt go barbarian 3, wizard 1. I'd play a blood rager.
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To the people who object based on realism: do you also object to gaining levels in a single class at a speed that's drastically faster than what came before?
If an elf becomes a level 1 wizard in 150 years, and an adventure path advanced him to level 15 in 6 months, do you forbid that because of realism?
Another question I think is important; that I think is the MOST important: is your "realistic" scenario fun for players? Or are players restricted to one or two classes, just to satisfy "realism"?
Having to plan out your character in advance - I think that's awful. That means that if your campaign causes character development that I didn't anticipate at level 1, that I should not act on it.
* If a character is raised from the dead, and he becomes curious about the afterlife he returned from, he shouldn't be allowed the cleric class because the player didn't anticipate that at level 1?
* If a character discovers that the father he never knew was actually the BBEG archmage (Luke, I am your father), he's not to be allowed to start studying wizardry to beat his father at his own game?
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If you want more realistic XP/class/level advancement mapped to a time scale, Pathfinder is a bad game for you because ingame time is not at all related to XP.
If you want that sort of thing, check out Ars Magica instead.
It would be a quick path to disaster and failure to start trying to put realism expectations into a D&D game.
And yet people keep trying to do it!
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The rules clearly allow for multiclassing. A barbarian 3, say, with decent intelligence could at any point take a level of wizard and carry on happily Barbarian 3/Wizard 1, then return to further levels of Barbarian. This new level of wizarding in theory takes no time to acquire.
How do people justify this in terms of role play / character development / in-game reality?
After all, don't we expect the skill of beginning characters, particularly highly trained ones like wizards, monks and fighters, to be the result of years of hard study? I can easily understand picking up a level of sorcerer (the inherited trait just took a little longer to show), but not with trained characters. Surely to become proficient at a new trained class should take AT THE VERY LEAST a year of study, and more likely two to four years? Not likely something to be fitted in between adventures.
Has anyone house-ruled against adding certain classes later in the game?
Does any GMs require some downtime or story justification for dipping into another class? (i.e. next adventure takes place 18 months after the previous one).
The Barbarian could always raise the spirit ancestors to do his bidding (magic spells), but now they respect him enough to listen. Bothering them too much is disrespectful (more than spells/day) so he can only do it that much.
Why can't your Barbarian move faster (expendious retreat)? Spellbook, No, this is my family tree book. I write new family spirits I remember when I can. "Oh look, Landry, he burned down his house and himself trapped inside (Burning Hands), silly Landry."
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I do not understand why "character class" even exists in-character. Classes are the frame on which the character is built, nothing more. You might say xyz is wizard, fighter, sorcerer, cleric, etc, but beyond that it's just metagame knowledge.
In other words, the barbarian shouldn't need to roleplay much more than learning a fancy new trick or two (taking fighter levels), or else what techniques work best against humans or giants or whatever (ranger). He's still a barbarian and won't ever outgrow his background / tribe etc even if he takes a radical turn and tries to figure out how magic works.
This is true for non-magical Classes. It's definitely not for spell casters, though. Wizards are identifiable in-character for using spellbooks (though perhaps not readily distinguishable from Magi and Arcanists), Sorcerers for casting arcane spells instinctually ala mutant powers, Oracles for being cursed with power (some overlap with sorcerers here, but not enough to confuse them or anyone who knows them at all well), Clerics for being empowered by their God (though there's some overlap with Inquisitors and now Warpriests as well), Summoners are pretty distinctive via Eidolon, Druids by their general style of spell casting and animal companions (though they might get confused with Clerics of Gozreh or other nature deities occasionally, and wouldn't be distinct from Hunters at all), Witches by their ridiculous reliance on a Familiar, and both Alchemists and Bards by their whole styles of 'magic'. Even Paladins and Rangers who don't give up spells are pretty distinctive by their spell casting.
There's some overlap, but saying "He's a Cleric of Abadar." or "He's a powerful Sorcerer descended from an ancient and terrible dragon." are reasonable statements to make in-character. The first might be wrong, if he's a Warpriest or Inquisitor, but those are both distinct enough that it'd be possible to figure the specific details out there, too, if you knew the person well and knew how Clerics normally worked.
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On the original subject:
I'd make anyone doing something really weird like Barbarian into Wizard allocate a few resources in that direction before taking the class (Knowledge Arcana and Spellcraft ranks in that case) to reflect ongoing interest and study.
But most classes don't require that kind of justification. I mean, what is there, Alchemist (easily justifiable for anyone with Craft-Alchemy), Magus, Wizard, and probably Arcanist? Maybe Gunslinger to some degree, too.
The rest are really easy to justify one way or another, IMO.
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The call for this sort of "realism" always seems to come from the GM. I've never heard a player say "it's no fun that I can just multiclass".
The opposite is more likely. "GM's stooopid realism fetish stops me from playing a fun character that the normal rules have no problem with."
Most classes that have significant overlap in abilities aren't hard to justify. A fighter going into paladin or the other way around? They have a large core of similar skills.
Multi-classing into Paladin (and to a lesser extent, Druid) is actually one of the areas where I could see some issues from an RP perspective, on account of the code on conduct. I'm not inclined to be overly restrictive on that kind of thing, but if the character hasn't been acting remotely Paladin-like up to this point in the game, I'd want some explanation for this sudden change in outlook.
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The thing is, Pathfinder already punishes the hell out of you for multiclassing (most particularly casters), and goes out of its way to reward you for staying single-classed. Punishing people even more for multiclassing because it's "not realistic" to you is really above and beyond what's needed.
And before people start spouting about "multiclassing is pure cheese!" -- a single-classed wizard or cleric is WAY cheesier.
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I do not understand why "character class" even exists in-character. Classes are the frame on which the character is built, nothing more. You might say xyz is wizard, fighter, sorcerer, cleric, etc, but beyond that it's just metagame knowledge.
In other words, the barbarian shouldn't need to roleplay much more than learning a fancy new trick or two (taking fighter levels), or else what techniques work best against humans or giants or whatever (ranger). He's still a barbarian and won't ever outgrow his background / tribe etc even if he takes a radical turn and tries to figure out how magic works.
This guy is smart listen to him. Classes at least in my game is like feats somthing that the players know they have but the PCs talk about it in a whole other way if they talk about it at all.
I think Wizard, Monk and to a lesser extent Alchemist would be the least likely classes to multiclass into, as even level 1 is the pinnacle of time-variable study and training.
Druids, Paladins & Clerics can be seen through a change of belief.
Oracles and Witches would be based on an external happenstance.
Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, cavalier and to a lesser extent Barbarians would be based on a decision by the player to focus on the martial capabilities.
Gunslingers, Arcane Sorcerers and possibly Bards can be based on the discovery of the object in question.
Summoners and Non-Arcane Sorcerers could easily be spun an unlocked-potential story. "I was disarmed and suddenly I grew claws!" or the Eidolon appears in the heat of battle, protects the character, then vanishes... the PC wants to reach out to the beast again.
You could even go a "blood transfusion" sorcerer or a possession route for wizard/alchemist, as mentioned above. But honestly it would really depend on the GM if he wants "true organic" growth (The fighter didn't MEAN to get possessed, but now that he has, the next level WILL be as a wizard) or if he wants the option for storytelling purposes (the fighter wants to be a Wizard, so the GM must incorporate that into the story somehow)
To the people who object based on realism: do you also object to gaining levels in a single class at a speed that's drastically faster than what came before?
If an elf becomes a level 1 wizard in 150 years, and an adventure path advanced him to level 15 in 6 months, do you forbid that because of realism?
Another question I think is important; that I think is the MOST important: is your "realistic" scenario fun for players? Or are players restricted to one or two classes, just to satisfy "realism"?
Having to plan out your character in advance - I think that's awful. That means that if your campaign causes character development that I didn't anticipate at level 1, that I should not act on it.
* If a character is raised from the dead, and he becomes curious about the afterlife he returned from, he shouldn't be allowed the cleric class because the player didn't anticipate that at level 1?
* If a character discovers that the father he never knew was actually the BBEG archmage (Luke, I am your father), he's not to be allowed to start studying wizardry to beat his father at his own game?
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If you want more realistic XP/class/level advancement mapped to a time scale, Pathfinder is a bad game for you because ingame time is not at all related to XP.
If you want that sort of thing, check out Ars Magica instead.
I am really new to Pathfinder (and I am not a big fan of many of the rules, in all honesty) and haven't yet DM'd, so my views are purely theoretical at this point. I HATE Pathfinder's version of multi-classing. I would implement the old AD&D standard, which is what I basically proposed in my original post.
As far as Elves taking 150 years to advance to 1st level and then moving up rapidly due to adventuring, I have two thoughts on that subject: first, I don't follow the rules strictly for 1st level starting age. I would say that an elf takes no longer to learn how to be a 1st level (insert class here) than a human. Secondly, learning how to be a (insert class here) in the first place (gain 1st level) does take a lot longer than the incremental learning that is involved in moving from 1st level to 2nd level in the same class IMO.
I would allow the PC who was raised from the dead to add a level of cleric, he/she would just have to stop adventuring for a significant amount of time to train that 1st level of cleric.
The problem a lot of people seem to nto be noticing with the hate on multi-classing is teh gestalt classes. How would work the gestalt PrCs? Rage Prophet REQUIRES you to be a barb and take a dip into oracle (or sit around as a oracle for a LONG time then dip into barb, either or). Eldritch Knight (without using SLAs as a shortcut) requires you to be a wizard 5/Martial 1. While it may make sense in the long run, if you travel organically, wouldn't you have an issue with a guy who started as Fighter 1, then took wizard for 5 levels after that? Would that not scream "problem"?
Sure you can argue 'well then just play a magus" but what if they don't want to play a magus? I know a lot of people still prefer EK over magus for a multitude of reasons (having full spellcaster being a big one).
Oh and some character concepts require some odd multiclassing to work (unless you allow 3.5 material). For instance, wanting to play a Dragon Knight (Ala Legend of Dragoon style). Before you could take the PrC (forgot the name) that was essentially a Paladin of Dragons. Now, in order to make that character, you have to be Paladin X/Sorcerer (Dragonic) X/ Dragon Disciple X (depends if want to be more Gish (Paladin 2/Sorcerer 3) or more martially (Paladin 4/Sorcerer 1)). But if you organically level it from 1, depending on where or how you started, the "realism" of his growth would seem very.... weird...
besides, why the hell are you guys trying to apply realism to a game with dragons, demons, and Flumphs????
GMs who expect some type of rationale for multi-classing may wish to let their players know ahead of time. Players should also consider that GMs may have more reasons than just enforcing their vision/and or stifling their creative impulses.
For example, I played in a homebrew game with an old school GM. I knew early on that my character was going for eldritch knight. The GM originally hadn't incorporated EKs into his campaign so he made a paladin-like order that my character could join (my PC was lawful good and I had described his bonded weapon as once belonging to his grandmother, a famed eldritch knight). The other PCs were asked to speak on my PC's behalf and I got to roleplay through a solemn, sacred induction ceremony when I took my first EK level. It was one of the highlights of the game for me and a milestone in my PC's career.
Communication from both sides of the table is key. GMs might get an element they can use to enrich their world in an unexpected way. Players may get the chance for a cool experience that really makes them part of campaign lore.
