It seems that a bulk of the conversation on these boards is directed at Settlement/Company recruitment, general speculation as to what might or might not make it into the game, and other general stuff...with very little information coming out of the Alpha testers as to how things actually work. Don't get me wrong...there are spreadsheets upon spreadsheets of data, which is nice, but without an understanding of how all of that data links together it's really just data. This may be a result of their being more comprehensive data on the Alpha boards...I don't know, but it still seems to leave a gaping hole (unless I'm missing it) in certain things.
Let's take for example the Quick Start guide that GW was kind enough to put. For purposes of this post, I'll look at the fighter.
Fortitude Bonus 1, Heavy Melee Attack Bonus 1, Hit Points 1, Power 1, Trophy Charm
Implement Proficiency 1, Heavy Blade Specialization 1, Unbreakable 1
This is what is listed as the requirements to attain Fighter 1. All fine and well, and I get that for the most part. But what if you want to play a fighter and go the archer route. Does the "Heavy Melee Attack Bonus 1" represent a categorical requirement (i.e. any attack bonus qualifies) or is it specifically "heavy melee attack" and if you go the archer route you would have to train your archer skills in addition to whatever skills grant the heavy melee attack bonus? (Cleric has a similar issue with domains, and rogues with swashbuckler/cutthroat requirements.)
Also, since you can pick and choose what skills you train and the roles really exist as soft-coded groupings...how do multi-roles work? If I attain Cleric 1 and Wizard 1...am I then able to cast spells from both without issue, or do I have to swap out a bunch of stuff to do so, thus eliminating/reducing the effectiveness of a character blasting in combat but tossing the occasional heal if needed?
Goblin Squad Member
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As far as Multiclassing (I tested Wizard/Cleric) you can cast any spell you know that you have slotted, but you must have the appropriate weapon equipped in order to utilize them.
AKA: I use my staff and I can use my Wizard spells, I press the "`" key and switch to my Acolyte Battle Focus and I now have access to my Cleric Cantrips.
Edit: I'm planning on doing a more comprehensive visual how-to-guide/stream during the next testing phase, pending of course the necessity of such a thing. so far I have 4 people that asked me to run through the very basics of gameplay as well as adjusting key-bindings.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as I know the requirements for gaining levels in roles (eg. Fighter) don't include 'OR' options yet. Eventually they should. So for the moment yes you'd need to get Heavy Melee Attack Bonus to get a fighter level even if you're going the archer route. But once those 'OR' options are included it might end up being that you need Heavy Melee Attack Bonus or Ranged Attack Bonus to get that Fighter level.
You can train whatever you want from many roles assuming you have the xp to spend and have the needed achievements. But you can only slot so many abilities at once, somewhat analogous to how you can only slot a single armor piece at one time. There will be dedication bonuses which you can only get if you have slotted abilities from only one role. So slotting a mix of cleric and wizard abilities would mean losing that bonus.
Eg. if you slotted mostly wizard abilities but decided to slot a cleric class feature then you wouldn't get the dedication bonus. Since you can only have a single class feature slotted at once slotting that cleric class feature would mean you're not slotting a wizard class feature, so you wouldn't get the benefits of any wizard class features you've trained.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There will be options on these as the OR logic gets built into the requirements engine. It was not fully implemented in the ALPHA release. The developers have mentioned that.
I had chance to do play some at Paizo Con and there will be other options at GenCon (which is a lot farther from me). As a result I do not feel as confused about these questions as it was fairly easy to pick up in the UI. (I do recall some uncertainty before that play. The tables and such put basis of where my character would go for training or what to train for.
If you look at the armor tables, you will see three archetype for each role. So there are some plans for different styles.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have touched on some of this in my alpha rant which there is a link to in the thread "Wyspr's on his soap box again!".
To achieve levels at the trainer you need to have trained the prerequisites as listed, but these are around 1/4 to 1/3 of the class abilities. Heavy weapons are all large 1H and 2H weapons, there are a bunch of different armor feats and passives as well. These things that are not prerequisite make a significant amount of customization available for your character.
All combat abilities/attacks are linked to weapons so you still need to train to use them. Deacon Wulf covered this so I'll not repeat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is problematic. Are there not implements that function across roles? for example, if my rogue trains cleric and wizard spells and has domains associated with a god of murder, he should be able to use his dagger as a melee weapon and also as a spell casting implement for both roles. Classic Fantasy commonly sees Daggers used as an implement for casting spells as well as a tool for committing murder.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are not currently any implements that function across roles, and real multiclassing support is not part of the mvp. However, you can equip 2 different weapons and 2 different implements, so unless you really need to triple class you can probably do what you need to with weapon swaps.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is problematic. Are there not implements that function across roles? for example, if my rogue trains cleric and wizard spells and has domains associated with a god of murder, he should be able to use his dagger as a melee weapon and also as a spell casting implement for both roles. Classic Fantasy commonly sees Daggers used as an implement for casting spells as well as a tool for committing murder.
Um, yes and no.
You have to have an implement to fight or cast a spell: sword, wand, holy symbol and you need to slot the attack style/spell. And the more diverse role you try to use simultaneously use, the less each can do. This description may help. Daggers are not implements of spell casting.|
Goblin Squad Member
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The magnitude of the dedication bonus still hasn't been decided. Some of the quotes from Paizo suggest that they expect multiclass characters to be very powerful, and the dedication bonus will be needed to maintain single class builds as a viable option. From what we've heard out of Alpha, however, it sounds like multiclassing requires serious planning and effort to remain viable. I think this is another "We'll see when EE starts," issue for players and GW.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... what if you want to play a fighter and go the archer route. Does the "Heavy Melee Attack Bonus 1" represent a categorical requirement (i.e. any attack bonus qualifies) or is it specifically "heavy melee attack" and if you go the archer route you would have to train your archer skills in addition to whatever skills grant the heavy melee attack bonus?
Unfortunately right now, yes. Stephen has said they want to set it up so the prerequisites for Fighter are more along the lines of "Heavy Melee Attack Bonus or Light Melee Attack Bonus or Ranged Attack Bonus" (not sure if these are exact), but they just don't have the tech ready to handle the or logic yet.
If I attain Cleric 1 and Wizard 1...am I then able to cast spells from both without issue, or do I have to swap out a bunch of stuff to do so...?
Short answer, yes, you can easily swap between Wizard and Cleric spells during combat. You can even set it up so you have a Mage Staff Weapon for all your Wizard Cantrips, and a Divine Focus Implement for your heals, all on the same Weapon Set.
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Goblin Squad Member
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divine focus weapon, or holy symbol implement?
To be honest, I'm not real sure. I went through a few drafts of that post, and most of them had question marks in parentheses after all the stuff I said about Clerics.
If it's not Wizard-related, I'm really not that knowledgeable about it :)