Flavour vs Crunch: Multiclassing and Dipping - Page 7 - OG Myth-Weavers

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Flavour vs Crunch: Multiclassing and Dipping

 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atomic Dog View Post
Your job is not to abuse the game system at every corner, forcing everyone else you're playing with to do the same in order just to keep up. That's the epitome -- the epitome -- of why being a munchkin is such a wretched and disgusting thing. You're effectively ruing the game for your own silly little reasons, many of which have not only already been pointed out, but rallied behind by the likes of yourself and others.
You keep stubbornly ignoring one crucial fact. Your argument holds no water because straight Wizard, straight Druid, or straight Archivist will blow any of these 'munchkin' builds out of the water easily. That means that, on the one hand, other can keep up without multiclassing. They just need to play a member of the Big Five. On the other hand, it means that you're barking up the wrong tree: players who multiclass aren't forcing others to keep up. Players who play straight Druids are.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Librarium View Post
Uhhh...because it doesn't make any sense from a role-playing perspective? Because it doesn't come from a role-playing perspective. It comes from a numbers perspective, which is in itself a product of optimization and wargaming.
It makes as much sense as single-classing. No NPC can ever tell if you've got 2 or 5 Fighter levels, because classes are an OOC mechanic. It simply doesn't enter into roleplaying - unless you're playing an OOTS game.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Librarium View Post
That is crazy talk. I'm not going to get heated over this or anything, but the job as a DM is to have fun. Which is supposed to be the job of the player as well. If a DM is forced to spend the whole gaming limiting the outlandish maximizations of a certain PC, how does he get to have fun? How are those that aren't doing that?
You've said nothing about multiclassing here. You have addressed overpowered characters. But by now, it's common knowledge that these two only correlate in a small number of cases. Most of the strongest builds are straight tier one Big Five casters.

The only thing you're accomplishing by putting restrictions on dips and multiclassers is restrict the others from catching up to them. As I said, anyone playing one of the Big Five is making it difficult for the other party members to keep up. All you're accomplishing right now is ensuring that can't happen.
This, keeping anyone but the Big Five artificially weaker, is "ruing the game for your own silly little reasons,": you're giving entire slews of characters no change to ever be on the same level, and forcing them to be irrelevant.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Secutor View Post
That's understandable but why is stonewarden and Fist of the Forest necessary though?
Because they help with the rangery and fist fighty aspects of the character. Fistbeard aspires to be a great dwarf champion and has sought to learn the best techniques from the best masters.

The only dip here is in Deepwarden for Stonewarden, as Fist of the Forest is just a 3 level prestige class, fyi.

And the reason Deepwarden is a dip is because the abilities after level 2 just... aren't useful for the character. Sending animal messengers to tell people about orc hordes invading is less useful for Fistbeard than having three levels in Fist of the Forest so that he can go beat up the orc horde himself and save Alvin the Chipmunk the trouble of running to Petrograd for a contingent of axebearers.

Now, from my own perspective, I created a cool little character. I'm playing her in one game, in fact. She needed to do a one level dip into another class so she would qualify for a prestige class where I want to see her going for the rest of the game, well, most of it anyway. If she did not do that dip, she would *never* be able to enter that prestige class - it is a prerequisite which can *only* be met by dipping into that class (or dipping into one of the other alternatives - in any case, a dip is necessary).
Now, by dipping into that class, she, as a caster, will limit her future progression. The prestige class will further limit it - she will never get 9th level spells. But that's okay, because it fits the character concept, and I prefer to roleplay that way.

If a fighter wants to dip into another class to get a prerequisite for something they want to do in the future, I say go for it. Even if it's not a prerequisite, if it's something that makes sense, and they can convince the DM of it while honestly saying what they want, why, and being up-front about future consequences, then I see no reason to throw a tantrum over it. Fighters are weaker than casters later in the game (some would say earlier in the game too), so they need to use what they can to stay relevant. If you, as DM, let them do it, it's all cool. If you, as DM, make it more difficult for them and they accept that, that's all cool too. If you make a blanket pronouncement that it will not be permitted, and they still want to play in your game, that's also cool.

It's your game, you're the DM, you make the rules, others follow. It's someone else's game, they're the DM, they make their rules, you follow them.

I have a couple questions for those who are against dipping.

If a player is looking to make a character who is not stronger than say a pure paladin (just an example) and perhaps even weaker than say a paladin fluff wise, would those of you against dipping be against multiclassing to get a setup that reminds of a paladin, just inferior and with slightly different setup?

Second, I noticed a few talking of classes as "A paladin has to be a paladin ingame" or "A fighter has to be a fighter ingame", okay, these words haven't been used exactly, but they have been implied, what would be so wrong with roleplaying a paladin as say a fighter who has an inborn ability to heal and cast a few divine spells? Perhaps ancient god blood in his veins? Who knows.
This is a bit outside the original topic, but trying to get an understanding of how you guys see the classes, essentially the question is: Do you see classes as forced into roleplaying their class or can one in your opinion refluff a class to fit a concept?

OK, wow, this thread has really exploded whilst I've been out. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, huh?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ikul View Post
You keep stubbornly ignoring one crucial fact. Your argument holds no water because straight Wizard, straight Druid, or straight Archivist will blow any of these 'munchkin' builds out of the water easily. That means that, on the one hand, other can keep up without multiclassing. They just need to play a member of the Big Five. On the other hand, it means that you're barking up the wrong tree: players who multiclass aren't forcing others to keep up. Players who play straight Druids are.
Oh, I see what it is now.

The valiant, gallant multiclassers are the true heroes of the gaming world. It's the foul, demonic single-classed druids and wizards who are the true source of villainy in the game system! Which is why you always see them mentioned on the munchkin threads on the Internet. Planar Shepherd? Incantatrix? Cancer Mage? Beholder Mage? Dweomerkeeper? Tainted Scholar? Yeah, no, those are all pale options compared to the single class Druid or Wizard. Those monsters! All hail the class-dipping rules-abusing nonsensical-cheese factories that are the true saviors of gaming!

And yes, when munchkins start abusing the game, they do force the other players -- the DM in particular -- to do the same. And that is what's being discussed in this thread, not the reasonable players who multiclass in order to actually build a sensible and reasonable character. No matter how much you want to try to spin it otherwise.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Atomic Dog View Post
Planar Shepherd? Incantatrix? Cancer Mage? Beholder Mage? Dweomerkeeper? Tainted Scholar?
If I recall correctly, the original objection was to fighters daring to multiclass by dipping into other fighting-type classes. Which makes every single class you mention above (none of which I'd ever heard of - must be because I play by the core rules, not homebrew and such, I guess) completely beside the point.
Back on track - why should fighters *not* be permitted to dip into other fighter-type classes for particular things that fighters would be likely to want to learn?

Quote:
The valiant, gallant multiclassers are the true heroes of the gaming world. It's the foul, demonic single-classed druids and wizards who are the true source of villainy in the game system! Which is why you always see them mentioned on the munchkin threads on the Internet. Planar Shepherd? Incantatrix? Cancer Mage? Beholder Mage? Dweomerkeeper? Tainted Scholar? Yeah, no, those are all pale options compared to the single class Druid or Wizard. Those monsters! All hail the class-dipping rules-abusing nonsensical-cheese factories that are the true saviors of gaming!
You know, those are prestige classes that are entered by the Big 5.

Prestige classing and multiclassing are different though, as multiclassing involves having multiple base classes.

Right, let's try and pull this back on track. It seems to me that there are several possible reasons to dislike dipping, with the big ones being the following:
  1. It's overpowered (why should you get Pounce when every other Fighter didn't dip Barbarian?)
  2. It makes no RP sense (so you follow that reptilian god of evil just to get the Magic and Darkness domains?)
  3. It's against the spirit of D&D or somesuch

Well, what can we say about this?
  1. Sometimes, yeah, it gives an "unfair" power boost. However, it's in many ways far easier to build a more powerful character going pure. Caster in particular lose out from dipping because of their exponential power increase.
  2. Before we even moved to this thread I myself said I found those 1-level Cleric dips a tad cheesy, and I don't think anyone has disputed it. Without getting into the whole RP-vs-mechanics thing (turns out, mechanics are a big part of D&D), we can all I think agree that perhaps this is an issue some of the time. However, it often makes a lot of sense.
  3. So there seems to be a suggestion that if you can go single-classed, you should, because it's "better". Why is it better? This is the one I'm really failing to grasp. Go take a look at the history of multiclassing system through D&D. Now look back at 3/3.5. Tell me, why did they make the system work this way if they thought that people shouldn't multiclass? If dipping is so against what they wanted you to do, why is it allowed? Personally, I think trying to second-guess the intent this way is a bit fruitless. If a character satisfies the above, i.e. makes RP sense and isn't "broken", what is the harm in them staying like that? This third point seems to be very arbitrary to my mind.




 

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