Hotfoot wrote:Now, on the subject of multiclassing: It doesn't suck as hard as it may seem. In fact, it's actually far more generous than most previous forms of multiclassing from what I saw, but what you have to remember is that multiclassing in 3.x without ridiculously powerful and broken prestige classes SUCKED. There was no way to get the higher level abilities if you had ten levels in fighter and ten levels in wizard, you were doomed to a Rogue's BAB, nowhere near the number of feats, and only 5th level magic. Not so here, where a fighter who multiclasses can pick up a wizard's paragon path, higher level abilities, and so on. Yes, you have to give up some of your fighter power abilities, but that is the price you pay for having a wider selection of abilities to choose from in the first place.
The problem is how much you have to pay. Compare:
3E: Switch classes at any time, the only price is that you don't advance in your first class.
Now, let's look at what you have to pay in 4th Edition to get the same benefit:
1) At least two of your existing class features, which are traded for new class features.
2)
Three feat slots. It would be bad enough just having to give up existing abilities, but now you also have to waste 3 feats to do it, costing you even more of your primary class's ability.
3) Your paragon/epic path. After all that, now you're finally allowed to have a second class. Too bad you permanently give up advancing in your first class to get it, even if you decide you're finished with the second class and want to work on the primary again.
So in short: what you could do for free in 3E, now you have to pay a huge price to do in 4E.
And the lack of higher-level abilities wasn't so bad in 3E, since you had a nice selection of prestige classes. Sure, Wizard 10/Rogue 10 would be pretty weak, but Wizard 5/Rogue 3/Arcane Trickster 12 works just fine.
And come on, three-plus class characters were almost entirely uber-cheese crap that was done specifically for retarded first and second level bonuses, like a Paladin Barbarian Fighter Rogue who dabbled in Wizard for some random PRC that gave stupid retarded bonuses.
Well, three base-class characters, maybe. But when you consider prestige classes, it's often mandatory to have two base classes, then the prestige class is a third. In 4E, I guess it's less of a problem, since there are no prestige classes, but it
does remove your paragon path and epic destiny options. Why? There's no good reason, it's just an arbitrary limit.
Look, bottom line, when someone says to me that multiclassing allows for "Non-traditional" characters, I have a healthy dose of skepticism, because it seems like code for "retardedly powerful bullshit". Non-traditional characters, in my mind, are defined by the characters themselves, like the Rogue who is lawful good, or the Paladin who beats confessions out of his enemies, or the Fighter who hates killing people, not by "The Fighter who can throw a fireball" or "The Rogue who can use Cleric powers", or "The Paladin with Barbarian Abilities".
Why the false dillema here? Who said a character can't have
both? Like it or not, some character concepts require abilities from multiple classes to make them work. Obviously you can also do stupidly powerful stuff with rules exploits, but that's where a little thing called
DM judgement comes in. Who cares if something like Pun-Pun is technically allowed by the rules, any sane DM is just going to say "that's nice, come back with a real character".
As for sneak attacks, it makes sense to limit the initial damage allowed because frankly it's a little ridiculous to cause that much damage on something that's supposed to be representative of a rogue slipping a blade through a target's defenses to hit a weak spot. It's simply not that easy to do that sort of thing with a big two-handed hammer.
And you don't think catching someone from behind with a giant axe is going to leave them open to a nastier than normal hit?
Or for an even more pointless limit, why are crossbows allowed, but bows not? There's absolutely no reason, besides the fact that crossbows are a "traditional rogue weapon", and bows aren't.
Besides which, there's a feat that increases sneak attack damage to d8's, and sneak attack now works on just about everything, instead of maybe only half the monsters you might usually face.
And your point is? Increasing base weapon damage slightly is
not a game-breaking effect, especially when a rogue probably has to spend a feat for proficiency with that weapon.
As for the changes to teleport, well, let's face it, Teleport was one of those broken spells that needed a desperate change.
A better change would be just increasing the price, so it's not practical to use it every time there's a trap in your path. Limiting it to destinations with pre-set teleport markers makes it an almost completely useless spell. Now teleport has gone from "interesting strategic option that needs to be less-frequently used" to "how to carry all of your loot back to town to sell".