D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5e] A fix for free weapons from multiclassing?

[Darklone]

Depends. But since we were talking about proficiencies... losing two levels or rogue for barbarian does even speed up your Uncanny Dodge and won't lower your max skill rank for move silently and other common skills... sure, you lose two points in exclusive skills, but that's scarcely killing you.

OTOH, sneak attacking with greatsword or a greataxe often helps with the damage more than an extra dice sneak attack would.

 

[Ranger REG]

I wonder if they are going to change the rules about getting free weapon proficienices from multiclassing? How a level 1 Wizard who has no idea how to use a longsword can suddenly becomes proficient in not only a long sword, but all other Martial weapons, just by taking a level of Fighter.

After the adventure, he took some time off. Make it 9 months. He comes back surprising his friends with an arsenal of weapons.

Don't treat D&D like a video game. Give a reasonable downtime period between adventure sessions.

 

[Darklone]

Well yeah. But there are campaigns out there without much downtime.

 

[RigaMortus]

Re: Re: [3.5e] A fix for free weapons from multiclassing?

After the adventure, he took some time off. Make it 9 months. He comes back surprising his friends with an arsenal of weapons.

Don't treat D&D like a video game. Give a reasonable downtime period between adventure sessions.

Meanwhile, while he was training, the evil Wizard reached the Tomb of Infinite Power and conquered the world. But at least our hero knows how to use a Longsword proficiently.

You are the one treating it like a video game. How often in video games (Final Fantasy for example) do you have a "race against time", but really it is just flavor text. You don't REALLY have to be at X place in Y time. You can spend 20 hours a day exping and then reach your goal, and the outcome is always the same. You either just make it, or just miss it (as the pre-defined story dictates).

But in a "living" campaign (such as DnD should be), if you are ever on a time critical mission, training will NOT work. If you need to stop that evil Wizard from getting to the Tomb, and it will take 1 months journey to get there (sufficent time to gain a few levels I'd say) and you stop and train everytime you level up, well you are going to fail the quest. Maybe in video games (ie Final Fantasy) you can get away with things like this, but not in your typical DnD session.

The point remains the same. A person can spend 10 years of his life studying to become a 1st level Wizard, forgoing all fighting skills for knowledge in the arcane. Then 1000 XP later he is "suddenly" knowledgeable is ALL Martial Weapons? Yeah, right.

 

[bret]

Multiclassing already had enough problems with it. No need to further hurt someone doing it.

If it bothers you when someone suddenly gets all those abilities, start using the Apprentice rules. Tell the players that they must do one level using apprenticeship between their normal class and the class they want to shift to, in order to develope the skills of the new class.

This does require them declaring what class they are going to take next level.

As for the rogue taking a few levels of fighter, remember that they lost 6 skill points when they took that level of fighter. It wasn't totally without cost.

 

[Shaele]

Re: Re: Re: [3.5e] A fix for free weapons from multiclassing?

You are the one treating it like a video game. How often in video games (Final Fantasy for example) do you have a "race against time", but really it is just flavor text. You don't REALLY have to be at X place in Y time. You can spend 20 hours a day exping and then reach your goal, and the outcome is always the same. You either just make it, or just miss it (as the pre-defined story dictates).

But in a "living" campaign (such as DnD should be), if you are ever on a time critical mission, training will NOT work. If you need to stop that evil Wizard from getting to the Tomb, and it will take 1 months journey to get there (sufficent time to gain a few levels I'd say) and you stop and train everytime you level up, well you are going to fail the quest. Maybe in video games (ie Final Fantasy) you can get away with things like this, but not in your typical DnD session.

Not to derail the thread... but the game is designed around available downtime. How else can your wizard with 4 item creation feats and profession(herbalist) expect to exercise his skills? No downtime means no time to make potions or scrolls, or identify the items they may have found in the field, or use Legend Lore or Commune spells to figure out what nefarious plots (tm) are brewing in the kingdom of Xyzzy.

From your argument, it sounds like you just find multiclassing implausible and disallow it?

 

[Henry]

...How a level 1 Wizard who has no idea how to use a longsword can suddenly becomes proficient in not only a long sword, but all other Martial weapons, just by taking a level of Fighter.

For me, it makes rational sense: Basic Training. The kind of basic proficiency that raw recruits get in military boot camp. Proficiency is nothing special to me, it's more on the lines of "knowing how to use it without embarrasing yourself," than it is any high level of expertise. In fact, I disagree with Martial weapon proficiency applying to only one weapon at a time for non-warrior-types, because most of the weapons in that branch are very similar, analogous to the way most firearms are today.

So a mage who wishes to delay his power progression by one whole level of spells to become merely proficient in most armors and weapons (which he will never use anyway) is a valid trade-off. A mage wielding armor or brandishing a large weapon is only going to demonstrate his or her lack of prowess anyway.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I'm another one of those people who finds the "Multiclass with a melee class... BOOM... full weapon use!" situation absurd. It's just yet another reason to take one level of Ranger and then go back to your original class.

***HOUSE RULE ALERT***
Thankfully, we came up with a weapon proficiency system IMC that gets around this. There are 8 weapon categories (Slashing, Chopping, Piercing, Blunt, Projectile, Thrown, Natural, Ray). The Martial Weapon Proficiency gives you a full category.
Each weapon-using class (plus Druids) gets one category (their choice) at character level 1.
Each weapon-using class (plus Clerics) gets one pre-set category at class level 1, except Fighters get to pick any 1. So, all Paladins might get Slashing, while Rangers would get Projectile.
Each weapon-using class gets more categories as they go up in level. Fighters might go 3, 5, 7, 9; Rangers and Paladins go 5, 10, 15; Rogues only get 6, 12, 18. PrCs are the same way.

Anyway, the idea is, someone who multiclasses into a fighter-type class should get SOME weapon proficiency, but not as much as someone who's been in that class for a while. It's worked really well so far, too. I should probably write a full version in the House Rules forum.

 

[Ranger REG]

Re: Re: Re: [3.5e] A fix for free weapons from multiclassing?

Meanwhile, while he was training, the evil Wizard reached the Tomb of Infinite Power and conquered the world. But at least our hero knows how to use a Longsword proficiently.

Now, that's a "videogame" style of play.

I don't let anyone level up in the middle of an adventure. That is why I -- the GM -- reward XP at the END of the adventure. To reward them during the adventure will only interrupt the ongoing session just so they can get the extra level to fight better or have better hit points? Yeah, right.

I don't care if they're 1 XP away from the next level. They play out the entire adventure I prepped for my player, THEN they get their reward at the end.

The next adventure I set up, I will fast forward the game-timeline.

So if they still got to stop the evil Wizard from reaching the Tomb of Infinite Power, I'll let that adventure play to the end (whatever the end may be: success or failure), but I'm not giving XP DURING that adventure. If I have to, I'll use my GM power to suspend multiclassing, if I think the next adventure (should they fail) give them another chance to stop said evil Wizard.

Your Campaign, Your Rules.

 

[RigaMortus]

Re: Re: Re: Re: [3.5e] A fix for free weapons from multiclassing?

I'll agree with your statement, "Your Campaign, Your Rules."

But just for the sake of arguing, your methodology doesn't seem to work very well TO ME. It may be all fine and dandy in your game.

To reward them during the adventure will only interrupt the ongoing session just so they can get the extra level to fight better or have better hit points? Yeah, right.

I agree with you here, we don't play that way either. We used to play it took 1 week to train, but that just got in the way of time critical quests. So we currently play, when you have enough exp to level up all you get is your new Hit Points, and all other new class features you get the next day.

They play out the entire adventure I prepped for my player, THEN they get their reward at the end.

Now this is something I would disagree with, for MY game anyway. Imagine Frodo, trying to get the One Ring to Mount Doom all at level 1? It would be impossible to do. And if he stopped his quest for a few weeks every time he went to train and "level up", the Dark Lord's minsions would have caught him for sure.

I am going off on a bit of a tangent here. My point is, you can't ALWAYS just speed things up. Sometimes you are on an epic quest and time is against you. Sometimes (especially if you use modules) the quest is designed to get you from level 1 to level 5 before your final confrontation with the BBEG. If you waste time training, then you fail your quest. If you rush through the quest, you won't have sufficient levels to defeat the BBEG.

So while training is a feasible option in SOME campaigns, it isn't in all campaigns. And in the campaigns where time critical quests are happening, and you get enough experience to level in 1 day's worth of encounters, it makes no sense that learning a few basic Fighter skills suddenly grants you proficiency in EVERY Martial weapon. Especially when you've trained 5+ years of your life in a totally different profession, such as Wizard.

So if they still got to stop the evil Wizard from reaching the Tomb of Infinite Power, I'll let that adventure play to the end (whatever the end may be: success or failure), but I'm not giving XP DURING that adventure. If I have to, I'll use my GM power to suspend multiclassing, if I think the next adventure (should they fail) give them another chance to stop said evil Wizard.

Sounds kind of harsh to me, but to each his own.

I guess we just have different play styles here. It is very common for us to play a 6 hour session, and have only an hour or two pass in game. We do not get much downtime, because if we waste too much time, BAD things will happen So we don't have the luxury to waste weeks on end "training". And to compensate for this, the DM is lax on the leveling. We get exp after each encounter, if we have enough to level then we only roll for HP, then we must wait the next day and we are "magically" (if you want to call it that) leveled. So you can see why a Level 1 Wizard who spent 10 years of their lives only practicing magic and the very simplist of weapons, overcomes a few challenges in one day, then decides to go Fighter and wakes up the next day with the knowledge of all Martial Weapons is a little bit far fetched (sorry for the run-on sentence). I am sure I'm not the ONLY one that plays this way...