Since 3.5e Core will be reprinted, what are your thoughts?

[Prime32]

Nah, just remove multiclassing penalties entirely.

[NunoM]

Nah, just remove multiclassing penalties entirely.

...but then, half-elves would be left even more undesirable. I see half-elven extinction in the making...

[Halinn]

I quite like how Pathfinder handles multiclassing, to be honest. A benefit for staying single-classed (in PF's case, 1 hit point or skill point per level), rather than a penalty for having more than one class. Under that system, Half-Elves get an extra choice for favored class, so they can get that bonus for two classes.

[littha]

I quite like how Pathfinder handles multiclassing, to be honest. A benefit for staying single-classed (in PF's case, 1 hit point or skill point per level), rather than a penalty for having more than one class. Under that system, Half-Elves get an extra choice for favored class, so they can get that bonus for two classes.

It was a good idea until they started giving away spells known...

[Halinn]

I quite like how Pathfinder handles multiclassing, to be honest. A benefit for staying single-classed (in PF's case, 1 hit point or skill point per level), rather than a penalty for having more than one class. Under that system, Half-Elves get an extra choice for favored class, so they can get that bonus for two classes.

It was a good idea until they started giving away spells known...

I've come to expect that Paizo ruins the good things they implement. The idea of extra options for favored class is good, but it's not easy to make something that's worthwhile and balanced.
At least they haven't nerfed the paladin back to 3.5. They did at least make that class better. That's a discussion for another thread, though.

[Unbeliever]

I happen to believe that all multiclass penalties and favored class bonuses are dumb.  Multiclass penalties punish interesting builds, and we should be interested in the end product and how it all coheres together rather than the bits that go into it.

Favored classes are a separate issue.  I'm against anything that discourages playing against type or playing the character you're really interested in playing.  Anything that puts a big neon sign saying "all Elves are Wizards!" or "all Halflings are Rogues!" "all Dwarves are Fighters!" is bad, in my opinion.  There's enough of that floating in the meta, namely the literature and artwork behind the game, we don't need to support it with mechanics. 

[NunoM]

^
I guess the multiclassing rules were meant to reproduce that literature you spoke of, initially. In books you actually find many roguish halflings, dwarven fighters and elven wizards. If it was literature that spawned the rule or the other way around, i can't say. Maybe both

IMO, if the multiclass penalties were lifted, a lot more was to be considered. For starters, that feature that favors humans and half-elves would have to be changed or replaced by something else - 'cause it can't be a feature if everyone has it, it becomes a rule.
That Pathfinder option sounds good, but, as the other comments referred, there must be balance.

hehe... this is becoming more and more like a "request for rewrite" not a reprint

Another issue i'd like to see reviewed:
- Concealment (there was some talk about this in another topic). Personally, i preferred the 3.0 rules, but they went on and simplified this as well, like they did to the rules for Cover.

..yet another:
Why the heck did they change the spell "Darkness" to produce shadowy illumination?! For one, that totally killed one of the best drow tactics ever. Also, it gave the option to produce some light in total darkness with a spell called "Darkness"
Not to mention, of course, that the feat "Blind-Fight" lost even more of it's benefits.
I wonder how Drizzt handles it now...?

[RedWarlock]

I liked the intent behind the 3e implementation of favored classes, it wasn't so much 'All X are Y', as much as 'Any X can dabble in Y'. The only problem really popped up where the new classes outstripped the races.

The thing with multiclassing was, I'm pretty sure it was intended to limit too much dipping of the kind that a lot of builds take for granted. The classes weren't originally built for that kind of play. (frontloaded paladins, 2-level fighter dips, a barb dip for pounce, etc) Of course, then some folks just do the same thing with PrCs...

I liked the intent behind PF's multiclassing, but yeah, the alternate options got out of hand.

There should be a solution for that kind of free, dip-based multiclassing, but I think it needs a different class structure, without frontloading of numbers and class features. (I take out penalties for multiclassing in mine, but then I also restructured save and attack bonuses to be simpler. Instead of two save tracks, I use one save track, and a single, non-repeatable (and starter-only) feat that builds in the +2 start and a scaling increase. If you multiclass and already have that starter feat, you get a bonus feat for some other use, but you don't drastically over-stack the save bonuses, keeping them more in-scale. Attack bonuses are divided into two camps, full and half.)

[InnaBinder]

I quite like how Pathfinder handles multiclassing, to be honest. A benefit for staying single-classed (in PF's case, 1 hit point or skill point per level), rather than a penalty for having more than one class. Under that system, Half-Elves get an extra choice for favored class, so they can get that bonus for two classes.

In practice, that amounts to the same thing as a penalty for multiclassing.  It's just been re-packaged under a different guise.

[Halinn]

I quite like how Pathfinder handles multiclassing, to be honest. A benefit for staying single-classed (in PF's case, 1 hit point or skill point per level), rather than a penalty for having more than one class. Under that system, Half-Elves get an extra choice for favored class, so they can get that bonus for two classes.

In practice, that amounts to the same thing as a penalty for multiclassing.  It's just been re-packaged under a different guise.

Only in the sense that being a fighter is a penalty for not being a wizard.

[InnaBinder]

I quite like how Pathfinder handles multiclassing, to be honest. A benefit for staying single-classed (in PF's case, 1 hit point or skill point per level), rather than a penalty for having more than one class. Under that system, Half-Elves get an extra choice for favored class, so they can get that bonus for two classes.

In practice, that amounts to the same thing as a penalty for multiclassing.  It's just been re-packaged under a different guise.

Only in the sense that being a fighter is a penalty for not being a wizard.

I would say 3.5 makes it demonstrably true that choosing to play a fighter is its own penalty.

[Unbeliever]

I liked the intent behind the 3e implementation of favored classes, it wasn't so much 'All X are Y', as much as 'Any X can dabble in Y'. The only problem really popped up where the new classes outstripped the races.

This is probably the best argument I have heard for favored classes.  In practice, it probably doesn't work out, though, b/c no one really just dips a level of Rogue to "be a little Roguey" or dip a level of Wizard, and so forth unless there's a particular build reason for it.

It really comes down to how you approach character creation.  For me, if your goal is to build Bronn (of Game of Thrones fame, and no, I don't like referring to the series as the Song of Ice and Fire b/c that sounds dumb), I kind of don't care how you get there.  Just so long as he's got abilities and characteristics, mechanically-speaking, that sell the concept at the table.  He's supposed to have such and such skill set, and so long as you have abilities that track that, then cool.

This is what has always seemed to be at the heart of the 3rd Edition D&D to me.  In many ways, they hesitated in really taking the plunge in the whole "here are some building blocks, put them together how you want" approach b/c it was such a radical break from 2E.  But, I think the best iteration of the system embraces that approach.  Tangentially, I think for this reason 4E is really the truer spiritual successor to 2E.  Saying your character is an Elven Wizard says a lot about him in 4E and 2E.  Not so much in 3E. 

If you don't fully embrace that building blocks approach, then you end up with a mishmash which is what I detect in Pathfinder.  There's this sense that multiclassing exists, is a part of the core rules concepts, but is looked down upon.  It's tolerated, but discouraged, which is a really fucking weird place to put a core rules concept.

[RedWarlock]

It's one of those concepts where I wish they had written the Favored Class concept in 4e to be "All Elves have the Multiclass Feat: Wizard Initiate" (or whatever it's called), and give humans a choice of any one multiclass feat (and take off that stupid 1-multiclass-only restriction). That way, it's an open path that requires less resources to dabble in than in other options. It doesn't restrict someone who doesn't care for that concept, but makes it easier for someone to dabble. (and that, as a whole, is the best argument for a unified class-structure concept that I've ever seen, where you can freely trade out one power for another of equivalent level.)

[awaken_D_M_golem]

... Only in the sense that being a fighter is a penalty for not being a wizard ...

HA !!
 

[JohnnyMayHymn]

Sep 18, new covers and errata, 50 bucks a pop.

[SorO_Lost]

Sep 18, new covers and errata, 50 bucks a pop.

Oh hey, when does 5th come out btw?

[Unbeliever]

Sep 18, new covers and errata, 50 bucks a pop.

Unsurprisingly, this is the opposite of what I wanted them to do. 

I don't need pretty new out of print books to sit on my shelf.  I need books I don't mind knocking around and beating up.  I would have preferred well-built soft covers for a reasonable price.  At $50 each I think I will be too inclined to treat them nicely and try and protect them from the knockabout world of gaming tables.

[Garryl]

This is what has always seemed to be at the heart of the 3rd Edition D&D to me.  In many ways, they hesitated in really taking the plunge in the whole "here are some building blocks, put them together how you want" approach b/c it was such a radical break from 2E.  But, I think the best iteration of the system embraces that approach.  Tangentially, I think for this reason 4E is really the truer spiritual successor to 2E.  Saying your character is an Elven Wizard says a lot about him in 4E and 2E.  Not so much in 3E. 

If you don't fully embrace that building blocks approach, then you end up with a mishmash which is what I detect in Pathfinder.  There's this sense that multiclassing exists, is a part of the core rules concepts, but is looked down upon.  It's tolerated, but discouraged, which is a really fucking weird place to put a core rules concept.

That sounds a lot like how SWSE seems to handle classes and character building. From what little I've seen of it, the norm seems to be poking your nose into a few different classes to get something neat and valuable for your character. Even Jedi, which look like as close to casters as the system has, never seem to have single-classed builds. Take this with a gain of salt, though, as I've never played the game or read the books, just heard and seen from other peoples' discussions.

[Unbeliever]

Your assessment of SWSE is pretty spot on.  And, it's no surprise that I think SWSE was a great system.  I was very disappointed that 4E decided to go in a different direction.  In a lot of ways SWSE seemed pretty transparently to be the test case for a lot of ideas for the new edition, though they ultimately abandoned them.

SWSE has its problems -- notably its rough around the edges and has power creep issues, mostly caused by its near total lack of support by WotC -- but at the core of it I think is the strongest system that WotC managed to put out so far.

[Artur Hawkwing]

 

$50? I was expecting less than the original MSRP since all the IP is already created and it's just publishing and distribution costs. No way I'll spend $50 on books that I can go down to a used bookstore and get for $25 in fine enough condition. Sorry WotC, you lost my interest.

I wonder what this bodes for the sales price of 5th Ed?