Can Cerilia handle: The plethora of paladins revisited!!

[irdeggman]

I admit that my perceptions are shaped strongly by the 1st and 2nd edition rules, in which paladins required such high ability scores that only about one person in a thousand (rolling 3d6 six times) could qualify. If we toss that, then sure, they can be everywhere. However, since I find them both insufferable roleplaying headaches and mechanically unnecessary given free multiclassing, I see no reason at all to keep them in 3rd ed.


Ryan

You must also remember the penalties for multiclassing.

It really isn't that "free".

Humans can have their highest level class as their favored class (which can change) but then their next 2 must be within 1 level of each other or suffer a 20% xp penalty. This is a cumulaive effect and the 20% is per class that deviates from the highest by more than 1.

Other races have it more difficult becaseu their favored class is spelcified. Dwarves are fighters, halflings are rogues. Half-elves do gain the benefit of not having a favored class either so they can work like humans.

[MatanThunder]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ryancaveney
I admit that my perceptions are shaped strongly by the 1st and 2nd edition rules, in which paladins required such high ability scores that only about one person in a thousand (rolling 3d6 six times) could qualify. If we toss that, then sure, they can be everywhere. However, since I find them both insufferable roleplaying headaches and mechanically unnecessary given free multiclassing, I see no reason at all to keep them in 3rd ed.


Ryan

You must also remember the penalties for multiclassing.

It really isn't that "free".

Humans can have their highest level class as their favored class (which can change) but then their next 2 must be within 1 level of each other or suffer a 20% xp penalty. This is a cumulaive effect and the 20% is per class that deviates from the highest by more than 1.

Other races have it more difficult because their favored class is spelcified. Dwarves are fighters, halflings are rogues. Half-elves do gain the benefit of not having a favored class either so they can work like humans.

It certainly was a lot more free wheeling in 2nd ed. Even though the multi classing was somewhat limited. Each DM had the right though to rule in multi classes that fit into their Homebrew campaigns, or even to fit into a racial skill set that matched up with the classes.

In 2nd ed the two prime problems were level limits by race and limited choices of multiclassing. I also see a third one which is the experience point splitting that often slowed up a PC's progress when compared with his fellow party members.

I removed the first two problems as follows.

1) Racial limits were altered to allow advancement into higher levels as long as double experience is paid for each level gained. (It hardly made sense to any of us to penalize the long lived races in level advancement then and now.) The PC also had to have extremely high primary STATs in order to be allowed to advance into higher levels.

2) I often allowed sub classes of the primary classes to make it into 2nd ed. When 2nd ed came out I made all subclasses (1st ed idea) completely integrated into the 2nd ed ideas of classes. What this accomplished is to allow a wider range of multiclassing to be available to PC's. Things like Dwarvish Oracles/Psionicists & Elvish Light Mage/Acrobat Thieves spiced things up nicely.

Also people like Gary Gygax & by extension their personal PC's rarely limited themselves to what they wanted the rest of us to play. If you were in with their group you could be almost any class or class variation in the late 1st and early 2nd ed. It is what can happen if the DM has an open mind and the necessary source material.

Class alterations and anomalies were allowed as far back as July 1979 (Dragon Magazine) there was mention of a Dwarvish Paladin (Durathror in a Novel by Alan Garner) there are a lot more in their Giants in the Earth articles. As with all such items it was a DM option to allow it of course.

The idea is that 2nd ed (which the poster noted he was influenced by) is a little more free wheeling than the 3.?? offers its players.

Later

[irdeggman]

It certainly was a lot more free wheeling in 2nd ed. Even though the multi classing was somewhat limited. Each DM had the right though to rule in multi classes that fit into their Homebrew campaigns, or even to fit into a racial skill set that matched up with the classes.

The same rule for using house-rules still applies to 3.5.

The idea is that 2nd ed (which the poster noted he was influenced by) is a little more free wheeling than the 3.?? offers its players.

Later

Actually I believe he was saying that 3.x is more freewheeling because of the lack of limit to multiclassing. Any race, any combination, no class level limit (in core rules - not necesarily setting specifc, like BR)

In 2nd ed humans had to dual class to gain additional classes (which was a very cumbersome and complicated way of getting things done, IMO) and other races had multiclass combinations that were defined (either by the RAW or by the DM to be game-specific, but regardless they didn't have unlimited combinations available). There was a also the class level limits for non-humans, either by the RAW or via game-specific rules, they still existed (and really needed to in order to make up for the power up that not having to dual class gave the humanoids). Also in 2nd ed there was one cardinal rule - no more than one class in a group.

So a character could only be a fighter, ranger or paladin in some combination with other groups but not a fighter/ranger for instance. Rogue group was; thieves and bards, priest group was druids and clerics (or specialty priests if they were used). Now they did make psions a part of the rogue group, but yet not, since they could be combined with thieves or bards in Dark Sun.

[Thelandrin]

I was under the impression that psionics were a seperate class, without being a subclass. After all, they could multiclass, something a subclass couldn't do, and their XP table started off between a fighter and a mage. They also didn't have Dex as a pre-preq.

[kgauck]

The same rule for using house-rules still applies to 3.5.

Funny thing about house rules, isn't it.

[irdeggman]

I was under the impression that psionics were a seperate class, without being a subclass. After all, they could multiclass, something a subclass couldn't do, and their XP table started off between a fighter and a mage. They also didn't have Dex as a pre-preq.

I pointed out that they were under the rogue group but were different in the fact that, at least in Dark Sun (which was the standard for psionics), they could multiclass with other rogue group classes.

Technically they were "class groups" and "classes", although frequently they were referred to as "classes" and "subclasses".

I ran a 1/2 elf preserver/bard/psionicisit (metabolic) in Dark Sun.

There were varied xp tables in the same group.

Warrior group had two tables - fighter and ranger/paladin; Priest had 2 cleric and druid (and IIRC specialty priests were extremely varied in how they were handled so much that I'm not sure if they all followed the same xp table or not).

[irdeggman]

Funny thing about house rules, isn't it.

Yup - we are all the same in our differences.

[ryancaveney]

You must also remember the penalties for multiclassing. It really isn't that "free". Humans can have their highest level class as their favored class (which can change) but then their next 2 must be within 1 level of each other or suffer a 20% xp penalty.

So humans do have it free enough to do away with paladins, since if they have only two classes (cleric and something else), then they can divide them any way they want. So do dwarves, really, since fighter/priest is exactly what they ought to be. Those two are the only ones that matter, unless you count halfling cleric/rogues of Eloele, which also works just fine.


Ryan

[kgauck]

Multi-classing is practically (not always theoretically) free for humans with three classes as well. Since of the three classes, any two need to be within two levels of each other, and the third, whether the highest or lowest, can be the "any" f of the favored class. Looking at builds that don't qualify in practice are unusual. The Priest 12/Fighter 5/Rogue 3 might be a problem only if you insisted on going up to Fighter 6. Any other option is not a problem, and for a variety of reasons, practical builds often never encounter these problems (like the fact that at least one of these classes end up being a dipping class, or that I had to construct a character of considerably high level to create gaps to present this problem. Since it takes 11 class levels (0/4/7) before you can create a situation where adding a third class must cause this problem, and 15 class levels (1/5/9) where every new level buy still leaves you with a penalty, and this assumes all core classes, and that play in Birthright works its way into levels that high.

Are this real limits for play in BR? It can be, but do finish this sentence we need to add a lot of conditional statements, high level play, three core classes, and only those cases where any two classes are not within 2 level of one another. By now limiting the group by stipulating red hair or blue eyes doesn't reduce the absolute numbers very much, they are already too small.

[irdeggman]

Multi-classing is practically (not always theoretically) free for humans with three classes as well. Since of the three classes, any two need to be within two levels of each other, and the third, whether the highest or lowest, can be the "any" f of the favored class.

Actually the highest class level is always humans favored classed, not any of the three. So a 7/6/2 would still suffer a 20% xp penalty since the lowest 2 classes are more than 1 apart.

From the SRD.

• Favored Class: Any. When determining whether a multiclass human takes an experience point penalty, his or her highest-level class does not count.