Understanding Multi-classing and multi-class penalties

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Regas
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Understanding Multi-classing and multi-class penalties

Post by Regas »

So, for humans, my understanding is a third class can trigger a penalty. Is there a spot these rules are laid out? Are they the same as 3.5 core rules in the game engine? Thanks!
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Adanu
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Re: Understanding Multi-classing and multi-class penalties

Post by Adanu »

For humans, it's 'second class' for the most part. Any race with a favored class does not count that class towards a penalty. As a Water Genasi, Zyrus' fighter levels do not count forwards his MCP, but his barbarian levels do.
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Re: Understanding Multi-classing and multi-class penalties

Post by Brokenbone »

A subtle but important difference in the "video game vs. PnP" is that rounding errors (or as it was somehow explained to me, "truncation") will typically screw you over a little on XP awards. The game doesn't round. This ends up mattering particularly at the low-and-frequent awards area.

Say you were fighting little pushover critters like rats or goblins. Maybe you're "entitled" to 1xp per kill. The -20% means you should instead get 0.8 per kill. Truncation means you get 0. So go ahead and kill 500 rats, you will get 500 instances of 0 xp, someone else would get 500 instances of 1xp I suppose. Similarly if something was somehow worth 2xp per shot, it'd be technically worth "1.6" but that gets truncated to 1.

You can imagine it's the low-area that this gets felt the hardest. In a DM session though where everyone gets say, 200xp for some event, yeah, that might end up looking a lot like 160xp instead (though I think sometimes the last number gets shaved off, it might wind up at 159). I've seen this for mail quests at least where a 10xp award should go down to 8 but instead you get 7... oh well.

So yeah, the wiki link above is right, but in practical terms, the many sources of small xp awards, you may have surprising results... low combat rewards, but also RPXP can be impacted like that.
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Re: Understanding Multi-classing and multi-class penalties

Post by Zelknolf »

The thing that makes it rough is that the truncation happens twice.

Like say you kill a thing, and it's worth 3.99 xp. That has to change from a float (which it is) into an int (like 3) to be passed into the standard XP-awarding function that OE gives us. We still have control over that transition, and newer code we've written rounds it (note the release notes from ACR v1.91), but a lot of things don't, because the reflex is to just pass that into FloatToInt (which just throws out everything after the decimal point). Then OE's stuff handles the multiclass penalty, dividing and truncating again. So that 3.99, if handled "ideally", would become a 3.192 from multiclassing and round to 3; in actuality, it usually becomes a 3 so it's the right data type, and then is multiplied by 8 / 10 (it's an int now, so it's actually "multiply by 8, then divide by 10") and though that would be a 2.4, its data type says that's just a 2.

Or, way more commonly, you'll find that the herds of slayable mooks who are worth 1 xp to your single-classed friends just aren't worth XP to an inefficient multiclasser.
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Re: Understanding Multi-classing and multi-class penalties

Post by Regas »

good to know.

So in the case of a human with three classes- would be correct to say that to avoid the xp penalty all together, I would need to have my second level at 2 in order to start a third class at level one, and from there, never allow more then a single level difference between the second and third level?
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Re: Understanding Multi-classing and multi-class penalties

Post by Zelknolf »

With humans, you can have the general pattern of one class that is very high level, and all of the other classes need to be close to each other, ideally equal.

So, example-- we have a fighter who does pretty well in the wilderness for a fighter. He spends his early days stabbing goblins until they stop stabbing back, and ends up a ftr 4/barb 1. Now, because he's human, his highest-level class (fighter) is his favored class. Of the remaining classes, (only barbarian) no two are more than one level apart, so no penalty.

The same fellow spends a level working hard on his outdoorsy skills, having the mindset of his barbaric roots, but when he gets to talking to a DM about it, they suggest ranger. He wasn't stripping to the waist and headbutting buffalo until they stop headbutting back, after all; he was tracking and foraging. The player thinks that's pretty awesome and agrees, and thus ends up ftr 4/barb 1/rgr 1. Again, his highest-level class (fighter) is his favored class. Of the remaining classes, (rgr 1 and barb 1) no two are more than one level apart, so no penalty.

The same fellow comes to love the ranger life and levels up twice. The next level (ftr 4/barb 1/rgr 2) also comes with no penalty. His favored class is still fighter, and his other two classes are 2 and 1. But the level after that (ftr 4/barb 1/rgr 3) comes with a penalty. His favored class is the highest level (fighter), but the remaining two classes (barb and ranger) are levels 1 and 3. So, 20% penalty. If he wanted to get rid of that penalty, he'd have to take a barbarian level (becoming ftr 4/barb 2/rgr 3) and would want to get barbarian up to 3 to advance as a ranger ever after (as once he hits rgr 5, that will become his favored class, and ftr 4/ barb 3 will be 1 level apart, and thus not produce a penalty).

But let's say this guy gets to high level. Rgr 8/ftr 4/barb 4. And then says "To hell with the fifteen PrCs I probably qualify for. I'm feeling druidy!" And becomes Rgr 8/ftr 4/barb 4/drd 1 (I wonder if we've had anyone with a build like that... by which I mean I don't wonder. I've totally seen it) Again, favored class is the high-level one (ranger), his remaining classes are levels 4, 4, and 1. That "1" is removed from the others by more than one, so it generates a penalty, and will continue to unless/until it reaches level 3.


And then let's look at the whole thing again if the character was a dwarf (which is always favored class: fighter)
ftr 4/brb 1/rgr 1 = no penalty
ftr 4/brb 1/rgr 2 = no penalty
ftr 4/brb 1/rgr 3 = penalty (compare barb to ranger)
ftr 4/brb 2/rgr 3 = no penalty
ftr 4/brb 4/rgr 4 = no penalty
ftr 4/brb 4/rgr 8 = penalty (compare barb to ranger)
ftr 4/brb 4/rgr 8/drd 1 = double penalty (barb, ranger, and druid are all removed from one another by more than 1 level)

And then again if it was an elf (always favored class: wizard)
ftr 4/brb 1/rgr 1 = penalty (fighter is odd man out)
ftr 4/brb 1/rgr 2 = penalty (fighter is odd man out)
ftr 4/brb 1/rgr 3 = penalty (barb is odd man out)
ftr 4/brb 2/rgr 3 = penalty (either fighter or barb is odd man out, depending on perspective)
ftr 4/brb 4/rgr 4 = no penalty
ftr 4/brb 4/rgr 8 = penalty (ranger is odd man out)
ftr 4/brb 4/rgr 8/drd 1 = double penalty (barb, ranger, and druid are all removed from one another by more than 1 level)
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