With Your Powers Combine

 Thoughts on Multiclassing

When I’m building a character I like to think about things I want him to be able to do and how best I can get those abilities onto my sheet. Sometimes the things I want to accomplish for my character cannot be done with just the base class. Now Paizo has made it easier to switch around some class abilities with the cunning use of archetypes, but often you have to resort to the dreaded practice of multiclassing.

Now multiclassing is a touchy subject for some people. I personally enjoy the hell out of mixing and matching class abilities to find odd synergies. I’ve always found it odd that some folk will claim that level dipping is min-maxing a character while others will claim that multiclassing at all is always subpar. I’m not sure how it can be both things. I just look at it as a way to get the character the abilities that you need. And as I’ve already discussed, since your character isn’t a class you can very well make a sword fighter by mixing rogue and fighter, or slayer and swashbuckler.

One of the main arguments against multiclassing is the decrease in effectiveness of level based abilities. Anything that has a DC based on your level or gives you a bonus that is half your class level will be affected. It’s also a big no-no to multiclass out of a full spellcasting class because it hinders your growth into the more powerful spells in the game. And while all this can be mechanically true, you can build a character that can have a lot of fun with one or two abilities that synergize well by multiclassing.

Now there is a fine line between fun and useful and completely ineffective. You should be making a character that can do interesting things but can still contribute to the party. I’m not one of those folks that thinks you should level dip into commoner or anything. I just don’t think every character has to be made exactly to a formula, or else you just get the same exact wizard or the same exact rogue at every table and that gets dull.

One of the current characters I am playing is a multiclass character with three classes. The character originated from an idea that Alex Augunas put up on his Iconic Designs section of know direction. I did, however, make some adjustments to make it fit what I was going for. When I first did the build neither my GM nor I realized that sleuth and steel hound didn’t stack, and although we left it be for the game I’m going to present the character that actually works without the stacking issues.

Like Alex’s build, I went with investigator and gunslinger, but I also added in a level of swashbuckler. For my version of the build I went with the sleuth archetype of investigator, the mysterious stranger archetype of gunslinger, and the picaroon archetype of swashbuckler. So what is the synergy of these classes you might ask? Grit, luck, and panache are different pools that combine into one bigger pool, and with these archetypes each of those pools is based on charisma. So I get a combine grit/luck/panache pool of charisma times three.  And once I’ve hit one level in each of these classes I have nine deeds as well, all fueled by the same pool.

Now is this the most overpowered combination of classes to build from? Probably not, but it has been effective and most of all it’s been a lot of fun to play. Now I just took a one level dip in both gunslinger and swashbuckler because the core of my character is a detective for the Magnimar city guard, but from there I could have gone five levels in gunslinger for dexterity to damage and played him a little more combat heavy.

One of my other favorite multiclass combinations is barbarian and the mutagenic mauler archetype for brawler. It’s an idea that got better fleshed out by other people, particularly when our friend Neal over at Improved Initiative used it as a conversion for Bane, but it’s something that seemed pretty obvious, and I played it as my first brawler character ever. The obvious mechanical synergy is stacking the increased physical stat bonus (usually strength) with the bonuses granted from rage. The thematics of the multiclass is a person who takes a drug and gets both angry and more powerful. To run with the idea that the drug makes you angry, though, it makes sense to only rage when you take your mutagen.

There are hundreds if not thousands of other ways to multiclass. Although many times the prestige classes out there are not that great many of them you need to combine some classes to get into. Mystic Theurge gets a lot of crap because people are dead set on the idea that you must hit level nine spells for full casting class, but I’ve seen it played pretty effectively. There are also dozens of different ways to multiclass into eldritch knight which can be fun as well. It all depends on your balance between fun (or thematic) and useful.

Do you like to multiclass or do you prefer staying one single class straight through? If you do enjoy it what are some of your favorite multiclass combos? What kind of synergies do you search for when multiclassing?

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