Post-Multiclass

Tael

Just stopping in to satisfy my burning curiosity.

How did multiclass turn out? How do people feel about it? In particular, how has it impacted RP, both personal and your perception of RP in the game more generally?

Tvistor

I'm playing again this weekend having finished undergrad finally, and I don't even know how I'm going to explain forgetting how to snipe every other day.

Kiet

No one seems to care about it much or really make a mention of it at all. People just talk about whatever class they currently are.

Rip

The only thing I would like is a ...(how to explain this)... if you multiclass as the same class you get extra cool stuff.

I have no desire to multiclass, serpent is all I want and need but if there was a benefit to becoming a 2nd tier serpent I get some perks...

Szanthax

Rip said:

The only thing I would like is a ...(how to explain this)... if you multiclass as the same class you get extra cool stuff.

I have no desire to multiclass, serpent is all I want and need but if there was a benefit to becoming a 2nd tier serpent I get some perks...

We need more min/maxxing? I know i'm one to talk but i just feel like that would lead to everyone being whatever class they like the most and maxxing it out or else your not getting all the 'perks' you could be.

Trevize

Multiclass serpent for all 6 classes and you can switch between serpent and serpent more often,

Tvistor

YOU CAN HAVE -SIX- CLASSES?

Valkyn

Tvistor said:

YOU CAN HAVE -SIX- CLASSES?

If you want to throw 20000 credits at it.

Aodfionn

I'm of the opinion that it continued the watering down of class-based RP. That said, it's too useful and too practical and too awesome to oppose on that alone. 

I'd be really curious to hear what people's class combinations are, and how they feel those combinations fit their character.

Kiet

I'm serpent/serpent/serpent/serpent/serpent because Kiet was always a serpent at heart

Melodie

Melodie's main class is still apostate, the "fallen priestess" (kind of) that communicates with daemons and wields necromancy. Her secondary was actually a special gift of sorts via "notes" from someone who collected them for her, as well as managing to tap into something she had done since she was eighteen: wielding the elements, just now as a magi instead of priestess or sylvan.

It's been an interesting and amusing journey for her to re-discover how to use elemental channels to do both familiar things (water weird, holocausts) and unfamiliar things (what the fuck are these weird crystal circles and wh--- ohhh that was different!)

I've been playing her learning magi slow, both for the sake of roleplay and because credits ain't cheap. I've been liking it thus far. I feel like I'll like it a lot more with cataclysm.

Overall my experience has been interesting personally, though most people don't seem to take the time to really explore it (which is their prerogative - sometimes people just want mechanics.) 

Aodfionn

I wound up having Priest be primary (because duh) and monk, because it seems to make logical sense that a nine foot troll's punches should probably hurt like a bitch. Overall, the general theme of spiritual focus and self-mastery from monk guild teachings has been pretty cool to read and look into as I get used to the second class (and desperately miss my angel for an hour or however long).

Kayeil

I was never really invested in the idea of multi-class to begin with, but I have some friends (mainly PKers) who have found it to be a lot of fun because they have so many new things to learn and master. My main class (shaman) is always going to be my class. I only picked up blademaster to make blades for fun. When I finish with that I'll pick up runie just to learn runes, but don't see myself at this point getting into it any farther than that.

Mishgul

I was super excited about it, but then I realised that there is no point for me in being anything other than apostate because it is clearly the most overpowered class in achaea, and any other class is a pale imitation of my ridiculous power.

Kiet

You haven't posted a video about how good apostate is lately

Antonius

Kayeil said:

I was never really invested in the idea of multi-class to begin with, but I have some friends (mainly PKers) who have found it to be a lot of fun because they have so many new things to learn and master.

As an extension of this, it makes fights more interesting when you don't necessarily know what class somebody is going to be fighting as going in. Group fights, in particular, have an added element when you have to figure out what you're actually up against on the fly.

Valkyn said:

Tvistor said:

YOU CAN HAVE -SIX- CLASSES?

If you want to throw 20000 credits at it.

A bit over half that amount for six classes (if you don't want artefacts for any of them). ~900 for the first, 1250 for the second, something like 1900 for the third, 2500 each for fourth, fifth and sixth. Comes to about 11.5k credits.

If you're willing to pay, there's nothing stopping you from having every non-factional class, plus the ones for whatever faction you're part of.

Shirszae

Shirsz picked up Blademaster since she has come to see herself as a sword-fighter after having been so many classes in her past.  Bard and Serpent would complement her just as well, though. Bard because, well, she is a Scarlattan, and rapiers are swords too. While serpent would complement her all-that-matters-is-winning mentality regarding fights.

Trevize

Initially went magi/monk/runewarden/(dragon).

Played a bit into Trevize's history. Delving back into his start as a magi, his stint as a monk, and keeping runewarden since it's the class he hunted to dragon as.

Ended up remembering I didn't like monk, as a class, for Trevize - went to BM instead. Worked well for a shift, with blademaster basically being bladed monks (shin/kai, twoarts&striking/tekura).

I'm not planning to go serpent, that part of his history is a closed book. And I can't go Sylvan as Hashani, which is the only huge part of his history that I'm now missing. So that part is complete.

Next step is new steps. he's dabbled in shaman but never really embraced it, and he's always been curious about bard, so they're likely next.

Beyond that? Not sure. I want six, so there's one more to throw in there somewhere, but for now he has plans to keep him busy for another century or so.

Trevize

Tvistor said:

YOU CAN HAVE -SIX- CLASSES?

You can have more than that. Six (main+5) is the point where you get the equivalent of +1 to class change artie, hence changing between them faster.

Antonius

I want all of them, which is not a cheap project since I also want all of the artefacts (which I then want to customise...). The vial changes mean I'll be getting an unexpected influx of credits today, combined with what I already have that should be enough to pick up my sixth class. Depending on the December promotion, I may have eight by the end of the year (minus artefacts).

Serpent, Shaman and Jester are likely going to be the last ones. Magi and Alchemist are the cheapest options as they don't have weapons to buy, so that might push them further up the list...

Exelethril

Antonius said:

I want all of them, which is not a cheap project since I also want all of the artefacts (which I then want to customise...). The vial changes mean I'll be getting an unexpected influx of credits today, combined with what I already have that should be enough to pick up my sixth class. Depending on the December promotion, I may have eight by the end of the year (minus artefacts).

Serpent, Shaman and Jester are likely going to be the last ones. Magi and Alchemist are the cheapest options as they don't have weapons to buy, so that might push them further up the list...

If you were Eleusian, your project would be more challenging. One should always strive to challenge his/her self

[spoiler] hint hint [/spoiler]

Valkyn

Antonius said:

Kayeil said:

I was never really invested in the idea of multi-class to begin with, but I have some friends (mainly PKers) who have found it to be a lot of fun because they have so many new things to learn and master.

As an extension of this, it makes fights more interesting when you don't necessarily know what class somebody is going to be fighting as going in. Group fights, in particular, have an added element when you have to figure out what you're actually up against on the fly.

Valkyn said:

Tvistor said:

YOU CAN HAVE -SIX- CLASSES?

If you want to throw 20000 credits at it.

A bit over half that amount for six classes (if you don't want artefacts for any of them). ~900 for the first, 1250 for the second, something like 1900 for the third, 2500 each for fourth, fifth and sixth. Comes to about 11.5k credits.

If you're willing to pay, there's nothing stopping you from having every non-factional class, plus the ones for whatever faction you're part of.

Couldn't be bothered doing the math, but if you have that kind of credits you'd want arties for all of them, and the class change artie for sure, so figured it would be either more or less depending.

Aereidhna

Aereidhna was initially a jester when she left the pygmies before swapping to runewarden at age 19, had a crisis around the age of 22/23 when she considered switching from runewarden but was talked out of it thankfully and sort of grew into the class and it became a strong part of her character. I multiclassed jester with her essentially saying that she wanted to go back to learning those skills because she'd had fun with them before, but it's not a major priority in her life, I don't swap classes often. Her personality is very whimsical and fun-loving so in some ways jester fits her, even though runewarden is more of a core part of her identity.

I don't get the urge to swap classes constantly and have six different ones and whatnot personally, and I really can't imagine roleplaying more than two classes or -at most- three (but none of the others really fit her), but maybe it's because I'm not into combat. From a combat perspective I can see the fun of mastering different offenses (and maybe one day...like a million years from now...I'll actually wrap my head around the 'fun' part). But I also get the sense that a lot of people just use multiclass for the utility (e.g. going to swap serpent now so can use wormholes to get to Meropis faster or whatever) with very little RP veneer. People play for different reasons though so I'm not exactly fussed that multiclass is RUINING TEH RPZ OMG.

Valkyn

Class is only a small part of a deep character. You can be a merchant and a sailor and a fighter and a scholar if you so choose, so why would class be any different?

I think "I will go to any length to improve my skills and capabilities in combat, including mastering every discipline available" is valid RP.

Valkyn is a serpent/jester, serpent suits her so well, and I would never have her switch, but she's very much a roguish character and jester is also a good fit, especially with the dark side of puppetry, and the acrobatics. She is addicted to anything sharp and pointy, so if I went another class it would probably have blades. She does like burning things though. Got a few levels to decide what else might fit if anything, but I don't see it degrading her RP in any way regardless of what I pick.

Melodie

Valkyn said:

Class is only a small part of a deep character. You can be a merchant and a sailor and a fighter and a scholar if you so choose, so why would class be any different?

People often choose at least one something to center their character around, and for some people, that's their class. Sure, it wasn't all their was to the character, but it certainly was a defining feature. Not all people chose to do this, but I don't think it makes it any less valid if you did. It makes the above untrue (to some extent). Stories, after all, are written in many ways.

That's not to say your second statement is incorrect - it too is very valid, and I've known several characters over the years who did not let class define them (Finchy springs to mind). My only point is, whatever people choose to focus with their character doesn't seem anymore invalid than another.

Valkyn

@Melodie that was exactly my point. Class can define you - like anything else, but only if you choose that, and you can choose to what extent. I guess I didn't word that first part very well, I didn't mean class *can't* define a character.

Aerek

Fair to say that class doesn't -have- to define you, it makes sense for some characters to treat it just as any other profession. But I also think that class represents a very large investment (OOC and IC) into a particular archetype, and that can/would/should influence our personae in a lot of cases. Just like people don't like Jester because they find the zany goofiness to be jarring for a credible character, I find it jarring when I see characters acting against or ambivalent to the flavour text of their class, whatever it is.

So while I don't think everyone MUST make class their defining attribute, I tend to prefer the company of those that do take their class as a serious influence on their character. We spend huge amounts of time and resources learning these specialized skillsets to channel elements, summon demons, train swordsmanship, or assassinate people, and there's a lot of RP and character development potential in there. I personally find those avenues of RP more interesting to learn about other characters than inter-personal relationships or self-written history.

Obviously knights/Knighood are my go-to example, but since I talk about that all the time, I'll point out @Atalkez. I've never really spoken with Atalkez outside of occasional spars and duels, but from the sidelines, I really appreciated when he started drawing parallels to Lucaine Pyramides post-Mhaldor. (Though I might call that hubris IC) That's taking class seriously and incorporating it into your character to become much more faceted than just being "yourself", and really helps paint a picture of your character that's easy for folks to imagine, and tell stories about.

Let's face it, very few of us are so interesting that we can tell riveting stories by just being ourselves. Class RP is, I think, a powerful way to help us become larger-than-life, and inspire/entertain those around us while we play. Wasting that potential isn't a crime, but I'm always disappointed by it.

Tael

These are all really interesting responses.

Just to inject the same point I tried to make about a dozen times before going inactive with the introduction of multiclass: I don't think that anyone finds it unrealistic for a person to be skilled as both a serpent and a paladin and a magi - it's just weird that you're skilled as one of them at a time and you can "switch" which one it is periodically (or just about instantaneously if you have the artefacts). That was already an issue people talked about pretty frequently with class-hopping in general, but the more rapid vacillation of multiclass seems like a bigger issue (and was, personally, a bigger issue for my immersion when I played Aetolia).

I'm curious if anyone has tried to roleplay that aspect at all - tried to explain why they seem to only possess one skillset at a time. Like a shaman RPing multiclass as connecting more deeply with certain spirits? Or someone acting as though an artefact "stores" the inactive training/skills/memories and slots them in and out sort of like a pensieve or something. Anything like that going on?

Sarathai

Tael said:

I'm curious if anyone has tried to roleplay that aspect at all - tried to explain why they seem to only possess one skillset at a time. Like a shaman RPing multiclass as connecting more deeply with certain spirits? Or someone acting as though an artefact "stores" the inactive training/skills/memories and slots them in and out sort of like a pensieve or something. Anything like that going on?

I don't have a second class at the moment, but I'm treating it much the same way I treat dragonform (i.e. politely ignoring the discrepancy). I mean, in dform I have Dragoncraft, but completely lose access to even the AB files for Druid (and in Druid I completely lose access to the AB files for Dragoncraft). It doesn't really make sense to me that I would suddenly have no idea what the abilities are - not be able to use them, sure, but the knowledge itself should still be there.

Shirszae

@Tael ...I just explain it as practicing the art of blademastery and purposefully forgoing traditional weaponamstery. Much like when you are dragon you can say you are just foregoing the abilities of your lesserform body, even though mechanically you have effectively, if momentarily, completely forgotten them.

Tvistor

Shirszae said:

@Tael ...I just explain it as practicing the art of blademastery and purposefully forgoing traditional weaponamstery. Much like when you are dragon you can say you are just foregoing the abilities of your lesserform body, even though mechanically you have effectively, if momentarily, completely forgotten them.

That works pretty well for that specific ability combination, but I'm guessing most people picked skillsets that were polar opposites to get the most diversity for their money.