Multiclassing and Favoured Classes

Another rule that can be removed from D&D easily is the favoured class rule, and the associated penalty for unbalanced multiclassing. The motivation for doing so is a (slight) reduction in complexity.

The motivation for the existing rule is to provide a clear delineation of class roles by reducing multiclassing, while at the same time allowing non-humans limited free multiclassing to promote the concept of elves as master wizards, dwarves as doughty fighters, and so on. The idea was that most elves would pick up a couple of incidental levels of wizard, and so on.

From a balance perspective, there's no reason for a race having one favoured class over another. Is there anything inherently better about a dwarven rogue/wizard as opposed to a fighter/rogue? What about an elven fighter/rogue as opposed to a rogue/wizard? The answer to both is probably "no" (except that the combinations listed are actually rather poor, but this has nothing to do with the races involved).

Of course, this leads to the charge that lots of people will pick up single levels of classes for the free benefits. This may be true. That said, who really cares? For a spell-caster, even a single level of another class leads to a huge reduction in their spell-casting ability. If one restricts oneself to the non-spell-casting classes, a lot of the worries disappear.

The biggest fear people seem to have is the single level of Ranger for the two-weapon feats. As my analysis below shows, two-weapon fighting really isn't that good, unless you're also a Rogue. And, if you are a Rogue, what third class would you take? The reason for this last question is that if you play a human, half-elf or halfling, the Rogue n/Ranger 1 is a perfectly valid class combination anyway - it's only when adding a third class that the current rules balk.

Any such worries disappear very quickly anyway. It's only at relatively low levels that adding a new class adds a lot to a character. For most characters at medium to high level, it's generally better to remain single-classed or add a Prestige Class anyway. And, of course, neither of these have any risk of causing XP penalties.

There remain problems with the multiclassing rules, particularly as regards spell-casters. However, the favoured class rule and the XP penalties don't really do anything to correct the issues inherent in the Fighter 1/Ranger 1/Paladin 1/Barbarian 1 combination (which has a Fort save of +8, Ref +0 and Will +0 - it really should be corrected to +4/+1/+1 to match a Fighter 4). I'll get back to how I might fix that.