Fun T20 Multi-Class Combos

[opensent]

Some T20 multi-class combinations seem to yield a natural synergy. It may be in the form of smoothing out weaknesses, or perhaps stacking bonuses.

This is just a thread to stimulate the T20 fun receptors in the brain. Take a moment and list your favorite combos, along with feat choices as well. Here are some of mine.

Navy/Merc: Start Navy for the skill points and excellent prior history development. Add merc for raw combat ability.

Scout/Rogue: Rogue is there to pick up Hide and Move Silently along with the Spot Trouble feat. This scout is a planetside explorer, mapping, charting and surveying new worlds.

Noble/Navy, Marine, or ArmyX: These builds focus less on being a combat god, and more on the tactics feats, and leadership. If you don’t think Leadership is powerful, page 159 will clear up the confusion.

Merchant/Noble: Merchant prince! Use the trust fund to draw credit for large purchases during speculative trading. The BAB bump from Noble is certainly welcome. Indulge your investment hobby with the Market Analysis feat and your penchant for fine dinning and dinner parties by taking P/Gourmet Cook, Steward and Chief Steward feats. Your ship is renown throughout the sector for hospitality. Passengers clamor for even low berths!

Merchant/Rogue: Smuggler! Good feats include fence, smuggling, and narrow escape. You can even name him Han if you’d like!

Scout/Traveller: Contact specialist + negotiator + linguistics means that this guy is your face man.

Rogue/Marine or Army: Military scout/sniper/point man. Only three classes get hide/move silently and rogue is your best choice 90% of the time.

Professional/Navy, Marine or Army: The military option for anyone who’s not just a grunt. I use it for vehicle crewmembers, medics, electronic warfare specialist, mechanics, engineers, etc.

Belter/Marine: Belters are use to danger and would love to get some payback for the occasional pirate attack. Good shipboard skills, 3D spatial boots Marine saves right where it’s needed. Demolitions and gunnery on both skills lists means you can pick your favorite type of fun for your PMOS. Junkyard dog means you can sell what you’ve blown up via that PMOS for more money!

 

[BetterThanLife]

One quick note the Mercenary is one of the other classes that get Hide and Move Silently. If that is the type of character you are looking for then the Marine/Mercenary is a great choice. No compromising on combat ability for the skills. Also because of the skill mix I tend to suggest that Mercenary class levels taken during active duty tend to be SOF experience, as none of the archtypical Sniper, Seal, or other SOF/Paramilitary skills are available to the Marine or Army Classes, they are tucked in the Mercenary Class though, well except for demolitions. Just a thought.

Probably one of the biggest lessons learned from my campaign is not to try to do everything, but specialize.

Starting as a belter might be a good idea for people with a space going profession, ie. Pilot, Astrogator, Starship Engineer, but it isn't a good choice for your master at arms. You definitely want the extra BAB points.

 

[opensent]

Also the feat list is very nice for Mercs as well. It's a great way to pick up some of the more generic D20 feats like point blank shot, rapid shot, precise shot, etc. Who doesn't like rapid shot?

The martial training feat is also a good way to take a brief dip outside of a BAB +20/+15 class and still keep your BAB on par.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Also remember that while Multi-Classing is allowed, it isn't neccessarily a good idea or required. (Unless you start prior history in a service class that you can't continue, in which case it is required.)

A Scout without multi-classing is an excellent First Contact specialist with the right skill/feat mix.

Army/Navy/Marine/Mercenary and even Scout all have Leadership as a class skill, matter of fact they have a pretty broad skill base, so look at what they have before jumping off into a new profession.

Remember the more Classes you have the more scattered your skills will be. YOu will also have a bunch of professions in the level-1 to level 2 range and aren't reaping the benefits of extra BAB (unless you are playing with Mercenary/Marine) extra class feats etc. Your average character starts out, in general, from 7th to 9th level. Of those the first 5 levels are gained in the first two terms. Picking up an additional class doesn't gain much in terms of first level feats, especially if you pick the first class with care.

Hiting a Marine in Battledress requires a roll in the 30s. Plot a jump course, under fire, in a frontier region, 25. Dock ship, 20. Find the Corsair firing on your ship from outside your normal Merchant Sensor range, with active jamming going on 30+. None of these are rolls you really want to blow. Without PMOS, these are rolls that you can't take 10 on either. (And you can't have your PMOS affect BAB.) And just a few select choices of various things you need rolls for. So keep this in mind when you are thinking about scattering your skills.

 

[Burocrate]

How about mixes from the “as of yet unreleased” Traveller’s Guidebook for Players, I created a Merchant Captain who stays in shape through Martial Arts. Not too shabby for High Law Lvl worlds and a big surprise for those Thugs who come to rough up the Impie Merchant. Some of the classes do seem like detailed versions of the Professional Class but these ARE the sophants who will pull-your-bacon-out-of-the-fire when your face those really high DCs.
I also like adding a few levels of Law Enforcer to Army/Marine/Navy characters for that MP or Investigator background.

 

[opensent]

I always decide on a core group of skills to keep maxed, then select the classes that let me keep those maxed.

If it's gunner and demolition, then belter/marine is fine. The number of 'core skills' are determined by skill point pool of the highest BAB class I intend to take. So for belter/marine, I'll stick to 2-3, since Marines get 2+Int. For Professional/Army, It's likely to be 3-4.

That way I always have a core group of skills I'm maxing out at every level.

This is also driven by group need. For a 10 person group, I can play a Marine (heck, we all can and we will still end up with a diverse group of skills most likely). If it's 3-4, then find out what is expected and cover my bases.

The first question I ask myself about a character is this:

What will he or she look like at level 20? Sure he's Navy5/Merc2 now, but what's going to happen in two levels? Or five levels? Everything else seems to fall into place from there.

If the multiclass doesn't work toward my goal, then I don't take it.

Nothing worse than seeing some poor schmo wondering around with Navy2/Rogue2/Merchant2/Traveller2/Academic2. -"What would you say, ya do here?" - John C. McGinley, Office Space

 

[opensent]

Yeah, Traveller's Guidebook stuff is cool. I really like Corsair. A good way to add a little tougness to the otherwise wimpy merchants.

 

[veltyen]

Navy2/Rogue2/Merchant2/Traveller2/Academic2

Yeah. But think of the Feats and saves.

Just one advantage of the "I couldn't make up my mind what to be, so I tried to be everything".

 

[Chaos]

Originally posted by veltyen:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Navy2/Rogue2/Merchant2/Traveller2/Academic2

Yeah. But think of the Feats and saves.

Just one advantage of the "I couldn't make up my mind what to be, so I tried to be everything". </font>[/QUOTE]Been there, done that, got the vac suit to prove it.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by veltyen:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Navy2/Rogue2/Merchant2/Traveller2/Academic2

Yeah. But think of the Feats and saves.

Just one advantage of the "I couldn't make up my mind what to be, so I tried to be everything". </font>[/QUOTE]Ask Dan "Far Trader" Burns about that type of combination. He has skills all over the map. He can do virtually anything, but he isn't very good at anything. His spot checks are miserable, he can't shoot his way out of a paperbag, his T-Astrogation checks are a joke (not something if you want to avoid a misjump). Etc. But he is proficient at virtually every weapon and virtually every piece of equipment. (Too bad his BAB is also about 2.)

Like I said earlier, specialize.

T20 isn't a game where everyone can be broad based. I am sure with about 4-5 more levels his character will be about where he envisions it, but once you are in the game, those levels are a bit fewer and farther between.

 

[archhealer]

In another thread, i mentioned a character in my new T20 game who is a high-level pure merc. Guy is unstoppable in combat. Can use damn near any weapon, inredible BAB, took sneak attack all over the place along with Sniper and Assassin... He can seriously tear shit up. None of the other characters in the party can even come near him in combat, and there are several characters who are higher levels. Combine all that with his amazing Drive & Piloting skills and vessel/vehicle feats all over the place, and the guy is practically a one-man army.