Quote Originally Posted by 1337 b4k4 View Post
Why should Defender and Arcane dabbler have the same viability for different classes though? I've never understood what is so wrong with the idea that some classes just won't or can't be as good as others at certain things. It's no different than real life. No matter how many laps I swim, I'll never compete in the olympics, it's just not in my class. That doesn't mean that swimming in the pool is useless to me, or that I don't derive a benefit from it, but certainly a more athletic person will benefit more. There's nothing wrong with that.
Think of it like the difference between summon monster I and Power Attack on the one hand, and silent image and Elusive Target on the other.

For a wizard, summon monster spells are quite handy for a bunch of reasons: having minions, accessing SLAs, having a meatshield, etc. For a fighter, Power Attack is a bread-and-butter feat that is the basis for many builds. However, if a fighter picks up summon monster via some means, it's not very useful to him because (A) usually martial types picking up spells get low CLs and uses per day, meaning he can't use it to good potential even at higher levels, and (B) casting it will directly compete for actions in combat with something he can actually do well; if a wizard picks up Power Attack, his low BAB and lack of synergizing abilities means it's usually a waste of time to use it, unless he's using magic to get more use out of it (e.g. true strike) in which case he's essentially casting a spell to get some benefit, and needing a feat to get an extra benefit from that spell is a waste when he could just cast a useful spell.

In contrast, if you give a fighter silent image, he can use it to very good effect, just as much as a wizard can, because (A) "make a picture of whatever you can think of" is more player-dependent than class-dependent, (B) the duration of Concentration means both fighters and wizards of any level can use it for a meaningful length of time, and (C) it's not competing for combat actions, his main schtick. Likewise, if you give a wizard Elusive Target, he'll not only get the same benefits out of it that a fighter does (negating PA damage), but it's actually useful to him because avoiding PA damage is something anyone wants to do regardless of class.

Same thing with 4e examples: Ritual Caster is something any class can take and anyone might want, because "do things out of combat" is class-, role-, and schtick-independent, while a Leader picking up a Striker-y power or vice versa via multiclassing just gives you something that either is useless to you or is useful but competes for actions with your Leader-y powers that you actually specced for and intend to use. Picking up an X Expertise feat will enhance your class's primary schtick regardless of class, while Blade Opportunist is a feat that greatly benefits many weapon-using classes but, though being a feat implement-users can take, is basically a waste of a feat slot for most of them. And so on and so forth.

So we have an example of some abilities that wouldn't be good to get when multiclassing because of level-dependent variables and lack of usefulness when they're not relevant to your primary schtick, and some abilities that could be good to get when multiclassing because they're level- and class-independent and expand your capabilities rather than competing with them. If you're going to make abilities that should be in theory equally accessible to and viable for any class, they should be more like the latter than the former. There's no sense in making specialties like the former, because other classes aren't going to take them in the vast majority of cases; those are good candidates for class-specific features like combat styles or traditions, where they can be tied into other class abilities better and where they'll see more use.