DW question from a german forum.
When you take an animal companion/command with your Multiclass Move – you don’t get the other one for free, do you?
I say you don’t. If you take only the AC he is still usefull for stuff (trainings etc.), even without Command. If you take Command you can still go and find an animal to train. It won’T be as “safe” as an animal companion and ysou have no control over the stats/traits but you can go and start to train it etc.
What do you say?
I’d say you do.
Depends on the circumstances, but I would assume not. After all, it says take a move from another class.
I’d also say you do. I think the usefulness of an animal companion is severely limited without the command move. You don’t really have control over it any way, and what stats you chose for the animal companion make little difference, as well as the strength adn weaknesses, without a command move. (That is not to say, that the command options are the only options you have).
Without the command move, an AC feels more liek a bit of equipment to me and not like a move.
Also, you can’t just spend some time with the animal and gain the command move, since it is a move. So it requires a second multiclassing move. Unless you are a bard, you will have a hard time to “complete” the “featureset” here, since most classes only have two multiclass moves overall, and the second one is level 6-10.
Oh strenghs and weaknesses should play a huge roll and have nothing realy to do with command. Training has.
You can spend time with an animal and gain the Animal Companion Move. Heck you could even get the command move (druidic ritual, 1 month of training etc.)
But isn’t command training?
Well, if you would make getting an animal companion like that, sure. I’d say it devalues the move though.
Comparison: Of course you can get a weapon, like a fighter, but you still wouldn’t get the signature weapon benefits the fighter gets. SO, I’d argue, if you get an animal companion or command without getting the move, the usability of that animal companion and training should be limited.
Remember also that you can gain moves by doing the thing: if you take command, you could spend time carefully taming an animal companion. Or you could get a friendly animal and slowly learn to give it commands.
At least, that’s explicit in Apocalypse World. I’m not sure if it’s ever called out in Dungeon World.
it is, i am fairly certain
and who says you can’t get a signature weapon? You could even take the one from your dead fighter friend.
You could take it, but as far as it being a signature weapon, it wouldn’t be yours.
The game states that if you use Multiclass advances to get a starting move, you get all the moves linked to it. If you get, say, Spellcasting, you get a Grimoire. So yeah, I’d say that if you take animal companion, you get training too.
Tim Franzke Yes, but to you the fighter’s spear would just be a spear. Not a +piercing 2, +versatile spear.
At least that’s how I would handle it. Reasoning behind it? You are not as familiar with the weapon to use it to its utmost effects.
are you sre Bernd Pressler?
If they party rescues the daughter of the legendary smith – can’t he make a Signature weapon for the Paladin, essentially granting him that move?
Depends on the fiction, like always.
Tim Franzke yes. He could make an artifact or a highly powered weapon. THat might or might not be equivalent to what a signature weapon does, system-wise. Then it is indeed the weapon itself, that is like this.
Also since the weapon grated by the legendary smith is not a signature weapon it could easily be lost and not be recovered, which I do not expect from a signature weapon.
From the manual:
For the purpose of multiclassing, any starting class moves that depend on each other count as one move—the wizard’s cast a spell, spellbook, and prepare spells for example.
Animal Companion and Command are linked. If you take Animal Companion you have to take the other one, it makes no sense take only Animal Companion. without Command the move makes little sense.
Well. Even if: Be clever! Take the Command Move. Because that one doesn’t make sense without something to command. So you get the Animal Companion for free. 🙂
Why this side discussion about Signature Weapon? There’s nothing in the rules preventing grabbing Signature Weapon through multiclassing. It’s fictionally explained however you want. I personally would just turn the weapon I’ve been using all along into the signature weapon. Perfect!
And to stay on topic with OP, yeah just follow Bernd Pressler’s advice…take Command. It’s a beginning move that is predicated on the use of an animal companion.
All that said, multiclassing is a feature of DW that I’m most squeamish about. To me this type of game really thrives on niche protection. The multiclassing moves don’t necessarily abolish niche protection but they cut deeply into it I think.
I am divided on the niche protection vs building your own character thing. There are days where I find it just fine. And there are days, where I feel DW limits me way too much.
About niche protection: I haven’t played enough DW to know for sure it’s a good match, but for our AW table we have a houserule that I think is pretty common : when you take a move from another playbook, either the playbook in question’s not in play and there’s no problem, or another player plays it and you have to ask them, character to character, to teach you the move.
That actually sounds pretty cool. I like it.
This teaching thing seems weird to me. On the other hand i would totally ask the playser if it’s okay if i take his move, especially if it is a big one (Shapeshinfting, Spells, Quest etc.)
One of the things I dislike with multiclass dabbler and related advanced moves is that it steps on the other classes niches.
Kasper Brohus on the other hand it might also help even out some of the versatility issues some classes face. It’s quite hard to match the versatility of spells or rituals – but whether that proves to be an issue in your group depends a lot on the player and the DM. It is not something that I’d call an inherent flaw of the system (in PF or D&D 3.5 I very much perceive it like that)
The teaching thing: Sure it makes sense that there’s any number of other fictional ways to do it. What I like is it that it pulls the social contract into the fiction and addresses it there.
The teaching works wonder in AW but yeah, in DW it can get pretty weird. OTOH if you think weird is cool…
Too long since I read the rulebook: does experience in DW works with the same descriptive/prescriptive relationship it does in AW? Say, you find a spellbook and spend a shitload of time on it, wasting downtime trying to decipher it and asking around for someone to clue you in, do you get the Spellbook move for free? Cause you totally do in AW.
If that’s the case, I’d be wary of making PCs jump through hoops to be allowed to spend XP. Either you spend XP, get your move and y’all figure out how your PC got that move, or you make the PCs jump through hoops (rituals, quests, price, etc…) to get something out of it. If that’s a playbook advancement option, even a Multiclass move, you shouldn’t need anything more than enough XP and some downtime to get your little something.
Bernd Pressler Yes, it might, but the entire class system in DW is based around irreplacability.
Kasper Brohus I disagree. If the classes were all “irreplaceable” then that would mean that you actually need every class. But you don’t.
And since in DW what you depends much more on the fiction, than on the moves you actually have available, I don’t think that you actually need anything.
What would happen if you had a group consisting only of fighters? Would that break the game? Would the players step on each other’s toes? I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. It’s rather so, that it wouldn’t be a good thing, since it limits the dynamics of the story told a lot. With more classes you have a wider dynamic you can use.
Taking one move from another class (or two, over the course of ten levels) isn’t really that much stepping on another player’s toes.
To some extent I disagree Bernd Pressler. I think someone playing a Wizard would be well within their rights to be disappointed when the Fighter took spellcasting. In a game where we’re sitting around and watching the cool things our “heroes” do, I think it’s worth contemplating when our character starts regularly doing the thing that makes the other guy look cool. Right?
Yes, that is the most extreme example. It might also be a hint, that something is going wrong in your group or campaign.
Or that someone read the Multiclass move and the extended explanation in the book and thought it sounded neat. The “problem” would hopefully not last much longer than the 5 minutes it took to discuss at the table. Anything more would maybe indicate a group problem.
Bernd Pressler “Irreplacable” is not the same as “needed”. Irreplacable means that every class contributes with something exclusive to their class.
If you take that one thing that a class does well or is centered around, and give it to someone else, then we have one character overshadowing another.
Kasper Brohus I am not even sure there. Because what would be the special thing a fighter can do then? Bend Bars, Lift Gates? Well. Can’t be that important because in all the sessions I’ve been playing fighters so far we’ve never been using that move. The other move is just the signature weapon, but anyone can carry a weapon. Even one that good, especially later on.
I am not really convinced.
There is an unofficial improved fighter playbook out there, where the fighter actually gets a tactical combat move. Then I’d agree. But like this I don’t really see it.
I need more experience with DW to tell if such things might also be true for other classes.
What does make the classes special is when the DM gives you that special spotlight because you ARE that class. For example I was once allowed to dodge a crossbow bolt. But that was not because of moves. That was because the DM allowed me to shine because of the class.
Yes, the Fighter is the Fighter – you just have to leverage that
But think you can do that for any class.
But Tim Franzke maybe that is a hint that the Fighter actually IS missing a move. Something like the Great Deeds Feature in DCC.
But still. It doesn’t hurt as it is.
You also seem to forget about d10 damage die, +10 life and +12 load. The fighter is very strong mechanically. Don’t scuff load and Bend Bars. So far they have shown really useful in all games I’ve run.
Bernd Pressler It was my first question on this forum but fellow taverners gave me inspiring answers.
https://plus.google.com/101186759054914157594/posts/EhdS6aLu5tg
Signature weapon is very fun to play and I made sure that fighters playing in my sessions had something serious, with a past. One of them has a three headed flail. In each head, a soul has been trapped. What is the story of this flail ? Where has it been made ? And why is it regularly glowing ?
And I’m just the opposite Magi max, I like the idea of the Signature Weapon looking and being rather mundane. I think that gives the Fighter tons if color. To anyone else it’s a regular weapon. But it’s his, and its carried him through the blood and guts of his past. Every situation that turned red, his weapon was in hand and saw him through. He’s just used it so much and for so long it’s just…a part of him. One millimeter longer or shorter. One ounce lighter. One less wrap of the leather around the pommel…and it’s just not THE weapon any more. He can recognize it by smell. Or the sound it makes scratching out its scabbard. And it’s a completely normal. I LOVE that.
I like both approaches. Let the player make the weapon her own.
Chris McNeilly I agree, it’s also a good way to play it. In fact, all those weapons have a story to tell, and that’s what we are looking for.