Can a multiclass character be in one stance for each class?

Question

I have a character who has levels in medic and monk of the silver fist. Both are discipline classes and thus are granted the full benefits from path of war 3rd party system.

I was on the systems and use document and cant seem to find anything which says a character can only be in one stance. Since I have two classes, is it not possible that each class can be in their own stance?

Initiating Stances and Maneuvers

Stances are initiated as a swift action. A stance remains in effect indefinitely and is never expended. The benefit of your chosen stance continues until you change to another stance you know as a swift action.

Stance and Maneuver Description

A stance is initiated as a swift action. When you enter a stance, you immediately gain its benefit. You continue to gain the benefit of a typical stance as long as you remain in it. Some stances give you a benefit only when you meet certain conditions. A stance might grant a bonus when you move, or stand still, or if you attack a flat-footed opponent. You cannot enter a stance you are already in.

You can use a single swift action to end one stance and begin another, or you can choose to simply end your current stance without entering another. You continue to gain a stance’s benefits until you switch to a new stance or end your current one.

Your stance ends if you are rendered helpless for any reason. If you later recover, a swift action must be used to initiate your stance once again.

Initiator Level

Multiclassing does not allow an initiator to have any individual stance or maneuver known or readied more than once.

Warlord Stances Known

Warlords begin play with knowledge of one stance from any discipline open to warlords. At the indicated levels (see class table), the warlord selects an additional new stance. Unlike maneuvers, stances are not expended and he does not have to ready them. All the stances he knows are available to him at all times, and he can change the stance he is currently using as a swift action. A stance is an extraordinary ability unless otherwise stated in the stance description. Unlike with maneuvers, the warlord cannot learn a new stance at higher levels in place of one he already knows.

Warlord 20th level ability dual stance

At 20th level, the warlord’s ability to use his stances improves, allowing him to gain the benefits of two known stances simultaneously. He must still adopt each stance individually, requiring him to expend one swift action for each stance.

So the rules clearly state that all classes a character has cant learn the same maneuvers/stances, but it does not say that each class is not allowed to be in its own stance. I am assuming that this is an oversight as multiple stances can be quite powerful as its a capstone ability in a class after all.

Answer 1

A typical martial disciple can be in only one stance

While the rules do not say that a creature that possesses multiple martial disciple classes can be in one stance per martial disciple class the creature possesses, exception-based design—an underlying assumption of the vast majority of games—mandates that unless an exception to the general rules is explicitly mentioned, the general rules apply, and the general rules of stances allow a martial disciple only to be in one of any of its stances known at a time.

That is, all Path of War classes follow the guidelines described under Systems and Use unless stated otherwise. So, while "[s]tances are never expended or used up and are always available to you," "[t]he benefit of your chosen stance continues until you change to another stance you know as a swift action" (emphasis mine). Further, "[m]ost martial disciples can use only one stance at a time, although some higher-level disciples may be able to use two stances at once" such as the exception granted to a level 20 warlord by the extraordinary ability dual stance that allows that warlord to be in two stances simultaneously. (Also see Stance and Maneuver Description on (type) that continues to describe the use of stances in some detail.)

This means that, although each martial disciple class does, for example, have a Stances Known entry, and such a Stances Known entry could describe exceptions made to that class's use of stances, none of the martial disciple class currently available on the d20PFSRD—harbinger, mystic, stalker, warder, warlord, and zealot—actually do have exceptions in their Stances Known entries, making it so that as of now a Stances Known entry doesn't have any impact on the ability of the typical single-classed martial disciple or multiclassed martial disciple's ability to assume more than one stance.

In short, unless a specific exception is present, martial disciples—single-classed and multiclassed—can assume only one stance at a time.

Note: Comments seem to imply that the question's also wondering Why does this limitation on stances exist? Were this reader forced to speculate as to reasons behind this design decision (one that, by the way, was inherited from the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 book Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords (Aug. 2006)), this reader would—based on his own limited experience with game design—put forth that the one-stance-at-a-time bottleneck allows designers to be comfortable designing stances that have significant game effects knowing that stances won't be easily combined and the game then unbalanced. Further, the limitation forces a player to make careful resource-management decisions as changing stances is action-intensive, usually possible only once per turn. (This reader also supposes that the one-stance-at-a-time limit could be a really vague nod to realism (in a system that supports teleporting from shadow to shadow and running so fast that the runner's trail is on fire—sure… whatever). That is, it is difficult for this reader to imagine how any normal creature without a special ability allowing it to could assume multiple stances simultaneously!)