Feature request... Dual to sorcerers!

stygga

As the title says... the sorcerer is really the only arcane class that I enjoy playing as a PC... mage is too tedious, have to meta game to know what spells you'll need for any given fight (especially big mage fights in bg2) I just want to dual from a fighter or thief or whatever into a Sorcerer instead of a mage... Possible?

bigdogchris

"Sorcerers are practitioners of magic who were born with the innate ability to cast spells."

Innate ability to cast spells is not something you can learn. Traditional mages learn the cast spells, thus the ability to dual to them.

Dee

@bigdogchris It's not difficult to justify. Maybe your character didn't fully realize his potential until half-way through his journey along the sword coast. Or maybe your arcane abilities are unlocked when you start having dreams about murder.

There's a half-dozen reasons why a sorcerer doesn't have to start his career as a sorcerer. As I understand it, sorcerers and barbarians are only unavailable for dual-classing because of how the dual-classing screen is designed.

bigdogchris

Aosaw said:

@bigdogchris It's not difficult to justify. Maybe your character didn't fully realize his potential until half-way through his journey along the sword coast.

I agree with the concept of that, but when you dual class you are choosing to pursue that class, not randomly unlocking some hidden innate ability.

Or maybe your arcane abilities are unlocked when you start having dreams about murder.

As the Bhaalspawn, they do.

There's a half-dozen reasons why a sorcerer doesn't have to start his career as a sorcerer. As I understand it, sorcerers and barbarians are only unavailable for dual-classing because of how the dual-classing screen is designed.

Or because it's an innate ability that you are born with

Shin

This is currently not possible to fix modding wise, and unlikely to be altered inside the game. If all classes and the UI-related assets end up being externalized in the EE though, it will be moddable.

O_Bruce

Aside from what bigdogchris said... This is request for something already overpowered to become even more overpowered... I don't want it to be implemented. As if Sorcerors wasn't already powerfull. They can cast much more spells per day than mage and requires much less attention. And if you beaten the game at least once, you'll know what spell you should learn, so lack of flexibility is not a problem.

However, BG:EE engine should be more moddable, so mod it, maybe?

Dee

I'll agree with @ZelgadisGW that it's probably more powerful than is necessary, although I still think there's no reason why a sorcerer's innate abilities couldn't just show themselves later in life. In 3e (where sorcerers come from), there are plenty of reasons provided in the game's manuals that don't rely on the sorcerer having "always been a sorcerer". Exposure to powerful magic is also a road to that path, and discovering that you're a child of Bhaal is as good a reason as any to decide to explore that potential.

Remember that a sorcerer doesn't just randomly get more powerful; a sorcerer uses his innate abilities and trains them to grow, just like any other character. It's just the source of that power that is different.

Shin

I don't see any game balance issues with implementing it, as classes aren't balanced as it is, and never were. A kensai/mage for instance stands head and shoulders above most single class characters - it's more effective than a single class mage or a single class warrior in almost every way, so should that be reason to remove it from the game or suggest it shouldn't have been implemented to begin with? On the contrary, people who like to play such a class can do so, and people who don't like it never have to. The way I see it, a sorcerer dual class would fall into the exact same category. The more assets that end up non-hardcoded, the better it is.

Awong124

At least make it so that it's possible to dual from a sorcerer.

Mungri

Why would you want to dual from a sorcerer? The red dragon prestige class is interesting in later D&D editions, but in AD&D2 arcane casters are immensely powerful. A dual class mage has a very limited number of spells as a compromise to specialist mages and sorcerers. If anything else specialist mages should be buffed to gain a -1 penalty to enemy saving throws against spells of their chosen school.

Bercon

Imo its nice to see at least one pure caster class.

Awong124

Why do people dual to or from anything?

Mungri

Awong124 said:

Why do people dual to or from anything?

Powergaming.

Jalily

Mungri said:

Awong124 said:

Why do people dual to or from anything?

Powergaming.

When I first started Baldur's Gate, I really wanted to play an enchanter. But being completely new to D&D and RPGs in general, I wasn't sure how I was supposed to survive with one or two spells and 4 hp. So I played a few levels as a fighter to get used to the game before I switched over. (And boy did the dual-class sprite bug make me regret that.)

Mungri

Yea that's a great use of dual classing, generally though dualing from a fighter or a thief to a mage makes you a lot more powerful than playing a normal mage would be.

Shin

For me it's all about the idea I have of the character, like primarily being a mage but having learned a bit about picking locks and moving silently while growing up in Candlekeep, etc.

disgruntledgamer

There will probably be an editor soon after release that will let you anyway.

kamuizin

I support this request while i didn't like the first post (i don't find mages tedious) for the following 2 reasons.

1° Innate abilities means that you character is special and can evolve that ability, what doesn't mean that he can't ignore his innate ability and develop a normal class.

2° With the introduction of Rasaad in the game, and therefore with the introduction of an antagonist monastic order as a quest path for him, the Dark Moon order, some informations need to be presented:

We know that Rassad's order, the sun soul oppose the dark moon order based on Rasaad's background for example.

We also know that one of the Rasaad's quests at least will involve a conflict with the dark moon monastic order in BG based on this screenshot of the game.

and now if no one know, i have to point some specific issues about the Dark Moon Order:

(some of the sources of this info here and here

- It's an order devoted to Shar, that tap on the dark weaver power.
- It's an order of dual/multi classed monks/sorcerer (or sorcerer/monks).


So, to me, if they're going to introduce the Dark Moon order in the game, make sense to allow Monk and sorcerers to dual/multi class.

Avenger_teambg

Haha, that logic means, we should also allow people play dragons with possible path to dracolich
I mean, just because Dark Moon exists in a game, it is not necessarily open to the player.
We all know, it will be open in a few years (and a D&D revision).

This is not without precedent, in BG2 you could have a thiefling joinable NPC, but there was no thiefling subrace.

kamuizin

Well i'm pretty proud of my logic if anyone ask me !

The problem here is if they add monk kits, as some feature request have asked (for monk and sorcerers, and somehow people just forget the poor barbarians).

Race unlike class is a unique feature that we can justify the lock, but if i put, let's say, 3 monk kits on the game, one of them naturally will be the sun souls (Rasaad's order), the 2° most probally will be the dark moon order (that's just another reason to support this idea), and the 3° if exist will be another order.


The original game block some very specific contents, he don't allow you to use dragon or drow races for example, neither tiefling or cambion races, the original game also didn't allowed us to be anti-paladins, but now blackguard is here to partially break this taboo.

So, if my logic can't be used in reason of generalization, we will end using no logic, as every logic argument can suffer generalization.

Malatar

stygga said:

As the title says... the sorcerer is really the only arcane class that I enjoy playing as a PC... mage is too tedious, have to meta game to know what spells you'll need for any given fight (especially big mage fights in bg2) I just want to dual from a fighter or thief or whatever into a Sorcerer instead of a mage... Possible?

Yes! I would love to be able to dual into a sorcerer. Please allow this...

Phyrax

What about if monk, cloistered in a monastery for years trying to master his physical abilities, suddenly realizes he can actually cast arcane spells, and will pursue this (thus not training physically anymore). Then you would have a Monk/Sorcerer, which in my humble opinion would be the best combination ever to exist (yeah, yeah, because it is totally overpowered, I am aware of that).

That being said, the real issue is: do sorcerers choose to pursue their spell-casting abilities after they realized they were born with it, or do they have no choice but to pursue this.

In the first case, they could have had a different occupation before pursuing arcane spell-casting (or after).
In the latter case, they have no choice but to be a mono-class sorcerer.

I am in favor of the first option, since it feels more 'real-life-like': people don't always choose to do what they are really good at, only to realize in later life that they actually want to be {insert specific talent}.

Pantalion

Honestly I'd like Monk to be thrown open to non-humans, perhaps half-elves, because a multiclass Sorcerer/Monk does sound cool, and dual classing is a bizarre nonsensical and highly gamey construct that solely exists to make more powerful versions of the second class.

Failing that, then necessarily make X/Sorcerer a valid multi-class, since Dual Classing requires such.

Senash

I see here we are again, at the "let us have multi and dual sorcerers, monks and barbarians" topic
So let me join in again YAY for that! Sorcerers should definetly be able to multi, since they have innate magical powers, they could focus on fighting beside that, they don't have to learn spells like mages, but they still can't have multi class? Come on. As for dual, I really see the sense in dualling into a sorcerer, as your abilities may have manifasted later. If you already are one, well, yeah maybe your abilities won't get stronger after a certain point, precisely after you decided to pursue something else...

I would really like to try a Fighter/Sorcerer multi though. Kensai/Sorcerer maybe? Or would that be a liiittle bit too much?

kamuizin

Well, i would like to dual/multi barbarians, i tend to see them more as a race trait than a class in fact, a fighter/barbarian, sorcerer/barbarian (would make more sense than a wizard/barbarian as sorcerers doesn't need to study to obtain magic)...

Malatar

Any comment on feasibility of dual to sorcerer from the developers? Is it possible now? I remember that since it wasn't a viable multi-class option, it used to be impossible to even mod this in...

Twilight_Fox

It's not too late to add this option to BG:EE and BG2:EE. Adding the possibility to dual class to sorcerer or barbarian can be great (they are not a kit after all). At least for now we can use ShadowKeeper to be able to use this combination.

An assassin lvl21 (2420000xp) dualed to a sorcerer lvl24 (5250 000xp) could be great.

TJ_Hooker

Twilight_Fox said:

Adding the possibility to dual class to sorcerer or barbarian can be great (they are not a kit after all).

The barabarian is actually a fighter kit as far as the game engine is concerned.

Twilight_Fox

Hm, ok, then;

It's not too late to add this option to BG:EE and BG2:EE. Adding the possibility to dual class to sorcerer or barbarian can be great.

Dee had some nice arguments to support it.

Dee

Well, my argument was that it would make sense within the lore. I'm still not convinced it would be a good idea from a balance perspective.

And the game also makes it very clear that you can only dual-class if the combination of your first and second class is also a valid multi-class combination. Since there's no Sorcerer/Thief multi-class option (as much fun as that might be), there can also be no Sorcerer > Thief dual-class.

Draith012

Well, my only reason I would support this is because as the Bhaalspawn, it's completely practical that your divine heritage allowed you to innately develop arcane powers. And as the unaware Bhaalspawn these powers aren't obvious to you till later in the game, after character creation. But on the other hand, I do agree with Dee on this.

I would ask for that this is made mod-able if it's not mod-able already. So that we at least have the option to role play the idea in our private games.