About dual-classing...
keltarking
Member Posts: 53
When you dual-class, does the game's XP cap take your old class's XP into consideration, or is it just your new class?
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As @ScytheKnight says there is an exponential for many classes though. In some cases this means that very good combos are possible from a cost/benefit perspective. Fighter 7/druid 9 loses 1 level and a single level 5 spell compared to druid 10 while gaining fighter HP, Thac0 and grandmastery.
On balance dual-classing is easier and allows for better combos in BG2 though. Multiclass probably does the job better at BG1 levels.
For fighters it's about the extra attacks you get.
If you wait till 13 you max that out, and I've made yourself a Grandmaster in something PLUS you've maxed out a fighting style.
So the optimal level to dual for a fighter is 13 in BG2. And there's really no point in ever going past that level unless you really want to mix up HLA's but...the other classes have better ones than Fighters get.
But if you're just running BG1 / don't care about that, Level 7 is a great time to dual for the extra 1/2 attack.
OR 6 for the extra Prof point depending on how many levels you need open for the second class.
I'm always scratching and shaking my head at all these people who swear by how wonderful dual classing makes characters at the end of the game. It's like they care about step 10 in a 10-step process, and don't care at all about gameplay experience in steps 1-9.
Imoen dualed at level 7 is going to make her useless dead weight for the entire rest of the game up to Sarevok, and maybe for parts of the TotSC content. And you'll need another thief if you want to do Durlag's Tower. And without cheating, I don't think there are any other thieves with the disarm skill you need, unless you've kept Monty as your main traps and locks guy since leaving Candlekeep.
Dualing in BG1 is bad, bad, bad.
Imoen is very good when dual-classed precisely because she becomes a mage. If you play her right, and dual-class her around levels 5 or 6 (not 7, that's far too late in the game), you can easily have her regain her Thief skills for all of Chapter 5 and beyond. (If you dual-class her at level 5, you might even have them back for Cloakwood.) She'll even make the highest possible mage level in BG1: 9th. That won't happen until very late, but it's still good.
Shar-Teel is another example; even if she becomes a Thief, with her Fighter levels backing her up, she is a brilliant backstabber. Thieves level quickly, too, so it's not like she's out them for long, but even without them, she has the third-highest Str score of any NPC.
And since you're in control of her from Thief 1, you get to spend her Thief points as you see fit. She was my Find Trap specialist in Durlag's.
Dualling isn't something you should do if you don't know what you're doing, as you can easily end up with a lot of wasted effort with nothing to show for it, but if, say, you pick up Shar-Teel and Imoen and dual them at roughly the same time, you're not short a Thief (though she won't have Imoen's skill at first), you have a much better backstabber than Imoen, and you get a Mage with literally perfect physical stats: 18 Dex, 16 Con--and the only non-specialized Mage in the game, aside from a possibility in CHARNAME.
Dual-classing is all about short-term loss for long-term gain, yes, but Imoen ended up around a level behind Edwin when I dualled her at 6. So what if she doesn't have her Thief skills back until the Cloakwood Mines? Shar-Teel took care of that well enough, until I replaced her with Coran.
or 6 Berserker / 9 Thief with grand mastery in staves and the staff of striking is pretty cool.
I agree though I try to save ALL the easy xp until after I've dual classed.
Basilisk area (22,800 xp)
Named Siren west of High Hedge (5,000 xp)
Drink a potion of absorption and take out the flesh golem cave (6000 xp)
Sirens before the flesh golem cave using the Greenstone Amulet (12,000 xp)
Sirens and Priest in the temple to the east of Beregost (After doing the quest with him) (11,000 xp).
Kill golems and the mage at High Hedge (After buying everything you will ever want from him) (7,000 xp)
That is a real quick easy 63,800 xp. Almost Thief level 8 if you dualed at 7, and you already have all your levels back if you dualed at 6 to Thief. So yeah it is pretty easy to powergame dual class, I don't know why people make such a big deal about how hard it is.
This is true with going to level 13 fighter before dual classing in BG2, there are tons of quests you can have already done and ready to turn in before you dual class and isn't that difficult to get your levels back with.
Anyway, I'll see if I can manage to get Imoen's lockpick and trap finding to 100 each before level 7, those are the only two skills I really use, aside from that one time pickpocketing Algernon's Cloak, for which I use Garrick anyway. lol
Side note: Dual classing is AWESOME in Icewind Dale, I love rolling three beastly fighters and DCing them into a thief, a cleric and a mage (again, upon hitting level 9).
Incidentally, dualling Imoen before level 7 Thief lets her reach level 9 Mage instead of level 8, which means a 5th level spell slot.
Is it just a one-shot BG:EE game? (And if you're continuing in BG2 do you care about mirroring her BG2 levels? If you do, then that decides it for you: Thief level 7.)
Do you have another Thief or Thieves in the party, amongst whom to distribute the lockpicking and find/remove traps duties? What are your plans for distributing Thief skills for the party?
Which Thief skills do you want Imoen mainly to have? Just locks/traps? Focus on just backstabbing? Maybe as trap specialist who also sets traps? As a pickpocket? Etc.
Do you plan on doing Durlag's? If so, is Immy your only Thief?
Then, in the original game, she could be dualed to a conjurer (yes yes yes, and we're still waiting this to be fixed) or to a mage in this BG:EE.
This makes Imoen a great character, even in BG1.
She'll have her traps for Naskel, CandleKeep catacombs and Durlag's tower.
For the mines, traps before Davaeorn can be disarmed by Coran + potion of perception.
I didn't have TOSC yet at the time, so it was doable because there was no Durlag's Tower.
I used mainly the Knock spell to open the difficult locks and I removed most traps the hard way, i.e. by having the party member with more HP step on them :-)
Also traps and locks didn't give any XP in vanilla BG1, so there was no real advantage in using a thief instead of, for example, a mage spell or a high strength party member to open a lock.
It is feasible even now, if you just avoid Durlag's Tower, but I would not recommend it
why have a squishy mage when you can an 80+ HP mage?
why waste a slot for thieves that don't get much better after lvl 7, when you can have a thief>cleric/mage/fighter?
want some beefy backstabs kensai>thief!
the list goes on and there are literally no downsides, it's about being as creative as you can. it is massively OP though
for instance it takes a considerable amount of time to get high levels of thief skills and the more levels of thief you take to do so the longer you will have to go without them before getting them back. Yes you can adjust the party to accomodate that but that may mean another party member doesn't get the full attention to his own build he/she might otherwise get if he didn't have to sit in for the dual classer for half the game - after which he is no longer needed for those duties.