HP issues due to dual classing

sledgefang

Hello, I have a question since I never done this before:

I made a swashbuckler and plan to dual class him at lvl 6 to a fighter. During those fighter lvls, will he gain extra HP to make up the difference between the swashbuckler lvls and fighter lvls? For example, swashbucklers get 6 hp a level + 2 from constitution bonuses. My swashbuckler has 18 constitution. So by lvl 6 he will have 48 HP. So I dual him to fighter at lvl 6 and begin at lvl 1 again. Fighters get way more HP than my swashbuckler. Will he get per lvl an extra 6 HP a level until lvl 7 were he begins to get once more 14 hp?

BelgarathMTH

Someone will be along and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure it's a matter of your total hit dice for a dual class. All humans gain a base 2 hp per level after level 10, so class doesn't matter any more after that (except for constitution bonuses).

If your first six levels are swashbuckler, that will be 6d6 hit dice. Then, if you switch to fighter, you will have 4d10 for your base hit points gain for the first four levels of that.

After level 6+4, you will be getting 2 base hp per level.

It would be different for a non-human multi-class. Their hit dice are averaged for each level up. For a fighter-mage, level 1/1 would be (1d10+1d4)/2. Each fighter level-up until level 10 would receive 1d10/2 base hp. Each mage level up until level 10 would receive 1d4/2 base hp. After level 10, progressing in either class would yield 1 base hp. With an 18 constitution, the fighter levels beyond level 10 would give 1+4 base hp, and the mage level-ups would give 1+2 base hp.

Shin

Pretty much like @belgarathmth says (but you only gain extra hitdice up to level 9, so it'll be 6d6+3d10, and then 3hp for every level thereafter) - you don't gain any hp at all while the class that you dualed to is "leveling up".

So if you dual a swashbuckler to a fighter at level 6, your max hp will remain at whatever it is at that point until you hit level 7 for the fighter and complete the dual, and from then you will receive fighter hitdice and the extra bonus from constitution up to and including level 9. From level 10 and beyond you'll get 3 hp per level since you will count as a fighter (thieves, monks, priests etc get 2, arcane casters get 1).

BelgarathMTH

@Shin, thanks for the correction! I did not know that leveling up in a dual class yielded no hp gain at all until the old class was exceeded in level.

Lord_Tansheron

As @belgarathmth pointed out, the bulk of your HP comes from hit dice and the CON bonus. Note that when dual-classing, you gain *no HP at all* while leveling through the levels below or equal to your second class. After you regain your old class, your new HP progression will be based *entirely* on your new class.

That means that your hit dice will be of whatever class you got them with first. After that you progress with hit dice from your new class, provided you are low enough level to gain any (fighters only gain hit dice for levels 1-9, for example).

In your concrete example, you'd start off as a thief. Thieves get 1d6 per level for their hit dice, from levels 1-10. Since you dual at lvl6, you will end up with 6d6 hit dice for your thief levels. Fighters gain 1d10 hit dice, from level 1-9. However, as your first 6 levels were with a thief, you do not gain any hit dice while leveling up to that point. With level 7 however you *do* get one: d10 (fighter). This will continue until level 9, where you will end up with 6d6 (thief) + 3d10 (fighter) hit dice.

After hit dice, the static HP is not based on race (as @belgarathmth says), but on class. Mages gain 1 HP per level, thieves, druids and clerics gain 2 HP, and fighters and fighter-types gain 3 HP per level. As you are progressing as a fighter at that point, you will be gaining 3 HP per level.

CON-bonus HP is difficult, though. I am not entirely sure how it works. The problem is that this bonus HP is re-calculated dynamically - i.e. as your CON changes, you gain/lose HP in the process. I do not know whether this will result in you gaining fighter CON bonus HP for all your hit dice, or only your fighter hit dice (with thief CON bonus for the rest).

BelgarathMTH

@Lord_Tansheron, thank you for the second correction. I should probably just not try to answer these kinds of questions. LOL.

sledgefang

ah so my character will be gimped. thanks

BelgarathMTH

@sledgefang, I think a lot of the experts around here have said "fighter is something you dual class out of, never into."

Shin

Lord_Tansheron said:

The problem is that this bonus HP is re-calculated dynamically - i.e. as your CON changes, you gain/lose HP in the process. I do not know whether this will result in you gaining fighter CON bonus HP for all your hit dice, or only your fighter hit dice (with thief CON bonus for the rest).

Iirc as it currently stands (at least pre-EE) you get the full fighter con bonus for every level retroactively, but I'm not sure if it's intended to be that way.

sledgefang

belgarathmth said:

@sledgefang, I think a lot of the experts around here have said "fighter is something you dual class out of, never into."

you are correct. I will rethink my dual classing option

Shin

@sledgefang The general idea is to dual from a class that gets most of its benefits early on (fighters are the prime example) to a class that keeps on evolving throughout the late game (mage being the prime example).

The strength of the dual class lies in the fact that earlier levels are so extremely cheap xp-wise compared to later levels that you can cash in on a great number of the benefits of an extra class (like more health, extra attacks, thieving abilities, innate AC bonus, etc) almost for free.

Lord_Tansheron

While I agree with the basic premise of dualing out of fighter and not into them, I find Swashbuckler->Fighter to be a somewhat special case.

Thieves suffer from a similar problem as fighters, higher levels don't add a whole lot. You can max out the relevant thieving skills quickly, particularly as a swashbuckler who doesn't really need stealth (and doesn't have a backstab progression to worry about). Essentially, a Swash->Fighter is a fighter that can pop locks and traps, and gains some nice combat bonuses in exchange for a bit of HP: not a bad trade.

A similar argument can be made for a Cleric->Fighter, you sacrifice HP for some buff-capability (particularly with the cleric kit spells in mind); or, in BG1, for low level Mage->Fighter, essentially negating the HP loss through Find Familiar, while gaining the ability to use Identify and wands.

These are special cases, of course. For the majority of duals, Fighter->X will be the better choice.