Dual to fighter does not get Con bonus?

GreenWarlock

Playing a druid -> fighter dual class, I understood that I would not get a fighter Con bonus while leveling as a druid, but I expected it to backdate the 19-Con bonus (with Tome) when dualling to fighter, just as other changes to Con affect hit points. This does not appear to be the case though, but I can lose 5 HP/level for losing enough Con, i.e., con loss thinks that HP stat was the result of gaining levels with the current Con. Is this how the game is intended to play?

Loub

lunar

What level did you dual? You will not gain more hitpoints from fighter levels until your fighter levels surpass druid levels. And fighters stop rolling hit dice and gaining CON bonuses after lvl 9.

Say, if you dualled at lvl 5 druid, you will not gain hit points or CON bonuses during fighter lvls 1-5. At fighter lvl 6, your druid abilities will come back and you will gain fighter hit dice with CON bonus. (For 19 con that is 1d10+5) If you dualled at lvl 9 druid, no hp or con bonus until fighter lvl 10. At fighter lvl 10 and beyond, fighters only get fixed+3 hp per lvl, regardless of CON bonuses.

People tend to dual from fighter to druid/mage/cleric/thief for hp and weapon bonuses. Dualling into fighter is less popular and effective, but if fits your character concept and rp purposes, cool!

GreenWarlock

I dualled at 12 (the last 'cheap' level for druids) and expected the +5 bonus to kick in for the existing 10 hit dice. Next time I try this, need to see if dualing with a 16 Con, and then raising it while a fighter, will have any effect. Luckily fighters need only a 17 Str, and not a 17 Con.

elminster

GreenWarlock said:

I dualled at 12 (the last 'cheap' level for druids) and expected the +5 bonus to kick in for the existing 10 hit dice. Next time I try this, need to see if dualing with a 16 Con, and then raising it while a fighter, will have any effect. Luckily fighters need only a 17 Str, and not a 17 Con.

That won't matter. If you want the con bonus for fighters you will have to dual class the druid much, much earlier.

Its difficult to explain this in writing, but basically it works like this.

A level 3 druid (with 18 con) dualed to a fighter will not receive any health bonus when leveling as a fighter from levels 1-3. Once they reach level 4 they will get the +4 bonus that 18 con normally grants but only for that level.

So a druid with 18 con at level 3 would have a max of 30 health. A level 3 druid dualed to a fighter and raised to level 4 as a fighter would have 42 max health (30 health from his first 3 druid levels + 12 health from getting to level 4 as a fighter). If he stayed at 18 constitution he would then proceed to get a +4 con bonus every time he levels up (with the last bonus occurring at fighter level 9). So in my example that would leave him with 102 health at fighter level 9.

FinneousPJ

In simple terms, levels 1-9 are "the HP levels". The HP levels of different classes do not stack.

GreenWarlock

I think this is wrong - the extra HP-per-level is a property of the fighter class, not of the hit die. While I expect not to re-roll the d8 hit die, I do expect the proper con bonus. I guess the telling issue for whether this is a bug is to dual a fighter to druid at level 3 (for example) and see if the fighter con bonus applies to the 4th level hit die. If the bonus applies (and I believe it should) then I believe it should apply retroactively when I dual to a fighter, just as a con change from 15 -> 16 would apply a bonus. On the other hand, if there is no hit die bonus on that druid level, then while I disagree with the interpretation, the game is behaving consistently and there is no bug.

Corvino

Dual classing has always behaved this way, you only gain HP once you exceed the levels of your original class and thus Con HP modifiers only apply to levels past that of the original class. It's one of the reasons that dualling from fighter to another class is enduringly popular. As far as I recall dualling from fighter to druid at 3 will mean that HP from druid levels (4th+) will not gain fighter Con bonuses, so it is consistent.

karnor00

It's worth noting however that if your consistition is reduced, then you shouldn't lose more hp than you originally gained.

e.g. if you have a 19 constitution and dual class from druid at level 5, then you should get +10 hitpoints constitution bonus from those 5 druid levels (+2 per level * 5). You shouldn't lose any of those bonus hitpoints until your consitution drops below 16. If you are losing hitpoints in game then that's a bug.