Cannot dual-class my berserker to cleric: what did I miss?

xzar_monty

So, I created a party for myself, and my intention was to dual-class my berserker to cleric (eventually). The problem is, I cannot dual-class him. Both strength and wisdom are at 18 (str is 18/85, to be exact). So, what's the problem? Is there a charisma requirement as well? I hate to admit, but my charisma is 6...

Oh, and the character is human, of course.

Damn, I couldn't find the dual-classing information anywhere. It's certainly not available at character creation, I think.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

elminster

They have to be at least level 2.

xzar_monty

Ok, so it's that, then. No charisma requirement?

I did indeed miss that... In BG2, you start at level 7, so you can obviously dual-class straight away.

Thanks!

Dazzu

You should still wait for 7 or 9 before changing.

Belanos

Dazzu said:

You should still wait for 7 or 9 before changing.

I really don't see that as being necessary frankly. As long as you put your points in a weapon that a Cleric can use, you can still achieve Grandmastery. 7 or 9 is a long time to wait to get a Cleric up and running, it will still be better off if you switch after only 2 levels of Fighter. Extra Strength, able to Grandmaster in a weapon, and a few extra hitpoints to start with. You can have your Fighter/Cleric able to cast spells before you even reach the Vale of Shadows, and it will gain the Fighter benefits after just the first few encounters there.

smeagolheart

I disagree about it taking a long time to get cleric up, the getting fighter up there to begin with will take longer but it will probably be about 1 dungeon and you'll have your class back.

Belanos

I tried to have both my Druid and my Cleric become duals and I had already gone through most of Dragon's Eye but they still hadn't reached level 7 yet. That's too long to wait IMO. Three's not a bad place to do it either since you get a proficiency point then, but after thinking about it I realized that I didn't really need it anyway. Both my Druid and Cleric can become Grandmasters in their chosen melee weapon by level 12 after switching at level 2 Fighter, so what more do you really need?

Wowo

Berserker 7 gives the magic +1/2 attack letting you hit 3 mainhand attacks per round with grandmastery.

It's also an extra 20+ HP which is quite considerable for a tank.

Belanos

In the meantime, the Cleric would be casting higher level spells if you dual earlier. Personally, I don't consider an extra 1/2 attack per round as worth the compromise.

atcDave

Belanos said:

In the meantime, the Cleric would be casting higher level spells if you dual earlier. Personally, I don't consider an extra 1/2 attack per round as worth the compromise.

I mostly agree. I have occasionally tried the later dual for a more uber sort of character; but I find dualing early, like at 3rd level, is usually most satisfying. That way, your cleric is a cleric for most of the game. He just happens to be pretty dangerous when he has to fight.

It does depend some on the party and the character concept. But usually I dual low.

Wowo

Belanos said:

In the meantime, the Cleric would be casting higher level spells if you dual earlier. Personally, I don't consider an extra 1/2 attack per round as worth the compromise.

The XP difference is 60,000 which is about the same xp for a single cleric level at that point, 1/2 a level for the next level and 1/4 of a level forever after.

That means that the 7 dual will be 1 cleric level behind at 7/7 by the time 3 dual hits level 8 (3/8). Half a level behind when next level (so halfway through cleric 8 when the 3 dual hits 9). By the time the lower dual is 3/10 the higher dual is 3/9 and 56,000 xp from levelling which is only 1/4 of the XP needed to level for that level.

To put it another way the duals will very quickly spend 3/4 of the time at the same level.

On the other hand the half attack does make a difference for two reasons, firstly, it lets you hit the APR cap of 5 with and offhand speed weapon which doubles to 10 with improved haste. It's ~ a 11% increase in damage output.

Secondly, and more importantly, haste effects are a little bugged and won't add an entire extra attack per round if you have an odd number at the time. Therefore, the 3/x dual will go from 3.5 to 4 attacks per round from a haste spell or similar while the 7/x dual will go from 4 to 5 from the same spell - doubling the benefit.

The outcome? Between 11% and 33% loss in damage output just to be 1 level higher 25% of the time ...

Belanos

atcDave said:

I mostly agree. I have occasionally tried the later dual for a more uber sort of character; but I find dualing early, like at 3rd level, is usually most satisfying. That way, your cleric is a cleric for most of the game. He just happens to be pretty dangerous when he has to fight.

I first tried dualing at level 3, which worked out OK. Both my Cleric and my Druid had reached level 4 in their new class by the end of the Vale of Shadows. Then I started again and tried for level 7 for each. But by the time I had reached Dragon's Eye, when having Cleric/Druid spells would have come in really handy, I still hadn't reached level 7 yet. Finally I decided to go with just the 2 levels of Fighter and it's working out just fine. I'll still be able to Grandmaster with their primary weapon, plus they'll have 2 points each with Sword & Shield style, something they wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. They should also be able to get at least 2 points in a ranged weapon, again, something they normally couldn't do. I'll lose out on a proficiency point or two, and an extra 1/2 attack per round, but my Druid and Cleric are still far stronger than they normally would have been. Plus now my Druid can also wear metal armour fairly early on, which will make a big difference, especially in Dragon's Eye. You can certainly have a more powerful character by dualing later, but I don't think the trade offs are really worth it frankly.

xzar_monty

With all due respect, folks, I find your calculations just plain funny, to be honest. When I play the game, I am interested in the *story*, the adventure, if you like. We all know full well that you can complete it with essentially any set of characters, and if one's less-than-optimal tinkering of the game mechanics actually makes things challenging, well, so much the better.

When @wowo writes stuff like "The outcome? Between 11% and 33% loss in damage output just to be 1 level higher 25% of the time", I mainly just go "Oh dear, I thought this was an adventure game, not an exercise in control-freakish nit-picking."

Anyway, @elminster was very probably in the right: you have to be at level 2 to dual-class, and that's all I needed to know. I haven't decided when to dual-class - I'll do it when it seems like a good idea. Level 3 sounds just about right. Level 9 is way way too high. In BG2, it's quite all right.

jimmysdabestcop

+1 on level 7 dual from F->C.


Like Wowo said:

Level 7 Fighter has 64,000 To get to Level 8 Fighter he needs 125,000. Difference 61,000 xp.

Cleric Level 8 is 115,000. but you start from zero.

And you will be gaining higher XP because you will be farther in game. Level 3 you get access to Draw Upon Holy Might and at level 7 you get access to Holy Power which gives you fighter Taco.

So you aren't losing a whole bunch when you dual from fighter to cleric. Plus there are other cleric buffs that can give you an extra attack.

Belanos

xzar_monty said:

Level 3 sounds just about right.

Yes, level 3 would be a good time to dual. You'll get an extra proficiency point, bringing you that much closer to Grandmaster, and you'll have reached level 4 as a Cleric towards the end of the Vale of Shadows. So you'll be able to use all your abilities fairly early on. Level 9 is definitely too late. People go that long in order to reach Grandmastery as a Fighter, but it's not necessary. As long as you go with a weapon that your Cleric can put points into, you can get there anyway. Level 7 gets you an extra 1/2 attack per round, but I think that's a pretty lame reason for holding off that long.

Wowo

xzar_monty said:

With all due respect, folks, I find your calculations just plain funny, to be honest. When I play the game, I am interested in the *story*, the adventure, if you like. We all know full well that you can complete it with essentially any set of characters, and if one's less-than-optimal tinkering of the game mechanics actually makes things challenging, well, so much the better.

When @wowo writes stuff like "The outcome? Between 11% and 33% loss in damage output just to be 1 level higher 25% of the time", I mainly just go "Oh dear, I thought this was an adventure game, not an exercise in control-freakish nit-picking."

Anyway, @elminster was very probably in the right: you have to be at level 2 to dual-class, and that's all I needed to know. I haven't decided when to dual-class - I'll do it when it seems like a good idea. Level 3 sounds just about right. Level 9 is way way too high. In BG2, it's quite all right.

9 is too high at 250k for a regular play through, yes. 7 on the other hand is not, it's only 60k xp and is definitely worth the time in any reasonable assessment of the pros and cons.

As stated, by dualing at 3 you are in the position of only gaining 1/2 an attack from haste instead of the spells stated benefit of a full extra attack. Being in a position of possibly missing 1/3 of a characters damage output isn't trivial or in the realms of "power gamers".

While it's fun to play exactly how you like - and I'll never endorse anything else - you're on a forum. Expect to be given information. Don't be snarky and holier than thou towards people who are taking time to provide insights into the game that may enrich your experience.

Wanderon

Or if they don't enrich it you can just scroll on by but then this is the internet so how likely is THAT....

I just started a game where I will dual class my beserker>druid immediatly at level 2 - I just wanted the options to use metal armor and have more proficiency points otherwise I am looking to play a druid so level 2 gets me both almost immediately -the one use of beserker rage may turn out to be useful as well but the point is that different folks want different things from their characters - pay your money and take your choice.

I personally don't like the fact that when you develop your first class to a considerable level before dualing then you not only have to wait for a considerable time to get your first class back but you often end up not having your entire class concept available to you until you are well over halfway through a game - sometimes longer - that works for some folks but not for me.

The only time I followed through with this was in BG where I played a trio of PCs and 3 companions through both BG & BG2 and one of my PCs played a fighter through all of BG1 then dualed to druid early in BG2 (level 9) and had all his fighter skills back fairly early in chap 2 so he played almost the entire game as the concept I was looking for. The break between BG & BG2 also helped it to work from an RP standpoint as did the fact that while the fighter was fine for BG the additional spellcasting was better for BG2 so win/win.

Wowo

@Wanderon‌ I'm sure that you've made up your mind but everything that I said applies double for a Druid build.

Druids need half as much xp to get their Druid levels back (60k xp for Druid 8 compared to 110k xp for cleric 8) and will suffer more without the half APR as their two options (valiant and reckless ring) come so late in the game.

At the very least go to fighter 3 for the extra proficiency point as this means you get GM at level 8 Druid instead of level 12 Druid (in whatever you like - some say daggers, some say scimitars, no one says clubs).

Edit: to be specific, in the time it takes for a cleric to get to level 8 you will be level 7 berserker/7 Druid needing just 14k xp to complete the dual.

Fardragon

I think the point is kind of being missed by some people. The OP isn't asking how they can make the most powerful character, they simply want to give a cleric the berserker kit to fit their character concept. The game isn't so difficult that you need to make your character as powerful as possible - indeed playing with sub optimal characters is a much better way of increasing the difficulty than the so-called hard modes that increase the xp awards.

Certainly, the recovery time for a berserker(7) druid is very brief. Druid levels are gained at quite an alarming rate. That's not the issue. The problem is playing a character that doesn't fit you concept, even if only up till chapter 3, is undesirable for a role player.

Wanderon

If I was at all interested in building a powerhouse character I might do that altho its more likely I would simply go multi instead for all the reasons I mentioned above about why I generally don't even like the dual concept.

What's important to me is to have a druid in the party asap - I would not have dualed at all if he could have worn decent armor as a pure druid (which is also why I dualed at level 2 as he won't get to use those fighter perks until AFTER he moves beyond the fighter level)- sometimes it's not about creating the most powerful version ever - sometimes it about having fun with a less optomized character concept.

You do understand that you could put together a totally random party with stats of 75 max and still finish the game right? ;-)

Wowo

Wanderon said:

If I was at all interested in building a powerhouse character I might do that altho its more likely I would simply go multi instead for all the reasons I mentioned above about why I generally don't even like the dual concept.

What's important to me is to have a druid in the party asap - I would not have dualed at all if he could have worn decent armor as a pure druid (which is also why I dualed at level 2 as he won't get to use those fighter perks until AFTER he moves beyond the fighter level)- sometimes it's not about creating the most powerful version ever - sometimes it about having fun with a less optomized character concept.

You do understand that you could put together a totally random party with stats of 75 max and still finish the game right? ;-)

I've considered it extensively but I keep arriving at the conclusion that the difference between a 75 point build and an 85 point build is that one is more fun to play than the other.

I played some multiplayer recently and one player rolled randomly for stats and didn't adjust them. I didn't mind, we just rolled with it, but there was no doubt in my mind that the additional challenges that were created actually reduced the enjoyment of everyone present.

IE games are /hard/. Even with silly minmaxed characters most players will reload frequently when a few die rolls don't go their way (which is all it takes to wipe most parties) or lack of knowledge means being unprepared for a fight.

Unless playing no-reload (which is a play style I love by the way) every character optimisation decision has to be weighed against the desired frequency of reloads. A decision to roll with a party of 75ers has costs, surely it's a fact. Where do you cut corners? Less HP? Less AC? Less strength? No wand/scroll use? More stats at "3"? Less interesting builds (as it's certainly hard to make a berserker/Druid with only 75 points ...)?

And how do these decisions increase your enjoyment of the game?

(These are honest questions as I've considered and tried as many play styles as I can but I keep coming up against a wall when it comes to considering a 75er).

Wanderon

I'm not a big fan of the 75 random either just mentioning that it works for those masochists who choose to use it to make the point that it's not necessary to totally optimize every single character to play successfully -

I rarely take a character with less than 88 points myself except the very few classses that work well below those levels and I play a lot of no-reload and ALWAYS play minimal reload (no reloads other than bugs/CTD or forced reload due to PC/party wipe depending on game.

I almost never fully optimize weapon choices or even get involved in doing the math - I often make weapon choices based on RP or character concept (my current Priest of Lathander is a half-orc with 1 pip in Staff and one in two handed style)

I typically find characters that are decent but not necessarily totally optimized to be fun perhaps even more so than the fully optimized that often tend to be somewhat over powered unless you play on insane (which I am not much of a fan of either).

Wowo

Wanderon said:

I'm not a big fan of the 75 random either just mentioning that it works for those masochists who choose to use it to make the point that it's not necessary to totally optimize every single character to play successfully -

I rarely take a character with less than 88 points myself except the very few classses that work well below those levels and I play a lot of no-reload and ALWAYS play minimal reload (no reloads other than bugs/CTD or forced reload due to PC/party wipe depending on game.

I almost never fully optimize weapon choices or even get involved in doing the math - I often make weapon choices based on RP or character concept (my current Priest of Lathander is a half-orc with 1 pip in Staff and one in two handed style)

I typically find characters that are decent but not necessarily totally optimized to be fun perhaps even more so than the fully optimized that often tend to be somewhat over powered unless you play on insane (which I am not much of a fan of either).

I generally agree with all of this ... I'd never even bother with a dual Druid in a non-HoF game - Avenger is much more effective and fun without overshadowing other classes like a GM zerkdru is bound to do. Not to mention the pain of rolling a 92 just to not skimp on anything, I much prefer to ignore strength and have enough int for scrolls etc.

Anyway, as I've mentioned the accepted "break points" for a fighter dual are 3 (for the extra proficiency to get GM in a timely fashion), 7 (for the extra attack to not be stuck on a fraction which results in only half the normal benefit of haste), 9 (for a kensei) or 13 (for a kensei with xp to burn and wanting a defensive item in the offhand). 9 and 13 are only for HoF really. 3 and 7 are for normal play throughs.

Fardragon

Wowo said:

Wanderon said:

If I was at all interested in building a powerhouse character I might do that altho its more likely I would simply go multi instead for all the reasons I mentioned above about why I generally don't even like the dual concept.

What's important to me is to have a druid in the party asap - I would not have dualed at all if he could have worn decent armor as a pure druid (which is also why I dualed at level 2 as he won't get to use those fighter perks until AFTER he moves beyond the fighter level)- sometimes it's not about creating the most powerful version ever - sometimes it about having fun with a less optomized character concept.

You do understand that you could put together a totally random party with stats of 75 max and still finish the game right? ;-)

I've considered it extensively but I keep arriving at the conclusion that the difference between a 75 point build and an 85 point build is that one is more fun to play than the other.

I played some multiplayer recently and one player rolled randomly for stats and didn't adjust them. I didn't mind, we just rolled with it, but there was no doubt in my mind that the additional challenges that were created actually reduced the enjoyment of everyone present.

IE games are /hard/. Even with silly minmaxed characters most players will reload frequently when a few die rolls don't go their way (which is all it takes to wipe most parties) or lack of knowledge means being unprepared for a fight.

Unless playing no-reload (which is a play style I love by the way) every character optimisation decision has to be weighed against the desired frequency of reloads. A decision to roll with a party of 75ers has costs, surely it's a fact. Where do you cut corners? Less HP? Less AC? Less strength? No wand/scroll use? More stats at "3"? Less interesting builds (as it's certainly hard to make a berserker/Druid with only 75 points ...)?

And how do these decisions increase your enjoyment of the game?

(These are honest questions as I've considered and tried as many play styles as I can but I keep coming up against a wall when it comes to considering a 75er).

"Hard" is a relative term, I play without an optimised party, and rarely if ever find I need to reload due to a fight going bad. But it's all about ajusting the difficulty to be right for the player. Given that the so called IWD difficulty settings are broken by awarding you extra xp, reducing the strength of your characters is the best way to increase the difficulty, should you wish to do so.

I don't do that with arbitary rules, I do it by roleplaying and using "theme" parties.

jimmysdabestcop

Armor for druids is only a concern before level 9. Level 9 gets you 5th level spell Iron Skins. Then 6th level spell Entropy Shield. Plus armor at level 1 and barkskin.

Dual Fighter/Clerics are in my opinion superior to multiclass fighter/clerics. Dual clerics will gain spell levels higher and have more of them. Those spells turn the Cleric into a tank and a top level melee fighter. Holy power gives you fighter thaco. Not to mention all of the other cleric buffs. So continuing fighter level in multi gives you nothing. You can't obtain grandmastery either. And higher thaco from fighter multiclass is cancelled by priest spell buffs. Plus dual class you can kit your fighter. Either go kensai or berserker.

But Druids basically have no offensive buffs like clerics. So extra fighter are crucial to the build if you plan on doing melee damage. Unless you are just using your Druid to absorb hits and/or use offensive spells and summons.

I would wait it out till level 7 if you want them to contribute any to dealing melee damage. If you dont want them to deal melee damage why are you even dual classing them?

Belanos

jimmysdabestcop said:

I would wait it out till level 7 if you want them to contribute any to dealing melee damage.

I disagree. Even if you dual them at level 2, they start out with higher Strength and they can still Grandmaster in a melee weapon. You don't have to wait until level 7 to make them effective at melee. All they get for the time spent is some minor bonuses. Only 1/2 attack per round and a couple of extra points to bring up their ranged weapon.

Wowo

Belanos said:

jimmysdabestcop said:

I would wait it out till level 7 if you want them to contribute any to dealing melee damage.

I disagree. Even if you dual them at level 2, they start out with higher Strength and they can still Grandmaster in a melee weapon. You don't have to wait until level 7 to make them effective at melee. All they get for the time spent is some minor bonuses. Only 1/2 attack per round and a couple of extra points to bring up their ranged weapon.

The difference between dualing at level 2 and dualing at level 3 is 4 levels without grandmastery (240,000xp).

The difference between dualing at level 3 and dualing at level 7 is 1 whole attack when under the effects of haste or improved haste (1/2 an attack otherwise).

If anything, I think dualing at level 2 is cheap as it isn't a tangible investment into the class. Things like "down time" and the time spent as a pure fighter and then as a pure Druid create value for the finished character and encourage engagement with the different facets that make up the finished character. This is my opinion and not relevant to a discussion of the value of various dual options but there it is anyway.

Fardragon

The point of an early duel is the player doesn't want a "tangible investment" in the first class. They want it to be a background trait. The character isn't a zerkerid, they a shaman from a barbarian tribe. Or they want to be an archer who can use poison arrows, or a failed wizard who was expelled from school and became a groundsman, or whatever.

Belanos

Wowo said:

The difference between dualing at level 3 and dualing at level 7 is 1 whole attack when under the effects of haste or improved haste (1/2 an attack otherwise).

Haste in this game sucks anyway. The Fatigue aftermath makes it something you'd only use in extreme cases. So that extra attack per round doesn't really make much of a difference overall. Improved Haste is better, but it only affects one character, so you give to the one that can actually benefit the most from it, and not your dual-class characters. So why base your whole rational for a late dual on a couple of limited spells?

Wowo

Belanos said:

Wowo said:

The difference between dualing at level 3 and dualing at level 7 is 1 whole attack when under the effects of haste or improved haste (1/2 an attack otherwise).

Haste in this game sucks anyway. The Fatigue aftermath makes it something you'd only use in extreme cases. So that extra attack per round doesn't really make much of a difference overall. Improved Haste is better, but it only affects one character, so you give to the one that can actually benefit the most from it, and not your dual-class characters. So why base your whole rational for a late dual on a couple of limited spells?

I think you're underestimating the usefulness of Haste, RWotF and Improved Haste. I'm also not basing my whole rationale on it, it's just worth considering that when under the effects of the sorts of buffs that you use on the fights that actually matter; you're down an entire attack.

Then again, I'd be curious to know what xp value you'd have for the Yxonomei fight as I expect it would result in a berserker 2/cleric 9 with 3 attacks per round vs a berserker 7/cleric 8 with 5 attacks per round. In this scenario the second build is doing 66% more damage for one of the hardest fights in the game. Then again I could be off ...

Fardragon

The difficulty of the Marleth is overrated...

On a standard playthough, without farming, I would expect to encounter her around berserker7/cleric6.