Thoughts on Dual vs Multi-class

Death_mtl

What are your thoughts on dual class vs Multi class F/C? I'd like to take advantage of the clerics turn undead during the first part of the game, but also want to be able to hang on the front lines.

Also, can dual F/M use only the mage weapon choices, or fighter ones.

Thanks

joluv

You shouldn't have any problems hanging on the front lines with a multi-class F/C. A dual-class F/M can use fighter weapons (once you get your fighter levels back).

hispls

IMO a pure cleric with good stats and some buffs is fine on the front line while not losing any spell progression or turn undead power. There are SOOOO many good flails, maces, and hammers in the game.

I think it's a generally consensus that you don't dual out of a spellcasting profession anyway but into one. Beyond weapon Grand Mastery APR and a few extra HP they have nothing to offer mid to late game when compared to the power of a pure high level priest, or a priest with a few levels of fighter.

FinneousPJ

F->C dual but R/C multi.

Mivsan

You can do an early dual class from Fighter (or a kit) to Cleric at level 3. The dual is going to be complete before you end Vale of Shadows. You're going to have basically all the good things about a pure Cleric, but also access to Grandmastery, the additional APR it gives and some more hp (and possibly a kit benefit like Berserker Rage). That is the power of dual class.

Fighter/Cleric multi is perfectly viable too, though, especially since you can then use a better race, like half-orc (19 str, 19 con) or dwarf (19 con, shorty saves).

Lord_Tansheron

Grandmastery is really the big reason to go dual, especially in IWD where it adds an extra attack per round. Plus, fighters don't actually scale well past level 9 anyway, so having a dual will shift more experience towards the cleric portion, giving you better spellcasting.

Rangers of course can't get grandmastery anyway, so you can totally go with multiclass there; also because unlike BG2, a R/C will only get druid spells based on the Ranger level (a R->C dual in BG2 would get all druid spells alongside cleric ones, regardless of Ranger level).

Wowo

Lord_Tansheron said:

Grandmastery is really the big reason to go dual, especially in IWD where it adds an extra attack per round. Plus, fighters don't actually scale well past level 9 anyway, so having a dual will shift more experience towards the cleric portion, giving you better spellcasting.

Rangers of course can't get grandmastery anyway, so you can totally go with multiclass there; also because unlike BG2, a R/C will only get druid spells based on the Ranger level (a R->C dual in BG2 would get all druid spells alongside cleric ones, regardless of Ranger level).

Pretty sure with bg2 1.3 that it's been fixed to work as intended (same way it does in IWD).

Mivsan

Well, to be completely precise, there is a baldur.ini line that lets you choose (in both games) which Ranger/Cleric spell system you'd like to have.

'Game Options', 'Cleric Ranger Spells', '1',

Where '1' is for the new, Ranger-dependent system and '0' is for the old way.

Death_mtl

I think I'll do F3/Cx dual to go along with my Dwarven Defender as front liners. All those nasty undead in the Vale...

Juris

The F7/Cl dual is pretty spectacular. You get Grandmastery as a level 8 Cleric, which happens very quickly because XP is exponential. My first battle after dual-classing gave me 2 levels in cleric

A Cleric with fighter hps and Grandmastery that's only a level behind? Yes please

[As a side note I think dual-classing is munchkin and was implemented wrong - there is no reason the above character should ever be able to get Grandmastery as a level 8 cleric - normal clerics can't even specialize. A character that changes professions shouldn't be allowed to advance any further as a fighter]

Belanos

Juris said:

A character that changes professions shouldn't be allowed to advance any further as a fighter]

They're not advancing any further, they just retain some of the Fighter's abilities. What would be the point in having a dual-class character otherwise? The ability to Grandmaster is the main reason why you'd want to go down that road. Without that there would be virtually no point to it. A few extra hit points and some extra Strength? Big deal!

FinneousPJ

@Belanos The point is they shouldn't be allowed to attain dual class when leveling up to Cleric 8. He's not saying they should lose the pips allocated as a fighter.

Juris

@Belanos - yeah you're not getting what I'm saying

A Fi7/Cl8 shouldn't lose any benefit of being a 7th level fighter (4 ranks in a weapon proficiency). However, he shouldn't be allowed to add a fifth slot for grandmastery as a level 8 cleric. As an 8th level cleric the character gets an extra weapon proficiency, which he can immediately use (under the current rules) to become a grand master in a cleric weapon like a flail, etc. That character should be stuck at 4 weapon proficiency points in flail forever - because he only made it to 7th level as a fighter.

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Feytor

Juris said:

[As a side note I think dual-classing is munchkin and was implemented wrong - there is no reason the above character should ever be able to get Grandmastery as a level 8 cleric - normal clerics can't even specialize. A character that changes professions shouldn't be allowed to advance any further as a fighter]

True. But it's also strange that you cannot use old profession at all. Instantly forgotten how I use a sword? Or in case of a F->C it's unreal that a cleric cannot whack a mace at the fighter lvl she has.

The pnp rules where a bit more realistic, 1/2 xp for the encounter if you used youre old class. But that would be a hell of a coding job .
Perhaps this is NOT the best possible result, but the BEST result possible

All in all it's a reasonable set of rules which I can work with. And yes, with cheese pleese

Feytor

Suppose we implement dualling as follow:

example F7->M

At M1, you still have a lot of youre old reflexes and fight as a F7
At M2, getting more absorbed by the arcane, less practice with weapons so F6
etc until equal. Then they rise together and slowly you get youre Fighter skills back. (you go temporarily from 4 pips back to 3 pips).
After the dual you cannot use the Fighters abilities, so he's stuck at 4 pips.

M1/F7
M2/F6
M3/F5
M4/F4
M5/F5

Perhaps this character is OP? In that case you can apply a 10% xp penalty.

Is this a 'better' system? and mod-able?
Am I missing something?

joluv

Feytor said:

But it's also strange that you cannot use old profession at all. Instantly forgotten how I use a sword?

I always thought of it like if you're going to properly train in your new class, you need to stop falling back on the techniques of your old class.

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