experience cap

FrdNwsm

I just made an annoying discovery. Apparently the 161,000 experience cap applies to the TOTAL experience when applied to multi or dual class characters. I dualed Imoen over to mage at level 7 thief, and have been waiting for her to reach level 9 mage. Apparently, this ain't gonna happen. That really screws any demi humans you want to triple class, and as far as I am concerned puts a hurting on dual classed characters also.

VahnXIII

Yes it does. Which is why a lot of players discourage dual classing unless you are bringing your character to the next game. However, while multiclassed characters have their exp distributed to all classes, they're still a blast to play through the original campaign (imo).

Jarrakul

I'd argue that the cap on total experience (rather than on experience per class) is entirely fair, and that capping experience on a per-class basis would unfairly disadvantage single-classed characters. It's hard to justify playing an 8th level fighter when you could be an 8th level fighter/9th level mage.

Demonic

Dual and multiclassing is definitely viable, you just have to know the rules how exactly it works so you can tell the good combinations from the bad ones. For example, dual classing. It is extremely stupid thing to dual class FROM caster as you loose any spell progression, while dual classing TO caster is usually quite good. Of course, it depends on the first class as well.

The other thing you have to take into consideration is the game you're playing. In BG:EE, dualclassing is not a good idea IMHO. Multi is better there, since you won't have to go through the "weak" time.

However, in IWD:EE and BG2:EE dual classing is much more viable since you'll reach much higher levels than in BG:EE. More so, if you know the "sweet" levels when to dual. For example, dualing a thief (swashbucler preferably) who reaches 100/100 in open locks and hide traps to a warrior is something that proved extremely usefull to me. (I actually dualled a little later but it's not necessary). Sure, it will happen somwhere near lvl 7, so you won't have that much of a backstab, and that's exactly why you want to roll swasbuckler, who has no backstab but nice combat bonuses.

My 9/21 Swasbucler/fighter (IWD:EE) was by far my strongest melee character as far as raw damage is concerned. Sure, she wasn't as tough as my half-orc berserker, but in terms of damage, she was the best. Her ThAC0 in both her main and off-hand was lower than ThAC0 of the half-orc who wasn't dual wielding.

Of course, you can take some heavy backstabby kit, wait till you reach neat backstab bonusses and decent hiding and then dual it to fighter.

Basicly multiclass is safer for newer players, since you can't make a serious game-braking mistake, unless you roll one of the three class combinations. Dual class however is harder to do right, but potentially more powerfull as you have better control over your character's skill.

FrdNwsm

Well, Imoen is the only one I dual-classed, and she's doing OK as a level 7 thief/level 8 mage. I just didn't realize she wouldn't hit level 9, but I can live with it. I have Neera as level 9 mage, so between the two of them, I have decent mage firepower. Jaheira is looking a bit backward here also. Mind you, I do have Branwen as my primary spiritual caster, so again that side of things is decently covered.

FrdNwsm

>> It's hard to justify playing an 8th level fighter when you could be an 8th level fighter/9th level mage<<

Well, that's certainly a valid point of view. I'd counter by saying that the extra firepower is offset by the prolonged time it takes to accomplish this, much of which you are spending as a relatively low level mage.

>>, she wasn't as tough as my half-orc berserker, but in terms of damage, she was the best. Her ThAC0 in both her main and off-hand was lower than ThAC0 of the half-orc who wasn't dual wielding.<<

Given the fact that MyChar is in fact a half-orc berserker who wields two-handers, I'm curious how you did that mechanically. Obviously two attacks have more damage potential than one, but how did you manage the off-hand THACO?

Jarrakul

FrdNwsm said:

Well, that's certainly a valid point of view. I'd counter by saying that the extra firepower is offset by the prolonged time it takes to accomplish this, much of which you are spending as a relatively low level mage.

Putting aside my thoughts on downtime as a balancing factor in RPGs, I don't really think applying different potentials is the purpose of experience caps. Nor, for that matter, do I think a fighter/mage (or any other multiclass) is particularly disadvantaged at any particular point in the level range, possibly excepting the time when the rest of the party is level 2 and the fighter/mage hasn't levelled up at all yet.

The simple truth is, multiclasses and duals are strong. Giving them, essentially, a higher (total) experience cap would make them even stronger, and I just don't see a reason to do that.

Heindrich

When I think of the power of NPC companions relative to each other, I consider the entire game, from Candlekeep to the Throne of Bhaal. Dual-classing might be painful for a period, but dual-classed characters tend to dominate mid-SoA and beyond.

There is a lot of different power curves in the BG games, the most obvious example I can think of is the contrast between Dorn and Rassad. Dorn goes from "OP" in BG1 to mediocre in BG2, whilst Rassad goes from near-useless in BG1 to godly in BG2. On that note, Jaheira starts off pretty mediocre in BG1 because low level druid spells are weaker than cleric ones, but when Insect Plague, Iron Skins and Fire Elementals become availabe in early-BG2, she transforms into quite the powerhouse.

Demonic

FrdNwsm said:

>>, she wasn't as tough as my half-orc berserker, but in terms of damage, she was the best. Her ThAC0 in both her main and off-hand was lower than ThAC0 of the half-orc who wasn't dual wielding.<<

Given the fact that MyChar is in fact a half-orc berserker who wields two-handers, I'm curious how you did that mechanically. Obviously two attacks have more damage potential than one, but how did you manage the off-hand THACO?</p>

Well, the first thing is, she had three pips in dual-wield and 5 pips in longswords + 1ThAC0 bonus from her swasbucler kit (I don't know if her 9 leveles in swasbuckler added any regular ThAC0 improvement, since she had already lvl 22 of fighter which is the lowest ThAC0 you can get from levels). I loaded the autosave just before the final encounter and looked on her and the half - orc's stuff and pips. Turned out, they both have 5 pips in weapons they use.

She had +4 weapons in her both hands, Belt of 19th strenght and gauntlets +1 ThAC0, while he had only +3 sword. When I removed the gauntlets and the belt and added +1 to the half-orc's ThAC0 to compensate for his weapon, it turned out he has -8 ThAC0 against her's -9/-7 so considering the ThAC0, they were equal without the boosting stuff. So the fact she had higher ThAC0 than him was caused by the fact that he was supposed to be a TANK so he was packed with deff stuff, while she was purely ofensive and received offenzive boosters.

But her two weapons still caused her to have higher DPS than the sword and shield half-orc was using.

However, if I let her use her belt, so they were equal in terms of strenght (19 against 19) she suddenly had -11/-9 against his -8, so she may have some THAC0 from her swasbuckler levels other than the +1 kit bonus, but I can't tell for sure, since I don't know how exactly is base THAC0 calculated in term of dual classing.

/Edit/ Ok, the sentence I striked IS false, you always get the base THAC0 of the best class, so she has no THAC0 bonuses from that other than the +1 kit bonus.

Jarrakul

Base THAC0, like most things with multi/dual classing, is calculated with a "use whichever's better" method. So the swashbuckler levels shouldn't impact a fighter dual's base THAC0. Which means I really have no idea why your swashbuckler is outperforming your berserker in that regard. The -9/-7 seems like it should be with the belt, not without. Perhaps there are other items you haven't accounted for? Helm of Balduran maybe?

Demonic

I'm not sure about that. I'll check it again when I get home.

/edit/ I checked it again. I found other points of difference. The large shield used by the half-orc was giving him two penalty point's of THAC0, without it he has -10 (after adding +1 bonus to compensate for the worse weapon he has. At that point he is at -10 against her -9/-7 with strenght 18 (pure eighteen as she started as thief kit) or -11/-9 with the strenght of 19. The one point difference here is probably causet by the +1 THAC0 kit bonus she get's from her kit.

So the conclusion is, without items, the half-orc is slightly better in terms of THAC0, but considering she's a dual wielder the difference is probably small enough for her to actually over DPS him. What made her better fighter THAC0 - wise are the item choices.

But she is also able to find and dismantle traps

Dremor

dual class system for me is so lame, isnt justified... compared to multiclass you always keep the progress you make in a class... i would have liked a new gameplay change for dual class system...

just for talking, here is how i would have made this:

only players dedicated enough into the game would level a character up to a point, then "sort of" reincarante into a lvl 1, and once reached a higher level than previous class, they could regain back the lost abilities, but also not having the class levels of the previous class steal xp...

so: you play for example up to level 7 or 13 or 20 then dual class,
then once you reach lvl 8 or 14 or 21 you regain all your abilities and so you can be a level 20 class1, level 20 class 2 + xx epic levels of class 2

at least this is the "thing" that would make me dual class :P
i know probably it isnt even moddable a change like this...

so i am just fine playing a single class toon only... (actually i am running in single player an halfelf wild mage, and an half elf shapeshifter :P both in same game...)

GreenWarlock

Dual class vs. multi-class adds flavor to the game. Often, the most potent combinations are the dual class, if you dual out of a class that offers a decent peak of power around the time that levels stop costing double-the-previous for XP. e.g., fighter->mage/thief->mage will often be significantly stronger than a plain mage, and ultimately a few 100k xp behind, rather than a whole level. The down-time is less of a factor at this point of the game, as you should cover the gap faster than it took to build the first class, as the base level of monsters/quest awards you are dealing with is significantly boosted. Also, it means deferring the dual to BG2, where awards for scribing scrolls, picking locks and disarming traps is substantially boosted. Multiclass is great when you want to continue developing in both (or all 3) schools, and are prepared to have a significant wait before uncapping the highest levels of power. A triple-class mage will never learn 9th level spells for example, and simple 2-class multi will be close to the end of ToB before 9th level spells are cast. That delay is telling for mage-based multis, but less of an issue for others such as cleric/thief, and as an extra bonus, multis will get their HLAs when total xp is 3 million, but duals need 3 million in their active class, so HLAs are significantly delayed, and you either limit them to one class, or have unfeasible downtime and severely limit their total number.

So we have two options, dual vs. multi, and that (for me) adds flavor, rather than limits choice by saying this one multi-dual is better than everything else, so I should just play that. (Final thought - you also get to pick a kit for the class you dual out of, but not into. Makes dualing out of clerics/druids/thieves more interesting, and again limits power of dualing into a mage, as you won't have the extra specialist spell)

As for the original issue - xp caps are an unfortunately necessity of a game that is designed for a specific game experience, rather than scaling difficulty to meet the party. Having played both styles of game, my preference is that BG got it right here, for all the cap frustrates me every time I hit it. You can do a better job designing your climactic encounters when you have a precise idea of the kind of characters that will be arriving, and most scaling solutions tend (in my experience) to feel bland.

For reference, I always used to dual Imoen at 7th, exactly like you did. On more recent playthroughs I am focusing entirely on pick locks/find traps, and dualing at 6th, so she gets the skills back a little earlier, but also catches 9th level (and 5th level spells) by the end of the game.

The 'best' dual bargain in the game is 6th level fighter -> 10th level druid. You do not lose any druid ability in the slightest, so the six fighter levels are essentially free. Early duals are essential to make use of the dual experience in BG1, and to enjoy the whole of BG2 in the dualed state, but I can never quite pull myself away from a dual early in BG2, with the first class in the 9-11 range (varying by class).