dual classing and levelling up

Durenas

how would people feel about this: 'if the character has enough XP to level up, grey out the dual class button until level up is complete'? I want to open up discussion about this because I can't see any bad side to it, but I may be missing something. This seems a small change to me, more keeping people from accidentally wasting XP by dual classing instead of levelling up.

If you have gained XP, that XP is counted against the cap, whether you use it to level up or not. So it's essentially lost if you don't level up before dual classing.

SethDavis

would that cause an issue if you left it to the point where you would not be able to raise your new class' level above the old one's?

Durenas

SethDavis said:

would that cause an issue if you left it to the point where you would not be able to raise your new class' level above the old one's?

Well, that's always a risk with dual classing if you don't plan it right. Either way, the XP is lost, so if you dual class too late, you still run the risk(potentially) of not having enough XP to reactivate your old class. At least this way you don't lose the level as well. If you find yourself with, say enough XP for level 8 thief, which is 70k, I believe, you'd only be able to gain 91k more XP. No matter which way you slice it, you're not going to get your old class back before SoD or BG2.

The main thing people need to be aware of when dual classing is that the XP you gain past your level-up is not lost, it's hidden. If you don't invest it in a level, it's wasted. So if I have Imoen gain, for example, 69k XP, not enough to get to thief 8, but decide to dual class anyway, you will only be able to level Imoen to Mage 8, whereas if you dual immediately after gaining thief 7 at 40k xp, you will be able to level Imoen to Mage 9. Why? Because(Imoen cannot get to level 9 in BG with 7 levels of thief) the extra 29k XP is still attached to her character. It's just wasted because it was not allowed to apply to her new class. This is a rather extreme example but it illustrates my point.

To address your point more directly, yes it would cause a problem because then Imoen would be thief 8, and you'd only be able to raise her to mage 8. Hmm... so the question is:

Do we want to ensure people don't accidentally discard levels, or allow people the option to discard levels if they so choose?

dib

No, thanks, I don't need more hand holding.

Durenas

And that's a totally valid standpoint. I'm just thinking in terms of eliminating failure conditions.

SethDavis

there's a setting called overconfirmeverything (which is off by deafult, i think) that could be used for something like that.

you could make a feature request to pop up a dialog if it's enabled, warning about the finer points of xp and dual classing.

that way people like dib would be able to keep their fingers free, people like me could click through it without reading, new players get the useful info, and nobody is mad except the people like me who had it coming.

GreenWarlock

I would definitely be concerned at loosing the option to dual-class without taking the level, even if that is unlikely. Given the availability of xp in the game, I have been known to let Imoen gain considerable extra xp as a thief if I wanted to clear out that last trapped dungeon or two before dualing, and had definite ideas about which level I wanted her to dual at.

Asking for confirmation that I really do want to dual and give up on the potential level seems perfectly reasonable though - I don't lose any options, and get a fair warning before committing to a change I cannot later fix (without power-word reload).

bleusteel

I think the game should let you make bad decisions. Mistakes are a great way to learn.