Dual-Classing and HLA

deathgeonous

I curse my faulty memory... So, when you dual class, say from a Fighter to a Thief, you can only pick HLA from the Thief class if my memory serves me correctly. I am right?

jmerry

Yes, a dual-class character advances only as their new class. A Fighter -> Thief gets only thief HLAs, a Fighter -> Mage gets only mage HLAs, a Cleric -> Fighter gets only fighter HLAs, and so on.

Well, OK, if you dual-class absurdly late, it's possible to pick up one or two HLAs in your original class before you dual. But builds like that are curiosities, not a practical way to play the game.

While multiclass characters can choose from both of their classes' HLA lists, that's not technically the mechanic there. Multiclass characters actually choose from a list for that particular multiclass. The fact that this list is the base classes' lists merged together is ... entirely intentional. (With the exception that triple-class characters have the mage HLA spells excluded from their lists, because they'll never get enough XP to have any 9th level mage spell slots in the standard rules)

Khyron

jmerry wrote: »

Well, OK, if you dual-class absurdly late, it's possible to pick up one or two HLAs in your original class before you dual. But builds like that are curiosities, not a practical way to play the game.

Depends on how you look at it.

I find that playing a Swashbuckler and stay single class until Use Any Item is checked off before dualing to Cleric is very practical.

gorgonzola

Khyron wrote: »

I find that playing a Swashbuckler and stay single class until Use Any Item is checked off before dualing to Cleric is very practical.

Indeed, the only problem is that you need 3Mxp to get UAI and then you are a lev 1 Cleric (with UAI but way under levelled) and in a 6 people party you will regain the first class only near the end of TOB. I don't know if that UAI balances to have your party baby sit you most of ToB...
I fail to understand the builds that shine only for the last 5% of the game.
With small parties or even going solo and using some tricks like leaving most of the quests not concluded to collect their xp after picking the second class and expelling everybody but a mage from the party and having him scribe and erase all the available scrolls it can be an interesting choice, but if not a curiosity is a very unusual way to play the game.
Soloing, with the level cap removed, a lot of mod quests and using those tricks it is possible to get a lot of HLAs for the first class, i.e. starting as a Fighter, storing all the SoA scrolls in a WK to carry them in ToB and picking mage in it. Solo or in a small party a Fighter will get a lot of HLAs in SoA and in ToB learning all the scrolls available there gives about 2M xp, the ones stored in the WK container will also give a lot of xp so possibly the dual can be complete or at least you will start to get mage's HLA as soon as you step into WK from ToB. Again not the usual way to play, and needs a cap remover, but is perfectly possible and much less painful then the SwashCleric in a full party...
A F>M with GM, epic level fighter hp, thac0 and HLAs and epic level Mage levels and HLA is something really strong, a sort of super multi FM.

Khyron

I usually solo the first chapters of SoA and only grab a team as i head to the underdark, usually have HLA's already then. So when i do Swashie run, i've usually dual classed to cleric very early.. and you'll pop up to mid teens pretty quick, so i don't feel the cleric is carried by the party at all. Not the most effective, but if memory serves you retain the AC and Thac0 bonus from Swash kit even when the class is dormant.

Since i've solo'd so much, my cleric class is usually just a few hundred thousand xp behind where it would be as a single class in a normal run and party npc's will be boosted upon joining first time.. so it's basically free xp. True i don't get that much cleric hla due to lvl cap, but cleric hla's are kind of underwhelming a lot of the time.

I just love having a cleric with swords, high hit, high damage, traps, uai etc.. there are much stronger combos, but not many are as fun as this. The wait for cleric lvls is fine, as Swashie in itself is quite cool and the wait for swashie lvls regained is quite long but fine.

gorgonzola

Done this way it makes perfect sense.
Also I often solo some chapters to get xp and recruit the other party members at higher level, I even leave some quest rewards not collected so they can benefit from them or carry them from area to area dropping some of them as soon as I enter it to tailor the party members xp gain to my needs while all the party is active when I get the quest rewards.
There are a lot of unusual strategies a player can use to deal with xp gain so to get HLAs in 2 classes for a dual is possible, but as I told I would call those ways of playing quite unusual, even if really fun and powerful.
Once my solo sorcerer got bored to be alone after the Underdark so recruited 5 NPCs, went to the last level of WK and tanked the demons prince and his ever spawning helpers (Tactics Mod) for ages, it was fun to have the NPCs level up so many times in the same battle, only when all of them reached the level cap they killed him, it was something like 30M xp gain in a single battle, that lasted for hours without any chance to save, a single error with Charname killed would had vanished all the effort, it was fun, then finishing SoA and going trough ToB was a cakewalk...