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Dual and Multi Classing Question?

LookToWindwardLookToWindward Member Posts: 179
Hi All,

Is there any where that explains dual classing and multi classing? I can see I can press the Dual Class button on the Register Screen for Dual, but how do I it with Multi Classing? I mean, physically in the Game?

Thanks a lot

All the Best
Dave

Comments

  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    You can find the basics in the Adventurer's Guide. That's in the Manuals sub-folder of whichever folder you installed the game to.

    You can only choose a multi-class when you're generating a new character.
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    Also, only humans can dual-class and only non-humans can multiclass. If you start a new non-human character, you'll see multiclass options there. For example, a halfling can be a fighter, a cleric, a thief, or a fighter/thief.
    k9kh3pqwnt10.jpg

    Non-human characters have their class options restricted, varying by race. Halflings have the most restrictions, while half-elves have the least.
    Grond0Gusinda
  • LookToWindwardLookToWindward Member Posts: 179
    Thanks a lot, that made things a lot clearer. I saw the section of the Adventurers Guide, but it doesn't exactly how to do it in the game, in fact I can't find that piece of information anywhere (except here).
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    to go over all the ins and outs of dual classing and multi classing here it is;

    lets start with dual classing;

    as jmerry stated, only humans can dual class, and how it works, in your original class ( so your starting class ) you need to hit at least level 2, before you can dual class

    but before you are even given the option, there are procedures ( good times ) and they are as follows;

    first you MUST be a legal class in your first class to dual ( aka you can't be a paladin/ monk/ barbarian/ sorcerer/ bard )

    then, you MUST have the prerequisite for your first class to even be allowed the option to dual which means your first class MUST have at least these stats;

    fighter; STR 15
    ranger; STR/DEX/WIS 15
    mage; INT 15
    cleric; WIS 15
    druid; WIS/CHA 15
    thief; DEX 15
    * this also includes all respected kits

    okay, so now you have the prerequisite for your first class, and now you want to dual into something else, next, you MUST have the prerequisite for your second class as follows;

    fighter; STR 17
    ranger; STR/DEX/WIS 17
    mage; INT 17
    cleric; WIS 17
    druid; WIS/CHA 17
    thief; DEX 17

    so putting this together what does it mean? it means this;

    so lets say for example you start off as a fighter and want to dual class over to cleric, here are the prerequisites you would need;

    first since you are a fighter, you will have to start off with at least 15 STR, then if you want to dual over to cleric you will need a minimum of 17 WIS to do so

    this is why imoen can dual class over to a mage because she starts off as a thief and has more than 15 DEX, and has the prerequisite INT of 17 to dual over to mage

    things to note*

    first, when it comes to kit options, you can only kit your original class, you cannot kit into a second class, so using the above example with are fighter cleric, you could start off as a berserker and dual into a cleric, but you couldnt start off as a fighter and dual into a priest of lathander

    also, you need to watch your alignments ( for thieves and druids ) if you are lawful good in your first class you will not be able to dual over to thief and if you are anything but true neutral you will not be able to dual into a druid, and if you are anything but good you will not be able to dual into a ranger

    also, you can only dual class legal combos, so no druid/thief or ranger/mage, combos being;
    fighter -> mage or cleric or druid or thief
    ranger -> cleric only ( although i believe archers cannot dual class )
    mage -> fighter or cleric or thief
    cleric -> fighter or ranger or thief
    druid -> fighter only
    thief -> fighter or mage or cleric

    another thing to note, is dualing into cleric or durids, once you dual class into a cleric or druid you can only exclusively use cleric of druid weapons, so for example; if you were a fighter and put your proficiency points into longsword, and then dualed over to a cleric, you will never be able to use a longsword again and even when your cleric level surpasses your fighter level you will still have those proficiency points in longsword, despite the fact you can't use one, so prepare in advance for that, dualing into thieves or mages dont have this problem and can use weapons from either the first or second class they are in

    and another thing, armor; you have to be careful about your armor and classes, if you are a fighter and dual over to a mage, you can now wear any armor, but if you wear any armor that isn't a robe ( or elven chain ) you will not be able to cast spells, same goes with if you are a fighter and dual over to thief, all of your thief abilities will be disabled if you wear anything heaver than light armors, and this goes for thief/mages, if again you even wear leather armor, your thief abilities will be good but you will not be able to cast spells, so also keep note of that

    plus, you can only dual once, so again with the above example, lets say you start off as fighter, then dual over to cleric, that is it, you will now only grow up in cleric, speaking of which, how does this work...?

    sound we got the mechanics of how to do it, but what happens when you actually do it...

    so first, you have your starting class ( we will use the above example again ) of fighter, as the rules state, you need to be at least level 2 before you dual over to your second class, so we wait until we hit level 7 in fighter, then we dual over to cleric

    when you dual over, you will lose all of your previous class abilities/thac0/proficiencies/saves/basically everything except HP and they will be replaced by your first level of your second class

    so with that being said when we went from level 7 fighter to level 1 cleric we now have all the abilities/thac0/save/proficiencies of a level 1 cleric ( but we still have our original HP )

    once you dual class you can NEVER again grow up levels in your first class and you will only exclusively grow up levels in your second class

    now, as we saw, we lost all the abilities of of first class, will those every come back? and the answer is yes and this is how;

    when your second class reaches one level higher than your first class you will get all your original abilities back, so for example;

    we had our fighter at level 7, and now we are growing up in cleric, and while we grow up in cleric we gain cleric abilities and such as per usual, but then once we hit level 8 in the cleric class we now get all of our fighter abilities back; aka; abilities/thac0/proficiencies,saves and all that stuff

    but there is also a caveat with this; when receiving your original abilities they will over write your current ones only if they are better so for example;

    at fighter level 7 your base thac0 was 14, and when you dualed over to cleric and hit level 7 your thac0 was 16, but then when you hit level 8 your thac0 is now 14 ( because a level 7 fighter has a better thac0 than a level 8 cleric ) but once your cleric hits level 13 your thac0 will now go down to 12 and continue on the cleric table since the cleric table is better at these higher levels

    proficiencies; lets say you put 4 points into mace when you were a fighter and then dualed over to cleric and put 1 point into mace, once you hit level 8 in cleric and get your fighter proficiencies back, you will only have 4 points in mace because your fighter class had more points in mace than your cleric class did, and if you dualed with the above class combo ( fighter 7/ cleric 8 ) you will not be able to place that 5th weapon slot on to a weapon until you reach at least level 9 in your cleric class*
    * meaning, anytime you dual from fighter to something else you can only go pass specialization in weapons if your second class would be the same level as a fighter would be; so if you were a fighter at level 2 that dualed over to cleric, you couldn't place a 3rd proficiency point into a weapon until your cleric class hit at least level 3, or a 4th point until your cleric class hit at least level 6, or a 5th point until your cleric class hit at least level 9 ( this goes for all secondary classes )

    this also applies to saves, if you hit level 7 in your fighter class then hit level 8 in cleric, any of your fighter saves that were better, will replace the cleric saves you have now, until your cleric surpasses your fighter's saves

    also note, HP for warriors, how HP works for dual classing is that you will gain the proper HP for your first class, and then you will finish off your HP progression based on the second class you chose, so for example;

    with the above example of fighter 7 dualed over to cleric

    for your first 7 fighter levels you would roll d10 + HP bonus ( all the way to +7 if applicable ) and then you dual over to cleric, and while you are leveling up your cleric you will not receive any HP until you hit level 8 in your cleric class ( because now you are 1 level higher than your original class ) and you will continue to gain HP at the cleric rate ( d8 + HP bonus max +2 )

    with that also being said, lets say you had a CON score of 18 and were rolling max HP ( to keep this easy ) for the first 7 levels of fighter you would have 98 HP ( 7d10+28 )then you dual over to cleric and your HP will stay at 98, until you reach level 8 in your cleric and now you will gain 10 HP ( 1d8+2 ) for a total of 108 HP, now lets say you grabbed a tome of +1 CON, what would happen? your HP would increase by 7 ( for having 19 CON ), because clerics do not gain a HP bonus pass 2, but warriors do, and even though you are not leveling up in your warrior class anymore they still receive their proper HP bonuses so this would increase your HP to 115

    now, lets talk about how XP works with dual classing;

    so lets take our above example; fighter 7 dual over to cleric;

    so what that means is first; we need to collect the 64 000 XP to hit level 7 in our fighter class, so once we hit at least 64 000 XP we can dual over to cleric, once we dual over to cleric our XP for our fighter will be set to 64 000 ( so if your XP was 64 321 and you dualed over to cleric, it will set down to 64 000, if your XP in fighter was 120 000 and you dualed over to cleric it will still go down to 64 000 XP, everytime you dual class, your first class will always set to the lowest XP value possible regardless ) and now we will have 0 XP in our cleric class

    now even though you have 0 XP in the cleric class now, that original 64 000 from your fighter class still contributes to the game's XP cap, which means to hit level 8 in your cleric class you will need to hit 110 000 XP in your cleric class which will be a combined total of 174 000 XP ( which in BG1 without SoD you will not be able to hit that XP total )

    now with that being said you are still allowed to dual class into a second class even if you will not get enough XP to unlock your first class abilities so be aware of XP caps for your games which are as follows;

    BG 1: 161 000
    SoD: 500 000
    SoA/ToB: 8 000 000

    so again, with our above example fighter 7, dualed over to cleric, what that would mean, is when we hit level 7 fighter we dual over to cleric and have used up 64 000 XP of the bg1 cap leaving us with 97 000 XP left, this will only give us enough XP to level or cleric side to 7, which means we will have the HP of a level 7 fighter, but only the abilities of a level 7 cleric ( since we need to hit level 8 to unlock our fighting abilities ) but this is okay because if you import this character to SoD or BG 2 your class progression will continue as normal in your cleric side and you will only need 13 000 XP more to hit level 8 in your cleric side and then it will unlock your fighter abilities

    so with this all being said, what is the main advantage of dual classing?
    here are some ideas;

    usually taking a fighter to level 7 ( or ranger but 99% of the time fighter ) and dualing over to a cleric, thief, or mage ( or in some bizarre instances druid if you wish )

    what this does is once the cleric, thief or mage surpasses the fighter class they will gain a boost in HP ( since the first 7 levels were fighter HP pools ) an extra 1/2 attack per round ( for 7 levels of fighter ) and allow to go pass 1 proficiency point in a weapon, which makes their cleric, thief or mage side more combat orientated unlike a vanilla cleric, thief or mage

    another option is growing to level 10 or 11 ( this is just an example can use any level ) in thief and then dualing over to mage or cleric, this makes it so you can max out some thief skills and then get some spell casting abilities on top of it, although once you dual over to a spell casting class your thief skills will be disabled until your spell casting class surpasses your thief class by 1 level, so watch out for that

    okay, so that was dual classing 101 time for multi-classing....

    multi-classing works differently than dual classing; instead of starting as once class, and then selecting a second, you start with both classes ( or all 3 classes ) at the same time

    so now the caveats;

    #1; no ability score prerequisites, but you are still restricted to default race/class minimums/maximums

    #2; not all races are equal, some races can multi class into more options than others with half-elf having all the multi class options and halflings having the least

    #3; same weapon and armor restrictions apply with multi classes as dual classes; any combo that has a cleric or druid MUST only use that class' specific weapons ( mages and thieves can use weapons from any class combo ) and armor restrictions still apply for thief skills and spell casting ( although druids can cast spells in heavy armor when dualed or multi with fighter )

    #4; for XP your classes will now share the XP instead of giving XP to one class, for example; lets say we are a half-elf fighter/cleric, we will see that you are a level 1 fighter and a level 1 cleric, so what happens now is that your XP gained will be shared between these 2 classes for level up

    so for example; lets say you have 6 party members, every one is a single class except for you and you are a multi class fighter/cleric, everyone is at 0 XP

    you kill a creature that gives you 600 XP, everyone will get 100 XP each, but when you get your 100 XP it will be divided between your 2 classes and now both classes will have 50 XP in them, so when you are a mutli class fighter/cleric and you need 2000 XP to hit level 2 in your fighter, you actually need 4000 XP because half of it is being shared with your cleric side

    next; abilities saves, to hit, all that stuff, much like the dual classing, since you are growing up 2 or 3 classes at the same time your saving throws and thac0 will be of the best value out of all 2 or 3 classes, so lets say you are a fighter7/cleric 7 multi class - you will have the thac0 of a level 7 fighter ( since its better than a level 7 cleric ) and out of your saves whatever class would have the better value at level 7 are the saving throws you are going to have, everything else progresses as normal aka snares are still every 5 thief levels pass level 1, you still gain spell slots based on the level of your spell casting class ect....

    HP, this can be a little tricky, so what happens with HPs is different than dual classing, we will be using the fighter/cleric example above; when growing up levels in your classes you will receive half the HP you would with a level up as apposed to a single class, so for example, our half-elf fighter/cleric with 18 CON, gains 3000 XP which means now his cleric side is at 1500 XP, he goes for the level up, and he rolls 1d4+2 ( 1d4 because its half of 1d8, and +2 because its half of +4 ) so if we are going with max HP, he started off with 13 HP ( 1d5+2 fighter side/ 1d4+2 cleric side = 13 ) and now has 19 HP, then he gains another 1000 XP and now his classes are both at 2000 XP and he levels up his fighter side, he rolls 1d5+2 and rolls max and now has 26 HP, and then once you hit level 10 in your fighter or cleric side you will start gaining 1 HP/ level as apposed to the 3 for fighters and 2 for clerics, PLUS, if you are a warrior ( so fighter or ranger ) you get your full HP bonus from CON, so lets say our half-elf fighter/cleric gets a tome of con and now has 19 CON, his level ups will be as follows; fighter- 1d5+3, cleric - 1d4+2, and if somehow your CON were to hit 21 your level ups would be; fighter- 1d5+3, cleric - 1d4 +3

    #5 proficiencies; if you are multi classed with a warrior ( fighter or ranger ) then you can go up to 2 proficiency points in any weapon that your class combo allows ( or 3 in two weapon style ) if you are a multi class with no warrior comb ( mage/thief, cleric/mage ect ) you will only be able to have 1 proficiency in a weapon

    #6 if you are multi classing with a gnome and if there is ever a mage class involved they will always by default be a multi classed illusionist, they are the only race that can do this for multi class, and it is ALWAYS going to be illusionist, you can't have a gnome multi class with a mage class and not have it illusionist, speaking about that....

    #7 no class kits, the only way to legally have class kits involved is with the above example; gnome multi class mages are always illusionists

    now with all this being said, this is how it works with a multi class with 2 classes, now lets talk about the multi class if you use 3 classes ( and there are only x2 3 class multi class so its not to complicating )

    it works pretty much the same as a multi class with 2 classes except now you are sharing everything with 3 classes instead of 2;
    - your XP is divided up into 3 classes instead of 2
    - all restrictions are still the same
    - all abilities and how thac0 and saves work are still the same

    except for HP, its a little different; instead of getting half HP upon level up, its divided by 3 so for example;

    lets say you are a half elf fighter/mage/thief with 18 CON, you are going to start with 10 HP ( fighter 1d3+2, thief 1d2+1, mage 1d1+1 ) so when you get 3750 XP you will have 1250 XP in all your classes, and your thief class will be able to grow up a level, once it does, it will roll 1d2 +1, so with max HP you will have 13 HP at level; fighter 1, mage 1, thief 2, when you hit 6000 XP all your classes will have 2000 XP and now you can level up your fighter side ( 1d3+2 ) which brings your HP to 18, and so on and so forth, and just like the multi class when you raise your CON your HP will go up as well ( and since both triple classes have fighter in them, you will always get the extra CON bonus ) so taking the above example, if you went from 18 CON to 19 CON your level ups would look like this; fighter 1d3+2, thief 1d2+2, mage 1d1 +1, and if your CON were to hit 21 your level ups would look like this; fighter 1d3+2, thief 1d2+2, mage 1d1 +2

    now what are some of the advantages of doing this over dual classing?

    there is no down time, you get the abilities of both ( or all 3 classes ) at the same time so lets say if you wanted to be a mage/thief for example, upon level ups you would be gaining thief skills and mages spells, although it would be at a slower rate because your are growing up 2 or 3 classes at once instead of 1

    and at the end of the day, both options are just as good as the other ( although in theory if dual classing done right can create some super powerful class combos which can be better than multi class combos ) but luckily there is no wrong answer to being a multi class or dual class character, they are both just as much fun to play, and you dont need a 100% extreme power game combo to beat the game

    even right now in my premade team i have a multi class half elf cleric/mage and an elf mage/thief, so all combos have their perks
    ronaldoGrond0Son_of_Imoen
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    That's a lot of information - but sometimes a simple question deserves a simple answer. Let's see if I can phrase some things more clearly:

    Saving throws and THAC0 for dual-class and multiclass characters:

    Your base THAC0 is the best of the THAC0 values each of your classes would have. For example, a fighter 7/cleric 8 dual class would have base THAC0 14 (from fighter level 7) and a fighter 7/cleric 13 would have THAC0 12 (from cleric level 13).
    Similarly, each of your saving throws is the best of your classes' values for that save. For example, a half-orc fighter 12/thief 14 multiclass would have base save 7 versus death (fighter 12) and 9 versus spell (thief 14).
    For incomplete dual-classes, ignore the first class in calculating THAC0 and saves. Those stats are some of the abilities you'll regain when you complete the dual.

    Hit points for dual-class and multiclass characters (correcting some small errors in the previous post):

    First, hit dice - the part of it that's actually random (if you don't choose the option to force it to be maximum).
    A dual-class character keeps all hit dice of the first class, and rolls new hit dice for the second class as soon as its level exceeds the first. For example, a fighter 7/mage gets 10 HP at level 1, rolls 1d10 at fighter levels 2 through 7, rolls 1d4 at mage levels 8 through 10, and gets a flat 1 HP at each subsequent level. Mage levels 1 through 7 don't gain any HP.
    A multiclass character rolls for each class and divides by 2 (or 3), rounding down with a minimum of 1. Multiple level-ups taken at the same time are added together before rounding down - for example, a level 1/1/1 fighter/mage/cleric will have (10+8+4)/3=7 HP, rather than (10/3)+(8/3)+(4/3)=6.
    All hit die rolls in the EE roll twice and use the maximum. You have a 19% chance to roll a 10 on a fighter hit die, and only 1% to roll a 1. Level 1 characters always get the maximum even without the option I mentioned.

    Constitution bonuses are tracked separately, and updated whenever your constitution changes.
    For a dual-class character, you get the Con bonus appropriate to your character's current class at each hit die. For example, that fighter 7/mage would get fighter Con bonuses at levels 1 through 7 and mage bonuses (capped at +2) for levels 8 through 10. There is a small exception; a fighter 9 or cleric 9 dual-classed to mage or thief doesn't get a Con bonus on their 10th hit die.
    For a multi-class character, you get fighter Con bonuses if you're part fighter, and are capped at +2 otherwise. Multiply that bonus by your average level, up to 9 for most combinations and 10 for mage/thieves, and round down. For example, a fighter 6/druid 7 multiclass with 17 Con (Jaheira) will gain 3*6.5 = 19.5 extra hit points from Con, rounded down to 19. Increase her level to 8/10, and that becomes 3*9 = 27.
    Grond0
  • LookToWindwardLookToWindward Member Posts: 179
    Wow! Thank you both for the excellent description and examples
    Dave
    Grond0
  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    Even shorter writeup:

    Go multiclass fighter/X if you want a user-friendly character who is strongest at the beginning of BG1 and (because of fighter HLAs) the end of BG2.

    Go dualclass fighter/X if you're OK with a less user-friendly approach and see weapon grandmastery or berserker immunities as key to the build you want.

    If you aren't sure what to do: fighter/mage/thief multi is the game's most versatile character while fighter/mage dual is the game's strongest character. (Dual at 13 if you have the patience, otherwise 9.)
  • PingwinPingwin Member Posts: 262
    Never knew that EE rolls hit dice twice and takes the best roll. Did the original BG/BG2 do anything like that? Also can it be turned off for those who want to be really hardcore when it comes to hitpoint rolls?
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    The underlying code has been changed at some point, but I'm pretty sure some version of this goes way back. Look at the hit points of the various companions you can recruit in the original SoA (lowest-level versions):
    (Code tags used for the monospace font; ignore the colors the system puts in)
    Character  Class   Level HP Exp1 Exp2
    Imoen      T->M    7/8   41 29.5 36.0
    Minsc      Ranger  7     55 43.0 52.9
    Jaheira    F/D     6/7   32 34.8 42.0
    Yoshimo    Thief   10    56 37.5 46.3
    Aerie      C/M     6/6   26 22.9 26.7
    Nalia      T->M    4/9   42 29.0 35.0
    Anomen     F->C    7/8   70 47.5 58.7
    Korgan     Fighter 8     60 48.5 60.1
    Jan        T/M     7/8   30 24.2 28.0
    Viconia    Cleric  8     42 39.5 48.7
    Cernd      Druid   10    62 46.0 56.5
    Mazzy      Fighter 8     62 48.5 60.1
    Keldorn    Paladin 8     60 48.5 60.1
    Haer'Dalis Bard    10    44 37.5 46.3
    Valygar    Ranger  8     62 48.5 60.1
    Edwin      Mage    9     28 26.5 32.1
    

    The "HP" column there is the rolls only, excluding Con modifiers. "Exp1" is the expected value if you rolled every level up with a single roll each, while "Exp2" is the expected value if you roll using the "best of two" method.

    Based on the data in that table, the hit point rolls for the original BG2 companions were most likely generated using this "roll twice" method. They're systematically way too high for the "roll once" method, but just about right for rolling twice.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    I agree that it's likely Beamdog fixed a bug in what was originally intended rather than creating something new from scratch. At least for the PC though that does mean that rolled HPs are significantly higher on average in the EE than vanilla.
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