Multiclassing

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Hi everyone. I'm wondering about multiclassing a lot of my characters in my new game. I'm thinking of making a sorcerer with a few levels of a fighting class, but I don't know which race to pick.
I could choose a Wild Elf, as their favored class is sorcerer.
Or I could choose some race whose favored class is fighter or barbarian (can I multiclass a barbarian with a sorcerer?).
The other alternative is to choose a race whose favored class is rogue and take one level of rogue so that I can use that rogue-only item that boosts CHA. That would mean being a lightfoot or Strongheart halfling, which might not be too bad.
The last possibility is I be a human or a half-elf, whose favored class is 'any'.

Say I to be a lightfoot halfling. I take one level as rogue, a few as fighter/barbarian, and the rest as sorcerer. Would I get a multiclassing penalty?

What race do you guys think I should choose?

TIA

 

MC can be a lot of fun, though you have to keep in mind that taking more than a few levels in two (or more classes) will slow down your progression (especially for spellcasting classes).

A Sorcerer could use 1 or 2 levels as a Paladin (LG) to get some martial abilities, some nice immunities an great saving throws. CHA is the most important ability for both classes. Aasimars, plain humans are good choices, a Wild Elf or a Half Elf would work too -but IMO they wouldn't be so great.

If you want a Barbarian you have to pick a chaotic alignement, so there is no problem there. Barbarians are great in the main fray, whereas your Sorcerer might not relish the idea of being involved in close combat. It's a matter of tactics and taste.

The favourite class works this way:
-Humans and Half Elves ignore either the highest or the lowest class.
-others ignore their favourite class.

So your Halfling Sorcerer with one level of Rogue would ignore the Rogue levels, he would take into account the Sorcerer levels and the Fighter/Barbarian levels... you should reconsider and either pick up a race which has Sorcerer as its favourite class or forget about the Fighter/Barbarian levels. Another option would be to keep the Sorcerer and Fighter/Barbarian levels roughly at the same number of levels taken to avoid XP penalties, it wouldn't be such a good idea since you would lose A LOT on the spellcasting...

 

Thanks for the advice. Sorcerer with a few paladin levels... why didn't I think of that?
Also, thanks for the explanation of multiclassing. I understand now.

My party will consist of:

-Aasimar Paladin / Sorcerer, with few levels in Paladin.
-Deep Gnome Monk
-Drow Rogue / Diviner, with few levels in rogue
-(Female) Drow Battleguard of Tempus / Barbarian (or fighter) with most levels as cleric.

What do you guys think? Is it too spellcasting heavy, and fighter-weak? I was thinking if I find myself to be lacking fighting power, I can put more emphasis on the paladin aspect of the Aasimar, and more emphasis on the barbarian/fighter aspect of the drow cleric.
One cool thing about this party is everyone will have spell resistance (once the Aasimar gets the Holy Avenger).

The other thing is I was actually hoping to go with only three characters, but I really wanted a sorcerer and needed a bit of rogue. I would really prefer to only have one arcane caster. What about mixing the rogue with the monk? Though that would mean I'd need high intelligence and my str or con would have to suffer.
Any thoughts?
Thanks again!

[ June 20, 2005, 02:00: Message edited by: Geoff ]

 

Whatever you do, you shouldn't put "more emphasis on the paladin aspect" you wouldn't gain much after level 2 and you would get behind as a spellcaster, not a good idea at all!

Don't mix the Battleguard with Fighter or Barbarian, it doesn't really make much sense unless you go as far as Fighter level 4 to max your weapon proficiencies. The Battleguard can already boost her STR and she wouldn't gain a lot from Barbarian or Fighter levels.

Rogues get evasion which your Monk already has (besides you would get heavy XP penalties for your DG) so perhaps you could give one or two (not more) Rogue levels to your Cleric instead? That's if you don't want 4 characters in your party.

 

Hmm... How necessary are rogues in this game? I've (almost) gone through once, and had a straight rogue until she got to level 11, I believe, at which point I started adding fighter levels. She was rather shitty, and couldn't disarm (or even find, most of the time) traps. That leads me to think that unless your rogue is pure-classed, she'll do nothing in the way of traps. The only reason to take some rogue levels would be for lock picking, which I can get through my monk, given a high enough intelligence.
As for the battleguard of Tempus, I was thinking of giving him a few fighter or barbarian levels for the added hitpoints, plus either rage & a few other abilities or extra feats & weapon specialization. I don't think I will need too much healing, given a really high AC monk and a sorcerer. So I figured some extra firepower (either from weapon specialization or rage) wouldn't hurt.
Thanks for all your advice so far, Caradhras.

 

Rogues are less necessary in this game than any other CRPG I have played.

 

You're welcome Geoff.
I'd go with the Battleguard X/Fighter 4 (for specialization) then because Barbarian levels won't get you much. You already have Tempus' Strength, so the Barbarian will only prevent you from being flanked... I'm not sure it would be worth the trouble and the extra levels. IMO you'd be better off with a straight Cleric to get high level spells sooner. A high level Cleric gets great buffs which make him better in a fight. Barbarian is great if you're ready to go all the way and get Greater Rage.

 

Thanks Harbourboy and Caradhras, again.
I expereicend cleric spells up to level 8 in my last game, and I've got to say they (apart from healing spells) did not impress me all that much. Greater shield of lathander is great, but it doesn't last long. I think Recitation was my favorite spell, and that doesn't take very many cleric levels to get. That said, I think I will level up as a cleric quickly to get heal, and then from there I will see what I need. I may begin to take a few fighter levels, or may progress straight through with cleric.

Here's the next revision:

-DG Monk
Weapons: Fists!, Crossbow
Stats: 10-20-12-13-18-1
Definate feats: Expertise, Weapon Finesse
Skills to pump: Hide, MS, Pick Locks, Kowledge (Arcana)

-Aasimar Paladin (3)/Sorcerer (X)
Weapons: Long Sword, Staff, Bow
Stats: 12-16-12-14-6-20
Feats: Armoured Arcana, Spell Penetration, Spell Focus: Evocation, Long Swords, Weapon Finesse, Expertise
Skills to pump: Spellcraft, Concentration, Diplomacy

-Aasimar Battleguard of Tempus (X)/Fighter (if needed)
Weapons: Axe/Polearm/Sling
Stats: 18-15-18-3-20-6
Feats: Power Attack & Cleave, weapons (Axe & Polearm [he's CN ]), various other feats. Does a cleric really need any spell penetration/focus?
Skills to pump: Concentration.

I'm thinking that looks pretty good. Please let me know what you guys think.

Thanks again!

 

Why Aasimar? He will only get XP penalties. Drow (female) will give you MR while Human would give you +1 skill point/level. I have a Human Battlegaurd[8]/Barbarian[x] and he can concentrate & intimidate while also having wilderness lore and spellcraft. The only Clerical feats he bothered with were the elemental ones, for the resistances. And yeah, this guy is CN as well

YOu could make a fourth charecter and give him all the classes the others dont have --- Bard, Rouge, Mage, etc.

 

Aah, my mistake. That should be drow (female) as per my post before that. Thanks for catching that Shrikant, and sorry for wasting your time.

Your suggestion about a fourth character is indeed interesting, though I don't see why it would be very effective. I think I've got pretty well everything I need covered, in any case, except for thieving.

 

Here are a few suggestions for your party, Geoff.

-For your Aasimar pally3/ sorceror x, try this alternative build instead:
Human Sorceror 23/ fighter 4/ pally 3
This build is a much more effective then just a plain paladin/sorc becasue it offers much better attack bonuses along with extra hit points. Because a sorceror at lvl 27 only has a very slight advantage over a sorceror at lvl 23, it would be more useful to use those extra 4 levels on fighter classes to compliment the 3 levels of paladin. With mirror image, stoneskin, haste, tensors, emotion hope, exec eyes, as well as the many buffs from your cleric, few can match this character in melee, not to mention s/he is still a capable arcane spell caster. As for feats, try taking the spell focus feats early on (except SF necromancy because most good necro spells are of high lvl, so taking SF necro at low levels is pointless). Yes, all the SF feats are useful, even SF transmutation (because slow and desintegrate are great). Dont take weap finesse, spell penetration is pretty useless as well. Taking weap focus and weap specialization for the holy Avenger is worth while. Do not take expertise and only take 1 level of cleave. Getting specialization in 2 weaps is worth considering to get the maximum attack feat. As for the elemental feats, spirit of the flame is most useful. Taking the other elemental feats may not be all that useful, especially scion of storms (because there are no good electricity spells and chain lightling does not work properly). Improved critical is a must. As for skills, spellcrall craft to 10, max on concentration. For stats, str and chr is most important here.

Edit: The fact that barbarains can not be lawful totally eluded me, but Undertaker pointed it out. So I have now excluded barbarian lvls from the above built.

-Pure monks are very weak

-For a character with thieving skills, a rogue 1/ wizard x is suitble. Only one level of rogue is really necessary for the game. You can add more rogue skills as you level up as a wizard, but adding more than one rogue level is rather pointless (unless you want 2 lvls of rogue for the evasion ability, although mirror image kind of negates the need for that). If you want a specialist wizard instead of an ordinary one, adding one lvl of sorceror will remove the specialist wizard's spell restrictions, while still keeping its one-extra-spell-per-level advantage. So essentially, a rogue1/ sorceror1/ specialist wizard x is the most efficient class.

As for your cleric character, adding a 4 levels of fighter is useful. Considering the fact that the cleric has so many strength enhancing spells, as well as the fact that that strengh enhancements do not stack, it is more useful to use a Stormlord of Talos rather then a Battleguard of Tempus. This is because the Stormlord's +2 to hit and +2 to damage ability stacks with clerical buff spells while the Tempus's str enhancement ability does not stack with str enhancement spells nor str enhancing items.

[ June 24, 2005, 18:44: Message edited by: Hahkeal ]

 

How can you create a Human Sorceror 20/ fighter 4/ barbarian 3/ pally 3? You are restricted to max 3 classes not to mention barbarian can't be lawful

 

Eh, since when are you restricted to 3 classes?

Yes, my mistake on barbs not able to be lawful, but you def can multiclass more then 3 lvls

 

Read the manual

 

Nope, u can multiclass as many classes as you want, no restrictions.

 

Maybe, I haven't played IWD2 for a long time. But you can't hava a barbarian/paladin due to aligment restrictions!

 

Not maybe. Entirely possible.
In fact, theoritically, you can have a character with 30 different classes (provided there are actually 30 available classes and ignoring alignment conflicts).

Yes the alignment issue was my mistake.

[ June 23, 2005, 01:07: Message edited by: Hahkeal ]

 

@ Hahkeal

Only at low levels.

@ Geoff

Your monk's fists won't benefit from Weapon Finesse IIRC. There is a mod that changes that, however. You'll find it here.

 

Thanks for the suggestions Hahkael, and thanks el timtor for the link to the info and the link. I actually just discovered that, and was kinda frustrated.

Hahkael, when would you suggest taking those fighter levels? I assume to take them after 23 levels of sorcerer?

I've already created the party, so I'll probably stick with it as it is. I could perhaps change the cleric a bit, as I added her only recently. (We just got the moonblade back).

El timtor: are you referring to the Ease-of-use mod? If so, I don't want all the stuff that it offers. Is it one of the ones where you get to choose which options to install?

 

The 3 class limit is for 3.5E iirc; and is used in NWN but not in IWD II.

EoU allows you to install the components you want. Some of the components are weird.
Personally I always stay away from these: No Alignment Class Restrictions, Always Get XP Per Kill, Heart of Fury Items in Normal Mode, All Items Identified, Armor and Shields Damage Resistance, Additional Druid Spells, Alternate Shapeshifting.
Randomized Treasure is buggy.

Using the No Alignment Class Restrictions component of EoU, you can have Pally/Barbs too. But thats just too sick an idea.