The logic behind dual class

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Hello and good days,

You may start to get pissed off by my posts about this subject but one thing is terribly stuck on my mind.

What is the logic behind dual classing. I have played tabletop frp (D&D) a few times only so I do not have an in-depth experience about the player handbooks or other handbooks. I merely follow the topic and versions from away.

So why a dual-classed character totally forgets anything about his/her previous class. Like he/she is a swordsmaster one day then decides to study magic and forgets it all and cannot even wield a sword. Then about some years later remembers it all.

I mean the whole plot is very stupid. At first I thought that the dual classed character dedicates his/herself to study and master his/her second class and so divulges into studies of the second class. But this may only workout if the second class is mage, wizard... and you gain xp by reading studying and practising. But if you are dual classing to a fighter for example then you have to fight and travel to dangerous places (especially in a crpg it does not matter which class to dual to there is no way to gain xp practising and studying and being clever and so forth).

I cannot think of anything else. So I am waiting your responses on the subject.

Thanks in advance

 

Probably just to become full time in the second class, as you said. But also to balance the game...you would destroy everything if you didn't have that downtime I guess....Thats as well as I can do.

Bye

 

I guess the main logic is game balance; without the transition period dualclassing would be somewhat superior to multiclassing?

I could think that during the transition period the character is so overwhelmed using and learning new skills and so on, that he/she totally "forgets" his old skills.. for a while. After the character gets more experienced in the new class, he/she starts figuring out how the skills and features of both classes can be combined. Poor explanation, maybe somebody who has played D&D or read the rules can tell more?

edit: in BG2 you can gain some xp by other means than killing monsterspening locks/disarming traps if you are a thief and scribing scrolls if you are a mage.

 

The character must concentrate on his or her new class, new lifestyle, new duties at maximum level. E.g. a wizard can't use a sword because it would disturb the focusing of his mind and body. (Of course he can do it when multi-classed, but then the XP is divided too.)

But something very similar was told already, so I can't say anything brand-new either.

 

Actually, they don't forget the skills. It was simply easier to code than how it actually works. In PnP, you still had the skills, but were not supposed to use them.

You see, in 2e PnP, your class is not merely a set of skills, it is an entire mindset, a way of doing things. To a warrior, combat involves swinging a weapon, to a wizard, it means channeling arcane power, to a priest, it means calling on your deity for help, and for a thief, it generally means a more stealthy type of approach, such as backstabbing. In order to learn a new mindset, you have to put the old behind and try to learn the new. Slipping back into old behaviour patterns is not unlike succumbing to an addiction you were trying to quit, and hurts your learning of the new behaviour.

Hence, if you *did* use the skills of the old class, you got no experience for using them, because you were still doing things the old way. And the relapse would cost you half of the experience for the adventure/session/however your DM divided it up, as you were not fully committing to your new path. But this would be rather complex to code up, not to mention a lot of decisions on where to slice the adventure sections. The simpler method was just to utterly prevent you from relapsing, which works out rather well, I think.

Being able to use the old skills again signifies a point where you've actually been able to learn enough about the second way that you can effectively fuse the two mindsets into a totally new mindset. Multi-classing is also a fusion, but while multi-classing is a fusion of equality, valuing both views equally, dual-classing is a preference fusing, valuing one view over the other while still admitting that the "other" has its benefits.

If you need more, I'll happily explain what I can.

 

That's an interesting explanation. The PnP version certainly seems to make more sense than the CRPG version.

There are things that I like about both 2e (well, the 2.5-ish ed in Bg2) and 3e (as presented in IWD2). Dual-classing is not really one of the things I like, nor the restriction that only humans can DC and non-humans can MC.

To be frank, if I were going to run a 2e campaign, I'd probably allow any race to choose either option.
That is, any race could choose to MC from the start, or start pure and DC later on. Among other things.

I think that I tend to prefer more of the 2e simpler mechanics, while prefering 3e's lack of racial limitations. But that's just me.

 

It really makes no sense. Heck, I've switched careers, but could still go back to being a chef if I needed to.

The rulebook explained that you need to stay away from your original career without going back to it or you'd not earn any XP for that session.

 

Fellinoid:

Your explanation is quite satisfactory. By the way I think my terminology "tabletop D&D" is silly, I assume the true form is P&P right?

By the way Crucis' reasoning on the aspect of CRPGs is true. I had a hell of a time in BG2 and finally gave some xp to myself to activate my kensai class back. The simple quests just finish off, and restarting a game by exporting your charater is just a useless way to do things legally.

Anyway I am quite happy now.

A discussion on editions is opened up by Crucis:

I think immunities are on 2e, and I do not like them, damage reduction is much more reasonable than that so people like Minsc does not shout "Ohh... I need a bigger sword", and I like 3e even 3.5e better.

Actually it is not possible to make a perfect playing rule right, thats why we have DMs. I have always supported something like "mana" to spell memorizing. And I swear I saw mana mechanics in an official handbook. And when we were playing we even included spell casting with 2xhitpoints. If it needs 10 mana youcan cast it with 20 hitpoints , and there were also side effects, like you get fatigued or bleed or even die if you do that. We were inspired from dragonlance books on this. I remember that Raistlin casts some spells and harms himself terribly from fatigue.

Anyway it is not the subject of this forum. But it makes DMs important on this.

"Where rules and dice becomes unlogical in the game, DM saves the day"

I would like any other comments on this, Good days to everyone

 

That's because being a chef has very little to do with killing people, and wielding a sword has very little to do with making a meal. Such things are taken care of with Nonweapon Proficiencies or Secondary Skills, and have almost nothing to do with class. If you'd like to make a comparison between a pastry chef and a hobo cooking vittles, that at least might be in the same ballpark.

Tabletop = PnP = P&P, yes.

 

Depends on the cook actually.

Might be a sushi chef?

 

Hence why I said "very little" rather than "nothing", Caradhas.

 

Felinoid, stop trying to rationalize the dual class rules. They make no real world sense. They were there for some false sense of balance in AD&D 1st and 2nd edition. Thank goodness 3e didn't adopt that silliness.

 

lol... it on the other hand adopted all other kinda of silliness .

 

I just love silliness.

This brings the question of game balance and what some people would call realism. It's just a game so as long as we get some illusion of "realism" it's not that bad.

I thought non humans characters could multiclass because they had longer life spans than humans but that made little sense since half orcs don't live longer than humans.

 

Thinking about it, the way humans are described in D&D almost demands that they have a different system of multiclassing, but by that note, they should also be broad enough to multi-class both ways.

EDIT: This might need more explanation. But Humans are described as extremely versatile. They've spread across faerun faster and more widley than any other race. They come in all shapes in sizes and are among the most tolerant of all races and they are fast learners.

So the way I see it, them having more options is just natural, but more being the keyword, they only have a different option in the game.

 

Gygax, et.al. tested a lot a variations to keep the different races somewhat balanced. The designers of Baldur's Gate chose to ignore half of those rules. Without racial limits, limitations in dual classing are pointless as well.

Granted, I thought the initial racial limits by Gygax were misplaced....

 

Agreed. I've always thought that humans should be able to multiclass, in addition to dual class. Dual classing, then becomes a "special" option available to the quickly learning, versatile humans. They have an opportunity later in their adventuring careers to completely change gears and go a different direction. While I too find the logistics of dual classing odd, I can suspend disbelief and accept that these are humans from Fae'run, not humans from earth. Similar to us earth dwellers, but not identical. With that, I think the game designers are free to explain things however they want.

I'm one of the few "weirdos" out there that actually enjoys the way dual/multiclassing work in AD&D AND 3.x D&D. Whichever ruleset I'm using, I just accept that things work the work they do for that game. It's a very nice and comfortable place to be

 

Me too. I wish there were a Dual-Class option in 3ed. It would make for some interesting changes to a dull character every now and then.

 

When people have to use multiple paragraphs and explanations like "the adventurer is finally ready to sit back and fuse multiple ideas into a single mindset" to explain something as simple as simultaneously learning two skills, there is a better explanation:

I know you loved your uber fighter/mage dual class. Unfortunately, the dual class system is still completely illogical.

 

...they do so because even with lengthy explanations, some people still refuse to look at the system except through the screen of another system. If you can only think of classes as merely sets of skills to learn, of course 2e will never make sense to you.