Triple class-mania!

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I want to create a triple classed PC, mainly, a Fighter/Mage/Cleric. (like those in 2e rules) I know this is not a good idea, the low levels will make the character very weak, but I want a very complex and funny, but also extra-ordinary character!

So what do you suggest? Which race? I should avoid level adjustment and be careful about the favoured classes though.

Human is good enough?

I think I should start as fighter. Then, in what order should I advance my levels? To avoid the XP penalty ofcourse. Also, how many fighter levels are enough? 1 is nice for free weapon proficiencies, but 4 will give me specialisation:but honestly, I do not think it is as useful as back under 2e rules. So only 1 level of fighter, then advance cleric/mage evenly?

Ofcourse I will pick a specialist mage, cleric levels will enable him to learn ALL spell schools. And +1 spell/level is nice!

And about ability scores, what should be my starting scores like? This guy will not wade into melee often, but can happily stay in the back and cast spells and/or use ranged weapons? So high dexterity? What about INT/WIS? Cha will be the dump stat as he will not be the leader. (He will have 3 CHA, yuck! ) Also, which priesthood do you think will benefit him more?

Thanks all in advance!

 

If you are going to have just one fighter level, then evenly distribute cleric/wizard levels, the best way to avoid a multi-classing penalty is to pick a dwarf - otherwise you WILL get MCPs. You could also level stack to avoid this, but one of the classes will remain weak for most of the game.

As for triple-classing, it is not a good idea if it is evenly levelled out, i.e. 10 levels each, but if there are mix in classes, they usually benefit - this is if the character is not your main spellcaster.

My main tank, currently in HoF mode, is a Dwarf Conjurer 10 / Stormlord of Talos 10 / Fighter 4 - a similar sort of character to the one you are planning. This character, however, uses touch and buffing spells and is the melee damage unit.

 

You want to keep the fighter level at 1 while raising the spellcaster level parallel. Fighter must be the favoured class, so only dwarves fit. Since charisma is your dump stat, shield dwarf.
Powergaming stats: 11-18-18-14-14-1.
If you want to keep all classes even shield dwarf is probably still the best choice, but human is also nice because of the extra feat and skill points.
I'd use transmuter as specialist class because of the extra hp they get from the potion they can create with high enough alchemy skill.

A human fighter1/dreadmaster1/transmuter x might even be really useful, but that's rather a mage with 2 wasted levels than a f/m/c.
If you just want a f/m/c which benefits a balanced standard party most, make him a deep gnome fighter/transmuter/dreadmaster and try to get the full experience penalty. He'll at least make the other characters level faster.

You don't like bards because they aren't the best spell casters, but this character will be even worse.
Neither his arcane nor fighting skill can match the bard's.
If you have a cleric in your party he'll do far more fighting damage and his higher casting levels will render his clerical skills useless.
The arcane spell level will be so low that his spells won't really help either.
Your character will be level 8/1/8 at the end while the others are level 17.

So the only way to make this character useful is having both no other wizard/sorc and no other cleric in the party.
I'd also make him the only character without heavy ECL penalty.
A party consisting of dwarf f/m/c, deep gnome or drow druid, drow bard and 1-3 non-casters with ECL penalty might not be powerful, but interesting.

 

You could do it however you want. No reason why you couldn't make an equal levelled fighter / wizard /cleric work, especially if you were soloing and could therefore expect to get to higher levels. A fighter 10 / cleric 10 / wizard 10 would be an interesting character. If focused on buffing spells, you could forget about low DCs on your offensive spells and concentrate on being a fighting machine.

If you used spells like Eagle's Splendour, you could even offset some of the downsides of having to rape Charisma to boost all the other stats required to make this build work.

 

Thanks for the replies. I know the character will probably be weaker than a bard, but I want him to be interesting and strange, and somewhat useful, not neccesarily powerful.

Can't I go human route? Will it give me heavy XP penalties if I go Fighter1/Magex/ClericX? Also, if I go human, can I choose ranger for a few extra benefits, instead of your standart fighter? Just curious! What do you suggest?

@Harbourboy

Aye, F10/C10/M10 sounds interesting, but I am not planning to solo, so reaching lvl 30 looks like a fairly difficult task right now!

 

Have you successfully installed Tactics4IWD2 this time? Character like this will make your way far harder. Oh forget it, I know you guy like challenges.
Good luck!

 

I haven't tried installing your mod, I am away from my personal computer. However I intend to install it and play, ofcourse! (and I can give you feedback later!)

This is only one of the character ideas in my head for the Tactics game! Though the others will not be that heavily multi-classed, do not worry!

And yes I like challenges..a lot!

Thank you for your good luck wish, I will need it!

 

20 percent XP penalty will only cost about 1 level in your game.
You'll actually benefit from it, since other characters will level faster, but can you bear seeing the symbol for XP penalty each time you look at your character ?
Taking as many fighter as caster levels won't reduce the usefulness of your character(unless you play without sorc and cleric), since he's best used shooting with a bow (then +2 extra damage for specialisation really do matter) or tanking (with shield,blur,mirror image) most of time anyway.

 

OK I will have the penalty even if I go Half Elf? The once official MC master race! I am not used to 3e rules and they do nothing to make me love them anyway.

Favoured class helps if it is your lowest level class, or was it highest? I still do not understand how humans get the penalty if their favoured class is any, in my Fighter 1/Magex/ClericX build!

Anyway, I do not want to go dwarf route, I do not think it is very in character. Mage dwarf? Eeek! Slap the abomination!

So I think I will have to brace the XP penalty. Ah. This is going to be the toughest character to build so far! I like challenges!

Thank you people!

 

Human and halfelf have "favored class any" this means that the highest class is ignored for xp penalties.

dwarf have "favored class fighter" this means that fighter (no matter what level) will be ignored for xp penalties

So in effect, if you play a human or halfelf with your say level 1 fighter and level 5 cleric and wizard. they would ignore either cleric or wizard level (as both are same level) and you get xp penalty based on say level 1 fighter and level 5 cleric (ignoring the wizard).

The dwarf have a specific favored class, fighter, thus he ignore the level 1 fighter. and just base xp penalties on level 5 cleric and level 5 wizard.

you could substitute the fighter level for say paladin, and use a assimar as race (of corse a ECL +1 race meaning it wil be even slower to level up heh). or some other similar.

All in all, multiclassing in 3E doesnt have any good way to recreate the old multiclass characters from 2E, but more or less excels at recreating an easier and more flexible "dualclass" system. so i guess i would have recomended something along the lines of what kmonster said with level 1 fighter and cleric, and levl x wizard

 

There is not really any way to get what you want in this game. Even if you ignored the fighter class to made a wizard 7/cleric 7, he would be crap compared to a wizard 14, cleric 14, fighter 14, or any level 14 character. The ECL suggestion was good; if you made him human and the rest of the party deep gnomes, this will give him almost a three level bump. But it won't be enough to make him good.

You could wish that IWD2 had implemented prestige classes. 3.5 has the "mystic theurge" which gives increases to cleric AND wizard spellcasting at every level, but requires 3 wizard levels and 3 cleric levels first. So you could make a W3/C3/MT8, and he would have the spellcasting ability of a wizard 11 and a cleric 11.

I wonder if there are any mods that include PrCs?

 

I say go Fighter 4 Mage 13 Cleric 13...you get Weapon Specialization and lvl 7 spells of both types.

Depending on which you want more of, you could also just go ahead and take more levels in Cleric or Wizard...Atleast, that's my take.

Also, instead of Wizard, how about taking up Sorcerer instead?? Sure, you miss out on bonus feats and skill points but your ability scores won't be spread out all that much.

Besides, Clerics benefit from decent CHA for abilities and turn undead, Sorcs get spell casting and Fighters get..uh...nothing. BE A PALADIN!!

 

Although not sure if you would ever both taking the weapon specialisation feat in a build like that when you might want spellcasting feats instead.

 

"Fighter 4 Mage 13 Cleric 13"

Sorry, a couple level 13 spellcasters won't cut it in HoF. You won't even reach level 30 until late in HoF (unless you use mules).

 

It depends whether you solo or not. My triple-classed tank (read 2nd post) in my 4-character party has 40% of all kills in HoF mode, so I would say your comment is untrue in this instance.

 

OK, time for final decision. I will go half-elf (to preserve the 2e originality, nothing else), start as fighter (or ranger, I will embrace the XP penalty no matter what, and ranger may benefit me more?) then start adding Transmuter and Cleric levels. What about priesthood? I should choose alignment according to priesthood I want, yes?

And, what ability scores do you reccomend? I have something like this in mind:

STR 12 (enough to carry most stuff?)
DEX 18 (will get weapon finesse, and use ranged weaponry most of the time?)
CON 14
INT 16
WIS 15
CHA 3

I don't know if this is correct, don't have my game right now. What do you think?

 

I think it's neccessary to know your other party members for giving qualified advice.

 

Depending on what you want to achieve, three or even four classes might work. For example, barbarian/ranger/rogue/fighter will be much of a fighter/rogue with a couple more bonuses. Or even like a fighter with some additional skills. I've even played a fighter/monk/ranger/paladin, actually, although it wasn't a 25/25/25/25 thing. A 33/33/33 multiclass with spellcasting classes is a bad idea.

 

Oh OK then. Rest of the party will be rather pure, and I tend to avoid ECL races.

1)Human Evoker-main and pure spell slinger! Pretty straight-forward here. Will eventually max all spell focuses and penetrations so his spells will be extremely hard to resist! Also will get elemental feats for that extra little kick! (cool for an evoker!)

2)Half-elf Rogue-pure rogue, for something different and maximised sneak attacks:go for rogue-special feats! Something I haven't tried since my very first game! I do not want elves, because I will try to prove that half-elves are not useless and can be fun in 3e! Maybe I can add a ranger lvl for some benefits? (I can not do this with elves, right?) Does weapon finesse work properly when you dual wield?

3)Rock Gnome-Paladin! Just for the fun of it! I am sick of Aasimar Paladins. Or should I make him Deep gnome? But they have a terrible CHA penalty IIRC and even worse level penalties. Can this little guy be the main tank? We will see!

4)Human-Cleric/Fighter! May get 4 fighter levels for specialisaiton (do you think it is well worth it?) Also, which priesthood do you reccomend? This guy will be tough, tank-type, warrior priest, so Helm or Tempus? Or should I add Barbarian levels instead of standart fighter? It fits Tempus theme perfectly! I like the idea! What do you suggest?

5)Elven (wood, I guess) Druid-will stay pure, so he will focus on spell-casting, summoning, and shape-changing when needed.

6)And my original F/M/C:this guy will try to do anything party needs at the moment. Healing? Summoning? Supportive arcane-magic? Fighting?

OK OK all in all my party seems rather weak BUT very different and unique to me, and this is all that matters. I tried to avoid ECL races as mush as I could, I HATE their slow advancement. Or are they needed to quickly build F/M/C?

Please share your thoughts with me, this party should be neat enough to beat Tactics mod!

 

Your idea of having a triple class character is very well. But if you intend to play tactics mod with this character...I really can not recommend it......
As I am playing it right now and sending feedbacks to the author, I don't think tactics mod can be played through with any party which was created for the fun of it. This mod is really, as author states, for(and only for!) powergaming.
But yes, slow advancement could prove your undoing in tactics mod...
I think you may need to reconsider about the character 6...haha, it could prove nothing but a trouble.(according to my experience)