1. In BG2 vanilla, does multiclassing delay your power spike by an annoying amount of time?

One of the major complaints relating to Aerie is that she takes so long to scale up, essentially making her a support caster for much of the game. I don't remember her being particularly potent the last time I played (the farthest I've gotten was halfway through Bodhi's maze, I think), but I was really noob-y then, and I wasn't very impactful as a sorcerer myself (I basically was playing with the knowledge that lower AC is better... and that's it).

So, assuming a full party of six is it worth multiclassing with a PC? If you never really feel the power until the last 1/4 of ToB without intentional grinding, I'm not sure it's worth the hassle.

I understand that it depends on the multiclass in part, but a straight mage would be level 14 when a M/C is 12/11.

2. What are the downsides to the Rogue Rebalancing mod?

I was thinking of including it in my next play through to make bards feel better, but I don't know enough about the game to assess it's pros and cons. I've heard there are some controversial aspects of it, but I don't know what specifically is being referred to or why.

I mainly care about it for the bard HLA "lingering song," the more useful songs, and the extra spell level. The other bard HLAs seem pretty lackluster, but I honestly don't know anything at all about other HLAs, never having played that long.

3. I thought I had a third question, but I don't remember it... If it comes to me, I'll ask. Anyway, thanks for any potential help.

1. In BG1 multi-classing is a real pain, but in BG2, which gives you XP by the bucket load, it is not a problem. Aerie, when used to her full potential, does not lag behind any other character, indeed, she starts with far more XP than most. Not only that, she can use spell combos that no other npc can. She's a real power house when used properly. She can even go toe-to-toe if you give her the Shield of Harmony, the belt of constitution (or a potion) and Crom Fayr... she turns into a beast. Bottom line: don't worry about her levels, worry about what she can do, and that is TONS.

2. Never used it.

Here are a few things about multiclassing in games that adopt the AD&D 2e multiclassing rules and XP tables.

At lower levels (that is, single digit levels), experience requirements double at every level. Hence, a double class character will be one level behind in each class (for example, being level 6 when single class characters are level 7). This means that the multiclass character will take an extra level to get a new spell level, but otherwise isn't that much of an issue.

At higher levels, however, experience requirements stop increasing. For instance, a Cleric levels up every 225,000 experience points after level 9, and a mage levels up every 375,000 XP after level 11. As a result, single class characters level up twice as fast at this pont. A double class mage gets 6th level spells when a single class gets 7th, and 7th when 9th. As a result, such characters will be behind in power.

*However*, there is a nice advantage to multi-classing; some class combinations have nice synergy. The Cleric/Mage, for example, can put cleric spells in sequencers. Teach Aerie minor sequencer, cast Strength on her (to raise her strength to 18/50), and once battle starts, have her launch a sequencer with Bless and Draw Upon Holy Might. The sequencer is instant cast, avoiding one of the main downsides of those spells, and now Aerie's melee attacks (or ranged attacks with the sling that gets bonuses from high strength) are actually quite strong. Mirror Image and Stoneskin are useful for keeping her alive. (Who needs hit points when you can negate attacks entirely?)

Other synergies include Fighter/Cleric (Draw upon Holy Might with fighter attacks/proficiencies), Thief/Mage (who needs armor when you have Stoneskin, plus Mislead backstabbing), and many others. These synergies, IMO, are the real strengths of multi-class characters. (Even Cleric/Thief has a useful synergy; Draw Upon Holy Might boosts Dexterity, which affects thief skills).

Thanks so much, you two. That eases my mind about multiclassing a lot.

I'm well aware of the power plans that can come up in games that require tons of meta knowledge and leave your character gimped—or at least without a real power spike—until very late in the game. I didn't think multiclassing was like that, but really, so many people (it seems to me) have complained that Aerie is potentially very strong but takes a good bit of time to scale up, that I was nervous about multiclasses in general.

Now all I have to do is figure out whether to take a blade or a F/M.. and if I'd rather want to start a bard or F/M in BG1 and import him.. and who is going in the second party.

I've actually never played BG1 at all, aside from a brief demo that I played ages ago. I think I might give it a go first and see if I would like to try and finish the whole series with one Charname.

With Rogue rebalancing the blade's battlesong does not improve with levels and blades can neither pick the Enhanced Battlesong nor the Lingering Song as HLAs, so this is the wrong mod if you want to play a singing blade.

Yes, I saw that. I have decided against the mod anyway, at least for now.

I was thinking of playing through BG with a bard and then importing him to BG2 to make him a blade, but I'm not sure how to get his pips into dual wielding if I do that. It would take until level 16 just to get the two, and that seems a long time to wait. I'm not really sure that I want to mod the original on a first play through.. I guess I could just edit the save once I import him, or something.

When you import the character into BG2, you'll get to choose your kit and skills, so you shouldn't have to wait until level 16 to have two pips in dual wielding. I created a Bard in BG1 vanilla, exported the character, and imported her directly into BG2. It had me choose a kit (I chose Blade) and then I had 4 points to spend on skills - I put 2 into Two Weapon Style, 1 into Long Sword and 1 into Bastard Sword.

Flynn

Haha, derp, of course. I figured that would be the case after I thought about it for a few seconds. Thanks for confirming, and I apologize for occasionally being.. moronic.

Meh, don't worry about it. I'm no expert either. I only really played it about a year back for the first time. I didn't make it through the first game, but I did import my character (a Ranger/Cleric with Two Weapon) into BG2 for a bit of a romp through part of the first area. Too many other games to play so I haven't made it back to the game yet.

Though I was playing the Enhanced Edition and not the original. My goal is to play through vanilla BG later this year. I've already re-created my EE Ranger/Cleric character and he's ready to bash a swath across the Sword Coast... =)

Flynn

RR is an excellent mod that I find adds a lot to the game.

To me, the balance changes it introduces make sense. The kit changes are great, and the HLAs are a lot more fun and flavourful (no more bards spamming traps!) and on the whole they are pretty well balanced. Or at least, no worse than the ones in the original game were... (seriously. Spike Trap is the worst.)

Some of the changes could be seen as cheats. For example: the change that makes bard spellcasting like in P&P will end up making them -much- stronger in ToB because you get higher level spells. If you play a bard, this definitely makes the game easier. But then again... if you played a figher/mage the game would be exponentially easier still, and that's within the normal rules. I really have no opinion on such changes. Use them if you want them, don't use them if you don't.

Then there are the tactical changes. These make the game -much- harder in those areas where you face thieves. The Cyric stuff is also incredibly hard. Like all mods that add such content, this makes for a game with even bigger difficulty spikes than the original had. Of course, whether this is a pro or a con is up to you.

But of course, like (almost) all BG2 mods, RR allows you to pick and choose which components to install, and has an excellent readme detailing just what you can expect from the components. So if you dislike some of the stuff above, you can just not install.

So for me the bottom line is that I consider RR to be a must-have in a modded game where I want to play a rogue or bard in ToB, simply for the kit and HLA changes that make the classes much more fun to use. The other stuff I can take or leave. Mostly I leave them. Though they're worth trying at least once.

Oh thank you for that excellent summary. I'll have to try it now.