Multiclassing

I've mostly gone with single classes in ToEE for my units, but multiclassing is a huge aspect to me that can create a lot more versatility.

A few questions;

1) What are the best classes to generally have when multiclassing? E.G. Any combat units can benefit from Rogue.

2) What are good spellcaster class combinations? Do any of them go together well? E.G. Wizard/Druid

3) When multiclassing, what are the best ways to go about them when levelling up? Is it best to alternate between each class level every level up, or go ten levels full with one, and then do the other?

Ranger is an interesting class. It seems to be a combat suited class. Would a ranger/rouge be any good?

Extra question; Monks generally suck and I see them as the worst class in the game. Is there any way to make a monk good? I have one in my current party for my first 7.0 playthrough and I'd appreciate tips on how to make it not suckish.

 

Unless one of the classes is a "favored" class for that race, you need to keep all of the classes within one level of each other.

I routinely use a ranger/rogue, usually an elf. Always make the first class rogue to get the insane number of starting skill points. Evasion doesn't work if you are wearing medium or heavy armor.

You can use a couple of levels of monk to toughen the sorcerors and wizards.

Remember, when you multiclass, the specialist skills aren't as strong as a pure specialist.

 

1) The warrior classes and Rogue multi-class relatively well together. Just make sure that all of your levels are within 1 of each other (e.g. Bbn2/Ftr2/Rog1 is OK but Bbn4/Ftr3/Rog2 is not), and remember that you can ignore your race's favored class (Bbn for half-orc, Ftr for Dwarf, etc.) For humans and half-elves, I think whichever class has the most levels is ignored in TOEE, but I could be mistaken.

Some good multi-class combinations are Bbn/Ftr, Ftr/Rog, Rgr/Rog, Bbn/Rog, etc.

2) There aren't many good caster combinations in TOEE because the strength of spells ramps up so quickly. In other words, a Wiz10 is much, much better than a Wiz5/Clr5. In the PNP game they use "prestige classes" to make the multi-class casters more viable, although they're not implemented in TOEE. For example, the "Mystic Theurge" is a pretige class that requires that your character can cast 2nd level arcane AND divine spells (6th level at the earliest), but every time you level up your casting ability improves in both your arcane and divine class, so by 10th level you are casting as if you were a Clr7 and Wiz7, which is much better than a Clr5/Wiz5.

3) The order you take classes mostly doesn't matter, except for a few considerations.
A) You get 4 times as many skill points at level 1, so I recommend taking whichever class in your plan gives you the most skill points at level 1 (Rog, Rgr, Bbn/Mnk, or Ftr/Pal in that order)
B) You get maximum hp at your first level, so that's another consideration. The Bbn gets a d12 each level, so that's 12 hp at first level rather than 10 for the Ftr or 8 for the Rgr.
C) Once you leave the Paladin or Monk class, you can never go back. So you need to take all of the levels you want from that class consecutively.

As a final note: you don't have to make uber cheesy broken characters to beat this game. You could make a spell caster that splits levels between wizard and cleric and still probably do OK, so don't stress about it too much.

 

1) Have fun and experiment. Look at what abilities different classes have, what primary stats they have in common, and think of a combination. You can make just about anything work if you do it right.

2) TBH, if you want a powerful magic-user, you'll want to keep them (relatively) pure. Multiclassing in 3.0-3.5 is different from 2.0, so caster multiclasses like wiz/clr are a lot less powerful. I personally haven't found any useful way to do it. On the other hand, there are quite a lot of ways to combine a caster with a non-caster class. Wiz/rog, drd/brb, fgt/clr, wiz/fgt, pld/sor and many more are all viable builds.

3) As someone mentioned already, you'll need to be careful in avoiding XP penalty.

Ranger/rog is OK, though I personally prefer to make a pure rogue built with a ranged combat focus, for full sneak attack values. Generally, it's best to take ranger levels if you want their bonus feats but don't meet the prerequisites (because if you do, a fighter would probably do a better job).

Monks aren't sucky at all, but they do take a longer time to become useful. They have decent AC, fast movement, and more attacks per round than any other character. They also have pretty high initiative. The only thing they suffer from is relatively low HD, and lower BAB than fighter-types. I currently have a monk with improved trip who due to fast movement and good initiative can make it through a crowd of enemies to the back line of casters and incapacitate them before they deal any damage. AoO when you're prone disrupts spells, you know

 

I did a playthrough back in 6.0 with a flavor party of half orcs. I had a fighter/ranger, fighter/rogue, fighter/barbarian, and bard. The fighters got pretty powerful from the dual classing.

 

Now if you made a party of half-orc sorcerers..... And I guess you could take a half-ork Meleny for flavor...

 

If you are going to console her to Orc, don't forget to console her strength from 8 to 18 and give her the Unholy Double Axe.

Then you'll have: Perky Death! :dead::chick:

 

^ I prefer Thorny Chains of Looooove myself.

 

I just wondered, would a Paladin/Monk wielding the monk spade be any good?

 

Paladin/monk if you can plan it out, maybe. Will be difficult to distribute the stats and decide what to dump. Also a dex-based pally... :/

As for the monk spade, I wouldn't bother, since it doesn't work with flurry, and like most dual weapons, doesn't work properly in TOEE. A waste of a feat.

 

1) For melee I recommend the Pal/Ftr combo if you want an iron clad juggernaut, dwarf is best here. Barb/Rog gets wicked quickly with high damage and avoidance. Bard/Rngr works out really well too, my suggestion for leader.

2) As said above, its best not to multi-class casters because that cuts you off from the higher level spells. Throwing a level or two of Rog on your Wiz, Monk/Sorc, Ftr/Clr, or Barb/Druid for combat bonuses is one thing, but use your favored classes to avoid xp penalties. Half-elves and Humans are good for having open favored classes.

3) To keep it simple, you might want to start with only dual class and keep your levels even as much as possible. Be careful of classes such as Monk and Pal that have restrictions. If you level up in any other class, you can never again increase Monk or Pal.

4) Rngr/Rog compliment each other nicely if you want an easy two weapon sneak attacker with high damage and medium AC/HP. For an Archer though, youre better off with Rngr/Ftr or even Rog/Ftr.

X) Monk is a great class, just give it time to develop and youll see. 2 Levels of Monk before taking an Arcane class makes a big difference to your casters squishiness, but also gets you into your spell levels later. Pure Monks can easily become formidable characters. However, I wouldnt recommend too much multi-classing with Monks due to their restrictions.

 

^ IMO, pal/fgt is a rather odd combo, unless you're starting with 4 fgt levels for that spec, and then go paladin. Pally restrictions are as annoying as the monk ones, too. I'd say pure fighter or fgt/clr is a more versatile battle machine. In fact, I've solo'd and duo'd the game with a fgt/clr and it's all sorts of awesome.

 

When I did a single play through before, I used a Cleric/Rogue with even levels I believe. The rogue enhanced the cleric combat capabilities and I was kicking @$$ soon enough, while I could heal myself and do tons of buffing spells thanks to the cleric.

@ Dreddnawt - Thanks!

1- Barb/Rogue sounds good, especially in the dodging area. And the rogue sneak attack + barb powerful meelee smashing sounds like a potent combo.

2- Yeah, I won't multiclass my casters into other caster levels, it sounds pretty bad overall.

3- I've tried alternating classes before, but from experience, that dilutes the power of the classes taken. So I think the best way is to go ten full levels in one, and then start the other class.

X- My monk is now at level 8. He's still not very good. I use him as my main meelee unit in combat mostly because of his high constitution so he can be a meatsheild. He misses way more often than he hits. :/

 

It's hard to build an effective monk with the 25 point buy or a low stat roll because Monks suffer from MAD (multiple ability dependency); they really need a good str, dex, con, and wis. (Paladins are similar but less severe, requiring str, con, wis, and cha.)

I think the real key to having an effective monk is to put your highest score in strength so you can reliably hit and do decent damage, and keep the spell mage armor on him so his AC is acceptable.

 

MAD is only a problem if the person building the monk doesn't know what he wants, or wants too much at once. Sure, you can get a machine of death on a ridiculously high roll putting 16-18 into each of the 4 stats. But where's the fun in that?

You can build an effective monk using any 2 of those 4 stats with mediocre scores in other 2. WIS and DEX are primarily needed for AC, so unless you're building a "tank", you don't need both. If you do choose both, you have to sacrifice the hitting ability. CON is only necessary if your DEX/WIS is low, otherwise between high AC and evasion, you don't get hit much so HP is almost irrelevant. STR is nice to have for extra damage, but mediocre STR is easy to deal with by taking the Weapon Finesse feat (fists and kamas are finessable, quarterstaffs aren't - but since double weps don't work in TOEE anyway, why would you care to use them?).

So see, it's not all that bad. And if you have a caster in the party, there is a myriad of useful buffs to deal with stat deficiency.

One thing to learn with monks is, when to use Flurry and when not to. If you're going against a high-AC monster, and haven't debuffed him in some way, maybe you should turn it off. I personally wouldn't use a monk as a main front-line fighter, they're more of a specialist/flavor type, but I guess that's just the way I build them. Still, you gotta play them differently than, say, fighters.