For my next party I'm thinking about including a Mage who will dual to Ninja at a certain point. As the Ninja gets spells from the Alchemist-pool I was wondering: after the dual, can she still pick Mage-specific spells (which aren't normally available for Alchemists) at level-ups or learn them from books? Or should I make sure she has all of those before I dual her? I'd like to make the most of that character's casting skills.

When you change class from Mage to something else, you keep the spells you already know. However, you can't learn new ones (not even from books) unless that spell is available to your new class.

In addition, your spell skills will never improve, however often you use them, unless those skills are available to your new class. For instance, the Wizardry skill will stay whatever it is when you change. However, since Fire is available to Alchemists, you can still bring up the fire skill as a Ninja.

Ninja is not a great choice for switching, though. That profession needs a lot of experience to go level, and you'll have to wait four levels before you even get any alchemy spells. Better to stay as a Mage.

<center>Nightowl2</center>

In addition, the critical skill of the ninja probably depends on his ninja level, not his character level. Same goes for his martial arts damage. This ninja would be much less powerful in fighting than a normal one.

If you want to dual your mage, go for samurai. You'll loose fighting ability too, but will continue to improve your old magic skills after a while.

You want to be good at casting spells? If you are a mage for say 8 levels to learn a few level 4 spells), then switch to ninja, you'll learn level 1 (!) alchemy spells at character level 13. What usufull is this at that stage? You'll never be good at alchemy spells.

Hmmm, maybe it's not such a great idea. Guess I'll have to reconsider.

Damn, creating parties for RPGs is hard work! :D

My parties are all really small, so i have to have each character be fairly good at a larger number of things. I've been starting Samurais as Mage (Hobbit), but only for L1, for the total of 35 free Skill points in magic. Then when they do get to start casting as Samurai, they already have green circles in 4 Realms.
I've also discovered starting as an Alchemist for either Ranger or Ninja--this allows you have the ability to mix potions right away, and a few more points in Dex if you want, and still qualify for the hybrid class (Hobbit only)
Other than that, because of the higher potential for damage and the stuff you can wear, once i get Portal with a Bishop, i switch them to either Lord, and continue the development of Divinity, or to Ranger to continue Alchemy.
Mage to Samurai sounds like it might be fun, i've never run a pure mage that many levels, but i think i'd wanna be a Sam sooner or later, even if just to have someone to wield Muramasa...or if your Srtaff skill is high from Mage, Zato, or even Zato as Alternate to the swords. And you could wear that lovely regenerator helmet...

(edit) why can't i learn to proofread?

[ 11-28-2003, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: Scatter ]

What exactly are the adjustments for xp needed per level for each class? I've always thought it odd that my characters don't need the same xp to reach the next level.

They start needing, like, 1,000 for fighter, bard, rogue, gad; 1,200 for the 'pure' casters; 1,400 for the Hybrids; and Ninja or Bishop need 1,600. Then it keeps doubling, into like a million or so, then there's some other function...someone once had a whole table for this posted somewhere, but i don't remember where.

i believe flamestryke's site has a complete table of xp. the 20%/40%/60% increases are as scatter described, but xp requirements only double up to level 11, after which they fall to about 60% of the previous level.

i dont dual often, but i'd like to try mage to sam dual in a small party - if i ever figure out how to make a sam i like!! :D

one dual i found i quite liked was mage (one level) to bishop. the higher starting intelligence, coupled with the high bonus points means getting powercast 1 or 2 levels faster than straight bishop, at the sacrifice of getting non-mage spells one level later. of course, it only works for faerie, elf, and (IIRC) gnome.

edit: powercast not powerstrike :duh:

[ 12-01-2003, 06:54 PM: Message edited by: sultan ]

For the most part it is only advisable to dual to a hybrid with a like class. For instance as Sultan mentioned Mage to Samurai (or Priest to Lord, etc.). (In fact I prefer these types of dual characters over pure hybrids.)

This really depends on what you want and when you want it. If you have your battle strategy down and you don't need more meat shields then it is often advisable to utilize this approach. (i.e. concentrate on magic early-on and then top-off latter with the corresponding hybrid class.

Really late in the game (when you have essentially gone as far as you want to with a magic class) then you can always switch over to a melee type class. (Often this meathod is utilized to allow magic casters the use of Infinity Helms.)

Of course in either case you really have to plan when you will switch classes and what attribute levels you need (and will have) so that you can actually make the switch.

There are of course other times when you might take a level or two in a different class - often considered cheese tactics. i.e. one level of rogue for stealth, or 1st level as fighter for double hitpoints at start, a few levels in a critical hit class for the critical ability, etc..

For the most part, you are best starting with the party you want to have at the end. A few exceptions to the rule are noted above.

One problem I'd forsee with switching a Mage to Samurai, is that you are loosing some levels of developing your sword skill. So a S&W wielding Samurai might be a way to go. But, with high Mage intelligence, your Samurai would learn skills rapidly if you wanted Muramasa.

I've always wanted to try a Faerie Alchemist for 19 levels, then switch to Ninja. That way the S&W skill developed as an Alchemist would be useful for the Cane of Corpus.

in general, i'd agree with dracon fighter about dual classing. any time i've done it mid-level (ie not 1 level of mage at the beginning, or switching bard to fighter at level 20+) i've been disappointed. but, it's a challenge for me to find a way to make it work, and my nature abhors an unmet challenge ;)

regarding alchemy dual classing, you reminded me of another atlus 7 gem: the ninja-ranger dual (non-faerie). the concept would be to start as a ninja, using dual nunchuck and bow, concentrating on maxing out stealth and critical strike (and l&t if you're solo), including building up alchemy spells. then, when you switch to ranger, you use dual mace (mauler/DE) and bow.

the key benefits are that you would have the ninja's stealth ability to boost the ranger's AC, you'd have the ninja's critical strike ability added to your ranger's melee, and you'd get the ranger's critical ability for the bow and complete access to ranger armour (ie infinity helm!). not to mention they use the same spellbook (alchemy!)

now that could make an interesting solo, or member of a small (duo/trio) party.

when you get down to two or fewer characters then things change quite a bit and so called "cheese" tactics aren't so cheasy.

I've tried the solo ninja ranger route (Mook), though most of my levels were as a Bard. (1st level as fighter then continue with a bard, then switch to ninja for training stealth and critical melee, then switching back to bard, and finally finishing off with a ranger.) One thing I found with this is that a ranger with lightning arrows and a doubleshot crossbow is more damaging and provides a higher % of criticals than most melee weapons provide. (particularly when factoring in additional ranged attacks b4 melee range.) On the otherhand they suck-up the vitality, so when switching to melee I always go with a pair of stilletos for the critical.

Its interesting that people comment on problems with weapon skills. Arnika alone allows two possible avenues to up your melee/ranged skills to 100 rather quickly, and general use alone should provide rather rapid advancement. So at least from my experiences, you really shouldn't factor in these types of skill increases negativly. (Note however: class plays a big role here, and not just with number of attacks/swings - trying to up a melee skill quickly in a strictly magic class does indeed take a while.)

Let's say I have two bishops and I'm focusing them on 2 spellbooks each. I am about to get each one of them maxed out as far as learning their spells. Could I switch them to Ninja (or one to Ninja and one to Monk) at that point? Assuming their spellbooks and all realm skills are at 100?

If they have already learnt all of their spells and skills are maxed, then the ponly negative effect you would get from changing classes would be losing uncrse and turn undead abilities, and the bonus the bishop gets to the artifacts skill. If I had that I would probably change to a fighting class, although I don't know exactly which one.

I've made many Bishops into Fighter, Lord, Samurai and Ranger. Mostly in order to use the lovely regen items available only to them. If there's enough game left to 'reopen' whatever School you're in, your Magic will then continue developing--because you get Realm increases, your off-School spell ability increases a little also. Usually i make the switch from Bishop to Hybrid as soon as they get Portal; by then they've got the buffs up. You'll lose some Power Level (green disks will turn yellow) when you switch to a Hybrid (no loss as Fighter, but then no future gain) but you'll get them back when you 'regain' Magic, even in the off-school spells.

i recall some posts a while back where eew was testing the effects of damage spells relative to caster level, powercast level, and monster resistance and monster level. i think he mentioned that the relative level of caster to monster was a strong determinant of spell efficacy, more so than powercast relative to monster resistance.

the point being that, if you switch classes to a hybrid, your effective caster level will be lower due to being considered a non-spellcaster for those levels, which may impact the overall effectiveness of the caster offensively. more so, you would only continue to develop effective casting levels for those spells available in the book the hybrid has access to.

now i dont know if anyone's tested this stuff out, and if you're level 18+ there's not much game left to be falling behind that it might matter anyway. but it's worth consideration.

and if you were to see such effects, i'd like to hear about it! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Except an alchemist would spend most of their time casting spells rather than attacking with weapons.

The only classes I generally change are gadgeteer and bard - once they are able to use all the gadgets/instruments there is little need to keep them in their class. The only exception being that the gadgeteer can't use the omnigun and can't use the port-o-potty for some reason. I change them to fighter for the increases stamina regeneration - but even that is a bit of a bust as no combination of items will allow them to regenerate as much stamina as they use by activating a gadget/instrument.

Aw Rat(tkin)s ... can somebody confirm this?

I had a crazy idea to make a Ranger and give him one level as a Gadgeteer, using the Lightning Rod to bump up his Engr skill (because Omniguns require Engr skill to operate). Then I would grab Madras, take him to get a quest reward (for free exp) and give him the Ranger's Omnigun. When Madras levels up (might need the correct level, I forgot), he'll convert one or both (probably just one, but I forget) of the guns to the correct level for his experience. (I have tested this and it does work) You can then grab that updated gun (let Madras keep the other gun, he won't know the difference) and give it back to the Ranger.

Not sure if it's worth the trouble, but I really hate running out of ammo. This would work even better if you have a Gadgeteer in your party with the Ranger ... 2 guys with MK12s should be quite deadly. Of course if Holywhipet is right, then back to the drawing board....

Only characters who are currently Gadgeteers can shoot the Omnigun. Just get yourself a Frontier Phaser! No need to reload them.

I can't say I've ever seen a Frontier Phaser in Wizardry 8. Is it a rare item or a hard to find one?

Alas, you two are right ... omniguns have the little gagdeteer only icon.

I think Janette dropped a Frontier gun for me once. But I normally don't use modern weapons.

My real problem is toting around a bunch of ammo like a packrat and being unable to use it, and unwilling to play a gadgeteer which could just stuff everything in the Omnigun. Picking up every pile of stones I find is a real back breaker.

Phasers come in a few places, but the easiest way to get one is to reload Jan-Ette just before you talk to her. Never took me more than 10 tries, and sometimes i also got Light Shield.