I am also a chronic "restarter". [img]smile.gif[/img] I owned this game for 2 months before I got past the prelude. I don't think I can answer all of your questions, but I do have some ideas.
The game's difficulty level is based on you traveling with a hireling, so it may be too tough without one. My character is a dwarven 11th level fighter/3rd level rogue, and 99% of the time
now I could go it alone, but early on I needed quite a bit more help. Actually, now I spend more time keeping the hireling alive in combat than s/he spends helping.
The 20% XP penalty takes place as soon as you have more than 1 level between your highest class and the other(s) class(es). Racially favored classes are excluded, but since the racially favored class for an elf is wizard, it doesn't help in your case.
Based on your plan, as soon as your ranger class reaches 4th level, you will begin incurring the penalty because your Ranger class will be two levels above your fighter class.
Here's something I don't know if you've considered, and I'm not completely sure it's right, but the manual says, "
your multiclass character suffers a -20% XP penalty for each class that is not within 1 level of his most experienced class.
If I read that right, your character will began taking a 40% penalty when your ranger reaches 5th level. 20% each from his fighter and rogue classes. Now that's getting costly. Hopefully someone else will chime in to say if that
double penalty is the way it works.
Some bonuses do stack even for attributes, so you will be able to jack your Wisdom up, if you need to.
Feats to choose? With a ranger/rogue/fighter you have too much going on for me to guess at your desired character focus....lol.
Just a question, why bother with the fighter class when you're planning on ending with a high level ranger? I've seen other people talk about doing similar things, and I'm not sure I understand the benefits. I'm
not knocking the idea, I just don't know the benefits.
[ 12-02-2002, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]