Switching classes?

[shooteneq1]

I have never played a wizardry game before. I was of the understanding that if you switched classes you retained all the previous classes abilities and were just restricted to that new classes armor/weapon restrictions. My originally party are all lvl 12 now and I had a thief i just changed to a mage. However my thief's inspect and disarm skills tanked to a few %. Is this a bug or how the game works? Thief pretty much sucks as is imo but not having one really hampers chest openings as im taking constant trap damage from chests reducing my time exploring and grinding.

[gallaghan2000]

That's one of the failings of the system in my opinion. Put simply:

You are always your class, the only thing that ports over is the maximum attained spell level for characters able to cast spells, and max hp.

If you had turned your wizard/priest/bishop into a thief, they would have: retained the spells they knew, a number of spell points equal to those retained spells, and the ability to learn any spells remaining of the level in question.

My advice: go to your settings for character creation, choose to roll generation, and make an evil priest that you convert to a thief at level 13 (I think that's when you get level 7 spells). Then you can leave him in the back for ambush attacks until you're in a situation where that third spell going off is necessary.

I'd recommend a bishop, but it takes so much longer to get to that point that it isn't funny.

[Abscondrel]

it seems like a way to make the game more interesting. it is really a way to make a powerful super party AFTER you have a powerful regular party. a character on its way up the power tree should not change class. a character that is bored with its own power and has a powerful party to back it up should change class to provide ongoing motivation to play.

[gallaghan2000]

Considering just how quickly you encounter critters able to paralyze, poison, and level drain the player... I don't believe that.

[Abscondrel]

Originally posted by gallaghan2000:

Considering just how quickly you encounter critters able to paralyze, poison, and level drain the player... I don't believe that.

does that mean switching classes is a good defense against paralyze, poison and level drain? i thought leveling up and gearing up would be the way to handle that. not sure i agree about encountering those critters quickly. you can... but its a learning curve moment. i personally avoid them until my confidence meter is pinned.

[gallaghan2000]

Originally posted by Abscondrel:

Originally posted by gallaghan2000:

Considering just how quickly you encounter critters able to paralyze, poison, and level drain the player... I don't believe that.

does that mean switching classes is a good defense against paralyze, poison and level drain? i thought leveling up and gearing up would be the way to handle that. not sure i agree about encountering those critters quickly. you can... but its a learning curve moment. i personally avoid them until my confidence meter is pinned.

It's a matter of the gear itself, imo. The only ones ready to be fully loaded and going as deep as level 5 are fighters imo (at least unless you're lucky enough to get good chest gear). Otherwise, as early as the first level you risk paralysis on an unlucky encounter with zombies (requiring either gold at the temple or level 5 priest at the earliest to remove).
2nd level is 50% poison it feels like, and if going back to town didn't take care of it would be a much larger issue (needing a level 4 spell).

My thief frontline, because I'm too stubborn to replace him with a fighter, and whose primary weakness is mitigated by all the ac enhancing spells my priest can bring online is stuck relying on RNG to get the gear he needs to keep up.

[trooperrob]

In Pools of darkness, I started out many characters as fighters, then changed to magic etc I think, gave them plenty of hp to start with, then magic.
In General, for all RPG:
Characters changing are very vulnerable to attack, esp special effects above until they get back to a close level, saving thows usually based on level to some extent.
Since the XP for levels doubles, it is reasonably easy to get them up fast, but you may need an area you can hide them at the back of the party and where enemy don''t have too many aoe attacks.
I am terrible, because I like jack of all trades characters, and often that misses out on power at top levels.
It can be handy to have extra heal spells etc, or have magic users with some hp, or to have a hide in shadows ability etc.

My example above pools of Darkness was helped by it, because your party started at high level (15?) dual classed characters often had and hit level caps (race limit of early d&d ruleset). Single classed could be changed, and when passing old level gained all old ability.

In Bards, I think you can change a fight to lord etc if you couldn't get there to start.
Haven't played bards 1 seriously for 20 years though, so ..