Classes, Multiclasses, & Duel-classes (Missed ones too)

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The Baldur's Gate series does a good job of trying to handle all the different types of characters but it still missed a few avenues people could take their characters. Here are some they missed and some they should get credit for.:


Get credit for:

Monks-these aren't a general character class in 2nd edition D&D (which the game is based on) and they snuck them in-did someone look up 1st edition (where they and assassins are classes in themselves-not kits)?

All the kits: Undead Hunter, Wizard Slayer, Bounty Hunter, priests of a specific D&D god rather than the general "cleric" & so on.... these all add a bit of flavor to the general classes you can be already. Worthy additions that someone had to look up in the various extra (non-main) books relating to D&D.

Wild mages-fun, unusual, and added in with ToB. Elemental mages could have been added as well (they are also mentioned in the 2nd edition Tome of Magic), but if options were limited they picked the best one.

Half-Orcs.... while a race and not a class the game designers deserve credit for going beyond the general race limitations in SoA. Half-Orcs were only included in the main books of post 2nd edition D&D, so the video game was marginally ahead of its time here (expansion books included half-orc character generation rules for 2nd edition).




What was missed:

The WHOLE series missed some of the druid related multi-class options. Yes Valygar will be very confused but Druid/Mage is one of the uncommon though still present multiclass options in character generation right in the 2nd edition main books, ditto for fighter/mage/druid (only available for half-elves). As the 4th edition D&D god of magic is elven and druids & elves often get along it is possible druid/mages will become more common in various storylines. But they are totally legit as it was in 2nd ed.

Only BG1 allowed you to dual class to a specialty mage (yes you can have a cleric/necromancer, transmuter, and so forth). This is one of the few ways character classes for BG1 had more variety than SoA & ToB.

SoA lets any ranger kit dual-class to a cleric, ToB limited this to beastmasters & regular rangers (this was already noted in an earlier thread).

Witch Doctors & Hedge Wizards-this is basically a poorly skilled mage for orcs, goblins, and so on. If a half-orc can be a cleric why not a witch doctor (the specifics are in the Humanoid Handbook)?

Psionicists-there is a stronger argument for including them than barbarians. Though they would be harder and more complex to make part of the game.



Anyone think I missed any?

 

Monks (and for that matter Barbarians and Sorcerers) are borrowed from 3rd edition actually.

 

Thalyr:

The monk of SoA has more in common with the AD&D (sometimes called 1st edition) monk than with 3rd edition. They were in the Player's Handbook by E. Gary Gygax. As was the Assassin which was a sub-class of thief. One powerful aspect of the assassin class was the probability to insta-kill any opponent who was caught completely off-guard. A half-orc could be a multiclassed cleric/assassin or fighter/assassin.

The barbarian and cavalier (paladin became a subclass of cavalier) were added to AD&D in the Unearthed Arcana Tome.

 

I wasn't sure what edition the monk related to the most, but I vaguely remember that they added the monk, barbarian, and sorcerer because these were the new classes of 3rd edition. I never played any of the editions outside of 3rd and even that's been awhile, but I would have to think that the 3e Monk might of been too much of a stretch to properly fit into SOA's rule set.

 

Yes, BG2 was developed just on the cusp of 3E being developed/released, so I believe Bioware snuck in some of the 3E stuff, like half-orcs and sorcerers, at the last minute...

Black Isle went back to create a more fully 3E experience with IWD2...

 

Back to the OP, Half-Orcs were a nice improvement including a half-orc portrait, but the game could of used a Half-Orc NPC whether it joined the party or were just someone you helped or fought. I can't remember a single SOA half-orc.

I think the various Druid multi-classes were dropped (they are mentioned in the manual) because the druid itself is pretty lacking outside of its spell list and there's only a few of those that are worth it (Ironskins and Insect spells come to mind), but things like shapeshifting are not worth the lose of the cleric's armor selection.

 

I strongly agree about half-orcs. Some sort of half-orc NPC would have been interesting. If you look through the thread about non-intended party members I mentioned a few, but you are right and I'm not sure if there are more than 4 in SoA. Though neither dwarves nor bards were strongly represented in terms of possible party members either, but they were represented better than half-orcs (the latter is the least represented rather than not well represented).

I disagree on not including druid/mages because they are helpful in some of the same ways a cleric/mage is-access to both types of spells. Also the WP selection for a mage greatly improves if he/she is a multi-class druid/mage (of course the selection greatly improves for any type of multi-class mage).

And thank you T2Bruno for fleshing out the history bit as that doesn't hurt and most people just haven't seen many books beyond the edition they are most familiar with (which is understandable as some books are hard to find these days, if known at all, and what people have now they often feel seems to work). Expanding on or fleshing out a discussion is usually a good thing.

 

1st edition D&D did have Monk as a class; however the Monk class presented in SoA is closer to the 3E Monk class.

As for kits and races; it would have been nice if the developers would have added all of the available kits and races that were in the Sword Coast region of Forgotten Realm; that would have truly expanded on the game and provide many options for players.

This is a great game even though there could have been more content added.

 

When I looked through the Monk abilities I thought of 1st edition. How are they closer to 1st or 3rd edition?

 

Does anybody know if there is a mod that allows the half-elven druid/mage? Is it something that can be done fairly simply with Shadowkeeper?

 

There are mods out there that allow clerics to use all weapons. So with that you can make a cleric/mage that wields Scimitars. Then with Shadowkeeper you can edit all of your divine spells to match the druid spell list. It'll still say Cleric/Mage, but in all senses you'd be a druid/mage. If you wanted the druid stronghold you could get it with a mod (Ease-of-Use I believe) that allows you to have any stronghold you want.

 

Wow. That's a pretty roundabout way of getting there! Is it hardcoded into the game to prevent combos like Mage/Druid?

 

I want to say yes. The multiclass combos are hardcoded into the game. Just like you can't have 2 kits. However, you can make the equivalent to a lot of kits and class combinations by giving the abilities of them to a character. He'll still be labeled as one thing, but function as another.