I just noticed that Jaheira, while she is a Fighter/Druid multi, cannot increase a weapon proficiency beyond 2 points when she hits level 3. Why doesn't her Fighter class allow this? Does it allow it at later levels?

I was planning to play my main character as a Fighter in BG, then dual class into Cleric in BG2 when (fingers crossed) GOG releases it... One of the main reasons for this was to max a proficiency or two, but now I'm wondering, is that even possible? Will I retain my maxed proficiency as a Cleric once I regain my Fighter abilities after dual classing, or will switching to Cleric permanently cap all my proficiencies at 2 points, regardless of what they were when I was a Fighter?

yes, this is very important. You won't be able to use the weapon at all otherwise. I believe it's only the cleric and the druid with this restriction. Mages and thieves can use non-class weapons when dualled (when they regain the abilities of their first class, that is) (though thieves can only backstab with thief weapons).

But no, there are no other proficiency limits for dual classing. By the way, does anyone els think dual classing is the weirdest thing ever? The mechanism makes no sense at all :P

So just to be absolutely clear:

If I max a weapon proficiency as a Fighter that the Cleric can use (i.e. blunt weapons), then dual to Cleric, then once I regain my Fighter abilities, I WILL regain all of the points in that proficiency I had as a Fighter, in spite of the fact that Clerics are normally limited to 2 points?

You WILL regain all of the points in that proficiency you had as a Fighter, in spite of the fact that Clerics are normally limited to 2 points.

Single class clerics are limited to 1 point, actually.
But: *yes*

Thanks much to all for the helpful information :-)

I wish I could award the "mark as solution" to all of you, but I can't, so I'm going to have to go by first-to-post and award it to Shadowsetzer.

well as a long time dnd player it makes sence.. back when only the races could muli-class, with restrictions, and lvl restrictions, humans were sub par by many resepcs. But the humans one advantage was no lvl limit, and dual class.

when you dual classed, the idea was a human spends so much time and effort to focus on their new profession that they could not use their other skills, basically putting those ablities in the back of their mind.. using other ablities would set you back and cause you not to gain experiance.. But when you finally mastered what you wanted, you then could use both (aka getting to the lvl higher than your other class)


its sorta like if you play golf.. and wanna learn tenis.. the swings are different and if your not good at tennis yet, playing gold daily is gonna make it that much harder..


anyways, thats the theory behind it.. (yes.. this rule is from the orignal dnd writen back in 1975.. it does make a lotta sence if you know the old school rules)





PS, anyone recall what is the lvl you dual class imeon? is it lvl 7? i forget.. Im deinfalty gonna make her an enchanter.. (i think she is an enchanter right?)

Yeah, canon (ie, the starting group for BG2) says she duals to a non-specialist mage at level 7.

Yea.. thats what i thought, Its just been a few years : )

It was kinda cool really, so many people used to dual her i think bioware did it in BG2 as a side note.. maybe it was planed i dunno, but it seamed like something they did in community responce.

I think when i get to 7 ill goto duralags and dual her at the start.. Let her learn in the most dangerous place possible

In the tutorial at the start of BG2 Imoen is a thief6/mage. After the tutorial it displays thief7/mage, but she has the skill points of a thief6/mage.

In BG she's best dualed to illusionist or conjurer at level 6 or even earlier if you don't want to wait that long, If you dual her at level 7 she won't be able to cast level 5 mage spells.

SPOILERS

She's a weird case; she only became a joinable NPC in BG because early playtesters complained that the beginning was too difficult without a thief. They planned on killing her off in BG2 in Spellhold, but again, the response was poor, so they changed it for the released version.