Fav Class Bonus

kgb · Post by **kgb** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 4:38 am

Hi

I lvled to 20 and took fighter. As a dwarf it is my fav class so naturally in the logs it read "Favored Class Bonus: 2000"

However directly beneath this it read:

Experience Gained: 1600

I looked at my experience thinking I had received 3600 but in fact I only received 1600 which is incorrect it should have been 2000.

Does ECL have an effect on a dwarf fighter of duergar subrace in terms of bonus xp for fav class? I have not noticed this before.

Cheers

Kirg · Post by **Kirg** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:58 am

It's not your 16th lvl of fighter, as you only took lvls in fighter till now? It would be the only explanation why you would only gain 1.6k xp afaik.

Post by **Binkyuk** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:14 am

Don't know what yoiur build is, but it could be the theoretical 20% multiclass penalty kicking in.

Multiclass penalty isn't supposed to apply in NS4, but because Bioware broke the xp giving APIs in 1.66 the closest the Devs could get was to set every race's engine level favoured class to Any.
This means that if you have 3 core classes and the lowest 2 aren't kept within one level you will still suffer a 20% penalty.

kgb · Post by **kgb** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:49 am

Thanks for replies:

No im not getting an xp penalty as my two other classes are both identical and ftr is fav.

Post by **Binkyuk** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 10:01 am

No, in the underlying engine Any is your favoured class, so it'll be your highest, not Fighter.
so a Dwarf 11/10/1 cleric/rogue/fighter *will* suffer a penalty because it'll discount Cleric and then penalise you because your Rogue and Fighter levels are too far apart.

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:13 am

Well, in my own testing, it seems multiclass penalties have gone away now...

I have a human dual class, and an elf triple class (one prc) but the 2 normal classes are at 21 and 10 and not subrace favoured or wizard, yet at the same level as the human, killing the same mob gave the same XP.

Post by **Binkyuk** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:46 am

Celorn wrote:I have a human dual class, and an elf triple class (one prc)

Yes, your underlying engine favoured class is Any, so any build with 2 core classes cannot suffer a penalty, only if you have 3 core classes will it ever be a problem.

kgb · Post by **kgb** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:13 pm

@Binkyuk: If i understand you correctly my ftr/rog/cleric 4/8/8 is taking an xp hit even though ftr is ignored in terms of multiclass penalty.

on pg 159 of the manual it gives an example of a ftr/cleric 7/2 that suffers no penalty. It then takes a rogue level and still no penalty because the cleric and rogue levels are not more than 1 apart and ftr is fav class.

Given this example I should not be taking an xp hit because both my rogue and cleric levels are identical and ftr is fav class.

Perhaps a DM or Dev may shed some light on this.

cheers

Myrdyr · Post by **Myrdyr** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 10:16 pm

All characters are treated as if they are human or half-elf in terms of multiclassing penalties.

If and only if you multiclass with three regular (non-Prestige) classes, then you get an xp penalty if the classes with second and third lowest number of levels differ by more than one level.

kgb · Post by **kgb** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:42 pm

Okay I understand whats happening. I am playing my toon according to the rules in the manual but because of the "special" dispensations made for sub races in NS4 i and others who choose to play non-humans are being penalised.

This is a little rich don't you think given that I am playing a duergar (subrace of dwarf) with an ECL 2 penalty already that happens to have the same fav class as the base race. On top of that I take a 20% penalty hit because the system treats me as human.

I dont want to play humans if I did I would have chosen them

I saw posts by Lokey about having to repair a bioware stuff up so will we eventually go back to how it was or should I ditch playing anything other than humans

It's rather disappointing limiting builds this way.

Oh well what can a dwarf do other than cry in his ale

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 1:04 am

kgb wrote:This is a little rich don't you think given that I am playing a duergar (subrace of dwarf) with an ECL 2 penalty already that happens to have the same fav class as the base race. On top of that I take a 20% penalty hit because the system treats me as human.

I dont want to play humans if I did I would have chosen them

I saw posts by Lokey about having to repair a bioware stuff up so will we eventually go back to how it was or should I ditch playing anything other than humans

It's rather disappointing limiting builds this way.

Oh well what can a dwarf do other than cry in his ale

Pre-wipe I had a triple-class duergar toon that never suffered a penalty... It was ranger/monk/SD I kept the ranger and monk levels within 1 and all was fine.... and now with the modifictations, I could have made it the way I had wanted to (uneven ranger & monk levels) originally.

MrAsimov · Post by **MrAsimov** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:28 am

kgb wrote:Okay I understand whats happening. I am playing my toon according to the rules in the manual but because of the "special" dispensations made for sub races in NS4 i and others who choose to play non-humans are being penalised.

Humans actually suffer a much more severe penalty which is the lack of any xp bonus whatsoever when leveling up as well as the same xp loss you are refering to for that build.

The intent is to try and remove the xp loss entirely as is clearly stated in the documentation. Favored Class is being treated differently on this server.

(Quoted below, so no need to look for it.)

In Neversummer, the Favored Class designation works a bit differently than regular NWN. When leveling up, or when you first enter the module, if your class matches your subrace's favored class, you will receive 10% of the experience points needed to reach your next level for free. This is the only time the Favored Class comes into play.

It would appear(from these forums, since I haven't actually looked myself) the way the penalty for multi class characters is hard coded, you are forced to pick a "favored class" and can't just remove it. Therefore in order to make it as close as possible to what was intended the devs choose to make the designation for everyone human. Meaning the highest class is not counted toward the penalty.

Sadly this still means that no matter what your race, if you are 3 non-prestige classes, you will suffer an xp penalty if your lower two classes are more then one level apart.

IMO this system seems to works fairly well, although I would prefer if they could find a way to remove the penalty entirely.

kgb · Post by **kgb** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:47 am

Thankyou Asimov for your post. I wasnt aware that Humans did not gain xp bonus when levelling. I always assumed that any class was treated as fav class would give a human the xp level bonus (I never play humans - so never read up on them)

It looks like you either have to make a A/B/C toon with all levels within 1 of each other or A/PrC or A/B/PrC to avoid xp penalties.

According to Celorn's post this means that a dwarf can choose paladin or ranger rather than fighter and not be penalised by taking a second class if it is more than 1 level different. Having said that they wont receive the fav class xp bonus for taking a class other than fighter.

Interesting times ahead for me lol

P. Fricebottle · Post by **P. Fricebottle** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 9:06 am

Humans may not recieve bonuses when leveling up in favored class, but sub-races like Aasimar do when going Paladin and such.

Myrdyr · Post by **Myrdyr** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 11:48 am

Bah! I just realized I haven't experimented enough post-wipe to know what's going on with class bonuses for humans. The bonuses are working fine for all the races and subraces I have - working as documented.