My Life As A Gamer: The Hidden Potential Of The Dual-Classed Character

The Dual-Classed Character

Men alone have the option to wholly abandoned one class and take up another. This is the Dual-Class Character. (Player's Handbook, p.33)

The requirements are steep. For the first class, your man need 15+ scores in all relevant attributes. For the second, it's 17+.

The costs are also steep. Your man gets to keep his Hit Points and Attack rating from his previous class, but otherwise all class benefits are forsworn for a time. That time is the time it takes for your man to go from 1st level in the new class to the point where he surpasses his original class's Experience Level. That can be a long time if he hit Name Level previously. (The other cost is that your man can do this once; the Bard is a specific, and optional, exception to this rule.)

The benefits kick in once that cost is lifted. Your man can freely use all class benefits. Those of the former class are frozen at that former level, but are otherwise freely available to use. The other benefit, mentioned in throwaway references, is that any two classes can be so mixed.

Any. Two.

This is one way out of using classes whose endgame involves having to fight to advance (Assassin, Druid, Monk). Hit that point, then dip out in favor of another (complimentary) class. This is also a way for characters who began as one class who--due to age or otherwise--get debilitated below an acceptable point a means to remain in play and able to develop; the aging Thief turns to religion and becomes a Cleric, the Assassin who becomes disinterested in the ladder climb sheds his old life and becomes a Monk, etc. It is also a way of adapting to strange new cultures (and the classes they offer, like going to Not-Japan and becoming a Samurai somehow).

The challenge that this offers is entirely an opt-in decision provided that your man meets those Ability Score requirements (on time of any others, such as Alignment). Most characters will not meet the threshold necessary to make this a viable option, and of those that do many will still not do so because they don't live long enough to do so.

Is That A Lute?

There is one other reason to bring this up, and that is to use this rule as a pre-requisite for a special class. That's how the Bard works: start as a Fighter, switch to Thief, then train under a Druid to become a Bard.

I remind you that, while I've focused on AD&D1e as it is, "as it is" explicitly includes the capacity to add to what a campaign allows for play.

That includes adding additional classes.

What I want you to take from this is that using Dual-Class as a mean to gain access to a third class is a viable design choice, especially if you want something that (like the Bard) is meant for just for Men and requires considerable effort just to get the option to become one.

The catch is that, like the Bard, you need to (a) be specific and (b) ensure that whatever you want to do is not already covered by the game as it is. All you folks familiar with Kits and Prestige Classes and so on, you'll find that most of what you're familiar with gets filtered out of consideration right there. The Bard slips through because it is, like the Druid, a Celt icon adaptation based on what was known at that time (see the Bard post). Your would-be class option at the end of a Dual-Class road needs to equal that level of specificity and difficulty to merit inclusion in that manner.

This also includes by players.

I'd Like To Run This By You, Mr. Referee

A campaign may be finite in duration, but what goes on therein can go a lot of places. One of them can be, with Referee approval, the creation of entire classes; this is how we got every single class after the Fighter.

You really like that Magic-Knight thing, but you're playing a Man? Pull the Referee aside, tell him you're going to go from one part to the other, and sell him on your end goal. If he buys what you're selling, then he'll work out how to make it happen. After that it's up to you and the dice to make it so. You already do this with new spells, items, strongholds, Henchmen/Hirelings, so why not thing also?