Classes

Introduction
A class, chosen during Character Generation, defines a character's role or profession. A character's class affects nearly all aspects of the rules: the weapons and armor they may use, whether they may cast spells (as well as which spells, and how many), how many hit points they gain each level, and access to special abilities. Some classes have strict requirements and are available only to characters of particular Races or Alignments, and all require minimum scores in certain Character Abilities. Many characteristics of classes are further altered by class kits, which are modified versions of the basic classes.

Available classes
There are four groups of classes: warriors, priests, mages and rogues. Classes in a group follow the same basic rules (with some exceptions) and require high scores in the same Abilities. The available classes are:


 * † available only in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition.
 * ‡ in versions of the game which have class kits, mage specialisations are treated as kits.

Class kits
After picking a single class when creating a character in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal and Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, you can choose a class kit. Class-kits modify the base class by adding bonuses, replacing special abilities, and balancing these with penalties. Some class kits have restrictions that differ from those of the base class.

All eight original classes from Baldur's Gate have class kits available, as do monks and sorcerers. Barbarians do not have class kits. Mage specialisations from Baldur's Gate are treated as class kits.

Multi-class
Non-human races may choose to multi-class at character creation, effectively choosing two (or possibly three) classes. A multi-class character gains the advantages and limitations of both classes; for example, a fighter/mage may use weapons and wear armor not usually allowed for mages, but they will be unable to cast spells while wearing restricted armor. Likewise, a fighter/thief may not use thief abilities while wearing heavy armor, and may not choose a Lawful alignment.

Multi-class characters divide their experience points between their classes, so they progress much slower than single class characters.

The multi-class options available to a character vary depending on the character's race, and only classes from different groups may be combined. The available options are:


 * Cleric / Fighter
 * Cleric / Ranger
 * Cleric / Mage
 * Fighter / Thief
 * Fighter / Mage (Gnomes may choose to be a Fighter/Illusionist instead)
 * Mage / Thief
 * Fighter / Mage / Thief
 * Fighter / Cleric / Mage

Dual-class
Humans may not choose to multi-class, but can instead dual-class, starting from Level 2. During their career, they may choose to stop advancing in their original class and choose a new one. Once the second class is picked, the first class ceases to advance. In addition, the abilities of the first class become unavailable until the second class reaches the same level as the first.

There are some restrictions on the choice of second class when dual-classing:


 * Paladins, Barbarians, Wild Mages, Sorcerers and Monks cannot dual-class and cannot be dual-classed into
 * All resulting class mixes must be viable multiclass combinations as well (i.e. as fighter/druid is a valid multiclass combination, a human druid who meets all the requirements may dual-class into a fighter, but could not dual-class into a cleric as cleric/druid is not a legal multiclass)
 * The character's alignment must comply with any restrictions of the second class (e.g. a Lawful Good character may not dual-class as a Thief, a Fighter must be True Neutral to dual-class into a druid);
 * The character's must have a score of at least 15 in all prime requisites of their current class (e.g. strength for a fighter attempting to dual-class) and at least 17 in all the prime requisites of the class their wish to dual into (e.g wisdom and charisma if attempting to dual-class into a druid), respectively. This is why Imoen may dual-class as a mage (and canonically does so by Baldur's Gate 2), since her Dexterity of 18 meets the requirement for a Thief, and her Intelligence of 17 meets the requirement for a mage.
 * Druids and Rangers have two prime requisites and the Shadowdancer thief kit has three - you must meet the stat requirements for all abilities in order to dual class. A cleric attempting to dual-class into a ranger does NOT need to meet the ranger's minimum constitution score of 14 in order to dual-class, as it is not one of their prime requisites.
 * If attempting to dual-class to a Specialist Mage, the character must also meet the extra minimum statistic requirement for that particular kind of Specialist. (e.g. a character trying to dual-class as a Necromancer from the Fighter class needs Strength 15, Intelligence 17 and Wisdom 16 as minimum ability scores). This can only be done in Baldur's Gate, as in Baldur's Gate 2 and the Enhanced Editions, the specialist mage is considered to be a mage kit, so cannot be dual-classed into.

Dual-classing is recommended only for advanced players with a good knowledge of the mechanics of the game. There are two main strategies for dual-classing:

Noteable breakpoints for fighters:


 * Level 7: 1 + 1/2 attacks base (THAC0 14)


 * Level 9: last d10 health increase and warrior constitution health bonus (THAC0 12)

Noteable breakpoints for druids:
 * Level 13: 2 attacks base.(THAC0 8)
 * Level 12: Level 13 requires you to advance from 300,000xp to 750,000xp. Before this, the druid's unusual experience table causes them to level rapidly from levels 7 to 12, at an even faster rate than thieves.