From: nad@tegra.com (Nancy Durgin)
Subject: Re: Wiz7: changing professions ???
Organization: Tegra-Varityper, Inc. Billerica, MA
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 23:16:36 GMT

In article <markus.721404863@colores> markus@colores.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Markus Steinberg) writes:
|>Hy,
|>
|>  by now i've read many postings about Wizardry 7 and many mention the
|>benefits of changing professions.
|>
|>I tried it once, but the only remarkable things that happened were not
|>very encouraging:
|>
|>- the stats were lowered
|>- my once was a ninja's suit was all useless
|>- my once was a bard could no longer play the lute
|>
|>etc.
|>
|>Do i miss something ??
|>

The two big advantages to changing class are in skills and spells.  You 
retain both of these when you change class, and if your party is generally
high level, the newly-changed character will quickly advance 5 or 6 levels,
thus gaining even more skills and spells very quickly.

The biggest disadvantage is that your stats get reset to the minimum.

You do have to be careful about what classes you change into, though. 
Certainly races and classes work best.  For instance, somebody recently
mentioned the Cleric/Mage/Bishop trick.  I use an Elf for this, but I
think there might be another race that also works well.  Start as a
Bishop, advance a few levels (depends on your patience, and how high
level the rest of the party is, but at least 5-6 levels I'd say), and
then switch to Mage and wait for your stats to increase to qualify for
Cleric (again 5-6 levels probably), then switch to Cleric.  Wait to
qualify for Bishop (or if you like, take a detour as a Psionic), switch
to that, etc.  This can be repeated as many times as you like, and
you'll build up a very nice character this way.  Eventually you probably
want to stay as a Bishop. 

The reason an Elf works well for this is that its base stats are close
to qualifying for a Bishop (and Clerics and Mages are both subsets of
the qualifications of a Bishop), so it's easy to get the stats up enough
to qualify.

A slight variant is to start as a Fighter, since this gives you an initial
hit point boost.  It depends a little on what your starting party configuration
is.

Other useful tricks include doing a stint as a Thief or other class that
has the hiding ability, since you retain that ability when you switch classes.

I don't tend to switch classes for some of the more difficult to qualify for
classes.  For instance I have a Lord and a Monk that I started out with
(after much effort in rolling them up!), and I don't think I will ever switch
classes with them.  Instead, I'll let their stats get really high.  Spell
casters benefit the most from switching classes, so if you like tons of
spell casters, switch all your characters at least once...

Another good switching combination is a Hobbit (and I think Faerie)
switching between Bard, Thief, and Mage.  Also consider starting a Ranger
and switching to Alchemist.

	Nancy



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Nancy Durgin          | (Usual disclaimers | Tegra-Varityper, Inc. 
uunet!tegra!nad       | apply...)          | Billerica, Massachusetts
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