In my Kalador campaign, the group lost the player who ran the wizard to real life issues. It quickly became clear to the players that they needed a wizard in the group. I offered several options and what we came to was a player character would become a dual classed fighter/magic user.

Because Swords & Wizardry is a clone of Original Dungeons & Dragons, Matt Finch didn’t write a complete procedure for dual classing human characters. He presents a few basic rules and leaves the procedures up to the referee.

I looked at the dual classing rules in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and mostly adopted those for that campaign.

After my experiences with that, I have come up with my own version. I’ll explain what choices I made and why. At the end of the post is a PDF with the full rules that you can download.

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My general feeling about adding rules to Swords & Wizardry is to keep them as simple as possible.

Interactions between simple mechanisms can be very complex. I do not wish to complicate things that are already complex. Complicated rules with lots of exceptions are harder to remember. Simplicity and clarity are what I want.

I don’t like to automatically decline something a player wants to do in my games but I don’t like to just give them things either. I want them to sweat, bleed, and pay some cost for what they get.

Mechanisms have implications not for just abstract game outcomes but also have implications for consistency of the contextual framework of the game world. If some powerful dual choice combination of classes produces a player character of great power, then some NPC would have figured this out too so why isn’t there a bunch of those characters walking around kicking the hell out of single classed non-player characters?

The final factor here is play experience. I’m not nearly as clever as I’d like to think I am. I try to look at all the possible shortcomings of a house rule from as many angles as I can think of before I implement it but sometimes I miss one. I implement a rule and it doesn’t work for whatever reason or it has a down stream impact that I didn’t anticipate. This version of dual-classing for Swords & Wizardry is slightly tweaked from what I used in the Kalador campaign.

Dual Classed Human Characters

A human player character who is 3rd Level or higher may choose to become dual classed.

The only allowed combinations are fighter/thief, fighter/magic user, thief/magic user
Assassins, clerics, druids, monks, paladins, and rangers cannot multiclass.

There are already rules for multi-classed elf and dwarf characters in Swords & Wizardry so this dual classing rule only applies to humans.

I want to discourage players from creating a PC that is a fantasy generalist. One of the great strengths of classic fantasy gaming is that player characters are specialists who must work as a team to not only accomplish their goals but to not die trying.

I’m limiting the classes allowed because. 1. The those classes on the banned list already have significant crossover abilities. An assassin has some of the abilities of a thief/fighter with a few of his own skills unique to the class. 2. Conceptually, the religious classes are dedicated to their deity, order, or purpose. 3. Some of the weaknesses of one class are so offset by the strengths of another class that I see problems with creating over powered super characters at high levels.

The PC must have a 16+ in the prime attribute of the new class.

All experience points earned from this point forward go toward the new class. The character’s level in the first class is fixed and will never earn more XP to advance that class.

I don’t want dual-classing to be common thing in my campaign and also want to create a disincentive min-maxing characters. In the specific case of the Kalador campaign, the party was having some issues without a magic user. The player wasn’t dual classing just to become over powered vs the other PCs.

There are benefits to dual classing but I want the player to choose it because there is a benefit to the party and not just their own character’s advancement.

The PC may use abilities of their original class. Armor restrictions apply.  A fighter who becomes a dual classed fighter/MU cannot cast spells while wearing armor. A fighter who becomes a dual classed fighter/thief cannot move silently or climb sheer walls wearing heavy armor.

Until the PC achieves a level exceeding the level achieved in their original class, the following conditions apply:

1. The dual classed PC receives 50% of experience points awarded. (If the party gets 1000 XP for a session, the dual classed PC only receives 500 XP)

2. The character can only gain enough XP in a session to gain one level even if that number is less than the 50% penalty already assessed. 

3. The PC’s hit points and saving throws stay the same. 

In AD&D the rule is if the player goes through the entire session or adventure only acting as their new class, they get 100% of the experience points. This is what I did in my campaign. It was an extra thing to keep track of so that was a black mark against the rule.

It was also a decision point for a player that didn’t add any enjoyment to the game as far as I am concerned. A thing that came up several times in my campaign was the fighter/mu character had to avoid doing things like using a sword, putting on armor after he cast his spells for the day.

Akbar was a sixth level fighter but a first level magic user. He shoots his one magic missile spell and he’d be really useful in this fight where we’re getting our ass kicked but he’s going to avoid fighting the rest of the day because he’s got no armor and the best he can do is 1D6 damage with a staff. If things go badly, he has take the 50% hit because if he doesn’t he may not survive. If he choses to stick to the staff or dagger, the party is missing out on the damage potential of a sixth level fighter with a +2 magic sword. Making the whole party pay for the player’s choice isn’t what I’m trying to do.

I think it is fine if the dual-classed character uses a sword in melee, and has a couple of hirelings carrying his armor around so he can put it on when he’s done casting spells for the day.

Most players choosing to dual class will wait until the character is at 5th level or higher. It makes more sense from a mechanics perspective. If a player chooses to switch before that point, those class abilities won’t be much use when the party gets over 9th level. Pick pocketing as a third level thief just isn’t that helpful if you need to snag a key from a demon to break out of a dungeon in the Abyss.

Again, making the cost high. A party of 5th or 6th level characters are going to have adventures or even sessions where they could be awarded several thousand experience points in one go. The dual classing PC is paying the cost of getting half the XP and if they get more than needed to advance two levels, even less.

Once the PC’s level in the new class exceeds the level achieved in the old class,

1. Hit Points and saving throws now follow the progression in the new class. A character can never have more than 9 hit dice. 

2. The character uses the most favorable attack matrix (attack bonus)

3. The character now receives 100% of Experience awarded

4. Armor restrictions still apply when employing skills/abilities which would be impaired by wearing armor. However a dual classed character may use any weapon allowable by either class.

Once the player character exceeds the level equal to the level attained as the previous class, the major benefits kick in. This is particularly true for a character who starts as a fighter and becomes a magic user. They have better hit points and attack bonuses than they would as a wizard but have the benefit of being able to cast potent spells.

That’s my version of dual classing rules and my thinking behind how I arrived at them.