gtusrnm

So, sounds like leaving the chars at level 0 as an option is a good safety net for people like me. You could also let the component advance characters manually one level at a time in the settings menu - going off of a similar honor system as not making everyone into a Dwarven Defender.

Well, after I noticed Sarevok was bugged, I uninstalled the component, so now in the savefile Sarevok can advance to level 1 after recruiting and that is it. If I could change his starting class, cheat the XP, and then dual-class however I wish - goal achieved, problem solved - just with a few more hoops to jump through. The way you interpreted my suggestion also sounds fine. So long as you don't mean dumping the same XP as [charname] into the companion instead of advancing it level by level - because doing it like that sometimes eats up proficiency points from my experience. Though I'm not sure if it would really work without problems if let's say I received 15 levels, and wanted to dual-class at 13. Like I said earlier, just to get to where I am now, I had to uninstall the component and wait an hour for the mod to reassemble itself. So, any option to avoid such a grim scenario would be delightful, haha.

Oh, I just think equalizing the XP difference between the charname and any companion you're about to recruit is way generous, but admittedly I do not remember anymore how companions used to get boosted in levels in the original games. No, nothing like you described was happening to me with multi-classes. If I'm not mistaken, with this component they do get free levels - usually not in excess, but just to match your [charname] - if you remove them from the party, solo boost yourself and recruit again, which I'm positive wouldn't have happened in unmodded games. You are probably fine with that, I believe. Not an argument I would pursue further now that you've explained it's all about the technical complexity, though. Overall, I'm curious if turning off the levelling part of the component could be implemented - perhaps in the difficulty tweaking dialog menu? I feel it'd be much less stressful to just use cheats for your blank slate companions, then deal with the excessive XP in case something unexpected happens.

I think the problem is clear in form of an annoying limitation: it doesn't let me distribute the amount of XP I am given into any two classes as I see fit, which would be the most reasonable option when looking to re-spec companions that used to be boring with their old restrictions. It stops at level 7, so I'm forced to level up the guy adventuring. Why is it like that? Am I just doing something wrong? So, I think it's fine if we want to keep a companion as he originally was in the dual-class (in the case of Anomen 7 / Fighter, 8 / Cleric), but only change the "features" he had like weapon proficiencies. What I'm not getting is why we can't also dual-class the way it would make him an optimal Fighter, and immediately dump say 13 levels into Fighter, and then however much XP is left into Cleric. (There's obviously a lot of potential to make companions like that quite overpowered depending on how late you recruit them, so an XP cap to how much can be awarded could be introduced.) I mean, multi-classes can already be boosted in levels for free, but if we attempt a similar thing with min-maxing a dual-class character, then you consider that unintended use of the component? Not sure if because of a coding limitation or some other reason, but I think the way it is right now could be improved in better ways than just clearer instructions. The component does certainly break balance already, so if that's the reasoning behind not wanting to give dual-classing more freedom, assuming the honor system is upheld, then I am confused.

To be clear: dual-classed Anomen in SoA at 4800k XP when removed and recruited has no issues. In ToB the same already dual-classed Anomen gets boosted from 5100k to 7100k XP when removed and recruited again. Advancing every time it's done. This should be a bug. 13 level Fighter / 30+ level Cleric. The same did not apply to Imoen at level 10 Swashbuckler dual-classed to Mage. Chars were transferred from SoA without exporting. Edit: Ah, I think I understand, it just didn't hit me yet when I was reading your post. So because I picked Swashbuckler for Imoen she was considered a single-class character that I then dual-classed without causing the auto-leveller to go nuts. And as you were saying I was supposed to remove Anomen's dual-class in the menu instead of keeping his original setting - which I didn't do because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to dual-class him anymore. Got it.

That's correct. Both Anomen and Imoen. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Sure, the dual-classes are always superior, but the entire component is more for the min-maxing type than a beginner who would feel overwhelmed by having to advance a character up from level 1 every single time. Because if you can't compensate for a poorly dual-classed companion, the only other alternative a multi-class or a self-made companion in multiplayer mode. So, if possible, I would urge you to somehow rebalance the XP gain for the dual-classes. It would surely add notable prestige to this mod. But yeah, I can live with the way Anomen was in SoA. What is the real problem is his bugginess in ToB at 5200k XP and him advancing every time he's removed from the party and recruited again. As I described in my second post here, this was not happening at 4800k XP in SoA - only in ToB. And I cannot imagine why it would behave like that with such a minuscule XP difference.

Not quite correct as I would be content if Sarevok received the same XP as my main char. Let me describe how my entire experience went with this component. So, the first companion I re-spec'd was Imoen whom I made into a Swashbuckler right after recruiting her in spellhold, and that was around 1.5 mil XP - that's how much each of the 5 party members had, Imoen being the sixth. One notable feature I noticed within the component is that some of the classes chosen as the first class would only level up until level 7. Then I waited until Imoen gained the desired level - Swashbuckler 10th - also, if I did so without activating the AI, and then activating it, the component would give me a free level up to Swashbuckler, as well as kick up her mage class a notch higher that I was about to dual-class (still in the buffer at that point - but I would already know I was getting one more level of mage as well). All that resulted in Imoen being a level 10 Swashbuckler with 160k XP + level 14 mage with 1500k XP. All the other party members have around 1800k XP from what I'm seeing in the save file, so the XP she was given is around even despite dual-classing, which started bugging out later. So now comes the later with Anomen, him starting unchanged as Fighter at around also - if my recollection isn't failing me - level 7. That's how he is from the start, and - strangely - his character specific shield couldn't be worn. I grind him up to level 12, and then activate the AI just as I did with Imoen, intending to dual-class at 13 as most people would. Other party members are at around 4800k XP at this point. This is where the problem seems obvious: the component boosted his Cleric class to level 29 and 4800k XP. However, this is not the end of the problems that arised once I transitioned to ToB - without exporting. And finally ToB: I am in the pocket plane, chars other than Anomen at 5200k XP. Each time I remove him from the party and recruit again, he gets a free level up. He stopped levelling up at like 7100k XP, barely not hitting the XP cap. As for Sarevok: as a pure Fighter, and I think it stopped at level 29, which the table says is 5200k XP, so that corresponds. I advanced him as Kensai to 24, then to Mage, and that hit the XP cap at 8000k. Other combinations would behave similarly I believe, but I have no way of testing anymore with the component uninstalled. So the bottom line is it used to kind of oddly buffer the XP in SoA, but the numbers didn't go too high. In ToB it went utterly bonkers for the two dual-classes that I tried. I'm also pretty sure I tried multiclasses once in ToB and the numbers corresponded to the other party members.

This happened to me with SCS v33 (33.0, fairly sure) installed while dual-classing Anomen and Sarevok where they receive excessive XP. The party normally transitioned from SoA, but it would occur earlier with Anomen as well. I've noticed some fixes related to this component in the last few months being mentioned in the changelogs, but seemed unrelated. Not a game-breaking bug per se, but still very distressing because the companions essentially reach the level cap, and made me feel like all the hard worked for questing was done for nothing. The other party members were around 4.5 million XP, and because the component does not correctly detect the overall XP pool for dual-classes, I suppose it gets awarded in excess. All I know is Sarevok would reach the XP cap easily if you dual-classed, but his pure classes would also receive way too much XP for whatever reason. Here's even an old reddit thread related to the same problem that I found when I was googling the issue: https://old.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/d2trsi/a_mod_question_for_a_compulsive_restarter/ Now let me just say that I do acknowledge the massive balance shift this component introduces in general, and that it incentivizes enormous changes in strategy as well as solo play. Nonetheless I found it to be an excellent addition. There's nothing more refreshing than being able to spec your favorite characters the way their stats allow instead of experiencing yet another repetitive run of classes you are sick of. I just hope that this finally gets some attention and is fixed so it doesn't make you feel like you just cheated your dual-classed party members with no ability to turn off the component. And to make matters worse, uninstalling it seemed to have caused the entire installation to redo itself because apparently all the components are interconnected, and as you well know SCS can take a long time to install, especially on older machines (around an hour for me). Not a pleasant experience if you're excited to continue your playthrough, I assure you.