Role Play: Roleplaying a dual class character

Sometimes, it’s possible to get a little too invested in the process of character creation. You put together a character with a really amazing back story, someone who has some really good plot points you can work with, someone that you’re really excited about roleplaying. And then you get to the point where you actually make that character in World of Warcraft and begin to level…and you realize that while you love your character and their concept, you’re beginning to hate the class you’ve chosen to play. Either you’ve grown bored with it, or it just isn’t the type of class you enjoy playing, but the question remains — does this mean you need to scrap your beloved character and start over?

Not necessarily. There’s always the possibility of doing so, of course, but you could also try your hand at creating a dual class character — a character who either understands more than one “class” as defined via in-game mechanics, or has given up one class or school of learning to embrace another.

Why a dual class character?

Mind you, that’s only one hypothetical situation out of many. There are plenty of reasons to want to pick up a dual class character, both because of in-game mechanics — maybe you want to play a full time tank instead of a healer — and because of character development. Maybe your Shaman has picked up a curious interest in how the nature magic of Druids work, and wants to study the process to see what the differences are. Maybe the Mage you’ve created has had a dark epiphany, and feels the urge to study the ways of Warlocks. Maybe your Warrior would like to try out the finer points of sneaking and skulduggery by studying the arts of being a Rogue, or your Rogue would like to seriously just slap on a shield and hit things. There are plenty of reasons to justify why a character would want a change like this in-character.

The question then becomes a matter of power — will this kind of study make your character too powerful? Some would argue yes, some would argue no, but you want to keep in mind the limits of your character’s depth of knowledge, and how likely they are to retain information. If you want to simply switch classes, you could have your character just gradually forget the finer nuances of things they learned by studying their former class. If you’d like to swap back and forth between two created characters and roleplay as if your character is an expert in both classes, that’s certainly a viable possibility.

But keep in mind that other roleplayers may or may not be cool with that possibility, and it might affect whether or not they’d like to roleplay with  you. Too much power on the part of one character can sometimes be seen as godmoding to roleplayers, especially if your character uses their newfound skills to get out of any sticky situations scot-free. So ideally, with a dual class character, you want to make sure you’ve got some limits set in place to avoid running into any problematic territory.

Rules of thumb

How do you go about setting these limits? Think about your character and their intelligence. Unless you’re dealing with a super genius, there’s only so much they can handle in their brains at a given time. And if you’re going from say, a melee class to a magic-practicing class, you’ll also be working within the limitations of that knowledge. Compared to every other Mage on Azeroth, your character would have very little intrinsic experience or time to really study the finer arts of magic, which means that while yes, they’d be a Mage, or a Warlock, or whatever you’d like them to be, they aren’t going to be as adept as characters who have been studying and practicing magic all their lives. The same applies for magic-users that are going to try picking up a melee role — just because you decide to pick up a weapon, it doesn’t mean you’re suddenly going to be an expert at using it.

Also keep in mind that a character who is spending all their time studying say, magic as opposed to melee, might find themselves getting a little rusty on the melee end of the spectrum, too — simply by virtue of not keeping in practice with it. It’s not too far out of line to say that when you drop one school of study to pick up another, you’re going to gradually lose proficiency with both classes. The vanilla Druid label “jack of all trades, master of none,” could easily be applied to the dual class process as well.

One final thought to keep in mind is the world that our characters are currently living in. It’s a war-torn world that is in an almost persistent, ongoing state of war-torn conflict. Characters are constantly being sent to deal with one problem or another, and Azeroth is in an almost persistent state of peril. Given this information, what’s your character’s state of mind? Are they able to really sit down and concentrate on studying enough to master another class? Would they really be some kind of expert, when they’ve barely got time to breathe?

Guilds and groups

If you’re going to try taking on a dual class character and you’re roleplaying within a guild or with a close group of friends, you’ll want to let your friends and guildmates know what you’re planning. Some guilds may be fine with the idea of dual class characters, others may have rules in place for this kind of thing. And some guilds may consider dual classes an unspoken no-no, regardless of how well the concept is carried out. Upsetting your guild isn’t generally a good idea, so running the idea by them first, and possibly talking over alternatives or solutions — particularly if you’re tired of playing a certain class — is something worth approaching before you get too attached to any ideas.

That same line of thinking also pretty much applies to groups of friends, albeit in a different context. If you’re just roleplaying with a group of friends, you may not have any kind of hard and fast rules about the acceptable methods of approaching a dual class character. But your friends might have some input, ideas, or suggestions you might not have considered. And it’s just a good idea to keep everyone informed if you’re going to spring something major like a dual class character on them — it’s a big change, both in regards to character interaction, and story development.

In addition, by bringing up this proposed character change, you might suddenly find that you’re not the only one that’s been craving a dramatic change of pace. Who knows, you could end up with a few friends that want to tag along on your character’s journey, and change their classes, too! If this is the case, you could even turn it into an ongoing storyline that everyone can participate in, and have some fun with it.

Playing a dual class character can be all kinds of fun — but it can also be a point of contention among your fellow roleplayers. Reaching out to let those that you roleplay with regularly know what you’re planning will do a lot to smooth feathers before they have a chance to get ruffled. And if you find yourself confused by logistics, or simply deciding you’d really rather not play as a dual class, you can always drop your old class and pick up the new one instead. Give your character fond memories of the days they studied that old class, but point out that they’ve left it behind, and move on to roleplay what excites you most, full time.