Whats the Benefits/Drawbacks of Switching Classes during the game rather than playing with the same class the whole game?

Also if doing this when should it be done??

Thanx

Benefits: You get some new bonuses/skills open to you. Like a thief that has a high locks/traps, then switches to bard, so he can play music now.

Drawbacks: level up times are increased (if you switch at level 10, getting to level 1 in your new class is like going from 10 to 11 in your old class). Some skills may be closed to improvement. Like if you switch FROM bard to thief, you can't improve music anymore, but you can still use it at the level it was.

i'm a big fan of character development, and i like to have my character(s) practise a lot. (which is mandatory for the singular).
Thus my favorite layout for 6 is:
2 tanks, usually a Ranger and a Samurai. AND:
4 Bishops who become:
Fairy Ninja
Monk
Valk
another Ranger, OR:
a Gad and all the Bishops above but the Ranger.
SPOILER
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SPACE
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They all take one level, usually @3, as rogues (Sam goes Ninja) to get 100's in stealth (and shield for those who'll be using them). The method for this is outlined on Avenstar's lists, there's a link you should find in Search, ton o'fun there. Since this only takes one level, and applies to whatever class you become, it's worth it.
Once they're done discovering ways to make themselves harder to hit, the Bishes only have to go to 18 (19 total); they can save the spell picks in the realms of their new classes. It's good to spread them out by a couple of levels, their casting has 5 levels to catch up. Two at a time isn't too bad, if the 2 tanks have been practising their realms, too. This setup has been so deadly by about L15, sometimes i've left 2 of the Bishops be, only turning the Fairy and the Monk (for the Cane and Zatoichi).

[ 05-14-2002, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: otter ]