Let's imagine a Wood elf takes 1 level of Fighter and 1 level of Bard for her first two levels, then puts the rest of her levels into fighter and prestige classes like Red dragon disciple. After her 4th level, she is a Fighter 3/Bard 1 and she will begin to take a 20% Multiclass penalty to XP. If instead of pursuing Red Dragon Disciple she adds 1 level of Rogue, the penalty increases to 40%. Adding another base class, say paladin, increases the penalty to 60%. Only up to 4 classes may be taken in NWN2, so this is the end of the line for the masochist (unless he further combines this mess with a heavy ECL race). However, most of us want to minimize the forces that slow our character's level growth. How to do this? One very important question, then, is whether an ECL race (see Race and Lev