Cross-classing for fun and profit

[awall]

Okay, sorry about the somewhat deceptive title. FFT's job/ability system is made such that mixing two jobs together is almost mandatory. What I'm much more interested in is mixing jobs from the Squire job tree with jobs from the Chemist job tree. I've played through this game many times, and the most fun playthroughs for me were the ones where I tried to have all my characters cross over between the two trees. However, doing so comes at a price; crossed-over characters tend to be much less powerful (although much more versitile) than characters who pick two similar jobs (i.e. like everyone's favorite Ninja + Punch Art).

As such, I'd like to generate some sort of guide/list of tips for people who want to try this out. Generally the stuff I'm going for is character-building and/or party-cohesiveness strategies. In other words, turbolevelling your characters to make up for their less-developed stats is a big no-no. I took a party with three crossover characters (Chemist/Lancer, Knight/Wizard, Geomancer/Priest) and beat the game around Lv40, and that was without using any special characters (i.e. no Orlandu) or any Chantages. However, it was really tricky, so I figured I'd post some of my experiences here to help people who are trying anything similar.

Stuff I've done that worked
Knight/Black Magic: If you're going to have a physical unit who is also a caster, I strongly recommend you use a Knight. Unlike most other physical classes, Knights can equip robes, which gives them a halfway decent amount of MP. However, bear in mind that this doesn't save your MA from being total crap, so I wouldn't recommend black magic; yin yang or time magic doesn't depend as much on MA, so it's a safer bet (when I used black magic, I wound up relying almost exclusively on Frog).
Geomancer/White Magic: Geomancers are another good choice, owing to their relatively high innate MP and MA. I opted for white magic because I needed a healer in my party; however any kind of magic would probably work. Geomancers can already cause light damage and some statuses, but any sort of magic is probably going to be more effective than geomancy. Doing the Geomancer/caster thing is, in my opinion, a much better choice than trying to outfit a mage with a shield, as Geomancers also get a movement bonus and not-too-shabby attack power.
Time Mage/Punch Art: This one was sorta iffy. The character was initially supposed to be a Monk with time magic, but he wound up with so little MP that he was next to useless. I had to make a Time Mage with martial arts to have anything approaching a useful character. This turned out decently well (chakra rocks for renewing MP), but it requires your character to be constantly equipping every PA-increasing armor he can get.

Stuff I tried that didn't work
Lancer/White Magic: Lancers get no MP. Period. There is no way to get them to have MP. During the Velius fight, he wound up casting exactly one spell before running out of MP. I still won (ask me about that fight sometime... it was truly epic), but I learned my lesson. Priest/equip spear/jump works slightly better, but still not worth it in my experience.
Ninja/Summon Magic: I don't know what I was smoking when I tried this combo. I think my theory was that anything with "ninja" in it had to work, because ninjas are that cool. But in my defense, this was the first crossover character I ever tried (well, he was in the same party as the above Lancer/Priest). Lets just say that he didn't even have both of his classes unlocked until chapter 3 (ninja and summoner both have fairly extensive requirements) and even once he did, he never managed to get off more than one summon per battle due to the fact that ninjas' MP is just barely better than Lancers. He wound up having to be a Summoner with Throw, which is not what I'd intended at all because I didn't get to take advantage of the Ninja speed or innate two swords. And even so, Throw's damage is based on speed, and summoners are pretty slow. Don't try this combo, ever.

I have to go now. I'll try to say more later. If anybody else has ever done stuff like this, please elaborate on your experience.

[Setzer]

I've played through tactics once. I loved it very much and thought it was a great game. I mixed several classes. The once that I did that worked was having a knight who had the 2 sword ability of a ninja. It takes a while, but it's defenilty my favorite combo. Another one I liked was mixing a ninja and a samurai. They could have good armor, and still have alot of power. I mixed several more, but I'm kinda tired so when I'm thinking clearly again I'll probably edit it.

Well i remember a couple classes that didn't work. I tried to mix the 2 sword ability with a lancer to make the ultimate machine of a chracter, but it isn't possible. I've wanted to build monks who are also knights so if their weapons break they become really intense and uber, but the weapon never broke, so I'm actually not sure if it worked or not.

hmmm i mixed alot too. like Setzer i mixed the 2 sword ability with the knights, it is like the strongest thing on the game. I also tried it out with the Samurai's but i found that the samurai didn't really have the umph behind their hit and it didn't really do much. Other than that i tried mixing fighter and magic but found that it was a waste of time (my opinion). The only time it really came in handy was when i couldn't reach an enemy or if one of my character's needed healing. I also found that when mixing the better fighters their magic wan't that great (their brave and faith had to do with that).

[awall]

Well, two swords on a Knight is fairly standard... but what I was getting at with this thread was mixing between the Squire and Chemist job trees. Gippal, moving a fighter over to a mage class can be worthless, but it has the potential to be really good if you do it right, and that's what I intended this thread to be about.

Ehhh... i haven't focuesed on that too much. I mainly do straight class challenges, but i could see how what you're saying could be interesting. One of my favorites has always been black/time mage, when i don't play a challenge file.