<font color = mediumspringgreen>I don't know from personal experience; but heard countless times that bards DO suck if you do NOT have HoW expansion installed. I have also heard, and can attest from personal experience, that bards are a very powerful addition for a full party if you are playing with the HoW expansion installed.

Party ideas (assumes HoW installed). You have lots of multi-class party ideas, here is one built around dual classing, and it is heavy on magic. I have tried to refrain from forcing two of my favorite characters in [druid and bard], because I see you have already done that and assume you are looking for something different for your second go around.....

-- Paladin (your tank)
-- Ranger, Druid, Fighter, or Bard (your one and only non-human: pick a race with infravision)
-- dc Thief --> Specialist Mage 1
-- dc Fighter --> Thief (dual over when first Thief duals over to Illusionist.)
-- dc Fighter --> Cleric
-- dc Fighter --> Specialist Mage 2

For the dual classes that start as Fighter: Try to hold out as long as possible to reap the hit point bonuses from fighter, and also hit one of the "sweet spots" for dualing over that gives more weapon proficiency points or more attacks per round.

What's a party,
without a song?
Bards ROCK!
Party on!!

My current party is lots of fun. A bit difficult in the beginning but now they are starting to kick monster buttocks. The party consist of :

human paladin
dwarven fighter
human fighter (dualed to druid at level 9)
human fighter (dualed to thief ar level 9)
human bard
half-eleven mage/cleric

It's hard in the beginning when you don't have a thief and every trap blows up in your face, especially since you don't have a lot of healing spells early on because of the multi class mage/cleric.

[ 06-09-2003, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: the new JR Jansen ]

I believe "Mirror Image" is a fairly low level spell. A mage with mirror image is usually able to evade taking damage from most traps.