I have played through the game with a level 30 all party for a long time now, and I have got very attached to them, but the game is too easy, and I am looking for a new challange: a new party.
Anyway, I have sat at my computor for ages and have been unable to think of any new ideas. the group I had before were:
Mage
Ranger
Cleric
Thief
Druid
Bard
and I didn't create 5 of them!

Does anyone have any ideas for a new group of peopel? I'm planning on starting again pretty soon.

Why not create a smaller party.

1. Fighter/Mage (human - start with fighter and dual to mage at level 6)
2. Fighter/Thief (multi class)
3. Ranger/Cleric or Fighter Druid

Try it with 3 or 4 members in HoF mode. If using a fourth member take a bard and don't multi or dual class one of the others.

[ 04-30-2003, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

A variation on that one which I personally like is:

1. Paladin
2. Ranger/Cleric
3. Thief/Mage
4. (Bard) if you like, but the three above works fine.

Just as pritchke´s team this one has everything you need in a small party.

Try something completely different and go with an "Underdark Brigade":

male Duergar fighter
female Drow cleric of talos
female Drow mage
svirnifblen illusionist or illusionist/thief or thief/cleric of mask (a great combo)

add an extra fighter or two to round out the party

The only problem is the ECL ratings.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOps ... wrong game. lol Ignore the previous post.

Try this -

Dwarven fighter
Ranger/Cleric
Fighter/Druid
Mage/Thief

or if you want a larger party, add
Paladin
Fighter/Mage

The paladin and dwarf bceome the tanks, you have two mages for a LOT of spell power and the Cleric and Druid cover all of the spells. If necessary, the fighter/mage can double as an archer and the R/C and F/D can fill in as ranged or close in tanks as needed. It's a POWERFUL party, and I've used it myself with great success. [img]smile.gif[/img]

A fun variation, in addition to changing character types, is to vary the behavior of the characters. My second time through, I mixed lawful good with chaotic evil and chose many of the dialogue choices that I wanted to, but didn't, my first time. I really liked not worrying about reputation points or getting every experience point possible.

The thing I really liked about IWD was the fact you could roll up a party using every race available under 2E rules. So this is what I did and I had fun along the way.

Half-elf Ranger - next time I'd make him a straight Fighter.

Dwarven Fighter

Human Cleric - became more and more valuable, especially in HoW and that island with all the dead

Halfling Fighter/Thief

Gnome Cleric/Illusionist - saved my butt more times than I can recall. This is a GREAT combination as well as a GREAT party support PC

Elf Fighter/Magic User (no specialty) - also saved my butt countless times and worked wonders in conjunction with my Gnome.

* Look at it this way: 4 fighters (all had bows), 2 Clerics, 2 Magic Users, and a thief.

Have no bards because they SUCK!

Have a
Mage
2 Fighters
1 thief
1 cleric
1 ranger.

Bards do not suck! The songs have kept my poeple from panicking/dying!

I originally thought Bards sucked when I started playing but later I tried one and found that it makes a great support role with songs, spells, and a crossbow. Its songs made my party virtually unstoppable.

<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.