Still haven't decided whether i want to do it with NPC's or create my own party, but just in case, what makes up the perfect player created party?

<font color="gold">What alignment are you planning?</font>


see ya!

Try six assassins! Really interesting.

easy

Cavalier
Half-orc Barbarian
Cleric of Lathanda
Avenger or whatever you want.
Mage/thief
Mage

I prefer mage/thieves to straight thieves cause I don't like thieves and there useless 80% of the time. Can't do melee in a real fight. Being able to backstab one bad guy when your facing 10 of em isn't very helpful. The only thing they can do that is usefull is disarm traps. Duel em to a mage and you've got yourself a back up mage.

Warby

fighter/thief
cavalier
half orc kensai(my new favourite)
fighter-cleric
sorcerer
another sorcerer(damn these guys are good)


http://lordluds.freeservers.com/images/death.jpg

I've never done a full 6-player party, I like the npc interaction. But I'm really loving my current party, here's the lineup;

Half Elf Ranger/Cleric (I can't believe how cool this combo is.)
Half Orc Fighter/Thief (very cool, good tank. Gonna be insanely powerful once he hits ToB.)

Minsc (getting replaced with Mazzy soon)(I'll prolly replace her with *someone* in ToB)
Jaheria (keeping her for romance, and she's a good druid)
Yoshimo (getting dumped promptly for Edwin)
Jan (getting dumped before I go to fetch Imoen)

In my 'humble' opinion, I would reccomend:
Half-Orc Kensai
Halfling Thief
Human Shapeshifter
Elf Sorcerer
Elf Archer
Human Monk

That'll do fine

Oh, and if you wanna solo, go for either a Sorcerer, Cavalier, or Shapeshifter. But make 'em human, because your gonna need that 'advance to any level' if you go solo.

Sorcerer is the best of those three, just remember: FIREBALL! And get a familiar with spot traps. Very useful.

Ahhhh, returning after a long hiatus. So satisfying.

Personally, I feel the available NPCs are really too weak to put together a strong party--you've almost GOT to create at least 3 characters yourself, if you want to kick ass. I sense that it was actually BioWare's INTENT that you go Multiplayer--if they wanted us to like the NPCs, they'd have included people like Coran. The choice of available NPCs is just too damn sparse....if you want a good Cleric you have to choose between the Evil one with lousy CON and the annoying one with crappy DEX. Imoen's a good Mage, but the way *I* Dual-classed her, she had 100% in Find Traps and Stealth, and she was a Conjurer to boot. Now that they've totally screwed up her Thieving skills, I almost don't want her anymore. Also, there are no Sorcerors, Barbarians, Monks, Kensai, etc.

I, personally, am sticking with 6 PC's of my own, this first game, a truly godly party the first time out, so I've got a better chance of doing well on my first game of BG2.

My opinion of the 'perfect' party (This may change after I come to understand BG2):

Neutral Good Male Human Assassin: 19 / 19 / 16 / 10 / 15 / 17
(to be Dualed to Fighter in ToB)
Neutral Good Female Half-Elven Cleric/Mage: 6 / 18 / 16 / 19 / 21 / 19
Lawful Good Female Human Undead Hunter: 18(78) / 18 / 18 / 10 / 18 / 17
Chaotic Neutral Male Elven Mage/Thief: 13 / 19 / 16 / 18 / 16 / 4
True Neutral Male Human Berserker: 15 / 18 / 18 / 14 / 18 / 10
(will Dual to Cleric in ToB)
Chaotic Good Female Elven Archer: 18(77) / 19 / 17 / 11 / 18 / 12

Quite the lethal team, to my mind. ALL the bases are covered, except I don't have a real Druid. Oh well--but I can always swap in a Totemic Druid->Fighter in the Archer's slot. (I chose Demonic/Fell for my Archer's Racial Enemy, to make up for my lack of a Cavalier, but should I have gone with Mind Flayers or Umber Hulks instead?)

I'd like to point out that I have absolutely NO life: All of those numbers were rolled. Well, almost. I gave the Tomes of STR and DEX to the Assassin, and all the other Tomes to the Cleric/Mage....and I did cheat. I hacked the Mage/Thief's CHA down to 4, for roleplay purposes.

I had tons of fun my first game with this 4-person custom party:

Human Cavalier
Dwarven Fighter/Cleric
Elven Sorcerer
Gnomish Thief/Illusionist

I also took Jaheira and (eventually) Imoen.

-- Nifft

Man are all you guys nuts? !NO OFFENSE!

1 of the best guys in the game is a monk (human). then you got what's his name the chaotic evil Dwarf fight dude from the copper correnet. with this you also create a sorcerer, pick up Viconia yoshimo or a good user created assasin/ any good thief really fighter/thief being best choice probably. Plus a mage/cleric. At least it kicked ass for me I mean I left D'arnise keep until after the underdark. But even then my monk unarmed shouldn't have been able to take out all the golems 1 at a time by himelf. Plus viconia is like the perfect undead killer and pretty good at killing most other creatures. Undead though are mostly what u face. You of course need a thief you don't want to lose valuable xp on not disarming traps, and the ability to set traps which is greatly overlooked by most. and assasins basically kill mages with their poisened weapons the mages and clerics and anything else can't cast any spells till poison wheres off. The sorcere well you just have to have one of these guys! Mage cleric backs you up. and your chaotic evil short fighter dude really kicks ass.

many more reasons to go with this party but not enough time to list them you see a problem with it however and i will try to defend my choice [img]smile.gif[/img]

There is no perfect answer to such a question - the party that is best for you is the one you have most fun playing with.

Like some others, I did not like the weaknesses of the NPCs and built my own party. I also get SOOOO annoyed when magic casters can't get their best spells off because they are being clobbered by arrows and swords so I went with only one mage.

I disagree with Warby about the thief - hiding in shadows to allow my mage to fireball into a room of bad guys is a great tactic. My thief is also awsome in melee with two swords equipped and makes great use of the magic bow with an unlimited supply of electric arrows. Later in the game she got the ability to use any item and is happily supplementing the mage by using scrolls and wands. The assassination ability is also good and my thief is a Bounty Hunter so I can set lots of traps.

I agree with SixofSpades that the party must have an Undead Hunter - you save an awful lot of time not having to go to temples to restore drained levels.

I prefer to be able to rise in levels quickly and be unlimited in levels so my party has no dualled characters. This also increases saving throws quickly which really helps! I also prefer to hack things up rather than take a chance that my magic will be countered so my party is:

Human Paladin - Undead Hunter
Human Paladin - Cavalier [only one I would reconsider]
Dwarf Cleric
Elven Ranger
Elven Mage
Half Elf Thief

It seems to work - many battles that others reported as tough I hacked through with little problem.

Best thing about these games - you can do another round with a different party and have just as much fun!

If this is your first (or second) run-through, I'd suggest staying with as many party NPCs as possible.

First, several bring their own quests into the group, including Mazzy, Korgan, and Edwin.

Second, quite a few have special items and/or abilities you can't duplicate without access to an editing program. Edwin's got a family necklace which gives him more spells per level than any comparable mage in the game. Valygar's got some fine armor. Haer'dalis has two swords with some decent extra effects.

Third, they have some great dialog and interactions which really make them come alive. That last does it for me. :D

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Jim Wingert:
....many battles that others reported as tough I hacked through with little problem.<hr></blockquote>

I think that'll be the case for ANY party made up of 6 PCs.... If the game can (presumably) be beaten by parties that include losers like Cernd, it should be a walk in the park taking everything out with a 100% user-created party. I have 2 questions about your party, though: Why is your Thief a Half-Elf? And is your Ranger a kit, or a straight Ranger? I'd have gone with Archer, myself--you've already got 3 Tanks, you don't really need a 4th.

As for the NPCs vs. PCs debate, fable, I'm going to play my first game using the 6 PCs I created to be my definitive Team Kickass. (How well they do will let me know if my ideas were correct.) Once I've beaten the game with GREAT characters, I'll use the NPCs and see how I do with DECENT characters, and get some funny interactions to boot. (Too bad you can't stick the NPCs into your Bag of Holding--that way, you could essentially have 8 people in your party, just kick one out & put them in the Bag when you need to swap someone else in. [img]smile.gif[/img] )

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Warby:

Cavalier
Half-orc Barbarian
Cleric of Lathanda
Avenger or whatever you want.
Mage/thief
Mage

Warby<hr></blockquote>

LOL, substitute the Half-Orc Barbarian with a Half-Orc Berserker and that's the exact same party as I'm going through the game with right now. And they rock, too.

As for the PERFECT party, that's different for everyone. Depends too much on playing style to give good advice about, IMHO. If you're melee-oriented you need lots of warriors, if you're partial to spellcasting then tune down on the warriors and get an extra Mage. Undead Hunters are handy, but by no means necessary. Priests of Lathander kick @$$ against vampires too with their Boon of Lathander, and with the Mace of Disruption or Azuredge you can turn every warrior into an Undead Hunter.