I just rolled up a new party and I'm still at the docks, but I'm having seconds thoughts about my party make-up. Here's my line-up: human monk, human fighter, drow fighter dual wielding short swords, cleric of tempus (don't remember the race), moon elf wizard, and drow thief.

Could someone please give me an opinion about my party? are the drow characters worth having despite their bonuses? since they're two levels behind everyone else, is this going to cause a major problem later in the game? are the bonuses worth it? as for the monk, should i keep him a pure monk or would he benefit by dipping into another class? beyond the questions, i would appreciate any recommendations anyone can offer but i would like to keep the current structure of the party make-up unless someone can offer some strong points against it since it has worked for me very well in the Baldur's Gate games.

thank you very much.

Hey Too Dark, it's good to see another new member here besides me [img]smile.gif[/img]

If you are having second thoughts about your party now is the time to change it, before everybody else gets to be a much higher level.

About your party though...
I think you can make it through the game with a lot of different party types without too much trouble as long as they are balanced. It just depends on what you find fun to play.

My opinion on it though would be to keep the drows, I have one in my party and he is working out just fine. The level penalty doesn't seem to be a major issue for him at all and the spell resistance is great.

In terms of the classes though, I might switch a couple around. With a monk and two fighters it sounds like at least half your party is going to be on the frontline dishing out the damage and soaking it up. If that's going to be the case you might want to consider multi-classing someone to get a couple more healing spells.

Personally, I think Drow are better as non-spellcasters. Two levels back was too much in my game. My first team had a Drow and a non-Drow, and the distance between them was rather painful. After that, I never took Drow as a mage or cleric type.

I liked having a pair of Sorcerers for the extra spell power and also the ability to choose spells on level gain, rather than hunting for scrolls for a wizard. While Sorcerers are more limited in how many spells they can learn, you can choose from anything available on the list, and you get more spells to cast. I felt that made up for the limited number of spells. And Sorcerers can still cast spells from scrolls to fill in the gaps.

<center>Nightowl2</center>

the cleric wiz and theif should carry missle weapon's, and your fighter's would benifit from missle weapon's too for peppering thing's before closing for the kill..

I'd suggest noting the game is very diffrent to the other IE games, being a diffrent D&D rule version..

It might seam wrong, but put as many point's as you can into int for your mage.

I'd personaly choose a conjurer over a normal mage, the inablity to learn Evocation spell's can feel like a crippling loss, but it makes for a much more fun game and interseting battles, it can also train out the bad habbit's people get into from BG and BG2 of just learning magic missile and casting it over and over and over.. there are better first level spells.

This is importaint, if the cleric good or evil, as good cleric's can turn any of their spell's into healing, whereas evil cleric's can turn them into damageing spells..

I'd probably swap out the human fighter for a bard, but that's just me..

Thanks for the tips.

what about weapon specialization for fighter type characters... it only gives +1 bonus to hit and another point in weapon spec. only adds +2 to damage. this seems rather wasteful. No?

"the cleric wiz and theif should carry missle weapon's,..."
I've done as such in the past, but doesn't that waste some of the thief's abilities? (ie: backstabbing?) I've always played my theif this weay and only have advanced him forward to pick locks and disable traps, but I would like to make him more proactive in using some of his other abilities. Are there scripts for a theif that will make him sneak upto enemies backs, backstab, and then run away and use his bow?

The bonus for specialization isn't huge, but every bit helps. I might choose to take feats like ambidexterity, 2-weapon fighting or finesse at first instead of putting more dots in weapon proficency because you'd get more than a +1 to hit with them, but I think they are worth taking at some point. However, if your trying to rush towards maximized attacks you might want to start specializing as soon as you can.

hmm... I made one of my characters a drow and he's dual wielding two short swords with ambix feat and weapon finesse (i made his dex high and strenght avg). later, when gets a chance i'll have him take two weapon fighting as well which should further reduce the penalty for dual weilding.

are there other things i should watch out for when progressing this character?