Ok, I am toying with the idea of playing an "all multiclass" party. The reason is because I always end up with either dual-classed or single classed characters, and other than one member of the party at a time I rarely use multiclassed characters. I figure I will go with a party of 4, to help speed up the xp a little bit (advancement will be slow enough as it is). The NPCs are easy: Jan, Jaheira, Aerie (the only 3 multiclassed NPCs in unmodded game). That gives 2 priests, 1 thief, 2 mage, and 1 fighter.
However, the big question comes in as far as which PC would best fit with this group. I'm pretty flexible in which class I would play, but I just seem to note a couple of things:
- The party has only one fighter, so it might be best to play a warrior type for one of the classes.
- Already have two priests, and adding a third would be overkill.
That narrows it down to 2 choices: fighter/thief and fighter/mage. My question is which one would be a better fit for the party. Adding a third mage may be overkill, but having him memorize mostly buffs would make him stronger in combat (and having a breach or two handy wouldn't hurt). I usually use mages as backups to my fighters in most games, so having a fighter/mage and using mage combat buffs on a regular basis would be new (and would help expand my knowledge of the spells).
Adding a second thief seems more rounded, but Jan can pretty much handle anything that you need a thief for (in the long run, at least). I've never been big on using backstabbing or stealth (usually go brute force with magic support, and the thief is usually an archer), but if that was my main guy's strength then I would adapt to its use (thus expanding my combat tactics beyond my normal "comfort zone"). In this system, Jan would handle the technical stuff (open locks, disarm traps, set traps), while I concentrate on stealth and backstabbing.
Either approach involves a bit of a shift in my tactics, but I am honestly torn as to which one to play. I could always do Fighter/Mage/Thief, but with 3 other party members I would have practically no advancement whatsoever (gets boring after a while IMHO).
I'm not really asking which one is best per se. I am just asking which one makes more sense, and which one just seems to "round out" the party better.