[NobleNick]

EDIT: Aerich, you slipped in a great post whilst I was composing mine. It's interesting to compare views! I am absolutely amazed at how 5 of your first 6 paragraphs of instruction are almost word-for-word what I wrote. I will leave my post as is, so that Feagil can get two truly independent views.

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Feagil,

I hope I am not the first to say, "Welcome to the IWD forum!"

If you do not have HoW, do yourself a favor and go get it EVEN if you have no intentions of ever playing it (the upgrade to IWD is worth it).

To answer your question ---> Party suggestions for IWD (no HoW). The party you already have:

2 Human Fighters
1 Human Ranger
1 Human Cleric
1 Halfling Thief
1 Elven Mage

although not my first pick, seems quite viable. I would have made one of the party a race with infravision, which, IIRC, Humans, Elves and Halflings don't have; but that is a nitpick. This is much more important --> Are you stacking your Fighter's Proficiency Points (PP) high like you should (not spreading them around in 3 or more weapons)? Your warriors should be stacking ALL their PP into EXACTLY one close in weapon (like LongSword or axe, etc.) and one long range weapon (Bow is best choice for non-priest, sling for the Cleric).

Although it is too late to change, now, did you max out DEX and CON on all your warriors? a Fighter with DEX=18 gets a 4 point bonus to Armor Class (AC) each point lower in DEX loses one bonus point in AC, down to no bonus at DEX=14. Likewise, a warrior (Fighter, Ranger, Paladin) with CON=18 gets 4 bonus HP per level. (Make sure you have the "max HP per level" button activated in your game options screen.)

O.K., lets look at your new party.....

Dwarven Fighter is a great choice for SC Fighter. Just realize that his higher max CON (or is it STR?) comes at the cost of lower max DEX. Each point lower in DEX costs you a point in AC.

Paladin is O.K. early on, gets better in the late game, and has good saving throws. He makes a good tank, and has reasonable offensive skills. (Hint: Specialize the Pally in LongSword. You will be very glad you did.)

Only Humans can DC and only Gnomes can MC the Thief/Illusionist. So, you can not take your third character as you have him listed. I'll try to suggest something similar. I had a Gnome Thief/Illusionist, and really liked what she did in IWD. (She started losing steam in the expansions, but that wouldn't bother you.) A Human DC Thief/Illusionist might be a better choice, but it could get hard when you lose your Thief while deep into Dragon's Eye.

You'll want a Cleric; but I suggest sprucing him up as a DC Fighter/Cleric, so that he has higher HP and gets in an extra 2-1/2 Attacks per Round (ApR) in melee. Hey! Come to think of it, properly built DC Fighter/Clerics are such good warriors, and without the HoW/Bard combination (Bards rock with HoW installed) you'll enjoy the extra Cleric power: So take two F/Cs! You won't have Clerics available in the early game; but with 4 Fighters and a Pally in your front line, who needs one?

(The following advice is for HoW installed. Check your manual for Mage school set-up without HoW.) Your idea of specializing a Mage is a good one, and you picked what I think is the best specialist class (Illusionist). A Necromancer should be an excellent complement to the Illusionist; because an Illusionist can not memorize Necro spells, and, IIRC, vice versa. An Illusionist and Necro, together, cover all the schools; and BOTH Mages have access to the powerful Conjuring and Invocation spells. We don't want our Necro wilting evey time a Troll looks at him cross-eyed; so I suggest a DC Fighter/Necro.

Here is my suggestion for your party.

Dwarven Fighter (*****Axe, ***Bow)
Paladin (must be Human, **LongSword, **Bow)
DC Fighter[7]/Neutral_Cleric (must be Human, ****Mace, **Sling)
DC Fighter[7]/Good_Cleric (must be Human, ****Hammer, **Sling)
DC Fighter[6]/Necromancer (must be Human, ***LargeSword, ***Bow)
MC Thief/Illusionist (must be Gnome, *dagger, *crossbow)

Each asterisk ( * ) represents a PP. The weapon choices are just suggestions, (except you need blunt weapons and slings for the Cleric mixes); but I highly urge you to STACK your PPs! After you DC out of Fighter, remember what weapon your Fighter was stacking in and have your second class put PPs in a DIFFERENT weapon. (These PP will NOT stack on top of the Fighter's PP and so PP placed in same weapon will be lost when you regain Fighter skills.)

If your role playing morals will allow: I suggest you take the extra few minutes per character to get rolls at least in the low 80's. Then max out DEX, CON and STR (in that order of importance) for all of your warriors. (That's 5 of your 6 characters!) In addition, max WIS for the Fighters who will DC to Clerics, and max INT for the Fighter who will DC to Necro. Max out DEX, INT, CON and STR (in that order of importance) for the Gnome. In addition, at least the leader of your party (preferably the Pally) should max out CHA. He will do all the talking and buying/selling.

Party skill set analysis:

Early game --> 1 Pally, 4 Fighters, 1 Thief and 1 Illusionist.

Mid Game ----> 1 Pally, 1 Fighter, 2 Clerics, 1 Thief and 2 Specialist Mages.

Late Game ---> 1 Pally, 4 Fighters, 2 Clerics, 1 Thief and 2 Specialist Mages.

Hmm... Looks like you are stacked! The early game will be a piece of cake. The mid game will be a slight challenge when you DC the Fighters; but your Dwarf and Pally can see you through the short time when you are missing all 3 DC Fighters. In the late game, when things start getting hard, your party will have 5 warriors again, and is also going to start getting scads of top-end Cleric spells and Mage slots to ease the way. And the ground work you laid with the DC Fighters will ensure that none of your characters (except the Thief) needs to run from a monster.

From a power gamer's perspective, I doubt I could do much better without HoW installed. If you want to sacrifice some of your party's incredible power in order to get a little more variety, you could replace one Fighter/Cleric with a Ranger/Cleric or Cleric/Ranger. I own a Ranger/Cleric, and he is a decent character. The only bummer, from an RPG view, is a Ranger who can't use bow (must use sling and blunt weapon).

Whatever mix you end up with, if it includes DC characters, I recommend the following test to ensure you are not disappointed in the late game: As soon as your characters level once (still in Easthaven) save game to a different game name (you should be doing this every hour or so, anyway, as a habit) and see if you can DC them to your desired end character. If successful, go back to your last saved game before the DC and continue. If things don't work as planned, re-roll your character to get it right, and import him. (There is no reason to start the game over, unless you want to: several thousand lost XP will mean nothing by the time you've forayed into VoS twice or so.)

Hope this helps.

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


[ 10-21-2004, 10:14 PM: Message edited by: NobleNick ]