The last couple of days, I've been trying to come up with the perfect six-player party. I must've tried at least 4-5 party setups, but after a few hours, I've always felt that something was wrong. Now I'm playing with the current party and I believe I'm getting very close to my ultimate personal setup.
Female Ranger/Cleric
Minsc
Mazzy
Keldorn
Solaufein
Imoen
This leaves me with a very well balanced party in my opinion. Five strong melee fighters, two mages, a very good ranged support fighter, all the clerical and druidic spells I'll ever need, some limited (though completely sufficient) thief abilities, Dispel Magic and True Sights in abundance, all of good alignment, all pretty interesting characters with lots of dialogue, and a romance. Finally, I will also get to experience all those extra Solaufein Mod challenges.
But... I just realized I feel uncomfortable about playing a female character and being hit on by a male
I really want a romance though, so I was thinking of switching Solaufein for Aerie and changing my Ranger/Cleric to a Fighter/Druid. This'll give me the added satisfaction of managing with only the original NPC's [img]smile.gif[/img] My party wont be as strong, but it'll still maintain the same balance I sought. I thought about Viconia, but having a single-classed cleric take up a whole spot seems a bit of a waste - One of my main goals was to only have characters who either have one very strong primary use (such as melee fighting or arcane spellcasting), or combines several strong, and not so strong, abilities. I also don't want to have several people who share the same special (minor) uses. If I'm going to have Aerie (who is acceptable since she combines both the minor role of a cleric, and the more useful role of a mage), I would want her clerical abilities to really count, which they wouldn't if my PC was already a far better cleric than she is. For the very same reason, I never considered Jan since his uses are already covered by Imoen.
Having a F/D and Aerie messes up a whole bunch of my plans though, I wont get to experience the Solaufein mod, I'll be a lot weaker going through the Improved Ilyich encounter, I wont be able to use any of the weapons I had planned for him to use, I'll have very odd level-up gaps and quickly fall far behind the rest of my party, and I wont find a fitting voice
Think I'm picky? I probably am, but it just seems so hard to find a party that feels 100% right.
[ 02-04-2003, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]