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[Irie word of Jah]

Hi, I just purcahased IW2 and I was curious as to what the best party of three would be? I finished Icewind dale but the new rules are making me unsure of what a decent party would be. I dont wanna miss out on any good skills that would be kickass at higher levels. any ideas would be great!!! Thanx!!

[Bloodtitan]

welcome to the boards.
are you sure your first party should be three chars only ? this has to be a lot of micromanagement then and you need very very powerful chars. you cannot escape the min/max stats meaning your party will have some stats = 3, some = 20.
i assure you a party of 4 is difficult enough and i do not think you can beat the game with 3. this will be too much multiclassing. in 3E there are new things like features and you will miss some vital if you create 3 jackofallmasterofnone chars.

[Xen]

Welcome to IWF [img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img]

I agree with Bloodtitan. Have a party of 4 or 5.

[J'aran]

But if you really want a party of three, I suggest Fighter + Cleric + Wizard.

The Fighter could be substituted with a Paladin or possibly a Fighter/Paladin-multiclass for a bit of extra Divine spellpower. For a pure Fighter I suggest a Dwarf or Half-Orc, for Paladin or Fighter/Paladin an Aasimar is best. Also, take only four levels of Fighter for that combo, so you can get the Weapon Specialization. After that, Fighter-levels are practically useless.

For a Cleric, a Morninglord of Lathander or a Stormwhatsit of Talos are quite good in such a small party because they get more offensive spells than other types of Cleric. Otherwise, go with a Painbearer of Ilmater (for extra defensive spells) or a Silverstar of Selune (extra summoning spells). Again, Aasimar is good becuse of their bonus to Wisdom, but really any race will make acceptable Clerics.

For the last one, an Arcane caster, I choose Wizard over Sorceror because while the latter packs more firepower, the former is more versatile, and I have this feeling that versatility could be of great use in such a small party. Plus, Wizards get tons of Skill Points because of their high Intelligence, so you could easily spend some of those on skills like Disable Device (for disarming traps) and other Rogue-like skills, making a real Rogue obsolete.

Of course, this is my take on the matter, and others might make different choices for different reasons.

[Irie word of Jah]

Thanx alot, i'll try that. I was thinking monk, cleric/mage, thief. Would that work?

[Luvian]

Originally posted by Bloodtitan: welcome to the boards. are you sure your first party should be three chars only ? this has to be a lot of micromanagement then and you need very very powerful chars. you cannot escape the min/max stats meaning your party will have some stats = 3, some = 20. i assure you a party of 4 is difficult enough and i do not think you can beat the game with 3. this will be too much multiclassing. in 3E there are new things like features and you will miss some vital if you create 3 jackofallmasterofnone chars.

I completd the game with only 2 characters, and I certainly didn't have to min/max.

[Reeka]

If you do a monk, put everything you can on wisdom so you will get a good AC---you will need it.

[J'aran]

Originally posted by Irie word of Jah: Thanx alot, i'll try that. I was thinking monk, cleric/mage, thief. Would that work?

Yea, pretty much any combination can work, with the right tactics. I scetched the party that would IMO be the easiest to play, but anything goes. Though note that with a Cleric/Mage-multiclass you would lose out on the 9th level spells for both classes, and probably the 8th as well. Assuming you level him up 50-50 of course.

[Bloodtitan]

Luvian,
do you consider finish as normal mode done or did you play HoF too ?

[Xen]

I assume that he has done it in normal mode becuase in HoF well... it hink it is to hard.
But if he has done it then kudos to him.