Party Opinions Please

[MichaelLi]

Hello everyone,

I have installed IWD with HoW/TotL, played with insane difficulty till near the end of Chapter 2, then I searched on the web and found this fabulous forum full of outstanding discussions, and I have decided to start all over with a newly created party.

Align__ | Race_ | Class_____ | Str__ | Dex| Con| Int| Wis| Cha| Weapon
-------+-------+------------+-------+---+----+---+----+---+------------------
LGood | Human | Paladin____ | 18/83 | 18 | 18 | 3_ | 17 | 18 | Bow++ LSword++
LGood | Dwarf_ | Fighter____ | 18/92 | 17 | 19 | 6_ | 18 | 2_ | Bow++ Axe++
TrueN | Human | Fighter____ | 18/92 | 18 | 18 | 4_ | 18 | 18 | Mis++ LSword++
LGood | Human | Fighter____ | 18/94 | 18 | 18 | 3_ | 18 | 3_ | Mis++ Mace++
NGood | Human | Bard______ | 18___ | 18 | 16 | 13 | 10 | 15 | Bow+ LSword+
NGood | H-Elf__ | Mage/Thief | 18___ | 18 | 18 | 18 | 16 | 3_ | Bow+ Dagger+

I decide to dual the true neutral fighter to druid and the lawful good fighter to cleric. I hope I can dual both of them at level 9. If I am to play all the way through with insane difficulty, and then go on to HoF mode, would this party work well?

I am anxious to hear from your opinions. Did I distribute all the abilities correctly? Is there anything that should be improved? Any kind of suggestion would be great.

One last question: during character creation, what two spells should I start the mage with? I have chosen identify and magic missiles though.

[Stratos]

Welcome to Ironworksforum, MichaelLi!

Sounds good, but you have no one to use Great Swords. Perhaps you should let the Paladin get proficiency in this. Some one with a proficiency in crossbow might also be a good idea, otherwise you'd miss out on all the good crossbows in the game.

What spell to start with? I'd rather go with protective spells such as Shield and Mage Armour instead of Identify, you don't need Identify with a Bard in your party.

[ 08-14-2004, 03:23 PM: Message edited by: Stratos ]

[Aerich]

Welcome, MichaelLi!

Party looks good. It will do well on insane/HoF. The hardest part will be at the beginning (because of lack of healing), but once you dual over and/or your bard gains the War Chant, you will be flying high.

One thing I would have done is give your bard a better Int; you don't need 18 Str, as the bard is probably your 5th melee option, at least until you dual over the two fighters. He is at best the third option, though. A 13 Int will greatly restrict the number of spells you can learn. I know that your bard isn't your primary spells option and you may spend the majority of his memorization slots on a few spells, but I would personally have the bard's int at least up to 15-16. It's easier to learn spells, and Int affects a bard's chance to identify, so the higher, the better.

Additionally, you may wish to switch up your alignments a little more. There's a decent amount of evil-only items, and a few that can't be used by lawful characters. It won't cripple you to leave your alignments the way they are, though.

I second Stratos' advice; you should have someone able to use great swords, and at least one who can use crossbows. Don't bother editing/remaking your party to do that, just take those proficiencies as you level up. You may also want more blunt weapon proficiencies, as there are lots of skeletal undead (who take only half damage from slashing, piercing and missile attacks). Some of the magical blunt weapons also have a chance to stun, which can be enormously helpful.

Again, as Stratos said, you don't need to take identify right at the start. Magic will be in short supply for a while, and a bard is good enough to identify the majority of what you pick up. You can also get Identify from spell scrolls.

Re: first level spells - it depends what you envision your mage doing. Stratos suggested Shield and Armor, but I don't think both of those are necessary. Armor is good, because it lasts a long time. If you don't expose your mage/thief to missile fire, you shouldn't need Shield. You can get that spell later. Magic missile is good, but so is Chromatic Orb. An overlooked spell is Grease. It's very helpful in the early game against tough melee fighters like Ogres and Yeti. It slows them down so you can kill them with just missiles - saves your party a lot of damage, especially on Insane.

I would go with Grease and Magic Missile (there's a Chromatic Orb scroll in Easthaven, so you don't need to choose it). You could also choose Armor, Shield, or Protection from Evil (the mage version stacks with a paladin's innate form). I would steer away from Burning Hands and Shocking Grasp. You have four excellent tanks, and these two spells require the vulnerable caster to get very close to the targets. You don't need to.

[ 08-14-2004, 09:22 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]

[MichaelLi]

Thanks to Stratos and Aerich for the in-depth suggestions and the warm welcome! I will let my paladin learn maces, great swords and crossbows when he levels up, and I will let the dwarf fighter learn maces too. From what I've seen in the discussions before, there are not much good maces around, but surely some very good morning stars that can stun enemies, or have extra number of attacks.

Speaking of extra number of attacks, how does the weapon speed works with the extra number of attacks? In the manual, it says:

"Speed factors are numbers between 1 and 10 (indicating 1/10 of a round and 10/10ths of a round respectively for a character that can attack once per round with a weapon). The lower the speed factor, the earlier you'll attack in the round."

Say if I have a Level 9 fighter with grandmaster proficiency with short swords, and he is holding a short sword of speed factor 2. Then the number of attacks would be 3. Does that mean the fighter will attack 3 times per round, at 2/10th, 4/10th, and 6/10th of the round? Am I imagining this correctly? If so, say I have a weapon that has speed factor of 6, it does not seem possible to have more than one attack in a round. Will the second attack start at the 2/10th of the next round? Please help me out of this.

Back to my party... From Aerich's suggestion, I should increase my bard's Int... It seems that for a bard, Int & Dex & Con are important, while Cha are the least important when I already have someone else leading the party. What are left is Str and Wis. Which is less important? Is Wis only for saving throws against mind spells? If so, do anyone knows the formula? It's missing in the manual's ability table. Will a low Wis matters a lot? Could I increase my bard's Int by lowering Wis instead of lowering Str? Thanks in advance.

[Neo the Warrior Cat]

Leave the bard's wisdom at ten to avoid a lore penalty of -10 lore. Your best bet would be to move 2-3 points of strength to Int. You really don't want your bard in close combat, especially on Insane mode.

[Stratos]

I second what Neo said, but leave your strength at 15 at least, this allows you to use composite longbows. This plus a high dexterity plus the two attacks per round a bow gives you makes Bard fairly good archers.

[Stratos]

The speed factor of a weapon only affect how early each round you make an attack, if I remember the rules correctly. This is good, of course, as it allows you to harm or possibly kill the enemy before gets to attack you, but quick weapons tend to do less damage than slow ones.

[MichaelLi]

Thanks to Neo and Stratos for the advice! I totally forgot Wis is related to lore. And thanks for the Str 15 requirement reminder. I rerolled my bard and got a Str 15 Dex 18 Con 16 Int 18 Wis 10 Cha 15.

[Spiff]

I like your party, it looks pretty solid. My only suggestions would be to take the flail proficiency rather than the mace proficiency and to think about dualing to cleric and druid later than level 9.

Having a couple people with blunt weapons really helped me a lot in a couple of areas. It could be luck with the random drops, but I havn't found much in the way of good maces but I've discovered an abundance of great flails.

I waited untill 13 to dual my fighter and am happier for doing it. I never felt like he was short on cleric spells even though I waited. The extra fighting ability the characters get will help out for the rest of the game. Playing with the expansion and on insane will give you plenty of experience to quickly level up to cleric and druid 14.

[Roboghost]

Bard: If you import the canned "+" Bard, notice their WIS is 13--there is an instrument that will require WIS of 13 or greater to use it (HoW.)


My current party:

Paladin 18/73 18 18 10 18 18 -- Tank 1
Dwarf Fighter 18/00 17 19 10 12 9 -- Tank 2
Fighter/Druid (multi) 15 18 18 8 18 17
Cleric/Ranger (multi) 13 18 18 10 18 18 -- Charisma
Halfling Fighter/Thief 17 19 18 17 10 12 -- Thief/Bow
Elf Mage 18 19 16 18 11 13

I made my Priests STR challenged--they have to rely on a lesser spell selection at games' start. They will get 18/00 STR later in HoW and TotL. My Pally will get the 19 STR item in IWD. My Pally was a monster roll--too bad my STR didn't go higher--I'll have to keep on Strength spell until I get me that belt.

This gives you just about everything except a Bard. You can always ditch the Mage for a Bard...but I just love those 9th level Summons' a Mage can call on later!