Newbie Party and Experience Question

[Aerich]

Originally posted by Klorox: I understand how the CON bonus works, Aerich. I also understand that a 19 CON should grant +2 HP on Thief level-ups, and +3 on Fighter level-up for a multiclassed Fighter/Thief. I say "should" because that's how it works in P&P D&D.

So often what should be, ain't.

Seefree, if you determine that one of your mods changes the rounding-down of the HP bonus, tell me which one; I could use it. [img]smile.gif[/img] Hmm - anybody know if this was a change with HoW? It strikes me that the last time I used a mc dwarf with 19 Con, I was probably still HoW-less.

At first level, the HP calculation for a dwarven F/T is (10 + 6)/2 + 5; 13 is normal.

Do you have a particular reason for doing the game with 3 characters? I wouldn't recommend it for your first time through the game unless you have major experience playing BG or the like. 6 is fun (my preference), but 4 is a good balance between micromanagement and power.

[ 01-17-2006, 10:24 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]

[seefree22]

I will see if I can identify the mod, but I don't think that way you calculated it is how it should be, because it applies the +5 bonus to the thief levels equally with the fighter levels. Thief bonus should be capped at +2. So it should be:
((10+5)+(6+2))/2 = 11.5 (12 rounded up).
I have played a lot of the BG series, and without specific NPC storyline value, I don't think playing all the classes means as much to me. I would take a bard, but for some reason I tried a party with it and the whole standing there and playing a song at times didn't do it for me. And the cheesy regenerate when not in battle Sith song, was, well, too cheesy for me. I will miss the beserkers, but I will have plenty of other summons. Seems like the only other thing I will really miss is the Pale Justice sword (which "pales" in comparison to its BG equivalent) and watching the druid elemental change (which results in nice damage but crappy Ac and no spells). Too bad there isn't Ironskins for my R/C!

[ 01-18-2006, 12:23 AM: Message edited by: seefree22 ]

[Aerich]

I would miss early access to Static Charge, Spike Growth, and Entangle.

AFAIK, the equation I showed is only used for the start. The equation you showed is the one used for subsequent level ups, except the 0.5 is rounded down.

If you don't want a bard or a pally but want more power, add a pure fighter. IWD is more battle-heavy than BG, and having two or three dedicated tanks on normal level is not overkill. Every map swarms with enemies. Your R/C, F/M, F/T combination lacks a pure grunt - the R/C should not use a shield because of the way two-hand fighting is implemented, the F/M won't be durable until it gets stoneskin, and the F/T won't have the spell buffs.

A druid would also go well, as the R/C and F/M won't get access to any summons worth having (other than undead) for a while. Mages really don't get any good summons until spell level 5 - goblin elites for a lvl 4 spell?? Another mage wouldn't be bad either, as most good spells have two copies.

[seefree22]

Originally posted by Aerich: Hi seefree, welcome to the forum [img]graemlins/happywave.gif[/img] If playing without HoW and TotL, you can expect a little over 7 million xp total for the entire game - that works out to about lvl 12 in a 6 character party or about lvl 15 in a 4 character party. If playing with HoW and TotL, expect about 13 million total xp. With 6, average level will be in the mid-to-high teens, with 4, average level will be about 20. These average levels are based on "average" single-class characters, not bards and single-classed thieves which gain levels at a faster rate than other classes. Multiclasses and medium-to-high level dual classes will be approximately 2-3 levels below the ones listed.

I've been playing a little while with this party and I can report that for multiclass fighters, their constitution bonus gets applied to both classes for every level! And this was after removing all mods.

Also, am not overawed by playing with a small party as much as I thought. I'm thinking of restarting. Just wanted to follow up on the claim that with HOW and TotL the total exp is around 13 million on normal without resting all the time just to spawn extra encounters. On another forum I read 15 million. I know it is nit-picky, but anyone care to contribute their final exp amounts? I am anal enoughto analyzing how classes will progress throughout the game by calculate out the difference. Between 13 and 15 million determines if a mage in a 5 memeber party ever gets 9th level spells or a F/C gets 7th level spells. That sort of thing.

So anyone else have different final totals? Thanks!

[Aerich]

13 million was a low estimate. I completed my last game on Insane with 6 characters, and each one received roughly 4.6 million, I think. Divide by 2 for the difficulty modifier, multiply by 6 for the number of characters, and you get 13.8 million.

Don't bank on that number too much, as it is easy to miss a bit of dialogue XP here and there, and I believe Insane adds monsters beyond what you would get on normal. I can't remember if I "camped" at all to take out monster spawns, and if I did the "real" xp total also would be a little lower.

If you play on Hard, you'd get about 20 million xp, which should alleviate any concerns you have about character levels. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[NobleNick]

Originally posted by seefree22: ...Also, am not overawed by playing with a small party as much as I thought. I'm thinking of restarting. Just wanted to follow up on the claim that with HOW and TotL the total exp is around 13 million on normal without resting all the time just to spawn extra encounters. On another forum I read 15 million. I know it is nit-picky, but anyone care to contribute their final exp amounts?...

seefree22,

I don't think this is what you asked for, but this is what I got. The below are hard numbers for a party doing only light camping (i.e., to regain spells and health). Add in the quest XP for previous areas that can only be fulfilled with items from DD/WT/LDD and you are up to about 4.1M TOTAL plus other LDD-through-the-end-of-the-game expo. This makes the 7M that Aerich quoted, for IWD only, look quite reasonable.

Sorry, I don't have anything exact for the expansions. I can tell you that 13M total looks very reasonable; and it is extremely easy to grow that number by a few million with only light camping at critical areas in the expansions: I have a party near the end of TotLM with **AT LEAST** 15M; so expect at least 20M by end of game (including IWD and expansions). I have camped maybe 3M worth with that party.

------------------------------------------------
Normal difficulty, Full party, HoW installed, but no HoF mode, VERY light camping, quest XP included.

125K TOTAL XP (about 21K per character) at the end of VoS
155K TOTAL XP (about 26K per character) at end of ToFG
360K TOTAL XP (about 60K per character) at end of DE2
650K TOTAL XP (about 110K per character) at end of DE
1.3M TOTAL XP (about 220K per character) at end of SH
1.9M TOTAL XP (about 325K per character) at end of DD (plus 120K for Ba_of_PuWa to SH)
3.5M TOTAL XP (about 580K per character) at end of WT (plus 120K for Ba_of_PuWa & 55K for Eva_Jour to SH)
------------------------------------------------

The only thing that I saw lacking from your 4-character party was a Cleric.

Another thing I noticed was that your party choice of 3 MC/DC characters uses the same amount of XP to advance as a party of 6 SC characters. The 6 character party will have slightly more total HP and about twice the cargo carrying capacity of the 3 member party. Not to mention that a 6 member party can take 6 simultaneous actions per round in a fight, versus 3.

Personally, I like to take a full party with 4 or 5 of the characters being MC or DC. This is power play, which you have said you don't necessarily care for. My point is that you can do anything you want and not worry about XP limitations, because the expansions give you all the XP you need to build a full set of very powerful characters. I think 15M is a good planning number: You might come in under that if you don't do quests and/or are TRYING to minimize camping to come in with a low XP number (why would one do that? Maybe Midget Gems knows the answer.... ).

Hope that helped.

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


[ 01-30-2006, 11:02 AM: Message edited by: NobleNick ]