I Am About to Install But Before I Do Questions On YOUR Party

[Albromor]

As I mentioned on a previous thread I have one week to go before I install IWD and HoW. Hey, the wife and kids are going away for two weeks to visit her mom, and I'll have many uninterupted hours to play! Anyway, I love to hear the makeup of other players party (I'll post later what my initial one is)and the reasoning for their selections. I learn a lot from other people's experiences. I realize that parties are on a per individual preference. In other words, there are no "right" or "wrong" parties. It depends on each individual player. So here are my questions.

1. What was the makeup of your party and why did you choose it as such? Which of your characters did you find indespensible?

2. What would you have done different and why?

3. The Bard and Druid classes in BG1 were very underwhelming. I decided to
avoid these in this game but it seems that there are many of you who see great advantages in these classes in IWD. Why? I would especially like to know if the Bard is worth developing and is it a better class than what was offered in BG1?

4.Is multi-class worth it? It seems there are some heavy hitters I'll be facing and I am wondering if the division of experience between classes will keep my characters too low in obtaining hp, spells, and "to hit" advances that will be critical to survival. Am I wrong on this tentative assumption?

5. For the fun of it I am going to use all six races in my first party. What would YOU do to make it work? What race would get what class, i.e. fighter, thief, cleric, etc. and why.


Thanks ahead of time.

[Leafy]

Some people like to start the game with one or two characters just to get the feel of the game and to make their heros stronger. In fact, some people have played thru with only one character. I currently have a party of 4 and it's worked very nicely. As for your desire to use all 6 races; it's not really necessary. Dwarves and Elves are the only real races that are distinguished. Though gnomes get made fun of in the first town, and a halfling can be cool towards the end of the game when you start sneeking around Lower Dorn.

For the gnome, i'd say the only worthwhile class is the Cleric/Illusionist. it's the only multi-classed specialist mage possible; so that means lots of spells.
I'd also advise a Half-elf Cleric/Ranger; he's the tank. In fact, i played my first "one character game" with this class (second time around, i used a cleric/mage; no problem)
As for the Halfling; make it a fighter Thief so he can actually fight?
umm, dwarven fighter clerics can be powerful as well.
paladins are cool, but they are too gooddie-goodie for me (in some cases, their only option is to kill the evil guy). Rangers are way cool cuz they get an extra attack when not holding a shield.
Bards are actually pretty cool if you have Heart Of Winter installed. For the first time ever, a Bard actually learns new songs as he goes up levels; about 6 in all. songs for immunity to fear, thieving skills bonus, hold person, and the final song regenerates hitpoints and lowers ac by 2 for everyone. Bards also get some extra dialoge options in the game. Mainly in Easthaven, but even later you'll see that a bard is master of the artsy and drunk when talking to characters. their spells don;t progrss so fast, but can be very powerfull at summon spells and things like flame arrow.
Druids are very cool un Heart of Winter as well (though i've yet to play one). they get a whole bunch of shape change abilities, immunity to poisons and fatigue and some special spells.

i've never played a 6 player party. frankly, i can't understand why someone would want to. it's just too many characters to have to move around and keep from dying. the most i'd ever play with is 5. Multi-classing is so cool, but with 6 people in the party, you're almost better off choosing single classes or dual classing a human.

My current party is of 4.
Half-elf Cleric/Ranger
Gnomish Cleric/illusionist
Half-elf Bard
Human thief/fighter

The ranger has never let me down, he's been the tank. The gnome is a spell master who carries a large shield and often casts mirror immage to distract/divert enemy attacks while the fighters flank. He's an evil little gnome, so not as many heal spells; but i like the hurt spells better anyway The thief made it to level 8 when i dualed her to a fighter. that worked pretty well, but she could have stood to have gotten a few more thief levels first The Bard is always singing that song, occasionally summoning goons and once a day she turns into a fighter (tenser's transformation) who rivals my actual fighters. I went for versatility in this party. Between 4 players there are 2 clerics, 2 mages, 2 fighters and a thief.

[This message has been edited by Leafy (edited 07-16-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Leafy (edited 07-16-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Leafy (edited 07-16-2001).]

[marco]

my party consists of 1 dwarf fighter, ranger human, 2 clerics dwarfs, human mage, and an eld thief/mage.

reason? clerics fighters are very nice...., i personally love rangers, dwarfs pluses to magic, gotta love'em, and you can never get enough magic!(wonderful light shows!). and last but not least my thief, magic and theivery go so well together.

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there are 10 thunders, the 7th thunder is of man!

[Larry_OHF]

1. I notice that I tend to end up with three fighters, Two humans, and a dwarf, and one Mage and one cleric. That is true for all of my games, BGI, II, II, and IWD/HoW/ToL.
!
2. The problem I always face is that my Mage really does nothing in battle, as I tend to let my fighters duke it out. My cleric runs around healing, and my mage probably picks his nose, or something.
!
3. Not my cup of tea...
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4. I like Aerie's ability in BGII as a Mage/Cleric. She is the only person that I like as a dual class char. In IceWind Dale, where I was able to make my own people, I avoided Dual classing, because I have not developed a care for it, yet.
!
5. Dwarf = Fighter (you know why)
Elf = Mage (They are magic oriented people)
Gnome or Halfling = thief (They have bonuses, I think...)
Human = Cleric (No special reason,,,but sounds good)
Half-elf = Fighter (I dunno...running outta reasons)


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Devoted member of the Ironworks
Loyal guardian of the OHF
Member of the Ancients' club
Witness of the 4,000th post by Cloudposter
Currently engaged in the Throne of Bhaal expansion set

[This message has been edited by Larry_OHF (edited 07-16-2001).]

[Axterix]

1. When I first got IWD, I went with my standard good party.
Paladin - She's the leader. And paladins rock in the game.
Ranger - Rangers are cool... but in IWD, was a bit underwhelmed by him. That is, until I went to HoF mode and I needed his summoning spells.
Cleric - good aligned, like the rest of the party. Good aligned clerics rock.
Fighter - Snurg, your typical dumb as a post strong fighter stereotype. Grandmastered in Axes and that served him well with the nice variety of axes in the game.
Fighter/thief - a halfling, this combo also worked well, with the helm of the trusted defender and multiclass/dual fighter only set of gloves that granted 18/51 strength.
Conjuror - A nice powerful caster, with one major drawback, no summoning spells (with HoW installed). A non-problem in the standard game, a bit more of one in HoF mode, but thankfully the ranger was there to make up for the lack of summoning. Also, both level 9 spells in the game are summoning ones, which sucks big time.

My current mostly evil party started at level 1 in HoF mode is as follows:
bard - wanted to try them with HoW's improvements.
Druid - wanted to try 'em.
fighter - pure fighter, pure power
fighter - same as above
dwarven fighter/thief - an awesome combo, very powerful, even with being 10 levels behind the fighters (they are 30/30, she's in her low 20's in both) she's the most powerful member of the party. The token good aligned character in the party.
cleric/mage - Mage side rocks, cleric side blows, aside from cures, dispels, buffs, and the like. In HoF mode, with critter resists, evil cleric damage spells don't do much and I'd rather use the significantly better mage side spells. Plus no ress, no raise dead, no heal (though the druid can cast it).

2. Nothing different with my first party. They rocked, so why change 'em? The current party, I'd have started the druid out as a fighter for at least a level or 2. The ability to use more shields combined with druid shapeshifting would make a huge different in Trials of the Luremaster. Second, I would make the cleric/mage neutral, that way I'd at least have raise dead.

3. Bards and druids do suck in IWD. Heart of Winter though changes that. It adds 4 new songs, including one your bard will sing 99% of the time you play. War Chant of Sith. 10% resist to blunt, sharp, pierce. +2 hp per round. And +2 bonus to AC. Same story for druids. HoW added new shapeshifts, new spells, and higher levels. Those things made druids rock. Now, together, they are a bit overpowered in quite a few places, at least once the druid has Stalkers (aka shambling mounds) which are 50% resistant to pierce and slash, 90% resistant to blunt and 100% to fire. They last 8 hours, in game. Bard songs effect summoned critters... so that means 100% blunt, 60% pierce and slash, and the healing to keep them alive to allow you to use their long duration to the max.

4. With the fast rate of xp in IWD, especially if you have HoW, dual classing is typically a more attractive alternative. After level 9, single class characters outdistance multi-class ones pretty quickly. However, much of what you want is up to you. The advantage to multiclass is your characters have more abilities... and while a party of fighter/mages may be lower level, they pack a lot of spell powered offense. However, do keep in mind the relative rarity of mage scrolls in IWD.

5. Well, if it were me making a party of 6 under those conditions, assuming HoW... hmmm...
Human: Fighter dualed to druid. Specialized in scimitars (large swords?). If you dual at level 7, you'll have +1/2 attack. If you dual at 9, you'll have grandmastery and 10d per level. The access to almost all shields plus druid shapeshift resists and and bard in the party...

Half elf: female bard. War Chant of Sith. Never need to mem identify. Being female, bard, and with a nice int/cha opens up just about every dialog option... except a few paladin only, dwarf, or druid ones. Awesome seller/buyer as well. Nice Cha + use of friends spell.

Dwarf: fighter/thief. 17 max dex doesn't hurt thief skills too badly and IWD doesn't require a really excellent thief. Plus bard handles pick pocketing.

Elf: cleric. Good aligned.

Halfling: fighter. Helm of the trusted defender. Items to compensate for low strength.

Gnome: mage. Non-specialist. You'll be sharing spells with the bard, so you could go illusionist if you wanted to, using the bard to scribe spells the gnome cannot.

This provides a pretty well rounded party with thief skills (dwarf, half elf), great spellbased firepower (bard, mage, druid, cleric vs undead), good tanks (halfling, dwarf, human if dualed to druid at level 7 or 9), great summonings (druid ones rock, and you have the mage/bard to cast, plus ability to use items) and decent healing (cleric to start, eventually druid and bard). A weakness is the amount of healing early on, but potions and good use of ranged weapons can help avoid needing a ton of healing spells. Later on, healing will be a non-issue due to having 2 characters that can cast heal (cleric, druid) and the bard's War Chant. The main weakness of the party will be hold type spells... if that hits your cleric, you've got nobody to bail you out. However, a good aligned item exists that can remove paralysis and any cleric scroll can be used by the druid. The druid's ability to use cleric scrolls will also be useful if you need to ress your cleric.