Yet another "Perfect Party mix"

[Klorox]

Originally posted by Kyrvias: Why do you need Keldorn? You could just as easily make your own inquisitor, with a better dex, con, etc.

Either that, or just give Carsomyr to your Bard (assuming you have ToB).

BTW, it's a nice party, and maybe it's perfect for you, but I think others will come up with parties better for themselves.

[Kyrvias]

A bard weilding Carsomyr... oooooohhh...

[el_kalkylus]

They've made it through SoA now. The party members complement each other nicely. Party consists of (after the few small changes I made)

Swashbuckler(15)/mage
Skald
Keldorn
Multiclassed ranger/cleric.
Kensai(13)/thief - dagger+++++, quarterstaff+++.
Totemic druid(17)/fighter

They didn't die once. I chose the fights well. For example, I killed the dragons after underdark this time and the dragons fell very quickly. Not much buffing needed. Now I'll see how they do in ToB.

By the way, I chose to have Keldorn in the party so that I could do some NPC quests. With 6 party members that you create yourself, you cannot leave one of them and come back for him/her later. And Keldorn is not so bad. He uses a bracer of dexterity that I got from the first quest to raise dexterity to 18, and a girdle of giant strength to raise strength to 19. He also uses Carsomyr and wears rings and boots and helmet that makes his resistance pretty nice. He can walk right to a mage without me having to worry much if he'll get killed by magic. It works, so why not?

Two priests are convenient I think. No need to rest as much, and not much need for healing potions either. The party is packed with healing spells and protective spells to make fighting easier. I like protection from fire that the bard and mage can cast, so I have chosen plenty of picks for that spell for example. The offensive magic have almost been non-existant. Sure, they cast a few magic missiles and emotion spells every now and then. I'm guessing ToB will change that.

Time to go kill some vampires.

[el_kalkylus]

Spoiler alert! Spoilers about ToB below:


Now, they've managed to go all the way to Demigorgon and kill him. It took alot of traps and some buffing. The dragons they encountered were pushovers, but I had a few deaths at other places. For example vs some mindflayers and some invisible creatures guarding chests that cast acid. But no problem, I just resurrect and continue. It's a little annoying to pick up all the stuff the dead character had dropped though. My ranger/cleric who is the target of all monsters have died the most.

Mages are not so tough either. Keldorn just walk up to them and dispel their magic with Carsomyr, and the kensai/thief and druid/fighter kill it fast with ranged attack. Keldorn can summon devas too. So if I want, I can make the monsters target anybody but my party members, and comfortably kill them all with ranged attacks. The really tough fights are not so tough when you lay loads of traps. I am a little uncomfortable to sleep all the time before most spells have been used though, so they are not always as powerful as they could be.

My kensai/thief can now wear any items she pleases. This means I have another magekiller at my disposal. I give her staff of cheese when mages are around, but not for free invisibility. Swashbuckler/thief always keeps way back of the line and hurls a +2 dagger or cast a few abidalzims when needed.

They just killed Yagashura the giant and druid/fighter still haven't gotten his druid skills back. I'll have to wait another 5 levels. That could take some time. At least he is excellent with his sling+++++ and sometimes scimitar+++.

[el_kalkylus]

The party got killed in the final battle in ToB. It was a bad mistake. So I had to start the game over from scratch again (Bg2-SoA).

This time I decided to have 5 good ranged attackers and 1 dualwielder. I ended up with this party:

EVIL Kensai(13)/Mage - Main character
Dualwielding Katana, Longsword and Scimitar. No ranged attacks. By taking the evil route, his stats and hp increases to make him able to take more hits and deal more damage. Natural super roll:
Str 18/35
Dex 18
Con 18
Int 18
Wis 16
Cha 3

EVIL Kensai(9)/Mage
Staying in the back throwing a +3 knife from underdark and casting spells.

GOOD Half-elf Ranger/Cleric
Uses sling and flail mostly. She helped the main character to block the monsters from reaching the rest of the party at times.

NEUTRAL Half-orc Fighter/Thief
Uses longbow or shortbow and staff of magi. Does not backstab much since I don't want to put him in the middle of the battle.

EVIL Dwarven Kensai
Hammer-thrower. He almost always hits its targets and do alot of damage. Highly useful and hardly ever engages in melee combat.

NPC - Keldorn
Mainly because of his true sight ability and that he can use Carsomyr. He is also very useful, especially versus mages.

With this party I finished both SoA and ToB without any reloads. It took some patience, but what I liked the most about this party was that it was so smooth to play with. All monsters attack the main character and the ranger/cleric while the rest stay back and do alot of damage with their ranged weapons, especially the pure Kensai. I didn't need to buff my ranged attackers. They would not become the targets anyway, so I only had 2 characters to cast protective magic on (main char and cleric/ranger), at least most of the times. I did not use Shadowkeeper at all or any other cheats. I don't think I used any exploits either, perhaps just a little. So I am happy I finally made it through without any deaths or reloads. And I think this mixture of party member really is the best I've ever had, which works in practice and theory.

[Andraste]

I can't help feeling that your party is far too magic light and kensai heavy.

For a balanced party, I'd go for something like

Ranger/Cleric - finesse tank
Berserker - non-finesse tank
Sorcerer - god of magic
Cleric/Mage - god of cheese
Fighter/thief - scout and mage-splatterer
Skuld - to give everyone else the benefits of a nice song-song while they're fighting

[el_kalkylus]

Andraste, The problem I have with alot of magic in the party is that it takes so long to choose spells, to scribe scrolls, and to finally cast them. I've been running a magic heavy party before, and it was fun at first, but now I've played the game so much that I just wanted to get through it as fast as possible (real time) with as much power as possible, and without dying (on highest difficulty level).

I don't know about magic light though. I think my party had enough magic for every situation. In ToB, they also get the special ability 'greater whirlwind'. I had 4 fighter types who could cast greater whirlwind and beat on the enemies, so you can imagine the damage they do. Especially the dwarven kensai was a good damage dealer.

Here is is statistics from my final save in ToB:
Main char (dualwielder) - 495 kills
Ranger/Cleric - 414 kills
Kensai(9)/Mage - 379 kills
Fighter/Thief - 254 kills
Kensai - 425 kills
Keldorn - 173 kills

My rangers were not so weak that they couldn't handle melee range if such situations appeared, especially since the monsters were already half dead once they got there. I let all ranged attackers attack one monster at a time. It was almost like pressing Ctrl-y (instant kill) on each monsters when I chose my targets.

[Andraste]

Mage/Cleric -> Time stop -> harm (remember it's auto strike) -> hit with anything. You don't get a lot quicker.

[el_kalkylus]

But Mage/cleric doesn't have endless supply of timestop. Besides, my mages can also cast timestop and hit dragons. Abazigal, the dragon form, died by one timestop and a breach spell and blackrazor for example. Quick and easy.

[True_Moose]

You mentioned under your Fighter/Thief that he used longbows and short bows. By the end of the game, which was being used more? Clearly short bows in SoA have the advantage, but I'll admit to never having really taken a good look at the long bows available in the late stages.