Pls comment on my party.

[Sonic]

Monk/thief is a great Fight/Thief class.It got some awesom imunetis and mage res+alot more.

[Black Baron]

My suggestion is another one completely. Drop the thief and add another spell caster. And drop one tank. Barbarian preferably.
Sounds crazy? It is not (tested and verified). Your party is of 5 persons.
3 spell casters= LOADS of damage. My suggestion is another sorcerer.
Get him walking always with mirror image and stoneskin, and all the traps will be known.
One cleric and one tank-paladin.
In HoF- untested.
spoilers


There is one weapon pladain usage only. It is gooooood.

[Magness]

Originally posted by Black Baron: My suggestion is another one completely. Drop the thief and add another spell caster. And drop one tank. Barbarian preferably. Sounds crazy? It is not (tested and verified). Your party is of 5 persons. 3 spell casters= LOADS of damage. My suggestion is another sorcerer. Get him walking always with mirror image and stoneskin, and all the traps will be known. One cleric and one tank-paladin. In HoF- untested.

Yawn. Such spellcaster-heavy parties are a bore. I always prefer a well-balanced party over any alternative. Balanced between physical and spellcasting, balanced between melee and ranged, balanced between brute force and stealth. I like having lots of options.


Hayashi, your party is a nice one with more than enough spellcasting. Two mages and a cleric is more than enough spellcasting for any party.

[Hayashi]

Thank you for all suggestions.

Magness
I prefer well-balanced parties too (just my style of play).

Next issue would be character creation, & skills/feats to take.

What would be critical stats for the various classes?
My take:

STR - high STR only needed for fighter & barb (for damage bonus, carrying capacity)
DEX - I think I'll set it at ~12 for all party members except for ranger/rogue where it will be set high, and for weaker party members (less hps, ie wiz, sorc) it will be ~14 or so.
CON - As high as possible for all chars, since it affects how many hps they gan when they level up.
WIS - A must for cleric & ranger/rogue (although for the latter I won't be planning on using him/her even as a secondary spellcaster), I think the rest can get by with ave/low stats (10 or less)
CHA - High CHA for sorc & mid-high (say, 15/16?) for cleric. Everyone else's CHA stats gets gutted for points to be placed in other stats
INT - High WIS for wiz, rogue (does a rouge/ranger need WIS), every one else gets ave or low.

BTW, which stats affect saving throws? Are they critical in the game, or can the party get by with low stats (say, low INT for fighters)?

[Magness]

Stats:

STR: high for the barb and fighter (duh.) I suggest a medium STR for the ranger/rogue and cleric.


DEX: Max out the DEX for the R/R. I wouldn't worry overly much about a 10 or 12 DEX for the mages. Their best defenses will be magical. And there's nothing wrong with a DEX of 10 for a cleric or a tank, although a DEX of 12 will be a bit better.

CON: As much as can be spared. CON bonus adds to HP for all characters at every level up. It is also used as the basis for spellcasters' Concentration rolls.

INT: Obviously needed to be maxed out for the wizard. An INT of 14 is excellent for a rogue. Just enough for plenty of skill points/level.

WIS: Obviously needs to be maxed out for the cleric. Try to keep it at 10 for every other character.

CHA: Obviously the Sorceror will need a maxed out CHA. You don't need to increase your cleric's CHA. There aren't enough undead in the game to make having an uber powerful turn undead ability a necessity.

Fort save is CON based
Will save is WIS based
Reflex save is DEX based

Yes, a fighter or a barb can get by with a lowish INT. Also, since you have a wizard in your party, your sorceror doesn't need a great INT. You don't need to have both mages taking all of the arcane related skills.


Skills: Here are some basic suggestions

Fighter: Intimidate
Barbarian: Intimidate, and some Wilderness Lore
Cleric: Concentration, Spellcraft
Sorceror: Diplomacy, Concentration, Spellcraft
Wizard: Concentration, Alchemy, Knowledge Arcana, Spellcraft
Ranger/Rogue: Hide, Move Silently, Disable Device, Open Locks, Search

[Black Baron]

The question is- do you want power gaming? If yes-destroy charisma for every one, excluding sorcerer, paladin and maybe cleric. It will make your charachters powerfull...brutes, that do not allow poor grandma to cross the street.
Fighters can work well with only 3 intelligense too. They do not need anything anyway.
Max strength and constitution wherever you can. max dex for rogue and max int for wizard, etc. IMPORTANT-sorcerer also needs high int. A 16 will do the trick or even 14. but no lower please. His magic boosting skills that he chooses are a blessing.

[motub]

Originally posted by ZFR: Just one thing: with sorcerer as your spokesperson it means he'll be always in front. thats why I always have tanks as my spokespersons.... unless you know some way to solve this i.e keep weak spokesperson not in the frontlines in the battles...

Yes. Drag the character portrait of the sorceror to the front or back as needed. There's no real reason to have the weak "negotiator" at the front of the party all the time.

Turn off scripts when walking around dungeons. Scout areas first with your rogue so you have a sense of what kind of enemies are in the area (as soon as you see somebody, pause and move your mouse around to see if any of the visible enemies have a "talk" cursor, then unpause and get the heck out of there before anyone sees you). Get used to selecting individual characters and moving them manually to good/safe positions, while you move other characters into blocking positions, or other characters cast blocking spells-- basically set your party in fighting formation out of range, send the "talker" forward alone, then make them run to the back of the party when the fight starts, leading the enemies right to your waiting group of destroyers. And never forget to PAUSE the very second that you get control back after the encounter, so you can scope out what's going on in the area and plan appropriately.

It's not as if you don't (usually) know when you're going to need to speak to someone, and that is usually in town where there are no battles (stores, town Fed-Ex quests). Even in town, you usually have a clue if someone you need to talk to is going to become an enemy when you do so.

Now, admittedly, there are several battles where there will be a "speaking" encounter beforehand (or during), many of which include chances for extra XP, a chance to get more information, or to change the course of battle (convince an enemy to go away, for instance). A lot of the time, you know when this is going to happen as well, since many of the "boss-type" characters you can speak to are behind locked doors, or a cutscene reveals their position, so you have a general idea where they are going to be, and can set your "negotiator" to the front before entering the area.

There are a couple of speaking encounters that catch one "off-guard" (thinking most notably of the Goblin Warrens). Since I advise saving once you've cleared an area (even an area so small as a single room or stretch of hallway), this is not such a problem, since if my scout then takes two steps and runs into a speaking encounter with her CHA of 8 (-1), it's easy enough to reload and then have the charming character take those two steps instead.

Alternatively, you could always have a paladin in your party-- good tank, and doesn't need to be moved to another position in the formation except for accepting quest rewards, which is again going to happen in "safe" areas, so it's not stressful to remember to do. Actually, I use a paladin(3)/barbarian(x) for this, though my main "negotiator" is my wizard-- paladins naturally have a charisma bonus, and some diplomacy (though they're too honest to bluff), and barbarians are very intimidating. So even though my ranger(4)/wizard(x) is overall a better talker, the pally/barb does OK if I get caught off guard. Plus being a paladin and an Aasimar can get some conversation options that the ranger doesn't get-- though, depending on the encounter, sometimes the ranger (being a devotee of nature, and evil) sometimes gets options that the pally doesn't. Generally, I find the advice given by the game to be good-- "give more than one character a few ranks in the Diplomacy, Bluff and Intimidate skills...".

[Magness]

Originally posted by Black Baron: The question is- do you want power gaming? If yes-destroy charisma for every one, excluding sorcerer, paladin and maybe cleric. It will make your charachters powerfull...brutes, that do not allow poor grandma to cross the street. Fighters can work well with only 3 intelligense too. They do not need anything anyway. Max strength and constitution wherever you can. max dex for rogue and max int for wizard, etc. IMPORTANT-sorcerer also needs high int. A 16 will do the trick or even 14. but no lower please. His magic boosting skills that he chooses are a blessing.

Black Baron, a sorceror on really needs a high INT is he is the only mage ina party. However, my experience is that in a party with a wizard AND a sorc, the wizard is more than capable of handling the arcane skills. The only skills that a wizard-supported sorceror than needs to worry about are Concentration, Spellcraft, and perhaps, Diplomacy. The wizzy can handle the Alchemy and Knowledge Arcana.


Excessive power gaming is not necessary to beat the game. I always discourage it. All that excessive power gaming (i.e. driving fighter INT's down to 3 and CHA's down to 3) is make the game unbalanced and overly easy.

I always try to create characters that have realistic levels of INT and CHA. And I can truthfully say that I've never found that my characters' stats were too low to be successful.

[Magness]

motub, nice post.

A couple of points. You mention a that you've used a paladin/barbarian. You must be using the Weimur Ease of Use mod that eliminates class limitations, because paladin/barb is an otherwise illegal class combo (pallys are LG and barbs must be non-lawful). That said, paladins are indeed excellent lead characters for nearly every conversation except those that collect a reward.

I've played a couple of parties with both a paladin in the lead position and a sorc that would handle the reward converstations and the stores. BTW, bards are great talkers, cuz they have both a good CHA (tho not as high as a great sorc) and a good selection of talking skills. Also, if you really want to get cute, cast an Eagle's Splendor on your talker prior to any important converstation to boost CHA.

[motub]

Yeah, you're right, I am using the Weimer E-o-U mod. I forgot to say so, so thanks for pointing it out. My pally/barb is Chaotic Good (which is why she couldn't hack the Paladin gig-- too independent of thought).

Actually, I'm using this mod as a "cheat" in order to roleplay-- my four characters are almost all half-breeds (an Aasimar, Tiefling and Half-Elf, plus a Human), and they were brought together by the charismatic Human Ranger/Wizard-- whose beloved half-sister was a half-breed, and is now dead because of it-- who has organized them into a sort of Half-Breed support group to prevent such tragedies happening again. This is the bond that allows the characters of varying alignments to co-exist. This is also why they're all multiclassed, because of the confusion and lack of direction they have suffered as outsiders from both halves of their various cultures. Together, they have found a direction, support, and acceptance of their odd lifestyle.

It's too small a party to afford triple-classing anyone as a bard, though, and my backstory doesn't give me a way to make it worthwhile without having an additional character. I do miss having a bard, however (I loved them in IWD, but then again, there you got a better discount than a measly 5% in stores), so maybe next time through I'll have a 5 character party, or come up with a whole different scheme for 4 characters (or less ). I really really want to see how this "War Chant of The Sith" plays out for a party.