Party help......

[AngelofDeath]

I know this probably has been done before, but I am looking for the "best" party.

I just bought the whole Kit and Kaboodle, and was wondering if anyone could help me out.

I was thinking:

Male Ranger half-elf
Male Human Wizard
Male Human Paladin
Male Dwarf Fighter
Male Halfling theif
Female Cleric or Druid

How does that sound, any suggestions? Any plusses with having mixed gender, all male, all female? I really don't like bards, sorry, to me they are hard to play.

Thanks,

[Lymond]

AngelofDeath,

Your party looks fine. It's kind of vanilla, though. I would explore multi or dual class a bit. I created a multi class ranger/cleric that had a natural enemy of skeletons and she was very useful throughout the game. The next game I start, I plan to dual class almost all my characters, just to see how they develop. Also, you really should get that bard in there, even though you find them hard to play. It sounds like you just bought IWD, in which case you are thinking of them like the bards in other games. I haven't played other bards, but for a party with that many fighters, the bards are powerful. Also, with some planning, you may be able to eliminate the theif by using the bard and/or your wizard.

In terms of gender, my last party was all females and those girls kicked butt. In terms of ability, it makes no difference, but all the different female voices added a little variety.

Lymond

[AngelofDeath]

Thanks, I've been reading up and am going to start over, and include a bard. Any opinions on what level to dual class?

Yes It was just purchased.....

Thanks again for the help

[NobleNick]

AngelofDeath,

Most people on this forum, I think, would agree that Bards and Druids are mediocre in IWD, if you do not have the HoW expansion. *HOWEVER* when you install HoW, the game is rebalanced. A MAJOR part of the rebalancing included giving a lot more capabilities to the Druid and Bard, to address the former shortcomings of these characters. The Bard, especially, made out like a bandit in the rebalance.

I have a Bard and Fighter/Druid, in one of my parties that is in TotLM, now. The Bard has, among other songs, War Chant of the Sith (Yea!); some really neat spells, including Aganazzar's scorcher, lightning bolt, skull trap, monster summoning, and fireball. I bought her the Bardic Horn of Vahalla, so we also get treated to a berserker party about once a day. She is definitely a worthy member of a large party (where lots of fighter-types are available to benefit from her songs).

I have not found the Bard hard to play, in fact it is quite the opposite: After she gets War Chant, all she does is sing! O.K., and do the mage-thing occasionally, and let the berserkers out of the bag once a day. She has some excellent weapons... which she NEVER uses. Very powerful support character if your party packs a lot of Fighter-types)

Are you talking about starting a party for IWD/HoW? Heh, heh, then you REALLY opened a can of worms! EVERYONE has advice on that! Let me get my two cents in, first. I am running two parallel games, so that I can cover most of the available classes. I, lean towards magic users AND Fighters AND dc (dc = dual class, mc = multi-class). I think a great full party (6 members) would be:

(When two options for a slot are given, my personal preference is listed first. If the first pick in each slot is chosen, EVERY member has magic spells or magic-like abilities, and most also get VERY respectable fighter abilities and "fighter-like" hit point stats.

1. Paladin

2. dc Fighter/Druid (Get AT LEAST to fighter level 9 before dc. Level
. . . 12 to 13 is preferable if you are doing HoW/TotLM areas or HoF mode.)

3. dc Fighter/Specialist Invoker (Again, get AT LEAST to fighter 9.)

4. dc Cleric/Fighter OR Cleric/Ranger (I forget the sweet spots for
. . . dualing over a Cleric; but would go AT LEAST to point of
. . . acquiring "Raise Dead" spell.)

5. mc Thief/Specialist Illusionist (race = Gnome) OR mc Thief/Fighter OR dc
. . . Fighter/Thief

6. Bard OR a 2nd dc Fighter/Specialist Mage. You know the drill, by now:
. . . AT LEAST fighter level 9. I think a Bard is better choic here.

O.K., now that I've got all that off my chest, let's look at your party. Gender makes no difference, but race does: All mc need to be non-human and all dc need to be human. Infravision is for select races like Dwarf and Gnome (and you want infravision in your party). Hmmm... you are taking these guys into HoW, right?

Male Ranger half-elf How about sprucing this guy up as a Cleric(12)/Ranger dc

Male Human Wizard
I always start Mages out as Fighters --> dc Fighter(9)/Illusionist (You can go without a Mage for a while if you have the Bard, which you said you were going to do. Be very careful about specializing. An Illusionist is one of the very few good choices for a party sporting only one full mage, since she has access to the 3 most useful schools: Evocation, Conjuring and Illusion.)

Male Human Paladin Good. Keep him (unless you want to trade him in to try out a dc Fighter(9)/Druid).

Male Dwarf Fighter How about dc Fighter(9)/Cleric? Then you will always have at least one full Cleric in the party, and two by the time you get to HoW, for which you will be happy.

Male Halfling thief It is hard to do without this guy; but I would mc or dc him as a Fighter. dc Fighter(6)/Thief or even (for the impatient) Fighter(3)/Thief will give you much more mileage out of this character

Female Cleric or Druid Given That these skills are covered elsewhere, if you really want them, I presume that this character is the one you trade in for the Bard.

--------------------

What's a party,
Without a song?
Bard's ROCK!
Party On!

[NobleNick]

AngelofDeath,

Here is a massaged excerpt from an old post that should answer your question about dual classing Fighters (virtually all my dc characters start life as a Fighter.)

------------------------------------

Gadzooks!! This information could radically alter the perceived "sweet spots" for dualing over a fighter. Are you sure that you gain a whole extra ApR at grand master, Jim, and not 1/2 at high master? Whew! If so, that is quite a cherry to strive for!

I am trying to put everything I have learned into a comprehensive picture for the fighter; so I know when to dual over. We get extra ApR at 7 and 13; extra PP at 3,6,9,12,... ; and extra ApR from stacked PP. Assuming that as many PP as possible get stacked into one melee weapon and the rest go into bow/missile, and that fighter base ApR is 1. Then the fighter would progress as follows ( +/- stats are "add to stats of level 1 fighter with zero PP in weapon" for melee weapon):

LVL. . ApR . +d -THAC0
. 1 . 1-1/2 . 2 . . 1 (also get 2 PP stacked in bows or missiles)
. 3 . 1-1/2 . 3 . . 3
. 6 . 1-1/2 . 4 . . 3
. 7 . .. 2 . . 4 . . 3
. 9 . .. 3 . . 5 . . 3
.12 . .. 3 . . 5 . . 3 (get third PP in bows/missile, maxing it out.)
.13 . .. 4 . . 5 . . 3

Wow! Looks like the good break points are levels 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, AND 13, with 9 being really sweet. This is news to me! All of a sudden, the level 13 I have been shooting for does not look all that much better than 12, or even 9!

Party On!

[AngelofDeath]

NobleNick,

Thanks for the info, wow a lot to take in....

I started a 2nd game to run parallel to my first, but think I am going to kill my first for a 3rd.

I added a bard, and have a :
mc dwarf fight theif
mc half elf fighter druid
Human Paladin
Half-elf ranger
Mage ( should I really specialize?)


I'm really thinking about dc-ing. I mst say it is also wierd to start at such a low level.....

Again thanks for the insight

[NobleNick]

AngelofDeath,

Lots of folks like mc. The reason I prefer dc is that I don't think you get all the radical benfits of straight fighter when he is MCed. For instance, I don't think the "max HPs/level" feature works with mc characters; and I'll bet you don't get the normal bonuses for a Fighter with high CON; and I suspect that your PP stacking is not as good. These are just guesses; but I know my mc Thief/Illusionist suffered in HPs compared to what I know I could have done with a dc.

On the specialist mage: The benefit of specializing is an extra spell at each spell level attained. This means that the first time you get a slot open at a higher level, you get TWO slots. This is a considerable advantage. The downside is that your specialist loses access to (in HoW) several "opposition" schools. This can be a significant disadvantage; but you can design your party to greatly reduce this disadvantage by choosing your specialist school carefully and/or either: 1.) bringing along a Bard; or 2.) designing a 2nd specialist mage that covers the opposition schools missed by the first. My preferred solution is to specialize as Illusionist (gets all the really important schools) and bring a Bard along to cover the few good spells that the Illusionist misses (mostly Necro spells).

Dundee Slaytern, who's opinion I highly respect, says that if you have only one magic user, especially in Heart of Fury mode, you should not specialize.

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

[Dundee Slaytern]

You flatter me, NobleNick. [img]redface.gif[/img]

Just a sidenote that MCed characters will benefit from the MaxHP option. Just remember that since they are MCed characters, the amount of HP they gain per level is lower than that of a pureclassed character.

On Core Difficulty, MCed characters are a liability, not an asset, because XP is precious and unless you have a four-man party or smaller, you will be hard pressed to make them into tough honchos.

On higher difficulties though, especially on HoF, MCed characters will shine, because there is mucho XP now and they can progress insanely fast; especially considering their THAC0, weapon proficiency points (although they can only specialise) and saves.

Particularly good examples of MCed characters are the Cleric/Ranger, the Fighter/Mage, the Cleric/Mage ( ), etc... ...