a party combination

[Feagil of the shadow]

Right I first tried to complete IWD without HoW with:
2 Human Fighters
1 Human Ranger
1 Human Cleric
1 Halfling Thief
1 Elven Mage

And they were working pretty well right up until about chapter 6. COnstantly resting, not enough healing, not enough spells...

I want to start again, but don't know what to have in my party.

I'm thinking a Dwarven Fighter, with max constitution, strength and dexterity, a Paladin, and a Gnome Thief, later to be dualled to an Illusionist (around level 7-10). I would like a ranger/cleric, but should I dual, multi-class or what? I am going to have a pure class mage or conjurer as well, but I think may eventually need two clerics, maybe a dualled one and a multi classed one?
SO in my party for definate:

Dawrven Fighter
Human Paladin
Gnome Thief (dualled to Illusionist later)

Any hints would be well accepted. Thanks...

[Aerich]

Welcome to IW, Feagil. [img]graemlins/happywave.gif[/img]

Assuming you still do not have HoW, here's my comments on your party:

Dwarven Fighter - solid like a rock. A great tank, and utterly destructive if you (eventually) put 5 proficiency points in Axe.

Human Paladin - good choice. There's a paladin-specific longsword that automatically makes a paladin a good choice. Also, paladins are decent fighters and great party leaders. They get a few dialogue options offering extra XP.

Gnome Thief - not so good. You can only dual human characters - demi-humans (e.g. any race other than human) have to be multiclassed or singleclassed. A Gnome Thief/Illusionist is much, much better than a pure gnome thief. In general, straight thieves aren't that great, as I'm sure you've figure out. Anyway, you can't dual a gnome, so multiclass it instead.

Lots of other options to round out the party. Two priestly spellcasters is a good idea. Based on the three above characters as the "core" members, here goes:

Ranger/Cleric - a good multiclass character. In the basic (non-HoW) IWD, a R/C gets druid spells. As you don't have HoW, a dual-class R/C should dual from Ranger to Cleric no later than 9th level, and maybe even at 7th. An alternate to the R/C is the F/C - the advantages of the F/C over the R/C in the basic game include: that it takes less XP to level up, but the difference isn't that much. You can also put more than two proficiency points in a weapon. However, I'd still go with a multiclass R/C - it's more versatile, and provides for smoother gameplay (e.g. you have the warrior and cleric classes active for the whole game).

Single classed Cleric. Good idea. Not a fighting character, but great for protective spells, healing, and undead turning.

Conjuror. A good choice for IWD, but not for HoW. Opposition school is the useless Divination in IWD, but Evocation if you have HoW. You might consider starting this character out as a fighter, going to level 7 or so, and then dualing over. It'll only cost you 64 000 XP, and it means many more HP and you'll be able to use a bow or crossbow to good effect from the back of the party when you don't want to use spells.

So here's my recommendations for your new IWD game (they'd be different if you had HoW).

Dwarven Fighter
Human Paladin
Gnome Illusionist/Thief (mc)
Half-elf Ranger/Cleric (mc)
(Any race except gnome) Cleric
Human Fighter[7]/Conjuror (dc)

This combination (or many others) should serve you well.

[ 10-21-2004, 08:03 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]

[NobleNick]

EDIT: Aerich, you slipped in a great post whilst I was composing mine. It's interesting to compare views! I am absolutely amazed at how 5 of your first 6 paragraphs of instruction are almost word-for-word what I wrote. I will leave my post as is, so that Feagil can get two truly independent views.

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

Feagil,

I hope I am not the first to say, "Welcome to the IWD forum!"

If you do not have HoW, do yourself a favor and go get it EVEN if you have no intentions of ever playing it (the upgrade to IWD is worth it).

To answer your question ---> Party suggestions for IWD (no HoW). The party you already have:

2 Human Fighters
1 Human Ranger
1 Human Cleric
1 Halfling Thief
1 Elven Mage

although not my first pick, seems quite viable. I would have made one of the party a race with infravision, which, IIRC, Humans, Elves and Halflings don't have; but that is a nitpick. This is much more important --> Are you stacking your Fighter's Proficiency Points (PP) high like you should (not spreading them around in 3 or more weapons)? Your warriors should be stacking ALL their PP into EXACTLY one close in weapon (like LongSword or axe, etc.) and one long range weapon (Bow is best choice for non-priest, sling for the Cleric).

Although it is too late to change, now, did you max out DEX and CON on all your warriors? a Fighter with DEX=18 gets a 4 point bonus to Armor Class (AC) each point lower in DEX loses one bonus point in AC, down to no bonus at DEX=14. Likewise, a warrior (Fighter, Ranger, Paladin) with CON=18 gets 4 bonus HP per level. (Make sure you have the "max HP per level" button activated in your game options screen.)

O.K., lets look at your new party.....

Dwarven Fighter is a great choice for SC Fighter. Just realize that his higher max CON (or is it STR?) comes at the cost of lower max DEX. Each point lower in DEX costs you a point in AC.

Paladin is O.K. early on, gets better in the late game, and has good saving throws. He makes a good tank, and has reasonable offensive skills. (Hint: Specialize the Pally in LongSword. You will be very glad you did.)

Only Humans can DC and only Gnomes can MC the Thief/Illusionist. So, you can not take your third character as you have him listed. I'll try to suggest something similar. I had a Gnome Thief/Illusionist, and really liked what she did in IWD. (She started losing steam in the expansions, but that wouldn't bother you.) A Human DC Thief/Illusionist might be a better choice, but it could get hard when you lose your Thief while deep into Dragon's Eye.

You'll want a Cleric; but I suggest sprucing him up as a DC Fighter/Cleric, so that he has higher HP and gets in an extra 2-1/2 Attacks per Round (ApR) in melee. Hey! Come to think of it, properly built DC Fighter/Clerics are such good warriors, and without the HoW/Bard combination (Bards rock with HoW installed) you'll enjoy the extra Cleric power: So take two F/Cs! You won't have Clerics available in the early game; but with 4 Fighters and a Pally in your front line, who needs one?

(The following advice is for HoW installed. Check your manual for Mage school set-up without HoW.) Your idea of specializing a Mage is a good one, and you picked what I think is the best specialist class (Illusionist). A Necromancer should be an excellent complement to the Illusionist; because an Illusionist can not memorize Necro spells, and, IIRC, vice versa. An Illusionist and Necro, together, cover all the schools; and BOTH Mages have access to the powerful Conjuring and Invocation spells. We don't want our Necro wilting evey time a Troll looks at him cross-eyed; so I suggest a DC Fighter/Necro.

Here is my suggestion for your party.

Dwarven Fighter (*****Axe, ***Bow)
Paladin (must be Human, **LongSword, **Bow)
DC Fighter[7]/Neutral_Cleric (must be Human, ****Mace, **Sling)
DC Fighter[7]/Good_Cleric (must be Human, ****Hammer, **Sling)
DC Fighter[6]/Necromancer (must be Human, ***LargeSword, ***Bow)
MC Thief/Illusionist (must be Gnome, *dagger, *crossbow)

Each asterisk ( * ) represents a PP. The weapon choices are just suggestions, (except you need blunt weapons and slings for the Cleric mixes); but I highly urge you to STACK your PPs! After you DC out of Fighter, remember what weapon your Fighter was stacking in and have your second class put PPs in a DIFFERENT weapon. (These PP will NOT stack on top of the Fighter's PP and so PP placed in same weapon will be lost when you regain Fighter skills.)

If your role playing morals will allow: I suggest you take the extra few minutes per character to get rolls at least in the low 80's. Then max out DEX, CON and STR (in that order of importance) for all of your warriors. (That's 5 of your 6 characters!) In addition, max WIS for the Fighters who will DC to Clerics, and max INT for the Fighter who will DC to Necro. Max out DEX, INT, CON and STR (in that order of importance) for the Gnome. In addition, at least the leader of your party (preferably the Pally) should max out CHA. He will do all the talking and buying/selling.

Party skill set analysis:

Early game --> 1 Pally, 4 Fighters, 1 Thief and 1 Illusionist.

Mid Game ----> 1 Pally, 1 Fighter, 2 Clerics, 1 Thief and 2 Specialist Mages.

Late Game ---> 1 Pally, 4 Fighters, 2 Clerics, 1 Thief and 2 Specialist Mages.

Hmm... Looks like you are stacked! The early game will be a piece of cake. The mid game will be a slight challenge when you DC the Fighters; but your Dwarf and Pally can see you through the short time when you are missing all 3 DC Fighters. In the late game, when things start getting hard, your party will have 5 warriors again, and is also going to start getting scads of top-end Cleric spells and Mage slots to ease the way. And the ground work you laid with the DC Fighters will ensure that none of your characters (except the Thief) needs to run from a monster.

From a power gamer's perspective, I doubt I could do much better without HoW installed. If you want to sacrifice some of your party's incredible power in order to get a little more variety, you could replace one Fighter/Cleric with a Ranger/Cleric or Cleric/Ranger. I own a Ranger/Cleric, and he is a decent character. The only bummer, from an RPG view, is a Ranger who can't use bow (must use sling and blunt weapon).

Whatever mix you end up with, if it includes DC characters, I recommend the following test to ensure you are not disappointed in the late game: As soon as your characters level once (still in Easthaven) save game to a different game name (you should be doing this every hour or so, anyway, as a habit) and see if you can DC them to your desired end character. If successful, go back to your last saved game before the DC and continue. If things don't work as planned, re-roll your character to get it right, and import him. (There is no reason to start the game over, unless you want to: several thousand lost XP will mean nothing by the time you've forayed into VoS twice or so.)

Hope this helps.

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


[ 10-21-2004, 10:14 PM: Message edited by: NobleNick ]

[galdur]

Muticlass Cleric/Ranger gets druid spells even in HoW.

[Dancing Virginia]

Listen to Nick, his advice is invaluable.

And I'm firmly in his camp on two points:

1.) Get HoW.

2.) Take a Bard.

Cary

[pritchke]

Originally posted by NobleNick: Here is my suggestion for your party. Dwarven Fighter (*****Axe, ***Bow) Each asterisk ( * ) represents a PP. The weapon choices are just suggestions, (except you need blunt weapons and slings for the Cleric mixes);

Good advice overall by noblenick, the only suggestion I would have is on the Dwarven fighter. Don't take your proficiencies in the Bow especially since you have an axe. I would choose missile weapons, or none at all. The reasons are
1. there are ranged axes. Starting off you will need to use the normal throwing axes and they are heavy, but it will not be a problem if you maximized strength. Later on you can get a single axe that returns to the user and that is all you need for ranged.
2. Having a Bow equipped will not allow you to carry a shield and for a melee character such as this who will for the most part be upfront slicing and dicing the extra AC the shield gives will be helpful. This is the reason missile would be a better choice than bow, you don't need to pause every time you wish to go into melee, switch unequipped the bow to put up a shield.
3. This guy is going to be upfront blasting enemies to itty bitty chunks with his axe he isn't going to be using a bow, better to but those proficiencies wasted on the bow into a crushing weapon like hammers for golems.

Anyway this is basically how I would make him.

[ 10-22-2004, 11:26 AM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[NobleNick]

Excellent point, pritchke. I have never used Axe as melee -AND- ranged weapon; but have heard enough about it that I should have made this catch.

Is thrown axe as deadly as the good bows? How about against monsters that require enchanted weapons (+2 THAC0, etc.) in order to get a hit? Does the entire 5 PP bonus apply to thrown axe?

Assuming the answers to these questions are that the thrown axe is a good replacement for bow, then I would max Axe and put the rest in a blunt weapon. This will allow your Fighter to switch to another type of weapon if a monster has resistances or is immune to slashing damage. For example:

Dwarven Fighter (*****Axe, ***Mace)

Your Fighter could theoretically continue stacking points in Mace, up to 5 high; but he will probably only get to 3 PP, at F[12], not long before IWD ends. (He needs to get to F[15] for his next PP.)

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

[Aerich]

Thrown axe is arguably as good as a bow. Attacks/round are about the same if you are pounding the points into Axe proficiency, and you get the attack and damage bonuses from specialization - I'm pretty sure of that, but not entirely. You for sure get strength bonuses.
(Edit: actually, check that. I'm sure you get something, as my thrown axe does 10 damage on average, but I'm not sure which exact bonuses you get. It would seem logical to get both specialization AND strength bonuses, but I don't recall any IWD-specific rules that confirm it.)

The returning throwing axe is +2, so you don't have to worry about weapon immunity.

The only disadvantage to using axe is that the weapon init isn't as fast as many of the bows - not quite as good for spell disruption, but then your dwarven fighter is charging down the spellcasters, right?

I'd go with Axe and Hammer with dwarven fighters. Conlan's hammer turns it in favour of hammer over mace or flail.

Edit: just one more thing to add re: the Cleric/Ranger. C/Rs in IWD get druid spells from the start. Iirc, they don't get them until lvl 6 (8?) with HoW. So there's a little versatility bonus in IWD that you don't get in HoW.

Further - bards and druids are so-so in IWD... until you get HoW with all the amazing tweaks. After getting HoW, all of my parties have had one or the other, and most have had both. Yes, they are that good.

[ 10-23-2004, 02:50 AM: Message edited by: Aerich ]

[jmsteven]

In basic HOW, there's only two things you need from your characters: (1) fight and (2) heal. Everything else is for aethetics, since all chests and doors can be bashed, and characters can protect themselves from traps with potions and scrolls. So, what you need is a party of fighter/healers. Any of the following can beat the game single-handedly and should be devastatngly powerful when working together:

Fighter/Druid
Ranger/Cleric
Paladin
Ranger

[Aerich]

True, but mages and thieves add so much fun to the game and can save a lot of headaches.