New party, plz help

[Ganzax]

Hi,

I am fairly new to this game and about to create a party. Any help would be nice.
What i have in mind is:

Berserker - half-orc or dwarf
Monk - human
Inquisitor - human
Ranger/cleric - not sure what race...
Illusionist/Thief - gnome

Is this going to be a difficult party to go through the game with?
About the ranger/cleric...should i multiclass or dual-class?
Can anyone plz help me with abilities. Which three or four abilities should be high for each of them? I always have problems with that.

Berserker - str/dex/con
Monk - str/dex/con?
Inquisitor - str/wis/cha?
Ranger/cleric - dex/wis/?
Illusionist/Thief - dex/int/?

Thanks.

[Draggor]

Welcome!!!!
If this is your first time through the game I would recommend using just one self created character and using the NPCS in the game. If you use all your own characters you miss out on a lot of the personality of the game, not to mention lots of experience as each character has their own special quests.
If It's not then your party sounds pretty good though I'd probably have the mage a true class one not a kit and make the ranger/cleric a pure cleric. You want lots of clerical protection and healing spells.

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Just when you thought it was safe to visit this board.

[Volourn]

Welcome to the board! Good ideas there, and here are my suggestions! Remember, these are just IMOO. Hehheh!

1. Always have at least 2 or 3 fighter types (fighters, monks, paladins, rangers, or barbarians).
2. Have at least one mage, priest,and thief to have a well-rounded party.
3. If possible, take a druid so you can have access to all types of spells.
4. For Single Class Characters: Take kits as they add to both the depth, and possibilities.
5. If you're new as you said, be really careful about the sorcerer, as you have to choose your spells carefully. Read the spell descriptions thoroughly before making any final decisions as they can't be changed later.
6. Have fun!

GO DWARVES GO!

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"That didn't hurt!" - Volourn Honourblade after the red dragon breathed on him for 75% of his hp.

[Mack_Attack]

Well when I played the game the first time I thought it had more of a magic spell casting feel to it. And all the kits have some cool things about them. But I f you want to make your own party. I would have.
A Paladin
Thief I would say that you need one for sure. Dual or multi. Maybe multi with magic user.
Magic user straight kit.
Cleric muti with a fighter. Or a staight class.
Fighter I would go with berserker of some sort or a barb.
Maybe a druid or sometning of the nature. Or maybe a monk.
Tough choices for me they all have there good points. But your party looks good. If it was me I would use the npc in the game.
And welcome


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Give me Back my glasses.
Lord of the blind.

[sunder]

Well, If you haven't played through the game yet, Here is my suggestion.

Play the game SOLO first, with maybe 3 of your own characters, that way you can get the NPC characters in the game into your party and do their quests also. You lose out ALOT if you play a Multiplayer game only. Sure, 6 of your own characters is cool, but you won't believe all the fun stuff you miss out on (items, quests, dialogue) without the NPC player characters.
If you are adamant about playing your own characters, here is what I suggest based on the items in the game, and the monsters.

Undead hunter Paladin. Awsome Paladin sword in the game, plus there are zillions of undead. This Kit is alot better than the other kits in my eyes for this game.
Train in 2 handed weapons, 2 handed sword, halbard, and longbow.

Dual class Kensai/mage (or fighter/mage or zerker/mage) these will give you a great mage character with great fighting skills. ALot LOVE the Kensai mage. Train in 2 weapon style and Grandmaster the Katana.

Dual class or multi-class Fighter/cleric. Will give you a full powered cleric with the fighting skills to back up his spells. Train in 2 weapon style, and Grandmaster his warhammer, and put what ever is left over into maces or flails

Thief. You must have a good thief to take advantage of the experience and items you can get that only a thief can do, such as disarming traps, pickpocketing, etc. I've found a multi class thief/mage or fighter/mage/thief, or a dual class fighter/thief works real well. Train them in detect traps picklocks early on, and later raise up the stealth/pickpockets/hide. I trained my thief Grandmaster in the longsword, 2 weapon style,

Those are the must haves I would say. A paladin, fighter/cleric, thief, and a fighter/mage. That gives you 2 other slots to do what you want.

You might put in a archer for distance attacks, a monk maybe which is weak at low levels but super strong at high levels, or maybe another fighter/mage, or a barbarian, your choice.
Sorcerers are also great characters to get, but the problem is they hold back your experience gains, since you gain experience in the game for inscribing scrolls into your spellbook, and sorcerers don't inscribe spells. I would only play a sorcerer after the 1st time through. But thats up to you. A regular mage can gain hundreds of thousands of experience points just by inscribing spells. A sorcerer lacks this benefit to the party.

My origional party was

Paladin Undead hunter
Fighter/cleric grandmaster warhammer dual weapons
Kensai/mage grandmaster katana dual weapons
fighter/thief grandmaster longsword dual weapons
archer grandmaster shortbow dual weapons
fighter/druid

SO I had 2 healers (cleric/druid) I had 3 spell casters (cleric/mage/druid), a thief, and 5 characters that could stand up front with melee skill and duke it out with the toughies. I didn't have too many problems.

[Ganzax]

Thanks a lot for all the answers... it really helped me

Might post more questions if i get stuck. It's just such a coool game.

[Ganzax]

Will try with following:

Paladin - undead slayer
Ranger - archer
Ranger/cleric
Kensai/mage
Kensai/thief
+ NPC for the quests

When to dual the kensai/thief? level 9 as the kensai/mage? or is it possible to make a thief/kensai instead?

[sunder]

Ok.

When to dual the kensai thief. There are 2 choices actually. You can change after level 9, this is a good level because you get the most from your fighters hitpoints, and then you can start on your thief skills.
Or you can wait until maybe level 12. This will let you get a little better fighting skills, and you can still get your thief up to level 18. I myself would recommend the level 12 kensai/level 18 thief.

You can't make up a thief/kensai. You cannot use a KIT character as a 2nd dual class. You can have it as the first, but you can't have it as the 2nd. You can have a thief/fighter, but thats it. Thus you can have a Kensai/thief but not a Kensai/assassin. (assassin is a KIT class). You can have a assassin/fighter, but not a assassin/beserker (beserker is a KIT class).

Your Kensai/thief will be a major offensive thief, you'll do incredible damage backstabbing (using your Kai power then backstab for max damage), but you will be very weak defensively not being able to wear armor and such.
Where as a Fighter/thief will be able to wear regular thief armor, good magical leather or elven chain, but won't be quite as strong offensively.

Just your choice. Each has strong points and weaker points. Mine was a fighter/thief, had great thief skills and great AC and fighting ability. I had no problem with him.

[Tricky]

I agree that you need at least one of;
mage type
cleric type
thief type
paladin/fighter

this leaves you with two spare slots. I recommend a Monk and a Wizard Slayer trained in crossbow.
Why Monk? Because a monk looks the coolest whilst fighting with his fists and when you get to the last scene of the game there is nothing better than watching a monk fight to the best music in the game.
Why Wizard Slayer with crossbow? This character combined with BOLTS OF BITING nullifies almost all wizards in the game.

have fun

[Worm]

If you are just starting try to stick away from multi classes you'll really get dissapointed fast with the fact that you level up pretty slow you should use a priest and a warrior everyone needs a warrior and priest druids and clerics are priests and fighters, palidans, barbarians, and monks. I use a fighter and a cleric to start with and the rest of the party can be any damn thing I have the cleric always use command word die and have the fighter attack that makes early battles against tough enemies so easy but I'm giving more baldurs gate one advice than baldurs gate two but still I think it applies.

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[This message has been edited by Worm (edited 06-29-2001).]