Why my party is better than yours

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I'm just kidding. Its not.

But I like it anyway. So I stole an idea I came across on this board and resurrected all my favorite NPCs from Baldur's Gate to create an interesting party that I think will be fun to play. Note that this is not even close to an "ultimate" party nor is it intended to be. My tastes run more towards melee/warrior oriented parties without relying on a lot of buffing and nuking to get by. Not that I don't like to buff or nuke, I just don't like having to rest after every single engagement. Okay, so here goes:

Imoen - Human, Bard. I wanted a bard, but never cared for any of the BG ones. So, I found it plausible that Imoen, whom I always dualed to mage (you did too, right?), took some singing lessons when she got back to Candlekeep and became a bard. In anycase, the bard in the 3e rules has a rogue/mage flavor, so I think it works. Imoen is my diplomat, secondary castor/main buffer, and half decent archer when she needs to be.

Yeslick – Gold Dwarf, Paladin. I always thought Yeslick would have been a paladin if the 2e rules let dwarves be paladins. So now he is. And pretty stout one too. High HP, crazy high fortitude, good saving throws all around. Needless to say, he’s the main tank. I made him a Gold Dwarf because, as a paladin, he needs more cha than dex. I opted to keep his wisdom relatively low, because I don’t need a paladin to be a caster and I’d rather put the points in str, con, and cha. He’s tough. I like it.

Minsc – Human, Barbarian 1, Rogue X. I had to have Minsc, right? Unfortunately, rangers suck in IWD2. Fortunately for me, Minsc isn’t much of a typical ranger anyway, so I felt I could take some liberties with the 3e interpretation of the character. So now Minsc is my attempt at an ultimate sneak attacker – a rogue with the feats to wield a real high-damage weapon and enough HP to stand his ground after delivering the first blow. That’s pretty much how I usually played Minsc in BG and BG2 – stealth mode up to a group of baddies and starting whacking them with a big ole 2H sword. The level of barbarian provides Minsc his signature berserker rage, a heepin’ helpin’ of HP, and all the weapon and shield feats he needs to be an effective melee fighter. The increased movement speed is nice too. The rogue levels are mainly for the big sneak attack damage. Plus, he has the skills to do the normal thief stuff until the magic users get the spells to find traps and open locks. The main idea is that he is a supporting fighter who can deliver the opening blow – backstab-style – and then run around sneak attacking baddies with a really big edged weapon. He can switch to a 1H weapon and shield if he needs to go toe-to-toe and tank.

Kivan – Wild Elf, Fighter. If Kivan was carried over into BG2, he would have been a ranger with the archer kit, so that’s where I wanted to go with him. But again, rangers suck in IWD2 so I opted to make him a fighter with archer/dex feats instead. He loses the stealthiness he would have had as a ranger, but I’d rather have the feats. He’s a Wild Elf mainly so I can boost his con to 18. But Kivan always struck me as Wild Elfish anyway, so its all good. In the party, he’s the sniper and backrow bodyguard. He can equip a big shield and tank if he needs to.

Xan – Wild Elf, Sorcerer. Xan was my favorite mage in the BG games because of his cool sword and his bad attitude. But I hate playing wizards – sorcerers are more my thing. So I went all cheesy and made Xan a Wild Elf Sorcerer. Thank you 3e rules. But I think it fits his character well enough anyway. Like most every sorcerer, he’s my main nuker. And since he’s an elf, he can use a bow when he runs out of spells.

Viconia – Drow Elf, Cleric. I liked Viconia better in BG2 than BG. I wasn’t originally going to include her, but then I thought that since IWD2 went to trouble to fully implement Drow Elves, she’d be a good addition. Add a little spice to the party’s flavor, ya know. I made her a loremaster since I’ve never played that sort of cleric before, and I think they have some interesting domain spells. In my party, she’s a kinder, gentler Drow cleric (i.e. neutral instead of evil) to get the spontaneous healing spells. Cheesy, I know, but I figured that the adventures with my BG PC, usually a paladin or some other boy scout-type, softened her up. I’m not too worried about the ECL penalty since she’s a supporting spell caster. As long as she can heal the party to keep it in fighting shape and sling a few spells from time to time, I’m happy.

Okay, so there it is. I think it’ll be a fun party and suit my playing style. We're right at the beginning of chapter 1 so far and its shaping up nicely.

P.S. Nice to see so many people still playing and enthused by IE games. I gotta say, the newer 3D is stuff is okay, but it still doesn't do tactical party combat as good as IE.

 

Nice!

I too feel like I should give it a go, and try creating an IWD2 Party with some of the BG1+2 NPC's.

Your reasoning is nice, but we yet have to see how this party fares.

A question though:

Did you stick close to the NPC's original Stats or were you flexible with them.

 

A few observations. Nice party concept overall.

Healing - you are going to be weak in this area with a Dark Elf as your main healer. You'll be getting all of your spell levels 2 levels later than you would with a non-ECL race. Your bard can pick up some of the slack with her few healing spells, but relying on a bard too much for healing isn't a great idea.

Playing a pure fighter is sort of wasteful. You might consider making Kivan a ranger/fighter or something. Fighters get a lot of feats, sure, but there aren't that many essential feats that you really need to have as an archer. With ranger levels you get more skills and can have an effective tracker in the group.

Minsc as a rogue is hard for me to swallow, but it's your game.

If it were me, I might make Kivan a rogue/fighter (fulfilling your rogueish needs), keeping the archery focus. You really don't need that many rogue levels to make an effective rogue in this game. Minsc, I would probably build as a fighter4/barbarian X, since yeah, barbarian seems to work well with his berserker tendencies. Getting 4 levels of fighter is important for weapon specialization, which grants +2 damage with every hit. You can't take this feat until you reach fighter 4.

 

Xan is a Moon Elf, Yeslick is a Shield Dwarf. Other than that, nice! If you don't multi-class them, no big deal in picking their correct race, right?

 

You can actually play Baldurs Gate 2 with the Icewind Dale 2 game. See my topic "Icewind Gate - Delta version" in this sub-forum. IWD2 seems much more limited than BG2 so you need to use the Console a bit.

 

Thanks for the feedback. You are right about everything you've said, but here's my rebuttal.

re Viconia. I might find her a bit underpowered in the healing dept, but I'll just have to play and see.

re Kivan. I thought about making Kivan a ranger, which probably would have been the "role playing" to do, but my other goal was build him as a dex-based fighter, which I've never done before. He'll need LOTS of feats. Five to max out his potential as archer - rapid shot, precise shot, improved criticals and 2nd and 3rd pips in bows. He'll need another five to max out "finessing" - finess fighting, dual wield, ambedextarity, 2nd and 3rd pips in short swords. Max damage and dodge are useful too. Even with the free feats, he couldn't get there as a ranger. He should even have a feat left over for forestry. So, I don't know, maybe I'm kidding myself and he's gonna suck because dex fighters usually suck. But, again, I'll just have to play and see.

re. Minsc. No doubt that if 2e rules had barbarians, Minsc would have been a barbarian. So you're right that a Barb/Fighter build for Minsc would probably be more conventional. I probably should have picked Valygar for my concept, as the stalker kit is similar to what I'm driving at. But I really never liked Valygar all the much. Sure he had cool toys and one of the better side quests in BG2. He can't bring either into IWD. So I went with Minsc. I suppose that he's the "rogue" in my party because that's the class that gets him the skills I want him to have. I'll just say I'm emphasising his "rangerness", even though most people never played him as a ranger. I acknowledge that I might find him too fragile to do what I envision, so I might end up adding barbarian levels anyway.

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Thanks. Stats - yes and no. I mean, really, no. I min-maxed the ability stats like everyone does (right? Am I the only one? Oh.) BUT... they mostly came out fairly similar to their BG stats. Only Yeslick was radically different, who lost WIS and gained CHA. Imoen and Xan both had high CHA in BG, so that's a reason that I felt that "reinterpreting" them as a bard and sorcerer respectively was not too far off the mark. In fact, Miss Chipper Imoen pretty much fills the same niche in this party that she did in my BG games.

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Oh. Well, my version of BG just says "Elf" and "Dwarf". So I guess in my world they converted.

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That sounds cool. I'll have to check it out. Thanks.

 

I suppose if you want to completely specialize him in 2 completely different fighting styles, more fighter levels makes sense.

By level 16 you will have:

• 6 feats due to character level
• 9 feats due to fighter level

So 15 feats total.

Which is way more than you need for the build, but there are other decent feats you can take with your extra feat slots.

 

Xan is from Evereska. A Moon/Sun Elf settlement. You could make him a Sun Elf, there is a mod that allows for more sub-race options....

Yeslick's clan is a clan of Shield Dwarves, stemming from Delzoun and Ascore. Gold Dwarf clans live in the SE section of Faerun.

......

 

Well, the going has been slow because I haven't had much time to play. But we're at the Horde Fortress and the party has been everything I hoped it would be. Mostly.

Yeslick is a stellar tank. Lots of HP and his fortitude save is through the moon.

Kivan slays baddies left and right with rapid shot on. Because I'm using him as a archer, he gets through most battles with nary a scratch. So I've found I like to rotate him into the front line to squeeze in one last engagement before the party rests. I've found he isn't that good as a "backrow bodyguard" because he's just so much more effective pumping arrows into the front line than chasing stray baddies.

Minsc is great as a thug-type melee rogue. I'm adjusting my tactics though. I've found its hard to use him for a first strike - sneak attack just doesn't generate enough damage to one-hit a magic user like the old backstab could. So instead, he starts battles as an an "artillery spotter" for the archers and magic users to take out key bad guys like magic users and firestarters and then when the bad guys charge, Minsc goes in either finishes off the magic user or starts attacking the scrum around Yeslick from the back. He is a little on the fragile side when the tanking gets tough, however, so I'm thinking more barb levels are in his future.

Imoen plays almost exactly the same as she did in BG and BG2 for me. Talk to people in town, buff the party before battle, fights as an archer.

Viconia is still at the point where I saves most of her spells for after-battle healing. She has been more useful as a supporting tank than I originally intended. She also has really inheritted the "backrow body guard" role that I thought Kivan would fill.

Xan is fun to play the same way that sorcs as always fun to play. Fire, fire, and more fire. Right now that's mainly flaming hands and ab's scorcher. Can't wait until he gets fireballs. Very good archer when he runs out of spells or when we're finishing up a battle and I don't want to waster spells on the last couple orcs.

Can you tell I'm at work and I'd rather being playing IWD2?

 

LOL, thanx for the report so far.
I was really curious how well they would handle. And getting a party to the Horde Fortress is decent.
Mainly because most party setups show the first weakness after the Bridge / Fortress.

Keep us posted whenever you have time. Cheers!