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I said in another post that I was working on finding a well-balanced party that included a bard, a druid and both good and evil clerics (among some other requirements). Well, I think I found a real good mix for my second go around with IWD, but any suggestions on improving the party are welcome. As of right now they are all low level, but I’m anxious to level up to try out some of the higher level abilities of these characters.

Class: Bard
Race: Half-Elf
Alignment: Neutral Good
Abilities: STR 14 DEX 18 CON 12 INT 18 WIS 10 CHA 18
--Leader of the group while in town with 18 CHA; points in bows and halberds for doing damage from second line while in battle; neutral good alignment gets higher starting reputation; will eventually get any leftover bracers from the c/mage NPC to utilize spell casting, but currently is in chainmail

Multi-Class: Cleric/Ranger
Race: Half-Elf
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Abilities: STR 18/97 DEX 18 CON 18 INT 6 WIS 18 CHA 5
--Moved to leader of group while in hostile territory; Tank #1; racial enemy: spectral undead (the best choice for this game, IMHO); points in missile weapons, mace and flails (of course); gets ‘good’ cleric spells

Class: Fighter
Race: Human
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Abilities: STR 18/93 DEX 18 CON 18 INT 9 WIS 9 CHA 11
--Tank #2; pure fighter; will eventually get 5 points in Axes to use the Throwing Axe +2 and other great axes in the game, also points in crossbow to start with

Class: Druid
Race: Elf
Alignment: True Neutral
Abilities: STR 14 DEX 19 CON 13 INT 8 WIS 18 CHA 15
--points in missile weapons, and spear to get damage from second line

Multi-Class: Fighter/Thief
Race: Elf
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Abilities: STR 18/97 DEX 19 CON 17 INT 8 WIS 8 CHA 8
--two points in bows and two points in great swords; note: can’t backstab with the great swords but someone’s got to use the good 2 handed swords in the game; will eventually put points in large swords as well so I can backstab effectively later in the game

Multi-Class: Cleric/Mage
Race: Half-Elf
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Abilities: STR 12 DEX 18 CON 12 INT 18 WIS 18 CHA 6
--evil character so I can get evil Cleric spells; unfortunately, a lot of the evil spells require a touch to cast- so ideally these should go to a tank cleric, however the cleric/ranger requires good alignment (and I didn’t want to give up the racial enemy) so this was picked as the evil cleric

Anyone else have ideas as to the ideal party in IWD?

 

I do not believe in all these 'ideal party' threads. Just smack together a fun party and enjoy the game. That's my policy.

 

How many hours did you sit around hitting the re-roll button to get all those 18/97s? I see you shamelessly min-max all the characters.

 

It really didn't take too much time to get these rolls. With fighters I tend to re-roll if STR is under 18/70 but that's just me. And what's wrong with min-maxing? Why should I give a fighter 16 STR just so I can have his INT two points higher?

Also, maybe I misspoke when I asked for 'ideal' parties. What I meant was, I thought this party was ideal for me given my playing style, my desire to utilize as many good type of weapons as possible and my desire to try out both the bard and the druid for the first time.

Perhaps someone else prefers using mage spells to take out their enemies, so their ideal party would be: Bard, fighter/mage, cleric/mage, thief/mage, illusionist and a paladin or ranger to escort them all. What fits for you?

***Besides I know no one in Real Life(tm) that would be interested in my thoughts on party ideas in IWD. Here, I thought I had a good chance that someone would be interested and might share their views too.

[This message has been edited by Bowie (edited May 04, 2001).]

 

Bowie;

I do like some of your ideas, and will probably steal them! #1, I like changing leaders for combat and non-combat situtations. More realistic b/c a bard probably wouldn't take the front in all battles, but would haggle with merchants.

I'm expecting IWD/HOW pack any day now (Amazon sat on my order for 2 weeks before shipping!!!!! )

So right now I'm watching and learning, especially in terms of creating my party. It looks like its going to be fun! Just keep the ideas rolling in so I have more to steal from!

 

Don't like to have too many dual classed chr in my party. They fall behind in the hitpoints. And then what am I going to do when they are all out of arrows....

 

...um, buy more arrows?

Did you mean multi-class in your post? My party didn't include any dual class.

I don't feel that IWD lends itself well to dual-class characters either. For example, if you want a dual-class fighter/thief dualed at level 4, you have take your party through the Vale of Shadows without a thief to disarm traps. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, it just would make it alot more difficult. However, BG1&2 are made for dualing, because you can always reform your party to your needs during each stage of make a dual-class character.

Now, one interesting strategy I read involving dual-class characters that may work in IWD was to start a party of 6 human fighters. Play a bit until they all reach level 2 and start dualing some of them to a fighter/cleric, fighter/thief, fighter/mage, etc. This gets you two levels of 1D10 HPs for each NPC to start with, plus 2 points in the weapons of your choice. That is, two points in maces for the cleric, two points in bows or large swords for the thief, etc. ...plus, this way, you can make sure each of your NPCs get 18/97 STR. It'd be an interesting party to try, but it seems too convoluted even for my tastes. Sorry, if I went off on a tangent there... I didn't know when to stop typing.

 

Looks like you've got a pretty decent party, Bowie, though I don't like using too many multi-classed characters myself (takes too damn long to level up)...however, I do have a fondness for the Fighter/Thief. Elves are wonderful for this type of character with the 19 Dex.

And you're right, it doesn't take all that much longer to roll up a good 18 percentile strength for the fighter types. In IWD/HoW, a fully rounded character isn't essential, so you have a lot more room to max out stats as needed for specific character classes.

I have a Bard in my party (currently 12th level), but I'm still not wholly won over by this particular class even with all of the revamping done to it by the designers, then again I'm probably not using the character to it's fullest potential either, because my fav character class is still the basic brute fighter.

 

Myself, I got tired off getting my magic using characters getting creamed, especially when they are trying to get into range to cast their spells (gotta be a better way to figure out range limits for spells) or heal my front row fighters.

So I went a slighty different way, played up to dragon's eye with 4 fighters, cleric, and fighter/thief dwarf. Once my fighters hit 6/7 level, dual-classed them into an Abjurer, standard mage, and cleric.

Then I exported the entire party, set the game into heart of fury mode, and have spent the past month cursing my decision of modes.

So my final party consists of dwarvish fighter/thief, gnomish fighter, half-elven cleric, and dual classed figher/abjurer, fighter/mage, and fighter/cleric.

The nice things is the weapons I can use with my fighter/mages, large swords, great swords, bows & arrows, etc., etc.

Just my 2 cents.

 

i'm currently playing with this party and it works great, I have finished IWD several times but this party really kicks ass.

Human,Fighter, true neutral
Great swords

Dwarf,Fighter, Lawful good
hammers,axes

Human,Cleric, N Good
Healing

Human, mage, L evil
spellcasting

Half-Elf, mage/thief, N evil
Thiefning, spellcasting

My goal was to make every party member efficient in Battle, now only the cleric is not so efficient, I stayed away from Fighter/thiefs, they are just weaker fighters in battle, my mage/thief is just a mage in battle,
I'm thinking about swiching the cleric for a druid (I'm getting HoW today, so their stronger now) because their more offence like the evil cleric, but they have bad spells.

 

Mage/Thief

I never thought of using that as a multi-class character. I always presumed that he would end up getting lousy hit points. But you are right about the fighter/thief being a mediocre fighter, especially getting stuck with studded leather as his best armor.

Advantages are many. A mage that can use short bow/crossbow and long sword sounds like a great combination,

Definitely will have to try this character out. Thanks for the idea.

 

The Mage/Thief is a good combo and worked well for my party. The only draw back is that the mage goes up real slow. The mage already has the slowest progression, and to cut all XP in half hurts a lot. But in the end it's worth in. Nothing like the old invisible mage in position for the backstab or lighting bolt.

 

I tried a mage/thief for a bit, but the main drawback in my eyes was it only had one quick weapon slot because all the other slots were taken up by spells and thieving icons. I'd equip it with a bow to keep it away from combat, but then when the situation called for a backstab I had to change weapons from the inventory screen everytime. This annoyed me enough to stop playing the character.

 

The fighter/thief can use any armor, he/she just can't perform any thieving skills while wearing anything other than leather armor.

He's not a frontline fighter, but he's perfect as a second rank fighter, ie "Archer", because unlike the mage/thief, the fighter/thief can specialize (put 2 points into a weapon skill instead of only 1). He can use any weapon, especially longbow or composite longbow.

The f/t gains the benefit of Strength scores above 18 and Con scores of above 16 (instead of only 2 extra HP for 17 or 18 Con per level, he gains 3 to 4 HP per level). On normal setting with max hp's per level, the f/t would have 12 hp/level with 18 Con vs 7 hp/level w/16, 17, or 18 Con as a mage/thief.

The fighter/thief levels up quicker than the mage/thief.

With that being said, the mage/thief being able to cast invisibility, and walk up and backstab or cast a spell on some poor unknowing npc from behind is still pretty nifty.

[This message has been edited by Havok (edited May 08, 2001).]

 

How is it possible to play with a mage anyway ?? Damn, that's alot of work

 

Where is the fun playing in a world full of magic without having at least one mage?

Personally love using magic coz you can't in the real world. Kinda makes the gaming more complete for me as RPG goes.

On the note of m/c or d/c characters, I had a very good party (only played through once yet), but boy did I dual my thief to mage at the wrong time!

Suggesion would be before the severed hand, not half way down dragon's eye like I did. Loads of traps on lower levels, no-one to disarm....... Ouch, cost me a lot of re-loading that part. Still, thief to mage d/c is a good call. Far better than m/c I reckon. Not solo mind.

[This message has been edited by Viking (edited May 09, 2001).]

 

Havok, in your Fighter/thief is better than Mage/thief it sounds like you just want to play a single class fighter. If you are playing a multi-class character you should use abilities from both classes, not put armor on the f/t and sit him in the back row with a longbow. Why are you paying XP for the thief half if you are not using it?

And Virik, playing without a mage is foulish. I mean some have done it but at higher levels mages have all the good area effort spells. With the increase spell selection in HoW mages rock even more. They are lots of fun. Go for it!

 

Voltric, contrary to what you think I said, the heaviest armor that I put on my fighter/thief is studded leather, so she can still perform her thieving functions. The ability to use any armor is just one of the options available (as per the game) if ever it became necessary, though I doubt I'd lug a suit of chain or plate around just for those rare moments.

Like most people, I like to run my f/t ranging out in front of the main party doing the recon routine and even though she has better hp's than a regular thief, she still prefers the "fleet of foot" method of fighting...shoot a couple of arrows, run back towards the party, shoot another arrow, run away some more, etc. But if my f/t has to get into melee, she can make a good accounting of herself and deal out a decent amount of damage.

I do like the f/t ability to use any weapon, especially the longbow/composite longbow and being able to specialize makes it even more sweet. Since you begin the game with 4 points of weapon skill like the fighter, you can dual specialize in bow and longsword for example, but 2 points per weapon slot is the maximum. You can't grandmaster a weapon as a fighter/thief.

The thief/mage multiclass is a novel idea, but in my opinion, the fighter/thief is a better multiclass character.

I like the fighter/mage multiclass as well...a mage with a bow is much better than a mage with a sling. They have better hp's and can use any weapon if necessary. They just take way too long to level up. If I'm running a small party, then I'll use several multiclass characters, including the fighter/mage, but if I'm running a full party of 6 characters, then I'll stick to using the standard mage and not the multiclass mage. The standard mage will definitely level up quicker than the multiclass version.

[This message has been edited by Havok (edited May 10, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Havok (edited May 10, 2001).]

 

Here is the party I created for my first time through IWD:

Paladin - Mathetais
Great Swords(x2)
Cross bow
Ax

Ranger \ Cleric - Silvershade
Hammer
Mace
Missile Weapons

Fighter/Thief - Shea
Long Sword
Cross Bow

Bard - Rhapsody
Long Sword
Bows

Druid - Ash
Staff
Scimitar

Fighter dc Mage - Gandalf
Long Sword
Staff
Dagger
(Insipred by the BG2 LOTR thread. At 2nd level fighter I dualed him to Mage. Now he has a lot more hit points than you would normally have as a mage, plus he'll be able to have an impact in hand to hand combat)

I'm not too far into the game yet (Vale of Shadows) but so far we seem to be doing well.