Trying to figure out a good party for BGI, BGII and IWD1

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I'm trying to figure out a 3 or 4 person self made party that will do well in all 3 games mentioned above. By that, I mean the same party in each game.

The best I can do is this:

Half-Elf Cleric/Ranger
Halfling Fighter/Thief
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Half-Elf Bard

This 4 person party has Cleric and Druid spells covered in the C/R. It has a Mage (multiclassed Illusionist should be good enough), and a backup arcane spellcaster in the Bard. 3 of the 4 can serve as tanks, and the Bard isn't terrible at combat either. The Bard takes some skill responsibility off of the F/T as well as being great with Lore (saving spell slots for more useful things than Identify). In BG2, he can be a Blade (very good at combat), and in IWD1 becomes very powerful with his songs.

Is this the best 4 person party that fits each game?

I'd really like to run the same group through all 3 games, and I'm looking for some continuity. I won't be importing the characters or messing with levels, but I like the idea of having the same group.

TIA

 

My suggestions:
Half-Elf Cleric/Ranger
Dwarf Fighter/Thief
Human Abjurer
Half-Elf Bard

Alternatively, for IWD1 you could replace the Abjurer with a Cleric/Mage and the Cleric/Ranger with a single class Ranger or even Paladin.

 

Your first 3 characters already cover everything, you can choose whatever you like for the 4th one.

PS: Blade and bard are not the same.

 

I'm running your first three in IWD now. I see weaknesses in the party and intend to change to:

Half-Elf Ranger/Cleric
Dwarf Fighter (for the 19 con, berserker kit in SoA)
Elf Mage/Thief or Gnome Illusionist/Thief

You can add a Bard if you want.

A pure fighter with ***** in a weapon really packs a punch in IWD, *** in BG1 is quite effective as well. Also, do not use a shield with a ranger/cleric in IWD -- IWD grants an additional attack for rangers with an empty off-hand instead of allowing dual wielding.

 

I like your party Klorox, it is allpurpose enough to deal with most anything, but at the cost of not specialising.

The largest loss is weapon specialisation, I might have run a character as human, started with fighter to get some specialisations before swapping to something else. It does leave you without some character types until the late game, but in most of the games you can handle this easy.

A personal favorite of mine is to have at least two different divine casters, but that just might be me. I never really get around to bother with greater weapon specialisation myself as I find pure fighters boring.

You could make one of them a fighter human, and dual to druid/cleric after level 3 or 7 (depending on how much you need what), would give you some weapon specialisations and then a main spellcaster.

This would change the gnome to thief/Illusionist, might make him halfelf and go F/M/T to let him have half a chanse of hitting something.

Annother one I think works nice is to start alot of human fighters, and dual class them after level 3. Could be done with both thief and mage easilly enough. (Personally, these parties never get outside of easthaven for me, as I grow bored).

 

I'd replace the Ranger/Cleric with a Ranger 3 -> Cleric or something.
I recently played a R/C multiclass in IWD and found that he levels far too slow, so you'll most certainly get all the great cleric spells far too late in the game.
You should also note that the Ranger gets the Druid spells really late in the game and with the R/C this goes even slower (late in HOF-mode)

I also think that multiclassed thiefs aren't that good in IWD. Stealth and backstabbing isn't that important in IWD so the Thief only needs Traps and Locks (and these don't need to be maxed out as there aren't many traps/locks with difficulty > 100)
I'd suggest a Thief 9 -> Mage dual class or something similar and than would replace the Fighter/Illusionist by a Fighter/Druid or Fighter X -> Druid dual class
That way you'll also have all roles fullfilled in your party (Tanker, Cleric, Druid and Spellcasters)

 

In IWD1, unless you play withot the expansion installed, you can't go with dual-class Ranger/Cleric. Your cleric won't gain any druidic spells, because he/she can't get them as a ranger. Yes, in BG1&2, you can use this trick, but not in IWD.
Thief 9/Mage for IWD is a bad suggestion. A Thief gains 9 levels right before entering the final level of Dragon's Eye (meaning the place where the most dangerous traps are). Thief 10/Mage might be better.