Party Tactics

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My current party that i'm playing and will taking through ToB (hopefully if Michelle doesn't kill the saves again) is as follows

Me (fighter/thief multi)
Jaheira
Viconia
Edwin
Nalia (to be replaced with Imoen in the asylum)

the last space in the party is currently being used for picking up NPC's to do their sub quest. Eventually I might keep Nalia in the asylum and take Yoshimo there with me and letting the story take it's course.
The question is, what would people's tactics be with a party combination like this?
Obviously I have my own but there's always room for improvement.

The current standard tactic is this:

Mages spells are limited in terms of offence, any they have are quick cast spells with a couple of big damage spells in there for crowds. Dispel magics, peirces and breaches are standard in their list. Anything else is party enhancement like haste, 10' invisibility etc. Imoen and Nalia occasionaly used in melee from backstabbing and then retreating back to damage from afaer, and Edwin only carries a melee weapon in case someone gets close to him.

Jaheira and Viconia have a mix of healing, party enhancement and a few 'get out of trouble spells' like resist fear and again, dispel magic. They also get used in melee when appropiate, but are kitted out with as much ranged damage dealing equipment like wands and slings as possible. Their armour is the best and AC's kept very low. Viconia has the strength giving equipment to allow her to wear heavier armour.

Main character is the backstabbing attack and ranged weapons again, switching to shortswords when the enemy close (too often in the later stages) and stands with Viconia and Jaheira, again his AC is kept as low a possable.

The last character (currently the annoying Anomen ) is usually a front liner starting with ranged damage then wading in with a nice big cluubing implement.

Obviously this is the run of the mill tactics and they change depending on curcumstances. Although i can see i'm missing a chainsaw with legs in full plate i am happy to manage without one apart from the odd character whose sub plot i'm doing.
Any suggestions are welcome

 

Vermillion, our styles are complete opposites. I have a massive distaste of magic (my simpleton brain find it difficult to play as finger wagglers) so I generally have fighters, using a do or die tactic, I find it quite effective! I know I'd feel more comfortable with a sword or axe, rather than a stick and a book, but each to his own.

 

I felt that most of the mage npc's in the game were very weak and died very quickly in battle. My favorite kind of npc is a kind of "battle mage" though sadly there are none in the game other than maybe if you consider a bard's magic to be good enough. I stopped taking npc's after i realized that they are ALL very very lame and have some of the worst classes...(the only exeption being jan )

 

Actually, one of the disappointing things about playing a mage as your PC is that gnawing realization in the back of your mind that no matter what you do Edwin in many ways is going to be a better mage than you. The number of spells he can learn is impressive. His only weakness is that of all conjurers -- no divination so he needs help to be able to handle a lot of the more pesky mage defensive spells like mislead, invisiblity, project image etc. For a soloist, an invoker or sorceror would beat him out in my opinion but for a party mage it is tough to get any better than Edwin, maybe impossible.

As far as your party tactics go, I think that what I might do is get Viconia that wonderful and underrated belt that you can use to boost Constitution to 18 (you can use this and then remove it for something else.) Then a strength enhancing item, a big shield and ditto for Jaheria and then you have two chicas with great AC's. Jaheria also has a nice Thac0 and can hold her own that way. So, you f/t can start things off with a backstab, use your ring of invisibility to allow you to position yourself for another hit, move Jaheria and Viconia in to draw some heat, backstab again and then hit em with all you've got. I found that my fighter/thief dual wielding could lay out more damage than any of the other PC's I'd picked up. With 3 slots in dualwield, and 2 in your weapon choice your party can go to a tanking party when necessary pretty easily.

 

Yep, the party is able to tank it pretty well, as the main character, Jaheira and Viconia have very good AC's. With the equipment they have just now, and can get through the game also deal out a lot of damage. The mages AC's are respectable too, but only the ones with some thief levels actually go near melee.
As for the do or tactics, of late there's been less spells being hurled about, except the required dispels and such and it's all been to weaponry killing things.
I suppose the good thing about the game is that it's forgiving on your party choice (with the exception of not havinf a thief in a few parts of the game) and the equipment in the game helps negate the weak points left in the party.

 

Well I'm a mix of heavy attack and magic. My spell casters are usually the main character (Fighter/Mage), Edwin, and Aerie. The atteckers are Minsc, Keldon, and Korgan.

 

Korgan is to me an obvious choice in your party, since you have both Edwin and Viconia.
My fave evil party is a foursome with a protagonist F/T (same as you), Viconia, Edwin and Korgan.

I always bring along Yoshimo.

Which NPC will you have a romance with? If you choose Viconia I would give Jaheira the boot and vice versa. If it's Anomen, well then dump Jaheira.

If you want the extra spellpower I think Imoen is better simply because of her greater importance in the story.

Tactics?

First off, I hardly ever use Dispel Magic. If I do it's because I have Keldorn around to do it, but even then it's rare. True Sight, Breach etc covers my needs just fine. Even so, Dispel Magic is nice to have, just in case.

- Fun combos:
Skull Trap & Protection from Magic Energy on all "tanks" (Pretty much needs a Sorcerer though).
You can do something similar with Fireball & Prot from Fire.

The basic offense is Magic Missiles, Fireballs/Skull Trap and eventually the awesome Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting.

 

I do not know why everyone is so fond of Edwin. Not too good stats - my mage chars are always better.

Anyway - for a "normal" play I am always using party with at least 1x cleric character, 1x mage, 1x thief, 1x fighter. Combos are possible - so Jaheira can cover both melee and clerical needs. And if you are into melee combat - try a swashbuckler. My current lvl 28 with AC -15, 3 Attacks, THAC0 -3/-1 and thieving abilities 110+ is really nice .

 

Aha, someone talking about the thing i started woo hoo!
Well, I do feel i have to defend the choice of both Vicky and Jaheira in the party. Mostly it's because i like both of them. They are able to get very good AC's and with the right equipment on them can pack a good punch. Their spells i find useful a lot of the time, especially the druids offensive spells. Jaheira won out over Cernd with her ability to wear metal armours. As for Anomen, well, he's only i for the sub quest, the annoying little...(falls into mumbling about unable to do simple thing like walk in a straight line).
Imoen definately is coming back in the party as i agree she is such an important part of the story (how many others guessed after watching the intro?) and the spells the mages are using are starting to be more the big pyrotechnics that stereotype the class. BUt in the party alignment isn't a factor, just who i think is cool to have in the party. Considering Jan for more sneaky stabbing and spells to take Anomens place. And i do confess that i often use those combo's, especially the fireball one. Have done since i first found that spiders nest in BG and had some potions of fire res. and potions of fire

 

Well, I just got Baldurs Gate II, so I dont pretend to know everything about combat tactics, but here is what I have done so far.

I have me (half-orc fighter), Korgan, Vivonica, Imoen, Edwin, and Minsc. I have 3 good tanks, so I send them in to the front line, then have Imoen and Viv pelt them with range weapons, while Edwin casts abi's wilting, etc. If I am going up against a lich, I summon up 5 things to help (usually the harashkar or however you spell it, monster summ. 3, the beserk warrior, a skelly warrior, and the spider.) then send in Minsc, me, and Korgan to melee hard and fast, while Edwin and Imoen chain cast breach/pierce on it.

Just my observations so far. Like I said, I just got the game like last week, so I dont pretend to know much. I am stuck on Jon Irenicus in the Elf City atm. Little bugger likes to use time stop up the wazoo.

 

my favorite combat tactic (which i used to not only kill the black, shadow and red dragon but also ilranicus without ever being hit
my char Sorc
first cast wizard eye
then haste
send wizard eye to the beasty
get the eye to attack from behind.
then as the beasty tries to kill this pretty much unkillable little spy
the sorc (or mage) starts the attack
using spells like
ice storm
fireball
and various other spells that you can keep your distance with
the beast doesn't know what hit them

another favorite is casting multiple copies of delayed blast fireball between me and the beasty
then when the eye is unsommoned. cast something that will get his attention to try and come and get you (this i used to wipe out the vamps in chap 6 and for killing the beholders in chap 5
getting hit with 3-4 fireballs all at once usually kills most things
and well if it doesn't then the rest of my party goes to work with swords and bows to finish off the remains

 

Nobody mentioned Melf's Acid Arrow.
1 - Few creatures are immune to acid.
2 - It has the advantage of causing damage for several rounds so, if you hit a mage with it, the mage's spells get disrupted every round until it wears off. Handy for neutralising a mage.

If you can't get your fighter close to an enemy mage in the back row, try summoning something right next to the mage. It should keep the mage busy until you can get to him/her.

Another handy trick I used was to get my F/C to cast blade barrier before wading into combat. This spell lasts a long time so it's good for pitched battles.

I agree that a thief with good "Hide in Shadows" ability is a must for scouting and backstabbing.