Need Some Advice on This Group Please

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Hi all, I'm about to start a new group to go through IWD2 on normal....or that's what I'm hoping will happen. The farthest I've gotten to date is the Severed Hand, this time I'm going to try party members that are kind of oddball characters to hopefully keep me interested. Here's what I was thinking:

Gnome/Male/Fighter/Quarterstaff+Long Bow
Elf/Male/Cleric+Monk(Ilmater)/Fists+Crossbow (Lawful Good)
Dwarf/Male/Ranger/Dual Short Sword+Crossbow
Dwarf/Female/Cleric+Druid/Pole-arm+Sling (Neutral Good) Oghma
Half-Orc/Male/Bard+Sorc/Longsword+Sling
Human/Female/Rogue+Wizard/Longbow

The bard can handle the talking, rogue/wiz the traps etc. Not sure if I'll have enough healing with the two clerics being split with other classes and the bard split as well though. Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

For your gnome fighter make sure you max strength and raise only strength at level up or else you might just use summons instead.
Be flexible about weapons, you don't know what you're going to find.
Staves are ok but you might also want to use axes (also useful for throwing), greatswords or polearms in case you meet monsters resistant to blunt damage or need more raw damage output.
Bows and crossbows are the only ranged weapons which don't add strength damage you might want to switch to throwing axes or other weapon types later. Definitely take 13+ dex and the rapid shot feat.

Cleric/monk mix with fists won't work well. Monks loose their faster unarmed attack progression as soon as they get BAB from another class and the fist damage (and many other monk benefits) depend on levels in the monk class alone and spellcasting depends only on cleric levels.
Monk and clerics are best kept pure class.

The dwarf ranger can't specialize in any weapon types so you can be flexible in the weapons you find. Keep a big damaging two-handed weapon as back-up in case you meet monsters with damage reduction. Max strength at creation and raise only strength at level up, you want more than just tickle your opponents with small weapons with low base damage output.
Crossbows don't grant a strength bonus to damage and are limited to one attack per round even if you're level 16 and can have 4 base attacks and an extra ranged one with rapid shot. Crossbows are only good early in the game and for characters with few attacks.

Cleric/druid mix doesn't work at all. You need access to high level spells fasts, level 4 spells at low casting level just don't cut it when you're supposed to be able to cast level 8 spells.
If you make your second character a monk make this character a pure priest, if the second one is a cleric you can take a pure druid instead. There are very powerful polearms in the game.

Half-Orc Bard/Sorcerer doesn't work well. If you want all the bard songs you need 11 levels and a sorcerer needs all levels he can get. It's far better to create a pure bard or sorcerer instead. Charisma is the most useful stat for both classes and half-orcs get a penalty to it.

Rogue1/Wizard x is popular, start as rogue and only take wizard levels afterwards, the high int will make sure she has enough skill points to put into the thieving needs when leveling up as wizard.

 

What kmonster says is correct. I'll just add a few notes.

One level of Monk can work for a Cleric or Druid who uses weapons. If you want to use a Monk's fists, you gotta stay all Monk all the time. Deep Gnome Monk is a popular choice. Half-Orc can work as a Monk too, since Half-Orcs don't take a penalty to Wisdom, but I'd suggest a race which gets more bonuses than penalties since Monks need Str, Dex, Con and Wis.

Rogue 1 / Wizard+ is a great mix. Consider using an Elf, Tiefling or Halfling, or maybe a Gnome (Illusionist).

Bard / Sorcerer is terrible. Much better is Bard / Fighter or Bard / Barbarian or even Bard / Ranger (bows falling back on TWF). You could make a Human or Half-Orc Bard / Barbarian front-line tank, that's a fun combo. My strategy with Bards is: Bard 1 -> warrior class 1 -> all Bard levels up to 11 or 12 -> more warrior class. Bards only need to start with 14 Charisma, so you can easily have a 14 Str and a decent Dex / Con bonus as well. If you do this, don't take offensive spells, since your 14 Cha won't work on many enemies. That's fine, just take buffs / heals and your party will kick all sorts of butt.

 

I consider half-orc the best class for monk, just dump int and cha to 1, max str, dex and wis and put the remaining 16 points into con, raise wis (for AC and special abilities) or maybe str at level up.
Be aware that monks do more damage with a good 2-handed weapon than with fists and warriors get more attacks with weapons.

The best class for rogue1/wizard is human because of the extra feat and skill points.

No need to mix bard with other classes, their songs are so powerful that the other characters will be missing a lot both offensively and defensively if you stop singing at higher levels.

 

4 of your 6 are casting classes, so you should do fine. Remember to keep them focused on leveline 1 class mainly, and only take a few mix-in levels if you feel the bonuses outweight the leveling delay. Each level you mix in weighs more heavily than the previous one, due to the leveling system.

 

The only other thing I will add is that it can be interesting to have a Paladin in the mix somewhere as there some Paladin specific elements to the story.

I do agree that it helps to have at least one character who can wield a beefy two handed weapon as there are some monsters who only seem to get damaged when hit really hard.

 

Thank you all very much for responding, a lot of what was mentioned I hadn't thought of or even knew heh.

Gnome/Fighter/Qstaff+Bow+Axes
Half-orc/Monk/Fists+Crossbow
Half-orc/Bard+Barb/ not sure what weapons yet
Dwarf/Ranger/Greatsword+Bow (maybe a blunt wpn too if i have enough feats)
Dwarf/Cleric/Polearm+Sling
Human/Rogue+Wiz/Bow


One question about using throwing axes, do they benefit from the Martial Weapon: Axe feat or is it Simple Weapon: Missile?

 

Dwarf Ranger isn't really a good match for Greatswords. Maybe you'd do better with a Dwarf Paladin? That's still a very oddball character choice, because of the Cha penalty.

Dwarf Paladin of Helm / Fighter 4 might even be good from a power perspective.

Dvargar (Grey Dwarf) Paladin would be playing VASTLY against type.


Throwing Axes use the MW:Axe proficiency. If you take Weapon Focus (Axe), it applies to one-handed, two-handed and throwing axes.

 

Be aware that weapon focus only adds +1 to hit, you are allowed to use weapons without focus in them, only for not being proficient you get a -4 penalty to hit. Rangers start proficient in almost all weapons, especially all blunt weapons, you don't need feats to carry one around as backup.

Make sure your bard gets access to the powerful level 5 song ASAP, I wouldn't add more than 1 barbarian level before gaining access to bard level 11 and all songs.

 

Ah, the good old Half Orc Bard Barbarian. Affectionately known as the 'Homer Simpson' character from a Simpsons themed party that did the rounds here a few years ago, after someone created some Simpsons avatars for IWD2. Homer had one level of Bard to represent his time as a member of the B-Sharps.

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Man - that Simpsons party was awesome. Marge was a cleric (she does first aid on the kids). Bart was a Thief. Lisa was a nerdy Wizard/Bard. Maggie had Sorcerer blood.

You had to start in Targos with just Homer and Marge, and then you added the kids to the party gradually throughout the game.

 

Lol @ the Simpson party idea, that's a really interesting idea.

Thanks for all the feedback guys, I really appreciate it.