Party of four or five

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I thought about a bit smaller party of goody two shoes, knight-errants. I don't think about doing HOF with said party later. I don't plan to minmax like crazy, if possible (so no fighter with 3 INT). I know that I need 2 tanks, cleric and mage. Here's a list:
1. Pal 1 Sorc x, human or Aasimar, bomber and diplomat; max CHA and CON, raise INT and DEX a bit
2. Pal 8 Fighter x, Shield Dwarf, tank; max CON and STR, raise (and concentrate later on) CHA
3. Pal 1 Cleric of Ilmater x, Aasimar OR Pal 4 Fighter 4 Cleric x, FDrow, battlecleric; max WIS, CON, raise STR and CHA
4. Pal 1 Wiz x, human or moon elf OR Pal 1 Rog 2 Wiz x, MDrow (in that case I wouldn't need 5th character), summoner; max INT, raise DEX and CON
5. (Optional) Pal 1 Rog 2 Fighter x, Shield Dwarf, thief (locks, traps) and tank support; max CON, raise INT, CHA and DEX

I have some questions:
1. Should I invest in ECL races or choose plain humans (battlecleric drow may be bad cleric, after all)?
2. Should I include thief or rather rely on wizard?

EDIT: Another option:
- Don't bother with Ilmater battlecleric, make him (or her) full cleric
- Create Tempus battlecleric as summoner and tank
- And there's optional Rog 2 Wiz x, if I really need him (well, battlecleric can set off most of traps and open locks by force)

 

If you are going with 8 levels of paladin, you'll want at least 12 wisdom (preferably 13) and a positive CHA bonus.

As for the cleric, you're probably better off going pure until you get at least 7th level spells. You can do the mix-in at level 20 if you go for HoF. Maybe mix in one level of paladin if you need the saving throw bonuses, but in general you want those cleric spells and a decent CHA bonus for turning. In fact, if you go asimar, you might want to only do 18 WIS and use the extra 3 points to raise CHA, then raise WIS to 19 at level 16.
In any case, a cleric would want a positive CHA bonus for turning, high wisdom, and decent STR, and CON since they can be decent fighters with their buffs. You can skimp on DEX by using heavy armor, but you don't want to go below 10.

 

OK, here's my team just before final battles (with halfdragons and twins):
- Aasimaar fighter (6) paladin (11)
- Shield Dwarf fighter (4) priest of Tempus (13)
- femdrow paladin (1) priestess of Ilmater (15)
- mdrow paladin (1) rogue (2) wizard (13)
- human paladin (1) sorcerer (17)
Game was more balanced in chapter 1 (it was easier, although I aimed a bridge too far). Harder fights included those damned Lost Followers (yet they're easier to kill), final chamber in monastery and Saablic Tan with his group. M'darfein and Xvim were surprisingly easy opponents.
Dwarf is a killer, but a bit fragile despite huge health, very good armor and buffs.
Priestess starts to shine, 200 kills thanks to throwing axe from squares in addition to nice buffing/healing spells.
Wizard is bad. Got two levels of rogue in mid-game because he couldn't open locks and disable traps. Has some spells, but still a bit useless. Fragile despite various buffs.
Aasimaar is really good at fighting and occassional self-healing.
Sorcerer is excellent. OK in terms of defence, really deadly (FoD and HW are nasty despite not having GSF) and good summoner.
In comparison to my previous parties this one is a bit more experienced (by one level each), but it really makes a difference. Wizard is lagging and lacking, but it's probably due to ECL (and small paladin buff doesn't really help).

 

Because of the ECL, I'd have suggested putting the rogue levels on the sorcerer. Then they would both be caster level 15.
Alternately, you could have done Aasimaar fighter(4)/Rogue(3)/Paladin(10), although that is tricky since you have to do two levels of rogue, two levels of fighter, and another rogue level before starting on the Paladin and can never advance the rogue again or you sacrifice paladin advancement.
If you wanted the six fighter levels (not sure why you chose fighter(6) instead of fighter(4)) you'd have to wait until level 12 before taking paladin levels to avoid the multi-classing penalty. With only fighter 4 you only have to wait until level 6 to take a paladin level, although you won't actually get Fighter(4) unless you wait until level 8. Here's the breakdown, and I started with rogue at level 1 for the bonus skill points.

1. level 1 Rogue [R1]
   
2. level 2 fighter [R1/F1]
   
3. level 3 rogue [R2/F1]
   
4. level 4 fighter [R2/F2]
   
5. level 5 rogue [R3/f2]*
   
6. level 6 fighter [r3/f3]
7. level 7 rogue [r4/f3]
8. level 8 fighter [r4/f4]
9. level 9 rogue [r5/f4]**
10. level 10 fighter [r5/f5]
11. level 11 fighter [r5/f6]
12. level 12 paladin [r5/f6/pX]

* At this point if you only want four fighter levels and 3 rogue levels you can take a paladin level at your next level up. Choose Paladin of Helm and you can take the other two fighter levels later and get your saving throw bonuses right away, then go for two more fighter levels to get your weapon specialization, then go paladin to start getting your spells.
**After reaching this point you can start on paladin levels if you choose "Paladin of Helm", then take the last two fighter levels at your leisure.

 

What would my heavy armored and stupid (low intelligence) pally gain from rogue levels? She isn't very wise (14 base wisdom) or agile (14 dexterity) so even equally evasive monk also is no-go. Heavy investment in paladin is mostly due to lay on hands, which is very occassional (because at this point my clerics have a lot of healing spells). At least fighter has more feats. However, priest of Tempus could be better with two rogue levels (again, evasion).
I can see merit of giving 2 rogue levels for my sorcerer (skill points and evasion), though (on the other hand, she's quite durable despite the lowest AC in party).
To be honest, I think that drow rogue-wizard would fare better in smaller party. 5 men group is still too large for triple-class drow to be effective.

And final fight with that team was surprisingly tedious and difficult.

Time for even smaller party. Priest (yet another drowess), barb druid (half-orc), sorcerer (hooman) and rogue-monk with heavy dose of transmuter or demarch (chose tiefling for this).

 

I was thinking of sneak attack bonus, as the fighter/thief in IWD1 is actually quite good. Sorry, confusing games.

 

Rogue is best mixed with Fighter 4 as a bow specialist, sneaky scout, disabler of traps, but NOT as backstabber. The maxed Dexterity and bow specialization from Fighter 4 make sure F4Rogue is a machinegun, changing ammo depending on situation and making full use of the VARIOUS magical arrows, very important to HoF where you can get boatload of such things.

RoF4 is a superb utility role in HoF. And all it ask is sacrificing backstab option in particular and melee in general.

Comparable to RoF4 would be Bard, but require abusing songs. Without stacking songs, Bard is of lesser use

 

My 4 grlass cannons were a bit messy, so i left them and tried another 5 person party (guess it works fine for me: 5 men including one-two ECL). I thought about casting rogue and chose tiefling with 16-20-12-14-15-1. So far I'm about to visit govlin warrens and she's level 5 (effective 6). I plan to give her monk levels and certain axe, but currently I think about 10-12 levels of Mask priest. She's mostly for support, summoning and scouting, not much for a backstabbing.

 

Re-visiting old thread. I have saves for both teams (4 glass cannons and tiefling group) at the end of the game and here're the results:
1. Barbodruid orc and barb(11) fighter (6) dwarf are killing machines
2. Tiefling monko-wizardo-rogue is ok as a support, I guess
3. Drow clerics and human sorcerers are very good (provided they're properly built)
4. Tiefling Mask-rogue is a mistake
5. Glass cannon group struggled whole time, partially becuase I forgot to raise CON for my socreress and tiefling weirdo (but mostly because the're often overwhelmed), 5 people didn't have such problems

Time for another 5 folks. I'm a bit bored with constant human sorc/pal, so I want to try somethin else:
- wild elf Sorc X/Monk 3/Fighter 2 (stats: 6/20/10/8/14/18) or altrenatively Sorc X/Monk2/Bane1 (6/20/14/1/17/18). First one allows for more feats (including elemental ones), second will be more durable. I'm not quite sure about it.
- dwarf cleric, probably also Bane
- dwarf fighter 10; not sure if I should later go for barbarian or monk (barb for sure will be destructive).
- DG monk (first time full monk and first time gnome)
- I need a diplomat (not to buy and sell stuff, but for negotiations). Initially I thought about rogue-wizard, probably drow, halfling or tiefling (with boosted charisma ofc), but I realized there's also a bard class, so maybe rogue-bard (I've never played as bard, though).?

 

Finished "party of four", "tiefling group" and "bard&monk group" and here are results:
- 4 folks team is completly unbalanced (for various reasons), had problems with being overwhelmed or killed for the most of the game (partly because I didn't invest in CON and summons), on the other hand blasted through the final chapter with almost no problems; high risk, high reward group. Party of 5 is more balanced (additional warrior or caster is really useful and doesn't handicap the rest by lowering EXP too much).
- wild elves are pretty good socrerers and lower INT isn't that much of a problem - elemental feats are not that necessary if you plant skull traps, launch lances of disruption or snipe with finger of death/desintegrate. Still I won't dare to lower INT below 8, maybe 6 (because DBFB, chain lightning and vitriol sphere are good to have, even better augumented).
- experimental high wisdom dvarwen fighter 10/bane 1/monk 6 is really durable and better than barbarian despite EXP penalty (but he's fighter, so who cares).
- rogue 6/bard 12: with 16 INT I wasn't able to fix that crossbow, probably wasted to many levels on rogue (she could benefit from bane and transmuter levels), but spells and songs compensated this (and she was still competent diplomat).
- monks are good, be it single class DG (perfect scout) or mix-in for high WIS character.
- druids are nice and versatile class. I didn't bother with shapeshifting, but spells are quite good.
- drow clerics are must-have despite ECL penalty. At worst they can put up a fight if the rest of the party is overtaken by enchanting spells, in normal cases they have lots of spare stats.

Time to try something else - drow-heavy, caster-heavy group:
1. LN drow cleric of Bane(X)/rogue(2): 8-12-10-18-18-14; diplomat, traps&locks, caster. It was hard to balance stats without crippling the character and I wanted to actually utilize Banite potential (not just enchanting or later wisdom buff, but also talking skills). I don't know which secondary stat I will raise (if any); wisdom is obvious and she's going to wear heavy armor (screw hide and move silently, she's not an assassin).
2. LG drow cleric of Ilmater(X)/monk(1) and maybe ranger or just buff monk levels: 16-20-16-5-18-5; fighter, caster, buff WIS and CON.
3. LG drow cleric of Ilmater(X)/paladin(1): 15-10-16-5-18-16; fighter and caster, boost STR and WIS, later CON.
4. I think about human druid (LN, with one monk level): 18-18-12-7-18-3, caster, back-row fighter (thrown axes). I didn't want to lower INT too much, because I want Spirit of Flame. Alternatively I could take orc axe thrower (monk? priest of Tempus? barbarian?) obviously oriented on STR.
5. LE wild elf sorcerer with one level of Bane and monk: 6-20-12-6-14-18. Initially I thought about fighting LG sorc/pal/monk (15-20-12-1-10-18), but I didn't like idea of lowering INT to abysmal level and dealing with glass cannon (low CON, low WIS) unless I just create DEX fighter with weapon finesse and short swords (6-20-16-1-15-18). That way I could give monk level and it could work (he's still caster, but I can forget about elemental feats; investing in skill for a whole game so I can buy feat boosting one or two spells at very end looks like a waste, especially in case of feat-demanding class like sorcerer). Human would fit perfectly for low INT build, but wild elf? No.

EDIT: After running some tests, I realized this Banite will be bad. Maybe NE Banite/bard? I just want diplocleric. Swap druid with classic rog/wiz for traps and quests. Perhaps r/w could work as fighter (with Tenser's)?

 

Update on "clerical" banite-ilmaterian band en route to the Hand:
1. Drow cleric of Bane (15): I didn't make her rogue, went full cleric, invested more into CON and CHA instead INT. Competent diplomat (but bad liar) and buffer, somewhat decent enforcer and debuffer.
2. Drow cleric of Ilmater (13)/monk (1)/paladin (1). I just keep boosting WIS and put one point into STR after paladin quest in Kuldahar. Surprisingly effective fighter.
3. Drow cleric of Ilmater (12)/paladin (3). Put everything into STR.
4. Human druid (5)/rogue (5)/monk (3)/cleric of Bane (1)/transmuter (1). Good all-around fighter (axe throwing, great axe, massive halberd of hate). Decent alchemist. Put some points into WIS, DEX and now STR. I plan to invest the rest into druid, sadly exp penalty is a bit annoying.
5. Wild elf sorcerer (16)/bane (1). Almost at 18 level. Very deadly, even for my frontliners.

Game was a bit hard at the beginning, but later boss fights were quite easy. Those undead from paladin quest were of course demanding, but not crippling. Lich was quite easy (both paladins and druid went through him ignoring the crowd, not to mention he apparently forgot about his deadly spells and just kept casting insignificant stuff).

I don't know what to think about cleric of Bane. On the one hand, she's decent spellcaster and can defend herself, on the other I feel that wizard, bard/rogue or intelligent sorcerer are better talkers.
Druid. Why I feel she'd be better without additional monk and rogue levels? OK, she'd be worse at trap disabling (which can be problematic).

Aaaand my plan to create durable sorc turned out to be waste of time and effort: I found master robe together with helmet granting immunity to death spells. I prefer CHA bonus to spells than WIS AC boost. Nevertheless, I'll probably give her monk level or two later for ST.

EDIT: final update before fight with the twins. 1st and 3rd cleric got anotner cleric level, 2nd cleric got ranger level (she rocks even without it anyway). Druid advances in druidism, sorcerer in sorcery. In general:
- banite is good as intimidating diplomat and support (debuffer/buffer/healer)
- cleric/monk/ranger/pally is excellent fighter with 3 sets of nice maces
- sorceress really benefits from having 3 high-ECL companions (Xvim was disintegrated); she really has fun from casting Disintegrate/Finger of Death/Horrid Wilting/DBFB left and right (even if it harms the party) and I don't need GSF or GSP, just invest in CHA
- lack of dedicated intelligent character and bluffer blocked me from some nice quests, but it wasn't all that important anyway
- game was quite balanced, so far the only hard moments were at the beginning of the 1st chapter and with Lost Followers
- drow clerics are good choice for either battlecleric or support despite ECL

 

When you think you are Hard enough... it's time to turn on Heart of Fury mode~

 

I played IWD2 over and over for 1,5 year. I run out of steam and party ideas. Last playthrough was mainly to test Bananite diplopriest.

 

I think about returning to IWD2 and I want to have fun with blasting party. I thought about this squad:
1. Drow Monk (1-3) Priest (X)
2. Drow Pal (1-3) Priest (X)
3. Human Pal (1) Sorc (X)
4. Aasimar Pal (1) Sorc (X)
Late game, this party surely will wipe floor with enemies. However, there're two things:
1. Party lacks dedicated cover and emergency warrior. 3/5 of the game is going to be painful. I thought about someone who won't be useless later, so maybe monk/rogue or straightforward monk (disarming/tanking traps, axe throwing etc.)? Or maybe another cleric (monk-priest, but more monk levels)?
2. One sorc needs high INT, but I don't know which one would be better. Human doesn't really need INT and can use spare points to boost DEX, but it would be easier to train him as a diplomat.

 

Pal/Soc combo is great, but Pal/Priest is not so good ... perhaps Ranger/Priest. If you need a character with high intelligence, then rogue/wizard seems to be the choice -- it is surprising how powerful an arcane thief can be.

 

Pal/priest is basically priest with nice boost from charisma, greater access to weapon prificiences and a quest reward. I need intelligence for both being a face (diplomacy, bluff, intimidate) and some quests, so said person has to be quite charismatic (so either sorcerer or I just create talkative wizard). Thing is, I don't want to create too big party (surely these roles can be easily covered by 6 men group).

Wouldn't just one level of Paladin suffice for sorc?