Balancing my party

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Hi all, I'm just starting a new party and I need your advice. Any advice will be welcome. I have always played with the conventional party (3 fighters, 1 cleric, 1 wizard/sorcerer, and 1 rouge) and I'm now thinking of another party. This is the party I have in mind.
-Drow bard (party leader)
-assimar paladin
-svinerrblin monk
-duergar cleric/4 lvl fighter
-half orc barbarian/ 4 lvl fighter
-drow sorceror
Now my questions:
1. party is without rouge, who shoud have the open lock, disarm trap, bluff, and search skill?
2. Should I dual my bard to a rouge? If so how many level should i give him so that I still get the maximum benefits of the bard? and what kinda feats are best to take?
3. Should I take sorcerer or wizard? Sorcerer has much more spells. I looked in the book of tables and spells, wizard has so few spells, at level 30 even bard has more spells than her! Is this true? But if I take wizard, she has much more feats because of the high int.so.....
4. A more general question, should i always give 2 weapon expertises to all my fighters type?
5. should I dual my paladin to fighter too?

Sorry if I ask lots of question but i've just been thinking about this for a while and need someone else's advive. Again any advice would be highly appreciated!
Thanks

 

1. Wizards/sorc's have the knock spell so you can open locks w/o rogues. Plus you can always bash things open if you are patient.
2. Bards are useless after lvl 11 when they get their last song, so yes, dual, or trio him.
3. Sorcs are good.. VERY VERY good... but they lack the ability to scribe, so you may want to think about having one of each.
4. Weapon expertise is very helpful in the normal game, not quite that effective by itself in HoF mode, you may want weapon specialization when you get to the high levels. As for how many weapons to specialize in, its a matter of what equipment you have. Also, since you're only putting 4 levels into fighters, I believe you can only specialize in one weapon per fighter. (I think.)
5. Aasimar paladins are slow to start, slow to finish. They are stat and equipment dependent, but in the end you may want 4 lvls of fighter to give you weapon specialization in longsword or greatswords. That's not to say they are bad, it just means your halforc barbarian is going to embarass your paladin during certain points of the game.

 

- Drow Sorcerer is too slow IMO.
> ECL+2 for being Drow.
> Sorcerer spell list is "pushed back" one level compared to wizards.

As Sorcerer I prefer either Aasimar (ECL+1), Wild Elf, Half Elf or Human.

- Duergar Fighter-4/Cleric
I don't think it's a good idea to give Clerics four Fighter levels.
Making this character an ECL+2 race is really making it tough on the Cleric.
For comparison a Human Cleric would be able to cast level 4 spells when this character gets his first level 1 spells!

[ December 18, 2002, 20:33: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

Wizards have many more spells then sorcerers, however they need to find them and memorize them, but in the end a wizard is always better if there are many scrolls to be found whereever you are playing (IW2 doesn't have that many, so a sorcerer is better, according to most people's opinion in here). The sorcerer has the advantage of always having all of her spells memorized, however she can only learn several per level, whereas a wizard can pretty much scribe every spell into the spellbook then memorize according to setting/plot/enemies. So ultimately it is a choice. In pnp if the DM likes scrolls I'd go wizard, otherwise always sorcerer.

 

I'm finding I like my sorceress a lot better than the wizards I've used before. Being able to cast and recast spells is great, though I do long for the ability to scribe spells.

As far as not having a rogue, you could consider using your monk. I forget which one, but there's an order that allows you to mc to a rogue. Plus, they've got the DEX for it. All you're wanting the rogue for is to pick locks, maybe do the silent moving sneak attacks. No reason why you can't let your monk do that. In my mind, a sneaky monk might as well be a ninja, but without the cool attack moves.

Also, Paladin's and Cleric's are almost the same, except that Cleric's are more for casting spells, but they can still fight. Consider keeping the cleric and replacing the pally with a druid.

I can see you're going for a melee party with fire support (also my preferred group) but there's no point in having a cleric and a paladin since they both turn undead and cast healing spells. Cleric's just do it sooner, and if you get a Stormlord of Talos, they can wield axes starting out.

 

Personally, I've never really liked monks. I know that they're very powerfull, but they just never clicked for me. Same with sorcerors. I've found that druids are a lot of fun, and of course paladins. Other then that, I just like to try and find interesting character choices. Whatever is fun and interesting to play with. Good luck.

 

1. I suggest you mc your bard with rogue also not to use a drow for the combo.
2. See 1
3. Wizards have versatality which is more important for me than having more spells. So I prefer wizard but sorcerers are powerful too.
4. No, I think 1 warrior=1 profession would be better.
5. You sure do. Add 4 levels of fighter to gain 3 extra feats, ability to specialize in weapons.

Laocorn, I think you meant Battleguard of Tempus not Stormlord of Talos.