Classes in my party

Remove all ads!

I recently started to play this game again, and am about half way through it at the moment. I have only completed it once before. I am just going to comment on my party at the moment:

Fighter/Thief, Female - started out quite weak but has gradually got a lot stronger. Used as a tank.

Fighter, Male - Strongest character, currently has about 120HP. Tank (duh)

Bard, Male - I have never ever used a bard before. Now I know why. He's not especially strong, and the fact that you can't cast spells while wearing armour when he has such low dexterity is a bummer. Used as a tank mainly, occasionally with bows.

Cleric, Female - Hmm, weak-ish, but still able to tank. My fault mainly because I was concentrating on the wisdom scores in character creation rather than the constitution...used as a tank.

Fighter/Mage, Female - I have had this class before and they have been quite good when supported by other party members, however this one often snuffs it quite easily. Still a tank though. Sometimes with a bow.

Cleric/Mage, Male - Ouch. Weak. No more to say about this. Actually, those spells are the only useful thing from him, but that's kind of what you'd want from a multi-classed spellcaster, isn't it? Definitely a stand-in-the-back-with-a-crappy-sling person.

Comments?

 

Stats and races do really matter, you could provide us with them. It's also important if you play with HoW installed.

Your party isn't very strong, but I guess you are too skilled for a powergaming party which would make the game too easy for you.

You have 3 half-mages, but no proper one.

Replacing the C/M with a F/C/M would have increased the fighting power considerably without decreasing the spell power noteworthy.

About your cleric: Just dualclassing after 2 ranger levels (cost: 2,250 XP) would have doubled the fighting power without reducing spellcasting power.

About your bard:
Give him bad stats and complain about him being weak.
If you find one of the two random chainmails AC2 in the severed hand he gets an armor, if not bracers AC6 will be the best permanent armor. But the shield spell lasts so long that it's nearly permanent AC4 and there are also mirror image and blur.The rogue's cowl you should buy for him in chapter 2-3 gives additional +2 AC.
If you use the right spell combinations he can last even longer melee than your fighter.

Bards are best used in the back row while singing or using a composite bow or spells. Even the base bard song might result in your other party members doing 10-20 extra damage per round and there are even better songs if you have HoW.

Without your bard your haste spells would last 2 rounds shorter and there are also other level dependent spells.
Your bard is also the perfect diplomat, getting all the charisma based dialogue options and cheapest shop prices (with the friends spell), allowing the others to reduce charisma for other stats.
And don't forget the cool bard only items.

 

Just looking at your party and your comments, I have to ask if it was your intention to focus on a melee-heavy style of play or if you are inexperienced with spellcasting and the other nuances of the various classes (no offense meant, most of us learned how to tank our way through these games before we figured out that there were ways to play that could be even more fun).

Bards, clerics, druids, and mages can in fact be key and even extremely powerful characters in IWD if you learn how to use them properly, but engaging them in melee combat is almost certainly going to be the wrong way to go about it.

I second pretty much everything that kmonster wrote above.

If your bard is ever engaged in a melee attack you are almost certainly using him inefficiently. His usefulness comes from supporting your other characters with his bard songs (and at higher levels Bards can function as very competent spell-casters) or perhaps as an emergency ranged attacker. My bards in fact almost never wear armor because of the hassle of switching it out in case I need them for emergency spell-casting purposes. The standard bard song you get at level 1 is especially useful at the beginning of the game (though it's sometimes hard to figure out exactly what it's doing for you, there is a difference), and if you have HoW installed with the higher-level bard songs you may begin to wonder how you ever played *without* a bard.

Clerics are extremely useful in IWD (and HoW especially) because of their Turn Undead ability, but as kmonster points out you might be better off giving them some early melee ability by dualing them from a ranger (even dualing from a fighter will work, though a ranger/cleric has some nice benefits).

Thinking of any type of mage character as a "stand in back with a crappy sling" type character means that you are probably underutilizing them. Even an Enchanter (that's the specialist class who can't cast magic missile, fireball, and many other typical offensive spells) can be lethal if you are a little clever in employing their spells. There's no time limit in IWD, so getting plenty of rest to rememorize spells after each battle or two should be no big deal.

As crazy as it sounds, you don't really need more than three melee/tank characters in IWD, and can definitely get by with only two. I'm sure there are people out there who have even taken a single character through the game with almost no melee ability at all...

...so to sum it all up, if you find your characters to be weak at standing in the scrum and hacking away, experiment a little and find out where their strengths lie.

 

Thanks for your comments. I don't actually have HoW, but am hoping to get it soon. You would be right in saying that I like melee-heavy fighting. My favourite tactic is to cast loads of spells on the party before a big fight (especially the ones that affect all party member, e.g. Bless, Prayer, Haste, Protection From Evil 10" Radius etc.) then charge in with Fighter, Cleric and Thief combinations, then leave anybody else (Bard and Cleric/Mage) at the back, throwing spells and ranged weapons.

For this party, I decided only to have one single-class fighter because I know that they're pretty strong, and I wanted the game to be a bit more challenging. I'm also playing on the core rules setting. I had a bard because I've never had one before, and Cleric/Mages are usually quite weak I find, so I've got one of those.

I'm not too sure what my stats are, but it's something like this:
F/T - 18,18,17,10,7,11
F - 18/00, 18, 18, 10, 7, 9
B - 17, 16, 17, 18, 5, 6
F/M - 18, 16, 16, 18, 6, 5
C - 17, 18, 18, 5, 18, 9
C/M - 15, 16, 15, 18, 18, 3

It's mostly the stat(s) needed by each class that are the highest e.g. Mage needs INT, Cleric needs WIS etc.

I have begun using the Bard as a tanker now with Blur, Mirror Image and Armour cast on him, and he lasts ages without getting hit. Me, being the silly ass that I am, thought that Mirror Image meant that you could still get hit but not as much as without it, rather than you can't get hit at all until it gets dispelled/runs out.

Cheers.

 

I'm glad you discovered your bard's hidden power.

Bards can even be very useful while fleeing, so running around singing while followed by enemies is probably the best use for them if you want to save spells.
But I was always too lazy for this.
Singing does increase the party's damage outpout more then attacking with a weapon.

 

I think there is a chance of being hit.

 

Im fairly certain you need more Charisma than that to become bard. should be at least 15 or so (iirc).

per PNP rules you are correct, per rules used in iwd and bg1 you have to kill all images before character is hit. making it just as good as stoneskin really.

 

I was kind of assuming the CHA was a typo, supposed to be 16.

And you forgot to mention that BG2 implements the chance of getting hit.

 

thats why i specified "BG1" there Fel