DominionSeraph's Endurance Powergaming Party.

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I think the manual might be wrong in that case. I am fairly certain 4 attacks per round is the max, even if you are level 100. I will check it out later.

 

4 is max, the manual is wrong. You need something that explicitly gives an extra attack to reach five, be it haste, dualwield or items.

 

I enjoyed the challenge of getting it to work.
You can't just walk into Mordor with six Bards. Bards are rather weak, so it's not, "LOL bard exploit. GODMODE=1." Six Bard(30)s are going to get pwned.

Those Bard levels were not easy to shoehorn in while still getting the other class levels needed for spells while having the right classes at the right levels to compensate for the limited equipment available in the single playthrough while having optimal ability scores to use said equipment while still having needed caster ability scores while having classes well suited to using said equipment while having the feats open to best use it while avoiding serious multiclassing penalites while meeting my requirement for thieving skills to be present. (And no, level squatting doesn't remove the need to consider multiclassing penalties. It's very limited in what it can do. There's a reason I don't have a Monk(1)/Paladin(2)/Fighter(4)/Bard(11)/Cleric(12).)

Throwing together six characters with random races, random ability scores, random classes, squatting them at random, equipping them at random, but giving them all a random number of Bard levels, isn't likely to net you a powergaming party.
The path to an uber-powerful six bard party is very narrow, but I think I nailed it.

 

Considered from a martial arts viewpoint, 20 attacks per round is actually very doable. The 2009 world record stands at 13.5 punches per second (Wing Chun style). That would make for 81 attacks per round
Part of the reason why real world and D&D can't translate to each other very well. Have fun balancing something like that when default high level monk unarmed damage is d20.

Really?
By your own account you have two bard11/sorc&wiz and all they're doing most of the game is absurd 30 strength slinging all day long. Good think you've those 19 sorc&wiz levels to feel balanced... while you slingshot bludgeon everything to pulp.

So really... whole reason for 2 characters taking most of their levels in sorcerer and wizard is so you can save a few seconds on big enemy groups. Attack bonus progression doesn't matter i guess, you'll probably claim they never miss anyway.

Most people enjoy building powergaming parties. Most people also enjoy sharing them with others. Few people feel the need to respond to comments through insults and derision. Fewer still refuse to acknowledge points made by every single person commenting on your party.
There's discussion and there's smashing your head against the wall. Guess what this is.

 

Ok, you joined in '02, so you've got to be at least 8.
And you don't know what a tank is?

This is an IWD2 HoFable party. You shouldn't be commenting if you don't know IWD2 HoF. The people so far have been shaky just on IWD2.

I am not the manual, nor am I a substitute for experience. If you don't know what a sorc does, play one. If you don't know what a meatshield is for, play both with and without one.
I'm not gonna teach you the attack roll and every spell effect in the game.

 

Hm. Spending an hour to kill something is a long time.

 

Of course i know what a tank is. I own 3 goldfishes and they're still alive!
I've been trying really hard for the past 8 years, but so far i just don't understand how to construct a tank for my party. Please help.


I would congratulate you on your IWD2 HoFable party of supreme power, skill and god-nessness, but i hear one of these shaky normal IWD2 noobs beat HoF with a solo ranger. What a lucker eh!

I was under the impression sorcerers were spellcasters o.O
You obviously know better and pump out STR to max to hurl small stones with much might at the evil little redcircled folks.

 

Could we stop with all this nonsense please?

@Dominion: you should think twice before posting asinine remarks that you think make you look cool (and I won't quote them you know what I'm talking about). I've said it before but I'll say it one more time, you're certainly not making a point by insulting all the posters who disagree with you.

@the others: if we don't have anything more to bring to the discussion I think it would be better to let this thread die on its own. Everyone has made it pretty clear that having an entire party based on the bard song stacking abuse is really cheesy. Now if some players enjoy it, that's their game. It only gets a bit surreal when someone tries to convince everyone else that such an abuse leads to the "best" party ever.

Since most of us are not Rangers with trolls as favourite enemies I'd suggest we stop with the baiting.

 

I stated the conditions I was optimizing for in the opening post. I never said there weren't other sets under which one can play.

I assumed it was common knowledge that, given unlimited resting, the Sorc is the most powerful class by far. A party of Sorc(30)s will just annihilate the game.
But they'll take a year to do it.

Time is meaningless in-game. If that counter is also meaningless to you, it opens things up.

Here's my "Peace In Faerun" party:

75 years of goblins and humans living peacefully together. Only if I step outside the door will the neverending peace be broken.

 

Well, there's a difference between doing stuff just for the heck of it (world record on walking on all fours? driving all across Finland on a moped? swimming across the English Channel?) and doing stuff at least somewhat optimally. Anything goes for the first, although somewhat nutty ideas seem to get the most respect points, while rules and implementation is where's at for the second. You don't get the honor of being the first man on the Moon by walking on a sheet of paper with the picture of the Moon printed on it, for example.

Based on the amount of flak I initially received for JUPP -- just for the fact that I assumed people would be somewhat OK with level-squatting in a POWER gamer's guide -- it quickly dawned on me that it would, in fact, be rather more interesting to see what could be done with as little exploits and shady rules lawyering as possible. The "I only ever consider RPG aspects, thank you" crowd isn't really the target audience either so pure pragmatics such as shameless min-maxing doesn't need to be excluded either.

So while I do, in fact, applaud the effort in trying to come up with something new, there's only a limited interest in discussing whether one or two bards achieve infinite buffs better. They both ultimately do, by the level 11 at the very latest, if there's nothing holding back on the amount of Lingering Song applications allowed. Yes, I'm aware that you're trying to keep it to just one type of song per bard at one time, but you'll end up *cheating* whenever you mistakenly double-click on a song you only intended to activate once. Hence, that's some extremely sharp razor's edge to balance on when considering its legitimacy basis.

 

Wow, how did I miss this thread before? Well, better late than never...

DominionSeraph, your initial goals are laudatory. It makes sense to try to reduce in-game time; if you rest whenever you like, you essentially have unlimited spells and healing to use on each encounter, and without that aspect of resource managment, the game gets less challenging and less interesting. Sure, HOF summons are overpowered; even normal-mode summons are a pretty good value for the price. Sure, using the walkthrough to cast your buff spells is a little cheesy, though not really a big abuse. And I think everyone agrees that ORS and pre-patch I.I. shouldn't be used.

On the other hand, spellcasting isn't bad. This is a game about magic, and its fine to use spells, even short-duration spells, to win the game. Just don't go crazy and blow through your whole list on every map. A good way to enforce a sane limit on spell use is to set a fast but reasonable goal for in-game time to complete the game, say 30 days Once you subtract the time to fight, explore, pick up loot, talk to NPCs, travel overland (a big time hit!), you'll probably have enough time left to rest 15 or 20 times over the course of the game, which lets you do plenty of spellcasting, just not constant blasting away with only the highest level spells.

In most of the situations where you want to fully buff up, the story makes it clear that you are about to face a major battle, so that isn't metagaming. For normal encounters, you can scout the map with a stealthy/invisible character and use that information to decide what buffs to use. Short-duration buffs typically last for two or three clumps of monsters, while medium duration spells like Emotion:Hope can last all map. So your opposition to those buffs isn't warranted.

But after all that, you end up using, as Jukka put it, "two of the top 5 exploits of all time": level squatting and infinite bard song stacking. At one time the community had more tolerance for squatting, but at this point I think the consensus is that a party should be able to play through the game gaining xp and levels normally, without the use of squatters or xp mules or whatever. Bard songs, well, maybe you could argue that 6 bards all singing the same song for a sextuple effect is OK, but clearly stacking up 16 (or 60 or 600) songs via Lingering Song is abuse, whether you do it with six bards or only one.

Oh yeah,

Seriously cheesy when you say that you don't like to rest to regain HP and spells. Nope, lets regen tons of hp for free just by standing around!

 

Point to where I said I ever used it.

My tanks were unhittable in normal. When War Chant was available at level 11, suddenly everyone had 8/- DR and 12hp/rd in combat. That's not exactly a "needing to stand around to heal" state.
In HoF, two of your characters have both Heal and Mass Heal. Guess what? You won't run out of those before you have to rest anyway to rebuff.

With the Bard Song AI script, your bards will be singing Tymora's Melody out of combat, not War Chant. Turning off the AI and then individually selecting all four Bard(11)'s to individually select four War Chants just so you can sit there for 20 rounds while all your buffs are ticking down...
You think that is better than a Mass Heal?

Non-combat War Chant of the Sith makes a big difference in a normal mode game with 26AC Fighters as your frontliners. They're health limited, making the endurance of their attached Cleric their limiting factor. Being able to completely lift after-combat healing duties from her shoulders helps tremendously.
It doesn't work that way with monks buffed to 43AC sporting 8/- DR. They only take damage on a 20, it doesn't confirm critical, so we're talking a 1x hit that gets 8 points taken off.
Now, when their buffs fall off, then they're in trouble. Now they're just a fighter with d8 HP. But that's not their powergaming mode. When their buffs fall off, to get back in that mode you rebuff -- you do not run them as fighters dependent on their Clerics' healing.

So their central powergaming mode is buff-limited, not healing limited. Time is the enemy of buffs, which is why you peel off a Mass Heal. War Chant is not even on the radar screen.

 

I think someone still doesn`t know the difference between cheating, and powergaming...

 

Sir Rechet wrote the book (almost literally) on IWD2 HOF mode. I confess to only ever having played HOF once, and getting about 3/4s of the way through before getting bored. Second time is due to start within hours though.

Its commendable to try do something that hasnt been done before. Like, after reading the JUPP, I tried to come up with my own powergaming parties that could take on HOF but didn't require any experience penalties (I hate them). I came up with a few ideas. Anyway, while your goal is commendable, not only do you use blatant cheats (a Paladin wielding the Massive Halberd of Hate +4?), some of them are oversights of the programmers that a future patch would undoubtedly prevent.

Purely on the basis of the fact that your party relies on invalid class combinations (based on alignment restrictions), I would not call it a valid solution to the problem of What is the Best IWD2 HOF Party?

EDIT: Not sure where to post this, but seeing as it is powergaming and HOF related, I thought I'd post it here.

I discovered today that Mordenkainen's sword is affected by luck. The interesting thing about this is that this is the only weapon in the game that has 4 damage dice, in other words, its comparatively easy to maximize its damage. Two Tymora's loops or one loop and one lucky knucky would do it. The only problem is that the critical hit multiplier is only 2 - if it were more, this would be a godly combination. Still, with the right damage, critical hit range, and damage boosting equipment, this could become interesting. I suppose its biggest drawback is that it doesnt receive a damage bonus from strength - probably damage you cant replace.

Anyway... I suppose this means the black blade of disaster would be the same? Does it receive a strength bonus? Its an easily attainable 2d12 weapon so it could also be interesting.

 

Well, not in this party at least. I actually put the two sorcs in with Mordy's Sword in mind, but when I finally got it, I was underwhelmed.
I don't think many other parties have 30 STR sorcs wielding 1.5x STR weapons, though.

Mordy's Sword is pretty hard to beat, otherwise.

I just made up a Bard5/sorc25 to test, and BBD doesn't seem to be affected by ANYTHING. It doesn't get any damage adds nor is it affected by luck. Whereas Mordy's sword was doing 35/35/35/35/35/70(crit) with Hope and stacked Bard songs for +8 damage and +12 luck, BBD hit for 11/17/20 damage.

 

In other words, BBD is a completely useless 9th level spell. Maybe I'll investigate a mod to improve it somehow.

Am thinking it should be 4d12 +20 with a x4 critical multipler on rolls 15-20. And disruption on hit with a fort save of 50, plus 100% chance of 4d6 fire damage. Totally not overpowered.