Going through the whole game + HOW for the first time.

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I myself have played through original IWD, but I recently got HOW and downloaded Totlm. Now I'm thinking to go through the whole game with six man party. I'd like to add more challenge factor to the game, and fasten little bit my leveling which can easily be done by setting difficulty to harder. The thing is I don't want to hit the experience cap untill the very end of the game, so if I play on insane with six man party will my characters reach level 30 (excluding multiclass characters..) before the end of the game? I intend to play with party consisting of:
Fighter/Thief
Fighter
Druid
Fighter/Cleric
Necromancer
Fighter x, dualed to conjurer at preferably quite early level, around 5-6.

 

If you play the hardest (not HoF) or easiest level your party will have about 30,000,000 XP at the end, that's 5,000,000 for each of your characters, that's fighter level 28.
With "hard" or "easy" this would be 3,750,000 and at normal 2,500,000 for each character.

Don't exspect an insane game to be harder than a normal difficulty game, the faster levelling helps more.

I strongly recommend to take a bard, the extra bard songs in HoW are great, you'll miss a lot without a bard. I'd replace a mage.
My bard could handle the arcane magic alone in my party easily until a fighter was dualed to mage in chapter4.

The opposing schools have changed with HoW, look into the manual.
A conjurer can't cast evocation spells like magic missile, fireball, stone skin, sunfire any more.
Now illusionist is probably the best mage school.


I dualclassed a fighter at level 9 to druid, she could wear heavy armor and shield.
She got an extra half attack even while shapeshifted for fighter level 7 and specialisation bonusses when using scimitar and sling. Scimitar profiency even has an effect on thac0 and damage while in polar bear form.
But it's very hard to roll such a true neutral fighter since besides 17 cha and 3 int every stat lower 18 hurts. Pure druids get better total rolls and don't have to set cha to 17.

A pure druid is also playable. The spells are great.
But don't complain if he hardly does any fighting damage in physical combat.

 

Thanks for the information, looks like I'll try with insane then.

I know about the spell school changes, the idea behind my school choises is more like roleplaying, like the necromancer will be focusing on using necromancy spells. It adds some new variety and challenge if the mage isn't just throwing fireball and magic missile all the time.

I just finished IWD2, where the bard has the same songs as he has in HOW as I have heard, and I found that my bard was ok, but nothing great. Of course he would serve better roleplaying factor, but this time I might leave him away.

My druid isn't supposed to beat people in melee, that's why my fighters are there. She will support with spells, and her offensive spells are great against masses.

 

@ Deck-of-cards
Your party seems to me powerfull enough, and if you played IWD before, there will be no major problems. And if some battle will be difficult, we have advisors like kmonster and Silverstar, I believe they can answer allmost every question.

I decided to start with 6 men party in normal after some soloing and playing with 3 men party. Small parties get levels very fast and become powerfull early. So, it will be interesting to manage party from 6 again. And in normal levels are comming slowly. That is the point - to beat tough enemies with low level party. More tactics and micromanagement. No high level spells early.

Here is my next party:
Ranger - elf with longsword and bow
Fighter - dwarf with axe and shield
Bard - human with different musical instruments and greatsword
Fighter/Druid - halfelf with dagger and shield
Mage/Cleric - evil gnome with mace and shield/and helm of trusted defender/
Mage/Thief - elf with longsword and short bow, sneaky backstabber and caster

 

Any party good enough for IWD is good enough for the expansions as well. So you don't have to worry about difficulty.
Roleplaying parties are usually more fun than powergaming parties.

IwD1 bards can sing the level 11 song even outside battle. So you don't have to cast healing spells after battles manually and your priests can memorize offensive spells instead.