How would you do a 3-4 characters party?

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After I complete it with a full party, I want toplay the game through with a small party of 3-4 characters.
It should still be very powerful though.
Which classes and races would you suggest for that playthrough?

Another question: If I would build a F/M/C how should I best distribute the stats?

 

Elf Sorcerer
Dwarf Dwarven Defender
Half-Orc Berserker
Gnome Cleric/Thief

Unstoppable.

 

Two single-class fighters (Dwarven Defender and Berserker), isn't that a little boring? Seeing how fighters are rather low-maintenance in this game.

I would probably prefer to make the Berserker a human so he can dual-class to Mage or Druid later on.
(Having a second arcane caster never hurts, especially if the main caster is a Sorcerer who can only learn a limited number of spells. OTOH, the druid spells are pretty cool too.)

 

Okay thanks!
If its possible I want:
- 2 arcane casters
- 2 divine casters
- 1-3 good melees
- a way to open locks

Bonus if you can iclude:
-1 Sorcerer
-1 Bard of any kit

and all that in a small party...

---------- Added 1 hours, 37 minutes and 41 seconds later... ----------

Dont you think a F/M/C and F/M/T combo would be better? Then I could add 2 extra of whichever classes I want... perhaps an avenger or a bard or a sorcerer or a REAL tank...

Or another idea: A 4 character party without ANY fighter classes mixed in...
perhaps Bard,Avenger,Sorcerer and some melee strong type of cleric?

 

Best way to meet your requirements that I see is:

Beserker/Druid dual

Blade

Cleric/Mage multi

Fighter/thief multi


3 good melees, two of arcane and divine casting, a bard, and thieving skills.

 

But both are new to the IWD setting with EE and both fit the setting. How are they boring? Plus with the hack and slash fest that IWD is, 2 melee fighters are a given.

To the OP, Barbarian is interchangeable with Berserker.

 

What do you think about:

Sorcerer
Avenger
Fighter/Illu
Some cleric dual or multi (need tips on how to build this char either dual(at which level and from what class) or multi...
???

 

What do you think about this one:

Sorcerer

Kensai/Mage/Thief

Bers 7 Druid

Bers 7 Cleric?

Should I spread my weaponprofs out or get grandmastery in one weapon as fast as possible?
Also is the dual-wield really good or are there better alternatives for maximum damage?

I can give every race every class thanks to a mod and can also dual-class non-humans.
Which race would you give my 4 guys n girls with that possibility?
Or do you think that would be too much cheating? I think no because I want to play on the highest difficulty and there every advantage counts...

Also which one would you make the negotiator?

Do you have some tips on how to use the Kensai/M/T to good effect?Perhaps using mislead or invisibility?

 

I assume you're cheating to make a f/m/t into a kensai/m/t, so if you're already doing that might as well go all out.
Honestly changing races outside of what's normally available for those classes isn't going to make a world of difference anyway.
You'll gain some resists/saving throws, maybe some thac0 for particular weapons and you'll be able to raise some stats higher and others lower then normal. the +to thieving skills some races get would only be useful on one of those characters.

Personally i'm not a fan of the f/m/t (or k/m/t in this case ) since they take pretty long to level up and develop the build to become useful. unless you're going to finish a normal playthrough first then move onto HoF, i'd stick with a kensai/mage or kensai/thief instead, probably a kensai/thief in your case since you already have a sorcerer and need the thief skills.

for the sorcerer, the only race (that's normally not allowed) i can see having an advantage is halflings, for the +1 thac0 to slings. elves get +1 thaco to some weapons too, but none of those are usable by a sorcerer. Still, elves get the 90% resist to charm/sleep. pick whichever you'd prefer.

Don't forget to keep your berserk/druid's alignment true neutral - AFAIK the only alignment allowed for druids.
the default humans are okay here, but you can also go half-orc since race is no restriction. They can get 19 STR giving you +3 to hit, and +7 to damage, also i feel the berserker/druid fits with the orcish shaman vibe if you're into RP at all and not just powergaming.

One problem with dual-wielding druids is that they are only able to use scimitars and clubs from the 1 handed weapons (well, and daggers, but which self-respecting druid is going to dual wield those?) and there's just not a great lot of them in the game even with the new items added, so you might be better off going for 2 handed weapons and spear/quarterstaff proficiencies.
Clubs wise, the only good one you can get early is a +2 one off Conlan.
Then there's the peacekeeper +3 (random drop in dragons eye, might not even find it without save/reloading before entering the area it's in.) besides that, all goo clubs arn't available till you move into the heart of winter expansion. there's Svian's Club+5 on burial isle, and both Debians rod of smiting+3 and Sceptre of tyranny+4 that are both at the end of HoW, just before you take on Iscariath, far too late into the game to be really useful unless you move into HoF mode.

For scimitars, only 5 unique ones are available in the game again you can buy a +2 one off Conlan (also confers permanent luck spell on wielder) but will have to wait till wyrm's tooth untill you can pick up Scimitar +3: Frostbrand, Marketh in dorn's deep also drops another +2 scimitar. the enhanced edition added in some +1 Wakizashi's and Ninjato at least so you can dual wield one of those with the +2 scimitar until then.
Once you enter HoW, you can buy a second Frostbrand, and/or have Tiernon forge you Talon of the Gloomfrost+4 (if you dont want any of the other weapons he can forge) also in Tales of the Luremaster, you can get the best one : Wind of Heaven+4, which also makes you immune to area spells like cloudkill, corrosive fog, death fog and stinking cloud.
Like i said, it might be a better idea to stick a spear or quarterstaff on your Berserker/druid, you'll still get the bonuses from strength so your damage output should be fine.

Also, half-orcs work just as well with a berserker/cleric, half-orc's don't get penalties to wisdom, and with some rerolling you should be able to put plenty of points in wis/dex/con and still have 19 str for the bonus.
aditionally, they don't need cha so you can use it as your dump stat and lower it as fas as it'll go to get the points to put in the stats that are important.
And to top it off, they're not nearly restricted in the kind of weapons they can use, and the ones they can use are readily available early on.
Why not make both your beserkers half-orcs and RP that they're siblings/lovers ?

Both a sorcerer and druid need a high charisma score anyway, might as well make one of them your 'negotiator'.

 

Please give me your most powerful party finally...(of 3-4 people)
Then I can judge myself if I like it or not...
I honor you because I think you know alot about this game.
So please tell me your favorite party and then we can discuss if it is good for me or not...

 

Sorry for the long post, i just hope it'll help you in some way

A lot of the classes are interchangable in my opinion - for example, a sorcerer could be called "better" because they don't need scrolls to learn spells, so they get access to high-level spells earlier.
However, same goes for a mage, but for the reason that he is more versatile in the amount of spells he can learn, allowing him to memorize a few for each situation, along with the fact that at higher levels he gets more castings out of the lower level spells then a sorcerer.
Also, gearing a character is an important part of the game. you can make 6 fighter/druids, all grandmastered and dual wielding scimitars, and not find enough of them to outfit more then 3 of them with magic weapons in a single playthrough as a (quite extreme) example.
All in all, it depends on what you want out of your party, and you can mix and match a bit depending on what classes you think are fun.

the basic requirements of a party (in my opinion) are these:
Multiple spellcasters, at least 1 of which arcane : you definitely want access to arcane spells, and because of the sheer amount of spells available, both arcane and divine, you'll want at least 1 of both. if you take a bard(gets less spell slots) or your arcane spellcaster is dual/multiclassed(doesn't gain mage levels and thus spell slots as fast as a pure class), you might want to take 2 of them.
1,5 healer : at least 1 cleric dedicated to healing, with a second character that has heals. any combo works here, can be 2 pure clerics, one memorizing heals, the other some heals and mostly buffs. or pure cleric + multiclass cleric, multi cleric + multi cleric, cleric+druid.. you get the point.
If you don't take someone with thief skills, you're gonna have a bad time : take a thief, single, dual or multi-classed, it doesn't matter. you can play without one, but it makes the game that much 'harder' (read:irritating) to play through. even just the find traps skill & the ability to disarm them makes it worth it bringing one along. you can use the find traps spell, but it's not much use if you can't disarm a trap once you find it. using hide in shadows to scout is a bonus, since invisibility would work just as well.

The main problem here is dual classing vs. multiclassing.
Most multiclasses have and keep the advantage of both/all three of the classes across an entire playthrough, but are weaker end-game because they can't gain all the abilities of the classes, because they can't get grandmasteries in their proficiencies for example, or because the level's gained in one of the classes are redundant.
By dual-classing, you can decide how much levels of a specific class you want to have before switching over - just keep in mind that once you do you can't use the abilities of your 1st class until you get a higher level in the 2nd class.
For example, a kensai that duals at lvl 9 to a thief, needs to gain 10 levels in thief before being able to use their kensai abilities again.
In this example, if you have put proficiencies in a weapon as kensai - don't put the same proficiencies while leveling again as a thief, the kensai ones will be higher and just override them when you regain those levels.
If you put 5 points in long swords as kensai, lose them when you dual to thief, so you put 2 points in long swords agai as a thief. as soon as you hit kensai 9/thief 10 you regain your kensai abilities and will have 5 points in long swords again, making the 2 you put into it as a thief useless.

If you want to play as legit as possible, i'd go with multiclass over dual class. to make something similar as what was already described you could go :
elf sorcerer - pretty much the same thing
half orc fighter/cleric - lose out on grandmastery, rage ability
half elf fighter/druid - lose out on grandmastery, rage ability
elf Fighter/Thief - lose out on grandmastery, kai ability

They won't get as strong as the dual class setup in the end, but you won't run into problems leveling them up, losing your 1st class skills, then leveling them up again until you regain them - so you can start and finish strong with them. They'll still be able to take on what the game has to throw at them.

I'd still suggest the dual class party if you're going into HoF mode though, simply because the beserker/kensai abilities and grandmastery help to make them much more powerful.
Just for fun, i made the dual class party you described earlier with some modifications. All stats are legit, though i used the .ahk reroller program to automatically roll high stats for me, all of them have a stat roll of 93 or higher.
both the cleric,druid and kensai have grandmastery (5pips), in maces, scimitars and long swords respectively, and 3 pips in 2handed style - all 3 of them getting 4 attacks.

they're only wearing regular armor/weapons as available at pomabs, though i did have to level them up of course.
They tick all the above boxes - you have 1 pure arcane spellcaster in the sorceress, 2 divine in the Berserker 7/ druid X and the berserker 7/ cleric X, the cleric being your healing battery. the kensai 9/thief X takes care of your thieving skills, while getting 3 castings of kai per rest.

Of course, the problem with this setup would be getting it off the ground starting at level 1 - you won't get thieving skills till you hit lvl 9 with your kensai - same thing with divine spells till your berserkers hit 7. also, at the point where you'd duel you're not going to have access to your kensai/berserker skills till you regain them at druid/cleric level 8 and thief level 10, so you might have a tough time with the enemies in the area you're in at that point - you'd probably have to rely on your sorcerer alone.
in the end game and throughout Heart of Fury mode however, they will be tons better then the multiclass variants.

So going with this setup, you might be better off having them leveled straight out of the gate, then subtracting exp later along - even though this is "cheating" and will trivialize the beginning part of the game.

for reading, hope this helps.

 

Yeah, this pretty much summarizes the point i'm was trying to get across, thanks.
I'd also like to add while the screenshot i've added was of characters with enough exp to regain their 1st class abilities, if you do cheat in experience, i'd give them just enough to get to the level you want their 1st class to be, then start off at level 1 in their secondary classes, so you don't start off overpowered right away, though you will see a sudden spike in their powe r once they do regain those levels.

 

Well, ther is that, yeah.
i was more thinking about killing speed and mowing down everything that stands on a map in a matter of 2 minutes, but i guess you won't have to worry overly much about dying early on if you go this way

 

For me multiclassing was the way to go as dual classing is just not as fun and takes too long to get where you want it and if you don't go that far you are usually better off with the multiclass.

My 3 character party would be thus

Ranger/Cleric
Fighter/druid
fighter/mage/thief


In IWD I find warriors to be invaluable for most of the game so having all part warriors is a big plus. The ranger cleric gives maximum divers spell casting and great overall prowess in fighting. The druid gives you full access to druid casting and more importantly at high levels get elemental forms which with the right equipment can temporarily make your druid invulnerable to weapon attacks (a godsend at high level fights). The FTM is mostly to give you thief abilities. The mage spells are the long term gain while the warrior keeps him useful at all times. Essentially he is a better fighting thief that gains spells slowly (I find his thief progression to be more than fast enough).

With larger parties I tend to add these characters bard (good front man, casts spells well that really helps the FMT, and has some great songs that can later heal) and ranger (great warrior in IWD and can get great attacks and the spell casting is great at high levels assuming you get there as a high level static charge is AWESOME and lasts long enough then to be thought of as an all day buff).


Granted this advice really only applies if they did not change something really important in the enhanced edition. For instance if bards lose that healing song their stock goes way down.

 

It works fine if you're playing on Insane difficulty (thus getting double XP) and your party is relatively small.

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I played with this 'cheating' party build a while ago, and it went really well:



They got all bases covered, from reliable melee damage to being able to cast all spells (Wizard, Cleric, Druid), and I even managed to get in a decent backstabber, an undead turner, and a lead character with high charisma for good store prices.

Some advice in case someone wants to try out a similar party:

• Only play such a party on the 'Insane' difficulty level, where you get double XP. On normal difficulty the triple-classes will level up too slowly. Of course, playing on Insane difficulty with a small party will mean that the beginning of the game is pretty tough. So this party is probably not suitable for first-time players at all.

• Dual-classing the Berserker->Druid at level 21 was just an experiment to see if it can be done in this game (if you're playing through all expansions on Insane difficulty). Result: It can, but the massive downtime is not worth it just for the weapons grand mastery. If you're fine with cheating class combinations, make him a multi-class Berserker/Druid instead. Otherwise, either dual him at a lower level or make him an unkitted Fighter/Druid multiclass.

• The K/M/C ended up the most powerful one of the lot. With defensive Wizard buffs like Stoneskin and Mirror Image, and offensive Priest buffs like Draw Upon Holy Might, he could become near invincible while doing massive melee damage by the end.

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The above party has all that.

Having a Bard or Sorcerer is more or less incompatible with the goal of having a well-rounded small party. The Bard's songs only shine in large parties, and the Sorcerer is not as versatile as a character in a small party needs to be. Bite the bullet and either make a full 6-person party which includes those classes (here's one that I can recommend), or go with a small party of dual- and multi-classes. You can always do two play-throughs so you can experience both.

 

Ineth that party of you looks really cool and strong.
How did you roll that high stats(or did you use eekeeper)?

However I would do the Berserker/Druid as multiclass

Dont you think adding a sorcerer who can blast all day long would improve the party?

What do you think about making a Kensai/Mage/Cleric AND a Kensai/Mage/Thief plus the Berserker/Druid?

 

No, I rolled them on the chargen screen.

Note that rolling high stats is much easier in IWD:EE tough, than it used to be in the original IWD game - because it now shows you the sum of each roll, so you don't have to do any calculating/estimating in your head anymore. Just click 'reroll' until the sum total shows a number you're happy with...

I think having 4 or more characters would probably slow down the triple-classes too much. Not 100% sure though, maybe 4 will still work fine in combination with the double XP from Insane difficulty. You could always start with 4, and then if you notice that you're levelling too slowly, kill off one of them...

I wouldn't.

You can afford the Kensai's "no ranged weapons" restriction on one character, but for 2 out of 3, it would be a really harsh penalty. Especially if the third one is a druid who can only use slings, not bows.

Bows are really powerful and useful in this game (not just for raw damage, but also for things like finishing off trolls with fire arrows). That's why I specifically built the third character (Fighter/Wildmage/Thief) to be a good archer in addition to her other roles.

Besides, Wild Mage is one of the most fun kits; especially when you play with the Wild Mage Additions mod (which you should).

If Wild Mage is out of the question (some people just don't like that kind of randomness), I think the best kit for that character would be Assassin.

 

So which stats can I put low at everyone of those 3?

Should I give the F/M/C an other kit so he can use ranged weapons too?

I also dont like the wild mages randomness. What are the benefits of the assassin-kit?

If you were able to get grandmastery even as a multiclass, which weapons would you skill with them three?