My current party: The Windriders

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Here's my current party ... The Windriders.

As you can see, the characters are only somewhat min-maxed, with some less than optimal (from a powergaming standpoint) race and class choices. (I have rather aggressively taken stat points from CHA, though not as much from INT.)

I will, of course, be using the Light of Selune mod, as well as some of the "support" mods.

And the thumbnail pics below are custom edits that I did specifically for each character. I think that my favorite pic is Orran's. The original pic was rather boring with a blah whitish background. Also, it showed the character with a crossbow on his back. I removed the xbow, and replaced the old background with a dark-ish blue sky with some clouds. Orran seems so much more nasty and mysterious with this pic!





The Windriders

The Windriders are a party of good adventurers who have come from the Dessarin Valley (east of Neverwinter) to join the defense against the goblin threat to the Ten-Towns. The Windriders party was formed by Cayleb and Neeka Windrider only a couple of years ago, and consists of the Windriders and their adventuring friends. They chose the name "Windriders" for the party since it had a certain adventurous flair that fit everyone's image of the party ... a group of adventurers who seek out fortune and glory.

The Windriders were actually in Neverwinter when news of the call for adventurers to come to the aid of Targos first arrived. As they had only just completed a rather boring caravan escort from Waterdeep, the Windriders were up for something more ... interesting.


Cayleb Windrider
CG Ranger X, Human Male
STR 16+, DEX 18+, CON 16, INT 8, WIS 14, CHA 4
Favored Weapon: Swords and Bow


Cayleb Windrider is the undisputed leader (but not the party talker) of the party. He prefers to use a bow, but will switch to a melee weapon very quicky if the situation warrants it... which is usually more often than not. Sometimes Cayleb will join Orran on scouting missions to give him backup, and provide another sword if what they find is too much for Orran alone.


Kragnar
LG Fighter X, Shield Dwarf Male
STR 18+, DEX 13, CON 20, INT 8, WIS 12, CHA 5
Favored Weapon: Axes and Hammers


Kragnar is the party's muscle.

What's there to say? He's a (not-so) big, nasty dwarven fighter who can deal and take a lot of punishment.


Arynne
NG Morninglord of Lathander X, Human Female
STR 18, DEX 10, CON 16, INT 8, WIS 18+, CHA 6
Favored Weapon: Mace or Sling


Arynne is a fledgling young cleric who seeks to spread word of the Morninglord's benevolence, as well as expose evil to the Light.

Arynne has no real preference between melee or ranged combat. She's generally better in melee, but as the party cleric there are times when she needs to stay out of melee to avoid taking too much damage. Besides, in tight terrain, she's often the party's rear guard (while Orran's often well out front scouting).




Amara Windrider
NG Bard X, Elven Female
STR 14, DEX 14, CON 10, INT 14, WIS 8, CHA 16+
Favored Weapon: Bow


Amara is Cayleb's wife and constant companion. Amara is the party's spokesperson. In battle, she prefers to simply sing and use her bow. But if pressed, she'll engage in melee if it's necessary to protect Sheris, the party's sorceress.

I wasn't much of a fan of IWD2 bards prior to this point. I couldn't get excited about a character that whose best use was to stand around and sing. However, with Lingering Song (and a little bit of micromanagement), you can use a bard as a fairly active member of the party in battle. And, of course, bards make great party "talkers", as well as making ID'ing most things you find quite easy. (I don't think that I've cast a single Identify spell yet. Anything Amara can't ID, gets saved until I can see a merchant to do it. And that really hasn't been a big deal at all.)




Sheris
CG Sorceress X, Human Female
STR 12, DEX 14, CON 12, INT 12, WIS 8, CHA 18+
Favored Weapon: Arcane Magics


Sheris is a young sorceress that joined the party so that she could use her arcane skills to make her way in the world.

Sheris is a fairly typical sorcerer character. Uses a crossbow when not casting spells, etc., etc. In battles where magic is not all that necessary, Sheris will simply stay at the rear, firing away with her crossbow. But in the nastier battles, she'll let loose with her full arcane arsenal.





Orran
CG Rogue X/Ftr 4, Human Male
STR 16, DEX 18+, CON 16, INT 12, WIS 8, CHA 6
Favored Weapon: Bow, Short Blades, and polearms


Orran is a very mysterious and soft-spoken rogue. The party doesn't know where he hails from and will deftly change the subject if pressed. Cayleb has speculated that Orran may be from Waterdeep, or even further south, and was forced to flee to the north to escape the anger of some powerful former mark.

At the moment (I've just cleaned out the Yuan-to temple), Orran is a devastating sneak attacker and assassin. His party kill percentage (16%) doesn't match Cayleb (26%) or Kragnar (26%), but that's largely because in the bigger battles, the two tanks will rack up the kills. But outside of the big battles, Orran is able to sneak up on just about any single character and take them out without too much trouble.

 

Just curious, why does Sheris have 12 STR? I would have gone 10 STR 10 WIS. Is it just for the carrying capacity?

 

Yeah, pretty much. Also, mages have such high Will saves, going with an 8 WIS really doesn't hurt all that much.

I just dislike not having a decent amount of carrying capacity, even in the lowliest mage.

(BTW, I actually like taking a "Strong Back" feat with high STR pure fighters who have feats to burn. A 150% increase to a high STR character adds a lot more carrying capacity than it does to a low STR character. Kragnar has already taken the Strong Back feat a while back.)

 

I also like having a decent carrying capacity as well and don't mind my casters having 8 Wis.

 

Bards are awesome, in fact they are my favourite characters along with Rogues.

Anyway, it's nice to see one of your parties in the making.

I don't mind some stat dumping but I wouldn't go for such a low CHA for any party leader. Likewise going below 6 is IMO a powergaming option (I'm not calling you a powergamer as a real powergamer wouldn't bother writing up a background story for a party).

Looking at their CHA I would say that from an RPing perspective they may look more like a bunch of misfits than a band of heroes.

 

Carad, "heroes" should have more stat points. I'm not so interested in playing Joe and Jane Just-above-average as my D&D "heroes". (( Maybe I should have just used Dalekeeper2 to give me more stat points... ))

Regardless, I do realize that these CHA stats are definitely on the low side. But these guys are supposed to be great heroes, and need heroic level stats!

Oh, as for the "leader" thing, yes, it would be better for a party's leader to have a better CHA. But with IWD2's character build system, it has a built in bias against "leaders" being anything other than paladins, bards, or sorcerers, since those are the classes where CHA is very useful, and you need stat point possible, even when not trying to overly min-max a character's stats.



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Oh, and BTW, Carad, while I am learning to appreciate bards a little more, the member of my party that's really shining is Orran the Rogue X/Ftr 4. He's a really devastating sneak attacking "assassin".

In the major battles, he's pretty nasty. But in a scouting/exploration role where he can encounter only 1 or 2 baddies at a time, Orran is absolutely devastating. He practically cleaned out most of the Yuan-ti temple (aside from the 3? major battles) all by himself. He's been wielding the LoS dagger, Bonefang, most of the time, and has been amazing with it. Yeah, it's "just a +3 dagger", but it's pretty amazing what a poisoned dagger in the hands of a sneak attacking rogue can do. So, yeah, he doesn't have the raw "chunking" power of a max. STR tank wielding a nasty 2H weapon (though he does sometimes use a fairly nasty 2H weapon of his own for the first hit in a sneak attack on larger targets), Orran and his little ol' poisoned dagger can wreak havoc on many an enemy. (I should also note that Orran has been wearing boots of speed since I found the first pair, and that just makes him that much more nasty, zipping from target to target, stabbing away with glee!)

 

It seems your mod makes it worthwhile to take 4 fighter levels for a rogue then.

I do agree that level 1 characters are a bit wimpy in IWD2, in the good old BG days you could have almost godly stats at low levels.

 

I'm not sure that improving the benefits of weapon focus and specialization really account for my rogue's capabilities. It seems more like a combination of various items. I also think that people have to remember that rogues earn BAB at the same rate as a number of other classes, clerics in particular. So it's not as if their BAB's are all that bad. I should also note that I'm using some parts of Mindchild's Custom DLL mod; the adjustment to weapon finesse, in particular (i.e. the section where weapon finesse is tweaked to working for any weapon in which the character has weapon focus). Of course, this was irrelevant for small swords and daggers, but I suppose that it's been useful for polearms and spears.

*chuckles*

I think that IWD2 characters might not feel so wimpy if they started with somewhere closer to a base of 80 stat points, rather than 76. Some classes (rangers or paladins, for example) are just about impossible to build with a decent stats, due to the strain on a number of stats caused by the nature of the class (without heavy and unrealistic feeling min-maxing), while other classes (wizards?) are fairly easy to build.

If I had left Cayleb's CHA around 8-10, I'd have ended up with a character that was better suited to be an archer. But I wanted Cayleb to be strong enough to be a regular front-liner, even if he did wear light armor and use a bow quite often. The result is that I had to cut his CHA down to 4.

I have to admit that I reduced the CHA scores for all but the bard and sorc just to get some extra stat points to make the characters more "heroic". But I wouldn't lower any INT scores below 8. (I probably could have made due without the DEX 13 for the dwarven fighter, but I wanted him to take the Dodge feat at creation....)