My Party - Suggestions Please

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@ Setzer

Your party looks fine for most of normal mode. I would suggest you drop the Druid and go with a party of four. The best thing the Druid offers is Barkskin and, since you are not going for a high AC build, you have little use for that spell. Otherwise, just about anything the Druid can do either your Cleric or your Sorcerer/Wizard can do better. You will also level more quickly with a four person party.

Having said that, if you plan on going into HoF mode, then this party will not do. Looking at the tank at the end of normal, one might think that he is really tough -- having close to 300 HP is a thing of beauty. However, by the time you hit the Shaengarne river that tank in the frontlines will find those 300 hit points disappearing so fast your cleric might not even have time to cast Heal before the tank dies. Yes, HoF is that bad. This party will be forced to rely on a wall of summons in order to survive, and that's just boring.

If you think you might like to go into HoF, I would seriously suggest that you take an in-depth look at the JUPP. Once you understand the concept, the parties are easy to manage and absolutely own the game! In addition to making normal mode fun and easy, it allows you to run in HoF mode without relying on a massive amount of summons. My current party is at the Horde Fortress (not very far, I know) and has not had to summon a single creature. My high AC decoy cannot be hit, even by HoF monsters on anything but a natural 20. Try it, you'll like it.

 

Then what would be a good aproach for HoF? I mean, having a 72 AC decoy can't be the only way to finish it without having too much trouble. Not having such a decoy means that you will be hit, so what should be done about that other than acquiring a lot of HP?

And BTW: I'd recommend a human paladin/sorcerer over a Aasimar one. You are going to need at least 2 skill points a level (for concentration and spellcraft). The Aasimar has to take 12 Int in order to do that while the human could drop int to 3. That means that you have 9 extra attribute points that you can distribute among the phisical stats so that your sorcerer will die less easy.

 

Spellcraft is important to Sorcerer's? I thought all it did was help identify spells and increased the chance of Wizard's successfully writing them to their book? My Sorcerer is going to be the talker of the group so I'm going to need enough points each level to raise Bluff, Diplomacy, Concentration, Knowledge Arcana and Spellcraft( if it's that important to a Sorcerer). That's why I have his Intelligence set to 16. This will give me 4 points at each level.

Just to clarify something on my Sorcerer/Paladin build, is WIS necessary? If Paladin's get Divine Grace which uses the CHA modifier for Saving throws then I really shouldn't have to worry about what I set WIS to, right?

Also, I'm thinking about adding a level of Ranger to my Fighter(4)/Barbarian(X) character for dual wield purposes. If I do that will I have a 20% XP penalty for all my Barbarian levels?

 

You could take three levels of ranger to avoid the multiclassing penalty.

A sorcerer/paladin should have high enough will saves, so you don't need wisdom for that. It's also used for the paladin's spellcasting, but if you are only level two that doesn't matter.

 

3 levels of Ranger w/ a Fighter 4/Barbarian X is a waste. You are better off creating a human Fighter 4/Barbarian X, then you can get two-weapon fighting and amberdexterity with the extra feats for being a human. Human Fighter level 1 will get you three feats, use two for two weapon fighting and amberdexterity and then put the other one in whatever else.

I've read that you need ten levels of SpellCraft to get the element feats for spell casters. Since you have three mages, split some of the stuff out. Not all three mages need to have Knowledge (Arcana) skill. I'm not really sure how many levels of Concentration is enough to keep from failing a casted spell. You should always try to build your parties so that your members compliment each other. Take weapons for example, there are three main damage types when it comes to weapons: slashing, piercing and bludgeoning. You should have one person using one of the these types of weapons as a main and a different type as a backup. I remember from when I first started playing IWD2 the number of times I was getting upset because I couldn't find a weapon to hit some creature. You've got to have some diversity in your characters in order to keep from struggling with every battle.

 

Yeah, spellcraft is needed for the elemental feats. Spirit of Flame is especially useful for your bombardier and his fire-based arsenal.

 

Well, I think I have a party of 4 that compliment each other quite well.

Slashing - Human, Fighter/Barbarian(Long sword)
Bludgeoning - Dwarf, Battleguard of Tempus(Axe)
Piercing - Drow, Rogue/Wizard(Long Bow) and Human Aasimar, Sorcerer/Paladin(Crossbow)

As for skills, I'll have my Sorcerer do Alchemy, the Wizard do Knowledge: Arcana and keep Concentration & Spellcraft raised for both.

 

@ Menion Leah

The only way to do HoF that I have heard of other than the Ac 72 decoy/tank is to have a wall of summons in front of you. No character will have the HP to survive more than a few rounds in HoF, hardly even that if they get mobbed.

When I was in the smuggler's caves in Targos, one of those worthless Targos goblins got around my decoy and hit my tank. Even though I had the rest of the party hitting the goblin with every missile weapon I had, it still took off about a quarter of my HP before it died. At the Horde Fortress exterior (where the drums and bridges are), one of those hardened Ice Trolls went the long way around and came up behind my party. I sent in my secondary tank who had about 150 HP and an AC of 44 and a mirror image up. He was just about dead within five seconds. Thankfully, my Sorcerer had managed to pump the Troll with so many Flame Arrows that it died before it could finish me off. HoF is nasty, and I have'nt even gotten to the tough monsters yet.

 

I am currently playing with a five person party, but I try to 'solo' as much as I can with my paladin(10)/sorcerer(13) because I think he's so cool. The sorcerer part is mainly for buffs such as both fireshields, ironskins, trollish fortitude and the most important: mirror image. He usually does pretty well, but sometimes I have to let my cleric or druid cast a heal spell on him. It's just a matter of keeping that Mirror Images up.

Another one of my tactics is to make my pure sorcerer invisible and then walk in on a group of enemies and cast Wail of the Banshee. It's still working now that I am only in chapter 1.

 

Setzer, sounds like you got everything covered. Let us know how it turns out. I'm hoping to be able to start playing my party this weekend.

 

@Menion Leah

There IS yet another way of surviving HOF, if you don't want to use a high-AC decoy or summons. In short - killing and/or disabling your enemies before they can attack you in numbers. (You could also cheese your way out by using Improved Invisibility, but that'd be totally boring.)

I used this approach with the original UPP party (I only replaced the pure tank with a second cleric since I wanted more buffing power) and I think I got pretty good at it. Here's the recipe of destruction that works on 95% of the encounters in game. I'm assuming there's two clerics and four mages in the party.

1) Make sure all of your characters are buffed to the gills with both offensive and defensive buffs. Mirror Image (or Invisibility), Stoneskin, Mass Haste, Emotion: Hope and Holy Power would probably make a 'minimum required' list.

2) When you see enemies approaching, start with your clerics casting Prayer and Recitation. Help them out with mages casting Malison and Emotion: Despair. Wait a couple of seconds with the remaining two mages and have them cast Slow and Chaos so that these spells get the saving throw benefits from other spells.

3) Follow up with a double shot of Symbol: Hopelessness with your clerics. Have your mages cast Wail of the Banshee. If enemies are immune to the Wail, run away with all but one character and pepper the area with area effect spells, the decoy recasting Mirror Image as needed.

4) Chop the enemies that are still standing. Highly unlikely, may I say. But if you got extremely unlucky with your enemies making their saves, repeat step 3.

5) Resurrect your dead party members - it's not unusual that the enemies manage to bring down one or two of your party members before you're done casting the Wails, no matter how careful you play. If they kill both of your priests, reload and redo the battle.

Kind of repetitive and boring, but works wonders. Needs split-second timing in phasing the spell casting and positioning the characters for best results.