Party advice needed

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Btw, what are the vital stats a bard should have? In particular I'm referring to Intelligence and Charisma. The former is used to determine spell levels but why does charisma need to be so high?

 

Actually the rule of Intelligence determining the maximum spell level you can cast was not implemented into either the BG series or IWD1. A mage with 9 Intelligence can still cast any spell level. Its easy to see for yourself too since in BG2 Edwin is the only npc mage with 18 Intelligence, but yet any npc mage can cast level 9 spells.

So the only thing Intelligence really affects is your percentage chance of successfully scribing a scroll to your spellbook and also affects the number of spells you can scribe per spell level. Both of these things can be fixed by temporarily drinking a potion of genius.

High Intelligence also gives a bonus to Lore, but a bard already has such a high Lore that it isn't very necessary.

As for Charisma, there are some quests and other things that are affected by having high Charisma, although I believe 14 Charisma is the highest required. You also get a shop discount for High Charisma. 18 Charisma is a 15% discount, and 20 Charisma is a 25% discount. 25% is the maximum. You also get a discount for high Reputation, which stacks with the Charisma discount. However, that really only matters in BG since IWD1 has nothing that actually can raise your Reputation. Although you can lower your Reputation in IWD by killing innocent people, nothing will actually raise it.

As for optimal stats for a bard, that really depends on what kind of bard you are building. A combat oriented bard will want to focus on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution like a fighter. A bard that just sings constantly and maybe casts a few spells would be better focusing on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Note that once the bard reaches level 11 he gets the War Chant of the Sith (Darth Vader's song?) which you will probably want to leave on almost constantly because it is just so good.

 

Bards should have 16 in con and 18 in dex. They also make great "face" characters since they are forced into high cha by default and will have decent int scores. IF you are making a face character to interact with npcs (and to get the few bard specific interactions) then I would say that putting an 18 in cha is best and putting as many points as you can into int and then wisdom (to give you the most options in conversations). In the long run the 18 dex eventually becomes superfluous in HoW (though for a good portion of the game it is very very good hence why I said putting an 18 is a good idea) but I think it is still worth it if you can get good int and cha scores.

Once you get the war chant you will no longer need a cleric to do out of combat healing which is awesome. The only healing spells needed are spells that are needed in combat such as Heal or perhaps cure critical wounds.

Bards should not melee. Try to use them as archers, out of combat healers, singers, and spell casters.

For the halfling F/T a sling is awesome if you have a high str bonus since it will add to the damage. The problem for the halfling is that you can't start with better than 17 str so at the start a bow or darts are the better weapon. Darts will rack up more damage overall than bows but ammo for darts is less plentiful and you will have more trouble keeping up with ammo consumption unless you cheat in a crazy number of darts. Darts also lose out in the long run due to the relative lack of magical darts compared to magical bows+arrows. Later in the game if you get any str boosting items and you start getting more attacks per round the sling gets a boost over the bow. Even with the extra attack per round the sling comes out ahead barring specific bows which grant even more attacks (which once again starts to swing the conversation back to bows being better). Slings also allow for shield use without micromanaging your inventory which is nice as well.

The +1 to hit with missile weapons does not mean anything on its own in this case because long bows will give you the same bonus so accuracy is the same regardless. I would make the choice based on whether you want a weapon that does greater damage per shot (due to eventual enhanced str bonus) + shield use or more shots per round (and I would say that in general magic bows in the game are better than the slings in terms of their enchantments though most magic bows in the game are random which makes it hard to say for sure).