Party Advice

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Hello

I'm going to replay ToEE. I'll install Co8 ofcourse. The party I envision is this one:
Human Paladin/Fighter4
Human (or Half-Elf) Druid
Elf Cleric
Dwarf Wizard
Half-Orc Rogue2/Barbarian

The Paladin and the Barbarian will be up front, the Barbarian with a polearm. The Cleric will be a Cleric/archer. I'm not so sure how feasable that is in ToEE, otherwise she will be Shield/Weapon.
The Wizard will be a caster. (Duh.)
The Druid will be a Caster/Melee. But I wanted to ask if Wildshape in ToEE is as good as it is in P&P. Will be Shapechanged Druid (With Natural Spell ofcourse) be a melee killing machine? I also wanted a Druid so I could craft Amulets of Natural Armour.

So, what are your thoughts on this? Thanks in advance!

 

What alignment?

I'd recommend Neutral Good party, make the Barbarian CG (be able to use a bastard sword by late in the game).

 

Yes, of course, Neutral Good.

 

Never tried the archer/cleric. I find that you won't have enough feats or not be that good of an archer. If you plan to take Craft Wonderous Item and Craft Arms and Armour, you have only feats remaining for Point Blank shot and Precise Shot. I find the cleric is pretty good as a melee character since he wears heavy armour and is less feat intensive than archers.

I actually never tried to shape change my druid. It's just that by the time I get that ability, my magical weapons that I am able to craft already do massive amounts of damage.

I've completed the game with and without Amulets of Natural Armour. I find that I just don't notice those extra 2 points of AC.

 

I find I prefer the Sorcerer over the Wizard. Mainly because you get Fireball at an earlier level.

 

Wizards get Fireball at level 5 while Sorcerers do not get it until level 6.

 

I was pretty old school basic with my TOEE party:

Human Paladin of Heironeous
Half-Elf Cleric of Pholtus
Dwarf Fighter
Halfling Rogue (no multi-classing)
Human Wizard (I think I made a Conjurer or Abjurer)

I like playing paladins, and rogues are too fun to leave out. In TOEE, my halfling Rogue was a pretty deadly archer after he gained a few levels! My cleric tends to serve as a reserve melee fighter or protection for my caster in close combat, with the rogue always trying to get behind or to the side of the most powerful enemy.

I don't know why, but I almost never make druids or monks...

 

Here is my crew so far:
Cleric of Pelor human (Gotta love Greater Turning!)
Rogue Half Elf
Barbarian2/Ranger2 Dwarf (Undead, then Goblinoids and Elementals)
Druidess (I forgot if she is Elf or human..)
Sorceress Human (Magic Missile the Darkness!)

I plan on toating around Meleny, Fruella, and for now I got Zaxis and all his Bardly might. Serena may have to replace Meleny if she doesn't survive, or Zaxis since he usually replaces my Cleric as a front line healer half the time since my Cleric is too busy Turning or fending off the people he heals.. or himself he is healing! XD Grimhammer is a favorite though the blue haired dwarf had a dislike for Lacedons the first time we got way layed en route.

Druids are a must have for me, where my Cleric is an offensive fighter my Druids are offensive spell casters. My best IRL character is an epic Druid/Monk Halfling.. who can turn into SwampThing, a Dragon, or an Ocelot among many, many other things including an Ice/Fire Elemental! (Cast as the Frost and shift into Fire elemental form! Voila!)

 

Here are two parties I completed the game with:

Party 1: Heavy Magic

Human Fighter (Glaive and WW attack)
Human Cleric (Law, Good)
Half-Orc Druid
Human Sorcerer
Elf Wizard (Evoker)

At high levels I can get off 2 fireballs and 2 flame strikes in one round.

Party 2: Heavy Combat

Human Fighter (Glaive and WW attack)
Half-Orc Fighter (Two-Weapons)
Human Cleric (Law, Good)
Elf Fighter (Bow)
Human Wizard (Evoker)

The fighters get a lot of multiple attacks.

 

What are the "best" banned spell schools in this game? I built an evoker with necromancy and conjuration as the barred schools, and then found out I didn't have access to web. Since my only other caster was a cleric, I decided that was a deal breaker and I should probably start over! So, any suggestions on the wizard? It would probably be the only arcane caster in the party.

 

I personally chose illusion and necromacy. There weren't very many spells I liked from these schools. The only one that I ever used was Phantasmal Killer and that was a long time ago. I played mainly a blaster mage and liked dealing damage to a lot of creatures. My archer fighter deals with single targets quite well.

 

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines as well. Although I ultimately went with a Diviner and Necromancy as the barred school. I figured that I can always use True Strike for my extra spell slot if there's nothing else at the level I like.

 

For classes, I like sorcerer over wizard in ToEE. The scribing requirement for wizards and the high cost and low frequency of spell-scrolls early on can become troublesome, while the sorcerer can bypass that entirely and still use the scrolls for casting. On top of that, a sorcerer with high Cha can become a good talker character, freeing up some skill points for your rogue; while the wizard doesn't really take full advantage of his high Int unless you multi-class with rogue periodically.

Cleric archers can work well as long as you don't intend them to be heavy ranged damage dealers. There are plenty of easy ways to make sure you start with bow proficiency, but unless you cross with fighter for feats, you'll probably be doing most of your damage through spells.

As for wizard specializations and banned schools, if you choose to go that route, it's all up to how you play the game. If web is a must have, then don't ban conjuration. Divination looses a lot of usefulness with the casting cost of Identify. It's suddenly easier just to take magic items back to town and have them identified there, since it costs the same. Still, there are some very useful spells in Divination. I'd suggest going through the manual and making a list of all the mage spells by school, a column for each, and maybe highlight your priority spells in different colors: must have, really want, would like, etc. That's me and my organization, though.

 

I don't see how the lack of spell scrolls can be an issue for wizards. As a wizard you learn more spells than a sorcerer even if you never find any scrolls. Every level you gain, you get to learn 2 new spells in addition to the ones you know at level 1. That alone is more than a sorcerer will ever know. Any scrolls you find will simply add to that.

A sorcerer can be a good talker at the start. As you gain levels, this advantage is diminished. A wizard has such high Int that he probably has spare skill points. If he puts them to any of the conversational skills, he can become better than a sorcerer over time.

 

Yes, but a Sorcerer is a Fireball machine compared to a wizard. Bang for the buck, Sorcerer tops the Wizard anyday. He can spew out lots of MMs, Fireballs, LBs and other damage dealing spells for a bit longer than the Wizard.

 

After playing both a Sorcerer and a Wizard in ToEE, I found that I simply prefer the Wizard over the Sorcerer. If you specialise as an Invoker, you come very close to the number of spells a Sorcerer can cast. The sorcerer ends up with only one more spell per level than the wizard. A wizard also gets to cast the spells 1 level earlier than the Sorcerer.

The biggest advantage a Wizard has is the extra feats. I take many item creation feats to make the other characters and the wizard himself more effective in combat. I found that spells are not needed that often when the whole party is wielding +3 axiomatic, holy, frost, shock, flaming weapons. Even my wizard with his +3 axiomatic, holy, frost, shock, flaming crossbow does pretty decent damage.

I also have feats left over to take Heightened Spell and Empowered Spell to allow my second, 4th and 5th spell level slots for Fireball and MM. If I need more firepower, I can create wands of Fireball. The best use of Craft Wand is to make Wands of Identify. It's cheaper to make the wand than to cast Identify 50 times.

The ability to spontaneous cast is not much of an adantage in a computer game where you can save, reload and change your spells. Yeah, this is cheating, but most people do this anyway.

 

A great combination, I've found is a Magic-Superiority one:

True Neutral:
LN Half-Orc Monk (Mage-Hunter, Primary Melee, Scout)
NG Dwarf Cleric (of Heironeus - Good, War; Primary Healer/Buffer, Secondary Melee)
TN Elf Druid (Summoner, Secondary Healer/Buffer, Tertiary Melee in Wild-Shape, Secondary Ranged)
CN Gnome Brd1/Sor- (Single Target Destruction, Face-Skill Monkey, Level 1 Buffer)
NE Halfling Rog1/Wiz- (Diviner, Prohibited: Transmutation; Area Controller/Specialty Spellcaster, Thief-Skill Monkey, Level 1 Sneak-Attacker, Secondary Scout)

All have a different alignment and race (and no boring Humans/Half-Elves ), and distinct, complementary roles that still maintain redundancy. The reason why I've used the term 'Magic-Superiority' is because they will operate in the same way that the army of *certain countries* exemplify the term 'Air Superiority'; controlling the battlefield by dominating the Air (Magic).

Much as I much prefer smashing faces and bashing skulls, after the confrontation with the Spiders early in the game, I pretty much gave up on Melee for ToEE... This party allowed for that with four spellcasters and a highly-mobile melee specialist as well. The Monk is less resilient, but can get by with two healers. Furthermore, starting out with Rogue/Bard at level 1 gives the spellcasters somewhat better survivability at lower levels too. Making them Halfling/Gnome respectively precludes any EXP penalties in this regard and hence allows them to dabble.

Lastly, about 'best' Prohibited School, I've chosen Divination (Prohibited: Transmutation) because Divination only requires one School, and most of the useful Transmutation spells are buff spells that I've found are already covered by the Clr/Drd (+4 Stat Buff Spells etc.) quite adequately.

 

With no CG characters you cannot take advantage of the most powerful weapons in the game....

 

That's true. But the rationale behind the party was half flavour and half effectiveness. I could have gone the 'conventional powergaming' route but I find that I tend to lose interest if everything is crazily optimised without any compelling reason.

However, you are indeed right that a ToEE-Metaoptimised party would include CG Fighters/Barbarians just for that purpose. Also, we'll have many more Humans because of their extra feats (and lack of penalties) too.

 

But you'll also never get the AoO endless loop bug when fighting salamanders or the Balor. In theory, the CN Bard/Sorcerer can use Scather/Fragarach and get one free AoO per round, or the NG Cleric could use it and never miss, but not get the AoOs.