Planning to make it through ALL the way this time!

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Despite having installed/uninstalled IWD2 several times over the years, I have never actually completed it. The pure drudgery of the magma chamber time loop and the dragon eye always get to me. Anyway, I plan to stick it through all the way (HOF) this time while raising money to build a new pc for NWN 2 with the following party.

1. Freakish high ac decoy deep gnome from JUPP
2. Cleric/druid for support and barksin
3. drow wizard
4. aasamir pally1/sorc
5. drow fighter4/pally4/??

I have some questions regarding the last character. He is meant to be the melee dmg dealing character during normal, and the cleanup crew during HOF. Would it be better to add fighter/pally levels, or give him sorc/cleric levels so he can self buff (like windrunner's or cheveliar's character)?

 

Trust me once you get to the Fields of Slaughter it gets much better!

In HoF Chev's character is going to have a waaaaaaay easier time because of the protections.

 

From his paladin side?

 

I'm more in favour of adding Paladin levels. The only thing that more Fighter levels gives you is bonus feats, most of which aren't really all that necessary. More Paladin levels allows you to cast buffing spells, some of which are fairly decent.

You've already got a character dedicated to support and buffing. I don't feel that you are likely to gain all that much by adding a few caster levels to the character- especially not if he'll suffer a multi-classing penalty.

 

But certain spells like TT and MI can only be self cast...

 

Very true. I must admit that I was forgetting that you'd then be going through HoF as well. With just normal mode I wouldn't advise it as I feel you'd be better just improving your melee skills. I guess it is viable with HoF as well.

OTOH, I don't like multi-classing penalties. At all. If you are going to get one then I'd say no, but if you will avoid it then it is certainly a path you could go down.

Personally I wouldn't unless I had planned it as part of the whole character concpet. This is mainly because a lot of spells are focussed on protection, while your character is supposed to be doing the damage-dealing, not recieving.

 

Actually, the dmg dealing will be done by my 2 main casters. This character is for minor battles and cleanup after major battles, when i have used up all my high level spells

 

Yes I was referring to Mirror Image and the like because if he's to be the TANK in HoF he aint gonna last long without propa protection. Ask anyone. You go toe to toe with HoF with hardly any protections and your toast. Those spells from your arcane can be very useful, not to mention all the bonuses from your Pally side ...

 

Your party isn't fun, you probably won't even finish normal mode with them.

Why do you want to rebuild the decoy deep gnome from Jupp ?
It will take a long time until this build is complete and the way to it is boring levelling according to the recipe you follow step by step like a robot and if you make a mistake it's broken. And once you have finished it you just have boring summon replacement who lets the monsters hit him without being able to do anything really destructive himself.

A pure cleric can be fun and a pure druid can be fun, but just for barkskin ? It has to be cast onto each character and doesn't even last very long. Neither fun nor neccessary !

About your fighter pally: If you like casting "holy power" and using "holy smite" take paladin levels (in this case a pure drow paladin can do even more damage), if you don't like that much micromanaging create a paladin3/fighter x and spend your points on something more useful than wis.
And use an aasimar, XP penalties are just a fun killer. Adding sorcerer levels will just create another mirror image caster who requires more micromanagement.


You'd better think about a party which is fun in normal mode, any balanced normal party shouldn't have a problem getting through HoF afterwards.

Playing normal mode will take you longer than playing HoF mode, for a faster overall time you'd better concentrate more on the normal mode party. Do you really want HoF mode to be easier than normal mode ? Is HoF Mode even challenging enough for your experienced party ? Where's the challenge if you can summon monsters far stronger than the enemies you face and can cast ultra-powerful "save or else" spells ?

If your party is really that kind of party you'd enjoy most during the game, just keep it, but it looks more like an "I'm scared of HoF mode" than "roleplay and have fun" party for me.
Use the characters you have fun with, as long as you have a cleric and a sorc the normal game won't be too hard and HoF mode will be easier than you'd like it.

 

Yes, choose a party that is going to be fun over powerful.

 

So true. My first IWD2 party I really went hog-wild with the various sub-races and multi-classing. It got to be such a pain with all the micro-managing and making sure I leveled up properly, which can be confusing when you've got six characters that are all various odd-ball combinations of classes. Picking the right feats at the right time, putting the right skill points into the right skills, etc. just got to be such a headache.

I re-started with a much simpler party consisting of more pure-classed characters and had much more fun.