It's worth noting that the Easthaven townsfolk have something unique for each race, but you only grt it the first time you speak to them, so you have to find a different townsperson for each race in your party.
Interesting. Can you elaborate?
You can talk someone into giving you thier life savings if you are the right race.
I played icewind dále many years ago and didn't finish it, so I don't remember many locations. Now, I'm playing enhanced edition on insane difficulty level. Selection of my party wasn't based on notable items. It was based on my experience from BG and BG2. 1)Human Cavalier: Main tank 2)Half-elf Fighter/Cleric 3)Elf Archer 4)Halfling fighter/thief 5)Half-elf fighter/mage 6)Elf sorceres
All of my characters except the cavalier are using mainly ranged weapons switching to melee when openents get close to them, or when I need to kill something with imunity to non-magical weapons and don't want to waste magical ammo in easy combats. Now I have finished Severed Hand and hadn't serious problém so far. The hardest part has been the level in dragon Eye with many trolls and spiders. It required several reloads. From that moment everything is going on smoothly. However Dragon Eye was quite boring, because it is long dungeon with many repetitive fights.
My archer is ultimate killer with more than 30% of total partys' kills. Fighter/mage was a little fragile at the beginning, but now he is almost immortal with mirror image and stone skin. The situation with sorcerer was easier, because I could pick the spells as soon as she reached required level. In some situations she is the best tank in the party. :-) In many combats with large groups af enemies, sorcerer and fighter/mage act as heavy artilery with fireballs. I think, my arcane spellcasters are doing more demage than Archer, but he is collecting many kills finishing wounded enemies with single arrow.
After about a dozen party rerolls, I've settled on the following:
Blackguard Priest of Tempus Skald Berserker (dual to Druid @ 7) Archer Mage/Thief
I really like the synergy between Aura of Despair + Chaos of Battle + Skald song. (debuff all enemies + buff all allies).
It also has all the bases covered. Cleric spells, druid spells, arcane spells, thief skills, etc. (And I think takes advantage of all the dialogue options with bard, druid, ranger, and the new stuff for the priest of tempus and blackguard.)
After about a dozen party rerolls, I've settled on the following:
Blackguard Priest of Tempus Skald Berserker (dual to Druid @ 7) Archer Mage/Thief
I really like the synergy between Aura of Despair + Chaos of Battle + Skald song. (debuff all enemies + buff all allies).
It also has all the bases covered. Cleric spells, druid spells, arcane spells, thief skills, etc. (And I think takes advantage of all the dialogue options with bard, druid, ranger, and the new stuff for the priest of tempus and blackguard.)
Sounds Nice! i think i will try this myself with an evil party Do you need Neutral aligment for duoclass into Druid ?
Yeah, it's working pretty well. The Blackguard aura debuffs everything, the Skald buffs everything, and the Priest of Tempus both debuffs and buffs everything.
Is this party alright if I wanted to play IwD:EE for the first time *and* with HoF enabled (I know about the game's mechanics a lot (long-time hardcore BG player)… I just haven't played the game yet). Gnome Berkserker Gnome Illusionist/Cleric Halfling Fighter/Thief Gnome Fighter/Illusionist Gnome Cleric/Thief Dwarf Bard Reasons: I've heard Necromancy spells suck, I want to RP a party of Gnomes with a Dwarf and a Halfling, I don't care about slow level up (since I plan in playing with HoF enabled) and I'd rather take a vanilla Bard than a Skald since they are much better in IwD:EE.
@CrevsDaak, just want to make sure that you are aware IWDEE goes bit differently about opposite schools. Most of schools have 2 and for Illusion they are Necromancy and Abjuration. Apart from that, party looks pretty good.
In my experience so far I'd say that the Dragon Disciple does 90% of the work in most fights just by casting Slow/Glitterdust. Pretty much guarantees a grusome death to my enemies
Is this party alright if I wanted to play IwD:EE for the first time *and* with HoF enabled (I know about the game's mechanics a lot (long-time hardcore BG player)… I just haven't played the game yet). Gnome Berkserker Gnome Illusionist/Cleric Halfling Fighter/Thief Gnome Fighter/Illusionist Gnome Cleric/Thief Dwarf Bard Reasons: I've heard Necromancy spells suck, I want to RP a party of Gnomes with a Dwarf and a Halfling, I don't care about slow level up (since I plan in playing with HoF enabled) and I'd rather take a vanilla Bard than a Skald since they are much better in IwD:EE.
I do not think this would be a fun party to start level 1 in HoF. On insane yes, sure. On HoF the lack of party damage would eventually just make the whole experience tedious and boring.
I just got wail of the banshee and my wizard with project image can drop that 3 times every fight which is amazing for thinning out the herds of enemies with 300+HP.
First line: Human - Undead hunter (dual wielding Pale of Justice and Long sword of action+4) Dwarf - Dwarven defender (axe/hammer depend of enemy, shield)
Second line: Elf - Archer
Support: Half Elf - Bard Gnome - Ilusionist/Thief Human - Cleric of Lathander
My 1rst party : - dwarven defender (dwarf) - berzerker with two weapon (half/orc) - cavalier with two handed weapon (human) - fighter / thief with a crossbow, fighter for the thac0, thief for the thieves skill (halfling) - mage / cleric with a sling (half elf) - archer with longbow (elf)
I have each of the race, all the weapon styles, and all ranged weapons
A really nasty party, too easy to play, even in HoF mode. Great to discover the game but not very fun to play, the party is too powerfull
@koson difficulty? Willingness to cheese? Meta knowledge?
the party looks very solid for a normal playthrough. If you're worried you could change the fighter/thief to an elf fighter/Mage/thief to get a few extra spell slots to cast those handy buffs and a few disables.
@Wowo I spent some time playing the original IWD when it came out and this party is based on the one I used the most back then (F; F/D; F/T; R; B; M) so I have a bit of knowledge. Cheese? Hmm, guess a slice now and then won't hurt . I'll do a normal playthrough first and move to HoF afterwards.
Your suggestion of replacing the F/T with a F/M/T is something I've been considering, but won't he lag behind in levels compared with the rest? Also, how high would characters level? Is it possible to reach HLAs? Use any item on a F/T and dw Pale Justice with a Longsword of Action is tempting .
@Koson Another option for a character filling such roles is some sort of dual kitted thief to Mage.
I've done: Swashbuckler 10/Mage -> very strong with enough extra points to get a third skill to high levels Swashbuckler 5/Mage -> very fast dual and can hit 100 disable/OL via belt+cats grace (when it's really needed) Assassin 12/Mage -> more an archer build but single weapon style and 3e sneak attacks work surprisingly well. Obviously a slow dual class but I quite like the combination of strong set traps, poison and sneak attack
Longswords for swashbuckler, katana for assassin. Great candidate to be a back up ranged character with short bow or crossbow. There's a good shortbow in ToL but it has a -2 con penalty on it so something to consider during character generation.
I finished this game last night for the first time with the following party:
Paladin - Main tank with lots of strength and constitution. Fighter/Cleric - If I could do it over again, I would've gone with pure Cleric, but he was useful nonetheless. Made a great secondary tank and secondary spellcaster. Druid - She was superb at first, but I got lazy and used her for mostly summons and healings later. Had I not been lazy, she could have easily been the star I think. Mage/Thief - A surprisingly good character; I thought she would be too poor at being a mage, but she did quite well. She did not get enough XP by the end of the game to get some nice high-levelled spells, but she did what was needed, and she did it darn well (haste especially).
4 characters was enough for me; I even considered going smaller, but I couldn't think of any roles I wanted to do without.
Usually, my strategy for most "boss" fights was Haste + Righteous Wrath of the Faithful to bash enemies to death instantly. My druid was the one usually targeted by mobs, so she would distract them while the rest nuked the boss. It was effective all the way through Belhifet (haven't done the expansion yet).
I finished this game last night for the first time with the following party:
Paladin - Main tank with lots of strength and constitution. Fighter/Cleric - If I could do it over again, I would've gone with pure Cleric, but he was useful nonetheless. Made a great secondary tank and secondary spellcaster. Druid - She was superb at first, but I got lazy and used her for mostly summons and healings later. Had I not been lazy, she could have easily been the star I think. Mage/Thief - A surprisingly good character; I thought she would be too poor at being a mage, but she did quite well. She did not get enough XP by the end of the game to get some nice high-levelled spells, but she did what was needed, and she did it darn well (haste especially).
4 characters was enough for me; I even considered going smaller, but I couldn't think of any roles I wanted to do without.
Usually, my strategy for most "boss" fights was Haste + Righteous Wrath of the Faithful to bash enemies to death instantly. My druid was the one usually targeted by mobs, so she would distract them while the rest nuked the boss. It was effective all the way through Belhifet (haven't done the expansion yet).
No kits?
Probably the easy fix for your experience would have been to trade in dual class characters. Paladin Berserker 7->Cleric Druid Swashbuckler 5->Mage
In this scenario could drop the Paladin if you went Kensei 9->Druid though the beginning of the game would have been a bit tricky.
Currently playing BGEE with a Neutral Evil Elf Fighter/Mage (planning on playing BG2EE with the same char), but after I finish playing it, next in line is IWDEE...
Now, I've thought a party up, but got too many char, so some feedback would be appreciated...
On the table, I have 8 characters, I'll have to dump 2 of them: Human Paladin Undead Hunter Dwarf Fighter/Cleric of Tempus (kit through EE Keeper) Half-Elf Bard Blade Elf Ranger Archer Half-Elf Ranger (undead enemy) Stalker/Thief (if multiclass is possible, kit through EE Keeper) Gnome Thief/Illusionist Elf Druid Avenger Elf Sorceror Dragon Disciple
I'd really like to try out the Stalker kit and the Archer Kit...
I'm kind of a newcomer to IWD too, though I've been reading up a lot and have rolled a few parties. Here are my thoughts.
First, a few general tips about party composition:
IWD features large numbers of enemies and fewer spellcasters than the Baldur's Gate series. This generally means that fighter-types are king, as they don't rely on Rest-based resources like spells and abilities to cleave through clouds of foes with their high AC, THAC0, and attacks per round.
You should have a Thief of some kind. There are a lot of traps later on. You can pick up a number of helpful items early on if you have a good pickpocketing score in your party too (Thief/Bard).
Clerics are also good to support your fighter-types and even self-buff to be frontline combatants as well. There are also a lot of undead enemies in the game, so Cleric abilities will come in handy. Finally, many of the best weapons in the game are in the Flail/Morningstar category, which further increases the value of Clerics and Cleric + fighter-type multi or dual classes.
Druids are much better in IWD than they were in the BG series. They have a few new spells which are quite good. They also fit in thematically and (my own opinion) are very fun to play.
Arcane casters: scrolls are in short supply. Sorcerers are very strong for this reason, and you will probably only have enough scrolls to support 1 or 1.5 "mages" (e.g. mage + bard, bard + /mage multi).
Solid pick, though overall Paladins are weaker than Fighter/Clerics, especially if dual classed. Paladin gets you some extra dialogue options throughout the game, access to a very nice longsword later on, and the game does have a lot of undead enemies. This game features a lot of mobs and fewer spell casters than the BG series, so fighter types with good AC, THAC0, and high attacks per round are generally king.
Dwarf Fighter/Cleric of Tempus (kit through EE Keeper)
Another solid pick. I just rolled up my own Priest of Tempus and the kit looks great. Perfect for the setting, as you'll find out right from the start in Easthaven. Not sure if it's necessary to multiclass to Fighter though as the kit's Holy Power ability gives you Fighter-like stats as a buff (18/00 Strength and Fighter THAC0 IIRC). I'm personally running mine as a single class for faster level (and hence spell) gain, and for the slightly less powergamey feel. But in the long run the multiclass gets you better THAC0 and an extra attack per round from the Fighter levels. The king for the Cleric/frontliner archetype in this game is a Berserker/Cleric dual class to achieve GM and dual wielding in Flails/Morningstars for high APR, but a Dwarf single or multiclass should be just fine.
Bards are awesome in IWD in general. Extra dialogue options, unique Bard gear in the game, great party buffs, and some IWD-specific songs on the unkitted Bard that are actually quite good (most notably War Chant of the Sith from level 11, which provides +2 AC and 2 HP regen every round - that's round, not turn, so 12 HP regained every minute). I tend to prefer vanilla Bard or Skald for the better songs in IWDEE (I've heard Jester can be good to with the large crowds of foes), and it seems you won't be lacking in frontliners. I'd probably suggest a Skald or vanilla Bard overall.
Your Archer will serve you very, very well and will probably eat up 30% or more of the party kills. There are a number of awesome bows in the game as well. Not much to say here. Just point your Archer in the right direction and he/she will thin the enemy numbers considerably. I'm actually avoiding this kit now because it's so very strong and eclipses much of the party if present, but it's definitely worth seeing in action if you've never run one before.
Half-Elf Ranger (undead enemy) Stalker/Thief (if multiclass is possible, kit through EE Keeper)
Sadly, backstabs are not really that great in this game. There are not that many good backstabbing targets as the fights again tend to be large numbers of low or mid-tier enemies. I also liked the idea of the Stalker kit, but for IWD I think a straight Fighter/Thief is more preferable and versatile, as that character can also backstab if needed and can take care of trap duty as well. My favorites are Elves (for 19 Dex, longbow/swords THAC0) for mostly ranged and Half-Orc (for 19 Str) if mostly melee. Honestly I think Fighter/Thieves are the most essential/common class in IWD since you must have someone to take care of traps and having a primary (or second) longbow wielder is great, especially when that character can also off-tank if necessary.
Pretty good, but I would only run with one /Thief in the party. I'm running a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist in my good-aligned party and would suggest a Fighter multiclass instead because there is a very, very nice helm that is exclusive for Gnomes/Halflings and a Thief/Illusionist won't have access to helms.
Great, though technically illegal due to racial class restrictions (only Humans and Half-Elves can be Druids). You can easily get one with a race restriction removal mod (I can link you to one here on the forums or I think BG2Tweaks works for IWDEE too). I'm having a blast with my Avenger, and especially given the scarcity of scrolls, having a Divine caster who can throw out Webs etc. is great. One trick for the Avenger if you're not familiar with the kit is to Web enemies, then shapeshift Sword Spider. Immune to Web, and 5 attacks per round hitting as +4 enchantment against enemies immune to normal/low-level weapons. Again, several IWD-specific spells also available for Druids here. I just rolled up a Totemic Druid and a Kensai planning to dual to Druid for a new party last night.
Sorcerers are great because you don't have to rely on scrolls. The additional durability from the kit and the Breath Weapon are also great against the large numbers of enemies you'll often face.
In summary, I'd probably go with something like:
Human Undead Hunter Dwarf Priest of Tempus(/Fighter) Half-Elf vanilla Bard or Skald Elf Archer Half-Elf Avenger
and for your last slot, one of (in order of rough preference):
You get all the specific dialogue and gear for Paladins, Bards, Druids, and Priests of Tempus while also getting to play with the Archer kit and IWD druids. You'll also be set up for most of the vast majority of good items in the game.
Great, though technically illegal due to racial class restrictions (only Humans and Half-Elves can be Druids).
This is a bug which will be fixed in the upcoming patch.
In the original Icewind Dale, elves could legally become single-class druids (but not multi-class fighter/druids). This was a deliberate design decision by the original developers. We will reinstate the same behavior in IWD:EE.
Now, you got me wondering how to use said helm with a gnome or halfling...
Solid party there.
I'd suggest though as your sixth slot to take a fighter/Mage/thief. Only having the one arcane caster (your bard) isn't a big deal but it'll certainly help to have another who can throw out some buffs or debuffs.
For your cleric I'd generally recommend either a Priest of Lathander or a multi or dual Fighter/Cleric for the additional attacks per round. PoL can help immensely against undead of which there are huge amounts.
Now, you got me wondering how to use said helm with a gnome or halfling...
Solid party there.
I'd suggest though as your sixth slot to take a fighter/Mage/thief. Only having the one arcane caster (your bard) isn't a big deal but it'll certainly help to have another who can throw out some buffs or debuffs.
For your cleric I'd generally recommend either a Priest of Lathander or a multi or dual Fighter/Cleric for the additional attacks per round. PoL can help immensely against undead of which there are huge amounts.
Comments
1)Human Cavalier: Main tank
2)Half-elf Fighter/Cleric
3)Elf Archer
4)Halfling fighter/thief
5)Half-elf fighter/mage
6)Elf sorceres
All of my characters except the cavalier are using mainly ranged weapons switching to melee when openents get close to them, or when I need to kill something with imunity to non-magical weapons and don't want to waste magical ammo in easy combats. Now I have finished Severed Hand and hadn't serious problém so far.
The hardest part has been the level in dragon Eye with many trolls and spiders. It required several reloads. From that moment everything is going on smoothly. However Dragon Eye was quite boring, because it is long dungeon with many repetitive fights.
My archer is ultimate killer with more than 30% of total partys' kills. Fighter/mage was a little fragile at the beginning, but now he is almost immortal with mirror image and stone skin. The situation with sorcerer was easier, because I could pick the spells as soon as she reached required level. In some situations she is the best tank in the party. :-)
In many combats with large groups af enemies, sorcerer and fighter/mage act as heavy artilery with fireballs. I think, my arcane spellcasters are doing more demage than Archer, but he is collecting many kills finishing wounded enemies with single arrow.
Blackguard
Priest of Tempus
Skald
Berserker (dual to Druid @ 7)
Archer
Mage/Thief
I really like the synergy between Aura of Despair + Chaos of Battle + Skald song. (debuff all enemies + buff all allies).
It also has all the bases covered. Cleric spells, druid spells, arcane spells, thief skills, etc. (And I think takes advantage of all the dialogue options with bard, druid, ranger, and the new stuff for the priest of tempus and blackguard.)
Do you need Neutral aligment for duoclass into Druid ?
And why a Elven Archer cant be evil ?
Rangers (Archers) can only be Good alligned.
Gnome Berkserker
Gnome Illusionist/Cleric
Halfling Fighter/Thief
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Gnome Cleric/Thief
Dwarf Bard
Reasons: I've heard Necromancy spells suck, I want to RP a party of Gnomes with a Dwarf and a Halfling, I don't care about slow level up (since I plan in playing with HoF enabled) and I'd rather take a vanilla Bard than a Skald since they are much better in IwD:EE.
Apart from that, party looks pretty good.
Shapeshifter (half-elf)
Dwarven Defender (gnome!...nah obviously he's a dwarf
Fighter/Mage (elf)
Shadowdancer (halfling)
Priest of Talos (elf)
Dragon Disciple (human).
In my experience so far I'd say that the Dragon Disciple does 90% of the work in most fights just by casting Slow/Glitterdust. Pretty much guarantees a grusome death to my enemies
Cavalier
Dwarven Defender
Ranger/Cleric ( half elf)
Archer (elf)
Fighter/thief ( halfling)
Bard ( half elf)
The Archer is the rock star of this party, over 30% of the kills.
I just got wail of the banshee and my wizard with project image can drop that 3 times every fight which is amazing for thinning out the herds of enemies with 300+HP.
Human - Undead hunter (dual wielding Pale of Justice and Long sword of action+4)
Dwarf - Dwarven defender (axe/hammer depend of enemy, shield)
Second line:
Elf - Archer
Support:
Half Elf - Bard
Gnome - Ilusionist/Thief
Human - Cleric of Lathander
- dwarven defender (dwarf)
- berzerker with two weapon (half/orc)
- cavalier with two handed weapon (human)
- fighter / thief with a crossbow, fighter for the thac0, thief for the thieves skill (halfling)
- mage / cleric with a sling (half elf)
- archer with longbow (elf)
I have each of the race, all the weapon styles, and all ranged weapons
A really nasty party, too easy to play, even in HoF mode.
Great to discover the game but not very fun to play, the party is too powerfull
- dwarf DD
- half-elf fighter/druid
- gnome fighter/thief
- elf archer
- half-elf bard
- half-elf cleric of Lathander
Would the lack of a mage be an issue?
the party looks very solid for a normal playthrough. If you're worried you could change the fighter/thief to an elf fighter/Mage/thief to get a few extra spell slots to cast those handy buffs and a few disables.
Your suggestion of replacing the F/T with a F/M/T is something I've been considering, but won't he lag behind in levels compared with the rest? Also, how high would characters level? Is it possible to reach HLAs? Use any item on a F/T and dw Pale Justice with a Longsword of Action is tempting
I've done:
Swashbuckler 10/Mage -> very strong with enough extra points to get a third skill to high levels
Swashbuckler 5/Mage -> very fast dual and can hit 100 disable/OL via belt+cats grace (when it's really needed)
Assassin 12/Mage -> more an archer build but single weapon style and 3e sneak attacks work surprisingly well. Obviously a slow dual class but I quite like the combination of strong set traps, poison and sneak attack
Longswords for swashbuckler, katana for assassin. Great candidate to be a back up ranged character with short bow or crossbow. There's a good shortbow in ToL but it has a -2 con penalty on it so something to consider during character generation.
Paladin - Main tank with lots of strength and constitution.
Fighter/Cleric - If I could do it over again, I would've gone with pure Cleric, but he was useful nonetheless. Made a great secondary tank and secondary spellcaster.
Druid - She was superb at first, but I got lazy and used her for mostly summons and healings later. Had I not been lazy, she could have easily been the star I think.
Mage/Thief - A surprisingly good character; I thought she would be too poor at being a mage, but she did quite well. She did not get enough XP by the end of the game to get some nice high-levelled spells, but she did what was needed, and she did it darn well (haste especially).
4 characters was enough for me; I even considered going smaller, but I couldn't think of any roles I wanted to do without.
Usually, my strategy for most "boss" fights was Haste + Righteous Wrath of the Faithful to bash enemies to death instantly. My druid was the one usually targeted by mobs, so she would distract them while the rest nuked the boss. It was effective all the way through Belhifet (haven't done the expansion yet).
Probably the easy fix for your experience would have been to trade in dual class characters.
Paladin
Berserker 7->Cleric
Druid
Swashbuckler 5->Mage
In this scenario could drop the Paladin if you went Kensei 9->Druid though the beginning of the game would have been a bit tricky.
Currently playing BGEE with a Neutral Evil Elf Fighter/Mage (planning on playing BG2EE with the same char), but after I finish playing it, next in line is IWDEE...
Now, I've thought a party up, but got too many char, so some feedback would be appreciated...
On the table, I have 8 characters, I'll have to dump 2 of them:
Human Paladin Undead Hunter
Dwarf Fighter/Cleric of Tempus (kit through EE Keeper)
Half-Elf Bard Blade
Elf Ranger Archer
Half-Elf Ranger (undead enemy) Stalker/Thief (if multiclass is possible, kit through EE Keeper)
Gnome Thief/Illusionist
Elf Druid Avenger
Elf Sorceror Dragon Disciple
I'd really like to try out the Stalker kit and the Archer Kit...
Any suggestions?
Thanks!!!!
I'm kind of a newcomer to IWD too, though I've been reading up a lot and have rolled a few parties. Here are my thoughts.
First, a few general tips about party composition:
IWD features large numbers of enemies and fewer spellcasters than the Baldur's Gate series. This generally means that fighter-types are king, as they don't rely on Rest-based resources like spells and abilities to cleave through clouds of foes with their high AC, THAC0, and attacks per round.
You should have a Thief of some kind. There are a lot of traps later on. You can pick up a number of helpful items early on if you have a good pickpocketing score in your party too (Thief/Bard).
Clerics are also good to support your fighter-types and even self-buff to be frontline combatants as well. There are also a lot of undead enemies in the game, so Cleric abilities will come in handy. Finally, many of the best weapons in the game are in the Flail/Morningstar category, which further increases the value of Clerics and Cleric + fighter-type multi or dual classes.
Druids are much better in IWD than they were in the BG series. They have a few new spells which are quite good. They also fit in thematically and (my own opinion) are very fun to play.
Arcane casters: scrolls are in short supply. Sorcerers are very strong for this reason, and you will probably only have enough scrolls to support 1 or 1.5 "mages" (e.g. mage + bard, bard + /mage multi).
For your specific characters: Solid pick, though overall Paladins are weaker than Fighter/Clerics, especially if dual classed. Paladin gets you some extra dialogue options throughout the game, access to a very nice longsword later on, and the game does have a lot of undead enemies. This game features a lot of mobs and fewer spell casters than the BG series, so fighter types with good AC, THAC0, and high attacks per round are generally king. Another solid pick. I just rolled up my own Priest of Tempus and the kit looks great. Perfect for the setting, as you'll find out right from the start in Easthaven. Not sure if it's necessary to multiclass to Fighter though as the kit's Holy Power ability gives you Fighter-like stats as a buff (18/00 Strength and Fighter THAC0 IIRC). I'm personally running mine as a single class for faster level (and hence spell) gain, and for the slightly less powergamey feel. But in the long run the multiclass gets you better THAC0 and an extra attack per round from the Fighter levels. The king for the Cleric/frontliner archetype in this game is a Berserker/Cleric dual class to achieve GM and dual wielding in Flails/Morningstars for high APR, but a Dwarf single or multiclass should be just fine. Bards are awesome in IWD in general. Extra dialogue options, unique Bard gear in the game, great party buffs, and some IWD-specific songs on the unkitted Bard that are actually quite good (most notably War Chant of the Sith from level 11, which provides +2 AC and 2 HP regen every round - that's round, not turn, so 12 HP regained every minute). I tend to prefer vanilla Bard or Skald for the better songs in IWDEE (I've heard Jester can be good to with the large crowds of foes), and it seems you won't be lacking in frontliners. I'd probably suggest a Skald or vanilla Bard overall. Your Archer will serve you very, very well and will probably eat up 30% or more of the party kills. There are a number of awesome bows in the game as well. Not much to say here. Just point your Archer in the right direction and he/she will thin the enemy numbers considerably. I'm actually avoiding this kit now because it's so very strong and eclipses much of the party if present, but it's definitely worth seeing in action if you've never run one before. Sadly, backstabs are not really that great in this game. There are not that many good backstabbing targets as the fights again tend to be large numbers of low or mid-tier enemies. I also liked the idea of the Stalker kit, but for IWD I think a straight Fighter/Thief is more preferable and versatile, as that character can also backstab if needed and can take care of trap duty as well. My favorites are Elves (for 19 Dex, longbow/swords THAC0) for mostly ranged and Half-Orc (for 19 Str) if mostly melee. Honestly I think Fighter/Thieves are the most essential/common class in IWD since you must have someone to take care of traps and having a primary (or second) longbow wielder is great, especially when that character can also off-tank if necessary. Pretty good, but I would only run with one /Thief in the party. I'm running a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist in my good-aligned party and would suggest a Fighter multiclass instead because there is a very, very nice helm that is exclusive for Gnomes/Halflings and a Thief/Illusionist won't have access to helms. Great, though technically illegal due to racial class restrictions (only Humans and Half-Elves can be Druids). You can easily get one with a race restriction removal mod (I can link you to one here on the forums or I think BG2Tweaks works for IWDEE too). I'm having a blast with my Avenger, and especially given the scarcity of scrolls, having a Divine caster who can throw out Webs etc. is great. One trick for the Avenger if you're not familiar with the kit is to Web enemies, then shapeshift Sword Spider. Immune to Web, and 5 attacks per round hitting as +4 enchantment against enemies immune to normal/low-level weapons. Again, several IWD-specific spells also available for Druids here. I just rolled up a Totemic Druid and a Kensai planning to dual to Druid for a new party last night. Sorcerers are great because you don't have to rely on scrolls. The additional durability from the kit and the Breath Weapon are also great against the large numbers of enemies you'll often face.
In summary, I'd probably go with something like:
Human Undead Hunter
Dwarf Priest of Tempus(/Fighter)
Half-Elf vanilla Bard or Skald
Elf Archer
Half-Elf Avenger
and for your last slot, one of (in order of rough preference):
Half-Orc Fighter/Thief
Elf Fighter/Thief
Gnome Thief/Illusionist
You get all the specific dialogue and gear for Paladins, Bards, Druids, and Priests of Tempus while also getting to play with the Archer kit and IWD druids. You'll also be set up for most of the vast majority of good items in the game.
In the original Icewind Dale, elves could legally become single-class druids (but not multi-class fighter/druids). This was a deliberate design decision by the original developers. We will reinstate the same behavior in IWD:EE.
Now, you got me wondering how to use said helm with a gnome or halfling...
I'd suggest though as your sixth slot to take a fighter/Mage/thief. Only having the one arcane caster (your bard) isn't a big deal but it'll certainly help to have another who can throw out some buffs or debuffs.
For your cleric I'd generally recommend either a Priest of Lathander or a multi or dual Fighter/Cleric for the additional attacks per round. PoL can help immensely against undead of which there are huge amounts.