Which type of magic is more useful in IWD?

TheRaven476

So I've got my party mostly decided down to the last spot. I'm just trying to decide which school I want as my "1.5". I've got a primary divine caster in a druid, and a primary arcane caster in a sorcerer. But need to decide what to multi class my thief into.

My party is:

Undead Hunter
Dwarf Defender
Archer
Druid
Sorcerer
Thief/?????????????????

So what should it be? Should I multi class the thief into a cleric or a mage? Which spell set would provide the most utility? I was thinking mage at first because paladins get a little bit of divine, but I'm really wondering if I want even more divine spells with a multi cleric.

Any help is appreciated! Thank you.

artificial_sunlight

You could go evil cleric to get alignment resticted spells (like Harm) that are not useable by you Pally.

Koyote

You could try a half-orc assassin instead of multiclassing. He'd certainly wouldn't be a slouch in combat. Conventional wisdom says you multiclass thief with fighter to take advantage of sneak attack, but since you don't have a bard I'd do cleric/thief.

TheRaven476

Yeah I was thinking of doing the standard fighter multiclass, but when I saw I already had 3 combat focused characters in my Defender/Undead Hunter/Archer I thought more magic would be advisable.

Can you get alignment cleric kits with multi class?

If this was BG I'd probably need to go arcane since the game devolves into "More magic piercing!", but it sounds like I'd be better off with more divine kits in Icewind dale.

Pibaro

Multi thief/mage
Your only arcane caster is a sorcerer.
You need someone to be able to cast those arcane spells your sorcerer won't ever be able to know, and there're too few scrools to rely on them.
In IWDEE there are tons of arcane spells, and a sorcerer can learn not more than 5 spells per level.

Koyote

I'm pretty sure you can't take a cleric kit when multiclassing. IWD involves a lot of grinding against large numbers of enemies. Melee power and healing are a lot more valuable and essential than in BG. That said, you can always take whatever you want and if you get stuck just export your party and start over again. Part of the charm of IWD is walking into it blind and going "good lord this game is hard". Gives you a real sense of accomplishment when you finally beat it.

elminster

Hehe, somehow I read the title as "which kind of music is more useful in iwd"

Anyways I'd go with a mage/thief. The druid will give you access to a lot of healing spells. Not as much as a cleric (including no resurrection) but it will be enough. A mage on the otherhand would give you access to any mage spell you don't have the opportunity to pick with the sorcerer.

TheRaven476

If I change my sorcerer to just a mage would that sway the preferred dual class to be cleric?

artificial_sunlight

The question is : has a neutral cleric acces to all cleric spells?

RAM021

artificial_sunlight said:

The question is : has a neutral cleric acces to all cleric spells?

No - Neutral misses out on Evil & Good only spells.

Fardragon

Pibaro said:

Multi thief/mage
Your only arcane caster is a sorcerer.
You need someone to be able to cast those arcane spells your sorcerer won't ever be able to know, and there're too few scrools to rely on them.
In IWDEE there are tons of arcane spells, and a sorcerer can learn not more than 5 spells per level.

You don't need to be able to cast all (or even any) of them though.

Fardragon

RAM021 said:

artificial_sunlight said:

The question is : has a neutral cleric acces to all cleric spells?

No - Neutral misses out on Evil & Good only spells.

There are also a couple of lawful only and chaotic only spells.

Fardragon

You can multiclass OUT of a cleric kit.

Pibaro

Fardragon said:

Pibaro said:

Multi thief/mage
Your only arcane caster is a sorcerer.
You need someone to be able to cast those arcane spells your sorcerer won't ever be able to know, and there're too few scrools to rely on them.
In IWDEE there are tons of arcane spells, and a sorcerer can learn not more than 5 spells per level.

You don't need to be able to cast all (or even any) of them though.

You don't need to cast all spells, that's true, but surely being abel to cast more than 5 spells per level is useful and funny.

Zyzzogeton

If it's your first time playing you really shouldn't be brining a Sorcerer along unless you have more than two Arcane casters (and only because of a possible scroll shortage). There's a lot of fluff in the IWD spellbooks so it's a good idea if you at least try out each spell once to know how utterly pointless stuff like Ghoul Touch can be. And you have prior knowledge of what to expect.

Sorcerers are extremely good casters, but only if the player picks the right 5 spells.

TheRaven476

Turns out my decision was made for me, I wanted to Multi-Class into cleric with my thief but you can't Cleric/Thief, elves, or even half elves. I think the only one for that exact class combo was gnome? Not sure why.... but whatever...... I took people's advice and switched my pure arcane caster to just a specialist mage and made the second character an elf mage/thief. Thanks for the feedback.

RAM021

HOrcs can be C/T along with Gnomes.

Lord_Tansheron

TheRaven476 said:

Turns out my decision was made for me, I wanted to Multi-Class into cleric with my thief but you can't Cleric/Thief, elves, or even half elves. I think the only one for that exact class combo was gnome? Not sure why.... but whatever...... I took people's advice and switched my pure arcane caster to just a specialist mage and made the second character an elf mage/thief. Thanks for the feedback.

Are you confusing multi- and dual-class perhaps? You dual "into" something, with multi-class you are two classes from the start. Note that ONLY humans can dual-class and only NON-humans can multi-class. Thief -> Cleric dual class should be possible for a human with the right stats (you need fairly high stats).

old_jolly2

Righteous Wrath of the Faithful

TheRaven476

Lord_Tansheron said:

TheRaven476 said:

Turns out my decision was made for me, I wanted to Multi-Class into cleric with my thief but you can't Cleric/Thief, elves, or even half elves. I think the only one for that exact class combo was gnome? Not sure why.... but whatever...... I took people's advice and switched my pure arcane caster to just a specialist mage and made the second character an elf mage/thief. Thanks for the feedback.

Are you confusing multi- and dual-class perhaps? You dual "into" something, with multi-class you are two classes from the start. Note that ONLY humans can dual-class and only NON-humans can multi-class. Thief -> Cleric dual class should be possible for a human with the right stats (you need fairly high stats).

Nope, I specifically wanted Multi-Class not dual class. That's why I didn't pick a human. I had a specific portrait I wanted to use (I went over the top customizing 6 perfect portraits for my party..... I'm weird), which was why I didn't want to pick something strange like a gnome of orc character model.