I've thought about this alot. Though I like some multiclasses (C/M, F/T, F/C), I do not like dualing at all. It just seem so incredibly illogical and irrational that I cannot RP any plausible explanation for a character to completely forget how to swing her sword while leveling as mage.
In my dream AD&D setting, kits would completely replace multiclassing, ie an Avenger is a D/M, some paladin kit could be F/C, swashbucklers and assassins are F/T's, Stalker is a R/T, etc etc. This will never happen of course, but I like the idea of limiting myself to single classes in a full party.
So, I have two ideas for sc-parties; the first one is a party of chars I have background stories for (I like to sit at home, roll chars and create them in theory, but never play them. I'm such a geek.) but who I haven't yet played.
Chaotic, neutral team leaning slightly towards good:
Elf Sorceress (NG going towards CG)) and Elf Wild mage (CN, going towards CG) These two are siblings, the sorceress are the calm, typical older sister role. She follows her wild younger sister around, trying to keep her out of trouble, whilst still following her rather than taking the lead. The wild mage is a wild one indeed. No control over her powers, she creates havoc at all times. Thankfully her sister can usually save her from the mess she get them into, either by her erratic behavior or her erratic and uncontrolled magic. (she should be played to simulate a sorceress without control, meaning lots of natalya's reckless dweomer, but over time she would evolve and become more like her sister, meaning more and more control until the point where the master becomes the apprentice and the younger sister becomes the stable, stronger of the two.) I'm thinking about making the older sister a DD and roleplay that as the younger sister grows stronger and more controlled, the older sister who used to be in full control, starts to lose it as her draconic heritage takes control over her, unleashing powers that frighten her and that she cannot control fully. Both should have the same stats, something like, 10/19/16/18/10/18 if I power it, or less dex and con if I downscale.
Elf ranger and elf stalker Continuing the sibling theme I created short backstories for another pair of siblings, this time they are twins. The two elfs ended up as prisoners in a human gang of highwaymen, praying on travelers through the forrest the lived in. Too young ro remember anything about how they got there or what happened to their parents. They were beaten, humiliated and abused for many years. Uncommon, they are exact twins but brother and sister. After many years in captivity they managed to flee, living in the forest, hunting for survival whilst still skulking around the camp of the highwaymen. The brother, always sneaking around the camp, consumed by hatred and plotting his revenge, trained every day to become strong enough to kill every last bandit who had plagued their childhood so badly. His sister, meanwhile, focused more on hunting prey so that they could survive in the forest. By time, they become strong enough, attacked and killed every last highwayman from their past. Stalking and cutting throats, as well as firing arrows from afar. Long story short, the man is chaotic neutral (ranger alignment restrictions) and the woman is neutral good. They care nothing about society now that the have avenged their past. They live day by day, caring only for each other and for the joy it brings them (especially the brother) to kill anyone who prey on the weak. They don't do good for good's sake though, but to still their own lust for revenge. Edit: I've rolled both of these with 18:91+/19/16/1X/14+/1X
Avenger, no backstory, but I think avengers seem cool and they sorta fit with the other four classes.
last one I don't know.. possibly bard, but it would be cool to have a pure elf team and bards gotta be half-elven for some reason (so elves love for culture, both written and sung, has not transferred to any class?)
The second team would be a pure evil team, choosing classes which represent evil, not taking race into account:
Blackguard - probably leader, human ofc Assassin - is any class more inherently evil? shorty or halforc Sorceress - (like Baeloth), elf prolly Cleric of Talos, shorty
Ideas for the last two? Thinking possibly barbarian representing some kind of half-orc CE maniac who kills everything she comes across, compared to the blackguard's more calculated approach (I like LE for blkguards). Dunno what the last class/kit could be that fits the others, shadow druid perhaps? In this case as an Avenger, though I would prefer something I didn't include in the above. Or I would change the above team's druid into something other than avenger and keep the avenger to the evil team.
I have a no-reload, no-min-max party consisting of: Human Cavalier Half-elf Totemic Druid Dwarf Priest of Lathander Halfling Barbarian Human Wild Mage Half-Orc Bounty Hunter
Good representation of races and classes. Random rolls means the stats are quite varied, paladin is the tank so has 17 dex and 16 con but only 14 strength. Only 15 dex on the thief hurts a lot but I waited so long to see a 19 strength (and without it what's the point of a half-Orc?).
I'd started with a Shapeshifter Druid but he totally overshadowed the rest of the party due to the high stats the form gets so I swapped to a Totemic Druid (which is the only non-OP choice given the many strong summons already and how incredibly powerful shape changing is in IWD).
I went with Wild Mage as arcane magic is so strong and the best balance in a no-reload game is to have your only arcane be a wild Mage to create some risk for every spell that's cast.
I like the idea, I've never played a singleclass party before, so this should be fun
Fafnir | Dwarf Dwarven Defender | Axe, Hammer, Two Weapon Style Pericles | Halfling Priest of Tempus or Lathander | Morningstar/Flail, Sling, Sword and Shield Style Taran | Half-Elf Avenger | Scimitar, Sling, Sword and Shield Style Mort | Elf Assassin | Longsword, Dagger, Two-Weapon Style Skallagrim | Half-Elf Skald | Any Melee Onehand, Single Weapon Style San-Raal | Elf Sorcerer | Dagger, Dart
I may swap the DD for an undead hunter, a dwarven berserker, or a half-orc barbarian. I opted for elf rather than half-orc for the assassin he won't benefit from the halforc's con bonus anyway. He gets bonuses to longswords, higher dex, and better charm resists. Granted, he misses out on some strength but that won't matter as much later on with all the strength-boni items available, plus in the world of sneak attacks, 18 or 19 strength isn't that big of a difference.
Lastly, I really enjoy having an archer in the group so if the avenger doesn't deliver the way I wan't him to, I may swap him out. Archers are very efficient spell interrupters, especially with a Messenger of Sseth equipped If I keep the avenger, I'll have to trust that the assassin handles enemy casters.
I disagree that dual-classing is THE best way to go at it. It's a badly made mechanic that makes no sense, it feels incredibly cheesy and it's a pain to relevel again. Multiclassing feels much more natural.
And in the end, you make a party of 6 from scratch. There's no need for dual-classing.
@Carnifex 19 strength makes a massive difference to an assassin as it's an important thac0 boost to actually land those backstabs.
@Archaos your opinion on dual classing is noted though try to be less emotive and more factual with your arguments hey?
Dual classing IS the best way to go in IWD by a significant margin. Dual classing in pnp is explained adequately to be believable and even though it isn't perfectly implemented in the infinity engine it still works fine.
Everything else is irrelevant. "Cheese" isn't relevant to a mechanic that is absolutely intended. Releveling can be easy or hard depending on your own feelings about it and the dual class in question but in general has positives (feeling of accomplishment, fresh start, higher utilisation of a smaller subset of abilities) and negatives (power loss, party composition changes, equipment changes). "Feels natural" is clearly emotive and not constructive, personally though I like the focus on one set of abilities to improve them and then focusing on another set of abilities like with dual classing. On the other hand, while I like multi classing, it often feels like such a windfall as to be unrealistic (which, in comparison to pnp which has much more serious restrictions on demi humans, it is).
@FinneousPJ I prefer DD if playing on insane but Barbarian on core, I'd really love to play more with a barbarian on core rules but with insane spawns.
Yeah, shorty saves and dwarf coolness wins. If I go barb, I may just go dwarf
@Wowo Assuming the assassin will be using longswords (which mine will) there's a 1 Thac0 difference between the two. However, as you pointed out, there's a rather hefty difference in bonus damage (5 pts), so I guess half-orc is the stronger choice in the end, unless you get the elf a 19 STR-item. But for this particular party, I wasn't really concerned with the absolute optimal setup - it is a singleclass party after all. Optimal single-class party is a contradiction in terms
Yeah, shorty saves and dwarf coolness wins. If I go barb, I may just go dwarf
@Wowo Assuming the assassin will be using longswords (which mine will) there's a 1 Thac0 difference between the two. However, as you pointed out, there's a rather hefty difference in bonus damage (5 pts), so I guess half-orc is the stronger choice in the end, unless you get the elf a 19 STR-item. But for this particular party, I wasn't really concerned with the absolute optimal setup - it is a singleclass party after all. Optimal single-class party is a contradiction in terms
//C
I can definitely recommend katana (which I think the elfs +1 works for?) and single weapon style, in dragons eye there's a very cool katana that gives +5% critical chance that stacks with the weapon style (15% critical chance!) and an on crit AoE curse debuff.
I can definitely recommend katana (which I think the elfs +1 works for?) and single weapon style, in dragons eye there's a very cool katana that gives +5% critical chance that stacks with the weapon style (15% critical chance!) and an on crit AoE curse debuff.
If the elf +1 doesn't work on the katana, I may just go for a half-orc instead, singlewielding said katana. Thanks for the tip!
Dual classing IS the best way to go in IWD by a significant margin.
It is not necessary though. You can finish the game also without dual-classing and also without multi-classing. No need to worry about whether an old-school Ranger/Cleric or a dual Berserker->Cleric must be in the party. A sane mix of characters will do fine. It is ridiculous to spend time on a Kensai->Mage in IWDEE.
Absolutely no need to create anything like "the best party" to have fun. OMG, it's a role-playing game afterwall! Create a party of six humans, if you like that. Or six shorties. Or six mages, if you're adventurous.
If it really must be six characters, even a simple "paladin, fighter, cleric, thief, mage, bard" party will do. It's good that there are many more options. People worry too much about what characters to create.
It can be a joy to do only basic dual-classing, such as to convert a fighter at level 3 into a mage for a few more HP, which is plausible. And, of course, the classical fighter/thief or fighter/cleric are popular, if you are not afraid of the slower advancement with them. Even at increased difficulty with the extra XP, the slower progress of some characters can be annoying.
And reading guides/walkthroughs before playing may lead to a boring playthrough. Eventually you will disagree with what you've read and will restart with your own party. Haha!
Dual classing IS the best way to go in IWD by a significant margin.
It is not necessary though. You can finish the game also without dual-classing and also without multi-classing. No need to worry about whether an old-school Ranger/Cleric or a dual Berserker->Cleric must be in the party. A sane mix of characters will do fine. It is ridiculous to spend time on a Kensai->Mage in IWDEE.
Absolutely no need to create anything like "the best party" to have fun. OMG, it's a role-playing game afterwall! Create a party of six humans, if you like that. Or six shorties. Or six mages, if you're adventurous.
If it really must be six characters, even a simple "paladin, fighter, cleric, thief, mage, bard" party will do. It's good that there are many more options. People worry too much about what characters to create.
It can be a joy to do only basic dual-classing, such as to convert a fighter at level 3 into a mage for a few more HP, which is plausible. And, of course, the classical fighter/thief or fighter/cleric are popular, if you are not afraid of the slower advancement with them. Even at increased difficulty with the extra XP, the slower progress of some characters can be annoying.
And reading guides/walkthroughs before playing may lead to a boring playthrough. Eventually you will disagree with what you've read and will restart with your own party. Haha!
While you're not wrong it is still true that dual classing in IWD leads to the most powerful characters by a significant margin. In particular, dual classing is stronger in IWD than in bg2 due to differences in grandmastery, lack of HLAs and generally worse enemy AC, among other things.
Unfortunately there is no need to actually worry about having a powerful party as the game for the most part is so ridiculously easy in it's current implementation due to difficulty based bonus xp and presumably being balanced around random stat rolls rather than the min maxing that most players take for granted (I have a no reload play through in progress with proper random stats but difficulty slider still ruins it for me).
Thankfully it seems that we have options to suppress bonus xp from difficulty increases so that might return some of the difficulty to the game, if I can get it working on ipad I might start a new play through soon.
I believe that multi-class characters are popular for solo games and small parties where they can absorb enough XP to keep up with the difficulty progression of the game. If you play a single class Mage, priest, and thief in a party with combos of them the power level difference really jumps out at you IMO.
Now I'm running two tanks, priest, theif, sorcerer + one cleric/mage in IWD game I just started. I figured having some redundancy in spellcasting will help if something goes badly in a battle but for the most part I expect that character to be rather a drag until he can cast level 3 of each class which will be very late game with a 6 man party.
This should be fun anyway. I haven't played IWD since it came out originally and the only thing I really remember is that in the original un-patched game clerics could summon some insanely powerful undead as they leveled up. Pretty sure that was neutered in the earliest patches though.
I believe that multi-class characters are popular for solo games and small parties where they can absorb enough XP to keep up with the difficulty progression of the game. If you play a single class Mage, priest, and thief in a party with combos of them the power level difference really jumps out at you IMO.
Not trying to make this into yet another "Single class vs multi/dual class" thread, but it's been proven time and time again that most single classes are weaker than multis or duals. Whic is unfortunate if you ask me, since I personally would prefer kits to completely replace multi and duals. This is due to the power-gamey nature of MC/DC, which I ain't particularly fond of (but can't stay away from when they are in the game! I'm such a weak person.. )
Now I'm running two tanks, priest, theif, sorcerer + one cleric/mage in IWD game I just started. I figured having some redundancy in spellcasting will help if something goes badly in a battle but for the most part I expect that character to be rather a drag until he can cast level 3 of each class which will be very late game with a 6 man party.
A MC C/M will reach lvl 3 spells at level 5/5 iirc which is probably attainable in chapter 2 or something. Someone more experienced than me can prolly give the exact time it takes to reach that. My point is though, that in no means will your C/M be dragging your party down due to being so slow to level and overall crappy, rather he/she will add tons of spells, both buffs and attacks, to your overall repertoire thereby increasing your overall power way more than another pure class char would. My C/I was better than the sorc until the sorc reached level 8, 9 and started to get traction and grew in power.
Comments
Here's how I'll try it out:
Half Elf Bard
Half Elf Avenger Druid
Halfling Cleric of Tempos (doubles as a tank)
Dwarf Defender
Elf Sorcerer
Half Orc Assassin
Half Elf Skald
Half Elf Avenger Druid
Halfling Cleric of Tempus
Dward Defender
Human Undead Hunter
Halfling Assassin
Basically all kits that I never played in BG. Just finished the Orc Cave in the Prologue, and it's been fun so far.
In my dream AD&D setting, kits would completely replace multiclassing, ie an Avenger is a D/M, some paladin kit could be F/C, swashbucklers and assassins are F/T's, Stalker is a R/T, etc etc. This will never happen of course, but I like the idea of limiting myself to single classes in a full party.
So, I have two ideas for sc-parties; the first one is a party of chars I have background stories for (I like to sit at home, roll chars and create them in theory, but never play them. I'm such a geek.) but who I haven't yet played.
Chaotic, neutral team leaning slightly towards good:
Elf Sorceress (NG going towards CG)) and Elf Wild mage (CN, going towards CG)
These two are siblings, the sorceress are the calm, typical older sister role. She follows her wild younger sister around, trying to keep her out of trouble, whilst still following her rather than taking the lead. The wild mage is a wild one indeed. No control over her powers, she creates havoc at all times. Thankfully her sister can usually save her from the mess she get them into, either by her erratic behavior or her erratic and uncontrolled magic. (she should be played to simulate a sorceress without control, meaning lots of natalya's reckless dweomer, but over time she would evolve and become more like her sister, meaning more and more control until the point where the master becomes the apprentice and the younger sister becomes the stable, stronger of the two.) I'm thinking about making the older sister a DD and roleplay that as the younger sister grows stronger and more controlled, the older sister who used to be in full control, starts to lose it as her draconic heritage takes control over her, unleashing powers that frighten her and that she cannot control fully.
Both should have the same stats, something like, 10/19/16/18/10/18 if I power it, or less dex and con if I downscale.
Elf ranger and elf stalker
Continuing the sibling theme I created short backstories for another pair of siblings, this time they are twins. The two elfs ended up as prisoners in a human gang of highwaymen, praying on travelers through the forrest the lived in. Too young ro remember anything about how they got there or what happened to their parents. They were beaten, humiliated and abused for many years. Uncommon, they are exact twins but brother and sister. After many years in captivity they managed to flee, living in the forest, hunting for survival whilst still skulking around the camp of the highwaymen. The brother, always sneaking around the camp, consumed by hatred and plotting his revenge, trained every day to become strong enough to kill every last bandit who had plagued their childhood so badly. His sister, meanwhile, focused more on hunting prey so that they could survive in the forest. By time, they become strong enough, attacked and killed every last highwayman from their past. Stalking and cutting throats, as well as firing arrows from afar. Long story short, the man is chaotic neutral (ranger alignment restrictions) and the woman is neutral good. They care nothing about society now that the have avenged their past. They live day by day, caring only for each other and for the joy it brings them (especially the brother) to kill anyone who prey on the weak. They don't do good for good's sake though, but to still their own lust for revenge.
Edit: I've rolled both of these with 18:91+/19/16/1X/14+/1X
Avenger, no backstory, but I think avengers seem cool and they sorta fit with the other four classes.
last one I don't know.. possibly bard, but it would be cool to have a pure elf team and bards gotta be half-elven for some reason (so elves love for culture, both written and sung, has not transferred to any class?)
The second team would be a pure evil team, choosing classes which represent evil, not taking race into account:
Blackguard - probably leader, human ofc
Assassin - is any class more inherently evil? shorty or halforc
Sorceress - (like Baeloth), elf prolly
Cleric of Talos, shorty
Ideas for the last two? Thinking possibly barbarian representing some kind of half-orc CE maniac who kills everything she comes across, compared to the blackguard's more calculated approach (I like LE for blkguards). Dunno what the last class/kit could be that fits the others, shadow druid perhaps? In this case as an Avenger, though I would prefer something I didn't include in the above. Or I would change the above team's druid into something other than avenger and keep the avenger to the evil team.
Let me hear your thoughts!
Human Cavalier
Half-elf Totemic Druid
Dwarf Priest of Lathander
Halfling Barbarian
Human Wild Mage
Half-Orc Bounty Hunter
Good representation of races and classes. Random rolls means the stats are quite varied, paladin is the tank so has 17 dex and 16 con but only 14 strength. Only 15 dex on the thief hurts a lot but I waited so long to see a 19 strength (and without it what's the point of a half-Orc?).
I'd started with a Shapeshifter Druid but he totally overshadowed the rest of the party due to the high stats the form gets so I swapped to a Totemic Druid (which is the only non-OP choice given the many strong summons already and how incredibly powerful shape changing is in IWD).
I went with Wild Mage as arcane magic is so strong and the best balance in a no-reload game is to have your only arcane be a wild Mage to create some risk for every spell that's cast.
Fafnir | Dwarf Dwarven Defender | Axe, Hammer, Two Weapon Style
Pericles | Halfling Priest of Tempus or Lathander | Morningstar/Flail, Sling, Sword and Shield Style
Taran | Half-Elf Avenger | Scimitar, Sling, Sword and Shield Style
Mort | Elf Assassin | Longsword, Dagger, Two-Weapon Style
Skallagrim | Half-Elf Skald | Any Melee Onehand, Single Weapon Style
San-Raal | Elf Sorcerer | Dagger, Dart
I may swap the DD for an undead hunter, a dwarven berserker, or a half-orc barbarian. I opted for elf rather than half-orc for the assassin he won't benefit from the halforc's con bonus anyway. He gets bonuses to longswords, higher dex, and better charm resists. Granted, he misses out on some strength but that won't matter as much later on with all the strength-boni items available, plus in the world of sneak attacks, 18 or 19 strength isn't that big of a difference.
Lastly, I really enjoy having an archer in the group so if the avenger doesn't deliver the way I wan't him to, I may swap him out. Archers are very efficient spell interrupters, especially with a Messenger of Sseth equipped
//C
It's a badly made mechanic that makes no sense, it feels incredibly cheesy and it's a pain to relevel again.
Multiclassing feels much more natural.
And in the end, you make a party of 6 from scratch. There's no need for dual-classing.
@Archaos your opinion on dual classing is noted though try to be less emotive and more factual with your arguments hey?
Dual classing IS the best way to go in IWD by a significant margin. Dual classing in pnp is explained adequately to be believable and even though it isn't perfectly implemented in the infinity engine it still works fine.
Everything else is irrelevant. "Cheese" isn't relevant to a mechanic that is absolutely intended. Releveling can be easy or hard depending on your own feelings about it and the dual class in question but in general has positives (feeling of accomplishment, fresh start, higher utilisation of a smaller subset of abilities) and negatives (power loss, party composition changes, equipment changes). "Feels natural" is clearly emotive and not constructive, personally though I like the focus on one set of abilities to improve them and then focusing on another set of abilities like with dual classing. On the other hand, while I like multi classing, it often feels like such a windfall as to be unrealistic (which, in comparison to pnp which has much more serious restrictions on demi humans, it is).
@FinneousPJ I prefer DD if playing on insane but Barbarian on core, I'd really love to play more with a barbarian on core rules but with insane spawns.
@Wowo Assuming the assassin will be using longswords (which mine will) there's a 1 Thac0 difference between the two. However, as you pointed out, there's a rather hefty difference in bonus damage (5 pts), so I guess half-orc is the stronger choice in the end, unless you get the elf a 19 STR-item. But for this particular party, I wasn't really concerned with the absolute optimal setup - it is a singleclass party after all. Optimal single-class party is a contradiction in terms
//C
//C
Absolutely no need to create anything like "the best party" to have fun. OMG, it's a role-playing game afterwall! Create a party of six humans, if you like that. Or six shorties. Or six mages, if you're adventurous.
If it really must be six characters, even a simple "paladin, fighter, cleric, thief, mage, bard" party will do. It's good that there are many more options. People worry too much about what characters to create.
It can be a joy to do only basic dual-classing, such as to convert a fighter at level 3 into a mage for a few more HP, which is plausible. And, of course, the classical fighter/thief or fighter/cleric are popular, if you are not afraid of the slower advancement with them. Even at increased difficulty with the extra XP, the slower progress of some characters can be annoying.
And reading guides/walkthroughs before playing may lead to a boring playthrough. Eventually you will disagree with what you've read and will restart with your own party. Haha!
Unfortunately there is no need to actually worry about having a powerful party as the game for the most part is so ridiculously easy in it's current implementation due to difficulty based bonus xp and presumably being balanced around random stat rolls rather than the min maxing that most players take for granted (I have a no reload play through in progress with proper random stats but difficulty slider still ruins it for me).
Thankfully it seems that we have options to suppress bonus xp from difficulty increases so that might return some of the difficulty to the game, if I can get it working on ipad I might start a new play through soon.
Now I'm running two tanks, priest, theif, sorcerer + one cleric/mage in IWD game I just started. I figured having some redundancy in spellcasting will help if something goes badly in a battle but for the most part I expect that character to be rather a drag until he can cast level 3 of each class which will be very late game with a 6 man party.
This should be fun anyway. I haven't played IWD since it came out originally and the only thing I really remember is that in the original un-patched game clerics could summon some insanely powerful undead as they leveled up. Pretty sure that was neutered in the earliest patches though.
My point is though, that in no means will your C/M be dragging your party down due to being so slow to level and overall crappy, rather he/she will add tons of spells, both buffs and attacks, to your overall repertoire thereby increasing your overall power way more than another pure class char would. My C/I was better than the sorc until the sorc reached level 8, 9 and started to get traction and grew in power.
Edit: added a "most" in my first sentence.