Ideal 4 Person Party
jigglefloyd
Member Posts: 21
Below is the 4 person party I used on insane difficulty and Heart of Fury mode once I got a decent level. It is well balanced, except for a lack of thieving skills, which really doesn't matter much; simply tank or ignore the traps and use knock on anything locked. You can get to the 8 million experience cap with a party of four with one full play through (IWD + HOF), but you will have to do Heart of Fury mode for a good chunk of it. I would like to hear your thoughts on this or what you did for a smaller party.
Human Inquisitor - The true Wizard Slayer. The Inquisitor is so good at demolishing wizard, cleric, and thief defenses and elusiveness that it actually allows you to skip placing your sorcerer spell slots into breach, true sight, and other spells that are aimed at cutting down wizard defenses. Like all Paladins, the Inquisitor is also a balanced warrior that does well in both melee and ranged combat.
Human Berserker / Cleric - The ultimate melee warrior and tank, although the B/C takes a while to reach maximum potential, once fully dual-classed it's amazing how much punishment this guy can take. Cleric spells are so good in IWD compared to BG2 and allow you to get amazingly good defenses that far exceed the potential of any Barbarian or Dwarven Defender as well as great offense and saves. I dual - wielded him in morning star / flails.
Elf Archer - Pure DPS, basically a ranged form of the Kensai. Very few things in IWD require magical weapons to hit them (even the end boss), and if they do +2 is sufficient (undead), so you'll rarely be in a situation where you have to go into melee mode. The Archer also gets access to Druid spells. I focused on longbow for the extra attack per round.
Elf Sorcerer - Great for support, control, and damage...whatever you want. Be sure to get the level two Knock spell because you don't have a thief.
General Strategy:
Ranged attack is king. Summon fodder, send out your enraged B/C, and let the other party members pelt them from afar. Haste, and later Improved Haste is essential as it essentially doubles your physical DPS, general pre-combat buffing is also recommended for Heart of Fury mode.
For a party of three I would ditch the Inquisitor and just rely on the B/Cs and Mage's Dispel magic. You'll also probably want to pickup spell thrust, breach, and a few other similar spells with your sorcerer. Going Kensai / Mage instead of Sorcerer wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Human Inquisitor - The true Wizard Slayer. The Inquisitor is so good at demolishing wizard, cleric, and thief defenses and elusiveness that it actually allows you to skip placing your sorcerer spell slots into breach, true sight, and other spells that are aimed at cutting down wizard defenses. Like all Paladins, the Inquisitor is also a balanced warrior that does well in both melee and ranged combat.
Human Berserker / Cleric - The ultimate melee warrior and tank, although the B/C takes a while to reach maximum potential, once fully dual-classed it's amazing how much punishment this guy can take. Cleric spells are so good in IWD compared to BG2 and allow you to get amazingly good defenses that far exceed the potential of any Barbarian or Dwarven Defender as well as great offense and saves. I dual - wielded him in morning star / flails.
Elf Archer - Pure DPS, basically a ranged form of the Kensai. Very few things in IWD require magical weapons to hit them (even the end boss), and if they do +2 is sufficient (undead), so you'll rarely be in a situation where you have to go into melee mode. The Archer also gets access to Druid spells. I focused on longbow for the extra attack per round.
Elf Sorcerer - Great for support, control, and damage...whatever you want. Be sure to get the level two Knock spell because you don't have a thief.
General Strategy:
Ranged attack is king. Summon fodder, send out your enraged B/C, and let the other party members pelt them from afar. Haste, and later Improved Haste is essential as it essentially doubles your physical DPS, general pre-combat buffing is also recommended for Heart of Fury mode.
For a party of three I would ditch the Inquisitor and just rely on the B/Cs and Mage's Dispel magic. You'll also probably want to pickup spell thrust, breach, and a few other similar spells with your sorcerer. Going Kensai / Mage instead of Sorcerer wouldn't be a bad idea either.
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Comments
Other choices are very powerful.
Inquisitor, not so much. There are really only VERY few casters in IWD, and they are stupidly easy to keep locked down with your Archer since they lack any sort of SCS-style pre-buffs. There's also practically no invisible enemies, making the Inquisitor's True Sight all but useless. So, with Dispel and True Sight marginalized, all you're left with is a Paladin that can't cast cleric spells - which are VERY good in IWD.
I would definitely go with a different kit of Paladin, either Blackguard as @bengoshi suggested, or, if you prefer to be good-aligned, Undead Hunter or Cavalier. That is, if you actually want to go with a paladin; personally I don't think that they are better than another Fighter->Cleric (Berserker or Kensai), largely because of the whopping 3/2 APR you gain from Grand Mastery in IWD, but also because of more/faster cleric spells.
I tried a 4-person party on my first HoF playthrough as well, and it worked alright. But now that I've switched to 6 for my second, I'm pretty convinced that it's actually not optimal in IWD to go with 4 people (unlike BG, where I do believe smaller = better). There are some tremendously powerful buff effects you can stack, and since enemy HP don't scale with party size more members = more damage; enough more to offset the lower individual XP.
2 uber-tanks, 2 ranged, and 2 buffs that can go ranged in a pinch. Also EEKeeper.
Barbarian
Dwarven Defender/Cleric
Archer crossbow
Fighter/Assassin longbow
Bard sling
Skald shortbow
Because stacking songs is amazing.
Half-Elf Cleric/Ranger: Takes care of all the priest stuff and can fight. Blunt weapons + TWF
Elf Fighter/Thief: Takes care of all the thief stuff and can fight. Longswords + TWF
Elf Archer: Kills everything. Longbows, gonna have GM crossbow too at some point.
Elf Sorcerer: Casts Improved Haste on my archer so that he can kill even more stuff even faster.
I'm on my first run with this party right now on 'Insane' difficulty, no HoF.
How are you dealing with traps? Some of them are quite nasty.
I agree that the Inquisitor is the weakest link due to the shortage of spell casters in the game, but some of them are pretty difficult (e.g. Malevon, the 4 mages that protect Marketh) and in order to deal with them efficiently you'll need to get a lucky remove magic off or save anti-magic defense scrolls for these situations so you don't have to waste sorcerer spell slots on them, that would probably be smarter. I remember the last time I played this game and these mages gave me a hard time, this time I wiped these mages completely thanks to the Dispel Magic.
I do agree though that the Blackguard would certainly offer more consistent benefit due to the aura of despair and poison, not to mention the priest spells that the Inquisitor has to sacrifice. Another Kensai Cleric or Berserker Cleric would be nice but I prefer diversity.
@MrGoodkat - "How are you dealing with traps? Some of them are quite nasty."
I usually just tank them like a man, but if you want to be smart about it cast the cleric spell Find Traps and summon fodder to trigger them. I never actually bothered with this, but I would imagine fodder can trigger the traps.
@Lord_Tansheron
I agree that a 6 person party is more efficient but I wanted more of a challenge and I tire of microing six characters sometimes. I was honestly thinking of just doing three but I figured that a lot of experience would go to waste if I did that. If I did do six I would most definitely throw in a Skald, swap the Inquisitor with a Blackguard, and for the 6th maybe throw in a Monk or Berserker Druid or Fighter / Thief of some kind.
One half-orc Fighter (level max at the end of HoW)
One Half-orc dual-class Fighter/cleric to heal the group/buff
One half-elf Fighter/thief/mage
and that was the easiest party I ever done in Icewind Dale
To each his own I guess ^^
- Elf Shadowdancer
- Human Paladin (no kit)
- Half-Elf Bard
- Dwarf Priest of Lathander
This is the party me and some friends are hopeful to run in case the multiplayer works.
Also, how does a Priest of Lathander compare offensively to a Fighter/Cleric?
I think it's what IWD is balanced for, though.
I'm currently running undead hunter, priest of Lathander, thief, and skald, but I'm thinking about restarting with actual pure classes, because the kits are taking away a lot of the challenge, especially the undead hunter combined with the skald.
When you have a party of four you usually have to give up something. The thief honestly offers nothing but proficient physical combat and thief skills; backstabbing or sneak attacking is ok, but you'll only get off one or two per fight, which may last minutes. Regarding my build above, if I wanted a thief I could replace the Inquisitor or Blackguard with a Fighter/Thief of some kind. I could also remove the sorcerer for a mage / thief of some kind.
As usual, there is a disconnect over the definition of "ideal party" between the "powergamers" and the "roleplayers".
Both approaches are valid - just do what you find intriguing and fun.
The main thing the pure cleric of Lathander would get over the multi-class fighter/cleric would be the Hold Undead spell plus a level or two higher Turn Undead ability, plus very rare castings of the Boon of Lathander to increase melee power for a very short time. If powergaming is your thing, then definitely the fighter-cleric is superior.
I completely respect the roleplayer ideal. I have always been a power gamer but I usually mod my game so it's more difficult and play HoF mode whenever possible so it's actually a challenge.
For a pure tank, Dwarven Defender is pretty hard to scratch if equipped right. Cast Regenerate on him and he can tank any swarm without getting out of Barely Injured range. However, the F to C is probably almost as tough and much harder hitting. And a FM is perhaps literally not getting scratched due to buffs, but thats high management.
A thief is nice though. Not sure if I'd wanna run without. Maybe dual out a swashie, the bonus' aren't bad, and your thief skills will be solid. If you replace the Inquisitor with a Swash to Mage, you can use speed weapons and Tensers to good effect. In the original party, he could DW Longswords of Action nobody else needs, and Righteous Wrath sets him to 5 apr. Not a bad utility character.
I can't say how things were in IWD2 as I've never played it. But it's safe to assume that things vary considerably between games, between BG and IWD there's also several wildly different strategies that work better in one vs. the other.
Fighter/mage/cleric
Fighter/mage/cleric
Fighter/mage/thief
Too little XP
Too little XP
Too little XP
Just kidding...
If I really wanted to only take 4 people, I'd probably consider something like
B7->C
K9->C
K9->M
Archer
You could swap the Kensais for Berserkers if you're not confident in your tanking, but in my experience it's not hard to keep mobs focused on the tank, and there is very little incidental damage that cares about AC. Not having a thief is annoying, but thief is more a convenience than a necessity anyway.
It's also possible that a Blackguard could be used instead of the K9->C, I still need to test just how good it is.
Regarding Sorcerer Buffs in HoF, they are often single target. And they have not too many. Use a Sorcerer in a small party to lock down enemies. Chaos, Web, Hopelessness, etc are your bread and butter. Improved Haste and summons are nice too, but Clerics have nice buffs and little else to cast. Then again, Righteous Wrath is better the more it can affect, so tiny party makes Imp Haste more competetive.
Running x3 FMC is silly, just run x3 FC duals. Much better.
Ber7>cleric
ken13>druid
f/m/t
Sun monk
Ken at 13 is painfull but she is a staff master so I wanted to Maximize atk/round and Ber/cleric is a must have.
I went for fmt couz I wanted an utility ranged toon that can be able to go melee later on. If u dont mind losing thieving skIlls u can go ken9> mage (2 weapon fighting) or fighter 7>mage (longbow)
Monk is just an esperiment since they are useless in bg saga but MAYBE they can do fine in a low magic game like iwd, also because u will miss improved haste for a long time w/out a sorc. He's an ok kiter and scouter at least.
I have found that is very good to have 2 melee with long range (fist count as 2 hand weapon plus kensai is a staff user) couz u can fight in small places like np leaving the cleric tank the whole thing.
Anyway 6 man parties are way better in Hof, imo at least ,)