Please critique my party for me

cryogenics12

Hi folks. Forum noob here. I've played BG/IWD before and I'm so stoked to see these games released again. They are near and dear to my heart.

Anyway..

Please do bear in mind that I am not looking for max powergamerness here. Just a little though since I want to take a crack at Heart of Fury.

Just making sure that I am balanced. I like to RP a bit and I like to think of this party as a group of crazy miscreants who are also badasses. In other words, the kind of wild people you would find in this brutal frozen place:

Berserker (dual classed to mage at 13)
Sorcerer
Archer
Druid (I hear they're better than they were in BG1/BG2. Which kit do you like best?)
Fighter/thief (Thief to fighter when I max out traps/lockpicking)
Fighter/cleric (Multi since I want cleric spells right away for undead)

I'm thinking about doing a fighter/druid instead. With HOF being what it is. I know there are a decent amount of undead in this game so I'm worried about not having a paladin. I'm somewhat intrigued by a bard or barbarian since I've never used them.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

joluv

Looks like a good party to me. Three points:
- Bards are stronger than in the BG series.
- There are more physical damage resistance items, which allows for some really strong Barbarian builds.
- I think you'll be fine without a Paladin.

bob_veng

it's very good
dunno if you really want to dual that berserker. not necessary.

reedmilfam

I agree with @bob_veng . The sorcerer gives you loads of arcane spells. I do recommend swapping the archer to a bard, but that's not necessary.

Zyzzogeton

If you're going to take a single class Druid, the Totemic Druid makes the prologue a lot easier while the Sorc and Fighter/Cleric are still gaining levels for Animate Dead and other stuff.

And the prologue is one of the more difficult parts of HoF.

After the prologue the Fighter/Cleric will get Animate Dead which makes a lot of future battles much less of a hassle.

cryogenics12

Thanks all. I may replace the berserker with a barbarian.

Merina

cryogenics12 said:

I know there are a decent amount of undead in this game so I'm worried about not having a paladin.

What would your paladin do specifically about those undead?

In my opinion, something like an Undead Hunter sounds cool, but doesn't offer much ... other than becoming a defensive melee force in your party with maxed out attributes as a requirement. The multi Fighter/Cleric is more suitable as a front-liner

reedmilfam said:

I do recommend swapping the archer to a bard, but that's not necessary.

A Bard instead of the Archer ... and then the Thief may become a Fighter early after maxing out Find Traps. If you desparately want the ranged attacks, it could become a ranged Fighter.

joluv

@Merina: Why wouldn't the Thief still need lockpicking skills? Would you cast Knock every time?

Merina

@joluv: "every time" is only "a few times" in IWDEE that you cannot force a lock and need to cast Knock.

elminster

Are you playing HoF mode with difficulty-based XP bonus? (it makes a big difference from a levelling standpoint)

Grum

For thief, go swashbuckler!

- +1 Bonus to Armor Class
- +1 Additional Bonus to Armor Class every 5 levels
- +1 Bonus to THAC0 and Damage every 5 levels

Can't backstab, but you don't plan to do that anyways. So what you can do is this:

lvl 1:
Open locks: 25%
Find Traps: 50%

lvl 6:
Open locks 100%
Find Traps: 100%

Then go up to lvl 10, which is another 100% to put in either detect illusions or set traps. Both work quite well, and are useful to have around.

Thus, your fighter is going to have +3 AC, +2 THACO and +2 Damage.

You also get to make the most out of your thief proficiency points. You start off with 2, and will have +2 by the time you reach lvl 10. This will let you get more points in different kinds of weapons, so if you find some 'must use' loot, your fighter is already ready to use it.

--------------

For druid...if you go pure druid then you can't go wrong with totemic, for the free summons.

I am a fan of fighter/druids though, because fighter levels with stoneskin? Yes please!

--------------

And if you do want to go bard, you can't go wrong with a skald. From the get-go their song is ace, and it only gets better. It also unlocks some extra dialogue, and with the upgraded longsword that helps with his lore, you'll never have to identify anything again.

wraith5641

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Don't dual-class late in a party of 6. It's absolutely pointless. You won't get your levels back until right at the very end of the game, and you will be stuck with a character that isn't that great for a good portion of it.

I also have to point out that the need for two Mages in IWD is almost non-existent. Tanks you can never have enough of in this game, so I wouldn't even bother dual-classing the Berserker.

Just my advice. Of course, no party is wrong

Zyzzogeton

A Fighter/Mage doesn't need to be the second arcane caster.

It can be a Fighter with Mage protections (it helps too that the game gives you 0 AC Bracers and +2 AC Robes)

Also Spell Immunity Abjuration means it's a Fighter which has buffs and protections that can't be dispelled. Mislead means it's a Fighter that can't be targeted. Simulacrum means it's a Fighter that spawns a clone of itself. Time Stop means it's a Fighter than can beat down the bosses of the game with impunity.

And thanks to how conjured weapons work, Black Blade of Disaster gets even more ridiculous with a +1 APR offhand weapon.

SharGuidesMyHand

cryogenics12 said:

Fighter/cleric (Multi since I want cleric spells right away for undead)

You may want to consider having at least one single class cleric, so that you can get your turn undead ability to be as high-level as you can as quickly as you can, for dealing with all those hoards of undead.

Petrol

cryogenics12 said:

Berserker (dual classed to mage at 13)
Sorcerer
Archer
Druid (I hear they're better than they were in BG1/BG2. Which kit do you like best?)
Fighter/thief (Thief to fighter when I max out traps/lockpicking)
Fighter/cleric (Multi since I want cleric spells right away for undead)

Thoughts? Suggestions?

- zerk : in normal play the zerk will end near lv 17, if you dual at level 13, the mage will be lv 12, so you will have a pointless mage, and a pointless zerk until you begin HoF.
(If you begin HoF mode at level 1, then why not dual at lv 13)
But a fighter / mage multi will be better, or take a blade (exp progression of a rogue)
- Sorcerer : the best mage, good choice.
- Archer : the best ranged, good choice.
- Druid : any druid will be a good choice, maybe not the avenger, because it's redondant with the sorcerer for the arcane spells.
- Fighter / thief : depends on your playthrough, ranged ? fighting ?
For range, ok , fighting : take a swash, you can dual fighter at lv 10.
- Fighter / cleric : ranged - heal or fighting ?
Healer take a pure cleric
Fighting ok.

The paladin, the only usefull is the hundead hunter, with dual weapon.

Barbarian is a good toon, with it's speed it will be your archer killer.
In severed hand you will find boots of speed, so a dwarven defender with these boots can take the role of archer killer, it will be a barbarian with plate and a defensive stance.

Wowo

I tend to recommend only doing HoF with a brand new level 1 party that's minmaxed as much as you like.

If you want to do a normal play through then I recommend avoiding the most powerful combinations as it becomes to easy too quickly anyway.

Avenger is definitely my favourite Druid kit though, it's just so good.

For HoF I'd recommend something like:
FMC
FMT
Kensei 9 -> Druid
Kensei 9 -> Mage
Berserker 7 -> Cleric
Skald

Zyzzogeton

So 3 characters having to divvy up all the scrolls? The FMC might as well be a FC because it's going to rely mostly on Cleric spells with the FMT and K>M getting most of the scrolls.

And sure a Sorcerer might eventually lag later on, but that's so late in the game that the huge boost in damage with stuff like Emotion Hope and Courage (long before those scrolls appear) Improved Haste (easier to cast on every Fighter) more than makes up for it. Plus it can just layer Incendiary Cloud later on so it isn't useless during combat.

jigglefloyd

Wowo said:

I tend to recommend only doing HoF with a brand new level 1 party that's minmaxed as much as you like.

If you want to do a normal play through then I recommend avoiding the most powerful combinations as it becomes to easy too quickly anyway.

Avenger is definitely my favourite Druid kit though, it's just so good.

For HoF I'd recommend something like:
FMC
FMT
Kensei 9 -> Druid
Kensei 9 -> Mage
Berserker 7 -> Cleric
Skald

Why get four arcane based characters? Scrolls are quite limited, and expensive, and you would be forced to do some extreme arcane specialization. This would limit the potential of four of your six party members, which isn't good when your goal is to min / max.

Wowo

@Zyzzogeton you can get the badge of courage in temple of forgotten god which accounts for 60% of the damage. The Hope scroll is available in Severed Hand.

@jigglefloyd currently playing with almost exactly this party I don't find that to be the case at all.

In my play through I have an illusionist/cleric instead of the FMC and this character along with the kensage are the two primary casters who have plenty of scrolls between them. The FMT and Skald get what's left over but honestly they don't need as much for their roles.

Francois

cryogenics12 said:

I'm somewhat intrigued by a bard or barbarian since I've never used them.

Why not try a Bard-Barian?

Seriously, like others have said I would not dual class the barbarian.

Merina

Don't forget some classes are single-class only ... such as Barbarian and Bard. There's a table in the manual.

Francois

I assumed he was thinking about using some mod to do that.

Otherwise you could always dual a berzerker instead of barbarian. I really don't understand why barbarians cannot be dual or multiclassed like fighter and rangers. A ranger/barbarian would be an interesting combo.

FinneousPJ

@Francois That wouldn't be possible even if Barbarians could dual or multi, since both are warrior classes. You can't make a fighter/ranger either.

Merina

Francois said:

I assumed he was thinking about using some mod to do that.

Oh ... that's weird ... nothing in this topic mentioned any mod or non-standard class so far.

Francois said:

Otherwise you could always dual a berzerker instead of barbarian.

Still not to Bard.

Other than that ... yes ... Berserker dualed to Cleric, Mage or Druid is a viable option for a HoF mode party.

Francois said:

I really don't understand why barbarians cannot be dual or multiclassed like fighter and rangers. A ranger/barbarian would be an interesting combo.

Such as a Paladin/Thief ... some funny combinations are possible in IWD2.

Francois

Merina said:

Francois said:

I assumed he was thinking about using some mod to do that.

Oh ... that's weird ... nothing in this topic mentioned any mod or non-standard class so far.

That's why I said I *assumed*. He said he played the games before so I assumed he was familiar with classes in the game and if he wanted to dual a barbarian he would use some mod to do it. The Bard-barian was meant as a joke.

FinneousPJ said:

@Francois That wouldn't be possible even if Barbarians could dual or multi, since both are warrior classes. You can't make a fighter/ranger either.

Not in this video game, but you can in the actual modern D&D. (I don't know the current edition, but you could in the 3rd). I didn't say we could here I just said it would be cool.

FinneousPJ

@Francois I have no idea about modern 5th edition (though I'll soon learn with SCL), but I love 3(.5) Ed for its freedom. I just reinstalled NWN2

Merina

Is NWN2 much better than NWN? ... The latter loses a lot of momentum due to the solo-with-companion playing style.

IWD2 (as mentioned above) is the way to go, if you one to create a wacky party.