Can I legitimately create a custom party and find enough equipment for them to finish the game?

FalkonSwiftblade

So I know we can import custom party's and I don't know how much the inner workings have changed so that if for example I wanted an all mages party to beat the game if I'd be able to do so without cheating, so they all have sufficient gear? What types of options are there in the game for such a thing?

HaggardBlaze

Uh, I don't really see why not..... You'll miss out on alot of what makes BG great but I suppose you could do it.

Tanthalas

You shouldn't have problems with not having enough gear to beat the game.

Yes, there are several very good items that are unique, but even playing with 6 mages you'd still be able to get enough equipment to beat the game.

Jaxsbudgie

Well I'd suggest for three of your six mages to be good, neutral and evil aligned to take advantage of the x robes of archmagi. As for the others, maybe make them dual classes so they can wear armours and use different weapons (shortbows and crossbows), if you do that, means the other can invest in slings, darts and throwing daggers. I'd also recommend you make them all specialists if you don't dual class any, but if you do dual class just one (obviously they won't be able to specialise with dualling), you can give them the ring of wizardry to help balance them with the others. There's also another ring of wizardry in Baldur's Gate don't forget.

Edit: Might be worth leaving spaces for Neera, Edwin, Dynaheir, Xan and Xzar. Might make the overall experience a little more enjoyable. Although Edwin and Dynaheir may eventually come to blows, in which case you can swap out whoever dies with Imeon and dual her.

Edit2: I'd also make one really strong to carry all the expensive equipment you won't be using to sell, you should generate a lot of money this way, also, if you're not using the NPCs listed above, make one with abysmal dexterity so you can use the bracers of dexterity on them.

Hertz

Six mages? From a gear standpoint, I could see that working, though they won't all have equally good gear. There are lots of robes, but not a lot of Daggers +2 or Bracers AC6 in the first game. Someone will have to take the hits, though, and mages have awful HP and CON bonuses. If they all have Mage saving throws, too, they'll all be vulnerable to the same kinds of attacks (eg, poison, breath weapons). You'll have to schlep around a ton of antidotes and healing potions.

HaggardBlaze

You would have difficulty in the beginning when you don't have many spells. Extreme difficulty. Unless you have them all summon i suppose......

FalkonSwiftblade

thanks for the tips. I was asking as a hypothetical. I planned on having a mixture of clerics and mages of some type and some would be multi classed. I was just trying to keep it a little interesting. I'm sure I'll probably need some kinda tanky or sneaky type of character to get through some sections or I'd probably miss out on a bunch.

awin123

I finished vanilla BG1 with a custom party of 6 specialist mages and it wasn't fun. The one thing I haven't seen stressed enough is the complete lack of spells that you'll go through. Gear in general is fine since mages don't really get anything super powerful in BG1 but without mods or cheesing the game you'll struggle to get 6 mages copies of useful spells especially 5th level ones. I think I had a few mages that didn't even have any 5th levels to cast at the end.

That being said it's incredibly easy to do in vanilla BG because you can abuse the hell out of sleep and monster summons and while they capped summoning so you can't overrun people anymore in TuTu you can still abuse the hell out of sleep at lower levels especially with the ring of wizardry and specialists giving extra slots.

neleothesze

Well if you plan on having both clerics and mages (some dualed/multi to thief & fighter) then you would definitely have enough gear to go around.

If you plan on having 3 pure mages, just do what @Jaxsbudgie suggested and make them good/neutral/evil so they can wear the different robes of the archmagi. There's enough heavy armor to go around for the clerics, should you choose to have them take a few hits.

The bigger issue will be running around scouting for scrolls. Many spells have just 1 or 2 guaranteed vendors and hoping for drops to fill the spellbooks is no fun. I've never run with more than 4 arcane casters (one of which was a sorceress so she doesn't count ^_^) and poor Imoen's spellbook was more empty than full.

With NPCs it's a bit easier since if you pick one up at a higher level you're at least assigned some spells, with a custom party you will have to go hunting.

Corvino

If you're thinking of a caster heavy & multiclass party, a fighter druid could work well. It'd cover the spells you miss with clerics, and the mandatory high charisma could come in handy.

For a thief, they multi well with just about any other class. For slightly cheesy dualling then swashbucklers are probably the best base class.

Also, always consider 1-2 fighters or paladin kits. Being able to put 3 points into a weapon proficiency gives a big THAC0 advantage early on, and paladin kit immunities & charisma are great.

Hertz

I'm doing a team of 6 custom at the moment.

1 paladin
1 NE fighter (will dual to thief)
1 ranger (will dual to cleric)
1 kensai (will dual to mage)
1 thief (will dual to mage)
1 cleric/mage

The problem I'll have is when the thief duals to mage; I'll be without a sneak for a while until the fighter duals too.

CaptRory

Could fill in with Invisibility. Anyone with invisibility cast on them can scout ahead.