Help With Party Composition

Malifax

About to start up a play through through of IWD:EE and all the nostalgia the game churned up also set me to remembering an old 3e Oriental Adventures campaign some friends and I ran in many moons ago. Now I have to build a party and find myself thinking why not combine the two?

A party of far flung adventurers from an ancient and mysterious land... While I'm not looking to power game it would be nice to have a decent party that could take a stab at HOW without too much trouble and doesn't make me want to pull my hair out while just plain playing the game.

Things I know I want:

Kensai - Katanas - Single Weapon Style - The requisite samurai character, maybe a little too on the nose. I'm not 100% sold on a samurai with no armor, and how badly am I handicapping myself but not dual-wielding?

Fighter/Thief or Shadowdancer or Assasin - Dual Wield - Shortsword or Wakizashi -Good old fashioned ninja. That covers my thief needs, not sure which class/kit to go with. Shadowdancer seems right but feels a bit weak mechanically?

Mage/Cleric - This would be my Shugenja analogue, probably focusing on water for the element as they'll
definitely be doing a lot of healing.

Druid - This would be my shaman. Maybe Totemic as I don't remember Shamans Shapeshifting, If not, avenger? Almost certain they couldn't would heavier than leather.

Aside from the above, i would likely pick my party from the options below, but would love some input/guidance:

Monk - Kind've a gimme but I haven't tried the monk yet in BG/BG2:EE. Can't picture playing it as a MAINCHAR so seems like a good opportunity. Not sure on the kits here, I honestly like the sound of both.

Mage - As a Wu-Jen analogue. Invoker feels like it would make the most sense with the elemntal focus they have, but I've heard Wild Mage is tons of fun and might be able to hand wave that for the sake of entertainment. Is another mage pointless in a party with a mage/cleric though?

Paladin - As a Sohei. Do something crazy like focus in spears to keep that temple guardian feel? No such thing as a bad pally kit so not sure which I would pick there...

Fighter - Berserker - This would be an option for a second warrior and to give me an armored samurai which feels more right. Berserker feels a bit out of flavor (unless I could give them some sort of 2 handed mace and call it a tetsubo?) but vanilla fighter just feels kinda pointless and underpowered.


Look forward to everyone's thoughts! (And thanks for reading my novella length post!)

Wowo

Kensei - can't use thrown weapons in iwdee FYI. Teams well with a Druid who can cast Barkskin or a Mage who can cast Spirit Armour. Critical hits still hurt. Normally I'd only play this kit if dual classing to Mage or Druid.

F/T, SD or Ass - a trap disable helps a lot. F/T is the most powerful and suits dual world, Assassin is more fun but single weapon style is preferred.

M/C - great support character due to combining metamagics with cleric spells.

D - Druids are uber powerful in iwdee, totemic is the weakest though IMO.

Monk - monks are a bit weak but a Sun Soul Monk will work well against all the legions of undead.

Mage - I like having at least 2 arcane if not 3 (I'd usually include a bard in a full party). Can go with Sorcerer as the strongest option.

Paladin - Paladins are excellent in iwdee and have unique quest experience and dialogue (like bards and Druids). Just don't choose inquisitor.

Berserker - always good, I'd recommend specialising in axes as there's a good throwing axe to bypass the restriction and plenty of good melee ones (including the strongest weapon in the game albeit in ToL).

Hope that helps
Currently I'm playing a 3 character caster party with a Dragon Disciple, Avenger and Mage/Cleric. Maybe the most fun I've had playing. I definitely prefer small parties for iwdee.

acolyte

There's a LOT of undead in this game. And quite a few of them resist slashing and piercing damage so having your paladin be an undead hunter with mace or flail as his first proficiency isn't a bad option. The few good spears in the game come rather late, near the end of the core game. Alternatively, a blackguard with longbow proficiency outright murders most non-undead creatures with his poison. But blackguards are evil so maybe not good for RP.

A kensai that doesn't dual class to druid, cleric or mage will have some issue with armor. So you'll need to let someone else take the aggro. Dual wielding is greatly preferred and not only for the extra attack. A lot of weapons in the game give passive benefits like bonus AC and resistances. This helps the kensai to survive. Maybe give him warhammers for the crushing damage type. Longswords and axes are also decent choices. These three along with flails/morningstars have some weapons that grant the previously mentioned AC bonus and resistances though some of these are random drops or come late into the game.

The totemic druid has good summons if you're not going for heart of fury difficulty. They tend to be better against non-undead creatures due to their various specials. They also get immunity to normal weapons at level 10 iirc. Avenger gets access to sword spider form at level 7 which is actually *quite* devastating against most creatures that are not undead. All the bonus mage spells they get are *extremely* useful.

I'm not sure if a pure class thief can dual wield well. So the pure assassin or shadowdancer will probably not have that as a good option. The multiclass fighter thief will be the choice for that. Otherwise, you may consider the swashbuckler, but that loses the RP element as he cannot backstab. You can try fighter 3 dual class to thief if you want and get dual wield that way along with grandmastery in your weapon of choice eventually. If you go this route, try getting scimitar (or shortsword) and two weapon fighting at character creation maxed out at two pips. Then get staff proficiency when you dual class to help in skeleton bashing.

For fighter berserker, you can try giving him some axe proficiency. There's a throwing axe that you can potentially find later in the game. And some huge two handed axes throughout the game do drop from monsters.

I'm assuming this is not heart of fury mode. If it is, then you may want to have a sorcerer instead of a normal mage as the game gives out magic scrolls very slowly and infrequently.

FinneousPJ

As an aside weren't samurai heavily armoured?