IWD party

Cvijeta

Half-elf female bard,
druid
Human paladin
dwarf cleric of tempus
Hafling rogue - chaotic evil
half-orc barbarian or human vanilla mage

What are your thoughts and suggestion?

Cvijeta

I would like to achieve roleplay optimization, meaning having party members who can have all dialogue options that have tangible reward (xp mostly), while having a balanced party.

SomeSort

IWD is different than BG in that it's much more of a marathon than a sprint. You might be facing four times as many mid-level enemies, and places to rest safely are rarer and further apart. Ideally, you want a party that can push through large sums of enemies without burning up all of their resources to reach the next rest point.

As a result, I think it's really important to have multiple "fighter-types". Their damage output is a totally renewable resource that never needs to be replenished-- as long as they're alive, they're dealing the exact same damage. Spellcasters are diminished in comparison as their spells dwindle down.

I'd also say having two "healer-types" (pureclass druid, pureclass cleric) is overkill, especially because after level 11 Vanilla Bards become the single best healer in the game. (They have a song that gives everyone regeneration, which lets them heal the entire party up to full whenever they want, and unlike divine spells it's a perfectly renewable resource, which is better for reasons already mentioned.)

You could switch the Cleric to a Fighter/Cleric and the Druid to a Fighter/Druid, which costs you the kits, (though Vanilla Druid is arguably better than any of the kits in IWD, anyway). That'll give you three "fighter-types". You could make your halfling rogue a Fighter/Thief, which will give you four. No, I don't think this is overkill, especially if you have the halfling focus on archery. (Alternately, you could do the Fighter/Cleric and the Fighter/Thief and leave the Druid as a pureclass to get faster progression to levels 14/15.)

I'd also go with the mage over the barbarian, because while fighters will carry you through most of the long slogs between rest points, it's really nice to have a high-level arcane caster to help out with the tougher parts. The bard can cover some of your arcane needs, and high-level bards actually get up to level 8 spells in IWD (instead of capping out at level 6 like in BG), but that's a long way off and your bard is probably going to want to keep singing through most of combat instead of switching to casting.

So maybe something like:
Bard
Paladin
Fighter/Cleric
Fighter/Thief
Druid or Fighter/Druid
Mage

Cvijeta

Would fighter/druid count as druid in conversations? Would I get xp and opportunity for bestowing a nature blessing in Kuldahar?

SomeSort

Cvijeta said:

Would fighter/druid count as druid in conversations? Would I get xp and opportunity for bestowing a nature blessing in Kuldahar?

Yes.

If you want to see these interactions from the standpoint of "this is content and I want to see it", then that's fine, but if you're trying to powergame and you're worried about missing out on something important, I'll say that pretty much all the class/race/alignment rewards amount to a big fat nothingburger in the grand scheme of things. You'll get a couple thousand extra XP (out of the millions you'll finish with) and a couple hundred extra GP (out of the hundreds of thousands you'll finish with).

But I totally get that "Fear of Missing Out" is a real thing, it's neat that the developers built so much reactivity into the game, and it's nice to see it if all else is equal.

SloaneRanger

Cvijeta said:

Half-elf female bard,
druid
Human paladin
dwarf cleric of tempus
Hafling rogue - chaotic evil
half-orc barbarian or human vanilla mage

What are your thoughts and suggestion?

The party is light on fighters. This is a very combat intense game. I have found that anything less than 3 fighter types will have a hard time slugging it through many of the very long battles. The game likes to throw a zillion low level monsters at your party rather than a few high level monsters for most battles. A spellcaster heavy party will run out of spells quickly but swords never break in this game. Consider making the cleric, a fighter/cleric.

I would have a mage/thief or even a fighter/thief instead to get an extra fighter. The game is strictly linear and the locks and traps difficulty seem to be set for a multiclass thief so the quicker advancement of a single class thief is not needed. This allows for the half-orc barbarian if you go with the mage/thief. Half-orcs make great fighter types because of their 19 strength and constitution.

Petrol

Like others i think you need much more fighter, 3 a least.

- dwarf dwarven defender with shield
- half-orc berzerker or human paladin undead hunter with the 2 handed weapon style
- gnome fighter/mage or elf swashbuckler, maybe half elf blade with the dual weapon style
- fighter thief mage or fighter thief or (if you take the swash) half elf bard with crossbow
- half elf fighter druid or half orc fighter cleric with sling
- halfling fighter (with a longbow) or elf archer with longbow

With this party you can complete the game and even do heart of fury level 1.

Wesboi

With party creation it always depends how far your taking the party and if u plan on starting HoF from 1 or after a couple of run throughs.

When you start a HoF run from level 1 u soon get used to it and all other modes are pointless.