Party Makeup Ideas

gohanf22

Ok so for the first time ever owning the EE versions, I am going to TRY to tackle the hardest difficulty. Yeah probably not a wise choice, but I'm going around in my head some maybe POSSIBLE party makeup ideas I may try. Mind you I implemented the one mod to not let party members fight or leave cause 1) I always play good aligned parties and 2) Viconia is by far the best Cleric in both BG games.

Balanced Party:
PC = Paladin
Alora = Thief Coran = Thief
Dorn = Blackguard Kivan = Ranger (Close/Ranged)
Viconia = Cleric Branwen = Cleric
Neera = Wizard
Kivan = Ranger (Ranged) Garrick = Bard

Pure Tankiness Party:
PC = Wizard Slayer
Kagain = Fighter
Dorn = Blackguard Kivan = Ranger (Close)
Viconia = Cleric Branwen = Cleric
Alora = Thief Coran = Thief
Neera = Wizard

DPS Party:
PC = Fighter/Mage/Thief
Eldoth = Bard Garrick = Bard
Dorn = Blackguard Kivan = Ranger (Close)
Kivan = Ranger (Ranged/Close) Coran = Thief
Viconia = Cleric Branwen = Cleric
Baeloth = Sorcerer Neera = Wizard


Now mind again these are ideas, although I could take some tips on what should be changed for makeup.

I will say this. I will not add certain characters based on what they do in the game:

Khalid = Skittish to a point if he takes too much damage, he panics too fast. Also, if you kick him out, Jaheira leaves with him

Dynaheir and Minsc = I love minsc to bits, but in the first game he's stuck to Dynaheir like glue so not a first choice either.

Now I left ideas open for a few characters I could replace or switch to when needed:

Branwen = If I need an extra cleric in any setup, although having two clerics probably wouldn't be a good choice so may choose Faldorn the druid.

AJantis = I can switch to him and get rid of Dorn, however, Dorn is a Blackguard with already 19 Str which gives him an edge for being a damn good tank fighter. Plus pairing him with kagain the dwarf fighter from beregost, you have a pretty good first line of defense.

If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to reply back to this thread. Again I am open to suggestions. I will be taking my time cause this is the hardest difficulty I am undertaking for the first time. Lol.


EDIT: I don't have a thief in the DPS group, however, I can switch to one if need be by removing eldoth out. However, I would lose out on the bard songs to help on the buffs for defense and damage.

EDIT2: Changed party members to a second draft and also changed my PC class for DPS party to a triple class.

jsaving

If you wanted a thief in the DPS party, Montaron or Coran would be your best options. Alternatively CHARNAME could be a fighter/mage/thief rather than a wizard; with fighter APR and wizard defensive buffs, you'd be a very high DPS character, plus the invisibility spell would let you backstab more often if you so choose.

Danacm

In a good party i like Khalid, he is a good ranged dps because of dex gloves and mastery in bows, actually better than Coran or Kivan in terms of damage. Also he is a fairly good tank, with 17 con he has a good amount of hp, and either with bard song or remove fear he can stand his own in the battle. Use dex gloves and buff him with either divine strength of one or wizard strength spell to 18 stregth and he will have 18 str 18 dex and 17 con, plus fighter mastery is a so good option. Only Kagain can be better.
A good party composition should be: Khalid, Jaheira, Coran/Kivan, Branwen, Imoen/Garrick/Neera and pc almost everything can be. If you use an rp point, the Kivan, Branwen, Yeslick, Xan party is contains all of the Sarevok's and his henchman enemies.

Edit: of course you can use Viconia, but i dont like her in good parties.
Dorn not a bad fighter, but because his low con he wont have high amount of hp, and damage easier to come from ranged in bg1 rather than 19 str and melee but its my opinion.

gohanf22

@jsaving but doesn't alora have the better dex score than montaron or coran?

EDIT: I totally miss read coran's dex score. Yeah coran is the better choice.

@Danacm true, khalid does have a good con score and with dex gloves he can be a force to be reckoned with. i do agree dorn isn't that much good with a con score, but that str score he can probably hit like a truck. Still though if khalid gets hurt too much, he panics cause of his skittish nature. at least with dorn or kivan, they would only demoralize if they get hit with a horror spell.

gohanf22

Monks can be good as tanks right? I keep thinking rasaad would be a good tankish character too with dex gloves and something to increase his con. Any advice on that?

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Danacm

gohanf22 wrote: »

Monks can be good as tanks right? I keep thinking rasaad would be a good tankish character too with dex gloves and something to increase his con. Any advice on that?

Monks are painful even in party in bg1. They can kiting bit thats all, neither have hp, ac to be tanking. But has some damage but only as secondary melee, but not optimal or effective until bg2.

gohanf22

@chimaera well when it comes to character and personality, she is lol.

@Danacm good to know.

Aaezil

I mean i never thought about putting makeup on my party but i guess it could be done in photoshop?

gohanf22

Aaezil wrote: »

I mean i never thought about putting makeup on my party but i guess it could be done in photoshop?

ROFLMAO

sarevok57

i've played lots of power gaming parties in my day with my bagillion play throughs, and to be honest, even for insane difficulty any party of six can beat it, but for best optimization you could go with this:

in general, when i make teams, i like 3 melee warrior types, 1 cleric range type, 1 thief range type, and 1 arcane caster range type, for clean installs no mods, on insane difficulty, these type build up will mop the floor of any game's filth, so with that being said we have 2 options here:

#1 make your own team for 100% max output optimization or

#2 we can just go with the joinable PC team

so lets start with #1

now there is many ways we can go about doing this ( mixing in dual classes for more optimization and the such ) but lets make a team that kicks butt at the word go, and doesn't have to wait to get better:

first 3 chums;

berserker x3

now we have some race options; half-orc, dwarf, gnome

half-orcs come with great STR and CON, but garbage saves

dwarves come with great CON and great saves but lose some of that AC

gnomes come with decent saves and dont lose anything, but dont gain anything either

but since we have enrage thanks to being a berserker, we wont worry about them saves, so we will go with 3 half-orc berserkers in melee ( weapon choice is really up to you, usually for me i like doing longsword for top, axe for second, scimitar for number 3, because they guys will have to be imported into bg2, so we kind of have to think ahead for that as well )

another reason why we are choosing half-orc because they can get that 19 STR with no fuss, for the dwarves and gnomes the chance of getting 18/00 is 1%, so unless you use cheats it can take a while to get, and that is IF its a good roll as well, because you want to make sure you have maxed out STR/DEX/CON and at least 11 INT ( 16 is better ) for all them nasty mind flayers in bg2, plus you are going to want the leader to have 18 CHA as well, so this goes in the half-orcs favor much better than the other races ( especially for dwarves who cap out at 16 CHA )

if you do choose another race, and you don't like cheating you HAVE to make sure your STR is at LEAST 18/91+ even though there is potions and STR items eventually, we want to kick butt now, not later

next is the cleric type:

here, we can do a multiclass, although in "theory" dual is better, but we want to start kicking butt right out of the gate, so we have 2 great race choices for this;

dwarf or half-orc

half-orc, comes with that gnarly 19 STR and CON with mediocre saves

dwarf comes with that great 19 CON and great saves, but penalty to DEX and can only have 18/00 STR at best

so since we are going to go range, we will go with the half-orc fighter/cleric and go with sling, sounds "weak" but trust me with 19 STR those sling bullets are going to hit like freight trains ( and have good to hit as well )

and again, choosing half-orc over dwarf because we can hit 19 STR with no fuss, and we don't choose gnome, because they get a penalty to WIS which is counter productive, especially for a mult-class fighter cleric where we need every point of WIS we can muster

so with that, you will want max STR/DEX/CON/WIS and if you can at least 9 INT so then your cleric can use wands or scrolls if need be

next is the thief type:

luckily its never necessary to have a full thief, the main role of a thief is basically traps and locks with a pick pocket here or there, and if you're into it, trap setting, so with that being said, a multi-class thief is a great choice, especially if you choose elf ( who starts with that sexy 19 DEX ) and like to use longbows in bg1 or short bows in bg2, plus they can use any weapon

so with that being said, we will make an elf fighter thief using longbows, and then start pumping some proficiencies into shortbow so when we hit bg2 we can use all them phantom shortbows

one thing you will notice about this elf fighter thief is that they are basically snipers, still doing amazing damage with amazing to hit, infact at level 1 with a composite longbow your thac0 will be 14, with 2.5 attacks per round, simply killer

so with that, make sure your STR is at least 18/91+, max DEX/CON and perhaps just even out the rest

lastly we have our arcane user, and since we need to start kicking butt now, we will go with a sorcerer, not other arcane class combo gets more arcane spells so we will stick with the standard sorcerer, and since we are going to go ranged, we will use and elf, who starts off with that nice 19 DEX and we only need 16 CON so that CON penalty is no sweat

for weaponry i start off with sling for bg1 and then starting using dagger for bg2 so then i can give the throwing daggers to this character, usually i find myself giving the sorcerer the belt of hill giant STR and since you already have 4 CHARs with 19+ STR anyway, its not really a waste

spell wise, is up to you ( just like the cleric ) but when i make sorcerers i tend to go with these choices

level 1

identify
blindness
magic missile
protection from petrification
whatever

level 2

glitterdust
melfs acid arrow
ray of enfeeblement
mirror image
blur

level 3
haste
slow
flame arrow
whatever
whatever

level 4
stoneskin
emotion hopelessness
greater malison
minor spell sequencer
whatever

level 5
hold monster
breach
lower resistance
spell immunity
spell shield

level 6
chain lightning
improved haste
protection from magical weapons
contingency
protection from magical energy

level 7
mass invisibility
finger of death
mordenkanins sword
spell sequencer
power word stun

level 8
abi-dalzims horrid wilting
protection from energy
spell trigger
symbol stun

level 9
chain contingency
absolute immunity
spell trap or wish or whatever

this is also the order in which i get them in, and for the scripts i have made, this sorcerer gives baddies a bad day thats for sure

now

for joinable companions, we have some options, even though you have a mod that makes it so REP doesnt change anything, lets pretend if we didnt have such a mod for a couple of these, so for a "good" team i believe the strongest team combo would be:

charname ( some sort of melee warrior perhaps half-orc berserker with two handed sword )
khalid with longsword
minsc with defender scimitar
yeslick with sling a ling ding a ling
coran with longbows
xan with those ever so sexy enchantment spells

this team still uses the 3 melee warriors 1 range cleric, 1 range rogue and 1 range mage, if you plan on swapping out one of those range characters for your charname, then you could add kivan to the list of melee-ers, with gauntlets of DEX for minsc and gauntlets of ogre power for khalid, everyone should have some nice STR and DEX to get by and kick but ( plus kivan on average is pretty decent all around with nice STR and DEX and he can wear the claw of kazgaroth with no HP penalty - or minsc can to with a tiny HP penalty )

for an EVIL team i would go as follows:

charname ( again half orcing it up with a two handed sword )
shar-teel
kagain
viconia
montaron
edwin

i would like to replace kagain with dorn, but im pretty sure dorn and shar-teel dont get along so thats a pity, because dorn is OP as hell, but with that said this team combo will work out great; shar-teel can use mits of ogre power while kagain can use mits of DEX so everyone should have good AC, and get monty skilled with bows and you would be surprised on how well he can use those, especially deadshot +2 with a couple proficiencies in long bow, and edwin, ah, all them spells, plus enemies get a penalty against glitterdust, pretty solid

now for absolute best team out of them all, if you didn't have to worry about conficts i would go with;

charname ( again, half orc, berserker, two handed sword mits of weapon specialization )

shar-teel growing to level 7 fighter ( putting 2 points into scimitar) then dual classing over to thief stop at level 3, then wait until you can grow all the way to level 8 in one go so then you can have 2 more points into scimitar and use defender with the helm of opposite alignment, and then give her the mits of weapon specialization for the extra lulz

khalid using his trusted longsword, pump out them 4 skills points in that with the mits of ogre power and that longsword +2, oo-ee he will do some nice damage

kagain, mits of DEX along with a sling +3 and bullets +2 and 2 skill points in sling, and you will seeing some nice results

coran, just has to use deadshot and any magical arrows or your choice, and he will tear it up from long range

edwin, even though baeloth gets more spells, he doesnt get those sexellent level 5 spells in non SoD, and edwin can have up to 3 of them, whether that be chaos, hold monster ( my personal fav ) monster summoning 3 or cloudkills..... just an absolute menace

now with this all being said, any team will work, especially if you like using potions and wands and scrolls to make up for weak points, but the point of these team combos was to produce as much power game horse power and torque as possible without having to wait for them to get good and with using as little micro managing as possible, plus they will just be all that much better with potions and spells and the like

gohanf22

sarevok57 wrote: »

i've played lots of power gaming parties in my day with my bagillion play throughs, and to be honest, even for insane difficulty any party of six can beat it, but for best optimization you could go with this:

in general, when i make teams, i like 3 melee warrior types, 1 cleric range type, 1 thief range type, and 1 arcane caster range type, for clean installs no mods, on insane difficulty, these type build up will mop the floor of any game's filth, so with that being said we have 2 options here:

#1 make your own team for 100% max output optimization or

#2 we can just go with the joinable PC team

so lets start with #1

now there is many ways we can go about doing this ( mixing in dual classes for more optimization and the such ) but lets make a team that kicks butt at the word go, and doesn't have to wait to get better:

first 3 chums;

berserker x3

now we have some race options; half-orc, dwarf, gnome

half-orcs come with great STR and CON, but garbage saves

dwarves come with great CON and great saves but lose some of that AC

gnomes come with decent saves and dont lose anything, but dont gain anything either

but since we have enrage thanks to being a berserker, we wont worry about them saves, so we will go with 3 half-orc berserkers in melee ( weapon choice is really up to you, usually for me i like doing longsword for top, axe for second, scimitar for number 3, because they guys will have to be imported into bg2, so we kind of have to think ahead for that as well )

another reason why we are choosing half-orc because they can get that 19 STR with no fuss, for the dwarves and gnomes the chance of getting 18/00 is 1%, so unless you use cheats it can take a while to get, and that is IF its a good roll as well, because you want to make sure you have maxed out STR/DEX/CON and at least 11 INT ( 16 is better ) for all them nasty mind flayers in bg2, plus you are going to want the leader to have 18 CHA as well, so this goes in the half-orcs favor much better than the other races ( especially for dwarves who cap out at 16 CHA )

if you do choose another race, and you don't like cheating you HAVE to make sure your STR is at LEAST 18/91+ even though there is potions and STR items eventually, we want to kick butt now, not later

next is the cleric type:

here, we can do a multiclass, although in "theory" dual is better, but we want to start kicking butt right out of the gate, so we have 2 great race choices for this;

dwarf or half-orc

half-orc, comes with that gnarly 19 STR and CON with mediocre saves

dwarf comes with that great 19 CON and great saves, but penalty to DEX and can only have 18/00 STR at best

so since we are going to go range, we will go with the half-orc fighter/cleric and go with sling, sounds "weak" but trust me with 19 STR those sling bullets are going to hit like freight trains ( and have good to hit as well )

and again, choosing half-orc over dwarf because we can hit 19 STR with no fuss, and we don't choose gnome, because they get a penalty to WIS which is counter productive, especially for a mult-class fighter cleric where we need every point of WIS we can muster

so with that, you will want max STR/DEX/CON/WIS and if you can at least 9 INT so then your cleric can use wands or scrolls if need be

next is the thief type:

luckily its never necessary to have a full thief, the main role of a thief is basically traps and locks with a pick pocket here or there, and if you're into it, trap setting, so with that being said, a multi-class thief is a great choice, especially if you choose elf ( who starts with that sexy 19 DEX ) and like to use longbows in bg1 or short bows in bg2, plus they can use any weapon

so with that being said, we will make an elf fighter thief using longbows, and then start pumping some proficiencies into shortbow so when we hit bg2 we can use all them phantom shortbows

one thing you will notice about this elf fighter thief is that they are basically snipers, still doing amazing damage with amazing to hit, infact at level 1 with a composite longbow your thac0 will be 14, with 2.5 attacks per round, simply killer

so with that, make sure your STR is at least 18/91+, max DEX/CON and perhaps just even out the rest

lastly we have our arcane user, and since we need to start kicking butt now, we will go with a sorcerer, not other arcane class combo gets more arcane spells so we will stick with the standard sorcerer, and since we are going to go ranged, we will use and elf, who starts off with that nice 19 DEX and we only need 16 CON so that CON penalty is no sweat

for weaponry i start off with sling for bg1 and then starting using dagger for bg2 so then i can give the throwing daggers to this character, usually i find myself giving the sorcerer the belt of hill giant STR and since you already have 4 CHARs with 19+ STR anyway, its not really a waste

spell wise, is up to you ( just like the cleric ) but when i make sorcerers i tend to go with these choices

level 1

identify
blindness
magic missile
protection from petrification
whatever

level 2

glitterdust
melfs acid arrow
ray of enfeeblement
mirror image
blur

level 3
haste
slow
flame arrow
whatever
whatever

level 4
stoneskin
emotion hopelessness
greater malison
minor spell sequencer
whatever

level 5
hold monster
breach
lower resistance
spell immunity
spell shield

level 6
chain lightning
improved haste
protection from magical weapons
contingency
protection from magical energy

level 7
mass invisibility
finger of death
mordenkanins sword
spell sequencer
power word stun

level 8
abi-dalzims horrid wilting
protection from energy
spell trigger
symbol stun

level 9
chain contingency
absolute immunity
spell trap or wish or whatever

this is also the order in which i get them in, and for the scripts i have made, this sorcerer gives baddies a bad day thats for sure

now

for joinable companions, we have some options, even though you have a mod that makes it so REP doesnt change anything, lets pretend if we didnt have such a mod for a couple of these, so for a "good" team i believe the strongest team combo would be:

charname ( some sort of melee warrior perhaps half-orc berserker with two handed sword )
khalid with longsword
minsc with defender scimitar
yeslick with sling a ling ding a ling
coran with longbows
xan with those ever so sexy enchantment spells

this team still uses the 3 melee warriors 1 range cleric, 1 range rogue and 1 range mage, if you plan on swapping out one of those range characters for your charname, then you could add kivan to the list of melee-ers, with gauntlets of DEX for minsc and gauntlets of ogre power for khalid, everyone should have some nice STR and DEX to get by and kick but ( plus kivan on average is pretty decent all around with nice STR and DEX and he can wear the claw of kazgaroth with no HP penalty - or minsc can to with a tiny HP penalty )

for an EVIL team i would go as follows:

charname ( again half orcing it up with a two handed sword )
shar-teel
kagain
viconia
montaron
edwin

i would like to replace kagain with dorn, but im pretty sure dorn and shar-teel dont get along so thats a pity, because dorn is OP as hell, but with that said this team combo will work out great; shar-teel can use mits of ogre power while kagain can use mits of DEX so everyone should have good AC, and get monty skilled with bows and you would be surprised on how well he can use those, especially deadshot +2 with a couple proficiencies in long bow, and edwin, ah, all them spells, plus enemies get a penalty against glitterdust, pretty solid

now for absolute best team out of them all, if you didn't have to worry about conficts i would go with;

charname ( again, half orc, berserker, two handed sword mits of weapon specialization )

shar-teel growing to level 7 fighter ( putting 2 points into scimitar) then dual classing over to thief stop at level 3, then wait until you can grow all the way to level 8 in one go so then you can have 2 more points into scimitar and use defender with the helm of opposite alignment, and then give her the mits of weapon specialization for the extra lulz

khalid using his trusted longsword, pump out them 4 skills points in that with the mits of ogre power and that longsword +2, oo-ee he will do some nice damage

kagain, mits of DEX along with a sling +3 and bullets +2 and 2 skill points in sling, and you will seeing some nice results

coran, just has to use deadshot and any magical arrows or your choice, and he will tear it up from long range

edwin, even though baeloth gets more spells, he doesnt get those sexellent level 5 spells in non SoD, and edwin can have up to 3 of them, whether that be chaos, hold monster ( my personal fav ) monster summoning 3 or cloudkills..... just an absolute menace

now with this all being said, any team will work, especially if you like using potions and wands and scrolls to make up for weak points, but the point of these team combos was to produce as much power game horse power and torque as possible without having to wait for them to get good and with using as little micro managing as possible, plus they will just be all that much better with potions and spells and the like

Thank you for this reply my friend. I will definitely take this to consideration.

gohanf22

@sarevok57 question, when you said you've done playthroughs like alot...have you done both the story with NPC joinable companions AND your own makeup party? reason why I am asking is I do like my storyline and I really like the companions, however, being it is MAINLY about your character, im thinking I should do different playthroughs. I mean there is no one telling me otherwise "hey, you don't need to play through it so damn much" I wouldn't be surprised there are people on here that have played BG 1 and 2 over 100 times and STILL don't get tired of playing it.

gohanf22

@sarevok57 i also have another question. if I didn't want my PC to be a half orc and just make it one of the other classes or even a different race, as long as the base makeup is 3 melee, 1 ranged cleric, 1 ranged thief and 1 ranged arcane user, is that ok? Reason why is I'm not a fan of half-orcs but I will admit that 19 str is damn tempting all the time I see it.

jsaving

Don't worry, you can win the game no matter how you construct your party. Many have beaten it with 6 mages, or 6 melee, or 6 clerics, or even 6 bards.

As to why some people like to generate their own NPCs, the answer is pretty simple: the characters you make yourself are generally much stronger than the joinable NPCs. One key reason is that you can give everybody 18/00 or 19 strength; another is that you can use super-strong combinations like fighter/mage and fighter/mage/thief that aren't available elsewhere. (Edwin is probably the most obvious exception as his bonus spell slots make him the game's best mage.)

sarevok57

gohanf22 wrote: »

@sarevok57 question, when you said you've done playthroughs like alot...have you done both the story with NPC joinable companions AND your own makeup party? reason why I am asking is I do like my storyline and I really like the companions, however, being it is MAINLY about your character, im thinking I should do different playthroughs. I mean there is no one telling me otherwise "hey, you don't need to play through it so damn much" I wouldn't be surprised there are people on here that have played BG 1 and 2 over 100 times and STILL don't get tired of playing it.

when it comes to making your own team or taking in companions, i do both, sometimes i get bored of the team combos i make because they are just so good, so then i will do companion teams and then when i get sick on how weak they are, then i will make my own teams again

although these days, i dont really make optimal crazy OP teams, i try and make more interesting teams, even though i give them optimal stats i still have fun making and playing them

in fact just recently for bg1 i made a team of two; dwarf fighter/thief and elf fighter/mage and the fighter/mage had 10 CON which is almost blasphemous on how i normally do teams, but i didn't want to wait to roll a 95+ or so, and i just needed someone there to identify items, so the fighter/mage was born

gohanf22 wrote: »

@sarevok57 i also have another question. if I didn't want my PC to be a half orc and just make it one of the other classes or even a different race, as long as the base makeup is 3 melee, 1 ranged cleric, 1 ranged thief and 1 ranged arcane user, is that ok? Reason why is I'm not a fan of half-orcs but I will admit that 19 str is damn tempting all the time I see it.

for your melee guy it doesnt have to be a half-orc, its just that power game wise with a berserker they are the best because of that 19 STR/CON, dwarf is probably 2nd best choice because of the awesome saves and 19 CON and if you are patient enough a 18/00 STR which is only 1 less damage than 19 STR, or you could do gnome who can still get 18/00 STR and 18 DEX/CON and has great saves against spell which is good

halfling is kind of a crap shoot with that 17 STR max, even though they also get great saves, humans are inferior to half orc in every way UNLESS you want to dual class later on or want romance options, and half-elves are basically there for spite ( actually they might even be a hair better than a human if you aren't going to dual class )

but again with that being said, you don't necessarily have to have 3 berserkers for your front line, berserkers are just the most optimal butt kick ready out of the gate class you can choose, if you wish, feel free to have fighter/thieves;mages if you want for the front line, or paladins or rangers, or fighter/druids;clerics whether multi or dual classed its all good