After having played BGEE on Mac and waiting for the AppStore 1.3 upgrade for BG2EE I decided to buy IWDEE from beamdog and give it a go. After having played through it completely once and through the non-expansion once, I thought I would share my experiences that may help others.

Noob notes:

For those new to IWD, here is some information I found it hard to come by on the net (it is there, but takes a while to find). One, alignment and reputation do not matter in this game. Reputation only matters if you become fallen for the applicable class types. Alignment does affect your spells though. There is an XP cap, not a level cap in IWDEE it seems (looks to be 8mil XP for a single class).

You aren't role-playing here, so pick a party that is fun for you. It really doesn't matter what classes you pick. Remember that the items and spells of IWD will be different from BGEE so don't assume that the same proficiencies are best.

First party

My first party was on core difficulty (default) and consisted of:

• Sun Soul Ray Monk
  
• Cleric/Ranger
  
• Archer
  
• Bounty Hunter(11)->Fighter
  
• Sorcerer
  
• Bard
  

Overall core difficulty is pretty easy and starts to get boring after a bit. The last fight in IWD has clearly been made more difficult by the patch. The last fight is a bit "cheating" on the villain side, so be prepared to be at a disadvantage.

Party notes

SSR Monk

The monk, as you may guess, is very weak at the start. On core difficulty, this is even worse as he/she will level slowly. There are some okay monk items in the game depending on the random drops some really good ones. I only started using my monk around level 6 for melee. One thing that stinks about a monk is that without a helmet, there is no protection for critical strikes. More on monks in the second party below.

Cleric/Ranger

Half-Elf
Proficiencies:

• Flail/Morning Star
  
• War Hammer
  
• Two Weapon Style

While this is a good class, I made the mistake of making this my tank. It is bad when your front-line fighter wants to cast a spell, there is no cover. I'd suggest using this multi-class but not as a front line member. Leveling under core difficulty in a multi-class is not great either. Note that hammers are just okay in this game but there are some awesome flails and morning stars (maces aren't bad either).

Archer

Elf

The archer is possibly my most favorite class in BGEE and the thac0 is insane. The issue is that enchanted arrows are hard to come by in IWD and there are no magical arrow stacks of unlimited arrows. Also, there are many undead that resist piercing. All in all a good class, but perhaps left to the BG series instead of IWD.

Bounty Hunter->Fighter

Dualed at level 11

I dualed at 11 to get 100 in find traps, set traps and 95 in open locks as well as an additional set of traps.

Although a good kit and the first time I played it, under core difficulty the time to recover the thief was not good timing as by then there were traps I wanted to defuse. Not a great choice for your only thief to dual in this way at core difficulty.

Sorcerer

Half-elf

A really good class, hard to go wrong. I just used other discussions to figure out what spells to get. A normal mage is fine for core difficulty though. Under harder difficulties is where I see a sorcerer shining as you won't have to wait to find scrolls.

Bard

Human

I would go half-elf with this (I thought at the time they could only be human for this class). The vanilla bard is much better than in BGEE, especially in core difficulty. The War Chant of Sith is a great song for core difficulty.

Overall take

I found core okay, but longing for harder fights. I did not have to cast many spells as I just got used to walking in and killing everything. I decided not to take this party further as it wasn't balanced to my liking.

Party Two

This time I would be running under insane difficulty. Now with more experience with what the game was like, I twisted my party to fit it better. I took this party through IWD then through HOW (for my next time I would wait to finish IWD until after HOW instead of playing the expansion separately).
Party:

• Sun Soul Ray Monk
  
• Dwarven Defender
  
• Berserker(7)->Druid
  
• Fighter(7)->Thief
  
• Cleric/Illusionist
  
• Bard
  

Party notes

SSR Monk

If you can't tell, I like monks despite their low level stink. With insane difficulty the monk is much better. She hit level 9 faster (+1 fists) and therefore I didn't have to keep using a katana for enemies needing enchanted weapons. The monk is okay at 9 but really starts to get better at level 12. By level 25 the monk was my best tank.

By the end of HOW, by monk was level 30, -17 AC, -7 thac0, did 14-33 damage with 142 hit points and had a non-buffed magic resistance of 83. All this meant she was my main stay for going after anything that cast spells as she rarely was affected. The only times she got in trouble was when she was critically hit (no helmet).

Items that helped:
[spoiler]

1. Sarutobi's Stone Breakers for strength of 19
   
2. Sune's Laurel of Favor for head
   
3. Black Wolf Talisman for amulet
   
4. Ring of greater resistance
   
5. Ring of fire resistance
   
6. Cloak of displacement
   
7. Boot of Grounding
   
8. Shimmering sash
   

[/spoiler]

The drawbacks of a monk are that you can't be hasted (actually I rarely cast it as I hate the fatigue), no helmet for crit protection and it takes away from being able to use more items in the game. The monk is really good though once you get past the early levels. The SSR kit was nice against the undead and any enemies that require fire to die (surprisingly a lot of them in this game). The laying of hands is great when it gets hard as it is instant so no way to interrupt it (get out of jail free card basically).

Dwarven Defender

The dwarf kit is great. Sure you can't get 5 pips in a weapon, but still good. At first I went axe+shield but was dual wielding hammers and axes by the end of HOW. The axes are much better than the hammers in this game BTW. I couldn't use a flail as it seemed better for a dwarf to use axes and hammers. The defensive stance was nice for the really hard battles. The shorty bonus is nice to on a front-line fighter.

Berserker->Druid

The druid is much better in IWDEE than BGEE I must say as others have mentioned. The water elemental shape shift is great to get through a hard battle and the fire elemental form is nice for trolls. I mostly used a spear (5 pips) though and found myself fighting more than casting. One drawback to this dual class order is that she only had a base thac0 of 6 instead of the fighter 0. Would recommend a multi-class instead or go druid first in the dual class if I did it again. The 5 pips of the dual versus the thac0 of a multi are not as good by end game. I would recommend the druid in IWDEE for a good party. FYI, there are good spears in IWD, much better than halberds (they got the shaft again, sorry for the pun).

Fighter->Thief

Like my druid, I dualed at 7 for the extra half-attack. Both dual classes recovered their levels extremely fast with insane difficulty. I used the sneak attack mode instead of backstab but honestly, this was my archer. I used longswords as my melee weapon. Longswords are great in IWD (Long>Short=Dagger>2h>Bastard would be my impression on the items in the game through HOW). This class is fine, but the multi-class would be just as good or better (especially with thac0 0 versus 10). She still hit a lot due to good long bows (no good composite bows out there).

Cleric/Illusionist

Although powerful, I would not do this again. Reasons:

1. Too slow to level (never got level 9 mage spells)
   
2. Too many spells (too slow to scroll though all the spells, got annoying after a while)
   

I would go single class for a mage even with insane difficulty (not sure about HoF mode though, perhaps would be okay to dual/multi with that?). Mostly cast spells and used a sling (there are good slings in the game, but a shortage of bullets).

Bard

Half-elf.

For proficiencies, who cares? He sang the whole time he wasn't casting spells. The war chant was less important in HOW/Insane as most things started hitting my characters anyways and when your classes all have over 100 HP, healing two at a time is not much help. Was really good when my party was young though. The bard is nice to have as a spell caster, but dividing up the scrolls is not fun (rarely are the high level spells available in more than one quantity so you need to choose which caster to give them to). This is why a sorcerer is good for this game, no battling who to give the scrolls to.

Overall take

I had fun with this party but it did get a bit tedious near the end of HOW (I was ready to finish the game). Especially as most classes really stop improving after level 20 and better weapons are slow to find if at all, so the desire to improve your characters drops and that is the most fun aspect for me.

I liked the insane difficulty and though it especially good for the monk. It made the hard battles last longer and thus more strategy besides casting magic missiles all the time.

Party Three?

So my last party will be HoF difficulty and I'll go through the series but may skip the loremaster add-on this time (by then I did not need more XP/levels and that side-quest is long). I plan to try to use new classes, but I've gone through most that I want to play already.

I'm debating:

• Blackguard (2H sword/Xbow)
  
• Fighter/Thief (Long/Short or Short/Dagger, not sure yet)
  
• Ranger/Cleric (Flail/Mace)
  
• Totemic Druid->Fighter (dual at level 15 I think if at all) (spears and swords, but this time I may cast more)
  
• Sorc, Wild Mage or Dragon Disciple (still haven't made up my mind yet)
  
• Skald (interested to see how this kit compares to the vanilla bard and besides, except for the black pits I've never used one)
  

There is a magical returning dagger, but not to the very end of HOW if you were wondering. Too bad. Not sure why they always have +2 throwing axes in these games but no +? daggers for throwing.

Hope that is informative to some people.