Hey looking for some tips on a party

[MikeZoR]

welp ive done a bit of thinking and ive made two party members so far... the first is a sorc the second is a druid. For skills i went with magic missle and spook on the sorc as for the druid i took doom cure light and i think i went with entangle. As for the rest of my party im looking for any ideas on what to pick. should i roll the max amount of characters or is it more enjoyable to go through the game with a smaller party.

[Pizza]

a smaller party is more manageble and a lot more fun, trust me

I'm currently doing an co-op playthrough with my buddy, even when both of us control 2 other AI members, it still gets frustrating at times.

feels really great when we pause, and plan the fight as we are outnumbered

hope that helps

[voehringer_nitron]

Thank all the gods in Faerun there's somebody with a gameplay related topic.

A smaller party will let you level up faster, but you may have more trouble adapting to enemy attacks, especially larger groups or multiple archers/spell casters.

Are you looking to create all party members, or are you going to recruit some existing ones. If you recruit, go with ones more or less of the same alignment as you. It's tricky mixing good and evil. You need to balance your reputation to keep anybody from leaving, and some characters hate one another and will attack. Khalid/Jaheira and Xzar/Montaron are a classic example.

[MikeZoR]

good to know thanks. im thinking about just rolling with the sorc druid and maybe dwarf fighter. recruiting members later on might be fun. is there a max party number? looking forward to this game always one i ment to pick up way back when.

[cirdanx]

I would suggest a thief, while you can detect traps via magic, you can´t disarm them. And while you can open locks with the spell "knock" i wouldn´t waste that spell slot considering how sorc works. You are going to miss out on loot without one. Imoen works fine if you want her in the party and not make one and you get her at the start.

Max party is six.

[MikeZoR]

thanks a bunch guys every helpful!

[TheBlueFox]

There are ways to get alot of good party comps to work.

So far you've got a Sorc and Druid I see, thats some decent magic lineup. If you wanted, you could give your sorc the Web spell later and your druid entangle, focus on ranged attackers and crowd control. Get a nice thief with a shorbow and a ranger or archer, and keep your distance, but you'll need some hard lockdown for when people get close.

Or you could get someone beefy in there like a paladin or a fighter, get him some good armor and crank his AC down to -4 or -5 and have him tank. You could even give him some bow points for when you want to lockdown with webs and entangles.

Imoen makes for a decent thief, so you don't HAVE to make one yourself, unless you wanted to, but I certainly would recommend having one in the party.

Small parties are easier to manage and LEVEL UP FASTER than larger parties, keep in mind XP is split among all party members. If you kill something and get 600xp, with 6 characters they all get 100xp, if you only had 4 they'd get 150xp each

[AlexMBrennan]

Fighter - I like having a Halberd or Spear fighter because two-handed weapons are cool, but really, this is my "dump" slot. Put a Monk in here, or a Sorcerer, or whatever.

Ranger - They're absolutely brutal with dual weapons. Give them two ba.stard swords and you're going to see some crazy ♥♥♥♥ go down on your frontline.

Unless you pick the archer kit, a ranger is a fighter who trades martial ability for special abilities and the ability to eventually cast low level druid spells. Fighters can put the same number of pips into dual wielding, and can get grandmastery (5 pips) compared to the ranger's 2 pips. Because you can only put two pips into weapon proficiencies at character creation the advantage is minimal (you could create a ranger with 2x dual wield, 2x long sword and 2x short sword in case your long sword breaks compared to a fighter with 2x dual wield and 2x long sword)

[Zero]

There are benefits to both sides. A smaller group will level up quicker and thus be stronger individually. A six person party will have more utility as you can have a more varied array of skills and meatshields. Additionally there will obviously be more inter-party banter with more people. If you rely on a character class that takes a while to become useful, like a monk, I'd recommend a smaller party.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

I've done a solo run of BGEE during its 2.0 beta period. Unfortunately, I've been late and didn't notice the Legacy of Bhaal mode issues, because I didn't play on LOB mode because of playing a solo Sorcerer.

The new Create Party feature is great as it makes it possible to create up to six party members yourself as in Icewind Dale without the need to find the NPC companions.

For the first Sorcerer spells, I used Chromatic Orb instead of Magic Missile, because it does more than damage. And later on I prefer MMM and Skull Trap for ranged damage. Instead of Spook I learned Blindness, which is great to disable single enemies for a long time. Shield to protect against magic missile casters. Protection from Petrification, so I would have a safe way to farm basilisks XP instead of having to buy potions. Invisibility for safe exploring and avoidance of fights. The spell I like most. Knock to open locks. Web and Grease to throw enemy mobs something into the way. Stoneskin for good protection. Spider Spawn to summon help. Mirror Image and Remove Magic. With all the scrolls one can find and buy, there are enough extra spells for special encounters.

Other than a Sorcerer, I really like brute-force warriors, such as a Berserker or plain Fighter. Certainly if going for a completionist playthrough including Durlags Tower, Ulgoths Beard and other areas that throw competent melee dudes at you. Then a larger party is much more fun.

[Zero]

Berserker is pretty much the most useful/viable fighter type in BG1. The immunities, damage, and AC boost can carry you through some tough fights. The only downside is that they're not particularly good with missile weapons, which is a pretty strong class of weapons in BG1. Luckily most of the npcs in the game can use missile weapons.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Archers with arrows of detonation and acid/poisonous arrows are devastating.

Since Siege of Dragonspear I'm back to the drawing board, however, and want to boot other main characters through BGEE into SOD without using EEKeeper or similar tools. I've got a final save with a Cavalier using halberds. Not sure whether I would like that in SOD.