Guidance for balanced party.

[DRRaval]

I am playing IWD EE for first time on 'Normal ' difficulty. I have played Baldur's Gate EE for some time, and so i know basics of Ad&d rules (I am not a nerd in it). I have made following party. Will it perform well? I have heard IWD is more combat oriented and can be a little hard.
Half Orc Beserker (++ 2H swords ++ 2H weapon style)
Dwarf Fighter/Cleric (++ War hammers ++ 2W style)
Elf Fighter/Cleric (++ Short bows ++ Ninjato/Wakizashi/Scimatar)
Half elf Fighter/Druid (++ Sling ++ Sword shield style)
Human Bard (+ Cross bow + Mace)
Human Dragon Disciple (+ Sling)
The reason i took many multi classes is that i read somewhere that you need more tanks and clerics. Also i have heard Bard is essential in IWD (I have never played Bard and dont have idea about it). Will party perform well, or do i need some other modifications. Plz guide me.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Well, you forgot to tell the chosen difficulty mode.

The difficulty mode affects the amount of XP you get. That in turn also affects how quickly and how far you will be able to level up. Multi-classing (and dual-classing) can be a hindrance if playing on average difficulty modes, since with a full party you get far less than two million XP per character within the base game, like fighter lvl 14 or so. Even on Hard it will be less than two million XP per character before the base game's point of no return. And the expansions are for higher level characters. By design, you will be able to travel to the first expansion village at level 9, but you may be overwhelmed depending on difficulty mode.

Further, IWD features random loot, so you can't safely plan ahead with regard to weapon skills. While it is possible to look up good weapons in guides, you cannot foresee whether and when you will find them.

Ranged weapons can be very helpful. It doesn't need to be an Archer, but even a returning Throwing Axe +2 can be extremely helpful in many fights where you want to stay out of trouble.

A thief is missing in your party. A major hurdle to take. You may be able to find traps via spells, but triggering them in hope that your saving throws will be good enough is a bad idea. It's possible to dual-class from thief or thief kit early as soon as you can handle traps. Stuff like Swashbuckler5>Fighter is viable. Perhaps a few more levels if you absolutely want to be safe in the Trials of the Luremaster expansion.

Bard is not essential. It is just that the game features a little bit of extra content for bards. Just like it features extra content for paladins. And bards can be very limiting because if they sing, they cannot do anything else. Your DD would be the only arcane spell caster in that case during combat.

All your clerics being multi-classed will mean that they level up slower.

Clerics are limited to blunt weapons, which includes slings. Your elf fighter/cleric cannot use the weapons you've listed. Pure clerics in heavy armor with shield can become frontliners. No need to multi-class them, since you want spell power more than melee fighting power.

Because of the number of enemies that often attack as hordes, AoE spells would be a good choice. On the higher difficulty modes, frontliners won't be able to hold the line, not even if using shields. Typically one uses summons. Normally, Grease, Web, Entangle, Sleep plus AoE damage spells. A crippled multi-class druid won't be able to contribute much. But Spike Growth would be very helpful, for example.

[DRRaval]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Well, you forgot to tell the chosen difficulty mode.

The difficulty mode affects the amount of XP you get. That in turn also affects how quickly and how far you will be able to level up. Multi-classing (and dual-classing) can be a hindrance if playing on average difficulty modes, since with a full party you get far less than two million XP per character within the base game, like fighter lvl 14 or so. Even on Hard it will be less than two million XP per character before the base game's point of no return. And the expansions are for higher level characters. By design, you will be able to travel to the first expansion village at level 9, but you may be overwhelmed depending on difficulty mode.

Further, IWD features random loot, so you can't safely plan ahead with regard to weapon skills. While it is possible to look up good weapons in guides, you cannot foresee whether and when you will find them.

Ranged weapons can be very helpful. It doesn't need to be an Archer, but even a returning Throwing Axe +2 can be extremely helpful in many fights where you want to stay out of trouble.

A thief is missing in your party. A major hurdle to take. You may be able to find traps via spells, but triggering them in hope that your saving throws will be good enough is a bad idea. It's possible to dual-class from thief or thief kit early as soon as you can handle traps. Stuff like Swashbuckler5>Fighter is viable. Perhaps a few more levels if you absolutely want to be safe in the Trials of the Luremaster expansion.

Bard is not essential. It is just that the game features a little bit of extra content for bards. Just like it features extra content for paladins. And bards can be very limiting because if they sing, they cannot do anything else. Your DD would be the only arcane spell caster in that case during combat.

All your clerics being multi-classed will mean that they level up slower.

Clerics are limited to blunt weapons, which includes slings. Your elf fighter/cleric cannot use the weapons you've listed. Pure clerics in heavy armor with shield can become frontliners. No need to multi-class them, since you want spell power more than melee fighting power.

Because of the number of enemies that often attack as hordes, AoE spells would be a good choice. On the higher difficulty modes, frontliners won't be able to hold the line, not even if using shields. Typically one uses summons. Normally, Grease, Web, Entangle, Sleep plus AoE damage spells. A crippled multi-class druid won't be able to contribute much. But Spike Growth would be very helpful, for example.

Normal difficulty.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by DRRaval:

Normal difficulty.

Then I strongly recommend more single-class characters.

With a party of six companions, you will get only around 1,500,000 XP per character before the point of no return and expansions stuff. Single-class spell casters will be more powerful due to access to more high-level spells. A level 14 mage would barely learn spell level 7.

Of course, you could limit your playthrough to the base game and skip the Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster expansions - possibly starting them later from the game's main screen with new characters or imported characters.

But doing the expansions as part of the base game can be more fun.

And yes, I understand party composition is a tough choice. There is no catch-all. It isn't possible to cover all classes with a single playthrough. Yet you want a cliche fantasy style party with at least one warrior, one thief, one cleric/priest, one wizard, leaving two slots for other choices, which would be enough for all of paladin, bard, druid, if the warrior slot were filled with the paladin. With a courageous approach, you could make the bard (or skald) your only arcane caster and free another slot - Paladin, Thief, Cleric, Bard, Druid, and a 6th one depending on personal preferences.

[DRRaval]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Originally posted by DRRaval:

Normal difficulty.

Then I strongly recommend more single-class characters.

With a party of six companions, you will get only around 1,500,000 XP per character before the point of no return and expansions stuff. Single-class spell casters will be more powerful due to access to more high-level spells. A level 14 mage would barely learn spell level 7.

Of course, you could limit your playthrough to the base game and skip the Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster expansions - possibly starting them later from the game's main screen with new characters or imported characters.

But doing the expansions as part of the base game can be more fun.

And yes, I understand party composition is a tough choice. There is no catch-all. It isn't possible to cover all classes with a single playthrough. Yet you want a cliche fantasy style party with at least one warrior, one thief, one cleric/priest, one wizard, leaving two slots for other choices, which would be enough for all of paladin, bard, druid, if the warrior slot were filled with the paladin. With a courageous approach, you could make the bard (or skald) your only arcane caster and free another slot - Paladin, Thief, Cleric, Bard, Druid, and a 6th one depending on personal preferences.

I will replace Dwarf Fighter/Cleric with a human cleric and Elf Fighter/Cleric with Fighter/thief. So i will reduce one multi class member from my party. Or should i replace Fighter/Druid with paladin (maybe undead hunter). Would that be better?

[DRRaval]

Originally posted by DRRaval:

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Then I strongly recommend more single-class characters.

With a party of six companions, you will get only around 1,500,000 XP per character before the point of no return and expansions stuff. Single-class spell casters will be more powerful due to access to more high-level spells. A level 14 mage would barely learn spell level 7.

Of course, you could limit your playthrough to the base game and skip the Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster expansions - possibly starting them later from the game's main screen with new characters or imported characters.

But doing the expansions as part of the base game can be more fun.

And yes, I understand party composition is a tough choice. There is no catch-all. It isn't possible to cover all classes with a single playthrough. Yet you want a cliche fantasy style party with at least one warrior, one thief, one cleric/priest, one wizard, leaving two slots for other choices, which would be enough for all of paladin, bard, druid, if the warrior slot were filled with the paladin. With a courageous approach, you could make the bard (or skald) your only arcane caster and free another slot - Paladin, Thief, Cleric, Bard, Druid, and a 6th one depending on personal preferences.

I will replace Dwarf Fighter/Cleric with a human cleric and Elf Fighter/Cleric with Fighter/thief. So i will reduce one multi class member from my party. Or should i replace Fighter/Druid with paladin (maybe undead hunter). Would that be better?

And will it be better to replace elven fighter/thief with human thief? The only problem i might have while dual classing is i dont know right time to dual class. And during dual classing, i dont have any other party member (unlike BG) who can serve as temporary thief.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

There are many undead in this game, but there are also hordes of non-undead, so particularly choosing an Undead Hunter isn't any more beneficial than a different paladin type.

Dual-classing is for meta-gamers and players, who are willing to take the risk. The only exception is to dual-class at level 5, because of very linear gameplay and thousands of XP for chapter based events, the required 10000+32000 XP are gained quickly. Thief gets +25 skill points per level, so you can focus on FindTraps 100, for example, and then become a fighter. For the base game, it's even possible to dual-class from thief/kit at level 3. Heck, even level 4 would be an option.

A single-class thief will make it possible to invest much more into thievery. Pocket picking is a big thing in IWD - even more so with save scumming, so you avoid getting caught - since one can get some good items that way.

[Jack Jester]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Well, you forgot to tell the chosen difficulty mode.

The difficulty mode affects the amount of XP you get. That in turn also affects how quickly and how far you will be able to level up. Multi-classing (and dual-classing) can be a hindrance if playing on average difficulty modes, since with a full party you get far less than two million XP per character within the base game, like fighter lvl 14 or so. Even on Hard it will be less than two million XP per character before the base game's point of no return. And the expansions are for higher level characters. By design, you will be able to travel to the first expansion village at level 9, but you may be overwhelmed depending on difficulty mode.

Further, IWD features random loot, so you can't safely plan ahead with regard to weapon skills. While it is possible to look up good weapons in guides, you cannot foresee whether and when you will find them.

Ranged weapons can be very helpful. It doesn't need to be an Archer, but even a returning Throwing Axe +2 can be extremely helpful in many fights where you want to stay out of trouble.

A thief is missing in your party. A major hurdle to take. You may be able to find traps via spells, but triggering them in hope that your saving throws will be good enough is a bad idea. It's possible to dual-class from thief or thief kit early as soon as you can handle traps. Stuff like Swashbuckler5>Fighter is viable. Perhaps a few more levels if you absolutely want to be safe in the Trials of the Luremaster expansion.

Bard is not essential. It is just that the game features a little bit of extra content for bards. Just like it features extra content for paladins. And bards can be very limiting because if they sing, they cannot do anything else. Your DD would be the only arcane spell caster in that case during combat.

All your clerics being multi-classed will mean that they level up slower.

Clerics are limited to blunt weapons, which includes slings. Your elf fighter/cleric cannot use the weapons you've listed. Pure clerics in heavy armor with shield can become frontliners. No need to multi-class them, since you want spell power more than melee fighting power.

Because of the number of enemies that often attack as hordes, AoE spells would be a good choice. On the higher difficulty modes, frontliners won't be able to hold the line, not even if using shields. Typically one uses summons. Normally, Grease, Web, Entangle, Sleep plus AoE damage spells. A crippled multi-class druid won't be able to contribute much. But Spike Growth would be very helpful, for example.

Mate, Vanilla-Bard is one of the strongest Chars. As Pet Master you can kill everything and you can buy time with the pets against Hords.

Cast Pets, cast Buffs, if needed cast Spells (aoe, pbaoe, controllspells, dmgspells)...song.

With highlevel Vanilla-Bard its very easy soloing on high-difficult.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Jack Jester:

Mate, Vanilla-Bard is one of the strongest Chars. As Pet Master you can kill everything and you can buy time with the pets against Hords.

Cast Pets, cast Buffs, if needed cast Spells (aoe, pbaoe, controllspells, dmgspells)...song.

What is a "pet master"? Bard can only cast arcane spells. Wizards can cast those too, which includes summoning spells. Priests also know some summoning spells.

Originally posted by Jack Jester:

With highlevel Vanilla-Bard its very easy soloing on high-difficult.

OP starts on Normal mode, and a Bard will reach at most level 17 near the end of the base game. Any wizard will be the more capable caster.

[DRRaval]

I have finalized the following party :
(1) Human Cavalier (++ Long Swords ++ Sword and Shield style)
(2) Half Orc Beserker (++ 2H Swords ++ 2H weapon style)
(3) Human Priest of Tempus (+ War Hammer + Sword and Shield style)
(4) Human Bard (+ Crossbow + Mace)
(5) Human Dragon Disciple (+ sling)
(6) Elf Fighter/ Thief (++ Longbows ++ Long swords)
I have limited Multi class fighters due to less exp available on normal difficulty. So will this party perform decently well?

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Well, keep in mind that there are many ways how to play the game.

There is no holy grail. IWD(EE) isn't a game with only a single "solution". There are too many options. Personal preferences, your preferred strategies and tactics.

Ask two people, get three answers. Some prefer ranged attackers, others would bragg about allegedly "overpowered" choices.

Trying to plan ahead everything can easily lead to overthinking it and restarting too often when you gain personal experience with the game. I mean, the game features tons of interesting weapon types other than those you have decided on. Axes, Bastard Swords, Daggers, Flails/Morning Stars, Short Swords - some items require specific character alignment. You will certainly find some good equipment, but IWD(EE) is a game where you cannot eat the cake and have it too.

About party performance, yep, you have covered the most essential roles as to be prepared well. The game can be played with less than six charcters. It can be played with a single character. As to mention this: It can even be played on Heart of Fury mode starting with a level 1 party, but that requires quite a lot of kiting and increased effort to survive against hordes of enemies.

[DRRaval]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Well, keep in mind that there are many ways how to play the game.

There is no holy grail. IWD(EE) isn't a game with only a single "solution". There are too many options. Personal preferences, your preferred strategies and tactics.

Ask two people, get three answers. Some prefer ranged attackers, others would bragg about allegedly "overpowered" choices.

Trying to plan ahead everything can easily lead to overthinking it and restarting too often when you gain personal experience with the game. I mean, the game features tons of interesting weapon types other than those you have decided on. Axes, Bastard Swords, Daggers, Flails/Morning Stars, Short Swords - some items require specific character alignment. You will certainly find some good equipment, but IWD(EE) is a game where you cannot eat the cake and have it too.

About party performance, yep, you have covered the most essential roles as to be prepared well. The game can be played with less than six charcters. It can be played with a single character. As to mention this: It can even be played on Heart of Fury mode starting with a level 1 party, but that requires quite a lot of kiting and increased effort to survive against hordes of enemies.

Thanks man. I think i will enjoy as i learn from playing the game.

[Jack Jester]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Originally posted by Jack Jester:

Mate, Vanilla-Bard is one of the strongest Chars. As Pet Master you can kill everything and you can buy time with the pets against Hords.

Cast Pets, cast Buffs, if needed cast Spells (aoe, pbaoe, controllspells, dmgspells)...song.

What is a "pet master"? Bard can only cast arcane spells. Wizards can cast those too, which includes summoning spells. Priests also know some summoning spells.

Originally posted by Jack Jester:

With highlevel Vanilla-Bard its very easy soloing on high-difficult.

OP starts on Normal mode, and a Bard will reach at most level 17 near the end of the base game. Any wizard will be the more capable caster.

Pets from a Vanilla-Bard (and Bard) has more Armor, resistance and more Health (Healsong).
Bard has better weapon selection, better armor selection, there are a couple neat bard only items. Bard can steal, there are special Quests for Bards...


P.S. There are some combos where really shines. If you dual wield, with a Long Sword of Action +4, + Ring of Reckless Action + Tenser Transformation, the Bard can make 10 Attacks per Round.

[DRRaval]

Originally posted by Jack Jester:

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

What is a "pet master"? Bard can only cast arcane spells. Wizards can cast those too, which includes summoning spells. Priests also know some summoning spells.


OP starts on Normal mode, and a Bard will reach at most level 17 near the end of the base game. Any wizard will be the more capable caster.

Pets from a Vanilla-Bard (and Bard) has more Armor, resistance and more Health (Healsong).
Bard has better weapon selection, better armor selection, there are a couple neat bard only items. Bard can steal, there are special Quests for Bards...


P.S. There are some combos where really shines. If you dual wield, with a Long Sword of Action +4, + Ring of Reckless Action + Tenser Transformation, the Bard can make 10 Attacks per Round.

Where can i get those items which u mentioned? I am playing bard for sure and would love to have 10 attacks per round.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Jack Jester:

Pets from a Vanilla-Bard (and Bard) has more Armor, resistance and more Health (Healsong).

The term "pet" is unknown to me with regard to BG/IWD. There is a wizard's "familiar", and there are summons. I don't know what a "pet master" refers to, and Google doesn't know either.

Originally posted by Jack Jester:

Tenser Transformation

That's a level 6 spell, which requires at least a level 12 character to learn it. Arcane scrolls in IWDEE are distributed rather late, btw.

[Zotliatlicor]

# D'amarr:
Pet Master is ofc any spell Caster that has Summoning as main focus. If you make a Dragon Deciple and only chooses Summon Spells you also have a "Pet Master".

Bards "Can" be strong, but require much skill, effort and investment. Mages are strong right of the bat. I like Bards and alwawys have one. It goes well with DD/Soreror as main Mage. There are scarce with scrolls, so several casters that need to memorize scrolls to learn spells are a bad solution.

The Bard takes up a place in the party that "could have been a mage". This is what the discussion is about with Bards.

I don't advice starting out with 2H style or Sword and Shield style. Rouges or any that cannot have a shield can befit a bit from Single style, but no, it is also weak. Dual style is worth it on some fighter setups. It is better to have more than one weapon choice, and it is good to have both a blunt and a sharp option to many fights. You will fight Hordes of undead that have resistance to slashing and piercing damage.

War Hammers are bad, Flails are great. Maces in between.

There are so many Random Item drops in IWD, so you never know what you are gonna get.

DRUIDS: Great, but single class. You will regret it if you make a Multi. Also crazy difficult to roll up a decent one in the Char making. Leveling will almost stop at 750 k XP. And the Strength of Druids is fast access to lvl 5 spells, so single class.

My option has many times been: One Divine caster Multiclass, my favourite is Ranger Cleric, and the other Single class for fast spell access. So if you go for Single Cleric, you might enjoy MC Druid. But you might get equal joy of the Shaman. Better Weapon choices (half orc 19 STR Shaman is a killer with thrown daggers and axes). And fast Spell Access.

IWD has a different larger spell pool to choose from for Druids, but the really good spells are still few.