The main character is Felicia

[rock.golem | trade.tf]

So hey uh, yeah keep Felicia. I see from the Steam achievements a lot of people play this game without a bard. Um, you should keep the bard. She's the main character, She's absolutely incredibly, she has a song, at high levels, that gives your entire party troll regeneration. Survive a fight? Everyone WILL be back to full health, give it like a minute. She's good for many, many reasons, including her stat line, I tried to roll a better bard it ain't easy. She's a basic bard, the best bard that end song is incredibly, Her pick pocket skill let's you pick up 2 rings of free movement, which combined with the web spell she can learn is uh, REALLY good. She's real good. You can replace the others(they're all strong) But keep Felicia, she's got that 18 charisma too to be able to buy all the stuff you want.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

There is no "main character" in this game. In Icewind Dale there are 1-6 main characters, since you create all of them yourself as a group of adventurers. None of them is a special "main character" in any way.

[rock.golem | trade.tf]

But if you do not have a bard you do miss out of some of the best items in the game. This is not Baldurs Gate. And if you try to roll a better bard you will probably fail. They are easily the least expendable character. You miss out on the most by tossing them.

[✙205🍉🐆→]

When I made bard, I installed a special script for the bard, because in this game the group AI is dumber than the baldur's gate
Permanent control over the bard is a big disadvantage

[rock.golem | trade.tf]

For the bard I found the scripts they had adequate. She's mostly singing all the time anyway. Only stopping to throw an occasional spell or shoot someone.

[ryu_star]

You refer to the charackter from the pre made party. Tbh I never used the pre made party.

And I played the game so often that eventually I made me a generator that generates me a whole random party within seconds. The generator result contains the ability scores for each character and shows all available class and race selections possible (per minimum ability score restrictions). I can deliberately set additional restrictions (max point sum per character, max point sum for party, class/ race preferences) and even rig the dice (different rolling methods "3d6", "4d6 drop lowest", "4d6 drop highest", "4d4+2", etc.).

Afterwards I only need to start IWD and start with the character generator. For me that made the game fun to play again. You don't know what you get. The game is the same but every party is a challenge on its own.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by rock.golem | trade.tf:

But if you do not have a bard you do miss out of some of the best items in the game.

Then create one. Or a Skald for the better bard song.

Originally posted by rock.golem | trade.tf:

And if you try to roll a better bard you will probably fail.

Nah. Whereas a roll of 91 is extremely high, a bard doesn't strictly need such a high roll.

Originally posted by rock.golem | trade.tf:

They are easily the least expendable character. You miss out on the most by tossing them.

They are pre-rolled characters only. They aren't story companions as in Baldur's Gate.