Questions about party, charisma/diplomacy, etc newbie stuff

[endboss]

Hi! IWD2 is a little confusing. I'm new and I'm getting killed. I've gone past the 'prologue' and up to the part right after you beat that orc leader who kept running away. The only character that's alive is a half orc fighter who is, quite unashamedly, a total badass. I kept my original sorceress alive for a while but eventually the bad guys just kept piling up and she ran out of spells. I pretty much lost my entire party on the final attack in the 'prologue', and after that kept conjuring up a bunch of imported cannon fodder to draw the enemy fire to advance. My original party consisted of a bard, a rogue, two fighters, a cleric, and a sorcerer. I figure I'll just start a new game.

My confusion comes from the vast amount of feats and skills and the difference between this game and BG/IWD, and the fact that apparently everyone can do everything and the manual is totally generic. I've even read online that the manual is flat out wrong in some cases.

Questions:

What can rogues backstab with, and what skills go into this? Hide and move silently are two different skills which makes no sense. Are they both needed?

What's the point of bards? Rogues get all the speaking skills (only have to put 1 point instead of 2) while bards miss out on intimidate, plus rogues also get all the stealth skills. Bards have their songs but they don't last long even with that one feat, they can't identify anything better than a sorcerer or wizard. And in comparison to rogues again they need to focus on charisma for their spellcasting, plus intelligence for the skill points, while rogues just need intelligence and get more use out of it.

Continuing on that note, what's the difference between charisma and the diplomacy skills? Is charisma just a casting stat and the other diplomacy skills are what really determines dialogs, or do you need a high charisma too? <-- this is probably my main question, since it would really free up a whole lot of skill points for me... I tried some dialogs with a 15 charisma elf and a 5 charisma half orc and they were identical

I hate having a huge party and only want about 3 - 4 characters. Are wizards and sorcerers needed? There seems to be way too many enemies for them to be effective. I remember having to sleep after every damn encounter in IWD until I just ditched the wizard (one of the best beginning spells, sleep, hardly works! when it does, it just knocks out someone for a few seconds), however in BG my main guy was a wizard and after I dualled Imoen we were nigh unstoppable.

And finally, cleric or druid? I thought about multiclassing a druid with a barbarian and having a raging shapeshifter which just seems cool.

[nanyt]

if you are confused with the 3rd edition rules i suggest pick a premade party.

and to answer your last question clerics are way better than bards

[kmonster]

What can rogues backstab with, and what skills go into this? Hide and move silently are two different skills which makes no sense. Are they both needed?

Rogues can sneak attack with any meless weapons, even halberds. With long range weapons you don't have to get so close so enemies won't turn towards you that often which is good for getting sneak attacks in normal combat. Only the number of rogue levels affect the additional sneak attack damage.
To do serious damage use a big weapon and as high strength as possible (strength also affects the chance to hit).
The "hide" skill is for hiding and the "move silently" skill is for staying hidden. Neither has to be very high, a character with 0 in this skill and no dex bonus has usually a 50 percent success chance.

What's the point of bards? Rogues get all the speaking skills (only have to put 1 point instead of 2) while bards miss out on intimidate, plus rogues also get all the stealth skills. Bards have their songs but they don't last long even with that one feat, they can't identify anything better than a sorcerer or wizard. And in comparison to rogues again they need to focus on charisma for their spellcasting, plus intelligence for the skill points, while rogues just need intelligence and get more use out of it.

Bards are singers. Their songs are incredibly powerful. One round of singing helps the whole party for 3 rounds with the lingering song feat.
The first song grants +1 to hit, damage and saves to all 6 party members for 3 rounds, if we add this together it's +17 to hit, +17 to damage and +18 to all 3 different saves, a warrior wouldn't increase the damage output that much.
And there are even more powerful songs ...

Continuing on that note, what's the difference between charisma and the diplomacy skills? Is charisma just a casting stat and the other diplomacy skills are what really determines dialogs, or do you need a high charisma too? <-- this is probably my main question, since it would really free up a whole lot of skill points for me... I tried some dialogs with a 15 charisma elf and a 5 charisma half orc and they were identical

For shopping only charisma counts. For dialogues there's usually a check for the diplomacy, bluff or intimidate skill, they consist of charisma modifier + skill points spent (if they're class skills). So for those skills +2 cha is as useful as an extra skill point spent in each of them.
18 cha grants 4 in all charisma based skills without having to spend a single point, it's sufficient for nearly all dialogues in the prologue, later in the game you won't have many dialogue checks.

I hate having a huge party and only want about 3 - 4 characters. Are wizards and sorcerers needed? There seems to be way too many enemies for them to be effective. I remember having to sleep after every damn encounter in IWD until I just ditched the wizard (one of the best beginning spells, sleep, hardly works! when it does, it just knocks out someone for a few seconds), however in BG my main guy was a wizard and after I dualled Imoen we were nigh unstoppable.

IWD2 is better balanced than BG. Smaller parties are much harder than full parties. Having at least one pure class wizard, diviner or sorcerer (doesn't have to find scrolls, great) is essential for getting powerful spells as early as possible. It's not forbidden to them to do physical damage when they run out of spells.

And finally, cleric or druid? I thought about multiclassing a druid with a barbarian and having a raging shapeshifter which just seems cool.

I'd take both. Fast levelling pure class cleric (deity isn't very important) is essential, druids can help a lot with their spells and offer new options. Multiclassing slows down the important spell progression, even a single barbarian level hurts, don't take more.

[endboss]

Thanks for the reply and all the info

[Artemis458]

f you wanted to get through the game with a smaller party, youd have to make sure you still have a few good melee fighters, also very wise to have atleast 1 good archer. Other areas to cover are thievery, knowledge arcana and healing.

Although wizardry is powerful I reckon you coudl actually get through the game without a proper mage. But would be good idea to then have a fighter/mage who is good in combat but also has some handy mid level spells like haste, fireball, invisibility, and has knowledge arcana skill.

You could have a fighter/thief, with mainly fighter levels, and just a few thief levels (taken at start of game is best as you get more skill points then), and make sure has high DEX and INT, and focus on the important skills like picklock and search. With high dext this character could be your specialist archer too.

Youd still need a cleric, mainly focused on cleric levels as their healing abiilty is important to make the game playable without having to retreat and rest all the time. (and cleric is better at healing than druid)

With those three characters youve covered the essential skill areas, you still want a bit more mellee power though, and additionally its useful to have a high charisma player to use for shopping. So paladin would be ideal for those roles as good in combat and he gets shopping discount and special paladin bonsues from the CHA.

So if you were going for a four member party thats what I would recommend based on my experiences