HOF tips?

[Opalescence]

Other tips (hope I'm not repeating anything): WILL SAVES! Will saves are, for whatever reason, much lower than most other saves. So, take advantage of it by using spells that rely on will saves, instead of reflex or other saves, which seem to ramp up much faster.

Raumo is right. Unless you decide to go all-out on AC, it's not worth it. The enemy's THAC0 are so ridiculously high that unless you bring your AC to godly levels it won't make a difference worth squat between 10 AC and, say, 15 or even 20. In this case, then, make a choice: either choose your equipement for maximum AC, or else ignore AC completely and go for special abilities.

POWER CLASS! Unless you're into exceedingly difficult battles, it might behoove you to have at least one "power class", for sheer surviability. My suggestion is a figher/paladin/cleric. Ignoring, for the moment, the fact the paladin's truly useful abilities of Lay on Hands and Smite rely almost totally on his level (which will be low), this triple-class has several advantages:
No exp penalty if you use a smart leveling scheme and make him a human (suggested 4/3/x figher/pally/cler)
Can cast fairly powerful spells (that do NOT need to be learned like a wizard) even in full armor with huge shield, although admittedly this is less of an issue in HoF
Is an exceedingly competent melee combatant
Has very high survivability, due to his charisma bonus to saving throws, his immunity to fear and I believe disease as well, and his relatively high hitpoints
Is an all-round exceedingly well-built and hearty character designed to take a beating and keep on ticking

Go for a balanced team designed to have at least two members capable of taking significant amounts of punishment (because they WILL, trust me). HoF mode is NOT a good place to try out that new all-bard party you were thinking about.

Wizards are cool, but trust me for sheer firepower you want sorcerors.

If you're looking for classes to drop, so far as I can tell here are, in order from least useful, the classes you basically can do without and survive fine:
BARD: everything he can do, a sorceror or a rogue could do better. Much better.
RANGER: Minor clerical spells, two weapons but only in light armor, and some weapon proficiencies? Dare I say it? Basically I see this as the poor-man's fighter/cleric, whose efficiency at doing either job pales in comparison to the actual thing. And I do NOT believe that favored enemies makes up for it in any way shape or form.
DRUID: has decent spells, but so do clerics. Can cast in armor. So can clerics. Can shapeshift where Clerics can not. While some may prefer Druids to Clerics, in the end I feel Clerics simply have more versatility, to say nothing about the spell Ressurection, which is great for peace of mind.
MONK: He can be very good, it's true, but he's not strictly neccessary. When you take into account the rigorous needs a HoF group has for its primary or secondary tank, I just don't think Monks are up to the task. Anything he can do, a level4 fighter/levelx Barbarian could probably do better.

[Brynn]

Please try to keep to the topic

As for this "cheating or not" problem, you may want to start a new thread to discuss it (or bump another that already deals with it, I didn't check if there was any), I'm sure everybody would be happy to express his opinion about it

[Wrath-Of-Egg]

[QUOTE=Opalescence]
If you're looking for classes to drop, so far as I can tell here are, in order from least useful, the classes you basically can do without and survive fine:
BARD: everything he can do, a sorceror or a rogue could do better. Much better.
RANGER: Minor clerical spells, two weapons but only in light armor, and some weapon proficiencies? Dare I say it? Basically I see this as the poor-man's fighter/cleric, whose efficiency at doing either job pales in comparison to the actual thing. And I do NOT believe that favored enemies makes up for it in any way shape or form.
DRUID: has decent spells, but so do clerics. Can cast in armor. So can clerics. Can shapeshift where Clerics can not. While some may prefer Druids to Clerics, in the end I feel Clerics simply have more versatility, to say nothing about the spell Ressurection, which is great for peace of mind.
MONK: He can be very good, it's true, but he's not strictly neccessary. When you take into account the rigorous needs a HoF group has for its primary or secondary tank, I just don't think Monks are up to the task. Anything he can do, a level4 fighter/levelx Barbarian could probably do better.[/QUOTE]

As for bard on that list... i was first going to flame you.. but then.. that wouldn't be nice thing to do.. or would it?

Anyway.. bard isn't sorcerer or rogue.. bard is fighter.. with lot buffs.. i could compare my fighter4/bard X to barbarian x/fighter 4. Barbarian is still little bit better warrior.. but barbs dont have ''shades''.. it is nice summon spell.. bard and cleric can buff your party while sorcerer cast's WoB. Barbs dont do that. Atleast on my eyes..

Rogue... most pointless character in IWD2.. other people might like those.. but i dont.. even that some builds can create strong character.. but whole ''rogue'' with trap disarm and open lock skill is pointless.. traps are joke in IWD2.. locks can be opened with knock spell..(sorcerer)

Wizard is another bad class.. Wizards dont have enough spells and they need scrolls.. enough told..

Have a nice day..

[QUOTE=Brynn]Please try to keep to the topic

As for this "cheating or not" problem, you may want to start a new thread to discuss it (or bump another that already deals with it, I didn't check if there was any), I'm sure everybody would be happy to express his opinion about it [/QUOTE]

I have allready.. long time ago.. in different forum.. and there should be some threads with information about that matter...

[Opalescence]

@Wrath: no need to get angry. All I meant to say was that in essence, every party had three basic needs: A tank, a powerhouse caster, and a healer that can also double as a tank (because of the two tanks to a caster rule). A fighter/barbarian is, hands down, the best tank there is. Clerics are, hands down, the best healers. And sorcerors are the best powerhouse casters. What I had meant to say is that if you want to power through the game with as few characters as possible, you only need those four classes if you want anything near an easy time; while it's certainly POSSIBLE to use four wizards as your party in HoF, you'll have a very difficult time. It's true that bards aren't useless, but they aren't neccessities either. Have to agree with you about rogues, though; there is virtually NO reason to single-class a rogue; they just aren't useful after level 3.

[Wrath-Of-Egg]

Sigh.. i wasn't getting angry.. it is just so hard to talk with you...

Yes bards aren't the most neended character.. but if party needs another character bards is best choise..

[Dueller]

[QUOTE=Opalescence]Have to agree with you about rogues, though; there is virtually NO reason to single-class a rogue; they just aren't useful after level 3.[/QUOTE]

Actually, the level 10 'greater evasion' feat comes in handy. But on the whole, since any player can disarm traps or open locks, there's no great demand for a pure thief. I have my tank open locks, and my mage disarm traps!

[Dedigan]

So let me get this straight, for 7-9 levels of rogue, I can lose an additional 50% of the damage against the spells where my reflex save makes the difference. But I make all of my reflex saves anyway, thus taking no damage from those same spells. I think I'll stick to my 1-3 levels thank you very much

I haven't finished HOF yet, but am working on it. I have no fighters or related classes (paladin, ranger or barbarian). So far I haven't had any problems, but I haven't met the guardian or any of the really tough baddies after it. Right now I have a Deep Gnome priest up front. I wanted to add a monk level for the armor class and a couple rogue levels for the evasion, but I messed up at character creation and can't monk-out because of my alignment. My second "tank" (apart from summons) is a drow female priest. She has 18 levels of priest and is planning on 12 levels of druid, just for the bark-skin. My wizard has 1 level of rogue. I doubt I'll multi class him. My drow sorcerer has 19 levels and will finish off with 11 levels of bard (for the songs). So far I've made it to the goblin warrens with any of the above mentioned strategies, or I can buff my DG priest to 50-some-odd AC with mirror image, improved invisibility and blur then dive in and/or use a ton of mass damage spells. I did manage to kill my own guy once, but that was just bad luck.

My points:
Druids are useful as a second class for barkskin. Not much further use without mods.
Bards are useful for their songs, even without the glitch. I can't play one with a small party, but with a 4-6 character party I always have a bard about. They make great buffers.

And a side point:
In my experience, anyone who wants to live through any fight in HoF mode will have to have at least a couple of spell casting levels. Even a minor mirror image can make the difference between life and death.

[Dueller]

[QUOTE=Dedigan]So let me get this straight, for 7-9 levels of rogue, I can lose an additional 50% of the damage against the spells where my reflex save makes the difference. But I make all of my reflex saves anyway, thus taking no damage from those same spells. I think I'll stick to my 1-3 levels thank you very much [/QUOTE]

And what if you get Malisoned, or fall victim to some other spell that reduces saving throws? What if an enemy mage has a few Spell Penetration feats?

Besides, you've got around 30 levels to play with, and there comes a point where any single level gets so high that another few levels wouldn't make much of a difference.

I started out with a single Tiefling fighter (adding characters when things got too tough). Once I got to level 15, I found there wasn't much improvement, so I multi-classed to a thief. Now I get a lot more points to spend on feats, and I'm up to around level 11 (with lots of great new feats to use). Plus, there's the extra damage your sneak attacks and back-stabs do at higher levels (and in IWD2, you don't even have to be invisible; just standing behind an enemy is counted as a sneak attack).

[koz-ivan]

[QUOTE=Wrath-Of-Egg]Sigh.. i wasn't getting angry.. it is just so hard to talk with you...

Yes bards aren't the most neended character.. but if party needs another character bards is best choise..[/QUOTE]

bards can be interesting, though i tend to use mine more as sorcs w/ upside rather than self buffing ftrs.

they also make better than average party talkers, can fight, can cast. few good bard only items. solid choices even if they lack the pure flash of a sorc.

--

my advice for hof is to have a long term plan, and try to build a party towards that eventual goal. know where you can multi and where you can't. try to have each char fully utilized. don't summon unless you have to.

for example.

in hof the difference between a pure melee ftr and a cleric w/ some ftr levels is minimal in combat. otoh the cleric will have many other skills outside of combat.

also consider there is very little benefit to the last 10+ levels of cleric, why not have them pick up a new class? a cleric 18 anything 12 is still better than a cleric 30.

take as little rogue as possible, or consider using the rogue as the tank. as part of a multi class.

enchantment, enchantment. as someone very wisely mentioned above will saves are the sore spot for most of the opposition. use that to your advantage. imho a single slow* spell can pay off bigger than 4 or 5 fireballs, ditto for spells like mass charm vs meteor swarm.

further - always try to prey on the opponent's weakness - ie forcing mages to make fort / reflex saves - and everyone else to save vs will, use weapons of slaying ect ect.

* even if slow isn't a "real" enchantment...