It's party time....again

[Checkpoint1918]

Yes, it’s another ’please acknowledge my party’ thread I’m afraid.

After having a torrid time in the Dragons Eye (like everyone else I guess ), I’ve decided to have another go with a different party. I’ve found that my current party lacks a bit of ‘bite’ and the ranged approach hasn’t been taken well enough care of I feel. I’ve NOT given up, just taken a off the screen rest (without any beasts beside my wife to wake me up).

I’ve spent some time on different sites, but it has come clear that it’s up one self to tweek the party to one ones liking. And actually that’s how I like it. It’s like this: it should me MY adventure flesh that’s going to be ripped to pieces and not someone else’s.

BUT with the HoW installed, there’s been some good pointers out there (well, here) with what to go for. Many things has been considered (among them, a 4member party for quicker leveling) but I’ve also gotten a bit ‘tired’ of the whole dualclassing stuff that I feel is a bit confusing (is it only me?). Let’s face it, IWD eats a lot of hours, so the best possible starting point regarding the party members is of huge importance.

I’ve decided to let these have a go (and yes, I’ve rerolled like an insane rabbit on LSD and a Haste spell by the way):

1. Male Paladin, Long swords**, Great swords*, axe*
2. Female Human Ranger, Mace
3. Male Human Fighter, Long Swords**, Bow*, Crossbow*
4. Male Elf Fighter-Thief, Crossbow, bow, small sword
5. Male Half-elf Mage, Daggers, (sling)
6. Female Half-elf Bard, different ranged weapons

I’ve said I’m not a big fan of dual classing the members BUT after experiencing the great value of having a Druid, I’d probably dual the #3 later on (level 3, 6). AND the #2 to a cleric. I’ve read great stuff about doing that (see, I’m caving in already!).

Could these guys get me through it with a BIT of on my face?

[Aerich]

Yes, but I would take a healer early on. Consider a Ranger/Cleric or a Fighter/Druid multiclass instead of a dual class.

Note that you may still have problems with ranged combat. If dualing character #2 to a cleric, it can use nothing but slings (which aren't that bad). That means any bow or crossbow proficiencies can no longer be used. With character #3, those bow and crossbow proficiencies will be similarly lost upon dualing. If you carry on with your duals/multis of #2 and #3, they should specialize in the proficiency "missile" (darts, slings) and leave bows/crossbows strictly alone. If you want another half-decent archer, make the mage a low level (e.g. 3) dual class fighter/mage, and specialize in crossbows. Leave the longbows to the elf, who gets a race-based bonus with bows.

I would also make sure to give the paladin a bludgeoning weapon. Specialization in large sword and flail/hammer is a good starting point. Spears will turn out to be a surprisingly good weapon for a fighter/druid, so make sure you take that proficiency somewhere along the line. I might even take specialization in it over large swords for a low level dual-class, because the extra range allows the character to attack in melee from behind the true tank.

[Klorox]

Give each of those characters proficiency in a misslie weapon. It's a very effective form of combat in this game.

Also, as Aerich pointed out, if you plan on dualclassing any character to Druid or Cleric, you will be restricted to their weapons. So don't waste slots on other stuff.

[Checkpoint1918]

Yes, but I would take a healer early on. Consider a Ranger/Cleric or a Fighter/Druid multiclass instead of a dual class.

Ok, thanks.

Would a Ranger/Cleric dualling be sufficient to care of the healing? That would mean scrapping my 'favourite' Druid, but...

Then I would have the two desired archers, one with a bit of melee in the 'undualled' figther.

[kmonster]

Since "the best possible starting point regarding the party members is of huge importance" for you, I recommend overthinking your party, especially since you don't want to have a "torrid" time in DE again.

I guess you already know how important giving maxed out dex for everyone is. +4 AC for having 18 instead of 14 dex can change a lot, it might be that enemies only succeed with 1 of 20 attacks instead of 5 of 20 attacks.
Con should be at least 18 for each character with warrior levels and 16 for the rest, so you get important bonus HP.
Maxed out strength is also very important for damage with slings and melee weapons and carrying capacity.
In a good party all characters have maxed out those stats, if not, the game gets harder.
Splitting up profiency points is a bad idea. Decide which weapon types you'll want to use and fill them with profiency points before you take other types. Specialisation does make a big difference.

Everyone should be able to use a ranged weapon effectively. It's not that great if a character has to walk across the whole screen into the enemy horde in order to be able to do any damage.
More than 1 crossbow user in the party is wasted.


Now to your characters:

1) Splitting profiencies is a bad idea, specialisation does make the difference. You'll have to wait at least until level 6 until he can do effective ranged combat which requires ** in slings, bows or axes (but you won't find a good throwing axe before the last dragon's eye level.)

2) Since you can't specialise after dualclassing the profiency points you distribute at the start are very important. Make sure you are specialised both in slings and a melee weapon (hammer or mace or flail) before you dualclass (preferably at level2 since you'll want to get healing spells), if not you loose a lot of power.

3)You can only dualclass this character if he's true neutral and has at least 15 str, 17 wis and 17 cha. You wasted 2 profiency points in bow and crossbow, weapons druids can't use, your party's power will suffer from this for the whole game. Even if this character stays a fighter he'll suffer from splitting up the ranged weapon profiencies nearly until the end.

4) Specialisation makes the difference, you'll suffer from distributing weapon profiencies until you specialise. Elf is the worst race to take, "raise dead" doesn't work on elves and while the dex bonus can be evened out with "cat's grace" there's no spell or item to even out the con penalty.

5) This character would be so much better if you dualed from fighter at level3, weapon specialisation and 24 extra HP make a big difference, especially since there are enemies who prefer attacking the low HP mage.

6) The bard's most powerful weapon are her songs, a composite bow early on and some buff spells later can also be fun.
You can set wisdom down to 3 if you don't have enough points for the important stats, even then you'll get perfect lore still very fast.

[Redrake]

1. Male Paladin, Long swords**, Great swords*, axe*
2. Female Human Ranger, Mace
3. Male Human Fighter, Long Swords**, Bow*, Crossbow*
4. Male Elf Fighter-Thief, Crossbow, bow, small sword
5. Male Half-elf Mage, Daggers, (sling)
6. Female Half-elf Bard, different ranged weapons

1. Is good as it is.
2. I would rather suggest a half-elf or elf for ranger. They get better rolls and also use a 2H weapon. Despite what the manual says you get an extra attack/round with any melee weapon as long as you don't use a shield. I suspect, you choose mace so that you could use skeletons as fav enemy, another bad idea IMO, since skeletons are already easy to dispatch. Better choose an enemy with medium difficulty like trolls or giants.
3. Fighter? simple, no priests in your party? Better go for a Dwarf fighter/cleric with hammers and flails
4. Is good as it is, just use bows, because he's an elf
5. Since you are using a bard, better go for a specialist mage, bard will be able to use everything that your mage can't.
6. Is good as it is, use her with crossbows.

[Checkpoint1918]

Thanks for all the good pointers lads!

I understand the point of not spreading the WP's on weapons you can't use or should use.

BUT a 'stupid' question regarding WP's when leveling up:

Should these be placed there and then or could they be saved until later? The reason I ask is, when level up, the prefered weapons can't be increased further at the time.
For example, when I level up the Paladin, the two WP points in LS can't be increased . Do you 'have to' take WP in another weapon, or could you save them for later levels (and then the prefered ones, like in LS for the Paladin)?

Sorry, but I havn't quite figured this one out yet

[kmonster]

There's no point in saving profiency points, if you can't place them now, you can't place them later.
Only non-multiclass fighters can put more than 2 profiency points into a weapon type, paladins can only put two into it. So choose another weapon type, added flexibility is nice.