a Blade and a party

[JanW]

Hi everyone, first off let me thank you all for all the knowledge i've gathered from this forum in the past month while playing BG1 for the 6th time .
I'm now importing my character to BG2 SoA + ToB. Vanilla instalation, latest patch, widescreen mod, tweak pack, item upgrade, underrepresented items.
The character is a level 10 male half elf neutral good (used drizzt's scimitar) bard:
Str 14
Dex 19
Cons 19
Int 19
Wis 6
Cha 19
He did pretty well in BG1, joined with kagain, vicky, imoen (9thief>mage), edwin and Sharteel (6fighter>thief).

From what i read, i should go for blade kit with 3 points in two weapon fighting. What weapon proficiency should i take? katanas? scimitars? long swords?
Should i edit the savegame and exchange attribute points (decrease charisma for example) to increase his strenght, or is it something i can solve with str increasing spells/items?

I'm planning on joining up with imoen, aerie, mazzy, anomen and valygar; which provides 3 arcane and 2 cleric users. Is it too overkill?
Now, imoen should spec in ranged and use shortbows, aerie could even tank when buffed, anomen should go for dual wielding (flail + mace?), valygar dual wield too.
I feel like i'm coming up short on the thief side, although my character can take pickpocketing, and imoen is good at find traps and open locks...

Tell me what you guys think, thanks!

[Blomdor]

BG2 practically showers strength-enhancing items on you throughout most of the game. There are belts, weapons, gauntlets, spells, and more potions than I've ever managed to use. It is nice to have 18+ strength from the get go, but not necessary.

As for the kit, Blades and Skalds are better in hand to hand combat than default bards and lose very little for their bonuses (pickpocket skill mostly, which is a nonissue with the numerous thief-enhancing potions in Athkatla's stores). It's all up to your aesthetic and playstyle preference, however. Scimitars are an excellent pick for dual wielders, as are katanas, short swords, or any weapon you want, really. Most are well-covered throughout the game, the only exception being clubs (arguably). I'd go scimitar or short sword personally.

The team sounds good. You can't really have too many arcane casters in this game IMO because they are so powerful in the mid-late stages, but buying scrolls for them all could be quite expensive and I can't recall from memory which spells are not guaranteed to have at least 3 scrolls. You could take one of them out for Keldorn, maybe.

No worries about thief skills. Imoen is adequate. In a pinch, you can just have one of your mages use knock for any locks you can't open.

Aerie will excel at tanking once she gets higher level protection spells, no problems there. The magic in this game is ridiculous in this regard. Anomen likes flails in particular and is also handy with a sling (do not underestimate them in this game, several very powerful examples). Don't stress too much about pips; characters that can't take more than 2 in any particular weapon will have more than enough by the time SoA is over.

[JanW]

Tyvm.
Why would you go scimitar/short swords? Is there any specific weapon good for blades?
I just got a 18 charisma ring, i could lower my blade's charisma and put those points in strenght, and use that ring... tho i'd be loosing one ring slot.. uhm...

[Crenshinibon]

Early game you can get two very good weapons, which help you hide the fact that you cannot specialize in weapons, they are a scimitar and a short sword. That aside, in my opinion, scimitars are among the best weapons, since you have great choices throughout the game. You will of course gain more proficiency points, and those can go into longswords, which I think get good towards the later stages of the game. It's personal preference, but I personally use scimitars all the time when I play a Blade.

Unique Katanas are very hard to find - there are only a handful of them in the game and none of them have really amazing bonuses. Also, note that a certain spell allows you to create +3 weapons - the katana proficiency doesn't let you take the full advantage of that.

EDIT: Charisma as a stat is farely useless. Aside from price reduction, it give you no benefit. For that, you can use and stack the Friends spell, which raises your Charisma by 6 every time you case it.

[JanW]

Thanks Crensh, i see you are pro @ Blades and bards
Oh and thanks for the bard + wands tip, really useful and had'nt noticed it before.