Paladins & monks turn down many rewards, so avoid leading with them. On the other hand, paladins can sense evil auras & will sometimes provide different dialog options. If you lead with a paladin, you'll want to have a second speaker to recieve rewards with.
It is true that a leader neads high Cha.
and high Int. A perfect example of the benefit of high Int. is at the very beginning of the game. As soon as you get of the boat, you get a chance to talk some wounded soldiers out of thier equipment. Save before you do, and try it with both low & high Int. characters. You should be able to get more equipment with higher Int. Of course, the bluff, diplomacy, & intimidate skills help make a good speaker, & high Int yeilds more skill points to spend.
High Cha. is still important also, especially for buying & selling items. Your leader wouldn't neccesarily have to be your buyer/seller. However, whichever character you choose to barter with, the best choice would coincide with a class that requires high Cha in a race that allows the Mercantile background feat (human, deep gnome, gray dwarf). When shopping, the character that initiates dialog with the shopkeeper sets the prices to buy items, & the character whoose inventory holds the item to sell sets the sell price regardless of who speaks first.
Posted originally by Belgarion
1. Rogue 1-3/ Wizard X
2. Cleric X
3. Sorceror X
4. Fighter 4/ Paladin X
5. Fighter 4/ Barbarian X
6. Fighter 4/ Druid X or Druid X
In this party, I see three possible leaders: 1. Rogue 1-3/ Wizard X, 4. Fighter 4/ Paladin X, or 6. Druid X. Which races do you plan on for each?
If you wanted the speaker & diplomat to be one character, you should plan on a human (incl. sub-races), deep gnome, or gray dwarf, & give either #1 high Int., or #s 4 & 6 high Int.
If you plan to split the diplomat and merchantry duties between two characters, Use #1 as the diplomat (any race), but use another character for alchemy & arcane knowledge duties, & either #4 or #6 (with the proper race) as the merchant. In this case, your char. #1 will need high scores in the spellcraft, diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate skills, so you might consider giving the rogue levels to another character. Perhaps skipping them altogether would be a better choice.
Alternatively, you might consider replacing one of your
four spellcasters with a Bard, Bard x/Rogue x, or Ranger x/Rogue y. Among these three charaters, you have an ideal speaker/seller, a good speaker/seller/scout, or a scout/assault-type char. The bard is often overlooked, but is an interesting & welcome addtion to any party. You have the requisite 2 tanks, but you also have a lot of spell power. You don't seem to have a scout, unless you planned on an invisible mage or sorcerer to do scouting.
