GameBanshee Forums

Im thinkin about creating a character based on multiclassing and using
classis witch bases out of the same kind of attributes.
A Cleric or paladin that is good at turning undead should also be pretty good
at the class of Sorcerer , the only problem would be the penalty for armor
when spell casting. And since there is not enough skillpoints to have a decent
DEX , he will be very easy to hit.

I played NwN from release to the expansion and did alot of diffrent chars but
the best char i even did was some kind of mix between paladin/Fighter/bard
that used longsword/shortsword.
When buffed by his own spells this char was the most powerfull char i had
even played in NwN , and i compared him with my clerics and wiz.

Some problems i´ve experienced in IWD2 is that dual-wielding does not seem
to be that effective compared to s/s or Great weapons. Ive had Rangers
with close to 30 DEX using light armor and 2 Shortswords and they die alot
faster then the regular warriors.

I have also thought about making a party with only 1 Tank, 4 archers , a
priest and a Sorc or Wiz. I have always liked the idéa of having 1 tank infront
buffed to heaven while the archers turns the targets to a hedgehog.

Yesterday i finished the game once again and it hit me that none of my chars
ever reach beyond the level of 16, it could be that i always run with a
party of 6 and thereby charing the XP alot more. But running a party with less
then 6 chars will really hurt your party seup since all of those slots have a
huge importance when it comes to usefullness in characters.

Can a party of 4 be that effective when you get close to the end with all
those tougher enemies. Just think of having only 1 tank when fighting the
6 lost followers , cant be done... no cuestion about it - you will get pwned.

A party based on purely Clerics has always been tempting since in the end
the clerincs can acually hold their own against the enemy after they have
recived all their buffs. Ofcourse once the buffs gets dispelled or runs out -
the cleric goes down like a stone.

I also dont understand that paladins "Aura of Courage" since eventhou i have
partymembers within the radius of the aura , some of my chars can still be
affected from Fear and Horror . From what i understand , all chars remaining
within that aura should NOT be able to be affected by any of those to effects.
For example : When you are fighting the Guardian Dragon just before Dragons-
eye , alot of my chars usually have problems standign against his ..."fear" and
they tend to run away witch can be a realy P.I.T.A if any fighter needs to be
healed from a cleric.

Well Aura of Courage only makes paladin immune to fear.. and as for characters in that auras area of effect they only get + something to will save..

In IWD2.. 6 char party is decent.. and 4 char party is far more superior than 6 player party.. but there is also personal taste..

Well Full rangers only get one good spell and that is Giant Vermin.. [after level 15] and since on lover level party you will get more ´higher level spells than in 6 player party.. just try new things..

Read some threads and you will have some party/playing style ideas and try those..

I recently just finished the game(first time full way thru) with a 4 person party:

human fighter4/sorceress16- would probably drop the fighter levels for more sorceress ones if i used again, though the hit points help

half-orc fighter4/barbarian16- excellent tank class, distributed max strength points and continued to use additional points on strength and gave massive halberd of hate+4(very good weapon because it also gives heals and gives user limited hp) and maximise attacks and improved critical feats. Buff his strength up and he deals out the pain like it was judgement day incarnate and if you've got executioners eye then all the better because his critical hits hurt. certainly no need for another full tank with this guy(summons are available if need be)

human rogue3/ranger1/barbarian1/druid13- a bit of a weird class, with multiple uses, but quite good and fun(unfortunetely suffered xp loss from multiclassing). i had him dual wield short swords(weapon finese) but he was much better with bows or in a berserk dire bear form.

drow paladin2/cleric16(has to be female drow to avoid xp loss)-both classes were of ilmater- a good cleric & slightly better in combat, the drow abilities were very useful, especially spell resistance. She was a good 2nd tank, though even with the holy avenger she was nothing as good as the half orc in combat.

as for taking out the six- lots of buffs and summons and wack the mage
that summons lots of monsters first

i generally prefer 4 or less in a group because i don't like micro managing or organising the inventory much and in my experience moving six people has always been pain when the area is narrow or complex

The downside with dual wield is that your base attack hit rate goes down by 20% or 10% depending on whether you choose to use a non-light weapon (i.e. short sword, dagger) in your off-hand. So while you max number of attacks increases by one, you are more likely to miss. Also, the strength damage modifier of the off-hand weapon is halved: so if you have 18 strength you only get a +2 bonus to your off hand weapon damage. To make dual wield useful you must boost your attack hit rate. If you only plan to dual light weapons, you can choose weapon finesse as a feat and pump up DEX. But I've found that this sucks as you're stuck with daggers and short swords (piercing only) and miss out on some good combos with heavier weapons.

Dual wielding as a ranger makes tanking harder. You can have 30 DEX (+10 to AC uncapped; +6 AC capped with leather armour if I remember correctly) but I think generally you can't beat a sword & shield & heavy armour combo for max AC. Another problem with plunging points into DEX is that eventually the enemy will hit you no matter what your AC, so you can only go toe-to-toe with the enemy if you can deliver blow for blow as well (which is harder to do if you've got a 10% / 20% penalty with dual wield).

I normally go for a half orc ranger, or when I'm playing a pure ECL party any one of the subterranean races (i.e. g dwaf, drow, deep gnome). I just drop int and cha as far as I like, max str and con and distribute the balance among dex and wis in that order. Set 1st racial enemy to orc (there seems to be a lot of them in the early and late game) and this should give your missle weapons more bite. I put points generally into Con rather than Str after that. There are plenty of str buffing methods, but less for constitution.

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...compared to other D&D CRPGs dual-wielding is quite weak in IWD2!

...main reason for dual wielding in IWD2 is from my point of view the lack of good shields and 2-handed weapons - but there are quite a few good one-hand and off-hand weapons...

...but this also depends on what mods you have installed!

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I think I am going to like this game. The story seems rather nice and the difficulty level seems right.
I just started with this party.
Leader is my aismar paladin1/cleric1 (the one who can multi and still be a paladin) wielding a greatsword.
Tank is my halforc fighter1/barbarian1 wielding a greataxe.
Decoy and scout is my deep gnome monk1
Thieving duties will be handled by the human rogue1/ranger1 dualwielding shortswords and using a bow.
The spell slinger is the aismar paladin1/sorceror1 (has to be sorceror from now on but thats the plan)

Havent really decided how to develop the chracters yet. Wnated to multiclass the monk but I tried it a little bit before and it seems to mess up their BAB... too bad about the way the monk looks when fighting.
Very nice game indeed though.

When creating a paladin, i would not go for Greatsword since that
prevents them from using the über-palasword witch you recieve when
killing the 6.
I would set my paladin to train Longsword from the start.

Aha, what a mistake made by me then. I automatically figured greatsword was the way to go since that was the way for paladins in bg2.
Ah well. Too bad about that wasted feat then hehe. Thanks for the advice!

In my new party i made a Paladin witch were built upon having extrémely
high bonuses to AC and savingthrow from his über Charisma, s/s , some
strength , etc, etc. The party just reached beyond the Palisades where
i choosed to take a break.

I will continue tonight after setting the Diff back from HoF and maybe make
a report in progress on how he handles battle. But sofar he has been pretty
hard to hit for the monsters, and done farely good compared to the former
paladins.
The reason why i chose to have Charisma as my main stat was that the
paladin get so much raised depending on the charisma-stat, and the str
dont need to be that high since he will be able to cast "Bulls Strength"
very soon witch will boost him to 18-20 str.

I have always found Paladins a dissapointment in battles, so im hoping to
succeed with this one .

I thought that the paladin charisma bonus was to saves only not to AC as well (despite what the manual says).

Paladins can be good tanks, especially if you set constitution and charisma to max levels. With 18 con and cha, you'll get an effective +8 HP bonus per level up when you include the lay on hands ability. The problem is that you must not let your paladin's base attack suffer too much (e.g. by taking away too much strength) as you'll stay in melee longer than you have to and therefore need more HP to last the whole battle.

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- the CHA-bonus of a paladin only increases saves (therefore it's a good idea to give your sorc a pal level)

- the WIS-bonus increases the AC of a monk when not using armour or shield (so it's a great mix-in for all WIS-based casters - if they have also a high DEX)


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