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Half-Elf, Bard, Neutral Good - Crossbow+ Long Sword+ (specialized in defensive spells)

Half-Elf, Fighter, Chaotic Good - Bow++ Great Sword ++

Dwarf, Fighter/Thief, Chaotic Good - Bow++ Long Sword++ (specialized in Stealth and Finding Traps)

Elf, Ranger, Chaotic Good - Bow++ Great Sword++

Human, Cleric, Lawful Good - Missile Weapons+ Maces+

Gnome, Illusionist/Thief, Neutral Good - Bow+ Small Sword+ (specialized in Lock Picking and Pick Pocketing, and agressive spells)

I'm playing IWD2 right now, and I've forgotten what my IWD1 party consisted of... But a mage called Brynn was definitely there, she's always my lead character. I had rogue, a cleric, a paladin and a ranger, too, iirc. I plan to restart the game as soon as I can get HoW.

I'll surely include a druid in my new party - I tried this class in my current IWD2 party and I find it amazing! (Especially the druid spell animations Really cool, let alone powerful )

When I first played the game, I thought it would be cool to use a single-race party. After playing Icewind Dale with Dwarves, I decided to continue on that path and followed up with Halflings, Gnomes, Elves, Half-Elves, and finally Humans. I got a glimpse of what race is best at which class first-hand. For my next party I chose to use the following:

1) The Guardian - Human, Lawful Good, Paladin
2) Victoria - Elf, Neutral Good, Ranger
3) Gorin Bloodaxe - Dwarf, Lawful Neutral, Fighter
4) Emoril - Half-elf, Lawful Good, Fighter/Cleric
5) Thorin Bloodaxe - Dwarf, Chaotic Good, Figher/Cleric
6) Haps Luckyfoot - Halfling, Neutral Good, Thief

Right now they are in the Severed Hand and loving every minute spent smashing skeletons and destroying shadow creatures!

My Party

The first (and only) time I've finished IWD I had a Ranger, Paladin, Cleric, Druid, Thief and Mage. All Human.

Pretty standard party.

This time around, and I've just started a new party recently, adding the Ease of Use mod, & Dale Keeper (just to change avatars, not to cheat).

I went with a ranger again, and a dwarven fighter for my front line.

The fighter is so so. The Ranger thrashes through opponents with his multi-attacks. Next time, I'd go with two rangers. I use the aggresive fighter script for these two, and leave the rest on manual.

I went with another standard cleric, a female elf. I tried dropping the aggressive fighter script on her, but it didn't really work, I max out her sanctuaries, and send her scouting around,...with the clerical, "Find Traps" spell, she is better than my thief for scouting and finding traps without getting slain. She is now around 8th level and I make use of prot from evil, and defensive harmony spells, as well as minor healing if the tanks are in trouble.

I have a female bard, human, that I changed the avatar on to fighter with Dale Keeper. This is the second bard I've played on an infinity engine game, the first was my human bard, "Yorrick" (thumbs up Shakespeare fans). He was a total let down, (he was my protagonist character in BG2). Now Portia (again Thumbs up to Shakespeare) is great in IWD!!! The bard is a prefect fit and has great uses, unlike my first stupid druid who only shapeshifted to keep from dying in fights (recovered hit points). She can roll as an archer, with 150 +1 arrows stacked, (thank you "ease of use" mod) or blast away with magic missile, or various touch spells, or slow, or web area effects, so my Mage can go all out blaster.

Lastly I have the generic Human thief, and Human Mage.

I only have these aboard because they're neccessary. They're so lame I really don't like to play them but, you gotta have em.

I've enjoyed this second go around with IWD (after having it sit on the shelf forever) MUCH MUCH MUCH more!!!! The ease of use mod makes this game highly replayable, as is the same for all infinity engine games.

I've finished IWD once, as I've said, got to the Underdark on BG2 with Yorrick, and played IWD 2 to the rock maze thingy (before you hit the next map with the white dragons) And IWD 1 is, by far,...the best of all the infinity engines.

What does the Ease of Use mod do again?

i forget my party now
maybe
wiz elf
wiz/thief elf
frighter human
ranger elf
clr human

now i am palying iwd2.

[QUOTE=Elisha73]What does the Ease of Use mod do again?[/QUOTE]

Unlimited stacking of potions, arrows etc etc.

armor protection bonuses stack

bottomless bags and cases

changes animations

forces dialogue to pause game

Stores sell larger stacks of items

any class can use clubs

allow stealth (but with penalties) in heavy armors

allow spellcasting in armor, but with penalties

restore pre-expansion loading screens

sell staves and clubs (before you couldn't sell arrows etc etc)


and you can install what you like individually, its not all or nothing.

Also I would recommend "Dale Keeper" for neat little tricks, and the teleport hack, so you can just warp through maps to camp without walking all over.

^That mod's not Ease-Of-Use (which is a BGII mod by Wes Weimer) but the G3 IWD1 Tweak Pack.

[QUOTE=Elisha73]What does the Ease of Use mod do again?[/QUOTE]

See the "Useful Links" for more info about the tweak pack Andyr mentioned!

Me and a mate of mine baught IWD and being both obsesed with rangers had the following.

Elf - male - Ranger Level: 7
Elf - male - Ranger Level: 7
Elf - male - Ranger Level: 7
Elf - male - Ranger Level: 7
Elf - male - Ranger Level: 7
Elf - female - Mage/Thief Level 4/5 (as far as i can remember)

all use bows/longswords except the mage/thief who uses a shortbow and shortsword.
i have another friend who was almost yelling at me (yes hes obsesed ) telling me i needed a mage and a druid and all this stuff, but honestly, this rocks.. everything dies before it gets close, and i use pause after each kill so i can re-aim my party.
if things get to close then the swords are whiped out and yea.

(edit: added levels.)

oh i almost fogot, all were lawful good except one of the rangers who was chaotic evil, i guess just like the odd evil person

Hehe, this is indeed a unique party Who's the tank?

all of them of course seriously dude, it works. and its so fun...
now if only i could stop playing morrowind and start IWD again, i'd be set lol.

[QUOTE=RenigadeRhino]all of them of course seriously dude, it works. and its so fun...
now if only i could stop playing morrowind and start IWD again, i'd be set lol.[/QUOTE]

I've always wanted to try a party like that with all the same type, almost. It's hard to do. I went with four thiefs once and backstabbing everything at the same time is amazing. Exploding enemies from two or three backstabs is fun!

sounds awesome,
yeah its very very hard later on, after i got to the hand place (sorry guys i cant remember the name =\ havent played in like a year) it got very hard with the amount of hard hitting monsters, i remember a bone golem owning my whole party.
but with careful playing and planning, its fun and effective.

[QUOTE=RenigadeRhino]all of them of course seriously dude, it works. and its so fun...[/QUOTE]
Oh, I thought they were using ranged weapons.

.

[QUOTE=RenigadeRhino]oh! sorry i thought i mentioned.
all of the characters use Bows as a main weapon, but because ranged sucks up close, the ones who are close to the action (or all of them) switch to longswords. it works well, having 6 ranged able to shoot a volly of about 18 arrows before they come close, then switch to swords and rip through. [/QUOTE]

Your enemies must be brissling with arrows! I've never had that many archers because I didnt' think there were that many magical bows in ID.

.

[QUOTE=RenigadeRhino]mate, all you need is something like a +1 bow and some good fire or +1/+2 arrows, and your set [/QUOTE]

Good point. I guess I'm simply partial to items and weaponry with a good history and a name in general.