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Uh, I used Multiplayer to create a custom party of six, according to my brother, that's the easier thing to do for first time players, he helped me with a few tips, and they seem to have done fairly well so far, but uhh, think you could just gimme a few pointers on how to improve them?

Main Character -

Human Inquisitor (Lawful Good)
STR - 17
DEX - 11
CON - 10
INT -7
WIS - 13
CHA - 18

Second -

Half-Orc Beserker (Neutral Good)

STR - 18/24
DEX - 13
CON - 17
INT - 7
WIS - 14
CHA - 7

Third -

Elven Archer (Neutral Good)

STR - 17 (Regretting not making it 18, Composite Longbows mock me =\)
DEX - 18
CON - 17
INT - 8
WIS -14
CHA - 7

Elven Priest of Lathander (Neutral Good)

STR - 9 (I made her proficient in flail/morning star, and she doesn't have enough STR to use them...I could cry =< Oh well, she's good enough with a Sling)
DEX -13
CON - 6
INT -16
WIS - 15
CHA - 17

Human Sorcerer (Neutral Good)

STR - 7
DEX - 12
CON - 9
INT - 17
WIS - 15
CHA - 16

Halfling Swashbuckler (Chaotic Good)

STR - 14
DEX - 17
CON - 17
INT - 14
WIS - 7
CHA - 9

So uhh... Comments? Remembering that this is the party of a first time player ><

Clerics derive their spells from wisdom, not charisma.

First of all, when playing the game for the first time, I'd use the party members the game already has.

Second, from a roleplaying point of view, your party is great. In terms of power, not so much.

Here is what each stat does, so you know:

Strength: Adds to hit and to damage as well as improves THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0)
Dexterity: Improves thieving skills as well as armor class every even number.
Constitution: Increases health gained. Only fighters, rangers, paladins and barbarians gain benefit for constitution higher than 16. All of their kits gain the same benefits.
Intelligence: Affects the chance to learn a spell through a scroll. If it's too low you won't be able to use some items such as scrolls or wands. Increses lore as well.
Wisdom: I don't think it was implemented correctly so all it does is increase lore.
Charisma: Mainly, this affects the cost of goods at stores. The higher this is, the cheaper everything will get.

As for your cleric, you need eleven strength to use morning stars and thirteen strength to use flails.

SPOILER (Highlight to read):

Spoiler

There are multiple strength enhancing items in the game, one of which can be bought.You can also buff up your strength through spells.

You should probably have at least one stat of 18 for each of your characters. I know my half orc fighter had a strength and constitution of 19, dex of 18, and 4 of everything else.

Something doesn't ring true here, some of those numbers are too low. You can't create an Elven Archer with less than 8 charisma for example. The only way to get 7 charisma is to use SK.

Remember, every combination of party NPCs plus your own PC can see you through a successful campaign. If you don't want to use the enclosed NPCs for your party--and I really recommend you do, given their great roleplaying addition to the game--you can still learn from their distribution of points to see what works well. Despite the fact that some of them have items that enhance those skills, or other abilities.

Charisma: Mainly, this affects the cost of goods at stores. The higher this is, the cheaper everything will get.

Highlight for a useful spoiler:

Spoiler

There's a ring you can acquire very shortly after leaving the first dungeon, upon completing the Circus Tent quest. It changes the charisma to 18 of the character who wears it.

Some of your chars have low rolls. Personally I tend to go for 85+ chars, that is to say the sum of all stats is 85+

You can win the game with any party, so feel free to ignore any of the following comments for the sake of roleplaying, these will all be powerplay suggestions Also I would go with a Bioware party. the NPCs' are well balanced and have interesting dialog and quests which immerses you in the world

1) Generally speaking you want minimum STR on any tank since there are plenty of STR boosting items. ie: it's a waste to get 18 STR if it's possible to get a certain belt within a few hours of gameplay that will automatically set STR to 19. Especially since you have only 2 true tanks. 4 if you count the swashy and cleric. There are at least 4 STR boosting items in the game depending on your choices.

2) each of your fighter types ought to have 18 constitution, while each of your spellcasters and thiefs should have 16 -no further benefit for 18 if your a thief, cleric, mage, sorceror, bard, ect

3) 18 dex for everybody

4) 18 INT for the Sorceror. INT is his primary stat.

5) your swashbuckler looks good but a small tweak i would use is go 18 DEX 16 CON

FYI, Int doesn't do anything for a sorcerer.

nothing at all ?? I know it's charisma in IWD2. I thought it gave you either more spells of a given level or more casts per day, then again I've only gotten back to this game recently :laugh:

INT just gives you, beside lore and other stupid stuff, a higher chance of successfully scribing scrolls and more spells in the spellbook for each level. Since neither applies to a sorcerer, and they removed the part where INT has to do with what level of spells you can cast, it doesn't do jack.

And neither does Wis or Cha, for that matter. Sorcereres doesn't have any primary stats in BG2, you could roll one with 10 in all stats and he'd still be kickass. ^_^

Sorry Galraen, I was exaggerating. his true stats when I checked are:
Str 19
dex 18
con 19
int 9
wis 7
cha 7

I did not use cheat keys or SK, they were natural.

I'm just curious then why would guides recommend 18 for a sorceror ?? I learned to play arcane spellcasters on a mage and naturally assumed that a sorceror has the same requirements kind of like a barbarian and a fighter. I still recommend 11 INT for anyone who can spare it. Mindflayers are a pain with less.

In my view by creating a custom party, you are missing the best aspect of Baldur's Gate II. The interaction between the characters made this game for me. Who didn't love to pack the party full of women and watch them fight it out over the main character?

Your party has extremely weak stats, better stats could make the game far easier.
But since they "seem to have done fairly well so far", I assume that you are a skilled player, so there's no need for restarting, the game might get too easy for you with a powergaming party.
Regarding classes your party is balanced, you have arcane and clerical magic, thieving skill and fighting power in your party. Just make sure you choose the spells for your sorcerer wisely.
If your sorc can cast the level 2 spell "strength" you can use it to end the low strength problems and allow your cleric and sorc to wear proper equipment and armor, it can also allow your archer to use composite bows.

fable wrote:Clerics derive their spells from wisdom, not charisma.

I think that was like, next to minimum CHA, or something.

First of all, when playing the game for the first time, I'd use the party members the game already has.

Second, from a roleplaying point of view, your party is great. In terms of power, not so much.

Here is what each stat does, so you know:

Strength: Adds to hit and to damage as well as improves THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0)
Dexterity: Improves thieving skills as well as armor class every even number.
Constitution: Increases health gained. Only fighters, rangers, paladins and barbarians gain benefit for constitution higher than 16. All of their kits gain the same benefits.
Intelligence: Affects the chance to learn a spell through a scroll. If it's too low you won't be able to use some items such as scrolls or wands. Increses lore as well.
Wisdom: I don't think it was implemented correctly so all it does is increase lore.
Charisma: Mainly, this affects the cost of goods at stores. The higher this is, the cheaper everything will get.

As for your cleric, you need eleven strength to use morning stars and thirteen strength to use flails.

Mm, I was gonna do that at first, but then I kept getting owned in Irenicus' dungeon... I later found out that (this is my brother's copy, so he'd played it ages ago) there were mods, including a few that made the monsters stronger, which would explain why Llyich kept killing at least one of my characters. Eventually I let my Bard stay dead, but then for some reason I couldn't resurrect him at a Temple, so I restarted (there were other reasons, mind you, mainly, I'd kinda messed around, and err, gone on a killing spree at Lathander's Temple for teh lulz. I was kinda contemplating restarting anyway. In the end, I just found it easier to do, at least, the first part with custom characters. Strength in numbers I suppose...
And thanks for the info on the stats, btw.
So is CON pretty much useless to all of the classes you didn't mention up there? And with CHA, how does that work, exactly? Do I have to talk to a shopkeeper with the person that has high Charisma, and then just switch characters buying to get low prices for that person? Or can I talk with anyone? Finally, does DEX affect how fast you are in battle, or is it only useful for thieves?

You should probably have at least one stat of 18 for each of your characters. I know my half orc fighter had a strength and constitution of 19, dex of 18, and 4 of everything else.

Uhh, how do I get to 19 during the creation? >_<
Does it depend on the class, or is it luck of the roll?

Something doesn't ring true here, some of those numbers are too low. You can't create an Elven Archer with less than 8 charisma for example. The only way to get 7 charisma is to use SK.

He has Studded Orc Armour, or whatever it's called. -1 CHA.

Remember, every combination of party NPCs plus your own PC can see you through a successful campaign. If you don't want to use the enclosed NPCs for your party--and I really recommend you do, given their great roleplaying addition to the game--you can still learn from their distribution of points to see what works well. Despite the fact that some of them have items that enhance those skills, or other abilities.

Mm, I do plan to play it with the NPC's, probably on a second playthrough, or if I seem to be really struggling with my own characters. And yeah, I've got the ring. =3

Some of your chars have low rolls. Personally I tend to go for 85+ chars, that is to say the sum of all stats is 85+

You can win the game with any party, so feel free to ignore any of the following comments for the sake of roleplaying, these will all be powerplay suggestions. Also I would go with a Bioware party. the NPCs' are well balanced and have interesting dialog and quests which immerses you in the world

1) Generally speaking you want minimum STR on any tank since there are plenty of STR boosting items. ie: it's a waste to get 18 STR if it's possible to get a certain belt within a few hours of gameplay that will automatically set STR to 19. Especially since you have only 2 true tanks. 4 if you count the swashy and cleric. There are at least 4 STR boosting items in the game depending on your choices.

2) each of your fighter types ought to have 18 constitution, while each of your spellcasters and thiefs should have 16 -no further benefit for 18 if your a thief, cleric, mage, sorceror, bard, ect

3) 18 dex for everybody

4) 18 INT for the Sorceror. INT is his primary stat.

5) your swashbuckler looks good but a small tweak i would use is go 18 DEX 16 CON

Tanks = Fighter/Paladins? And err, what belt would that be? Where is it, because so far, I haven't got any characters past 18 for their stats =<

And thanks for the advice on the CON, I didn't know about that.
I'm assuming with the advice on the DEX, that my question about the thieves has already been answered there..

INT just gives you, beside lore and other stupid stuff, a higher chance of successfully scribing scrolls and more spells in the spellbook for each level. Since neither applies to a sorcerer, and they removed the part where INT has to do with what level of spells you can cast, it doesn't do jack.

And neither does Wis or Cha, for that matter. Sorcereres doesn't have any primary stats in BG2, you could roll one with 10 in all stats and he'd still be kickass. ^_^

Soo... the Sorcerer is more affected by the chosen spells, rather than stats?

Your party has extremely weak stats, better stats could make the game far easier.
But since they "seem to have done fairly well so far", I assume that you are a skilled player, so there's no need for restarting, the game might get too easy for you with a powergaming party.
Regarding classes your party is balanced, you have arcane and clerical magic, thieving skill and fighting power in your party. Just make sure you choose the spells for your sorcerer wisely.
If your sorc can cast the level 2 spell "strength" you can use it to end the low strength problems and allow your cleric and sorc to wear proper equipment and armor, it can also allow your archer to use composite bows.

Erm, well, I dunno if I chose every spell wisely, there's definitely a couple that I don't really use, but I nearly always use the basic offensives, like Magic Missile, Fireball, and I tend to use Sunfire a bit lately.
And uh, no, he can't use Strength, I've been relying on the Cleric's Power of One spell for that, basically.

Now, uhh, just one last question -

My cleric died in the Planar Sphere, and I've gone to every temple I could find, but none of them could revive her. Her portrait just won't appear. Any suggestions, or is she gone for good? >_>

Bad news

any character that has their portrait disappear is no longer in the party - it is often because they were petrified and then got some minor damage from an area-effect spell - they crumble to pieces losing all the equipment that they had.

I would strongly recommend that you only have a couple of self-made characters in the party - that way you get all the fun out of the inter-character plots and banter. if you run with only your own characters you will lose out in a lot of quests AND some options will not become available.

I always try for 18 or more dex - because it gets AC bonus.
STR can be sorted with girdles and weapons
INT is essential for casters and WIS is helpful for saving throws for all classes.
you can lose stats in certain situations that are required to complete the game - you have to make a sacrifice on two occasions, but if you go to Watchers Keep, you can offset some of it.

the deck of many things should be stolen as a priority...

Cleric spells are very useful in the game, so if your cleric is gone for good I recommend adding a new cleric. You can roll a new one, but you can also add a cleric NPC. Aerie (the woman disguised as ogre which you freed in the circus tent quest) would fit, she's good aligned and since she's a cleric/mage multiclass she can cast the spells your sorcerer couldn't choose at level up.
You can also choose Anomen instead (he's in the copper coronet) if you like him more.
General advice: Save often and use different slots. Don't bother with annoying and expensive temple visits when a character dies, if you can't heal him immediately reload.

INT is essential for casters and WIS is helpful for saving throws for all classes.

Not completely true. INT is is only essential for mages and bards, it's not really useful for clerics, druids,sorcerers and non-casters. WIS doesn't affect saving throws at all and is the least useful stat for every class except cleric or druid.

The way my half-orc fighter got 19 in some stats is during character creation, half-orcs get +1 to strength and constitution. elves get +1 to dex, and -1 to constitution so it's possible to have a elf with 19 dex and a max of 17 constituion, and so on with many of the races.

he doesn't the orc leather and has a minimum charisma of 3. I know some classes require a minimum of above 3 but not the fighter, so I don't no why he ''couldn't" have a charisma of 3 even if he did

Hope that helps

Celacena wrote:any character that has their portrait disappear is no longer in the party - it is often because they were petrified and then got some minor damage from an area-effect spell - they crumble to pieces losing all the equipment that they had.

I would strongly recommend that you only have a couple of self-made characters in the party - that way you get all the fun out of the inter-character plots and banter. if you run with only your own characters you will lose out in a lot of quests AND some options will not become available.

I always try for 18 or more dex - because it gets AC bonus.
STR can be sorted with girdles and weapons
INT is essential for casters and WIS is helpful for saving throws for all classes.
you can lose stats in certain situations that are required to complete the game - you have to make a sacrifice on two occasions, but if you go to Watchers Keep, you can offset some of it.

the deck of many things should be stolen as a priority...

But I got her equipment, and her window's still there, it just vanishes when I go to a temple? Is she still gone for good, or is there a way to get her back?
And uh, Deck of Many Things?

Cleric spells are very useful in the game, so if your cleric is gone for good I recommend adding a new cleric. You can roll a new one, but you can also add a cleric NPC. Aerie (the woman disguised as ogre which you freed in the circus tent quest) would fit, she's good aligned and since she's a cleric/mage multiclass she can cast the spells your sorcerer couldn't choose at level up.
You can also choose Anomen instead (he's in the copper coronet) if you like him more.
General advice: Save often and use different slots. Don't bother with annoying and expensive temple visits when a character dies, if you can't heal him immediately reload.

Quote:
INT is essential for casters and WIS is helpful for saving throws for all classes.
Not completely true. INT is is only essential for mages and bards, it's not really useful for clerics, druids,sorcerers and non-casters. WIS doesn't affect saving throws at all and is the least useful stat for every class except cleric or druid.

Geh, I think I'll get Anomen, I've used Aerie before, she kept dying too soon for my liking, no matter how far outta combat I kept her. =<
Mm, I probably should use more different slots, my slots are primarily quicksave and autosave, with an actual save state when I stop playing.

If you do not see a character's portrait after they died, it means that they're dead for good and you can't revive them. You can only revive a dead character if you see their portrait but it's grayed out.

SPOILER about the Deck of Many Things (highlight to read):

Spoiler

The Deck of Many things is an item, a deck of cards, picked of a demon's corpse at the end of the third level of Watcher's Keep (added by the Throne of Bhaal Expansion), should you choose to kill him. It has many random effects both beneficial and not. It can do anything from grant you a million experience points to dire charm you until you die. Check it out in the "Strategies" section on this site.

Really? I know my rating seems a bit weird but in terms of power, Aierie would be in the top five. She is amazing in terms of damage output on a constant basis, in melee and in magic. Much better than Anomen. The only thing he could do better than Aerie is deliver the Harm spell, and it's by not that much.