Newbie party...

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I am finding it a little difficult to get started in Icewind Dale II, and for all the wrong reasons. There is just too much choice, so I keep finding myself getting to the very end of the Prologue and deciding to try something different, so I start again. This has not been all bad, as I now have a better idea of how things fit together, but I find I am getting nowhere as a result. I just wanted to confirm a few things so I can (hopefully) break from this pattern and start Chapter 1.

1) Multiclassing. I like the look of an Aasimar Paladin, and was thinking about picking up 4 levels of Fighter, to get 3 points in a weapon. I assume this is not a bad idea, but how should I go about this? Make every nth level a Fighter level? Also, what is the effect of a favoured class, in real terms --- I have not got far enough yet to be able to understand exactly what this does. People seem to multiclass their Rogues more often than not too: is there no value in a pure-classed Rogue unless you really want one? If not, what is a good way for a newbie to go? x levels of Rogue then all into Fighter/Wizard/whatever, or perhaps x Rogue, y whatever, x Rogue, ... ?

2) Party balance. I am sure it is theoretically possible to solo the game with a Fighter/Wizard/Cleric, but it would be impossible for a beginner. As a beginner, how much could I get away with sacrificing a balanced party (eg Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, etc...) for a more roleplay focused one (eg Barbarian, Ranger, Druid, etc...)? I have, for example, considered a Aasimar Paladin, Human Cleric, Elven Ranger (as Scout/Sniper), Halfling Rogue, Human(?) Bard and Human(?) Wizard party: would this be pushing things a bit? How early would I be able to tell if I have messed up big time and my (hypothetical) six Half-Orc Wizard party is just not going to work?

3) Races. These seem a little unbalanced to me. Humans seem to be the flavour of the day, and I find myself completely disinterested in even looking at Dwarves, Gnomes and (especially) Half-Elves. I am not a powergamer, so would picking my races based on what I feel like hurt much? This goes with picking the race/class combination as much as the race in general (eg Elf is good, but an Elven `bad elf class' stinks).

4) Clerics. These guys seem a heck of a lot more interesting than they were in Baldur's Gate: I love the changes! Heck, I doubt I will use Druids any more, as these guys seem more fun. Am I right in my evaluation that Clerics of the different deities are all the same, just each with a unique `flavour', or are there any significant differences?

5) Wizards. What do most people do here? Plain Wizard or Specialist? As for Sorcerers, are the enough times in the game you will want to cast `random rarely used spell' to make chosing a Sorcerer in a one-spellcaster team inadvisable?

6) Bards. I like the changes they have made to Bards, as they seem a lot more `all purpose' and interesting. Despite this, they do not appear to get much love. Are there any problems/warnings I should take heed of here?

7) Experience. What is the experience progression like? I have read that although level 30 is the cap, most parties do not reach it. It level 30 only a likelihood in Heart of Fury or something? I do not want to plan on reaching high levels if it is unlikely to occur.

8) Thievery. A fairly general question, but is picking pockets actually worth while, or are times where it is worth anything few and far between?

A lot of questions, but thanks for reading all this!

 

I may have similar problems with you in a sense that I too (the first time I played IWD2) tend to create a party, then create another one, then create another one. Maybe because unlike BG, were given the chance to create a whole party (in IWD) than just one. But after all those creations, I finally came up with a "sturdy" party: Drow Fighter, Duergar Fighter, Half-Orc Barbarian, Moon Elf Rogue, Aasimar Druid, and Aasimar Sorcerer. If I were you, I'd choose sorcerer rather than a wizard, specialist or not, for the reason that high level wizard spell scrolls are scarce and hard to obtain.

As to multiclassing, its really up to you. My first party also had a multi Paladin/Fighter, 4 for Fighter and the rest for Paladin (same reason as you, for weapon specialization), but I realized he was slower than the others when it comes to gaining xp, since he is penalized. People often multiclass a rogue to Ranger just to have ambidexterity and two-weapon fighting for free, but I prefer a full-time rogue as their backstab damage increases per level.

For me, playing a solo game with a multiclassed (especially 3 classes) character is not going to get you past chapter 2. Having a level 5 fighter multiclass to a cleric and a rogue/wizard will be tough. Having 10 levels in each class or 20:5:5 or whatever ratio makes a pathetic character. The reason you would multiclass a fighter to a cleric is to be able to heal yourself, but 5 levels in that class simply won't do the job... you'd need a new cleric. The only reason I multiclass is for Weapon Specialization.

Talking about races, I think it's not really about Humans being the better race. When you look at the Gray Dwarf, you see that Duergars have a lot of racial bonuses, the only downside is that Duergars need 3x the xp of a normal human to level up.

Clerics are not just about 'flavour', they have different domain spells. And there are quests that can only be completed by certain clerics.

About Sorcerers and Wizards, as I said, I'd rather choose Sorcerers as high level arcane spell scrolls tend to be available at a very long time, not when you need it, and believe me, disintegrate is the best high level spell I've seen in IWD2, enemies fade yet their loot is intact *hmmm*

Bards are good, not because they're powerful but because they cast arcane and healing spells, and whats more, the last bard song they can learn is just... IMHO the best, it easily rivals the ring of regeneration. But what I don't like about them is that they tend to "just stand there and do nothing but sing" during a tough battle. The last bard I made only had less than 20 kills... and I was already in Dragon's Eye level 3.

When it comes to experience, solo, duo, or trio parties definitely exceed level 20 faster. I finished the game (in normal mode) with 6 caharacters and most of my characters were only 15, some 14... and I had wished my Druid to reach 16 for Wildshape: Elemental.

There are times in the game when you need to pick pocket a certain NPC to complete a quest. But if you pick pocket different NPC's, chances are you'll get a nifty item you might just need.

 

1) I personally don't like the fighter4/paladin x combination. I had one with 3 points in longsword. They were wasted.
If you like micromanaging a pure paladin does far more damage, if you don't more than 3 paladin levels are wasted.
The first level should always be taken in the class which gets the most skillpoints, else it doesn't matter much.

The favoured class only affects if you get an XP penalty when multiclassing, nothing else.

Pure rogues do the most sneak attack damage, their BAB progression isn't much slower than the fighter's and rogues get extra rogue only feats every 3 three levels starting at level 10.
For disarming/unlocking you don't need a rogue level, a mage with high int and dex can handle this and if you don't want to spend skillpoints you can bash any lock easily.
Popular rogue multiclasses: rogue1/mage x, barbarian1/rogue x, fighter4/rogue x
Many other combinations are doable.
The more rogue levels the deadlier the sneak attacks are.

2)As long as you have a pure cleric and a pure sorcerer or wizard in your party the game won't be too hard. The game shoudn't be too hard if you keep your characters pure class. Human is teh best race fo bard and wizard.

3)Races just give little bonusses or penalties, so you can make roleplaying choices.
The races indeed unbalanced, humans and dwarves get more benefits than the others.

4)Clerics are indeed overpowered now. The differences between the deities aren't that big, most spells stay the same.
Dwarf is by far the best race for cleric, the 20 con and extra spell resistance helps surviving, the human bonusses (extra feat and skill points) are not needed.
My dwarf battleguard of tempus with starting stats 18-16-20-3-18-1, great- and throwing axe and rapid shot had the most kills in my party.

5) Most people choose plain wizard for being able to cast all spells.
Sorcerers learn the powerful spells they want when they level up, wizards have to find the scrolls first. In IWD2 you can't buy high level spells everywhere like in BG2.
The wizard's advantadge are that int also gives enough skill points to handle skills like alchemy or spellcraft for your party and the extra feats.

6)With "lingering song" the bard songs get so powerful that attacking or casting spells in combat is hardly ever useful once you get songs to mix.
Many just see that mages and clerics get more and better spells and overlook the power of bard songs which support greatly but won't yield impressing kill statistics.

7) Your Aasimar will be level 16 at the end, the rest level 17.

8) I didn't pickpocket anything in my game and it worked fine.
In Targos town, in the weapon shop you can pickpocket one of the game's most useful items "Ned's Lucky Knucky" from the guy in the southwest even with only 1 skill point and reloading, in the priest tent you can pickpocket items worth quite some gold, but you'll need a higher skill.

 

Kmonster has already answered but I'll try to fill in some answeres:

1) The choice between a pure paladin and a fighter1 / pal X isn't too easy, the former gets somewhat more spells and the other is somewhat stronger in melee (with the right feat-picks). As kmonster said you could make it a pal3/fighter and lower wisdom since you're cleric has all the spells the paladin will ever get and a lot of them.

If you're not a big fan of micromanaging a pure rogue is a waste of space. You'll do fine with someone that can open locks, search and disable device. Pickpocketing is almost worthless.
Making him a rogue1/wizX (or specialized) allows him to still get lots of skills (from high int) and be useful elsewhere as an almost full caster. This makes a great backup for the primary caster and can also act as a primary caster in a melee heavy group.
You could also make him a rogue1-X / fightertype class X (any of the 4 works fine) to get some extra HP to survive battles.

2) Make sure you have an at least almost pure healer, someone that can take some damage (can be the same char as the healer) and someone that can cast damaging spells (sorc or wiz are best) and you'll do just fine. Make sure to have the main ability as high as possible (wis for cleric/druid, cha for sorc/pure bards and int for wiz). Have at least 10 cha (preferebly more) and 6 strength (to be able to carry something) on everyone. If you feel that you don't have enough ability points to play with you can always minimize cha for all but sorcs and bards (and main talkers of the party). Paladin also have use of high cha.
A half-orc wiz can be very effective with maximized int and if he spends all lvl-up points in int. The only combination I really would not recommend is duergar or deep gnome sorcs since -4 cha slows spell progression.

3) Most chars don't need many skill points. Clerics/druids only need concentration (but can have some use of spellcraft to access nice feats) and fighter type chars don't need any. Therefore pure humen are good picks at any class, but seldom the best choice. I would say that drow is the most overpowered race, but they don't excel in all classes. Aasimar and thiefling are also great classes. Duergars are probably the worst choice (too small bonuses for -2lvls) and rock gnomes aren't of much use neither. Half-elves are also not too good. But that being said, any race is almost as good as any other. The small differences won't be too noticable in the long run.

4) Unlike baldurs gate, clerics are really great here at both magic and fighting. I never use pure fighter-classes, I exchange them for clericX/fighter-type 1 (the latter for weapon proficiencies) or druidX/fighter-type 1. Druids are probably one of the most underrated chars. They aren't much worse
than clerics. Both get only slightly less HP and BAB than fighter-types and in exchange gets a lot of spells. Druids have at least one really useful spell in almost every spell lvl which makes the really powerful with enough wis. Shapeshifts sucks though, and don't use the weimer mod since it makes them too powerful instead.

5) For the first run it would probably be wise to use a pure wizard to see which spells you use the most. If you've made youre rogue a rogue/wiz I would recommend choosing sorc. Read the spell descriptions and make sure you'll pick at least one really useful spell for each spell lvl and you'll be fine.

6) In a 5-6 person group a bard with lingering song is a good help. I a smaller group I wouldn't recommend them.

7) Like kmonster said, expect to be around lvl 15-19 at the end of normal. The "Ned's Lucky Knucky" is not at all powerful (better than nothing, but not much to brag about). The HOF-version of that on the other hand is one of the best items in the game but you'll have to play HOF to get it. I think it's that item kmonster refers to. Otherwise pickpocketing is worthless. Don't take that skill and if you decide to play HOF, only waste at most one skill point on it (to enable it) and drink potions instead.

 

Thanks for correcting me Mudde about the "Lucky Knucky", since I didn't use pickpocketing in normal mode I only knew the HoF version and thought it was the same.

I disagree somewhat to what you've wrote in 2).
Cha is very important for sorcerers, bards and paladins, but I don't think it will make a difference if other characters have 10 or 1 cha. I'd always drop it to the minimum.

6 str is really the minimum for a playable character. But I'd go even further and say that any character with less than 8 strength will lead to frustration.

 

Re 1) Multiclassing the paladin with Fighter doesn't seem worth it to me. You get Weapon Specialisation and some free feats, but who cares? To get WS, you need to have Weapon Focus first. And you get it in one weapon only (although you can live with only having it in longswords for the Holy Avenger sword) or you pay an enormous cost in feats. And there are other things you can choose, I guess. Spell progression is much delayed by four levels in the Fighter class. For a party, I don't think any paladin multiclass is good, anyway.

As for rogues, you may well try a pure class one, why not. But you don't need one. A rogue(2)/ranger(x) will fare equally as well in rogue jobs except backstabbing, unless you want a great many skills. I didn't and it worked great for me. Rogue(2)/Wizard(x) should benefit from INT bonus and have a lot of skill points to spend.

Re 2) I've soloed it with a paladin/wizard, actually. Hehe. Why is a six orc wizard party supposed to be a more roleplaying oriented one than a balanced party with key roles covered? I don't see a good reason. It's not like wizards would realistically travel without escort on a normal basis or like a party wouldn't look for a cleric if possible, or take a rogue along. Things happen, but six level 1 wizards and all of them of the INT-impaired half-orc race... how realistic is that? Unless you mean a certain specific roleplaying bent. Then sure. But as I said, traditional parties aren't "un-roleplaying". By far not.

Also, there's just that much roleplaying if you want to min-max the stats. A character with CHA 2 or WIS 4 is not really roleplaying.

Re 3) Nah. Deep gnomes and dark elves are quite powerful. The Aasimar race gets 4 stat points more than basic humans. Half-Elves seem to be quite underpowered, but other classes tend to compensate quite well for the lack of the additional feat and skill points humans get, as well as the ECL penalty if applicable.

Re 4) Don't know. But they surely are strong. Probably more powerful than druids. Domain powers and spells of clerics of different deities offer significant difference if you use them. If you don't really use the powers and don't care what spell you're getting in the additional domain slot, you won't feel much difference. Domain spells are just one casting per spell level per resting period, but they can have a significant effect if you get them before you normally would, or if you get spells not normally accessible to clerics.

Re 5) I take specialist wizards, always. I prefer to have more slots and live without a school I don't really like, such as necromancy or conjuration. As for sorcerers, I had two in my first party and it turned out great. There's a scroll finding problem in the game quite often. It's just not the same as Athkatla where you can buy any spell you want. Here you often play to what you've got rather than wonder what to spend cash on. Not like you won't have the opportunity to buy some. One wizard will survive, two may have a problem. Some people take both a wizard and a sorcerer.

Re 6) Bards are just not often taken. Same as in IWD1, I guess. People will more likely take a more specialised character or a multiclassed one instead. I don't really find the bard song as useful as having a contributing combatant in that place. Lingering Song (the feat making the song last one turn after you stop playing it) changes it a bit and makes you able to combine spellcasting with bard song, but hey. You still can't cast spells all the time and you can't fight physically... or you just start wondering what's that bard doing here instead of a paladin, ranger or fighter/wizard.

Re 7) No six character parties reach it in the normal mode. I got to level 16 per average, but some people report 17 without level-squatting. Don't plan high levels, just make a viable character all the way through, as the game is challenging at every step, not just around the final battle.

Re 8) I don't know. I never do that.

 

Thanks for all those detailed replies! I have probably been able to save myself a good many restarts, and am now feeling a little more confident in playing the game how I want, rather than playing the game `safe'.

I think I will try a pure Rogue the first time through, as it took me a long time to appreciate just how much fun a pure Thief could be in Baldur's Gate II. Micromanagement does not worry me much if it turns out to be fun in the end. I will also keep the Paladin pure too; it does not sound like the four levels of Fighter would be worth the trouble.

Re: Six Half-Orc Wizards. I would not see that as a particularly role-playing party, rather I picked it as probably the worst party I could think of.

 

2) Sorry typing error! Of course I meant con! 10 con is good! cha should almost always be minimized!