Small party of 2 casters - opinions

Remove all ads!

I want to play IWD+HoW+Totl with my girlfriend, and we play every game with 2 arcane characters so we will try here as well.

mc D/F
F/M/T

but I have a couple of questions about FMT since my knowledge in IWD isn't so
deep

1. Elf or half-elf? 19dex with elf or 18con with half-elf what is better?
2. can FMT in party of 2 get highest level spells on normal difficulty(i read somewhere you exp more on harder lvl)?
3. How useful FMT will be as dmg dealing mage, I know dmg is level related so how
much I would miss out compared to mc TM or dc?
4. Plz give me other remarks, suggest maybe diff party, what you feel like
would be a good idea to point out.

 

Oh, you must be lucky having such a girlfriend ^^.
Which kind of games have you already played this way?

A D/F multiclass sounds fun, I like them.

Imo an Elf suits the F/M/T better than a Half-Elf.
I'd say 19 Dex vs. 18 Con even themselves out in pro and contra (if you go for T/M then definitely Elf, no need for 18 Con there).
But on top of that the Elf gains better resistances (it's only minor though) and he hits better with longsword and bow (+1 to THAC0).

As far as I know only HoF mode gives you a significantly higher exp reward but the enemies are much more tougher.I'd play in normal the first time (the standart DnD rules and most balanced, imo).

I guess a party of F/D and F/M/T is pretty good already.
I don't know if a T/M would be better than the tripleclass.Only if you need higher level spells earlier and rely on them, he might be more appropriate.
edit: But finding higher level scrolls earlier might be a problem, too. So maybe another one can answer the question how the availability of mage scrolls scales with
the mage level progression of a F/M/T or T/M in a two player party.

 

Thanks Hannibal, that answered some of my questions.

We played Dungeon Siege, BG1&2, Diablo2 and we are just ending Titan Quest.
We enjoyed Baldurs and Diablo2 the most I think

 

1) It won't make a big difference whether you take an elf or HE FMT, in the first half of the game the elf will hit a little better, but it the end both will hit perfectly and have more than enough thieving skill, so only the extra HP will matter, just choose the race you like for roleplaying reasons.

2) You'll get about 15,000,000 XP total during the game at normal difficulty (enough for F18/T21/M16 and F23/D23), hard or easy will grant +50 percent and very easy or very hard double XP.
I recommend playing at normal difficulty and installing a mod which grants 100 percent success chance at scroll scribing (so you don't have to set the difficulty to easy for 100 percent success).

3) The F/M/T will do about as much physical damage as the F/D, about twice as much physical damage as a M/T at the beginning and about three times as much at the end.

 

So I guess M16 won't grant me 9th level spells :S and just gains his first 8th level spell
Well if it's 15mil then M/T would get around 19-20th lvl, so it's not possible for FMT
to reach 9th level spells other than solo

 

Don't worry about level 9 spells, there are only 2 of them and neither is very useful.

The spell learning is a component of Ease-of-use Pack by Tioma and also of the Icewind Dale Tweak Pack, available here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IWD/index_mods.php

 

I'd recommend a ranger/cleric rather than a druid/fighter (half-elf). You'll be happy with the level progression of the D/F early, but it will get extremely frustrating later in the game (unless you use a mod). The F/M/T should be an elf with the 19 dex -- the half-elf will only have three more hit points but the dex will help in nearly every thieving ability.

I tried a R/C, F/M/T duo and found I had to break away too much to get healed and rest. They're a bit weak in hit points (especially the F/M/T) and I added a dwarven fighter to the mix -- she was awesome and an excellent tank.

 

thanks, too bad I'll get 8th level very very late, so I'm actually thinking about M/T but then melee/distance power will go way down so I'm not sure if it would be worth it, what you think?

Ye I thought RC might be a little more powerful and can select undead as racial enemy(at least i think it can ;p) but I never got to play with druid
a whole game and I heard they are pretty decent in IWD, so rather than being dissapointed with druids in BG(and basically in any other game i played so far) I thought maybe this is my chance to play a druid that's actually good

I think I'll try without warrior first, if it will be to bothering to heal/sleep/summon I maybe just create one in the middle of the game,
anyway are there any mods adding NPC? It would be cool to have them join up instead of creating one when I need it. Well I saw one mod adding portraits from BG so creating BG NPC should be satisfying enough. Anyway do you think any mods are worthwhile installing?

btw, what you think about Icewind Dale Tweak Pack?

 

I've played a druid/fighter in IWD -- a ranger/cleric could be described as a ranger/cleric/druid. All the druid spells, only two classes to divide the xp between (and cleric weapons) -- plus an extra attack per round with a one handed melee weapon (provided the off hand has nothing in it).

I don't use the tweak pack, I don't really like the changes it has.

 

what do you mean all druid spells ;o ?
you mean priest spellbook will contain all druid spells not only those up to level3?

 

In IWD with HoW a ranger/cleric gets the druid spells of a level as soon as the ranger would be able to cast them, so you'll only gain access to level 4 druid spells during the game.

 

Well ranger-cleric looks powerful but maybe I'll use one in BG(well i played both games already but didn't use druids&rangers). What about 5-7th lvl druid spells are they any good ?

I'm almost sure I'll go with FMT/FD(or maybe RC but I'm leaning towards druid) for this run. I will maybe add a fighter later on if I will have problems without a tank. I will inform you about my progress and difficulties for this party when I'm done.

One last question is about difficulty level. I'd like to get more exp to get mage 8th(faster) and 9th(get them at all),
I'm thinking about either 'hard' or 'easy' levels how do they modify the game is it worth playing that way, how does
it affect balance for a party of 2. Sorry for bothering you with all these questions ;p

 

FD is a good choice, high level druid spells and shapeshifts are fun, cleric spells are mainly for buffing and protecting. The main benefit of ranger/cleric is hiding in shadows.

Playing easy or hard will increase XP by 50 percent. Difficulty setting mainly affects the damage dealt to your party members, so an enemy using a normal shortbow or shortsword won't do 1-6 damage according to the rules any more, he'll do up to 9 on hard. Take a look at the game configuration program to see how exactly enemy damage is affected. A side effect of easy levels is that you won't fail at scroll scribing any more.

Getting spells much earlier in the game than you're supposed to might affect the game balance. But since you don't want to reload often in a multiplayer game I guess easy difficulty is ok. If you choose a double XP difficulty the fighter/druid will be maxed out too early, with only 50 percent XP bonus you should reach the level 30 cap just before the end.

Another option if you want more mage spells is playing without thief and choosing a fighter/illusionist instead. Traps can be survived and locks can be bashed or opened with the knock spell. Having to wait while the other player is searching for traps might get boring for the FD anyway. Dualclassing is the option which grants the most spellpower if you don't mind playing the first chapter without mage spells.

 

yea I but I think I'd rather dump the fighter and make it Thief(x)/Mage(29)
but dual classing with a small party might be pain in the ass. And when dual to get the thief skills back in time?

 

My thoughts so far;

party of 2 is cool for roleplaying reasons and you save time on micro managment
until Xunomei things went pretty easily both FD and FMT whipped monsters with
ranged,melee and magic was mostly fun. Also early summons did very well sometimes
outplayed the small groups of monsters. Especially early bombardier bugs are nasty.

Things started to get harder later on as clearing out the area required more sleeps,
monsters got more nasty, summons lived shorter and going into melee required more
buffs. Hand was pretty easy and fun, but Dorn deep required some hasting. Early accessible bag of holding in Kuldahar from ease of use mod came in handy as walking
between locations is TEDIOUS to say at least. They should have allow it to access specific locations without that walking after you cleared the area/did the main quest there. Or am I a big noob not seeing that you can actually do it ^^ ?

Overall it plays decent, FD misses out some useful clecric spells(and buffs) like one vs umberhulks confusion and generally speaking he is nothing like FMT. I read that FMT is less powerful than it's BG cousin, but it's magical defenses and haste makes it a powerhouse when it uses protection/buff spells. FD is decent but FMT is flatout ownage and uber versatile. Too bad I don't get to use it


oh a question;
getting more than 100% in thief skills do any diff or "just there" ?

 

I love mages (ranged chars in general) but playing a whole game without some kind of tank is always painful.

 

I agree Tanks make game quicker you don't need to sleep so much and waste spells on lesser monsters.

However magical defenses of FMT are superior to everything else, so for hard fights FMT with proper buffs is both better tank and better fighter
Also waterelemental form + egg of lathander works good for tanking

tbh only thing this party misses on is some cleric spells, like chaotic commands and some protection/buff spells
but druid is quite okay too. Not that hard to play without fulltime tank, though we sometimes become haste-reliant
this spell is really a butt savior vs masses of foes.

 

finished

it went quite fast I struggled with myself to not pick up junk from bodies, not really succeeded 100% so I spent a lot of time in shop but at least it was an improvement over my usual pick every object guideline.

+ when buffed we just wrecked havoc,died mostly when we were too lazy to rest when out of heals/buffs
+ saved a lot of time on micromanagement (I suspect exped players would be more effective managing large parties so lil diff for 'em)
+ F/M/T is just powerful and fun; backstab, evade came in hand, and ofc magical defenses with high AC are NIIICE

- needed to rest more than regular parties i suppose
- when both wanted to cast at same time we lacked a designated tank to handle monsters running around
- when you tank with summons, good ****ing luck with moving 6 bears in dungeon
- druid lacked some useful priest spells

overall it was great; small parties rock I will try a small party in IWD2 now, thanks for help guys