6th party member question

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I'm working on a dual class party and so far I have these 5 PCs:

Brianna - human female ranger (cleric)
Maggie - human female cleric (thief)
Jade - human female fighter (druid at lvl 2)
Lissette - human female thief (mage)
Tamara - human female fighter (mage at lvl 2)

Can you get by in the game with just 1 mage? It's been a long time and I usually take a main mage plus a backup of either a bard or T/M.

 

Pfeh, I've done it with no mages at all plenty of times; you don't even need one if you don't want it. The only three things you can't do without are a tank, a healer, and a thief.

 

Felinoid is right. As a matter of fact, since Mages need a lot of HP, I'd suggest advancing to at least Fighter 3 before dualling that character (you get an extra proficiency here too). The same goes for the Fighter - Druid.

 

My first time through I couldn't keep a mage alive to save my soul, and I got sick of relading so I just forgot all about the mage. Now I keep one around for Fireballs and MM only.

 

Maybe I'll just stick with the 5 I have. I wanted a 6th person for exporting to the sequel, but I can see after being away from it for a while how right you guys are.

Without a mage (considering my dual F/M won't be dualing for a while), I should packrat those potions and necklaces of missiles, yes?

 

I agree with what everyone else has said. In BG1, a mage is really there just for frills. If I want to be able to use wands and cast some basic spells, I usually will take a bard along. They can do all the basics, and they're more versatile in other areas in the game.

I also completely agree with what others have been saying in regards to when to dual class your characters. I highly recommend waiting if you are a fighter or a ranger until level 3, as you get an extra proficiency point, and you get another big hp boost. Likewise, I usually wait until level 4 to dual a thief, because again, you get that extra proficiency point, and also because level 4 is really the earliest level you can realisticly have a competent thief. Ideally, I take even longer before I dual-class, but then you run the risk of going through a large chunk of the game (including the Cloakwood Forest) with no thief, and that's not good.

 

It must be my playing Style but by the end of the game my Mages always have the biggest chunks of the kills and experience. I use them at times to flatten encounters so I don't have to waste my time So I don't know that they are there jsut for frills.

I've actually done a decent portion of the game with no real cleric in the party as well so I may not be the best judge of things anyway.

I can tell you that other than a thief for the traps(that you don't even get XP for) nothing really seems required. It can just make your game easier or harder on you depending on how much you power game and how you approach the tactics.

 

Heh, A buddy at school used to solo the game with human conjurer all the time, and he thought it was easier than going full party. Each one their taste i guess.

My cusin completed entire game with no cleric (hes human fighter had those 2 cure light wounds special abilities) and that as the only healing on the group.

Personally i have done without Thief many times, after you have played the game a fre times, you start to learn where ach trap is, and how deadly it is. So i just pick a warrior and make him step on it, he'll survive, and i cant heal him again

Heck, i have even played with no warriors on team, that was the thoughest yet, and i eventually gave up and picked up kagain, simply becose of efficiency.

In short, i think the game is doable in pretty much any way you want if your dedicated enough. Some might say you dont need a wizard, but personally my last wizard beat up Ogres 1on1 at level 1 all the time, so i wouldn't call them useless (All hail Blindness!)

 

Yep. I tend to play with two Wizards. What groups of adventurers I couldn't lure out one on one to do other nasty things to I used things like Charm or just outright fireballs and other things to flatten the whole group.

 

Well obviously, you can do without any one specific character class, as the game has been completed solo with probably every class. So even if you take a 3 classed multi-class, you're still going to be completely devoid of one class. As for soloing, the only character that I was to complete on solo with any efficiency was a fighter-thief, and that required a lot of hide/backstab techniques.

Then again, when you solo, your character (obviously) receives all of the experience. As a result you level very quickly, and typically you max out your character's xp total very early in the game, so I recommend soloers to get the XP cap remover.

 

I would use specialists instead of pure mages, the first one would get dualed to illusionist, the second to conjurer.

In my game Imoen was my only mage, dualed to illusionist from level6 at the start of chapter4.
I didn't need any potions or magic items with charges.
The only mage spell I missed at the beginning was identify.
But if you create a thief with 18 int and some wis she'll have some lore to soften the problem.

You can dual the ranger at level2, more profiency points than specialisation in warhammers and slings are wasted.

I'd dual like the following:

ranger2>cleric
cleric5>thief
fighter3>druid
thief6>conjurer
fighter3-5>illusionist

If you dual later, your party will be stronger at the end of the game, but I don't think that's your goal.