New party - game in progress

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I have already started my game, and got to the ice temple, but I thought I would post my parties stats, just in case anyone wants to comment.

Their ability scores may not be 100% accurate, I'm not sure I can remember all of them.

Anyway:

(abilities posted as strength/dex/con/int/wis/chr, and also posted as current with level 8)

1. Proteus, Aasimar Sorceror.
NG
8/12/14/16/10/22.

party spokesperson and damage dealer. mostly damage dealing spells, but also a few useful buffs like emotion: hope.

2. Imrahil, Aasimar Paladin 2/ Cleric of Ilmater X
LG
20/10/16/4/18/14.
Wields greatswords. Primary fighter, but also backup cleric. Actually, a pretty good cleric at that.
3. Ancalagon, Human Ranger 2/Rogue 1/Druid X
NG or CG (cant remember)
18/16/16/4/20/4.
Wears light armor and dual wields small blades. Will take 2 more rogue levels next to add another 1d6 sneak attack damage, as well as evasion. Doesnt disarm traps, just scouts and sneak attacks, and also not a bad fighter and druid.
4. Luthien
LG
18/10/16/4/20/16. Aasimar Cleric of Lathander.
Wears heavy armor, shield and mace.
There arent many undead encounters in the game, but she will make any of them downright easy. She may take a paladin level later on to benefit from her charisma even more, but for now she is my primary cleric, and not a bad fighter too.
5. Varda, Wild Elf Paladin 2/Sorceror X
LG
She uses a bow for ranged attacks in addition to her sorcery. The second paladin level makes her immune to fear, gives her a hefty HP boost, and a slightly better BAB (by one point admittedly, but sorcerors dont get BAB quickly).
6. Nakor, Drow Rogue 1/ Conjuror X
CG
10/20/16/22/6
Trickster, mage and trap disarmer, as well as knowledge store for identifying items. very useful character. Uses a bow, and the rapid shot feat.

This party probably wont be up to tackling HoF, but thats okay, I'm not sure I have the time!

 

For character 5, if you intend to remake, you may wish to drop both paladin levels. Imrahil already has the aura for the party boost.

Varda would probably benefit from getting higher level spells earlier, especially if you're not tackling heart of fire.

You can definitely drop 1 level of paladin, since the aura is handled by Imrahil. Imrahil is immune to fear anyways and can pop remove fear on Varda if necessary.

Removing paladin levels altogether removes the saving throw bonus, but that's not really critical until heart of fire. If you really want to get the paladin level, remove it, and put it back right b4 you complete the Cerat Sumat quest at the end of chapter 4. The life bonus, while nice, is traded for approximately a whole spell level of lag (e.g. if you're sorc lvl 4 w/ lvl 2 spells, you'd already have lvl 3 spells w/o paladin.)
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Char 3. Ancalagon only needs 1 level of ranger for the dual wielding benefits.

You may wish to either focus this character on rogue levels only for dual wielding, or focus on druid spells only. Splitting levels too much in normal mode could underpower your character. Only 1d6 damage of sneak attack isn't too big of a deal.

Focusing on rogue levels will give access to improved evasion, which is great, and slippery mind, which is nice, but not critical. Played properly, you can max rogue levels and continue to backstab everything. It seems if you can stun/hold an enemy, and get behind it, you can just train backstabs, but w/ only 1d6 worth of damage, it might not be worth it.

Druid spells are just cool. So I'd recommend focusing on rogues or druid levels.
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Nakor

I doubt you really need the rogue level. It would probably be better to shift all those wisdom points into intelligence. You need 19 anyways to get all of the spells, and for better difficult saving throws. The intelligence should cover the rogue skill points You might be a bit short for the cross class skills, but you can probably just trigger all the traps in the game w/ no serious loss. There's only 1 exception in chapter 4.

You may wish to replace the rogue level w/ a sorcerer level. You'll get the bonuses of wizard specialization with no penalty. If that's the case, you may wish to take transmuter levels for a quest later.

 

It's not that useful to have more than one character with more than one paladin level (one is enough for the holy avenger bonus anyway).

A Druid with only one Monk level is really great (the AC bonus works when shapeshifting and he would still get evasion). But I have misgivings about putting three levels in other classes for your druid, it won't help his spellcasting.

With 18 STR this character should wield a two hander for greater damage (two handers allow rogues to sneak attack with ease since you don't need to move around that much) I can't see the point of having him dual wielding (you dish less damage that way) unless you have some weapon that grants some bonus when wielded.

2 Rogue levels for 1D6 of Sneak Attack doesn't seem so effective. If you hadn't taken these levels his spellcasting would be much better. You could have skipped the Ranger level and taken a third Rogue level for an extra sneak attack dice iirc although I'd rather have better spells than a few sneak attack D6 (it's great when you go all the way, but going half way cripple both the sneak attacks and the spellcasting).

The most important thing is to have fun with your party and multiclassing can be fun but most of the time it decreases the efficiency of your characters.

 

Your party is rather a HoF than a normal mode party. Many spellcasters and also some mix-in which are nice in HoF but cripple the spell progression in normal mode. (a pity you won't be able to experience all the cool druid spells)
If you finish the game in normal mode (shouldn't be too difficult since you have a pure cleric and sorcerer) you shouldn't have problems in HoF mode either if you want to play it.

 

Thanks to both of you guys, some good tips.

I cant remember exactly why I decided on ranger/rogue/druid for ancalagon, but it went something like this:

I wanted a warrior druid build of some description, and though the bonuses of a ranger might be useful, ie ambidexterity and two weapon fighting when wearing light or no armor, and a racial bonus against a chosen enemy. I decided on small blades, because anything else makes your two weapon fighting BAB penalty rather large. the rogue idea came about because, in a role playing sense, he was the nature boy/ sneak attacker/ woodsman who could hide easily. when I discovered sneak attack could often kill an orc or an orc shaman outright, I thought another 1d6 might help for higher level monsters.

now of course, I guess that wont be enough for high level monsters, who would probably need a few extra d6s to kill. and maybe small blades arent the most damaging weapons, but if I change him from using two weapon fighting, I may as well drop the ranger level entirely (which I cant do without dale keeper).

I considered a level of monk, but I decided against it because light armor can often be pretty good, and its only as good as your wisdom is.

but, seeing as his wis is now 20, maybe its worth it.

I will consider dropping the character, adding a new one, then either levelling him up again (more or less a mule) or cheat to get him to level 8 again.

or just leave him.

 

The Monk WIS bonus is great for divine spellcasters since you can reach the bonus of a heavy armour and still get the DEX bonus (which can be increased with Cat's Grace or Draw Upon Holy Might). One Monk level gets +2 to all saves, the possibility of using Monk only items and Evasion.

I used to like having level 2 Rogues around but I must say Monks are just better when you're multiclassing a Cleric or a Druid.

In fact now I wouldn't even shapeshift a Druid without a Monk level since the AC can go down a lot (the Monk WIS AC bonus sure helps a lot).

As for Ancalagon, I would take the two extra Rogue levels and use him as a scout/sneak attacker with a few druidic abilities to boost the group or hinder their foes. The character already has 2 Ranger levels. He won't compete with your Sorcerer for blasting spells but he will be a solid support team member. Not a powergaming choice but fun nevertheless.

 

You don't need Dale Keeper to redo your party. Open up the configuration program and turn on the cheats console.

Go to your game, find the character you want to replace/update, write down the current experience, and dump the inventory on the ground. Update your party (the face icon in the bottom right), delete the character and make a new one. Cheat in experience one level at time if multiclassing, or just raise it all the way. Viola, new character, new build, etc.

This only doesn't work after you've finished the Banite and Paladin quests as you'll lose the stat bonus, but you're still in the Ice Temple. If you need the potion of transcendence, you can cheat that in.

If you feel bad doing so, it's not really "cheating", since you could technically do all this normally, just saving time right .

 

okay I remade him as a monk 1/druid 7.

I decided against the rogue and sneak attacking, because it takes a lot of rogue levels to be effective. so, I get better druid spellcasting instead.


thanks guys.

 

You'd really be missing out on one of the best Rogue abilities with a low INT also.

 

whats that?

 

The huge amount of skill points they get.