The Weakest Link

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Well, I'm pretty well set on my party, I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone has about any aspect of the characters, but for now, since I actually have seven, and I need to eliminate one, I'm going to skip the skills and feats until that is figured out. I'm open to any advice but my priority here is the elimination of one of the characters.

Oriseus Zora
Aasimar Fighter 4/Paladin X
STR 18, DEX 10, CON 18, INT 8, WIS 8, CHA 18
Tank with all weapon points in Large Swords

Keben
Half-Orc Fighter 4/Barbarian X
STR 20 DEX 16 CON 18 INT 4 WIS 16 CHA 2
Tank with weapon points in Axes (or Greatswords?), and Hammers

Sepoto Masambe
Human Monk
STR 18 DEX 18 CON 16 INT 3 WIS 18 CHA 3
I'd like this guy to be a Mage Killer, Sniper, Scout, and Tank

Nicos Nathos
Human Ranger(1)/Rogue X
STR 14 DEX 18 CON 14 INT 14 WIS 10 CHA 6
Obviously the Thief of the party. He will also be used for sneak attack, with dual short swords

Jatsu Oaksilver
Half-Elf Fighter 4/Ranger X (Mostly Archer/Scout)
STR 16 DEX 18 CON 14 INT 12 WIS 12 CHA 5
Similar roles to the monk, Mage Killer, Sniper, Scout, this character would be used often with Nicos the Rogue as a tag scouting team to take down magic users and infiltration and the like

Aeron Zora
Human Morninglord
STR 16 DEX 10 CON 16 INT 4 WIS 18 CHA 12
He's a cleric, he heals, and he’s a bombardier

Sandrue Stamaraster
Human Sorcerer (Possibly Aasimar?)
STR 10 DEX 12 CON 12 INT 16 WIS 8 CHA 18
This character is the leader of the party, and as such he needs a high int (perhaps even higher) to handle the skill load of Diplomacy, Alchemy, and all the caster skills to boot

So tell me watcha think, personally I'm having a real hard time wrapping my brain around leaving any of these guys in the dust, but it has to be done

 

Well, you're going to want to keep the cleric, sorcerer, and rougue for sure, and I believe you expressed an interest in the monk, so I would keep him as well.

It depends what your playing style is, but that leaves only the three characters with 4 Fighter levels to start to pick between.

Perhaps these can be combined somewhat. If you gave the rougue a few more levels of ranger, or even Barbarian so that his melee is better, or say, the ranger a few levels of Barbarian you might get a nice hybrid.

I can't really think of which hybrids to use because some of your ability scores are limiting (no monk/sorcerer for example). I haven't played this so I don't know which items you will gain.

Edit: I know it seems like I'm suggesting losing the Barbarian, but I'm not. You'll have to wait to see what others see as the most effective.

 

I'm thinking combine the Ranger and the Rogue, rather than having them as two separate characters. If the first two levels are Ranger, then you get a decent amount of HP, and the Dual-Wield/Ambidextery (since a Rogue won't be wearing medium or heavy armor anyway). You can pump skill points into Hide, and Move Silently, Search and Disable Device (I think that Move Silently and Search are also Ranger skills, so it's only one point to upgrade), and skip things like Wilderness Lore for the time being (you will need this later, but not for quite a while). This will give you a bit of a boost when you dual to Rogue at Level 3 (or Level 4, if the character is human or Half-Elf and won't take an XP penalty for more than a one-level difference between classes). Then you get to use all those lovely rogue skill points to make this the sneakiest ranger ever. Afterwards, you can do whatever you want (which is nice)-- continue increasing the sneakiness factor, or go with a few more levels of Ranger and add some spellcasting to whatever amount you desire. At least you might want to have a couple of spellcasting levels for the Ranger/Rogue-- you have no idea how useful it is to have two characters able to throw Entangle and Web in some of those ridiculously large battles (I have a Ranger(4)/Wizard(x) as well as a Druid(x)/Cleric(x) in my party-- they make a nice tag team to stop/slow enemy groups, especially when those groups are coming from more than one direction).

The other alternative, possibly a better one, is to lose the Ranger/Rogue entirely and go with a Monk of the Old Order, who gets a free dual to Rogue. I have one of these in my party, and boy oh boy is she a sneaky chick. She can also find and disable pretty much anything we've come across so far, because monks don't need skills in much of anything other than Hide, Move Silently, Search and Disable Devices. They don't talk, they don't cast spells and they don't use weapons, so most of the other skills are useless to them. I think I stopped adding Rogue levels at Rogue(3), since there's no reason to try for the Rogue's "special skills" (Monks get the Improved Evasion feat for free at Level 11 or so, I think) and most of the other useful feats (Crippling Strike, Arterial Strike, Hamstring, etc) are DEX based and can be taken at any time anyway, I think. At least, my monk does have them-- not that she uses them much.

So my advice is that, unless you plan to do a large amount of pickpocketing, a single-class Rogue (one level of Ranger does not a dual-class make ) is not really useful. There are sections of the game where there are a lot of traps and locked doors, and sneakiness is always good.

However, you're going to be opening the locked doors/chests and disarming the traps in "safe" areas (meaning that you would clear the area of enemies before moving and possibly triggering traps), in which case the searcher/disarmer could be anyone. Your sneaky scout is either going to have a look and get out of there (in which case it could be anyone, since there will be no fighting), or is going to decoy the enemy to swarm him/her, so the rest of the party can implement a kill-zone (in which case, the sneaky character needs to be somewhat tougher than a pure rogue is designed to be).

So it really comes down to what your party would find more useful for a rogue-dual-- more spellcasting capability (Ranger/Rogue), or better decoy capability (Monk of the Old Order).

That's what I think, anyway.

 

I'd ditch the fighter/ranger, though I really like rangers. Your rogue can be an excellent sniper and scout. You probably already know this, but make sure to start that character as a rogue for the skill points. Also, I'd drop the sorcerer's strength by at least 2 and add those points to int, dex, or con.

 

What I really need to know is how effective Sneak Attack is. I mean it seems to me that if a full rogue isn’t really needed and a few levels in the class and maxed out thief skills are enough, then the remaining purpose of the Ranger 1/Rogue X is as a damage dealer, using sneak attack. Now if I was to combine the Archer/Thief roles into one character, then that character would have a lot less rogue levels, and more fighter or ranger levels to make him more efficient with the bow.

I’m also not sure how situational sneak attack is. Like, instead of the rogue sneak attacking I could use the monk, who can deal plenty of damage himself, but how comparable is it to sneak attack? If I drop this character (the Ranger 1/Rogue X) then my party would look like this (simplified and in formation)

Fighter 4/Paladin X
Fighter 4/Barbarian X

Monk
Morninglord

Rogue 3/Fighter X (or however many levels of rogue that character would take)
Sorcerer

 

Sneak Attack is pretty neat, because it also applies when your character is flanking (to the side of or behind) an enemy that is attacking another character. This is useful when the party is being swarmed and you want the rogue to support a tank who's got too many to fight effectively, or a sorceror who's about to get sliced in two. If you think that's a strategy you might use a lot, maybe the best choice is to make the Monk a Monk of the Old Order and take the free dual and a few levels of Rogue (to get the SA damage up), then just upgrade the Monk most of the way. That way the SA character has some melee strength to survive such maneuvers. I have such a small party (only 4), that I don't have much choice but to use the Monk as a decoy and wade the Tank into the swarm, while the magic users cast various area effect spells. Alternatively, the monk can also hide, sneak into the enemy camp (because she's also a Rogue) and take out (at least one) enemy spellcaster(s) before they have a chance to do anything.

But again, the thing about a pure Rogue is that they have to run away immediately after doing anything like that, because they can't survive the swarm, given that all of the enemies will attack that character, and enemies can be hard to distract once fixed on the first party member to attack them. If you want to use the Rogue as a ranged fighter, the SA is pretty useless, unless you want to hide him/her, use another character to decoy the enemies to attack, and then shoot them in the back with crossbow bolts. You could do that, of course.

It really depends on how you want to play the party as a whole, or, how the party plays out in practice. IWD2 is really all about making these choices somewhat arbitrarily, and then working out a strategy that maximizes the party's strengths, whatever they may be.

If you feel like you want to have a heavy contingent of ranged weapons, then do so and don't worry about Sneak Attack. Give somebody some points in Hide and Move Silently, or a few Potions of Invisibility and send them in to assassinate whoever, while your archers shoot away, and use your Rogue/whatever to open locks, disarm traps and pick pockets. Or, heck, get the Knock, and Find Traps spells for your Mage and Cleric, respectively, and skip the Rogue entirely (unless you're big on picking pockets).

If you feel like you want your Rogue to be more ninja-like, and spend a lot of time in the thick of things, then a Monk of the Old Order so far has proved really good for that.

No character will be able to do everything as perfectly as you might want (choosing to focus on some skills means that other skills will be lacking), and no party is perfect-- but most any party can be a well-oiled machine capable of handling anything the game will throw at it. But like all machines, you can only design it so far before its own internal logic takes over and it becomes clear how your party machine works most efficiently.

Discovering this logic for yourself, based on how the general design decisions you're making now work in actual practice, is a lot of the fun of this game. So relax, try something, and play it !

 

I’ve done some more thinking, and I think I’ve devised a balance between the whole physical/spell casting, a way to maximize my characters and not spread them thin. If I go with this party, the monk will be eliminated.

Oriseus Zora
Aasimar Fighter 4/Paladin X
STR 18 DEX 10 CON 18 INT 8 WIS 10 CHA 16
-Tank #1

Keben
Dwarf or Half-Orc Fighter 4/Barbarian X
STR 18 DEX 14 CON 20 INT 6 WIS 14 CHA 4 (if Dwarf)
-Tank #2
Shield Dwarf or Half-Orc?
I know I said I don’t like the short races, but I forgot that I love to play dwarves

Aeron Zora
Human Morninglord
STR 14 DEX 10 CON 16 INT 8 WIS 18 CHA 10
-Healer, Bombardier

Thazar-De Nathandem
Tiefling Ranger/Rogue (Rogue 10/Ranger X or Ranger 5/Rogue X?)
STR 14 DEX 20 CON 14 INT 14 WIS 10 CHA 6
-Thief, Scout, Mage Killer, Sniper
This character will be an archer but he will jump into combat and sneak attack with small blades/weapon finesse when the opportunity arises. Hopefully with 14 in STR and CON, he can handle scouting missions solo, at least if he’s buffed.

Fighter would allow me to go with bow specialization, but Ranger would help with Hide/Move Silently upgrades when I’m taking levels in it, also there’s Wilderness Lore to consider. How useful is Wilderness Lore?

Meleghost Gedreghost
? Wizard
STR 10 DEX 14 CON 14 INT 18 WIS 10 CHA 10
-Bombardier, Summoner, Loremaster, Alchemist
This character would take a lot of the load off of Sandrue, by taking care of Knowledge, Alchemy, and Summoning.

Not sure on race, Human is cool but would be behind on scrolls, I’m open to anything, even multiclassing, for this build. I was thinking of choosing a Ranger (or Druid) over this character, but as far as I can see based on the rest of the party, the summoning (Druid can summon but not as good as a Wizzy) lore, and alchemy are more important.. It’s something to think about though.

Sandrue Stamaraster
Human Sorcerer
STR 10 DEX 12 CON 14 INT 14 WIS 8 CHA 18
-Bombardier, Diplomat
Thus leaving Sandrue free to focus on Diplomacy, Bluff, and Evocation.

I lowered the INT so I could raise the CON since I wont be needing as many skill points anymore, but is 14 INT optimal for a Diplomat?

 

Wilderness Lore is not always useful, but when it is, it's essential. I'm only at the end of Chapter 3, but so far, it was a bit helpful in the middle of Chapter 1 (but doesn't need to be terribly high at that point), and irreplaceable throughout much of Chapter 3 (should be quite high for this section). So you will need it, but not right away.

As for scouting-- well, a scout shouldn't need to fight, so the STR and CON is not so urgent unless s/he is no good at hiding and keeps getting swarmed by enemies without meaning to. Not that having a bonus to STR and CON is ever a bad idea .

Also, there's not much point in levelling this character to Ranger(5) with such a low Wisdom that s/he can't cast any spells. You might as well just do Ranger(1) (for the automatic feats) or Ranger(3) (for the extra HP), rather than going past level 4 Ranger, since there's no benefit when you could be getting more Rogue skill points (some of which cross Ranger skill points anyway).

I don't know that I would get so concerned about Lore and Alchemy. In practice, I've found that while it's nice to be able to identify certain weapons, ammo and potions on sight, unless your lore skill is astronomical, many items (like armor and really good weapons) will need either an Identify spell or a professional (storekeeper or temple) to ID them anyway. Since I always sort my loot in safety (after clearing the area of all enemies, or by going to a designated rest area), it's not a problem to remove all of my first-level wizard spells, load up with Identify, rest, identify everything, set up my regular combat spells and rest again. It's tedious, but I certainly would rather do that than spend Skill Points in Alchemy, when I could be spending them in Concentration or Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate or Hide/Move Silently (depending on how you want to use the character). Maybe I just haven't been finding the kind of potions that I'm grateful to have Alchemy to identify, but since Alchemy doesn't allow you to make potions, I find it pretty useless.

You might want to consider dualling with Ranger for this character if you think you want to dual-- s/he won't be able to cast Ranger spells with such a low Wisdom, but will get Bow Focus, the Ambidextery/Two Weapon fighting feats, more HP and the ability to wear Medium Armor (use the Armored Arcana feats to reduce the chance of spell failure). Or you could take a couple of points out of INT and put them into Wisdom-- my Ranger(4)/Wizard(10) can only cast 2nd-level Ranger spells as well, (WIS 12) and not many of them, but it's good enough (but I have a full Druid in my party as well).

But why do you say that as a human, the character would be "behind on scrolls"?

I think it's good enough. There are at least a couple of encounters that I know of where an INT of at least 14 gives you some extra dialogue options, leading to extra XP or loot (or both). There are a couple of similar encounters that require a similar WIS, iirc.

The game does try to be very fair about giving special opportunities to as many skills as possible, as well as to the various classes and races, and to utilize most of the skills available.

 

You have quite much fihting power there and a cleric to heal and turn undead, so I'd lose the paladin. Paladins are boring with their morals. (I always play chaotic party )