What is the ultimate party

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I like asking this particular thread so here goes. Please include any dualclassing, PC ideas and particular weapons or stats. baisically anything you find relevent. I'd prefer a good party but it isn't necessary.

 

For starters, you need a fighter, give him all the strong armor and close combat weapons, so he can attack as a tanker.
Next you need a Ranger, because in my opinion these are good with long-range weapons like bows/crossbows, put this one behind your fighter and give you foes a long-shot.
For stealing and sneak attacks, a thief would be perfectly suitable, how else you wan't to open the hundred's of locked chests and disable those nasty traps.
If you need healing, a cleric or druid would be a good choice, the cleric is also good at close combating, and the druid for long range with a sling.
And finally for the magic show a mage, you can choose a "normal" mage or a specialist one, although i prefer a normal one, for this is a good allrounder.
Remember that with each class, you should spend those points well.
Fighters will need strength, thieves dexterity, mages intelligence, etc, etc.
Well, with these characters you have a good beginning, but remember, there a lots of other options, try some partys with a serial-created party (a party made with multiplayer, but then you don't go online)

 

In my reply I'll go for the ranged weapons - heavy party:

You (dual-classed/multiclassed wizard, high dex)
Kivan
Coran
Imoen
Yeslick
Garrick

Garrik's useful, not too shabby dex, but give him wands and scrolls and you have a versatile bonus caster. With Garrick you won't actually have to be a wizard or a bard yourself.

You might go with a cleric, or a wizard/cleric as well, since you wont have a healer before Yeslick, but if you're careful with your healing potions, you don't necessarily need one.

Ranged weapons in combat need a little more tactics than just simple beating. Nothing beats an fast enough archer with plenty of enchanted arrows. The trick to win battles is not to get hit, and avoiding hand-to-hand combat negates a lot of potential damage.

 

good party would be

PC Mage
Kivan
Jaheira
Imoen
Minsc
your choice...id go with either Dynaheir or Branwen personally but it would work with anyone

 

Interesting question.
I bet most people will give lists that include most of the strongest players with 18+ strength and best skills.

I'll take another approuch.
My first game I had my PC Paladin with 18/9X strength and Minsc with his 18/93. So right away I had two tanks that could just rush in and kill all those kobalds/bandits/spiders/ogres/etc... with ease. It made the game boring after awhile.

I think the best party is one that offers a challenge. I have to role-play with my current party since the strongest one was my PC with strength of 17 (18 after chapter 6) then Kagain with 16. The rest of my party was combat weak and I had to be very careful early on. I actually had to learn how to use those level one spells in combat against groups of ogres and spiders. And I had to use those bottles of burning oil (fireball like spells) instead of selling them for money.

I think in the future I'll be taking some weak characters along every time to make things interesting. I don't really want a super-charged party were all six members are killing machines in BG1. In TOB that's OK since the foes are so strong, but in BG1 it's just boring.

 

I agree. Xan is one of my favorite NPCs, probably because of his low CON and limited spell selection. I also like Faldorn a lot, again, mostly due to her lack of armor and weapon choices. It's the flawed characters that require more planning and strategy, which is half the fun of the game.

 

I'm assuming you are asking for the most powerful party, not necessarily the most fun.

I think any ultimate party list has to include Khalid. He has an excellent constitution and strength, and with the gauntlets of ogre power, you're looking at a character with a minimum of 17 in strength, dexterity and constitution. Minsc also helps a lot with his exceptional strength score.

The rest is highly dependent upon who you play as your PC. I'd probably side with going with a R/C multiclass, as there are some not-so-great choices of clerics and druids. I'd fill out the remaining options by taking Imoen, and dual-classing her to a mage at level 4, taking Shar-Teel and dualling her to a thief at level 3 (that's when she gets her next proficiency point), and rounding out the party with Coran as my marksman.

 

I think the game is slanted for powerful good parties. Any powerful party will rely on missile weapons for the first round or two, then have a couple of tanks to occupy any who get close. Two mages also helps:

Dynaheir
Imoen (dualed to mage at level 6)
Kivan or Minsc (or Khalid if you want Jaheira)
Coran
Yeslick (or Jaheira if you want Khalid)
PC -- For this party a fighter-type will do nicely. I like paladins.

 

There are so many NPC in BG1 that you could spend all day comparing each one and after you finally decided on who to have in your group you could change your mind just because you like another NPC special ability over the one you initially decided on. This pretty much happens to me every time I play BG1. But I am going to do the best I can to give you an idea on who is who and where they fit within these categories: Tank, Range, Offensive Magic, Defensive Magic, Stealth/Sneak Attack, & Locks/Traps

Tanks: Characters that are up front fighters who can go toe to toe in melee combat.

Range: Characters that is proficient and deadly with ranged weapons.

Offensive Magic: Characters that can cause serious damage with magic

Defensive Magic: Characters that can cure and protect your group from damage.

Stealth/Sneak Attack: Characters that can cause serious damage with stealth with backstab

Locks/Traps: Characters that provide you the ability to open locks and find and remove traps.

Tanks:
Minsc: Exceptional strength and can wear all armors. I believe game designers made a mistake with Minsc. He should have been a fighter and not a Ranger. Equip him with the gauntlets of Dexterity (GoD) and he is one great tank to have in the front lines.

Kagian: While not the strongest warrior, he does offer one thing that all other can’t and that is he can regenerate HP while in battle. He also can wear all armors. Equip him with the gauntlets of Ogre Power (GoOP) and he is next to impossible to stop. He can become a master with axes.

Shar-Teel: Exceptional strength and good dexterity. She is slightly above Minsc because her dexterity is higher, the only issue with her she has a lower Constitution scores which reduces her HP total. She also has the ability to become a master from fighter specialization.

Jaheria: While many don’t consider her a tank she can be. When equipped with the GoD she can tank with the best of them. Her only draw back is her low strength score which can be increased by either using Dritz scimitar +3.

Kivan: Most players probably use him as a ranged character but if you pick him up early on and equip him with a good set of armor he can tank right up there with Minsc. His only draw back like Shar-Teel is his low constitution score.


Khalid: Most balanced Fighter in the game. His only lack is in strength and that can be easily fixed with the GoOP. He can become a master with large swords which can help out any party when it comes to tanking. My only grip with Khalid is he seems to coward from battle if his HP is reduced by 75% or more.

Ajantis: While not the most strongest of fighter he can keep up with those of that have exceptional strength when equipped with either the GoOP or gauntlets of weapon expertise. However due to his lack in dexterity it would be a better idea to equip him with the GoD.


Range:
Imoen: She is a nifty thief who has high dexterity and when equipped with a magical bow and bracers of archery (BoA) she can be quite deadly.

Kivan: Equipped with the BoA and a bow he is almost a dead sure shot.

Viconcia: Her exceptional dexterity makes her a great use for those ranged attacks. But her only draw back is that she can only use a sling.

Khalid: See Kivan.

Coran: The highest dexterity character in the game and a multi-classed character that has 3 stars in bows. Combine that with the BoA and he is the most deadly character when it comes to ranged attacks.

Shar-Teel: See Kivan.

Garrick: He may not be the best ranged character out there, but give him the BoA and the Marksman Long Bow and he can keep pace with Kivan.

Alora: See Imoen.

Minsc: Equip him with throwing axes or the return throwing axe. Not great with bow but can be formable with a good axe.

Jaheria: See Viconcia when equipped with GoD

Eldoth: See Garrick.

Offensive Magic:

Edwin: One of the best pure casters in all of the game. His special ability that gives him extra spells makes it hard not to pick him up, even with a good party.

Imoen: When dueled to a specialist mage she can keep up with Edwin but lacks the extra spell per a spell level.

Xan: While not as great as Edwin or even Imoen he can cast some spells of damage. Not the best choice but one that can still provide some offensive magic, if needed.

Garrick: From being a bard he can use some lower level mage spells and as every one should know Magic Missile is your friend in BG1 and given his ability to cast low level Mage spells he makes it here for simple quick offensive magic.

Xzar: See Imoen.

Quayle: His special ability makes him very useful with offensive magic. If he is in danger he can make himself invisible without needing to use one spell slot for a invisible spell. He also offers the few offensive cleric spells.

Eldoth: See Garrick

Defensive Spells:

Any cleric or Druid would work as a character to cast defensive spells. Some characters have special abilities that may make them better than others. One cleric that most players pick up is Yeslick and that is because of his special ability of dispel magic.

Stealth/Backstab

Shar-Teel: She can duel class to a thief and I highly recommend duel classing Shar-Teel if you want a character to go stealth and back stab the living day lights out of your enemies.

Imoen: She can be deadly with backstab but than you forfeit her find/remove traps and open lock thieving abilites.

Coran: His great stealth when you pick him up would make him ideal for backstabbing, however he does lack the strength to make it worth your wild. When you do equip him with the GoOP than his backstab ability truly shines.

Montaron: Not the best with backstab, but better than others. His damage bonus from his strength can be help as does his higher stats in stealth. There are only a couple better options but if you going for an evil group and would like to have a thief with a good stealth than Montaron is your man.

Skie: See Imoen

Safana: See Imoen

Alora: See Imoen

Locks/Traps:

Any thief will work here. Usually a thief you pick up earlier on you can assigned their skills points where you want and that would increase your chances of having higher thieving skill in open locks and find/remove traps.

As for the Ultimate party, it would all depend upon who you ask. For here, here is my ultimate party.

Tanks: Minsc & Jaheria
Range: Imoen, Viconcia & PC
Offensive Magic: Imoen & Edwin
Defensive Magic: Viconcia
Stealth/Backstab: PC
Locks/Traps: Imoen

 

Cleric/Ranger protagonist.
Kivan
Coran
Imoen dualled to Conjuror (I give her 5 Thief levels, you can go as high as 7 with TotSC installed)
Yeslick
Ajantis

Everyone can tank in this party, except for Imoen. Use ranged weapons a lot.

 

Q: What is the ultimate party?
A: No. Next question.

I came pretty close with my Archer party:

Elven Fighter
Imoen
Khalid
Jaheira
Kagain
Kivan

Give Jaheira some darts, Kagain the Crossbow of Speed, and everyone else a bow, and you can shoot down just about anybody before they reach you. Tazok couldn't even move at the Bandit Camp.

EDIT:
Of course, you could also just go by the canon party with Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc and Dynaheir. PC could be an F/C, either half-elven to fit age canon, or dwarven for saves and future regen with the tome of CON.

 

hey fel why no coran? can replace immy as a thief and he's a better acrcher.. just a suggestion

 

@w.d.:
Perhaps because I wanted a thief before, oh, Chapter Four?

Besides, if I'd had only five at the bandit camp, I never would have been to pull off that trick on Tazok. The idea was overwhelming missiles, and fewer just doesn't do it. Everybody in there except Kagain and Jaheira is pretty good with a bow; Jaheira is a necessary evil for the darts and healing, and Kagain gets AWESOME with the Gauntlets of Dex.

 

ah, good point
I usually keep immy around till chapter 4 myself

 

The strongest good aligned party at the TosC XPCap (161,000):

Gnome fighter/illusionist (melee and throwing axe, shield, maybe crossbow before chapter 6)
Imoen dualed to conjurer at level 6. (bow, longsword and shortsword)
Yeslick (war hammer,shield,sling)
Coran (bow,longsword)
Kivan (bow,halberd)
Khalid (bow,longsword)

A few opponents require blunt weapons to take damage.

 

I mostly agree with kmonster for pure "power". Coran, Kivan, Khalid & Imoen is invaluable.

You have warriors, some can double as tanks, you have thieves, and a spellcaster, usually enough in bg1. Only thing lacking is a cleric. Yeslick is a good choice, i just dont like multiclassed spellcasters myself (dual is okie). Pretty much own choise. you could play a fighter and go to level 3 and dual to cleric. or..or...or..... As long as you keep mostl to character good at ranged attacks, everything works fine