Hello, I recently started icewind dale 2 and would like to know what would be a good team setup. For example, should I just do like my party in IWD (2 fighters, one cleric, one druid, one wizard and one rogue) or are some classes now more recommended than others. I am not looking for the perfect team, but just a basic one that will get me through since this is my first time experimenting with the 3.5 rule set.

I have noticed that now skills are available to all classes for example, so I don't know if I need a rogue.

For now, what I have in mind is 2 fighters, 1 sorcerer and one "battle" cleric. I need help to choose the other two. Or if you have a better team just tell me.

The reason I am asking this is because I know IWD is mostly combat, as such, I do not want to be stuck with a team that will struggle too much, but I also do not want a team that will breeze though the content.

Thanks a lot!

Your current setup is fine. Will you be looking at keeping your characters pure class or will you be willing to consider mixing in classes?

If your willing to mix in classes, I would definately give the rogue 4 fighter levels for weapon specialisation for his/ her prefered weapon (in my case, usually a bow or sling). The rogue also gets a lot of feats so if you want, you can also built him as a dex fighter with weapon specialization in 2 weapons with the maximized attacks feat. Also, with10 rogue levels, the character has the option of picking the improved evasion feat which is an excellent feat, especially if your casters are throwing AOE spells everywhere. The rogue may be less crucial than in IWD1 but they are still good characters to use.

For your front liners, I would consider using barbarians as they get a hit point bonus, rage ability and damage restistance at higher levels. Pure class fighters just gain more feats. If you want some kind of weapons master that can specialize in any weapon he finds, yeah, keep the pure class fighter. I tend to prefer 4 fighter / X barb builds weilding two handed weapons for front liners. 4 fighter / X paladin of helms are also good but only later in the game.

There are a few ways to go about the druid. Keep them pure class and focus on magic feats like SF: Evocation and Transmutation and elemental feats (minus the acid one), or you can have 4 fighter levels for specialisation in a melee weapon (spear would be my pick), power attack, cleave and focus on transmutation magic (and scion of storms when it comes available). Both of these builds work very well though they do play quite differently. Theoretically, you could also have 4 fighter levels for specialisation in a missile weapon and focus on evocation magic but I don't think this is the best use of a druid.

The same applies for the cleric too but I tend to pick feats around a clerics domain spells simply because if I don't, all my cleric end up being the same. By battle cleric, are you refering to using a Battleguard of Tempus or simply a cleric who will be on the front lines? In IWD1, I found single class clerics the second most useless class in the game, in IWD2 however, the trade offs between picking a pure class cleric and a 4 fighter / X cleric aren't so obvious. If a pure druid in is your party, a 4 fighter / X cleric build will work very well as the druid can also memorize a few healing spells to make up for the shortfall the fighter / cleric will have. However, at the end of the game (136000XP), my pure class druid could cast level 9 spells, my 4 fighter / X cleric could only cast up to level 7 (and only 1 of them). Even today, I still have mixed thoughts on this kind of trade off.

If you just recently started IWD2, I would recommend taking a specialist wizard over the sorceror. The reason for this is (keep in mind I'm just assuming here) is you came to the forum looking for ideas on a party setup so I'm assuming there are things about the game you aren't familiar with, this will include spells. If you aren't sure what spells will work in IWD2 or what spells suit your play style, you can gimp your sorceror quite easily. Point a gun to my head and tell me to recommend you an arcane caster, I would recommend a necromancer or a diviner instead. Necromancers can't cast enchantment or illision spells which to me is a good trade off for an extra spell per level. I don't really like enchantment magic anyways and there is only one good spell in the illusion school (mirror image) but the loss of that spell can be easily worked around. A diviner will also be a good choice because they only lose one magic school, conjuring, and the only good spell I miss there is "flame arrow". Other spell schools have summoning magic anyways and some of them are quite good, even better than the conjouring school ones. By choosing a necromancer or diviner, you will be able to scribe scrolls, try a lot of the spells out and get a better feeling which spells are good and which ain't so good. Finally, at the end of a normal game, your characters should be around 17 character levels (or 136000XP), assuming both your wizard and sorc are humans, the wizard will have 11 feats while the sorc will only have 7 (though they will have an extra feat in missile weapons) which means you will have to consider how they are going to be spent. Sorcerors are great characters, but you have to know what you are doing with them because with low spell selection, feats and skill points, they are very easy to gimp.

Just to give you an example, the 2nd level spell "horror", isn't a stellar spell late in the game, but early game, it is very useful. Spend a feat (or two) in Spell focus: Necromancy and horror can still be used much later in the game than you thought possible. Early game, "horror" will look like a good spell, so you pick it for your sorceror, but later in the game, a wizard can choose different spells to memorize instead, sorcerors will be stuck with it. Even when wizards won't be using "horror", they will still have other necromancy spells they can use with those feats, the sorceror may not. In the case of the necromany school, except for the skull trap spell. a sorcerer will have to wait much longer than a wizard for the good necromany spells. For a beginner, I would still recommend the flexibility of a wizard over a sorceror. The first time I played IWD2, I used a sorc and at the end of the game was so gimped, I would probably be laughed off the forums.

Essential for a comfortable playthrough are an arcane caster (sorcerer or (specialist) wizard) and a cleric who level as fast as possible. The rest is optional.

I recommend a sorcerer, spontaneous casting is great. Don't worry about the limited choice of spells to select, as a wizard you won't cast as many different spells as you can learn as sorcerer and you also have the option to cast from scrolls. Just choose wisely.

Priest deity isn't too important, just make sure your cleric isn't bad aligned, spontaneous healing is very useful.
I like battleguard of Tempus the most, only cleric spells as domain spells and the axe feats are useful.

A big difference compared to the previous IE games is that there aren't any items which set stats to a certain value, they raise the stats by a certain amount instead.
Warriors aren't as important in IWD2 as in IWD since the other classes get extra attacks now too.
There are more monsters than in IWD and they have far more HP (and some have damage reduction which subtracts damage from every attack), so make sure you can do damage fast, max strength for everyone you want to do physical damage (fighter, thief, ...) , else they'll feel useless compared to the casters and the game will feel slow.

Druids are useful, they can improve the party AC with barkskin and they offer additional options like pumping them up with as many lightning bolts and static charges as possible and watch them go off, free to so other stuff. They're best kept pure class.

Bards are also useful, with lingering song their singing is now 3 times as powerful as in IWD. They greatly increase physical damage output and help to defend versus attacks and spells.

I'm not a fan of pure fighters in IWD2, their bonus feats help the most in the beginning but get less and less useful since when the best ones are taken the remaining ones aren't that useful any more.
Other classes improve more at higher levels, casters get more powerful spells and barbarians get damage reduction every 3 levels after 10 for example, granting a better feeling of improvement. But pure fighters are playable nevertheless, besides maxed str take at least 13 dex since you need this for some of the best feats.

For traps/locks there are many options to handle. Locks can be bashed with a buffed strong character (or druid shapeshift) or opened with the knock spell.
Traps can be triggered and the damage taken, if you want to handle them properly without rogue level you need a character with high int since the int modifier both affects the skillpoints at level up you get and the search and disarm skill directly.
High int is needed by (specialist) wizards, so you could use a transmuter or diviner for this. Very popular is starting with a a rogue level for better skills.

Pure rogue works too, at level 15 rogues (and priests) get the 3rd attack per round just like fighters at level 11 and you get a sneak attack bonus every 2 levels and bonus feats starting at level 10, make sure strength is maxed for doing damage.
An option is mixing in a single barbarian level for free weapon proficiencies.
Another possibility is mixing in 4 fighter levels for weapon specialization or a single paladin level so you get the paladin dialogue options.
If you add 1-4 rogue levels to a fighter or another warrior class it slows down the attack progression by only one level.
If you mix rogue with another class always start with a rogue level for the extra skillpoints.

Alright, so what I decided to do is:

2 fighters swtich to barbs at level 4
1 cleric
1 sorcerer
1 druid
1 rogue switch to wizard next level.

Should I be alright?

You'll do fine, basics are covered the rest is optional.

Personally I'd switch the rogue to specialist wizard (transmuter or diviner) instead of pure wizard for the extra spell per day since there's already another arcane caster but I understand if you want to have a character who can scribe all scrolls.

When specializing your fighters choose the big weapons, 1-handed weapons don't even get close to 2-handed swords, greataxes or halberds in terms of damage output.

Just to add a little to Kmonsters post.

The reason for picking a transmuter is because theres a mini quest in the underdark that requires a transmuter to do, other wizards can't do the quest. If it wasn't for this quest, I wouldn't consider a transmuter because they can't cast necromancy spells, a spell school I swear by. If you want to do this quest, by all means, pick the transmuter. I won't say anymore here as I'm getting close to spoiler territory here.

As Kmonster said, the pure wizard will be able to scribe all the scrolls giving that character the ulminate in flexibility. You probably won't miss the extra spell per level because you have both a sorc and a druid anyways. Whether you switch your rogue to a transmuter, diviner, pure wizard or necromancer is entirely your personal preference. Neither is a bad choice and arguing over the differences between the four would just be splitting hairs.

Would you switch the druid for something else ?

The druid is fine. Not as essential as the sorcerer or cleric but can still contribute valuable assistance. Druids start with polearm proficiency, the arctic boar shapeshift at level 5 is quite powerful and for ranged combat just give a sling (other weapon options later), 14+ dex and the rapid shot feat to him. With GSF transmutation and scion of storms the static charges are even more damaging.

I wouldn't, but that's because I really like druids in this game, they are very flexible, can cover a variety of tasks and have a place in any party. However, there's a few ways you can go about them. My last druid didn't have the best stats but thats because I had roleplay in mind for that character. She had the following stats but still did very well:

Race: Human
Str:14 (13 at the start of the game)
Dex:18
Con:14
Int: 10
Wis:21 (18 at the start if the game)
Cha: 3

Feats: Spell Focus: Evocation and Transmutation (both maxed), Spirit of Flame, Scion of Storms and Aegis of Rime (This feat was picked right at the end of the game).

As you can see, I didn't pillage intelligence but thats because I wanted skill points for wilderness lore. WIlderness lore isn't an essential skill by any means. actually, it's borderline useless as it's only used in one area of the game and you can always check a walkthrough online if you get stuck. Also without plundering intelligence, I was able to pick the 3 elemental magic feats by the end of the game but Aegis of Rime isn't essential, you could always swap that feat out for rapid shot that Kmonster suggested (which IMO, is the better option).

I don't know if you would consider this powergamey (druids aren't exactly a powergamey class), but this setup would work better than the one I had above.

Race: Human
Str:16
Dex:18
Con:18
Int: 3
Wis:18
Cha: 3

Feats: Spell Focus: Evocation and Transmutation (both maxed), Spirit of Flame, Scion of Storms and Rapid Shot

With this setup, you won't have access to the elemental feats until you have 14 skill points in spellcraft so fitting the rapid shot feat in this build is quite easy (and better from my build above). Don't pick rapid shot right away though, I would max the spell focus feats first. Kmonster suggested the druid has other options for missile weapons later but I would just stick with the sling.

Another option you have with a druid (but not suggested for your party setup) is orient them towards melee by alternating between druid and fighter until the fighter reaches level 4.

Race: Human
Str:18
Dex:16
Con:18
Int: 3
Wis:18
Cha: 3

Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Polearm specialization, dodge, Spell Focus: Transmutation, improved criticals, scion of storms, + 1 filler feat (I took luck of the heroes).

With this build you pump up strength instead of wis because here, we are only focusing on this druids spells up to level 5 (for static charge), we don't need the extra wisdom like a pure druid would. However the problem with this build is because of the low intelligence and sacrificing 4 druid levels for 4 fighter levels, we won't be able to get scion of storms as early as we'd like (we either have to pick between scion of storms or improved criticals, which ever you pick, the other one won't be available until near the end of the game). Theres also the issue of your party having the cleric on the front lines. If your cleric is on the front lines, you won't need another character there so you probably won't want this build (4 characters on the front lines is a crowd) but it is still a good one that I have tested.

My reasons for having a 4 ftr / X druid was because call lightning and static charge while very powerful, aren't the most reliable of spells. Sometimes, my pure druid was too far away from the enemy and the call lighting / static charge ended up fizzling. I also didn't want the enemy to lock on to the druid either so I didn't move her up closer to the front lines (con was a little low). The above character will aways be on the front lines where the 2 lightning spells work more reliably. Also, spells like thorn spray (awesome spell) and frost fingers (crap damage, but slowing enemies before the 3rd level wizard spell comes available is good) are to be used when close to the enemy which is where this druid is supposed to be and they are both transmutation spells which this druid will be relying on. However, keep in mind this druid build is first and foremost a frontliner, not a spellcaster.

Anyways, keep the druid, I like em and I hope you will too ;)

Your party looks good. I'll just add my 2 cents in that I'm not a Druid fan in this particular game, and would switch that out for a Bard. Totally personal preference though. Overall, both are probably equal as far as what they bring to the party.

I’m having good luck, and more importantly lots of fun, with this party:

Aasimar fighter (4)/Paladin of Mystra (x). Don’t recall why I chose Mystra, had to choose something and that sounded like the best option. Greatsword and crossbow

Drow Rogue (1)/Conjuror (X) I give the thieving feats some attention but focus on concentration. He is a decent buffer. Good with a bow and a sword

Human Morninglord of Lathandar (X) She is fond of bludgeoning

Shield Dwarf Battleguard of Tempus (X) She buffs up and can dish it out with axes and can take a beating

Aasimar Sorcerer (X) focus in Evocation. She loves to play with fire.

Human Sorcerer (X) focus in Transmutation and Evocation. I call him Mr. Stinking Cloud.

Good balance of tanks and lots of BOOM!

A version of the Powell Doctrine works for this game. Rest between areas and go in with overwhelming force. Rinse and repeat. Hasn’t gotten tedious so far.