So far I've got:

Gnome Thief/Illusionist.
_Swiss army knife of the party. High charisma+friends spell+NG alignment = possibly best barterer you can get. Can use invis and scout/detect at same time. Bonus spells from 19 int and specialist. A bit weak for combat but I like the convenience the character adds.

Half-Elf Ranger/Cleric.
The clobberer. Cleric buffs, 18/00 strength(I spam reroll like a gambling addict), and an extra attack/round.

Elf Fighter
19 Dex and pure fighter = super THACO archer, and good up front in a pinch as well.


Now, I know in IWD we don't get free spells as we level for mages, so I'm wondering if I should add one(or two?) more characters to make sure my Thief/Illusionist isn't hitting a point where he can't find scrolls to match his spell progression. And if so, what would compliment this party best? Was considering a fighter/mage, or maybe include a druid? I hate rolling attributes for dual class druid though due to the damned charisma requirement.

One thing you can do is instead of constantly rerolling stats for starting characters, you can enable the cheat console, bring in those books that increase stats and do it that way. Dale Keeper is also an option but I never used it.

Also, in IWD1, high int does NOT get you bonus spells, the manual is wrong in that regard. The only different between a mage with 19 int and lower (say 15 int) is the lore value. If you have a mage with 15 int and you hit your maximum number of scribable spells, chug that potion that adds plus 4 to to int and scribe away. When the potion wears off, you will not see any difference in their performance (barring a minor lore value difference).

As for your party, you've got the essentials covered so any other character you add really won't change a lot. A ftr/druid would be a great addition but I think a bard would also fit into that setup nicely as well. Fill his spell book with summoning spells or other spells cast before combat, then during combat, he can swing a weapon, shoot missiles or sing. So can also consider a paladin as well if your single class fighter is going to be sticking with the bow. Make sure your pally is proficient with axe, long sword and any one handed blunt weapon (I mace or hammer would be my picks) and you'll also have another flexible character that can tank, use ranged weapons (the axe) without worrying about ammunition as well as cast a few spells.

Part of the fun in this game is playing with imbalanced parties and figuring out how to move forward. Right now, I'm playing a party of 5 pure fighters and 1 ftr/thf on insane mode with some self imposed restrictions, ie, no sleeping for 47 days in a dungeon to heal up, all healing must be done with potions or paying for temple services. No spell casting whatsoever except for potion buffs and spell effects from magical items. I just finished Dragon's Eye, my finances have taken a beating, I've cleared Oswald out of his most useful potions (used most of them too) but I'm still in the game :). If I can do this, your party of 4 won't have any trouble :)

In Dragon's Eye, you find the Messenger of Sseth which is the best bow in the game and it has a modest strength requirement of 12. No need to use composite bows at all once you get this bow :).

Your double class characters get their class levels exactly as fast in a party of 3 as single class characters would in a party of 6.

Working through with a 4 person party. Had to retreat since I need +1 weapons :P
Over all I am liking it though sometimes I find the swarms of skeletons overwhelming. You might want to have a human in your mix. I am liking 4 characters more than 6 for pathing reasons (BG2 pathing can be sooooo annoying.)

My current build

- Dwarven Fighter Cleric
- Elven Fighter Theif
- Gnome Fighter Illusionist
- Human Paladin

In my head the Dwarf and Gnome are married. I hope to use them in subsequent playthroughs.

If I recall, you can get one +1 weapon from the starting village.
Also, you do remember you have turn undead ability? :D

Further also, 3 of your 4 characters level up slower than in a "normal" party of 6.
Not a big deal, as all being fighter types does give some extra oomph.

I know of the multiclass penalty, that is why I stuck to a smaller party. If I wanted to level up faster I would have turn up the difficulty since XP scales :P (Fighters-Clerics are so much better at hitting things than pure clerics also.)
That and turn undead only really is useful when you can chunk the buggers in my opinion, otherwise you're losing out on a fighter.

That yeah. Last time I played IWD1 was a solo play with a human dual classed fighter cleric.
First... was it 5 levels or so... as a fighter, sleep 2 weeks to heal lol.

But after I got the cleric mojo working, it was hilarious to meet undead.
Some 5 levels higher than expected, a bunch of vampires attack and ... BOOOM BOOM SPLATTER!!! :D

Anyway, what I thought was crowd control.
In a tougher fight, getting even a part of them to wander away, even for a little while, can make all the difference.

Ummmmmmmmm, there's no vampires in IWD

There isn't?

Welll.. must have been something much similar.
Ghouls at least (and those are way bad when soloing, one freeze and your dead) but.. what were the worst undead things in that temple at the end of that ice valley?

And what were those pretty bad undeads in that one place ... where you got after dealing with that one wizard... that place with mechanisms and thingies... mummies?

Urh, can't remember ...

The Vale of Shadows? There's the ghasts that could stun party members. Some also required magical weapons to hit (which only a few party members would have). I forget the name exactly but it was a ghast with a lighter colour scheme. Yeah, successful hit and it's game over for a single character party. The wights also cast magic missile on party members (5 magic missiles on low level party member = serious ouchie)

Personally, I think the worst part for undead in the game were the cold wights in Dragon's Eye. They did both slashing and cold damage, required magic weapons to hit (which at that time, you could only melee them) and swarm you as soon as you enter the area. My all fighter party almost didn't make it through. I used all 3 of Oswalds fire oil potions just to break into the area and used his 3 oil of speed and frost giant strength potions to clear the area to Presio. If I didn't finish off Presio and his gang before the potions wore off, I wouldn't have been able to get gold to continue as at that point, I completely ran out of gold (all healing is done by temple services and potions, no resting for 100 days cheese). This is on insane mode too.

Can't say. It's been many years since I played it "properly", the last time was.. hmmm.. last year, or the year before that, and it was just an experiment and I gave up before the end.

Anyway, with 6x experience for one character, he went through the roof. I think he was at max level when I quit. So.. probably when I met those cold wights, they just blew up like the rest of the undead.

If I recall, It was rough in the very beginning, then again when meeting those paralyzers, and then dead easy until hitting the level cap, and even then didn't get too challenging... though the end might have been difficult, don't know because of quitting.