Apologies if this clutters up the forums, but the other threads I looked through didn't really clear up some of the things I'm confused/curious about.

I've owned IWD2 for quite a while now, but I never got particularly far in it due to issues of not really knowing what I was doing and the game's general difficulty (to put it bluntly, I'm a scrub). While I understand certain things well enough (I was able to understand KOTOR2 and what its characters served, for example), I have trouble designing a team with skills and abilities well enough that make me fully confident in going out into the game.

The team I last used was what I've basically outlined in my head, so I'll write it up here for any advice you all can give. I'd be open to recommended starting builds, outright class swaps, etc etc:

- A Monk. Primarily a damage dealer, not quite a tank but sort of. Mainly this guy stems from the fact that I love martial artist characters and the oh-so-enticing bonuses he'll get at higher levels. I don't really know what to do with him beyond pummeling things into the ground, though. I've thought about swapping him out for a Ranger. High Wisdom, Strength, and Constitution, slightly lowered Charisma and Dexterity.

- A Sorcerer. The primary spellcaster of the team. The main issue is that her spells don't really seem to do much, she can't cast many of them, and her low HP makes me nervous (especially since Burning Hands requires getting up close and personal). I'd kind of want to make her into a mage/fighter combo to beef her up, though multiclassing isn't on my plate until later in the game. High Charisma, Intelligence, and Dexterity, slightly lowered Constitution and Strength.

- A Fighter. The primary tank and combatant. Ambidexterity, Two-Weapon Fighting, and a pair of swords a good mercenary makes. He's one of the choices I have absolutely no problems with, and frankly I'm guessing that nobody will object to having a fighter along anyway, for obvious reasons. High Strength, Dexterity and Constitution, low Charisma and slightly lowered Wisdom and Intelligence.

- A Cleric. Frankly I'm on the fence about the Cleric, because even though I know they're the best at healing, her strength generally isn't enough to carry much (equipment or otherwise), which hurts the fact that she can wear heavy armor and use good weapons. I've thought about swapping her out for a Druid with ranged attacking and more spell variety. I'd gladly take suggestions on builds for this one. High Constitution, Intelligence and Wisdom, slightly lowered Strength and Constitution.

- A Bard. Basically the diplomat of the group. Never had much trouble with the bard unless we got swarmed, and that wasn't often anyway. Sang at all times in battle. High Charisma and Wisdom, slightly lowered strength.

- A Rogue. Just as a precaution, mainly because I know that there's no possible way we aren't going to encounter traps, locks, and devices of all sorts along the way. He used bows and was okay in battle, though I generally gave him Hide and Move Silently for being the scout. High Dexterity, Intelligence, slightly lowered Strength.

I'll admit, this is my first real entry into a game like this. KOTOR2 and 1 were one thing, since the characters were all precreated and their roles were blatantly obvious in the game's context, but creating a whole team from scratch is a totally different ballgame to me.

Monks aren't the greatest class in the game, although there are a number of Monk-only items to be found. Don't use him as a primary tank though. As a secondary meleer, you should be okay though. Problem with Monks is they suffer from MAD (Multiple Attribute Dependency), as they need high WIS and DEX for a decent armor class, high STR and moderate CON if they want to melee and actually do damage and survive.

What you could do is give him one of the rings of WIS that you can find and concentrate on pumping his DEX for better AC or STR for better damage. Use items/spells to buff the other attribute. Sorcerers don't get a lot of spells per level, but they get a good amount of castings per rest cycle. Don't choose spells that require her to get in close. As you noticed, this just leads to big problems. Take things like Magic Missile, Grease, Chromatic Orb, etc. Don't go with high INT unless you're using her as your party 'face', in which case you'll need a high INT for the skill points. Otherwise, lower INT and go with maxed CHA, some DEX, and some CON. Use a ranged weapon like a crossbow or sling when she's out of spells. I'd go with a two-hander for this guy. You get 1.5x your STR modifier when using a two-handed weapon and don't suffer the 'to hit' penalty that you do when dual wielding. Go with max STR, good CON, and some DEX. Heavy armor. Druids kind of suck in IWD2. Stick with the Cleric. Best thing is to decide if you want her to be a melee Cleric or a casting Cleric. If the former, go with just enough WIS to be able to cast the spells you want. High STR, decent CON. Lower your DEX to 12 or so. That way you can wear heavy armor without issues, use spells to buff for melee (as well as do some healing), and deal some damage.

For a casting Cleric, concentrate more on high WIS for lots of spells, as well as being able to cast the odd offense spell as well. Moderate CON, decent DEX. You can keep STR low (just high enough to wear heavy armor if you want). You can use a STR buff to be able to carry more if you need to.

You don't need high INT. If she's Human, 10 is plenty, since the only skills you really need to bother with are Spellcraft and Concentration. I love Bards, but not because they're particularly lethal in battle. Problem with the IWD2 Bard is the incredibly low number of skill points per level for a class that's supposed to be moderately skilled. Go with enough CHA to cast the spells you want, moderate INT (for the extra skill points if using as the party face). Moderate DEX, so you can be reasonably effective with ranged weapons at need. great as a secondary caster as well. A decent set-up for this one. I'd recommend taking Fighter levels as well, so you get some extra feats, which you can use for ranged weapon feats like Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Point Blank Shot. With Fighter, you'll also get access to more weapon choices. I use a FTR/Rogue in my IWD2 runs and set him up as a bow specialist. Very effective. Nothing wrong with your set up. With a few tweaks, I think you can rock it. Of course, there are a ton of different ways you can set up a party, but as long as you have the 4 standard roles covered (Mage, Tank, Healer, Rogue), you'll be fine.

I'd highly recommend playing a half-orc for a Monk, and max out your strength score. The Monk has a lot of cool special abilities, but he has one gaping and critical flaw: he's not very good at dealing damage. If you want to be an effective Monk, you basically need to play half-orc to begin with boosted strength to compensate.

Because you can't wear armor, max out dexterity and wisdom if you can to compensate. Naturally, the higher your constitution the better. If you're following, this leads to a natural conclusion: a Monk basically has to dump intelligence and charisma since he doesn't have any points left over. Multi-classing a Sorcerer works well early-game, but is completely useless at higher levels. Either do it right away, or don't do it at all. Best choice for multi-class is one level of Paladin; don't bother going for a second level.

Definitely max out your charisma; no reason to go anything lower than 18. Don't bother with a high intelligence score. Seeing as you've already got a bard, there's not much reason for him to have a high intelligence. No more than 12, and 10 will be more than sufficient if you make him a human Sorcerer. More important is that constitution score to mitigate your low hit points. Going from 10 to 14 constitution will almost double your total HP! Well worth a mere 4 build points.

Burning Hands is just a bad spell and not worth getting that close. The only short-range spell worth your time is color spray, which has a very high chance of knocking an enemy unconscious. Generally speaking, spells that incapacitate are much more effective than spells that damage, and spells that buff up your party members are the best of all.

Damage-dealing spells become a lot better once you get one of the feats that increase their damage by 50%. Until you get those, they're passable at best. That'll work, but two-handed weapon fighters tend to be noticably better. The big problem is that a two-handed fighter will deal almost twice as much damage per hit on average, so in practice a two-weapon fighter is really only just keeping up. It's style over substance; you're paying a bunch of feats and taking an accuracy penalty just to keep up with the amount of damage the other guy is doing with a greatsword with no other bonuses.

Two-weapon fighting really shines if you can get your hands on heavily enchanted weapons that deal lots of bonus damage. There are all too few of those, unfortunately. First of all, forget about intelligence for a Cleric. There are very few skills worth mentioning for him (concentration, spellcraft, maybe diplomacy) which a human cleric can max out with a score of 10. Heck, if you're okay with blatant min-maxing I'd drop his intelligence to 3 and just play with one skill point per level.

I'd say 14 strength is a good middle-ground that lets you be decent at melee without taking away too much from other attributes, but higher is always better. Definitely max out wisdom. The big advantage of Clerics is the spontaneous conversion system, allowing you to memorize any spell you want and just convert them into healing spells. This means you always have exactly the right number of healing spells, never too many and never too few.

As far as ranged attacks go, they're decent at low levels but quickly go obsolete. Past level 5, don't even bother with equipping your druid with them. Either cast spells, shapeshift, or hide to avoid damage. High wisdom isn't very useful for a bard. I'd be more inclined for intelligence to get extra skill points. I was very unimpressed with the Rogue in IWD2. It's already a below-average class in the 3rd edition rules, and IWD2 inexplicably nerfs it harshly. I might be tempted to multiclass one or two levels of Rogue, but that's it. Either pick another class and splash a few levels of rogue, or suck up the cross-class skill penalty for search and disarm for traps on another character.

A Wizard actually makes a great alternative to the Rogue since their high intelligence gives them loads of skill points, and disable device is intelligence-based.

General advice about stats:
If you want a character to do physical damage get strength as high as possible. High carrying capacity is also nice.
Wisdom can be considered useless for sorcerer, fighter, bard and rogue.
Charisma is useless for monk, fighter and rogue.
Int is useless for fighter, monk and cleric.

Thanks to both of you for your quick responses, and sorry for my rather lateish one! I wanted to reply this morning but busy life got in the way.

It seems like I'm on the right track but most of the things needing tweaking are because of my unfamiliarity with this sort of thing as a whole. At least my mild amounts of research paid off a bit!

I've also looked at the other classes (and from my pokes and prods in the character creator Paladins look almost as MAD as Monks), but for now, this should be enough help to get me going. I did another quick test run last night and things went much smoother (and much easier, interestingly) than my older tries, so I'll probably make a couple more tweaks or changes and then push into the game when I've got a good feel for a team. Thanks!

The Paladin has it worse, actually. A Monk can dump intelligence and charisma completely, leaving enough points in 18's in 3 attributes in a 16 in the fourth. A Paladin can only dump intelligence, so he has to make more serious sacrifices.

My suggested array:

Monk (Half-Orc)
STR - 20
DEX - 18
CON - 16
INT - 1
WIS - 18
CHA - 1

Paladin (Aasimar)
STR - 18
DEX - 12
CON - 14
INT - 3
WIS - 14
CHA - 19

Even with the Aasimar attribute bonuses the Paladin still has to sacrifice his wisdom and constitution below where he'd like them to be, and cannot max out his charisma. You could try getting away with a lower charisma, but no matter how you slice it the Paladin has to make compromises. The comparison is somewhat more favorable for the Paladin if you don't allow such steep dumps.

The last time I ran through IWD2 I ran a pure dual wielding halfling rogue and he was extremely effective. One of my favorite characters. He didn't feel completely gimped compared to the rest of the part whatsoever. But I like my parties to make sense and be effective from a more role playing perspective. So that means no paladin/rogue/monks or sillyness like that. I also don't give any of my characters 3s in any of their stats. To me that's ridiculous and unnecessary. I like having iconic parties that are realistic. But to each their own.

Way late, but I'll pipe up anyway.

Instead of fighter and rogue, I'd pick a paladin and a fighter/rogue multiclass. For more flexibility.
Also, I'd skip either monk or the bard and add a wizard as a second spellcaster.

But despite, the party in the original post should serve just fine.
Maybe multiclass the rogue into a ranger for a few levels at least?
Should even make roleplaying sense for an archer/scout.

Definitely a cleric, all D&D games need one...

It has been a few days, hasn't it? I've actually gotten fairly deep into it in the past four days - I'm still in Chapter One, of course, but still!

I didn't try any particularly extreme min-maxing, but I did, ah, go through the Prologue, export my team, and then go through the Prologue again. Partly out of wanting to eke out one extra level for the team, and partly because really, trained mercenaries would start off with at least a little equipment, not just quarterstaves. I also did tweak the team itself, though that was mainly out of wanting a team that would at least slightly fit the world (if you want to know what I was originally going for all you need to do is look at my avatar, whoops). I didn't toy with races or anything, so all six are just plain boring humans.

We've just arrived at the dam, taken out some monsters and smashed the first support beam. The team is as follows (kinda wish the forums had spoiler tags, since this post looks like it might be big):

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The Wanderer, Human Level 5 Ranger
17 Strength, 16 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 10 Intelligence, 14 Wisdom, 8 Charisma
+6 Fortitude, +5 Reflex, +4 Willpower
Mainly he's a tank, albeit a supplementary one. He doesn't deal as much damage as the primary tank, but he deals more than the cleric does. He also knows Delay Poison (ehh...?) and Sunscorch (awww yeaaah).
He's got most points in Searching, Hiding and Silent Moving, but I did put a smidge in Wilderness Lore and Animal Empathy.
He's got Luck of Heroes, a second point in Large Swords, and the Power Attack.

Yaghaz Gra-Nagshar, Human Level 5 Fighter
18 Strength, 15 Dexterity, 18 Constitution, 10 Intelligence and Wisdom, 6 Charisma
+8 Fortitude, +3 Reflex and Willpower
The primary tank. Can take damage, but deals it more often than not. What few points she gets are put into Intimidate.
She's got Iron Will, Dirty Fighting, a second point in Axes, and also has the Power Attack.

Breil Tremaine, Human Level 5 Lorekeeper of Oghma
9 Strength (a bad decision on my part, though not enough of one to make me want to start all over again), 14 Dexterity, 16 Constitution, 10 Intelligence, 18 Wisdom, 10 Charisma
+7 Fortitude, +3 Reflex, +8 Willpower
Another supplementary tank, though he's mainly more around just in case we need to heal. So far we haven't gotten to the point where we needed him desperately... yet. He knows Armor of Faith, Bless, Protection from Evil, Cure Light/Moderate/Serious Wounds, Bull's Strength, Remove Paralysis, Prayer, Identify, See Invisibility and Dispel Magic.
He mainly has Concentration, Spellcraft, and some Knowledge (Arcana).
He's also got Combat Casting, Subvocal Casting and a Strong Back.

Armin Vitiero, Human Level 5 Sorcerer
8 Strength, 16 Dexterity and Constitution, 9 Intelligence, 10 Wisdom, 18 Charisma
+4 Fortitude, Reflex and Willpower
The primary spellslinger. He's got himself a crossbow and bolts for the inbetween, but he's mainly around to make enemies see stars - magic stars. He knows Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb, Sleep, Shield, Aganazzar's Scorcher and Blindness.
Most of his points are put into Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft. He's also got some Concentration.
He's also got Combat Casting just in case something decides to go after him for some reason, he's got a second point in crossbows, and Spell Penetration.

Cyrus Hawkwind, Human Level 5 Bard
9 Strength, 14 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 14 Intelligence, 10 Wisdom, 18 Charisma
+2 Fortitude, +6 Reflex and Willpower
Mainly, he sings songs. But with the levels he's gotten he's also become somewhat of a secondary spellslinger, which is fun! Unlike Armin, who has more damage spells and only a few stunning spells, Cyrus is more of a stunner, or a mixed bag. He's got Cure Light/Moderate Wounds, Color Spray (helpful!), Sleep, Identify, Blindness, and Blur.
He's sort of the face of the team, too, or at least he would be if I remembered he existed outside of Bard-ing. Most points are in Bluff, Diplomacy, Use Magic Device and Disable Device.
He's got Dodge, Iron Will, and Lingering Song.

Sleight-of-Hand, Human Level 5 Rogue
9 Strength, 18 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 18 Intelligence, 10 Wisdom and Charisma
+2 Fortitude, +9 Reflex, +1 Willpower
The group's scout. I've found myself taking up a very cautious playstyle, where I send Sleight-of-Hand out scouting before I head into nearly any unexplored part of the map, just in case of monsters.
He focuses on nothing but rogue skills. Disable Device, Hide, Silent Movement, Lockpicking and Pocketpicking, Search, and Use Magic Device.
He's also got Dirty Fighting, Dodge, and Snake Blood.

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Mainly the builds are focused on the numbers, albeit with some particular feats and other things chosen for roleplaying's sake; their portraits are custom ones I made with Skyrim screenshots I took (if anyone wants to guess the races based on the names, I'd be amused, haha).

I'm also playing on Very Easy (again, I'm a scrub), but things have gotten a little hairy on occasion. Fighting Vrek in particular was the most dangerous fight we've had so far, mainly because it was the first time anyone in the party had gotten down to the yellow stage of HP (Breil, ironically).

First things first: I can't help but notice none of your characters have 19's in any of their stats. As 5th level characters, they've had the opportunity to increase their attributes once already, and it's generally a good idea to pick one attribute and just max it out. Shame you couldn't push your strength a little higher, but he should work fine. Looks good, although keeping your strength score maxed should be a priority on this guy. Yeah, that strength score is going to hurt in the long-run. With 9 strength he's largely incompetent at melee and you're better off just equipping him with a crossbow; he'll hit more often and deal more damage. At higher levels there will be no point with having him tank at all and he should stand back with the wizard, being a blocker of last resort. Of all your characters, this is the one I'm most concerned about for not having his charisma score maxed. I'd strongly recommend against missing any further increases to charisma, because even a few extra points of charisma can be the difference be all the difference to prevent an enemy from making a save and resisting your spells.

Your spell list looks pretty good for right now (though personally I'd have skipped on blindness, seeing as your bard already has it). I'd strongly recommend looking into the web and stinking cloud spells. Especially in conjunction, this can stop enemies in their tracks, which is important for giving you some breathing space in some of those annoying ambush fights later on when a bunch of enemies try to sneak up behind you. Having their approach blocked by a bunch of "you shall not pass" spells is a life-saver, and at high levels the durations get very long. Do keep in mind that the gulf between Bard and Sorcerer spellcasting actually grows wider at higher levels. This character looks extremely weak. He's got severe accuracy and damage problems in melee, and due to his low strength is taking a penalty if he tries to use a bow. The Ranger already has the "stealth" shtick covered for your party, so I'm really not seeing what the rogue is actually bringing. His feat selection is pretty mediocre, too. Snake Blood and Dodge are passable at best, although Dirty Fighting might be decent with a ranged attack.

I'd recommend multi-classing Fighter and specializing completely in archery with this guy, or else just drop him altogether from the lineup.

Fighter&Ranger&Rogue: Raise only strength at level up
Cleric: spend one or even more points for strength at level up for comfort, rest into wis, memorize as many bull's strength spells as possible
Sorcerer&Bard: raise only cha at level up, eventually raise the bard's str to 10 if you want more carrying capacity

I'm not surprised to hear there's some long-term issues. I was born and bred on JRPGs, so I'm going into some of the D&D mechanics a bit blind. I didn't realize that there was a max stat, for example. I'm guessing it's 20?

I'm glad that Wanderer and Yaghaz look pretty good. Then again, planning warrior types is normally the easiest.

I didn't realize that Breil's strength score would be quite so damaging, though - of course, it's at 9 because I wanted to push it up a bit. I may end up giving him a crossbow, given his dexterity. At least bolts don't weigh much! Think I should give him a lighter armor set? He's wearing chainmail right now.

Armin I wasn't sure what to stat boost, so I went with Intelligence to try and get some extra points for Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft and such. Funny you mention the web-cloud combo; Xuki pulled that one on me just fifteen minutes ago. Of course, it was also a pointless gesture since I had already obliterated everything else on the bridge.

As for Cyrus, I've never heard that particular idiom before (which is surprising, given I like to write - I'll have to file that one away for later, thanks!), but either way it's good to know. He was actually quite the help during the bridge battle.

Sleight-of-Hand, on the other hand, is my "main" stealther. The Wanderer isn't focused on stealth - I fell right into a pitfall I imagine other newbies have, and only managed to climb out last night/today: Initially I put points into his rangery skills more, and then realized "wow, these are actually kind of pointless" and started focusing more on stealth. As it is right now, Sleight-of-Hand has double the points in the stealth skills than The Wanderer does.

I don't want to drop him entirely because I want to have a full team of six (and I don't really want to make a new level 1 character among the level 5s), but if he really is that weak, I may look into a character editor to redistribute some of his points. If I do that I'd probably drop his Charisma to 6 and bump his Strength up to 13, would that work alright?

That's generally what I figured. Breil wasn't terribly problematic in battle, and he did deal decent damage against the orcs and goblins and such. I've never been one for min-maxing, even in other games. He was still able to wear his chainmail and use his mace just fine, and he doesn't take much damage whenever he gets hit. Neither did Sleight-of-Hand, for that matter.

Mm. I'm off to the goblin fortress now, so thanks for the tip (and wish me luck)!

There is only a maximum stat at character creation, based on your race (default is 18). You can just keep promoting the same attribute over and over again past this point, but those increases are pretty rare.

Ordinarily you will increase strength for melee fighters, dexterity for ranged fighhters, intelligence for wizards, wisdom for clerics and druids, and charisma for bards and sorcerers.


If he's not going to be in melee, feel free to go with whatever armor best suits his encumbrance limits. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with a low-strength Cleric that plays more like a wizard. The Cleric is arguably the most powerful class in the game and can afford to pick and choose what roles he wants to fulfill.

Strength gives you a bonus or penalty to both accuracy and damage with melee weapons. As a result, a relatively small difference in your strength score can have a big effect. For instance, going from 9 to 14 strength would more than double your damage output against a typical opponents since you'd hit more often and deal more damage on each hit.


Understandable; Sorcerers always have trouble with skill points, and intelligence penalty won't help! Still, you do not want to neglect your charisma.


If you're determined to see this character through, my suggestion would be to multi-class fighter. You want to put the full three points into specialization in bows and raise your strength to at least 10 (12 would probably be preferable). Prioritize the following feats:
* Martial Weapon Proficiency (Bow) (max it out)
* Rapid Shot
* Precise Shot
* Improved Critical

That will require 5 feats, so it should keep your rogue busy for the next while.


There's a fairly noticable difficulty increase. I like playing these games with a minimal number of rest cycles, and I found it very challenging to keep momentum without refreshing my spells between the major fights.