Hello. This is the first time I've played IWD, and is also the first time I've played any of the forgotten realms games without the CLUA Console. I find it to be a very fun and sometimes challenging game. My question regards a certain magical item that I found in the Tiers of the Dead. It is a random chess piece that claims to be able to conjure a priest for my party. However, the item description doesn't seem to mention whether the item can be used more than once, an I can't find it in any online walkthrough. Does this item sound familiar to any of you out there? If so, do you know if it can be used more than once, or if it's just a one off thing? Thank you. The name of the object escapes me at the moment.

There are two 'lost' chess pieces, a white bishop (which you have) and a black knight. The description of the bishop reads:
"Summons a priest-like ally to heal the party. Summoner has no control of the Bishop. The Bishop will automatically heal injured party members until they are at full health or when the Bishop no longer has any spells to cast."

Looking at it's properties with NI, it has one charge and does not recharge, meaning it's a one-use disposable item.

Just don't forget about it like I did. I think I used my knight piece for the final battle in dragons eye to distract enemy archers

I probably won't forget about it. I was also thinking of using it in a more difficult battle than that. Like maybe one of the badge battles in in Lower Dorn's Deep (which I am currently tackling bit by bit). I'll see what my necessities end up being. It continues to surprise how easy it can be for a full sized, traditional party to actually fight many of these battles and come out the other end with a fair portion of it's collective hp intact. That was one of the things that kept scaring me about my party: I was afraid that I hadn't created one capable of actually playing the game. It seems that I was wrong, for now at least.

By the time you get to Lower Dorn's Deep, your mages (assuming you're using any) will be able to cast summons making carrying around a single use summoning item pointless. I didn't need to use the item in Dragon's Eye but I just got sick of it taking up valuable inventory real estate and at that time, that was the best use for it..

It seems any party setup up can go through the game. I just finished the game with a solo fighter/mage/thief, it was really too easy later in the game, especially when I got the sunfire spell and ring of wizardry (the one that doubles the amount of level 5 spells you can memorize). Gonna try my "we don't need no stinkin magic" party with 5 fighters and a fighter/thief next, see how this plays out :D

Super fun fact: In a thorough run through of IWD. HOW and TOTLM, your party of 6 will get around 2700-2800 kills between them :)

I have two mages (as was the necessity in the BG series, and standard in traditional campaigns). They are non-specialist, but I have given one a fair amount of destructive offensive and summoning spells, and the other a fair amount of protective and defensive spells. That seemed like a good logical and traditional way to do it. I still think, though, that I might need to rely on that Bishop, as, even though my primary character is a Druid, I am sorely lacking in any Clerical capacity. Oh, I have the requisite heal spells, but very few other such incantations. It has just continually amazed me how this party that I assumed was weak, based on what I had read about some party templates for this, is able to hold it's own against most of the enemies that the game throws at you. I mean, I didn't realize that multi-classing was an option for non-human characters at all. I would have muli-classed my female elf mage. She's the one with all the defensive and protective spells. Still can really only used ranged weapons, though (which I guess is the point of mages in this game).

I think in my first playthough of IWD1, I had 2 mages as well but I specialized one of them (necromancer I think) and kept the other one a generalist because at that time, I really didn't understand how the restrictions would effect gameplay.

If your loading one mage with offensive spells and the other with defensive one, I think you'll find it better if you specialized them for an extra spell per level. Your offensive caster can be a necromancer. He misses out on enchantment and illusion spells which really aren't great anyways. Necros only miss out on 1 good spell, mirror image. However, if your necro is in the back with stone skin active, this won't be a problem. Also because IWD is undead heavy, I have never cast any enchantment spells other than sleep at the very beginning of the game. In BG, enchantmant spells were great, in IWD, they stink. Next play though, definitely consider a necromancer as an offensive caster.

Abjurers are also great specialist mages. Like the necromancer, they also miss out on illusion spells but like the necro, they can still cast stoneskin so it's not a problem. The other school they lose out on is alteration which has a few good spells worth noting but are mostly situational. Burning hands is an excellent back up for troll heavy areas and who doesn't like haste? However when haste wears off, you'll need to rest cos your party will be fatigued. This means you only need one casting of haste between rest periods. There's also one area in TOTLM where two castings of dimension door are essential if you want a really spiffy amulet for one of your casters. Some people like Tenser's transformation but I never used it cos I feel mages are for slinging spells and providing ranged backup when not casting. If I want a spell chucker to go toe to toe with the enemy, I'll use a fighter/mage with stoneskin and mirror image active. Most of these spells are situational and can be handled by the necro if need be.

If you like single class mages and don't care about making everyone invisible, I'm sure you'll find these two specialist mages much more to your liking than your two generalists.

My offense heavy mage is basically a necro anyway. I've given any necro summoning spells I find. You're right, though. I didn't understand what the difference between specialist and general was, and even assumed that specialization was something of a handicap (moreso than you seem to think).

I used to think that as well, and couldn't seem to justify to myself losing access to various spells. But I completely agree with IwubCheeze about it now. If you have two mages in your party, then specializing one or both of them is a great advantage.

One thing I've done with a 5 member party is go with the Bard covering spells that the specialist(s) can't memorize. Sure, Bards don't get as many spells per level and they gain them slower, but they level faster, so it evens out as far as accessing new spell levels. So I ended out with something like this for a party:

Warrior
FTR/Thief
FTR to Druid dual class
Specialist mage
Specialist mage
Bard

This actually means you have more spells available than you ever need. Hell, other than a couple defensive spells, you can almost get through the game using solely summons. But yeah. Specialist mages are great.

Yeah, this is my current party:

Druid
Fighter (human) strength 18/91 Specializes in great swords and large swords w/ one proficiency slot in crossbows
fighter (dwarf) strangth 18/40 something. Specializes in axes (2 slots), hammers, which I havent used very often, either great or large swords (can't remember at the moment), an one other thing (I use axes primarily)
mage (general, but focusing on necro and offense)
mage (general, but focusing on defense and protection)
thief

It seems to be pretty good for what the game throws at me, but there's always that frustration right when you get to a new area with strategic advantages that aren't immediately obvious but that must be exploited.