Just installed NMN after nearly 7 years with the aim to play certainly SoU and HotU (probably the OC too) but feeling a little overwhelmed choosing what to play. I have played various CRPGs before (BG, IWD and so on) but I always struggle a bit when it comes time to choose a character.

I guess I prefer it when I can make a person who is a little of everything (the sort of thing you get with The Elder Scrolls type of games). I tend to prefer mages / thieves / bards as characters as I like Magic, I like sneaking / scouting for traps and picking the odd lock ;)

In theory multiclassing will allow me to do that in NWN, but I do wonder if I'm better playing a single classed character. I find it unlikely that I'll ever play through these games again with another character. I have enough of a backlog :)

Any thoughts on being a Wizard / Sorceror / Bard / Thief, or some combination there of?

Some character classes really benefit from multiclassing and others don't. If you're looking to sling magic (Wizard or Sorcerer), then you'll want to stick to one class. To a lesser extent (IMO, of course), this also applies to Clerics, but dipping a bit into a few FTR (Fighter) levels can really beef up your melee prowess.

Rogues are great with a little FTR thrown in as well. You can build them in any direction you like (finesse-style, DEX-based traditional thief to brutal STR-based thug type, to anything in between). With UMD, you can use pretty much any magic item you find to make yourself into a pseudo-caster.

My personal favorite is Bard with a few Fighter levels. I start with Bard, then take Fighter at level 2 to get the proficiencies and an extra feat, then back to Bard through level 17. At that point, 3 more Fighter levels to round out a full attack routine and a couple extra feats. I go Strength-based with this character, and wear heavy armor. Casting is generally only for buffing my character up, which I can usually do after stripping down, then put on the armor after (many buffs are long-lasting, so this isn't usually an issue). You can also take Still Spell so you can cast many spells on the fly. Higher level Bard Song and Curse Song is a thing of beauty, and if you're going into epic levels, I tend to go 4 more Bard immediately after level 20, so I can grab Lasting Inspiration asap.

The biggest drawback is traps and locks, but you can cross class a few points into those skills and usually end up handling most that you run across.

Thanks for your thoughts, I've been playing a Elven Wizard to Level 10 who is a bit more melee based than intended. For the most part it's working well, as an elf i can use a long sword and bow for those awkward times when I've run out of spells.

I use a pixie as my familiar for all those locked chests that are around and often take the cleric henchman who is useful as a backup for the zombies and what not.

One thing I think I'd have done differently would have been to take one level in Rogue to get some natural thieving abilities and be able to get Appraise as a proper skill.

I did cheat a little by given my character the Stats I wanted rather than trying to spend the 30 odd points available.

The caster/warrior hybrid doesn't work very well in NWN1. You really have to play as a Cleric, Druid, or Bard if you have your heart set on that. I played SoU/HotU as a Sorcerer with one level in Barbarian, and even that one level dip was really hurting me for the level 12-18 range. Other than that, I quite enjoyed him. At a certain point, you just can't maintain both a relevant caster progression and attack bonus progression in NWN1, at which point one of your class progressions becomes a bit of a dead weight. The inclusion of the Eldritch Knight in NWN2 greatly alleviated that problem (though it's still a weak combo at high levels).

An Elf Wizard is a fun character, but I'd advise against dipping into rogue. At very least wait until you have your 9th level spells; it's just not fun to realize that you could be casting time stop by now if you hadn't multi-classed. It's not as huge a loss once you're level 20+ and your spellcasting progression stops.

Sorcerers/Wizards are probably my favourite class.

The only real drawback is surviving low-levels; just make sure you rely on summoned allies and avoid hand-to-hand combat.

But once you get into higher levels you become an engine of destruction. Take the maximise spell feat and you can cast damage spells that - in most cases - will one shot your opponents.
Isaac's greater missile storm, for example, can do about 240 points of damage when maximised, and has no saving throw.

You also have Clarity - to avoid stuns. Haste - to move super fast. Find Traps and Knock for locks and traps - regardless of difficulty class. Huge damage reduction spells like Stoneskin and Premonition. Spell Immunity from Spell Mantle and Orb of Invulnerability. Extremely strong summons. Plenty of buffs. Elemental Shields which cause damage when an opponent hits you and has no save or spell resistance.

Like I said; the only drawback is having to run away from melee. But this tends to happen before are after throwing a barrage of death at your enemies from the safety of massive buffs and summoned allies.

I understand where you're coming from. My first NWN character was an elf. I started with fighter and added a couple of mage levels because... well... that's what elves do.

I know... I just dated myself. For you young'uns in OD&D all PC elves were a fighter-mage mix.

Anyway it was a fun character. I'm a role-player, not a power gamer. But being restricted to light or no armor was a real killer. Fighter/Wizard is just not a well optimized character. In the end I had to give up on my wizarding and be a fighter who happened to know a few non-combat spells like knock and identify.

If you want to be a meat shield/caster mix go with Cleric. Powerful as heck. Liberal equipment restrictions. Great buffs. And you can multi-class it with a few levels of Rouge if you really want to embrace a JoT character.

It's not that bad. Let's say you have 16 dexterity and mage armor; that's +3 from dex and +4 from the spell for +7 in total. A guy in platemail has a maximum of +1 from dex and +8 from armor for +9 in total. You're not very far behind at all.

That would be fine if we were rolling characters, but using point buy? As a fighter you need a high str and reasonable con, as a mage you need a high int, and as party leader you need a reasonable cha for skills like persuasion, bluff, or intimidate. That doesn't usually leave a lot of points left for dex. It's possible to buff it up with cat's grace, but it still leaves you behind, and it still leaves you dealing with an occasional arcane spell failure.

And BTW... Fighter in full plate with tower shield and dex bonus... Sorry. A chain shirt just doesn't cut it for a meat shield.

Mage Armor isn't going to be giving you +4 under most circumstances, only +1. This is because the spell doesn't give a straight up +4 AC, but rather gives a +1 to four different kinds of AC (natural armor, dodge, deflection, and armor enhancement). Only the dodge bonus stacks with existing bonuses, and most characters will already have at least +1 from natural armor, deflection, and armor enhancement (and you can be certain any melee character will have far more than that). Also, as urknighterrant mentioned, you're neglecting a shield bonus, which will be at least +2 (if the mage is using a light shield, although that provides a 5% spell failure penalty), and more likely +3. The stat issue is also something that definitely shouldn't be neglected- to get that 16 dex the mage will have to sacrifice other stats and what they affect, whether it's Int (spellcasting), Con (health), Cha (social skills, or spellcasting if you're playing sorcerer), or Wis (will saves). You could try to get extra dex from gear, but then you're sacrificing gear slots that could be used for something else. And that's another thing to consider- a melee character's gear will be optimized for boosting AC (among other things); for a spellcaster to do that same kind of optimization means sacrificing gear slots that could be used for other things (such as bonus spell slots). Ultimately a (arcane) spellcaster just isn't going to be able to get the same kind of AC as a melee focused character, and even trying to get close will decrease their effectiveness as a spellcaster.

I'm not disagreeing here, because I also feel that there's just no way a pure spellcaster is going to have the same AC as an armored melee character (at least not without sacrificing a lot), but there are a few points that I think may have been overlooked:

Shield: this can be somewhat compensated with the mage spell Shield, which gives +4 shield AC to the character. This still doesn't fully compete with a highly enchanted shield though.

Sacrificing stats: A WIZ/SOR can afford to sacrifice WIS, since Will is the high save for the character.

The FTR/Mage: taking a level of FTR to create a FTR/Mage can be viable. You do lose a fair bit in the BAB department, but there are ways to compensate for that and raise your AB through gear and spells. You still won't be as effective as a pure melee character (one big reasn being because you don't get as many extra attacks as a pure melee build due to the lower BAB - and the extra ones you do get are gained at later levels), but you're a hybrid and the advantage of having spells to combine with a melee presence can offset this to a great degree. And there's also the Still Spell feat, which will allow you to be an armored mage (or melee mage), which then gets you in the same AC category as a pure melee character. Of course, this means your spells are cast one level higher than normal, and combined with the loss of caster progression from dipping into other classes (such as FTR) to get their benefits, it means your spellcasting isn't as effective as a pure caster. But then, you're not a pure caster and that's not how you'd be playing this character. Of note: This delay in casting progression is even more painful for a Sorcerer since they're already a level behind a Wizard with respect to casting progression.

In the end, the FTR/Mage isn't going to be as effective in melee as a pure melee character nor is it going to be nearly as effective at spell slinging as a pure caster. But it's possible to create one that's effective, can wear armor to get the same or very similar AC to a pure melee build, can still cast an array of both offensive and defensive spells, and can be quite viable as a character build.

Just my two cents.

Bard into Red Dragon Disciple is a really good combo IME. Dragon Disciple gives really nice bonuses to attributes, and bards are great all rounders. Deekin (best companion ever!) takes this path. If you want to be doughty in combat , Paladin, Sorcerer, Red Dragon disciple also works well, but you get less skill points that way.

I would love to do paladin/bard , but the alignment mix precludes this.

Blackguards are also strong and get an interesting mix of abilities. I went Ranger/Rogue/Blackguard and really kicked ass all the way through SOU/HOU.

I tried a Ranger/Wizard , one of my fave combos for tabletop, but found that too many nasty monsters had spell immunities.

He probably ran into the spell resistance problems because his character was multi-classed. The check made against spell resistance is d20 + caster level + feat bonuses (e.g. spell penetration). For a ranger/wizard combo only the wizard levels count towards caster level in that calculation, so depending on how he split his levels he could be looking at a pretty substantial difference on spell DC compared to a pure wizard. Also, Greater Spell Breach only lowers spell resistance by 5, so it usually won't have all that much of an impact if a character is already failing against a lot of spell resistance checks (Mordenkainen's Disjunction can do a bit better with a -10 to SR). Summons can help a bit, but against tougher enemies (the kind that often has high spell resistance) summons usually can only act as tanks while you unload damaging spells on them, and if a lot of those spell end up fizzling due to spell resistance all the summon has done is prolong the inevitable.

While Fighter/Wizard or Rogue/wizard are not a real effective in NWN1, it still works better there than in NWN2 (though there you can get prestige classes to make it work). Surprisingly enough, it's quite enough usable in Temple of Elemental Evil, where you can get several Elven Chain armors (light armor, real low spell hinderance).

And generally, the combos are the kind (like several other classes) that work better where magic items are rare, but approach uselessness where magic items are plentiful. When did anyone actually find use for Magic Weapon and Greater Magic Weapon in (either) NWN? You most likely have just as good magic items around anyway. Pure fighter souped up with a ton of magic items is awesome, pure fighter with no magic items, not so much. Same goes for the likes of arcane archer, whose main ability is to magic up plain arrows, not so useful when you have a ton of magic arrows available for you.

Anyway, in NWN the combos are still usable and give a nice flavour.

3 levels of wizard allow you to practically always be buffed with bulls strength and cats grace (with 1hr/level duration), even just one level gives the ability to use (the plentiful) scrolls to even up things for those difficult fights.

A few (or just one) level of fighter gives a ton of fighter feats, a couple of levels of rogue gives evasion and if you throw everything at those, sufficient skills to disable traps and open locks. (So you can take a meatshield companion).

4 levels of Bard in the Red Dragon Disciple class combination does not sacrifice any BAB , and gives you some extra utility with skills , spells and song. I think I went for Barbarian for my other class to go for a Fafhrd type character.
It owned when I played it :)