Hello everyone!

Spoilers

What is your favourite race/class combination and why?

Mine is the elven ranger. That specific combination reminds me of Link from Legend of Zelda. To add to my reasoning, the Kokiri (Link's race) are immortal and elves live incredibly long lives (up to 1,000 years).

There's also the longsword and longbow bonuses. Those two are my favourite weapons. They have a dignity that the other weapons don't. Any mercenary can pull the trigger of a crossbow. Any bloodthristy raider can hack their enemies apart with an axe. Any brute can smash their foes with a club or hammer. The finesse required to wield the longsword/bow is half skill and half art.

Personally, I like Sorcerer (for "fair" playthroughs) and Wild Mage (for "fun"/"major exploit" playthroughs).

Sorcerers are nice because the only time you have to micromanage spell availability is at level up; after that it's no more complex than in Wizardry 1-5 or Final Fantasy 1 and 3. If an important spell gets disrupted or dispelled, I can just try it again. (With a Wizard, there's a good chance that only one copy of the spell is memorized.)

Wild Mages have wild surges that can be funny (or annoying), depending on the situation. With major exploits (Chaos Shield stacking), they break the game (especially at higher levels) in a way no other class does. Once you get Nahal's Reckless Dweomer to be your most reliable spell, you've broken the game because that spell doesn't obey the 6 second rule and you can just Dweomer up a Limited Wish to restore your Dweomers.

Honorable mention goes to Cleric/Mages who can put Cleric spells into their sequencers and contingincies.

One good thing about Baldur's Gate 2 is that every single multiclass combination has some synergy.

Wow. I didn't actually know that about multiclassing. Thanks for the info!

Here are some of the synergies which I am aware of (DUHM = Draw Upon Holy Might):

Fighter/Cleric: DUHM boosts your physical stats, making you a better fighter.
Ranger/Cleric: See FIghter/Cleric, but you also get Iron Skins.
Fighter/Druid: Iron Skins blocks physical attacks. Doesn't that sound like it would be useful for a front line character? Also, extra attacks from Fighter levels work in Wild Shape.

Fighter/Mage: Arcane magic provides better protection than armor, especially in Throne of Bhaal when AC becomes irrelevant.

Fighter/Thief: Good THAC0 from Fighter. Backstab from Thief. See the synergy? (Remember that you can only backstab with weapons a single class thief can equip.)

Cleric/Mage: As I mentioned above, you can put cleric spells into sequencers. Bless take too long to cast for a short duration effect? Put it into a Minor Sequencer and you can cast it instantly.

Cleric/Thief: Sanctuary works differently from Invisibility: I believe you can use some thief skills while under Sanctuary without breaking it. (I *think* find/remove traps is one example.) Also, DUHM boosts Dexterity, which in turn affects most thief skills. (If you want to backstab, try using a club or quarterstaff.)

Mage/Thief: Arcane defensive spells don't interfere with thief skills. Plus, if you cast Polymorph Self or Shapechange, you can backstab with natural weapons. (I saw this trick used in a speedrun to one hit kill the SoA final boss with Yoshimo.)

Fighter/Mage/Cleric: How does DUHM in a Minor Sequencer sound? (While we're at it, we can put Bless or Mirror Image as the other spell.)

Fighter/Mage/Thief: See the other synergies above, except that this combination doesn't get Shapechange.

Human Cleric is my favourite combination, simply because it was the first character that I created, while playing on my own for the first time. This was a long time ago, like in 1999.

Mine is probably the kensai/thief. Backstab with kensai bonuses + kai. Plus once you get Use Any Item, the kensai's only downside is negated and you can cast spells from scrolls and wands.

Half-Elf Thief/Mage is my new favorite. I finished BG1 with it and I am planning to continue BG2 with same character. The problem is, I started BG2 atleast 10 times and got bored halfway each time.

Half-elf Fighter/Mage/Thief
Half-orc Barbarian
Dwarf Fighter/Cleric
Elf Sorcerer
Halfling Fighter/thief

Identically same for me. I exported to Priest of Lanthander in BG2.

Half-Elven Bard [Blade subclass] Blades are wonderful classes because of all of the special abilities they gain, with almost no downside. The Offensive and Defensive Spins are very useful, either in concert with magical enhancements or as alternatives *to* magical enhancements [like when you want your spell slots for non-buff spells].

Since a Bard advances in levels so quickly, the fact that they get fewer spell slots than a Mage is mostly ignorable, especially since you are comparing the Bard to a Fighter/Mage and *not* to a single class Mage. Because of their higher level compared to a Ftr/Th, the Blades damage spells will do more damage [until the cap] and their buffs will last longer, again until the cap kicks in.

Making the character Half-Elven helps to offset the picking pockets hit you take for the Blade sub-class. While you won't get a lot of use out of this thieving skill over the entirety of the game, it does come in handy early on and in a few situations later on as well. Having a Bard along means you don't have to waste any skill points from your "real" Thief, and there are too many more useful skills, overall, to have a "real" Thief spend points here.

Being a "Jack of all trades" lets your PC fill in with regards to both magic use and fighting - indeed with the right buffs the Blade can easily be the *best* Fighter in the party!

Very entertaining stronghold quest as well - although admittedly by the time all is said and done, the monetary rewards aren't going to make or break the game. :) But the same can be said for any of the strongholds...

For BG II, this is the Racial and Class combination I come back to most often - just a heck of a lot of fun, IMHO.

My favorite is human paladin, you get some powerful abilities in addition to good melee, and it also suits my roleplaying style where I love being the selfless charismatic hero helping everyone around.

I also like elvish fighter-wizard dual class.

Two problems with that:

1. There is no wizard class. Maybe you mean mage? (The name "wizard" wasn't used as a class name until 3rd edition.)

2. Elves can't dual class. Maybe you play as a multi class elf, or as a dual class human? Or do you hack (or mod) the game to get around this restiction?

Yes, sorry, imprecise vocabulary, I meant fighter-mage multiclass ;)

Good thing for you this is what a lot of RPGs center themselves around as this play style "choice" usually gets you the most XP and loot. 10 years ago, I was the same, then I wanted to take a more sensible approach to RPGs, then I found I couldn't as the game wouldn't let me. Stupid selfless stuck up do-gooder and stupid evil chest thumping bastard are your only choices in BG :P

Back on topic

A pure fighter based class or a fighter multi class is always my favorite for any RPG. Bashing stuff with a sword, hammer, axe, whatever is always reliable, magic isn't.

Don't forget the token neutral option, which is usually "I'll do the good thing, but I'm going to demand money for it up front to prove that I'm still an asshole!"