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Forgotten Realms CollectionParty for PoR(40 posts)(40 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 31, 2015
What is everyone's ideal party to go through the entire series? When I played these games on my C64 and Amiga500, I would use demi-humans, only to be severely under powered by the time I got to SotSB. The level restrictions are just too much. So, my party now, consists of:

1 - Female Human Fighter; will dual-class to Paladin in CotAB. Sword and shield/main tank
1 - Male Human Fighter. Two-handed weapon wielder and off-tank.
1 - Male Human Cleric. Primary focus on healing and party support spells; limited offensive spells if any.
1 - Female Halfling Thief
2 - Male Human Magic-Users

I guess the argument could be made for a 2nd cleric somehow. I tossed around the idea of a Half-Elven Cleric/Thief to fill both roles. However, the maximum level of 5th level seemed making it a moot point.

I'm curious to see other player parties. List them below!

BTW, I don't modify my scores all to 18's. I roll until I get scores I like, then keeping those scores, I place them in the stats I want them in.
Post edited August 31, 2015 by mhanna211
Posted August 31, 2015
Personally I prefer something like this in PoR:
Human Fighter
Human Cleric
Human Mage
Dwarf Fighter/Thief
Half-Elf Cleric/Mage
Elf Fighter/Mage

Having several characters to cast Sleep is a life saver in the beginning, and a second healer is also nice. The Elf Fighter/Mage can cast magic spell while wearing armour, and gets +1 THAC0 with Long Swords and Long Bows, which also is a nice bonus at low levels.
By the time you reach Curse of the Azure Bonds the last two characters will be obsolete, and I replace them with a Human Paladin and a Human Ranger. With the right stats both the Fighter and Ranger can later be dualed to Mage. The Ranger especially is suited to this since they can cast magic spells while wearing armour (the Fighter will have to rely on Bracers).
I wouldn't recommend dualing the Fighter to Paladin, since you gain nothing from it. A new Paladin will start at lvl 5 and unless you save scum for max Hit Points he will have more HP than a transfered Fighter of the same level. A newly dualed Fighter/Paladin will also start the game at lvl 1. So the Paladin gains absolutely nothing from the former Fighter class. But if you still want to do it for role playing reasons make sure the Figher is eligible (needs Lawful Good alignment and 17 in STR and WIS IIRC).

A Cleric/Thief is a very weak character in the Pool games, since they can't backstab, which is the main benefit of a Thief.
Posted August 31, 2015
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mhanna211: What is everyone's ideal party to go through the entire series? When I played these games on my C64 and Amiga500, I would use demi-humans, only to be severely under powered by the time I got to SotSB. The level restrictions are just too much. So, my party now, consists of:

1 - Female Human Fighter; will dual-class to Paladin in CotAB. Sword and shield/main tank
1 - Male Human Fighter. Two-handed weapon wielder and off-tank.
1 - Male Human Cleric. Primary focus on healing and party support spells; limited offensive spells if any.
1 - Female Halfling Thief
2 - Male Human Magic-Users

I guess the argument could be made for a 2nd cleric somehow. I tossed around the idea of a Half-Elven Cleric/Thief to fill both roles. However, the maximum level of 5th level seemed making it a moot point.

I'm curious to see other player parties. List them below!

BTW, I don't modify my scores all to 18's. I roll until I get scores I like, then keeping those scores, I place them in the stats I want them in.
I think it would be better to create a new Paladin in CotAB instead of dual classing your current one. Fighter to Paladin gives no long term benefit and will give you poor THACO at the start of CotAB. Starting a new Paladin would work better. (Remember that you can use the Modify Character to give your new Paladin the exact same stats as your old Fighter if you want to try to maintain continuity.)

Alternatively, if your Fighter has at least 15 Strength and 17 Wisdom, you could dual class her into a Cleric (but no earlier than level 7). This will cover the cleric role nicely, while giving you someone who can at least fight decently.

In SotSB, you could remake this character and dual-class at level 13, or you could wait until PoD and dual-class at an even higher level. (There seems to be little benefit to waiting until after level 17, however.)

Another thing to consider is that the Ranger/Magic-User dual class can cast spells wearing armor. Good levels to dual class are levels 8 (3/2 attacks), 9 (better THAC0 than 8), 15 (2 attacks), or 17 (best THAC0 and spells/day).
Posted August 31, 2015
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PetrusOctavianus: Personally I prefer something like this in PoR:
Human Fighter
Human Cleric
Human Mage
Dwarf Fighter/Thief
Half-Elf Cleric/Mage
Elf Fighter/Mage

Having several characters to cast Sleep is a life saver in the beginning, and a second healer is also nice. The Elf Fighter/Mage can cast magic spell while wearing armour, and gets +1 THAC0 with Long Swords and Long Bows, which also is a nice bonus at low levels.
By the time you reach Curse of the Azure Bonds the last two characters will be obsolete, and I replace them with a Human Paladin and a Human Ranger. With the right stats both the Fighter and Ranger can later be dualed to Mage. The Ranger especially is suited to this since they can cast magic spells while wearing armour (the Fighter will have to rely on Bracers).
I wouldn't recommend dualing the Fighter to Paladin, since you gain nothing from it. A new Paladin will start at lvl 5 and unless you save scum for max Hit Points he will have more HP than a transfered Fighter of the same level. A newly dualed Fighter/Paladin will also start the game at lvl 1. So the Paladin gains absolutely nothing from the former Fighter class. But if you still want to do it for role playing reasons make sure the Figher is eligible (needs Lawful Good alignment and 17 in STR and WIS IIRC).

A Cleric/Thief is a very weak character in the Pool games, since they can't backstab, which is the main benefit of a Thief.
That's interesting as I never really think of dropping any characters, but instead keep them throughout the whole series. Hence, why I stick with mostly Human party, except for the thief.

And, I am dual classing from Fighter to Paladin for RP reasons, and I made sure to have the correct stats; I hope. The prime requisite of Paladins is STR and CHA; my current Fighter has exceptional strength and a CHA of 17; the other Paladin required stat is 13 WIS, and I have 15, but I don't think WIS factors into dual classing into a Paladin.
Posted August 31, 2015
Keeping the same party throughout all four games is difficult because of the hitpoints issue--you can modify a newly created character to have more hitpoints than one who's actually made it up through the levels. The advantage of having high-level characters at the start is obviated in Pools of Darkness because of the large number of levels gained in that game.

That said, I did do it recently, and here's what I did:

3 Human Fighters
1 Half-Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief
1 Human Cleric
1 Human Mage

Secret of the Silver Blades: dual 1 Fighter to Mage at level 13
Pools of Darkness: dual 1 Fighter to Cleric at level 17
Posted August 31, 2015
With the ridiculous level caps for demi-human races on one hand, and my unwillingness to hack in order to bypass said level caps on the other, my default party is usually comprised of five humans plus a demi-human something/thief multiclass character. I might have one additional demi-human during PoR, but that one gets replaced by another human at the start of CotAB.

PoR

- human fighter
- half-elf cleric/fighter
- human cleric #1
- human cleric #2
- elf magic-user/thief
- human magic-user

CotAB onwards

I import all characters except the half-elf cleric/fighter; his career is over, and he gets replaced by a newly created human ranger. My first way once out of the inn is directly to the Hall of Training where I dual-class the human fighter to cleric, and cleric #1 to a paladin. This gives me the following party for the rest of the series:

- human cleric/paladin
- human ranger
- human fighter/cleric
- human cleric
- elf magic-user/thief
- human magic-user

This gives me three capable front line warriors, two fully-fledged clerics (although the fighter/cleric takes a bit to catch up at first), a "small scale cleric" in the form of the cleric/paladin, a thief for all the traps, locks, and whatever else a thief is useful for, as well as a primary and secondary mage. It's not an overly sophisticated party considering what you can do with dual-classing, but it's well balanced and doesn't require any more tinkering around with past the start of CotAB.

Sometimes I will start PoR with a third human cleric instead of the half-elf cleric/fighter, and dual-class him to ranger at the start of CotAB. This has the disadvantage that he won't have exceptional STR until I find the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, but the advantage of another low-level cleric. I don't do that often, though.
Post edited August 31, 2015 by notsofastmyboy
Posted August 31, 2015
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notsofastmyboy: With the ridiculous level caps for demi-human races on one hand, and my unwillingness to hack in order to bypass said level caps on the other, my default party is usually comprised of five humans plus a demi-human something/thief multiclass character. I might have one additional demi-human during PoR, but that one gets replaced by another human at the start of CotAB.

PoR

- human fighter
- half-elf cleric/fighter
- human cleric #1
- human cleric #2
- elf magic-user/thief
- human magic-user

CotAB onwards

I import all characters except the half-elf cleric/fighter; his career is over, and he gets replaced by a newly created human ranger. My first way once out of the inn is directly to the Hall of Training where I dual-class the human fighter to cleric, and cleric #1 to a paladin. This gives me the following party for the rest of the series:

- human cleric/paladin
- human ranger
- human fighter/cleric
- human cleric
- elf magic-user/thief
- human magic-user

This gives me three capable front line warriors, two fully-fledged clerics (although the fighter/cleric takes a bit to catch up at first), a "small scale cleric" in the form of the cleric/paladin, a thief for all the traps, locks, and whatever else a thief is useful for, as well as a primary and secondary mage. It's not an overly sophisticated party considering what you can do with dual-classing, but it's well balanced and doesn't require any more tinkering around with past the start of CotAB.

Sometimes I will start PoR with a third human cleric instead of the half-elf cleric/fighter, and dual-class him to ranger at the start of CotAB. This has the disadvantage that he won't have exceptional STR until I find the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, but the advantage of another low-level cleric. I don't do that often, though.
Here are my thoughts on this setup:

You might consider making your half-elf a triple class. This gets you another magic-user (which means another casting of Sleep) who can wear armor. Alternatively, use an elf fighter/mage, who you can use through CotAB and then replace with a human Ranger/Magic-User (level 8, which I believe is the starting level in SotSB, is a decent level to dual-class, though level 9 has the advantage of eventually getting you another 1st level magic-user spell/day (does it work this way?)).

Dual-classing away from cleric is not an ideal setup. You lose HP compared to the other way around, and fighters stop improving meaningfully at level 17. Clerics, on the other hand, continue to gain spells per day (until 29th) and caster levels. (Clerics end up with the THAC0 of a 9-10 level fighter at leve 15 and between that of a 12th and 13th level fighter at level 19 and beyond, while you do keep the extra half attack and HP from the levels of fighters,)

It's also worth noting that a single class paladin still gets access to Slow Poison (at max level) in Curse of the Azure Bonds, which is enough to deal with situations where your cleric is the one poisoned.

One other issue with your party setup: Later in the series, if your human magic-user gets petrified, you have no way of curing it without returning to town or using an item. Having a second character who can reach level 12 as a magic-user would solve this issue.
Posted September 01, 2015
One problem with my party setup, my current Fighter can't dual-class to Paladin in CotAB; evidently you need scores of 17 in INT, WIS, and CHA. I'm not sure why as per 1st Edition AD&D, you only have to worry about having 17's or higher in the prime requisites of the class you want to dual-class into. INT and WIS are not prime requisites of the Paladin class, but they do have minimum scores.

I think the only issue with my party setup is it might be lacking in clerical power. But, it's made up for slightly with the Paladin, albeit at a lesser power.


From the Players' Handbook, 1st Edition AD&D (pg. 33):

"In order to switch from one class to another, the character must have an
ability score of 15 or more in the principal attribute(s) ability of the
original class and a 17 or 18 in the principal attribute(s) of the class
changed to."

I'm guessing they consider any attribute with a minimum as a "principal attribute".

Oh well, time to re-roll my party!!
Post edited September 01, 2015 by mhanna211
Posted September 01, 2015
The real advantage of waiting until 9th level to dual your ranger (which was actually suggested by the Secret of the Silver Blades Adventurers' Journal) is you get to cast mage spells in armor. No other dual-class mage can do this.

In general, classes should be dualled from a higher-hitpoint to a lower-hitpoint class, thus: Fighter/Ranger/Paladin --> Cleric --> Thief --> Mage.

I've never seen anyone dual-class thieves, but Cleric to Mage I have done (it is in the default party for Pools of Darkness).
Post edited September 01, 2015 by Null_Null
Posted September 01, 2015
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Null_Null: The real advantage of waiting until 9th level to dual your ranger (which was actually suggested by the Secret of the Silver Blades Adventurers' Journal) is you get to cast mage spells in armor. No other dual-class mage can do this.

In general, classes should be dualled from a higher-hitpoint to a lower-hitpoint class, thus: Fighter/Ranger/Paladin --> Cleric --> Thief --> Mage.

I've never seen anyone dual-class thieves, but Cleric to Mage I have done (it is in the default party for Pools of Darkness).
Totally agree with that. I am doing my Fighter -> Paladin purely for RP purposes.

Going from Fighter -> any other class (except the Fighter sub-classes) is always an advantage. Wait until you get maximum attacks per round, then dual-class. Games like BG:EE, people usually get Grand Mastery weapon specialization too.

However, I would say that you shouldn't dual OUT of a Cleric unless it's to go to Magic User. I believe weapon restrictions are still in place if you went from Cleric -> Thief, once your Thief levels pass your Cleric levels. I'm not sure you can backstab with a quarterstaff or whatever weapons that are both usable by both classes.
Posted September 01, 2015
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mhanna211: Totally agree with that. I am doing my Fighter -> Paladin purely for RP purposes.
I'd argue that you could justify remaking the character as a single class Paladin from an RP standpoint. Just give the new character the same stats and name as the old character (remember, the Modify Character option isn't just for maxing out your stats) and pretend that character is the same character as the old character. The loss of levels could be explained the same way that you explain the temporary loss of fighting ability for the dual class character. Also, one player reported a dual fighter-type character not gaining the second extra half attack when supposed to.

Unfortunately, the game dosen't let you modify Age, but if you really care about it, you could hex edit it to the appropriate value. (Remember to back up files before hex editing them, of course.)
Posted September 01, 2015
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Null_Null: The real advantage of waiting until 9th level to dual your ranger (which was actually suggested by the Secret of the Silver Blades Adventurers' Journal) is you get to cast mage spells in armor. No other dual-class mage can do this.
Hmm...I'm pretty sure I've dual classed lvl 8 Rangers (when they get 1.5 APR) that could cast magic spells while wearing armour.
Posted September 01, 2015
I'd be careful when dualing from one warrior class to another. If you don't get the maximum attacks per round before dualing you might never get them, ending with a crippled character.
Posted September 01, 2015
Ok, so if I do dual-class from Fighter to Paladin, I should probably stick it out until level 13; when my Attacks per Round is 2/1?

I'll keep that in mind. I don't like abusing the Modify Character option; like I said, I only use it to move the scores around to the attributes I want (barring of course, racial and gender maximums.).
Posted September 01, 2015
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mhanna211: Ok, so if I do dual-class from Fighter to Paladin, I should probably stick it out until level 13; when my Attacks per Round is 2/1?
Yoir character will be useless for much of the game until he regains the use of his old class, at which time his current class will be better anyway. So really, really not worth it, IMO.
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Forgotten Realms CollectionParty for PoR(40 posts)(40 posts)
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