dtgreene: First, the party I used for a serious playthrough attempt of IWD1 classic (non-EE):
4 characters:
1. Ranger/Cleric (extra attack when not using shield + Spiritual Hammer + access to both Cleric and (lower level) Druid spells)
2. Fighter/Druid (Extra attacks from Polymorph + Fighter levels (yes, they stack); note that those extra attacks can be used with ordinary weapons thanks to Dispel Magic (this happened to me unintentionally; an enemy cast Dispel Magic on me)).
3. Fighter/Mage/Thief (handle thieving skills; single class Mages aren't as good in this game because of limited scroll availability)
4. Bard (high caster level + bard songs)
Second, my favorite glitched party:
0 characters:
There *might* have been a dead character who was there to keep the character arbitration screen happy; everyone else was dismissed. This gives you a situation that isn't actually a game over, but the game over music is playing and you can't do anything except quit, load, or save, and the game is soft-locked. I don't remember what happens if you add a new character to the party.
Haha your second party seems really interesting :D should be kind of charismatic guys :D :D
Btw first one is a good combination
Interesting combinations guys ... I have once tried to go through ID1 with just one guy - fighter and he was soo overpowered but I did not ended the game - am not sure if it was because I was not able to pass it just with fighter or not ...
Do you think Bard is worth hiring to party ?
I am not sure if his casting abilites are as good ... hmm
Monk is pretty overpowered i think ...
Bard's are actually very good in the Icewind Dale series for two reasons:
1. Bard songs. Unless you are playing IWD1 without the expansion (and if you are, you got it from somewhere other than gog.com), bards get many useful songs, allowing such things as boosting party luck (improves most things, including making critical misses impossible), afflicting a status ailment on enemies, and even regenerating the party's health. (Note that in IWD2, the regeneration only works while in combat.)
2. In IWD1, Bards level faster than other classes (except Thieves, with which they are tied). This means than, given a spell that scales with level that the bard is able to cast, the bard will use it better than a mage. For example, Skull Trap will do more damage if it's a bard casting it. (This doesn't apply to IWD2, however.)
Note that, in IWD2, you can level up a character to level 11 as a bard to pick up all the bard songs and then level up another class instead. Alternatively, you can leave the bard at level 11 and watch as your entire party (not just the bard!) gains more experience as a result, but we're heading into exploit territory here. (Note that this isn't a bug; it's the result of implementing the D&D 3e experience rules but not implementing the rule that prevents you from gaining multiple levels at once.)
Also, IWD2 has Lingering Song, allowing you to stop singing without the song's effect ending immediately. This lets you get a song's effect while still letting the bard do things. It even lets you play the song again to get the effect to stack (this should probably also be considered an exploit); enough stacking of the luck song will make all your attacks natural 20s!
By the way, I believe my first party didn't have any guys in it. It does use multi-class characters, and the multi-class mechanics are more favorable in 1 than 2.
