This question concerns party creation but from a slightly different point of view. I wish to discuss the _number_ of chars in the party. All the discussions on this board have 6 characters.

I think this is a little waste of XP or am I not right? In case you have an XP cap remover (doaes it really work?) you can have three, four or five char with better level.

I first tried with 3 chars:

Elf Fighter
Gname Cleric/Thief
Bard

I didn't actually have too much trouble with it, I got through chapter 2 and then abandonned - I thought I need a better mage and another good fighter.

So I took

Elf Fighter (3 shots per round)
Fighter Dual to Cleric lvl 2 (kicks ass)
Bard (Just love those)
Mage/Thief

Then I thought that a multi-class mage is not good becase a bard gets more spells (2 tme faster in XP gaining)

So finally turned to a powergame

Dwarven Tank
Fighter Dual to Cleric
Bard
Fighter/Thief Elf
Fighter Dual to Conjurer (cool dude)- lot of spellz

The question is how many?

I think 3 or 4 is the right number. Someone said they beat the game with one but I'd rather use as many as I can to go all the cool higher lvl abilities. There is enough XP in the game to max out 3 PC but I'm not sure about 4. I still think it can be done. with 4 you not looking at a complete 33% increase because quest XP is applied to all equally. The question is how much quest XP and how much monster XP in the game and then you can do the math from there.

Some people have said you can beat the game with one or two characters. These people are idiots. There's no way you can start with two level 1 characters and take them to the end of the game. Uh-uh. Not possible. Anyone that tells you otherwise is a troll (there seems to be a lot of them here). Notice that they will say things like "well I got to chapter 2 or 3, but i didn't have any problems, so I'm sure I could have got through the whole game like that. Sheah right!
I really think you would need at least 4 characters. It depends on how efficient your classes are. I think clerics are indispensible, not for their healing (you can rest almost anywhere and have full HP when you wake up!), but for thier buffing spells (bless, recitation, prayer, etc). Take a party hasted and buffed up on 4 or 5 priest spells, and nothin's gonna stop them. Most or all of your characters should be multi-class.

Maybe a bard, fighter/mage, fighter/cleric, and a fighter/thief could beat the game. Anything less is just suicide.

I also agree that one or two is impossible and you will not be able to use all the good stuff in the game.

After a few days of I made a final decision: playing with 4 characters and I am now through chapter 4 (not too much time for playing this fine game - have to work).

Fighter Elf
Fighter/Thief Halfling - very good char - he has a cool helm from Kuldahar (has lowest AC)
Cleric Dwarf
Bard Human became a good spellcaster.

I think for me this is an ultimate min/max party - it works AWESOME. Next time through I will have fun thou - i'll take a paladin, a thief/illusionist a fighter/druid and maybe another fighter.

It's easy to beat the game whit only 3 guys
Just use a dwarven fighter, a half-elf fighter/cleric and a half/elf Mage/Thief, Just use Haste and it will be fine.

I agree w/you Nightal. I have a party that I like a lot and aso have a lot of fun with:

Gnome Fighter
Gnome Cleric/Thief
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist

I think that taking a Fighter/Thief Halfling and Gnome Cleric/Illusionist is the same.

I do not cheat, I do not import charactes, I play from level 1 with no imoprted weapons, and I am at chapter 5 with no problems. My best char is a fighter/illusionist - he kicks ass.

The Pluses of the party are evident - everybody is a good melee fighter, everybody wears plate, shields and helms, and all classes are covered.

How does your fighter/illusionist cast spells in plate?

Cheers

I usually do it two ways:

One of them: Cast Mirror Image, Greater Invis, Haste, Etc., then come up to a group of monsters, cast CLoudkill, pause the game, put my plate armor on and fight with my long-sword.

Or, I take bracers of AC 6, a Robe of Enfusing (AC bonus), cast Shield, Ghost Armor and repeat as shown above.

Admit though I exaggerated just a little bit.

I hope that Taluntain and Nazgul will excuse me for this.

I am rather new in AD&D. However I'm into fantasy for quite a while.

I bought IWD and like it a lot. I also browsed through BG and BG2 faqs and forums on this site (btw Taluntain, it's great).

Would yall suggest playing BG before buying BG2?



[This message has been edited by Modjahed (edited August 10, 2000).]

In response to Lord Balduran's comment on it being impossible to finish the game with only one PC, I'm determined to prove him wrong. Right now I'm 1/2 way through Dragon's Eye with only one PC. It may turn out to be truly impossible, but I'm going to give it my best shot. Here's how I'm running things:

Created a half-elf Fighter/Mage/Thief to start the game. Now, I haven't cheated in any technical sense yet, but I will admit to rerolling my abilities on this character for what must have been 30 minutes before finally ending up with the following scores: St-18/55, Dx-18, Cn-18, In-18, Wi-3, Ch-16.

In the game, I treat the character mostly as a fighter and rely on the other two classes for support. Remember, a multi fighter/thief can search for traps with full plate on--you just can't disarm them. So I really bias my thieving abilities toward stealth and traps.

As for the mage abilities, I use them for two things; identifying items and casting defensive spells before a big battle. The usual routine goes something like this. Stealth in to know thine enemy. Retreate. Cast haste, mirror image, shield, luck, etc. Put on armor. Go kick ass.

This has worked okay, if a bit slowly, so far. There are two caveats. First, with no healer, you end up resting A LOT! And for some odd reason, it always says an absurd amount of time has passed for your recovery--up to 40 days sometimes. It didn't do that when I ran the game with a full party of six, even to recover same number of HPs. This has no effect on the game really except comic value. I'm on level three of Dragon's Eye right now, and apparently I've been campaigning for over two years!

The second annoyance is that you just can't carry everything you want to. Even with very high strength, I just don't have room to pick up everything. That's why it's great to be able to identify things as you go.

Yes, it's slow going. And, yes, it wouldn't be possible if you couldn't pause on the inventory screen. And, yes, it is a little absurd to imagine your character taking her armor on and off every five seconds.

Maybe Lord Balduran is right. Maybe I won't be able to finish. I'll be sure to let you know.

I was able to get to chapter 5 with a gnomish fighter and a bard but I got my #ss kicked by those salamanders and there frosty cronies. oh well....... what makes it possible are the gnomish helmet that helps your ac and the bardic horn, without that i don't think it is possible to be done

Well, got the game beaten with a party of three.

Gnome Fighter/Thief
Half-Elf Ranger/Cleric
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist.

Next time I'm going in with a:

Paladin
Fighter Gnome
Ranger Dual to Cleric
Thief Dual to Mage

and after that I will do it this way:

Gnome Fighter/Thief
Gnome Cleric/Illusionist

Cheers

Well, the ability to rest almost anywhere and regain full health is probably going to make it actually possibly to play with small parties. I still don't think it's possible to beat the game with 1 or 2 characters starting at level 1 without cheating. However if you can prove me wrong, more power to you!

In response to Modjahed (where did you get that name from BTW), I would play BG before BG2. Because you can transfer your character from BG. I imagine BG2 will allow you to create a character on level 9 or thereabouts if you don't have a character to transfer, but it probably won't be as good as if you had developed one from scratch in BG.

Besides, BG2 will not be out for at least a month, and you will need something to keep you occupied until then (Icewind is kinda short). I estimate that I spent 80+ hours on BG, I got almost everything in the game, did almost every quest, and it's probably the best game I have ever played, imho.

Also, to those using character hacks to raise your exp cap or tinker with your character abilities, this will probably prevent you from transfering your character to BG2, so make sure you save your legitimate character off before you start messing with it or playing DSOTSC with it.

Let me start by saying that I agree with the notion of playing Baldur's Gate before you buy BG2. Not only will you be able to transfer your characters over (as mentioned before), but it's likely that BG2 will have some storyline tie-ins from the first game, which you might not get if you didn't play it.

Baldur's Gate is one of my favorite RPGs (though Fallout 2 is my all-time fav), and I liked it just a tad more than Icewind Dale, because it had more of an epic scope and didn't feel so incomplete.

Now, onto Icewind Dale. Balduran, while I agree with you that it's probably extremely difficult to beat the game with 1 or 2 characters, I also am working to prove you wrong. :) My friend and I are doing a multi-player game, and each of us are only playing 1 character. I am a Human Fighter, who is going to dual-class to a mage, and my buddy's char is a half elven Ranger/Cleric. We're still early on in the game (haven't yet cleared Vale of Shadows), but I'll let you know how it goes.

As well, I'm betting I could probably take the game with a Dwarven Fighter and a Dwarven Fighter/Cleric. That party, like my multi-player game, would have trouble due to the lack of a thief, but I bet it could be done. If not, then adding a fighter/thief (either dwarven or halfling) to the group would make it a lock.

In any case, I'm still having a blast with this game, mainly due to the multi-player.

It might be possible to go the whole way with two, but one would be extremely hard. I was able to beat BG with one character (F/M/T), but it was my third time through the game and I knew all of the secrets. Most fights were just avoided through Hide in Shadows. And that was with no cheating, but I did use Algernon's cloak. I'll give one character a whirl, but the fights in IWD have been much tougher (generally speaking). I have no idea how one character would beat the "odd little girl."

Hi Lord Balduran. Well, I think I am getting BG to play it before BG2.

Btw, do you know of any good Fallout 2 forum? I have beaten that game like 5 times and it is one of my all-time favs.

What concerns my nickname, it is quite simple. I couldn't get me a decent nick for quite a while, and then after my college junior finals I grew a beard and shaved my head. That did it - I started to look like some Middle-East terrorist.

Btw, that summer our Belarusian girls just had a crash on that type of looks.

Cheers

Just as an update and to reply to Grumblebelly, the one-PC game is progressing nicely. I just finished the first three levels of the Hand and am on my way to the towers, which I expect to be rather challenging.

As for how to defeat the snake goddess, I was actually pretty surprised myself at how easy it was. I had less trouble with it that the first time I played with a full party. I just crept around her lair picking off everyone with my bow until all that was left was her and one of her elites. If you stay right next to the bottom wall, she doesn't see you. After sneaking back out of the room, I loaded myself up with defensive spells (playing F/M/T) and charged right it. She was a pussycat...went down right quick.

Actually, this fight is representative of the strategy that has made the one-PC game playable so far: take it slow. If you creep into any unexplored space one step at a time, you rarely wind up having to fight more than one or two enemies at once. The reason I think I may start to see some trouble in the upper levels of the Hand is because there are several encounters where you have no choice but to battle lots of tough foes at once.

Two other factors are making the single-PC game easier than one might expect at first. For one, you get to keep all the best gear on one person. Imagine a single character with all the following stuff: black wolf talisman, boots of the fox, red knight's shield, ring of stealth, ring of dwarven bone, +2 confusion long sword, messenger of seeth, dead man's skull, misery's herald (which the elven half of me feels really bad for using, but what a kickin' flail!), etc. ... and I'm barely 1/2 way through.

Another key is that, when you're only splitting your XPs three ways (remember F/M/T), they go twice as far. So the character is significantly more advanced at any stage in the game than the game is designed for characters to be at that stage (make sense?). At one point, I was able to memorize two level 5 spells, but I hadn't yet run into any level 5 scrolls.