so far this is my party:

Drow
Fighter(4)/Paladin(4)/Wizard(x)
This is the multiclass I'm having trouble with. I'm thinking of going, 4 classes of fighter to Paladin of Mystra and switch off with wizard till i get 4 classes in Paladin. From there, I continure him as wizard. He'll focus mainly on buffing spells

Shield Dwarf
Cleric(x)/Druid(x)
battleguard of tempus so he can raise his STR by 6, allowing me to allot point elsewhere. I chose to make him cleric/druid so that I have all the forms of magic in the game.

Human
rogue(1), Barbarian(1), Ranger(1), Wizard(x)
he basically covers up for the lack of spells my pally has, using damaging spells instead. I'm thinking of going Rogue, Wizard, Barbarian, Wizard, Ranger, then wizard all the way.

What do you guys think??

[ December 05, 2003, 20:18: Message edited by: Beren ]

Well...your first and third characters will suffer from the 20% multiclass EXP penalty, and your cleric-druid spellcaster will suffer a virtual 50% penalty because it will take twice as long to get the superpowered high-level spells. And your drow suffers a two-level kick. So even with twice the EXP intake, you'll still be suffering.

You might be better off leaving your drow as just a fighter-paladin and letting your human be all wizard with maybe a level or two in just one of those other classes. Barbarian would be nice for the speed bonus since there won't be five guys to block for him.

But that's just the powergaming perspective. From a purely fun perspective, I'm sure your idea will be great! Let us know how it goes!

Thanks I kinda forgot about the EXP penalties when I was making this party, but ahh well. I'm going to go make the party now, and maybe keep you guys up to date about their travels :)

You should probably leave the paladin level at 3 instead of 4. If you take a male drow, wizard is the preferred class, so there is no exp penalty as long as fighter and paladin level are within 1 of each other. Since you are thinking of starting him as a fighter anyway, you might want to consider alternating paladin of Helm and fighter instead and boost wizard levels later.

As for the 3rd character, where does the exp penalty come in?

As always, the answer depends on whether you are interested in the power of the party or the fun.

From a practical point of view, you may miss the power of a sorcerer. Especially as whenever you have more than one wizard you need to be able to find enough copies of the spells you want.

A multiclassed sorcerer takes longer to get spells but it is still useful to be able to fire off 4 magic missiles or chromatic orbs in a battle. Plus later on, a sorcerer could have multiple Animate Deads available to help out if needed.

There is no experience penalty on the third character. All classes are within 1 level of each other and the wizard is the favoured class (highest class-human.

About your cleric/druid... that multiclass sounds good, but in the end, it has one really nasty drawback: you get new spells at very slow rate. I'd make either druid x/fighter 4 or cleric x/fighter 4 instead of cleric/druid.

I'm not sure that can one character take levels from than three classes in IWD2 (if it's true, your third character needs to left one class out) But, otherwise your ranger/barbarian/rogue/wizard seems to be very nice character.

You might want to try this :

male drow
paladin(x)/wizard(x)
he's the main spellcaster

shield dwarf
fighter(x)/cleric(x)
He/She is the main tank , before going in to battle you buff him/her up to a tank.

human
barbarian(x)/druid(x)
This is the character that fills the holes ; you need defense?->send him into melee ; or just pick your enemies off from a distance.
You might want to add some rogue levels to tihs one.

So Hellheart, what levels do you suggest for that paladin/wizard build to stop taking paladin levels? My guess that it would be at 2-4 to get all the paladin bonuses, but will those levels still be ok if I want my paladin to be in the fron lines?Oh, and thanks for the tip about my cleric/druid you guys. I guess i'll just make him fighter(4)/cleric(x).I'm still thinkin about that barbarian/druid build, sounds really cool :)

Actually, there's no 20% XP penalty for any odd multiclassing combination here.

1. No point having exactly four levels of paladin. One level gets you most of it, two get you more and three get you all. If you're not roleplaying, go for 1 and put the rest in sorcerer instead of wizard. You'll have a fighter4/paladin1/sorcerer(x). Huge saves, especially if you cast eagle's splendour, avenger allowance, weapon specialisation with swords, all spells you need. I discourage wizard because it would force you to spend more points in intelligence that you could allot to different, more important power-wise, stats. What's more, getting scrolls is always a pain in the ass. Spell slot proggression leaves much to be desired. Sorcerer, however, has more casts per day and you needn't select which spell to use how many times beforehand. Buffs, damage, protections, summoning - you choose. And there's no opposition school.

Weapon specialisation creates a nice opportunity of mordenkainen's sword abuse. Imagine Mord's with additional +2 damage, hehe. This also applies to holy avenger.

Another point is that a sorcerer combination will be a much better fighter than wizard combo. Why? Because it will have more casts of Tenser's shift when you need it. And you won't have disintegration or improved haste blocking the slots.

Paladin/wizard is only for guys who 1) like wizards for roleplaying reasons 2) like to be able to advance further as paladins for roleplaying reasons.

2. Cleric/Druid is not a good idea. Just a great load of low-level healing and buffs. But if that's what you need, sure - why not.

What about a lawful neutral druid with one level of monk and one of ranger? Evasion from monk level1, dual-wielding from ranger level1, weapon profs from ranger level1, wisdom added to AC from monk level1. IIRC also faster movement for monks is from level1.

That would need human or half-elf race, though, for no one has druid as his favoured class and only those two have their highest-level class as the favoured one.

3. This will be a good back-up fighter with Tenser's shift, cat's grace and bull's strength (IIRC those stack up).

Definitely rogue 2 and not 1, for evasion comes with level 2.