I was thinking of starting a new "Deep-Gnome only" party and i need a few more characters.
I have these ready:
Rogue 1/Monk 1/Paladin 1/Illusionist X (Pretty much like jukkas decoy)
Dreadmaster X (Beserker/buffer/debuffer)

I'm planning on playing a 4-5 person party like most of my earlier parties. Any suggestions on other good DG-charachters i can make? Since i like sorcs im considering a Rock-Gnome Sorc but only if i can't make a good enough DG-only party

Pally? I would think an Evil DG would be better as decoy. How about Rouge1/ Monk1/ Ranger1/ Fighter2/ Dreadmaster2/ Illusionist x (ranger for dualweilding, fighter for feats, cleric for the Wis bonus)?
Bard11/ Druid x. Alternate levels till L23, you can levelsquat after that.
Pure Monk or Barbarian.
Pure Cleric, probably not Dreadmaster but Morninglord.
DG Sorcerer is not that good an idea. Why not have a Drow pure Sorcerer who is dragging along his slaves?

a party, even a 4/5 man party, with all deep-gnome would lvl very slowly

The pally is for the extra spell resistance of the holy avenger. Maybe i should have 2 lvls pal (for the immunity to fear) and one lvl ranger. I've played with morninglords a couple of times and i would probably want to try something else like dreadmaster or stormlord. Is it possible to build the Druid/bard strong enough to at least use throwing axes? Then i could maybe have an illusionist instead of the monk or barb to support my sorc (prob. a rock gnome, they should be good enough sorcs). I donk think i'll need a monk as my decoy should be able to take the hits and pure fighterclasses are quite booring. Would a fighter X/stormlordX or a BarbX/stormlordX be a good melee-char?

Well then take the 2nd level too. Immunity to fear is good.

The normal way of doing Bard/Druids is to ignore physical stats and go for spellcasting and skills. Perhaps its not that good an idea for you. DGs get only 74 stats at start (HalfOrcs are the only other race thus penalised).

Barbarian/Stormlord (no feats wasted on weapons) could hack through the opposition quite easily.

Ok, thanks for your opinions. I made a Barbarian/Druid instead because i probably need Barkskin and the druids have good spells in every lvl from 2-7 (barkskin, call lihgtn, flamestrike, static charge and heal). Maybe not the best at buffing himself, but the other spellcasters should be able to help. My party should now be something like this:
rogue1/monk1/pal2/ranger2/maybe Fi1 or 2 and the rest illusionist.
DreadmasterX
DruidX/BarbX
Rogue1/illusionist
Rock gnome SorcX with all the talking skills.

Im still not sure if i should multiclass my druid with barbarian (I don't like the rages and does the +30 HP at lvl 30 make a difference? Is 2/- resistance worth it?) or Fighter (weapon focus is quite good but is there enough good feats to motivate the loss of HP?) i even consider a ranger as i should get quite much bonus spells with 20 wis (4/2/2/2 spells at ranger lvl 15) Any opinions on which of these is the best choice?

Have fun with that first guy. With the way saves are implemented, its gonna be real tough for opposing spellcasters to get anything working on him :grin: The Fighter levels are for the extra feats (One each at L1 & L2). Why the 2nd Ranger level?
When you reach Kuldahar give him a level of Cleric of Ilmater or Bane. You might just get lucky and get a bonus.

Dont knock the high level Barb resistances. Its like having a continuous form of Armor of Faith. Add to that the elemental feats and this guy will shrug off most damage types. The ability to fight that much longer could be cruical. Also the increased speed will mean the touch spells go off that much faster.
The fighter does lose out on HP but gets lots of feats instead. If you have a plan as to how to use all those feats go for it, else stay with barb. However I dont remember what feats a Druid gets automatically. If he does not get Heavy Armor and you want him to use that plate ...
The Ranger just does not get enough spells to make him useful. Frankly, this is a dead end.

That Rouge1/Illusionist x is going to be pretty useless. Change it or drop it. The rest of the team could do with his XP going their way.

Does the Ilmater-cleric get anything special at kuldahar? I can't make him both paladin and dreadmaster. I'll probably go with the barbarian/druid since i can't think of any feats that will make a difference other than the ones i already get at every 3 lvls. I noticed that the ranger don't have any good spells at lvl2 and 3 and i think HP is more important than 2 flamestrikes and 4 sunscorces.
The last time i had a drow wizard (in a 4p party)i started lvl-squatting him at lvl7 and never lvld him up after that sice he didn't get any high-lvl scrolls and i didn't feel that i wanted a lvl21 wizard (at dragons eye) with just one lvl8 scroll. Kind of like a waste of power. If he's a DG rogue1/illusionistX in a 5p-party he should be able to get scrolls in time. And i like bigger parties with lots of spellpower. The wizard is supposed to be my evil enchanter and the rogue-lvl makes him able to use necro and abjurerspells (sure it's a bug in the game, but what the heck...)

[ May 02, 2005, 15:12: Message edited by: Mudde ]

Naah. Just a little XP. Its not really worth it. Dont bother with that 1 Cleric levlel.

Iirc the specialist mages scribing any scroll bug only happens if you have atleast 1 level of a spell casting charecter. Even a level of Ranger or Pally is enough. I am not so sure it will work with the Rouge level. Better test it before forming a party.

A level of ranger is not sufficient; my wife used a Evoker with one level of Ranger, and wound up taking a level of Sorcerer to give her the scribing bonus.

I thought it was the rouge-class that gave my former decoy the ability to cast necromantic and abjurer spells. Now I've made a couple of tests and noticed that the classes that works in that way are monk, pal, druid, cleric and sorc. Since I wont need his to cast necro-spells at least until he reaches spell-lvl 8, and since he'll concentrate on enchantment spells it wont hurt to wait until he's got at least 20 wiz-lvls.
I think i'll give him a monk-lvl since he has to be evil and can't be a paladin.