I plan on beating this game, and then importing the characters so that I can have a HOF go at the game.

I was thinking: would having one (or more) of the tankish type characters switch to a spellcasting class in HOF work as a strategy?

For instance, I was considering playing a Drow Male Paladin3/Fighter4/Rogue3 (Alt: Barb4/Rogue4/Fighter4 or Barb3/Rogue3/Fighter4/Ranger3) in the regular game. Let's say I beat the game at level the levels listed above, or something close to it in each class. Would advancing the rest of the way as a Wizard be a decent character? What about similar builds, but going for Cleric with a Drow Female (or, since you'll be increasing WIS for a Cleric, adding Monk in there somewhere)?

What do you think? Effective characters, or just watered down too much to work? I know it's only looking at the final picture, but I think it's possible to still finish with about 20 levels as a spellcaster, which is great (you can also just use less levels of the "tankish" classes, or drop Rogue from a few of them, but I like Evasion with tanks, if possible).

If you really want an effective party in HOF, go without a tank character, or just a decoy character and the rest a spellcasters. I say one of each: wizard, socerer, druid, and cleric with minimal mix ins (rogue2/wizX is great or ranger1/druidX) because you just can't wade in with these guys past the goblin warrens. Summons and major blasting is the way to go.
For your char, adding some spell casting wouldn't hurt, except for possible XP penalties (not with the male drow) but it would take you a while to get descent spells to cast. Unless you just want to buff yourself to survive the onslaught while tanking. Mirror image!!!

The problem with melee in HoF is that the monsters will swing back, and (unless you do the tedious JUPP high AC thing) usually hit, and hit very hard.

I think the solution is to make your normal mode tank actually use very few non-caster levels. Four fighter levels and the rest in cleric. Then when you advance to HoF and use summons as tanks, switch to a ranged weapon and get all the feats for it.

@Klorox: I personally wouldn't reimport characters for a HoF game, gaining stat raises twice for doing the same quest twice feels like cheating, especially since doing quests changes the world so that you shouldn't be able to do the same quests again.

Because of the dynamic XP gain and the endless respawning monsters there is no need to start HoF with more than 1-2 reimported characters anyway.
Why do you want to cripple your gaming experience by thinking about what will happen after you've beaten the game ? IwD2 is a looong game in normal mode, you don't even know if you'll ever finish it yet.
HoF is very time consuming, will you have the time and patience to finish it again ?

kmonster - good points. You actually don't need a fully imported party because low level characters will level up so quickly anyway so long as they have one or two high level ones to nurse them along.

I also agree that you should concentrate on the game you are playing not the one you might end up playing in 6 months time.

I disagree that you can't have a good HOF party with tanks. I've played plenty of HOF parties where I imported my entire normal mode party into HOF, with a normal mode party mix. And I've had plenty of success in HOF.

The key is that you have to use a different mix of spells in HOF than in normal mode. Plenty of summons, of course. But also use plenty of Will based spells to Charm or immobilize the enemy and use your tanks to kill the immobilized enemies without having to waste precious spells.

Also, archery can be somewhat useful in HOF, but remember that if you have a dedicated archer who has a Lot of attacks/round, you're going to go thru a LOT of ammo. In HOF, the Everlast arrow is an absolute MUST-HAVE against lesser monsters that do not require enchanted arrows to be hit or avoid resistances. Yes, arrows won't do as much damage as a great melee weapon, but they will be able to reach out and touch those enemies that you've immobilzed in webs, grease, and entangles and would be able to hurt your sword wielding tank, if he was within reach.


A "normal" party mix can be very successful in HOF. You merely have to adjust your tactics and spellcasting choices.