I've enjoyed the interesting aspects of this mod relative to vanilla BG2 and other difficulty mods. After a few run-throughs though, using a standard or semi-standard party isn't too much of a challenge. With this mod, a low-level challenge, no-reload challenge, and/or poverty challenge are all out of the question. So the only other challenges I can think of are a "no arcane magic challenge" (which frankly I think is quite do-able thanks to Iron Skins and Greater Restoration and Auramasters), or perhaps a party entirely composed of the types of classes and kits that people tend not to use (at least from what I can see in the journals here).

Some classes I am considering:

Archer
The major issue here is that so many monsters have extra resistance to missiles, relative to other damage types (or outright immunity). So this leaves you with essentially the Bow of Gesen's flat 2 piercing damage, or using Arrows of Piercing whenever you have some. Also, I think Tuigan isn't available until somewhere in Watcher's Keep (unless it's randomized?), which hurts the archer in the early game. The lack of Strength bonus to damage, and the Dexterity bonus to Thac0 actually not scaling like it does with Strength (and, to add insult to injury, it is of course much harder to raise Dexterity in this game as compared to Strength). Called Shot is intriguing, but there are only a few encounters in which you're facing just one enemy hitting you, so the Thac0 penalty from it would just impact one of them. Unfortunately the STR loss per hit is too short-lasting to be relied upon to kill something by getting them down to 0 STR, though perhaps in multiples this is more readily achievable?

Wild Mage
Potentially using high-level spells early in the game is nice, but a Wild Surge on 1 out of 20 spells means you're likely to really get hurt by this in perhaps the majority of battles. I suppose you could reload until at least your pre-buffing goes correctly, and then take fights from there, but that's no fun.

Blade
Can't cast the all-important level 7 Ruby Ray spell, so he's stuck using scrolls for this. Same with Limited Wish for undead protection. No Alacrity, meaning you're just getting one spell per turn out of him. Use Any Item is still pretty nice and you could make quite a tank out of a Blade, but the offensive capability is really lacking. And without the classical fast leveling of a bard, or the usefulness of the HLA traps, it seems like a Figher/Mage multi is almost entirely dominant over this class.

Inquisitor
No higher than Specialization really hurts, especially if you're using two-handed weapons - he will max out at 5 attacks under Improved Haste. Would be a nice tweak if paladins could get grandmastery in 2H swords, given it's their signature weapon style and it is so important in games in which the un-nerfed grandmastery is used.

Swashbuckler
The weapon and armor for this class are underwhelming and very expensive. Lack of Use Any Item hurts a ton, and the HLA of Acrobatic Combat is extremely underwhelming. Still, the possibility for a very low AC could make him a good tank, but why not use a Ranger Cleric for this purpose and get more offensive output and more defensive capabilities?

Thief dualed to a Cleric
Level a thief to 23 to get Use Any Item, then dual him to a Cleric. I believe he can then get 105% physical resistance (40% hardiness from Wish, 25% from Jan's armor, 10% from Defender of Easthaven or Warblade upgrade, 5% from Master of Disciplines, 10% from Armor of Faith, 15% from Scarlet Ioun Stone if PC is a necro). And he could use Scarlet Ninja-to in offhand to get 6 attacks under Improved Haste, and cast spells from scrolls. Not great, but pretty useful. Alternatively, I think you could take a Cleric and dual immediately to thief. Armor of Faith gives you the 10% resistance right from level 1, and likewise the 15 round duration. You lose out on higher-level cleric spells, but it would be an interesting character for sure. Without the Scarlet Ioun Stone, he loses a lot of appeal as a tank, and I think would be forced to aim for low AC route for damage prevention.

Viconia
The 65% magic resistance is very tempting, especially with the Human Flesh armor being available pretty early. But from a weapons perspective, she's just no help in combat with a poor Thac0 and limited weapon selection that maxes out at 4 APR. Still, Greater Restoration is pretty awesome.

Monk
A better Viconia in some ways, ending up with more magic resist in the mid to late game. But maxing out at 5 attacks per round is still a bummer here, not to mention the inability to really do piercing or slashing damage. I am also curious why their Thac0 doesn't get better than 5. If I remember correctly, they used the fighter Thac0 progression in vanilla.

Wizardslayer
Again, intriguing for the magic resist. It appears they use the 1% per level growth up until level 20 or so (as defined by the manual, though in the actual original ToB game it was 2% per level until level 20). At least, unlike every other character here, they can attain the all important grandmastery. But lack of magic rings and cloaks is going to make for some terrible saves when spells do sneak through. There's basically severe penalties to this class throughout the entire first half of the game; 20% magic resist at level 20 means you're still going to get chunked 80% of the time when you fail your saves.

Beastmaster
Clubs and Quarterstaves are pretty good in this mod, so the weapon restrictions aren't as bad as they'd be in a typical BG2 difficulty mod. And the extra HP from Find Familiar would be pretty nice. Relative to most of the above kits, this actually wouldn't be too bad. But it feels a lot like a subpar ranger, rather than an entirely new kit or class decision.

Any cool strategy ideas for the characters above that I am missing? Curious to hear people's thoughts.

This post has been edited by blastermaster: Apr 7 2015, 12:34 PM

I like your ideas blastermaster! Party composition is my thing! So if I might add my 2 cents...

First off I think someone can get through a no reload challenge eventually. At least through the SOA portion of the game. I usually wind up postponing my parties when I get to TOB and never pick them back up so I don't know if it's possible in that part however. At the moment I'm close to posting a journal with a party that has had only 6 reloads and at this point all I have left to do is Orcus, Watcher's Keep Supreme Leader area, Black Dragon, Tree of Life and Vagrant quests. With some tweaks to my party like a Necromancer protagonist, a Riskbreaker instead of my Wizard Slayer and a Berserker>Cleric instead of my experimental Cleric of Lathander>Ranger I think I'd have a better chance.

I had a party with 3 of your possibilities consisting of an Archer, Monk and Blade so I'll start there. Auramaster, Riskbreaker and Necromancer rounded out that party and I got to a point where I had only enemies that required +4 weapons to hit and I couldn't hack it.

Archer
An archer could support a really good party but they only shine against 1% of enemies. Once you strip a mage, and having little to no arcane casters makes that harder, the mage is dead in an Archers presence. But that pretty much goes for any fighter, it just happens faster with an Archer. If you go Divine instead of Arcane an archer would be tough company.

Monk
At this point in the game my Monk hadn't even leveled up high enough to have +4 fists so he was worthless. Earlier in the game he was a very fun character to play but took some baby sitting due to low hit points.

Blade
The Blade is a super supportive class in IA and I mean that in a good way. He can give you time to focus your attacks elsewhere while he tanks ANYTHING. He also doesn't get targeted by Greater Silence so in certain battles where a F/M gets stripped into a less than decent fighter the Blade can excel. Sikret nerfed them for a reason and I think they are still a great addition to a good party. A party that's hindered by damage output won't be fun. Maybe that Inquisitor along with another fighter would let you tank, dispel and punish.

Inquisitor
I've had Keldorn as well as my own created one. Their dispel magic is huge...it stripped more enemies than I had imaged it would. This might be a great addition to a party that has a hard time killing buffed enemies but most IA enemies have resistances, not buffs. A kit that allowed an Paladin/Inquisitor to lower physical resistance would be nice.

Cleric/Thief multi or dual
THE most disappointing class I've played with in IA was a Cleric dual to a thief. No UAI when you dual from Cleric to Thief. Absolutely worthless class. Prior to IA I had powerful and fun to play duals and multi's with them in vanilla and Tactics. Not here, removing traps and a couple buffs before battle is all you have to look forward to. And if you go the other way and dual your thief to cleric he might regain his thieving abilities mid TOB. Don't do it. Trust me.

Viconia
She was part of my last Vagrant run. Poor THACO is not an issue with Holy Power, until it gets dispelled. She winds up being really good. IIRC you can get her MR up quite a bit more than 65%. 25 STR, good THACO, MR, a little physical resistance, Globe of Blades, Aura of Flaming Death and SUPER low AC. She is one tough bitch. 4 APR isn't much but she'll hit and hit hard at higher levels in addition to being tankish. If you had her as your only Divine caster and say your Wild Mage that leaves room for more mid range experimental fighter types.

Wizard Slayer
Like I mentioned up top I'm using one now. He's level 27 and has 63% MR with the Warlords Blade MR bonus. Could he compete offensively with a Kensai or RB? Not quite, but there have been some fights that he has completely changed. Some spellcasters will miss a spell here and there before they reach into their packs to use a scroll of AI or their contingency goes off, and that can be huge. Looking back at my journal he had an impact on almost every spellcaster battle. Being a Half-Orc, missing saves against damage aren't usually insta-death. With Lilacor and an Auramaster watching his back throughout the game mind affecting spells weren't too troublesome either. If you were to couple a Wizard Slayer with a Protector he'd be golden. It has mainly been bad AC that hurts.

I haven't tried a Wild Mage but I want to. Beastmaster class is one I will never try unless it gets changed...Capital L - A - M - E. And I was waiting on v7 before trying a Swashbuckler.

For me a good challenge going through the game is just reloading fewer times than the last time I did. Other times I just want to try different party compositions. Whatever you decide to do...
GOOD LUCK!

Thank you for the feedback and insight! Very useful. What is your current party? Or are you saving this for the journal reveal?!

On the topic of no-reloads, I'm afraid I don't have enough experience with this mod to pursue that. I've only done a couple of runs and I tend to intersperse them with Swords Coast Strategems challenges, or vanilla challenges, so I soon forget some of the specifics of these battles (enemy resistances, number of waves of enemies, when a monster is invulnerable, etc.). Even with extensive experience though, I think some battles (Yaga Shura, Twisted Rune) would still be a bit difficult for me due to complexity. I actually think TOB is easier to no-reload than SOA though, at least given my current run. Yaga Shura is the only battle that's really given me trouble, and part of this was because one of my character slots was occupied by a thief waiting to get his Kensai abilities back :-)

For archers I would love to make a PC archer run (I could probably modify the Vagrant quests to look for an Archer instead, too), but there's basically no upside. Similar to something like a Bounty Hunter... I hate the idea of just handicapping myself. I like the kits that provide some weird ability you can build around. At least Beastmasters give you a few extra HP, even if their Summon Animals ability is useless.

The monk's level 4 enchantment issue is certainly problematic. I wonder if there was a way to grant them "strikes as +4" fists when you get those Gauntlets of Crushing. And likewise +5 when/if you upgrade them to the IA-specific upgraded version. It would make sense, thematically, to me. But seems awfully hard to combat things like the Troll Queen, Spider Queen, and Skeleton Grandlords without a major crushing damage dealer being able to touch them.

By the way, your comments on Blades and Silence was an interesting consideration that I forgot about. I am just about wrapping up a run in which I never saw a Silence spell. My party is a Necromancer, Cernd, 3 Riskbreakers and a Kensai-Thief dual. Dragon fights, with the exception of Dracolich, have pretty much been a joke, both due to better strategy on my part now that I know how to fight them, and because I never even had to consider their silencing abilities.

If I did Cleric/Theif, I would either dual the Cleric at Level 7 (essentially just for the HP and full strength Armor of Faith castings), or I would go from Thief (once getting UAI) to Cleric. Use Any Item is just so interesting, strategically. It gives so many options, I really enjoy it.

Your comment on Viconia is making me consider some kind of low-AC run. As mentioned above with my current party, I am accustomed to going the route of physical resistance and healing, but the Kensai-Thief is easily hitting -24 AC and it has been enjoyable to watch Gem Golems just whiff at him. Also I've not ever used any of the heavy plate armors in this mod, so that is part of my interest in things like Inquisitors and Wizard Slayers.

And thanks for the insight into wizard slayer. Though I am afraid even 63% MR isn't that impressive in my eyes (though you could roll him as Evil and give him the Human Flesh armor I suppose). At 63% MR, facing a 3xADHW you are still going to get hit by all three about 5% of the time, which likely results in death. And of course, before getting Warblade, at lower levels, it's far worse both due to not having Warblade and due to having lower innate resistance. But yes, once out of the Underdark and past Kruin, it seems like you can have a very strong magic resistance and count on surviving such things most of the time. (Though it seems to me that a Monk may give you similar magic resistance but with more flexibility in terms of rings and amulets and potions). Really tough call between this and monk, were I to make one of these gimped parties.

Current party is a Vagrant PC with
Sorceror
Wizard Slayer
Auramaster
Cleric of Lathander>Ranger dual at level 10
Berserker>Mage dual at level at level 9

I've never really used a B>M before this. I might have enjoyed a F/M more even with the long agonizing leveling up. Don't get me wrong B>M is a beast defensively and offensively, but for some reason seems kind of bland.

The C>R dual was an idea to see if she would be better than a Berserker>Cleric dual. For most of the game I think a B>C is more useful. Boon of Lathander gets dispelled by vampires just like negative plane protection. I didn't give myself enough spell selection at this level of dual but I was going for reloading as few times as possible and needed both classes active ASAP. As far as experience from kills she's 4th...B>M 27% Vagrant 24% Wizard Slayer 20% and C>R 19%. Once I started getting HLAs she has improved a lot though.

Balancing a powerful party with some unique classes is a fun way to go for me. An entire gimped party would be fun at certain times but I have a feeling I would rage quit.

This post has been edited by Hideous the Wu Jen: Apr 11 2015, 05:37 AM

I'm going with an all-gimped squad, why not :-) Changed some of the character kits and classes to get NPC dialogues; tried to stay with the NPC's theme.

PC - Archer (will be treated like a Vagrant for quest purposes)
Nalia - Wild Mage (kind of random, but I've actually never played with her before)
Jan - Blade
Keldorn - Inquisitor
Minsc - Monk (Cernd is usually the go-to here, but I used him last playthrough)
Viconia - Cleric of Lathander (may switch this to Talos; in hindsight it doesn't make much sense since she begins Evil and only turns to Neutral in TOB)

What is interesting about this party is that the latter 4 characters can all get around 75-90% magic resistance, between natural ability, their special NPC items, or other items in the game. The down side is that they're mostly horrible in terms of physical damage, and I'm not really going to be able to use Flail of Defending and Wounding or Judgment Day. I may roll Sarevok into a Wizard Slayer so I can try using Judgment Day in ToB. Keeps with the magic resist theme, but can actually use the coolest weapon.

Already I am having some trouble. The Greater Crawler in the sewers is immune to level 2 and below. My only +3 is a club; I really need a Martial Staff to give to Keldorn as he's the only one with decent Thac0. I could use Enchanted Weapon to make a long sword for Jan, but his Thac0 and APR are horrible. His bard song (+4 to Thac0 and Damage, I believe) is pretty cool though.

Mist Horrors and Vampiric Mists have 50% resistance to missile. Ghost Spiders are immune to missile. It's sad that I'm desperately looking forward to when I get the Gesen Bow and it's 2 piercing damage.

You have a small number of decent fighting power. By that I mean chars who can hit effectively, competent warriors (rangers or fighters). This party might have difficulty in dishing out the required amounts of damage in certain encounters. I have a problem imagining your protagonist winning a duel against the anti-ranger, for example, in the third vagrant quest. Numerous golem ecounters, etc. EDE, if you ever get to that stage.

The whole idea sounds fun, just make sure it won't turn into something frustrating and tedious.

Yes, probably should have oriented it a bit more towards underused characters that are decent in melee (wizard slayer, beast master, etc.)

On the down side, I tried out Arrows of Piercing for the first time and it seems their bonus damage doesn't bypass magic resistance. So a Whisper Spider, with 100 Missile Resist and 75 Magic Resist would take 3 damage per piercing arrow, 25% of the time. Assuming I hit every single shot I took at it, and assuming they didn't regenerate (they do), it would take 128 Arrows of Piercing to take down a Whisper Spider. Good times!

@ blastermaster:

A no-reload challenge (even on Insane) is doable, but you need a lot of experience with the mod and a powerful party, best with a LG Necro protagonist. I've done it once, I even tried with a Vagrant PC but failed in ToB (Ancient Dragon).

Still, if you do not have the time to invest in developing no-reload strategies, I'd offer you something more suitable than your current party. Unfortunately, as critto predicted, you soon will become frustrated and drop it. An IA v6 party can be allowed a couple of crappy party members, but not too many, and unfortunately your entire current team is, well, neither arcane nor melee gifted - not even one of them.

After finishing my Vagrant run, I wanted to try something extremely hard - no-reload insane with no IA modified classes or kits in the party, and no pre-generated NPCs either. This basically means no Vagrants, Auramasters or Riskbreakers, or even a Necro protagonist. All in-game NPCs however are gladly welcomed, including Imoen. Such a party, consisting of for example Edwin, Nalia (either replaced by Imoen later), Korgan, Mazzy, Anomen (or Jaheira), and a PC LG warrior-type may look overwhelming, but actually on Insane 40% physical resistance is extremely insufficient, especially with no innate regeneration or instaheal ability like the Risk Decrement. You may try that, well, except for the no-reload part.

Regarding anti-ranger, I looked him up in Near Infinity to refresh my memory. He has 100 resistances across the board. If I remember correctly, you need a swanmay to lower his resistances. Maybe I will give the Vagrant swanmay abilities to my Archer, I don't know. I am mostly just trying to see if I can make it to chapter 6 and get Gesen Bow built.

Wild Mage is super interesting. There are scrolls of Limited Wish and Symbol: Stun in the Adventurer's Mart that offer some interesting uses for Nahal's Reckless Dweomer. That also gives you Alacrity for a handful of spells, even at a low level. I'd highly suggest someone do a Wild Mage protagonist run in the future, due to the potential with Memory of the Apprenti.

I know most IA custom monsters are immune to Stun, but it was nice to just pound Mae'Var's goons with Symbol: Stun and have Viconia run up and Free Action my important team members thereafter.

Jan as Blade is proving less and less useful each day. May need to swap him out for either a Wizard Slayer, a Beast Master, or a Swashbuckler.

Gesen's bow shaft is in the Item Randomizer menu and is often found in Watcher's Keep, level 4 (Demilich, Saladrex). Which is by all means too late in the game to matter.

The lowered anti-ranger's resistances are still pretty high and I think he regenerates, so shooting at him is probably out of the question. Not to mention he's fast. Still, you may skip the entire Ancient Secret of Suldanesselar quest entirely. It's pointless, it's ridiculously hard, and in the long run it's useless. Neither the upgraded Axe of the Lakesider will be of any use to you, nor will you be able to get some more Barbarian essence potions from the quest. And the help you get from it in the EDE fight is also unnecessary.

Haven't played a Blade in v6, still dunno if he gets UAI. If so, a blade can still be useful with Scarlet off and other nice UAI items like Cernd's upgraded cloak for example. You still need to buff THAC0 somehow, but unless you play with The Four mod, I don't see how it's possible. If you do, the druidic helmet from it grants +4 THAC0 and the bard's ring grants 5 more, which is enough. Also dunno if Offensive spin still adds that extra APR and still can be used together with Improved haste. If not, pick another bard kit for Jan, possibly Skald.

Just some comments (all this is very personnel, based on my experience, just take it as a point of vue among others)

@blastermaster: with your party, I sincerely doubt you will go very far because of lack of fighting power (others pointed that already), and definiteley I would say Archer will never win over anti-ranger (Vagrant quest)
Another question / tips for you: I am currently trying BG2EE, hired Neera, a wild mage, and confess it is the first time I play a wild mage (though I love mage class) and I am at a loss trying to get some positive results from surges, confess for the moment I often fear what will happen if she casts (party level 12)

For those who want to experiment "no reload", easiest way (IMHO) is to start a run with a powerful party and then re-run with same party. For example take Necro, Kensai (2H wielder), RB (dual wielder) , dual R7->C, Cernd and Valygar (join him when you are just above 1.3 Mxp for protag, take a custom sorceress or another RB before), once you have make a run with it you will most likely achieve very few or no reload afterwards (because mastering proper order of "IA improved" fights , each tough enemies,...). Since I like to change party at every run to have a different experience, it is not my cup of tea, but I once tried redoing a run with same party (the same one I pointed), fun was not here for me , but no reloads there was until I got bored end of chapter 6, after beating ancient dragon.


For lesser used NPCs and class, I am not as creative as Hideous or other players, I experimented a dual Kensaï 16->mage, it was a monster!

I prefer trying party with many same class chars (Necro, sorceress, 2 vagrants, Cernd an auramaster for example) which is quite fun (IMO).

One challenge I would advise to try once if you want to cope with weakness: complete game without ever going to WK! (Yes means Necro will not have RVE and tons of tremendous items cannot be forged) I had reloads, but Prince fell nonetheless (OK party was Necro, RB, RB, Kensaï, dual R->C and Imoen)

I have made one swap, which was to remove the Blade and replace with Wizard Slayer. I have noticed that they can use helmets, which is nice (I did not know that). Still, I am losing interest in this quickly. Things like the Improved Web of the Ghost Spider have a save at -6 and bypass magic resistance. So even the meager magic resistance I gain from being a Wizard Slayer is made completely useless, and of course my saves are far worse than any normal fighter due to not being able to wear rings, cloaks, and necklaces.

Chaos Shield is important for the wild mage; I think it adds 10 to the roll for wild surge, and your level will add 12, so now you will roll "spell cast normally" for 22% of the time. In addition, Contingencies and Spell Triggers seem to not have any chance of wild surge, so you can actually use them pretty effectively. I used the Level 1 NPCs mod to make Nalia my wild mage, and for some reason she began with some nice spells in her spellbook (Mass Invisibility, Spell Trigger). I am not sure if this was because she was a Wild Mage or because she was Nalia (I've never used her before). But when I've used the Wild Mage thus far, I usually just have her run in and fire off 5 Symbol Stun spells as quickly as possible. Most of them will fail, but if one or two are cast successfully, it can be pretty disabling for enemies at this stage.

Anyways, it's been fun so far, but indeed it does feel like the deck is stacked against me with the way these "challenges" are set up. All of my attacks get magic resisted (i.e. piercing arrows), while the enemies attacks like Improved Web will ignore magic resistance. Perhaps it is my fault for blowing through my first run with a Necromancer, 3 riskbreakers, a kensai and an Auramaster.

The Watcher's Keep challenge is interesting. With the right party, RVE isn't particularly needed. For me it just makes some battles go faster since I can cast it a bunch of times for regeration and just go on an all-out assault with my fighters. And most of the items in this game aren't really needed either... the Necro boosts are nice, as are Cernd's, but pretty much every weapon upgrade can be skipped. Even the Dragon Lord halberd everyone speaks so highly of, I didn't find that necessary for the EDE. In fact, I found K'Logarath to be the best weapon against the Prince. But losing out on the experience, and gold (to buy more +2 and +4 rings) would be most hurtful I think.

You can pre-buff party saves by having Mazzy (2 invoke courage per day gives +2 to all saves and THAC0 for 5 turns) with an arcane caster who can wish for Rest (and additional Invoke Courages). Another way of improving WS saves is by making him evil, then give him Human Flesh in chapter 6, however this way he won't be able to use many of the powerful IA weapons. You can also use Free Action spells or potions in the tougher fights against spiders. Potions are more plentiful than in the original game, however they're still a limited quantity. Free Action potions cannot be dispelled by Breach or enemy's Dispel Specific Protections melee attack. On the other hand, a clerical Free Action spell is much more resistant to Dispel/Remove Magic.

No WK challenge seems interesting, but what I find more challenging is the 6-sorcerers party. I think that Raven did it for IA v5, it's much harder to do in v6, and no one ever tried it.

> No WK challenge seems interesting, but what I find more challenging is the 6-sorcerers party. I think that Raven did it for IA v5, it's much harder to do in v6, and no one ever tried it.
Is there a recollection of it somewhere on the forum? Wouldn't mind reading that.

I tried SPOILER!

Oh, interesting!

What are your options? Bigby's, Vampiric Touch, Larloch's Minor Drain? Does Comet's crushing damage work, or does the fire damage heal it? Did you have the Golem Slayer weapon?

I don't think there is reference in the forum. I remember a discussion going on about the 6-sorcerer challenge several years ago, when v6 was still in development, and that Raven did it. Not sure about his tactics though.

@ nicoper: You shouldn't give up that fast. Unfortunately, if you had problems vs a Greater elemental golem, probably it's because your spell selections weren't optimal. Naturally you cannot rely on damaging spells vs such a foe, and even Energy Blades or Bigby's crushing hand will do very small amount of damage. However, Polymorph self (spider), combined with sequencers/contingencies of Shocking Grasp, Tenser's (partial) Transformation, Giant Strength, Protection from Magical Weapons + additional multiple scrolls of PFMW will win the fight very, very fast.

Do not rely on Comet. I've tried it against the Grave Liches in the Old One quest. All it did was disperse the Grave Liches, and one even got close to the immobilized party members in the next (sealed, yeah) room and started killing them one by one. And yes, no damage. Grave liches aren't magic resistant, they simply were immune to the comet's damage, all of it. Comet is good against one foe:

SPOILER!


And it's good vs him because of the fire damage.

The spell selections with such a team will be extremely tricky, I haven't figured it out myself. Didn't really put my mind into it though. And at least you won't have to worry about finding specific ingredients, since all that six sorcerers need is boots of speed, some staves +4 and protective rings/cloaks
Of course, LMD and VT should be picked by everyone not that many good spells at levels 1 and 3 anyways. The tricky picks are levels 4, 5 and especially 6 and 9. The other spell choices will be almost identical.

For Sorcerer party, there is so much to say at every step that I may one day try again and write a journal. Many chapter 1,2,3 fights and foes are nigtmarish (bone golems in sphere or windspear dungeon for example) and some were not done when I was in chapter 6.
I gave up with greater elemental (the easiest one, in illthid compound) not because it could not be beaten, but because I realized then many foes would never be beaten SPOILER!
so journal will end before ToB if journal there is in the future.

For those who care, I started killing alhoon (1 round and a half, RRoR and DB), then eliminatd (6? IIRC) gems and coin (RRoR, HoU, VT, summons), then changed spells (summons, summons, summons: Salamanders, trolls and yuan-tis) used Wish to refresh, half party summoning, half party buffing (including summons), mages pounding while not casting (for a pitiful number of landed blows, even with giantstrength..)
It was long, tedious, when I thought of other greater elementals then other enemies, I yielded

I even suspect IAV5 was not doable by such party, but if there is a journal around.....

If one wants mage heavy party, I would advise to try 5 mages but take one strong (High Tach0) Fighter along

Hi,all.I`m a Chinese player who began to play IA half a year ago.I read almost all the post from BWL,G3 and some other Chinese forum that talk about IA v6(especially Nicoper`s run,which was translated into Chinese,I learned a lot),after that I finished my necro and vargrant run,both on insane.Now I`d like to share my experience to you and give some suggestion(don`t blame my poor English):

1.The vargrant quest is not as hard as you thought,even the drowned soul battle.As Krell said,potion of free action and clarity will not be dispelled by spiders and the drowned soul,besides,the mirror whisper spider has only 90 fire resistant,so your mage can kill most of them with fire ball,sun flame and dragon breath in 2 rounds.The mirrior master battle is realitive hard,however,fire attacks still work here.

2.An archer protag can win the anti-ranger battle if he has 100% physical resistant and can summon a swanmay.He can`t shoot effectively but can melee attack with the weapon”gnasher club”.The gnasher club is the best weapon against anti-ranger and anti-inquisitor.

3.Most minor golem can be petrified,even amber golem,hardwood golem and web golem.I don`t know if Sikret mean to leave this flaw to us,however,it`s a technical work to petrify a golem(reduce resistant*3 first,then doom and gm,then you may get 55% chance to petrify it),more tactical than melee attack a 95% slashing resistance monster(the web golem),which is really really boring.

4.Use Foebane,Purifier and Equilibrium off-hand can increase the damage main-hand(depend on enemy type)(EE fixed it)

Here are some party and some class I suggest,hope can inspire you:

A six fighter party
In my last vargrant run I use vargrant,kensai(dual wielder——yes,a dual wielder,which is a far better fighter than RB or a 2H wielder kensai,he can use JD sword to protect himself and hammer of thor,which is also 2H range),B/M dual,R/C dual,FI multi and K/T dual.My party has 6 fighter，can not wish for rest and wish for double-time IA+TS.This party is really really crazy,can kill a supergolem or a ultragolem in less than 3 rounds,can kill a great elemental golem before he cast the second dm,can make raksha prince badly injured in 1 round.
The K/T dual is the most interesting class in my party,I dualed at kensai lv13.He can use many item when has UAI,beside Jan`s cloth,Cernd cloak,necklace of Discipline and so on,he can also use Noble staff of air/fire,which can be forged after defeat Supremeleader.The staff give K/T tensen transformation 20 rounds a day，set thac0 to 1,undispellable,so most enemy may face a 300-400HP,30-50 physical resistance(with wish for hardness is 70-90) monster for 20 rounds,which make the game much easy even on insane.

A six mage party
There is another Chinese player finished Necro run on insane,his party is Nec,Sor,Cernd,FI multi,B/M dual,R/C dual.This party has 3 character cast IA,4 cast CCC,6 cast stoneskin,also has 2 char use fighter HLA,so his party don`t only own a very strong arcane power but also some melee ability.The 6 sor party you metioned is much harder than his,so if you do want to play a six mage party,change 2 sor to FI or FM or some other class.

Archer
Archer is not a good fighter even he has Gesen bow,the damage is too low,however,the called shot is so powerful that no one immue.An archer+a lv10 mage(or a M/F dual at lv10) can pertrify golem well,first called shot,then use colorful ball(lv1 spell,don`t know how to say in English···）,he can also help a high level mage pertrify lich.In addition,mage+archer+R/C multi can play like that:mage cast IA,spellstrike, spelltrigger 3*Reduce resistance,archer called shot,then R/C use harm+CS.If my guess is right,even antient dragon will fall in no more than 5 rounds.So I may try the party next time:Nec,archer,C/M（lothandar dual at lv14）,RC,K/T,RB.It must be fun.

Swashbulcker and Bard
Their APR are too low,in my point of view,bring one of them is OK,both of them will make the play through very unpleasant.

Shapeshifter
A Shapeshifter can dual to fighter at lv13, after get giant werewolf.He can cast stoneskin before each battle,then shapshift,another mage read dm scroll(considered as lv10,will not dispel ss most of the time),disper the claw,then he can use any durid weapon,has 5 APR,50 elemental resistant and 40 magic resistant.Of course,if party has a M9F,the dispel problem will be much effective.

Wildmage
In my version of IA CCC 3*improved chaos shield can add up,Sikret announced IA fixed it so I don`t know why.If can add up,choose wildmage as a protag must be a funny choice(some of you can test that),otherwise he is a risk-maker.However,BG2EE fixed this bug.

Inquisitor
His dm is useful in some circumstance,Dracolich is a lv 25 mage,so a lv 17 inquisitor has 20% chance to dm it,Kurin is lv 25 too,his ii can be dispelled effectively.Also,If you want to challenge the hardest spellhold,a high level inquisitor may have chance to dm Jon`s ii as well(at least lv 20,has 10% chance).Kill Jon without killing 15 golems,that must be funny.