Misc. Questions on Difficulty, Party Composition, and Spell Selection Options

[nataben1314]

It seems as though, judging from another and not having actually played the mod yet (waiting for v4), that mages are now in a situation where they are used almost totally for dispelling, immuning other characters, and creating summons. Would those in the know (esp. sikret/thetruth) agree with that? I'm not trying to imply that this is necessarily a negative if true, I'm just interested for the sake of future spell and party selection

Speaking of party selection, do you think I'd be making things too hard for myself to make a party of single-class characters? I've always disliked multiclasses unless soloing, and am not too keen on having a party full of five fighter/x's and one ranger/cleric.

And on difficulty, I wonder if it would be possible to make a rough difficulty guide for the quests of chapters 2 and/or 6? What I envision is something like e.g. "windspear hills: level 9-13 minimum" or whatever. With all the new content its difficult for me to know which are the easier quests and which are the ones best left to chapter 6. And for a player of my (low) skill level, it is difficult to determine if you are losing a fight due to wrong tactics, or due to the fact that you're simply too low of a level for that fight. So a general quest difficulty guide (at least for chapters 2/6 where the game is not very linear, and maybe a minimum avg. level before going off to spellhold) would likely save me much frustration and/or lots of me making HELP threads

thanks, and I can't wait until v4.

[Mordokai]

Sikret will answer this, but IMO an Archer is less effective in IA because many enemies are immune to missile dmg, especially Golems

Just a short reply to this, then I'm off to my workout for the night. I'll post longer reply tommorow, whn I wake up.

While what you say is true(and I lost many a nerves over the 100% missile damage resistance), archer is still a powerful kit, and can easily match himself with other ranger kits. I tested the game with it(Sikret, bear with me, you'll get a pm soon enought where I tell you why I stopped), and I believe that it is still a powerful kit. It can kill dragons in a matter of seconds if you have somoeno distracting them(and you will have them, trust me), and many mages were killed solely by him, while distracted by summons. So yes, archer is still a kit worth taking. Imo, that is.

Feel free to prove me otherwise if you feel like it. I'm open for a debate.

[thetruth]

Feel free to prove me otherwise if you feel like it. I'm open for a debate.

Heh no need for debate on the Archer kit. I am well aware of his power

In fact when Sikret asked me to choose a Ranger for testing IA I wanted to take an Archer.But since I didn't know IA's content I decided to take a Stalker instead.

And archers are not only effective against Dragon and Mages.
Potentially they can kill in a few seconds even the most powerful enemy in the game:

Tuigan's bow + I.Haste + Called Shot = STR draining death
(Sim from Vhailor's helm for enemies with more than 19 STR)

Almost noone is immune to stats drain in the original or modded BGII.
Fortunately IA is an exception.

That said though the fact that some of the most powerful enemies of IA are immune to Missile dmg is sthg to consider before you choose an Archer as your main character.