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.

[nataben1314]

I'm back with a couple questions before I get to finally begin my IA adventure this weekend!

So I have five of my party members figured out, and was just looking into input as to what would probably be the best sort of 6th character to have. I'm not interested too much in NPCs, so this will be (like the rest of my party) a player-created character. Note that I'm not really worried about the lack of a thief, unless someone can specifically tell me that they are super-crucial moreso in IA than in normal BG. So far I have:

1. Ranger/Cleric
2. Berserker
3. Inquisitor
4. Auramaster
5. Fighter/Mage

So who should I get as a 6th? pureclass cleric? blade? pure mage? mage/cleric? swashbuckler? something else? I'm open to any suggestion (that is not a dual-class, it must be single or multiclass) and am concerned exclusively with power. I'm one of those people who finds tactics mod impossible, so I feel like I'll need all the help I can get

Final question. I don't have a ton of time to devote to BG (or leisure activity in general!), at least for the next couple months. So choice of protagonist is reallly a big deal for me, as it will be a very long time before I can do another run. Of course, I've narrowed it down to either my ranger/cleric or my fighter/mage, so that I can take advantage of all the new content. Which of these two (mage or ranger) would you say has the MOST new content?

[Sikret]

Note that I'm not really worried about the lack of a thief, unless someone can specifically tell me that they are super-crucial moreso in IA than in normal BG.

No, having a thief in your party is not crucial (not at least more than it is in the original game), but perhaps having a dual-class Swashbuckler-Mage will be a good idea. In this way, you will have the minimum required theiving skills plus a mage to compensate the lack of Arcane magic in your party. thetruth and others may also give you good suggestions. To some extent, it also depends on your playing style.



As for not having Bioware NPCs in your party and create player-made characters, it surely has the advantage of having characters with better stats, but on the other hand you won't be able to b enefit from the specific item upgrades each of those NPCs have. At least, instead of your custom Auramaster, I can suggest to take Cernd in your party. You will be able to upgrade his Cloak and Staff.

Final question. I don't have a ton of time to devote to BG (or leisure activity in general!), at least for the next couple months. So choice of protagonist is reallly a big deal for me, as it will be a very long time before I can do another run. Of course, I've narrowed it down to either my ranger/cleric or my fighter/mage, so that I can take advantage of all the new content. Which of these two (mage or ranger) would you say has the MOST new content?

It's a very difficult question, because both (mage and ranger strongholds) have good amounts of new content added to them. But if you force me to give one single recommendation between the two, then I will tell you to go for the ranger.