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.

[thetruth]

You can use him as a F/M, if you don't have one.

Mage buffs + SI:Abjuration and he is very good in the front line distracting enemies.
His THACO is not so good, but I was using him mainly to distract the enemies.

Also with UAI and some Timetraps he helped a lot in some very difficult battles.
I kept him back (out of the enemies' visual range) and he set his Timetraps, then my characters retreated to trigger the traps.

Remember that while the time is stopped, ApR is only what matters. You will hit anytime even if you have an awful THACO.
So give him Belm and Kundane (or Scarlet after UAI), cast on him I.Haste and Offensive Spin for 10 ApR. Just try to give him high STR in order to get the bonus to dmg from high STR.

Finally there were battles where I used him only as a secondary Mage (for buffs and his powerful Remove Magic) and to sing his Improved Bard Song (-4 to AC, +4 to THACO/dmg and other useful immunities).

There are also many cheesy tactics that involve the Bards, like multiple Mislead-clones' song, Defensive Spin and Free Action, or multiple Offensive Spins, but I prefer not using them.