Starting a new game, would appreciate suggestions Options

[Mongerman]

Here I am, back for another round of punishment and self abuse. Anyway, my planned party (all created) is

Vagrant (flails as main weapon, axe or belm in offhand)
Sorcerer
Wizard (what would be a good specialist class for this character?)
Berserker (main tank, using shield with longsword/1 handed crushing weapon. All AC boosting items go to him)
Ranger/cleric
Cleric

Question, is the pureclass cleric really necessary? I choose her in anticipation of all the healing I'm going to need, but it would be great if I could throw in some melee capabilities as well.

2nd, I've been browsing the threads, and I notice the once popular f/m multi class does not have a place in many parties. What happened? Are they nerfed or something?

TIA for feedback!

[Mongerman]

Thanks for the quick reply. In my past IA experience, my high ac tanker was also my main physical dmg dealer, which ensured that none of the monsters could take their attention off him=). Knowing how smart enemies are in IA, I'm afraid that if my high ac tank was doing negligible dmg, the enemies would simply focus on another character.

Couple more questions

1) When you say JD is usable by warriors, does that refer to fighter kits only, or does it include rangers, paladins etc?
2) Whats so great about halberds? Yes I've seen the description for dragon lord, and its great, but so are JD, FOD&W. Not to mention that piercing is prob the most resisted dmg in IA (correct me if i'm wrong). I remember in my past IA runs, I had an archer that was great at disrupting mages, but simply took a backseat against more powerful enemies

This post has been edited by Mongerman: Jan 25 2008, 10:46 AM

[Sikret]

1) When you say JD is usable by warriors, does that refer to fighter kits only, or does it include rangers, paladins etc?

As shadan correctly mentioned, it's usable by single class rangers and paladins as well.

Not to mention that piercing is prob the most resisted dmg in IA (correct me if i'm wrong).

I'm afraid, I should correct you here. Piercing damage is not worse than other types of damage. Some particular creatures are even more vulnerable to piercing than to other damage types.

I remember in my past IA runs, I had an archer that was great at disrupting mages, but simply took a backseat against more powerful enemies

Two points:

(1) "Peircing" damage is not the same as "Missile" damage. They are two different damage types.

(2) In v5, even resistance to missile damage is not so frequent that it was in previous versions. We have sought and implemented other methods to block the cheesy hit&run methods with ranged weapons in v5.

Admittedly, missile damage is still the least effective damage type against most enemies, though there are some certain foes which are more vulnerable to missile damage than other types of damage.

As for good AC and its importance, naturally, when you proceed to TOB and start to meet the most powerful enemies in the game, the protective value of good Ac diminishes. It's the same even in the vanilla game.