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!

[Clown]

Hey, Mongerman

Would have to say as Sikret has said that the wildmage is probably not a good idea in IA. With the extremely tactical nature of the mod the extra unpredictability could cause real problems and the various unhelpful wild surges will just ramp up your re-load count. Personally I would give the second pure arcane caster a miss, one pureclass is suffecient. Instead I would suggest the use of a blade or other bard variant, post underdark they become the best buffer/de-buffer class in the game, and offer the enormously useful imp. bard song. Throughout the game they also offer good back-up casting and solid tanking ability. I would also put the true class cleric back in but give them a few levels of fighter then dual class, this character combined with the cleric buffs willl be a capable damage dealer for the majority of the game as well as in the long run only advancing very slightly slower than a pure-class cleric so you get early greater restoration and plenty of spell slots.

[rbeverjr]

Hey, Mongerman

Would have to say as Sikret has said that the wildmage is probably not a good idea in IA. With the extremely tactical nature of the mod the extra unpredictability could cause real problems and the various unhelpful wild surges will just ramp up your re-load count. Personally I would give the second pure arcane caster a miss, one pureclass is suffecient. Instead I would suggest the use of a blade or other bard variant, post underdark they become the best buffer/de-buffer class in the game, and offer the enormously useful imp. bard song. Throughout the game they also offer good back-up casting and solid tanking ability. I would also put the true class cleric back in but give them a few levels of fighter then dual class, this character combined with the cleric buffs willl be a capable damage dealer for the majority of the game as well as in the long run only advancing very slightly slower than a pure-class cleric so you get early greater restoration and plenty of spell slots.

I concede (as I have elsewhere) that unpredictability of the wildmage can be problematic early on. I would never play a wildmage if that was my only arcane. However, before he gets his first HLA, the wildmage will be more powerful than the sorcerer when used correctly.

I played a kensai hero through IA 4.2. It wasn't easy. He had to hide during the Twisted Rune. The offensive power of the kensai is appealing, but he does require a little extra attention to keep alive.

You might want to consider the party that Sikret is using. Then if you have problems, the hints that Sikret provides for battles could be particularly useful. My own party is similar enough to Sikret's that I expect that information to be valuable if I run into a roadblock. (Thanks for those posts, Sikret!)

This post has been edited by rbeverjr: Jan 25 2008, 02:49 PM