Party Composition, Here we go again... Options

[Zarathustra]

For a new game (having messed up my first, highly educational one), I'd like to form a very strong party composed of Bioware NPCs (with minor or appropriate tweaks, e.g. Anomen -> Priest of Helm or Minsc -> Berserker). In the hope that I'm not bothering anyone, I'd like to submit the following for the resident experts' 'approval'.

PC Vagrant - axe, long sword, flail, club
Minsc (SK'ed to Berserker) - greatsword, halberd, spear
Anomen - hammer, mace, flail
Haer'Dalis - short sword, scimitar, dagger, long sword
Cernd - staff, spear
Nalia -> Imoen - staff, dagger

Now, I have two problems with this party: first, it contains two characters who will never be able to do anything much in melee, and one who will shine defensively but not do much damage. (In my last game, two straight warriors and two semi-warriors seemed barely enough, even when buffed to the rim.) Secondly, while I would like a sorceress at least from Chapter 4 onwards, that would mean wasting much experience on Nalia.


So my questions are:

(1) Is a Berserker (with Minsc's stats and two-handed weapon focus) preferable to Valygar (with his powerful equipment in late SoA) or even Keldorn (I am quite wary of him in IA)?

(2) Is the party as a whole capable of enough melee havoc, in your opinion?

(3) Is Nalia preferable to Imoen in the long run? I'd have them both again, but that seemed like overkill (then again, I didn't make it all that far...).


Of course, any quite unrelated or unorthodox advice on party composition is welcome!

This post has been edited by Zarathustra: Feb 3 2008, 08:28 PM

[rbeverjr]

I was unsure whether I should start my own thread. As my question is also just another party composition question, I elected to stick it here. If that is the wrong thing to do, feel free to split it out.

As I said, I love experimenting with different group compositions. I’d like to know the opinion of the expert players of IA – you know who you are. My goal is to assemble a team that will make a no-reload game easiest to achieve.

My core group of vagrant hero, kensai Jan, and sorceress Tashia remains the same for now. If Jan gets mauled later on, I may consider some other class. A kensai did well in IA4.2, but IA5 is more difficult.

I’ve decided to ditch the wildmage. I must admit that I am somewhat uncomfortable with the great power of this class, even though it is of less consequence in IA than in the regular game. The wild surges have caused me some minor upsets early, but the reckless dwoemers have also made some battles easier. From experience, I know that I his magic will become more reliable as he levels. So, out of my team Xan goes.

I’m not sure about the other 3 positions. For the next 2 slots I am considering:

A: ranger 7-cleric Minsc and berserker Jaheira (trading Jaheira for sorceress Imoen); old school power here

B: berserker 7-cleric Anomen and auramaster Cernd; takes advantage of Sikret’s love of Cernd (items!), the auramaster kit, and Anomen’s shield (note: if kit stops use of shield, then kit will go)

C: ranger 7-cleric, thief 4-mage Nalia; that gives me a semi-adequate thief, and a decent wizard, at least after I can afford the ring upgrade; the wizard also allows the casting of many different spells, which can allow a tactical advantage over sorcerers in some battles

It’s too bad that both Anomen and Nalia’s voice tracks irritate me.

For the final slot, I’m considering ditching the blade, Haer’Dalis. The blade is undoubtedly extremely powerful in IA5; however, I’m not sure if I want to depend on the power of the blade if it will be going away in future versions (and much of its power will go away without PfMW and Mislead). I am considering exchanging Haer’Dalis for a berserker 9-mage in SoA and fighter-illusionist in ToB. Do you advise the blade, what I suggested as an alternative, or something else?

So experts, what do you advise as my party of 6.

Edited wildmage discussion for clarification. Additionally, just because I am not using the wildmage and thinking about not using the blade, doesn't mean that I'm in favor of them being nerfed. There's a wide sweep in skills in the players out there. I would like some options and avenues of play left open for the player to decide for themself what to do in their game. But that's just my opinion. Also, for clarification, I am basically using custom characters with created NPCs. That way I get what I want in the character, but get the banter too. My customization is very limited (as it must be) if there is a particular item that Sikret has created for the character that I want.

Raven, Sikret, Arkain, or any expert want to give an opinion of 3 characters to add to the vagrant, kensai, and sorceress?

This post has been edited by rbeverjr: Feb 13 2008, 11:19 PM