Wow. Just wow. Questions from a new player, The game is beating the crap out of me, but I'm starting to like i Options

[ksshan]

What a week it has been. Bumped into a friend whom I have not contacted for a decade. We were gaming buddies, and those were the days of counter-strike, diablo 2, and BG2 (has it really been 10 years? Kinda scary thinking about it. Seems like yesterday). Anyway, this dude is still playing BG2 with IA5, and he could'nt stop raving about it, so I decided to fire up my old BG2 discs (very scratched, but surprisingly still playable).

Well, I started off thinking, how hard could it be? After all, I did play tactics. All those guys complaining about difficulty must be 12-16 yr olds who have never played contra or ninja gaiden etc etc. Buncha wimps. So imagine my pleasant surprise when the suna seni encounter, ordinarily a walk over, decimated my entire party. Thats when I started browsing SP and BWL forums for more info, and boy have I learned alot, but still, I fear, not enough.

Well, armed with my meager new knowledge, I'm starting a new game that will hopefully make the game easier, and this time I'm sticking like glue to the suggested quest order. My usual play style is melee heavy, which seems to fit well with the play style of IA5 from what I've read, so thats cool.

So, what party would you guys recommand for the easiest time for a first time IA player? It doesnt have to be bioware NPCs since the dialogue has gotten old years ago. And since weapons have been revamped, and many weapons made inaccessible early game (I'm gonna miss celestial fury), who should use what weapons?

Thanks a million for whatever help you guys can give. This is the hardest game I've played since Godhand, though its a action game

[matti]

F/M/T is a waste in IA. You may have F/T and for exemple Sorcerer or Blade instead of him. F/M/T in IA (with 6 or 5 person pary) is, imo, mediocre fighter, crappy mage and mediocre thief. Not worth at all, imo, even with HLA's. Heh, and when will he start recieving his HLA's? In Abaz lair?

[Sikret]

F/M/T is a waste in IA. You may have F/T and for exemple Sorcerer or Blade instead of him. F/M/T in IA (with 6 or 5 person pary) is, imo, mediocre fighter, crappy mage and mediocre thief. Not worth at all, imo, even with HLA's. Heh, and when will he start recieving his HLA's? In Abaz lair?

In IA v5, multi-class characters start to gain HLAs in a more realistic way than the vanilla game. While single (and dual) class characters start to gain HLAs at (about) 3,400,000 xp, multi-class characters start gaining HLAs at (about) 5,100,000 xp. In v6, this has changed to be even more realistic by differentiating between double-class characters and triple-class characters. Quote from the "Progress Report for IA v6" topic:

- More realsitic points to start gaining HLAs:
- Single (and dual) class characters start gaining HLAs (approximately) at 3,400,000 xp (not new; it was such in v5 too).
- Double-class characters start gaining HLAs (approximately) at 5,100,000 xp (not new; it was such in v5 too).
- Triple-Class characters start gaining HLAs (approximately) at 6,800,000 xp (this one is new in v6)

Thus, in v5, an F/T and an F/M/T still start to gain HLAs almost at the same time, but this has been fixed and changed in v6.