Party of lesser-used classes and kits Options

[blastermaster]

I've enjoyed the interesting aspects of this mod relative to vanilla BG2 and other difficulty mods. After a few run-throughs though, using a standard or semi-standard party isn't too much of a challenge. With this mod, a low-level challenge, no-reload challenge, and/or poverty challenge are all out of the question. So the only other challenges I can think of are a "no arcane magic challenge" (which frankly I think is quite do-able thanks to Iron Skins and Greater Restoration and Auramasters), or perhaps a party entirely composed of the types of classes and kits that people tend not to use (at least from what I can see in the journals here).

Some classes I am considering:

Archer
The major issue here is that so many monsters have extra resistance to missiles, relative to other damage types (or outright immunity). So this leaves you with essentially the Bow of Gesen's flat 2 piercing damage, or using Arrows of Piercing whenever you have some. Also, I think Tuigan isn't available until somewhere in Watcher's Keep (unless it's randomized?), which hurts the archer in the early game. The lack of Strength bonus to damage, and the Dexterity bonus to Thac0 actually not scaling like it does with Strength (and, to add insult to injury, it is of course much harder to raise Dexterity in this game as compared to Strength). Called Shot is intriguing, but there are only a few encounters in which you're facing just one enemy hitting you, so the Thac0 penalty from it would just impact one of them. Unfortunately the STR loss per hit is too short-lasting to be relied upon to kill something by getting them down to 0 STR, though perhaps in multiples this is more readily achievable?

Wild Mage
Potentially using high-level spells early in the game is nice, but a Wild Surge on 1 out of 20 spells means you're likely to really get hurt by this in perhaps the majority of battles. I suppose you could reload until at least your pre-buffing goes correctly, and then take fights from there, but that's no fun.

Blade
Can't cast the all-important level 7 Ruby Ray spell, so he's stuck using scrolls for this. Same with Limited Wish for undead protection. No Alacrity, meaning you're just getting one spell per turn out of him. Use Any Item is still pretty nice and you could make quite a tank out of a Blade, but the offensive capability is really lacking. And without the classical fast leveling of a bard, or the usefulness of the HLA traps, it seems like a Figher/Mage multi is almost entirely dominant over this class.

Inquisitor
No higher than Specialization really hurts, especially if you're using two-handed weapons - he will max out at 5 attacks under Improved Haste. Would be a nice tweak if paladins could get grandmastery in 2H swords, given it's their signature weapon style and it is so important in games in which the un-nerfed grandmastery is used.

Swashbuckler
The weapon and armor for this class are underwhelming and very expensive. Lack of Use Any Item hurts a ton, and the HLA of Acrobatic Combat is extremely underwhelming. Still, the possibility for a very low AC could make him a good tank, but why not use a Ranger Cleric for this purpose and get more offensive output and more defensive capabilities?

Thief dualed to a Cleric
Level a thief to 23 to get Use Any Item, then dual him to a Cleric. I believe he can then get 105% physical resistance (40% hardiness from Wish, 25% from Jan's armor, 10% from Defender of Easthaven or Warblade upgrade, 5% from Master of Disciplines, 10% from Armor of Faith, 15% from Scarlet Ioun Stone if PC is a necro). And he could use Scarlet Ninja-to in offhand to get 6 attacks under Improved Haste, and cast spells from scrolls. Not great, but pretty useful. Alternatively, I think you could take a Cleric and dual immediately to thief. Armor of Faith gives you the 10% resistance right from level 1, and likewise the 15 round duration. You lose out on higher-level cleric spells, but it would be an interesting character for sure. Without the Scarlet Ioun Stone, he loses a lot of appeal as a tank, and I think would be forced to aim for low AC route for damage prevention.

Viconia
The 65% magic resistance is very tempting, especially with the Human Flesh armor being available pretty early. But from a weapons perspective, she's just no help in combat with a poor Thac0 and limited weapon selection that maxes out at 4 APR. Still, Greater Restoration is pretty awesome.

Monk
A better Viconia in some ways, ending up with more magic resist in the mid to late game. But maxing out at 5 attacks per round is still a bummer here, not to mention the inability to really do piercing or slashing damage. I am also curious why their Thac0 doesn't get better than 5. If I remember correctly, they used the fighter Thac0 progression in vanilla.

Wizardslayer
Again, intriguing for the magic resist. It appears they use the 1% per level growth up until level 20 or so (as defined by the manual, though in the actual original ToB game it was 2% per level until level 20). At least, unlike every other character here, they can attain the all important grandmastery. But lack of magic rings and cloaks is going to make for some terrible saves when spells do sneak through. There's basically severe penalties to this class throughout the entire first half of the game; 20% magic resist at level 20 means you're still going to get chunked 80% of the time when you fail your saves.

Beastmaster
Clubs and Quarterstaves are pretty good in this mod, so the weapon restrictions aren't as bad as they'd be in a typical BG2 difficulty mod. And the extra HP from Find Familiar would be pretty nice. Relative to most of the above kits, this actually wouldn't be too bad. But it feels a lot like a subpar ranger, rather than an entirely new kit or class decision.

Any cool strategy ideas for the characters above that I am missing? Curious to hear people's thoughts.

This post has been edited by blastermaster: Apr 7 2015, 12:34 PM

[Hideous the W...]

I like your ideas blastermaster! Party composition is my thing! So if I might add my 2 cents...

First off I think someone can get through a no reload challenge eventually. At least through the SOA portion of the game. I usually wind up postponing my parties when I get to TOB and never pick them back up so I don't know if it's possible in that part however. At the moment I'm close to posting a journal with a party that has had only 6 reloads and at this point all I have left to do is Orcus, Watcher's Keep Supreme Leader area, Black Dragon, Tree of Life and Vagrant quests. With some tweaks to my party like a Necromancer protagonist, a Riskbreaker instead of my Wizard Slayer and a Berserker>Cleric instead of my experimental Cleric of Lathander>Ranger I think I'd have a better chance.

I had a party with 3 of your possibilities consisting of an Archer, Monk and Blade so I'll start there. Auramaster, Riskbreaker and Necromancer rounded out that party and I got to a point where I had only enemies that required +4 weapons to hit and I couldn't hack it.

Archer
An archer could support a really good party but they only shine against 1% of enemies. Once you strip a mage, and having little to no arcane casters makes that harder, the mage is dead in an Archers presence. But that pretty much goes for any fighter, it just happens faster with an Archer. If you go Divine instead of Arcane an archer would be tough company.

Monk
At this point in the game my Monk hadn't even leveled up high enough to have +4 fists so he was worthless. Earlier in the game he was a very fun character to play but took some baby sitting due to low hit points.

Blade
The Blade is a super supportive class in IA and I mean that in a good way. He can give you time to focus your attacks elsewhere while he tanks ANYTHING. He also doesn't get targeted by Greater Silence so in certain battles where a F/M gets stripped into a less than decent fighter the Blade can excel. Sikret nerfed them for a reason and I think they are still a great addition to a good party. A party that's hindered by damage output won't be fun. Maybe that Inquisitor along with another fighter would let you tank, dispel and punish.

Inquisitor
I've had Keldorn as well as my own created one. Their dispel magic is huge...it stripped more enemies than I had imaged it would. This might be a great addition to a party that has a hard time killing buffed enemies but most IA enemies have resistances, not buffs. A kit that allowed an Paladin/Inquisitor to lower physical resistance would be nice.

Cleric/Thief multi or dual
THE most disappointing class I've played with in IA was a Cleric dual to a thief. No UAI when you dual from Cleric to Thief. Absolutely worthless class. Prior to IA I had powerful and fun to play duals and multi's with them in vanilla and Tactics. Not here, removing traps and a couple buffs before battle is all you have to look forward to. And if you go the other way and dual your thief to cleric he might regain his thieving abilities mid TOB. Don't do it. Trust me.

Viconia
She was part of my last Vagrant run. Poor THACO is not an issue with Holy Power, until it gets dispelled. She winds up being really good. IIRC you can get her MR up quite a bit more than 65%. 25 STR, good THACO, MR, a little physical resistance, Globe of Blades, Aura of Flaming Death and SUPER low AC. She is one tough bitch. 4 APR isn't much but she'll hit and hit hard at higher levels in addition to being tankish. If you had her as your only Divine caster and say your Wild Mage that leaves room for more mid range experimental fighter types.

Wizard Slayer
Like I mentioned up top I'm using one now. He's level 27 and has 63% MR with the Warlords Blade MR bonus. Could he compete offensively with a Kensai or RB? Not quite, but there have been some fights that he has completely changed. Some spellcasters will miss a spell here and there before they reach into their packs to use a scroll of AI or their contingency goes off, and that can be huge. Looking back at my journal he had an impact on almost every spellcaster battle. Being a Half-Orc, missing saves against damage aren't usually insta-death. With Lilacor and an Auramaster watching his back throughout the game mind affecting spells weren't too troublesome either. If you were to couple a Wizard Slayer with a Protector he'd be golden. It has mainly been bad AC that hurts.

I haven't tried a Wild Mage but I want to. Beastmaster class is one I will never try unless it gets changed...Capital L - A - M - E. And I was waiting on v7 before trying a Swashbuckler.

For me a good challenge going through the game is just reloading fewer times than the last time I did. Other times I just want to try different party compositions. Whatever you decide to do...
GOOD LUCK!