I have the hardest time finishing BG/TOB! I always get tired of my parties and want to start anew. The farthest I've made it in IA is to the Twisted Rune. This will be my 4th run through v5: The 1st I had tons of reloads, was frustrated as heck but made it to the aforementioned TRune. The 2nd I did better, a lot less reloading but up to 8 or 10 on some of the harder battles. I think my last fight on that one was with the Chromatic Demon. Then for my 3rd try I tried out Sikret's party in his journal and I have to say I only had 3 reloads going into the Planar Sphere(not counting the dozen with Faldorn ) but I'm already sick of Anomen and Nalia. I just don't like using what is popular at the moment, and it seems Anomen, a Berserker, a Vagrant, a Sorceror and Nalia are mainstays in quite a few parties.

On this attempt at finally going all the way I'm going to take:

Protagonist - Fighter/Druid
custom - Wizard Slayer ?Dwarf?
Edwin
Viconia
Haer D'alis
Korgan

I think I'm getting the hang of things but this party will be a little tougher than Sorceror/Vagrant etc. I think. What I need help deciding is if a Dwarf is okay for my Wizard Slayer and what weapons he should take. Also money may be a problem. I'm not a heavy role player so I'm not sure about what I'll do about Rep. Should I install the low rep discount, screw rep and just power game, or hover around average and just pay a ton of money for things.

So if you were to be given this party what would you strive to obtain and what would you watch out for.

Thanks

I think they're ok. You'll miss some IA stuff since you're a neutral multiclass, but it's ok. I'd use Korgan with 2-handed weapons and wizardslayer 2weapon style - flails, longswrds, hammers
I'm currently sick with Imoen and berserkers:)

Unfortunately, it seems that the Improved Anvil mod does not favour evil aligned NPCs or PC.

Your Protagonist will have a hard time with his weapon restrictions.

The Wizard Slayer is OK. I would make him of Good alignment, so that he could eventually use the Judgement Day sword and The Truth.

Another option for the Wizard Slayer is dualling him to Thief at level 7 or 13. Your party is short on thieving skills anyway. I don't know if the Wizard Slayer's spellcasting penalty affects spells cast from scrolls (scroll reading).

Edwin is a very good spellcaster in the vanilla game, but there are no Potions of Insight in Improved Anvil, so it's best for him not to Wish.

Haer'dalis is ok.

Korgan is a decent Berserker, although he will never be as powerful as a good aligned Berserker.

Viconia is not as powerful as Anomen, but she also sometimes has her uses. She's a very good cleric though.

My personal opinion about the low reputation discount: don't install it. It's cheesy, since it's way easier to gain 1 reputation than 20 reputation. But an evil aligned party can also strive to have decent reputation for profit.

There are other Bioware NPCs for your evil party: like Jan Jansen. You may replace your custom Wizard Slayer with Jan, and create a different Protagonist, maybe an evil Wizard Slayer, Monk or good Barbarian. This means -1 warrior, but +1 arcane caster&thieving skills. Jan has very good item upgrades later.

About items: it is good to arm your warriors with +3 weapons soon. For Haer'dalis, Enchanted Weapons created with the spell. Your Protagonist should be wielding the Flail of Ages, and for Korgan there are the Frostreaver axe and the Rifthome Axe. It makes sense for an evil party to join sides with Bodhi.

As for the quest order, I don't know.

When i started my evil party, Sikret said me that the Lower reputation discount - part of ease of use - is cheese. One exception exits only:
only drop your reputation with quests not harm any innocent people and not use steal to fail it and drop your reputation.
The other thing is than try to keep your reputation above 3 because the well-known amnish guards exploit.

You won't find JD sword unless "your protagonist is a good-aligned warrior (single class)". So, if you're a f/d, you won't find the parts. f/d can't use flails, so go for clubs. Spears are also good, impaler spear does massive piercing damage. For slashing, scimitars, altough you won't find a +3 until Ust Natha.

Yes. That is why I propose to make a good Barbarian protagonist. With the Judgement Day sword, Defender of Easthaven, Orc Leather armor, Belt of Inertial Barrier and barbarian innate resistances he will have permanent 50 % slashing, piercing and blunt damage resistance, and 75% missile damage resistance at lvl 19.

Well I started last night with my intended F/D protag and Dwarf WS. The F/D will be using clubs(Treefolk Arm?) and scimitars(Belm, Kachiko's Wakazashi for +3), later Impaler like you mentioned Kerkes. The WS has points in flail, long sword and 2 weapon style to go with FoA/Phosphorus and various long swords. I skipped installing the low rep discount as well. I'll just keep my rep around 15ish. There's not a lot I want to buy anyway, most things are forged or found.

I hurried my way on out of the city skiping Suna's party. I also picked up Nalia and Korgan as well as Jan and Viconia from the Gov District. Once I got to Trademeet I dropped Jan for Cernd. My, my...Auramasters are very good in the early stages of the game.

On to fight Faldorn. My only other time fighting her was with a non-spellcaster so I was surprised at her 1st spell choice this time. After one reload I managed to beat her but I was very close to dying...if it weren't for a summoned nymph healing me I think I might have.

Next major battle was Suna Sei, which went extremely well. I remember seeing a screenshot someone posted here of 80% of that party taking a nap. That's how mine went. I'm gonna miss Cernd.

I'll most likely post how things are going to keep me going toward my goal of finishing the whole damn thing.