This will be my first time through and I have a question about setting up a party. From what I've heard, melee tends to be the way to actually kill things late game, while your casters are more of a debuffer and utility class rather than damage dealer right? With that in mind, what would you recommend as a basis for #fighters, mages, clerics? Keep in mind, I prefer to play a thief but it just doesnt seem like a good idea at this point.

No, this is not true. Except few particular bosses, most enemies are vulnerable to offensive magic.



There are many playable party compositions, though admittedly some combinations will lead to additional challenge, which may not be what you are looking for in your first run.

If it's your first run, and if you want to see more new quests and additional content in the game, I recommend to take a vagrant ranger as your protagonist.

My recommendation:
- 4 melee capable characters:
dual or multi, but 3 of them with 2 weapons style and at least 3 attacks per round before any haste (single, multi warriors or dual from warrior to any class, blade)
one of them is 2hander specialist with at least 2,5-3 attacks per round (preferably, single or dual class warriors)
- 1 cleric (best is ranger7>cleric dual imho)
- 2 arcane casters (mage, sorcerer, bard, or dual/multi mage)

Imho best party for starters:
Vagrant
Berserker
Blade
dwarf F/T or human Swashi10>Fighter dual
Ranger7>cleric
Sorcerer
Necromancer

But as Sikret said: there are many good party compositions, just as an IA starter, don't do any extrem in 1st run. You can check improved items of NPCs, so you can chose some NPCs instead of custom characters.

I thought about bringing Nalia, but I honestly just can't stand her character. I've never given Valygar a real shot, so maybe I'll bring him along this go round. I was really hoping to use a set of Bioware NPC's but perhaps I'll do a mixed set instead. We'll see how anomen holds up, if I don't get him chunked for being an ass. I'll give your suggestion a shot and perhaps do a mix of each. 1 other quick question regarding shadowkeeper. I don't really find a need to change stats or add items or anything, but will it mess anything up if I change an NPC's class? I.E. Barbarian or Berserker Minsc? I'd rather use him vs a custom PC but if I hit bugs.... well, no thanks.

Don't mess with Keldorn, Cernd, Valygar, and any NPC with new equipment. Minsc is ok to tweak, I had Jaheira as a monk once so she's also ok etc.
I think if you mess up a NPC you won't be able to use their new equipment.
However, I believe that with Keldorn some other bugs will kick in.
I'm not sure about others.


As for party rec:

sorcerer
sorcerer (or conjujer, perhaps better if it's your 1st time in IA)
vagrant protagonist (dual wield)
Cleric of Helm (or swash-cleric dual, but I skip thieves). for more melee (but 3 is enough) berserker-cleric dual. Or, conjujer(9)-cleric dual for some extra magery.
barbarian for 2-handed wpns - dwarf
berserker (dual wield, or sword + shield, dwarf) or Valygar

Altough, any party is good, as long as it is balanced.

As for melee, it's not the only way, but it's the fastest way, and some monsters simply can not be killed without it.

I've decided on a bioware NPC party.

Myself - Half Elf Vagrant
18/88
18
19
11
18
12

Minsc - Berserker
Edwin - changed to Necromancy
Viconia
Haer'Dalis
Imoen or Nalia (although I hate nalia in general, and despise her ring making her a superior caster to Edwin, not to mention thieving skills)


I plan to go with minsc as my 2 hander, DW myself and Haer'Dalis, use my casters as casters with HD as backup and my frontline tank. Viconia is where I'm debating. In most games she's better off with a shield due to not being able to get 3* in 2wep fighting, and the availability of some highly situational but usefull shields making her an outstanding backline caster. Only problem is if I need her to melee she's doing so with disgustingly low HP, and I'll have to make sacrifices to precious STR gear for her to be particularly effective at that. Thoughts on making her R/C, or would she be too weak of a cleric for little benefit from the ranger levels?

Your party is not bad, however I have suggest some changes. Anoen is far better in IA than Viconia. Viconiawith only 1 attack is not too good in melee, and you will see usually melee with a dual cleric is far better than offensive cleric spells in IA.
I prefer a ranger > cleric dual, since if I dual him just after game started, he will be lvl7 ranger, which means he got 0,5 attack from his 7th warrior level. It is not too much time to bring him to level 8 cleric, so not too much delay in high level cleric spells. He can cast all druid spells also. With a melee cleric, you will not need too much druid spell, but the Iron Skin is valuable, especially in 1st run. So ranger7>cleric beats all cleric in IA imho, however Anomen, or any berserker/figher>cleric dual is good.
I suggest to take Nalia, her ring is very good and when you forged it, she is better than Edwin. Change Edwin to Imoen in Spellhold, for roleplaying reason and a sorcerer is better than Edwin when you have another mage (and bard) in the party.

Well, I did as you suggested and picked up Anomen and Nalia, and haven't gone for edwin, viconia, or haer'dalis yet. What I notice about viconia is her magic resistance. She gets past soooooooo many spells just due to that and her natural immunities it's amazing, although anomen is definately a much stronger melee fighter.

One reason Viconia and Edwin would not be recommended by many IA players is that (since they are evil) they will leave the party if your reputation is too high. Many of the new IA quests require a rep of 20 to get started. Missing out some of these quests will mean you lose out on a lot of xp (not so good for your first playthrough) and possibly some important items.

That is really one of my only grumbles at this point. I'm not much of a goody player, leaning more towards nuetral and I prefer a mixed set of good/evil NPC's for dialogue's most of the time. Oh well, everybody has to be good at least once, right?