Small party questions

[hyvel]

I have played BG, BG2, IWD and IWD2 beaten every game once, everytime with a 6 ppl party. This time however I wanted to play IWD2 again with a smaller party. Lets say about 3.

For this 3 ppl lineup I was considering a monk, a sorc and one character more, which one would be wisest to chose?

Also which spells should i chose for the sorc, what works best in the beginning/middle/end?

Which races and subraces and stat points and feats should i chose for the monk/sorc/other?

Any tips/strategies (and so on) that you have would be very nice to receive.

Thank you.

[Krysalyn]

I would definitely choose a cleric for the 3rd party member...

the healing and the summons will be a tremendous help for the party throughout the entire game, imho.

as for a monk, svirfneblin is always a solid choice, since they have the Wis bonus, as well as innate spell ability (invisibility, blur, mirror image) and spell resistance...

you can go with aasimar, which has a Cha bonus, for the sorc, or a drow (which might be a better party fit if you choose svirfneblin for the monk)

sorc spells it depends on what role you want your sorc to play... personally I feel the best choices are direct damage spells, especially with a smaller party... chromatic orb and magic missle are solid lvl 1 choices, things like fireball and skulltrap are nice choices later on... things like that.

stats can vary, as it depends on how exactly you plan to play each character... max Wis for the monk and cleric, and Cha for the sorc, but other stats depend on what you want to do... if you want your cleric to tank sometimes, perhaps decent Str is in order... if you want your monk as a decoy to cast spells at, high Dex might be a consideration, etc.

[lonely wolf]

I would also choose a cleric. Or, if you don't like the cleric idea, a Druid. They are both good healers and the Druid can polymorph himself into animals while the Cleric can revive charecters (I think the cleric is better...)

[J Swan]

I agree with everyone else. If you have a monk and sorc, cleric would be the best option with a rogue/ fighter type being second. With a small party, summoning becomes very important. Cleric spell animate dead is great. It lasts forever and at higher levels you get some pretty powerful allies. If I made a 3 person party it would be Pal 2/Sorc X, Fighter/Cleric, and Fighter/Rogue. Anyone ever played Eye of the Beholder? (this is going way back) For that game I would let one of my characters get killed right away and play with 3: Paladin, Ranger/Cleric, and Mage/Thief.

Aasimar is always a good race for Monk and Sorc, this works for Pal/Sorc because Pal is the favored class. If you pick cleric, a drow would be pretty cool, if you go with Fighter/Cleric make sure to pick a female drow (favored class is cleric).

As far as stats, with a small party you need one diplomat (high Charisma) this would be the Sorc. You can lower Cha for everyone else to 6. This gives you points to spend on the physical abilities. For Sorc, I lower strenth to 10, max charisma, and put a few points toward dex (AC and reflex saves), wisdom (will saves), int (to ID items), and con (fort saves).

Please post your progress with the 3 person party, it sounds like it will be fun.