Party optimization advice

[Darkhorse]

Hello, all.

I am currently playing IWD2 for the first time and I must say I enjoy it very much. After I finish the game I have decided to start a new party and play through normal mode than take the new party through Heart of Fury mode.

I have an idea for a four person group and would like some feedback. These are just rough ideas right now, and I was hoping I could get some feedback before I flesh them out too much.

Female Drow Paladin 2/Monk 3/Fighter 4/Cleric 21 - I may drop a level of cleric and take a level of ranger for the two weapon fighting (unless I have enough feats to get it the old fashioned way) so that I can dual-wield holy avengers/one holy avenger and something else. This character is meant to be a tank and melee machine. Also, what diety would you suggest for this character? I'm thinking either Lathander or Ilmater.

Female Drow Rogue 3/Monk 3/Fighter 4/Dreadmaster of Bane 20 - Backup cleric, scout and decoy.

Male Drow Druid 12/Wizard 18 - Gets barkskin and oodles of arcane casting. Should also have enough skill points to perform various "utility" functions like finding/disabling traps and scouting.

Male/Female ??? Bard 11/Sorcerer 19 - Eleven levels of bard gets me all the songs and nineteen of sorcerer nets me ninth level spells. Will also function as party face. I was thinking of making this character another drow (so the whole party has SR plus drow have a charisma bonus) although I am open to the possibility of human/half-elf/wild elf due to multi-classing XP penalties.

I think that this party is pretty well balanced and having only four characters will earn me more XP in the long run. I may on occaision add a 1st level mule to drag down the party level and carry excess loot, of course (probably a half-orc for the extra strength).

Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully reply to this post. I look forward to reading your replies. Have a nice day/afternoon/evening/night/weekend/holiday!

[kmonster]

Don't plan for 30 levels, even with 2 level 1 mules your characters won't reach more than level 24 unless you also do heavy level squatting.
If you want to cheat with level squatting and muling you might as well save yourself the trouble and edit your characters to level 30 at the start.

For the first game I recommend just playing a party of 6 mostly single class characters without XP cheating.
You obviously want to cheat the game mechanics by heavy multiclassing, ECLs and muling, but in the end you're only cheating yourself.
A standard party will be more powerful and better balanced during the game.

[dragon wench]

Hello Darkhorse and welcome to Game Banshee

My own view is that IWD2 is a single player game, and therefore you should feel free to play whatever combination of characters best suits your personal style.

Because of IWDII's rules, essentially any combination is possible, and yes, this means you can make mistakes. But, that's also part of the fun

About the only thing I'd avoid is multi-classing spell casters and monks. In my view you just lose too much if you do so.