Icewind Dale Hints

Choosing Your Classes

• In this game, you're going to need a fairly well-balanced and very powerful group of adventurers in order to succeed. The most important step in building your party is choosing what classes you will have. Following is a description of all the major classes and a brief description of multi-classes.
  
  
  CLASSES
  
  Fighter -- The basic class of the game. You're going to, most likely, want at least one plain and simple pure Fighter in your party. They provide a heck of a punch up close, and they have a whole lot of HP -- especially if you set the game to max HP every level, which I recommend if you haven't played many RPGs like this.
  
  Ranger -- A fighter type with a greater array of powers. They lack the Fighter's ability to master a weapon, but they also gain some nice abilities like Charm Animal, a racial enemy, which can be quite useful, and some thief abilities like hide in shadows. A Ranger isn't really all that different from a standard Fighter. They're not quite as good with weapons, but they make up for it with their abilities. You can replace a pure Fighter in your party with a Ranger and probably come out the better if you have a decent knowledge of how to use the extra skills.  Rangers also gain some Priest spells, but not too many in this game, since you can't advance to a terribly high level without the XP cap remover (http://www.teambg.com/).
  
  Paladin -- A Paladin is the "holy" fighter type. Basically, they're Priests, but they can use weapons as well as a Ranger, and their abilities are more akin to that of a Cleric. They can turn undead, use a healing touch innate ability, which is quite useful, and they can cure disease once a day at higher levels. They can also cast Protection from Evil, which is slightly useful at the beginning. I think Paladins are overrated really, although they do get one killer weapon (+7) near the end. I'd personally go with a Ranger, but that's just me.
  
  Cleric -- The Priest, the holy guy, or unholy if you're evil. Clerics are one of two classes who can cast spells from the Priest spheres of magic from the start. They don't get all the spells Druids do, but then again, the reverse is also true. What makes a Cleric (or Druid) absolutely necessary is that they can cast healing spells. You'll be leaning heavily on these spells to keep you alive through much of the game, and it's really almost impossible to keep all your characters alive very long without any. So, put a Cleric of some kind in your party, no questions asked.
  
  Druid -- Nature guy. This Cleric-like class can also cast Priest-sphere spells. He gains access to a number of spells which Clerics can't cast (mainly offensive spells), while losing the ability to cast some Cleric spells. These Druid-only spells are all quite powerful and useful. Overall, I think Druids are by far the better character class; they gain some really useful abilities once they get to high level (which they probably will, as it doesn't take too much XP), and they can use weapons just as well. They can also cast healing spells just as well as a Cleric.
  
  Thief -- The basic rogue-type character. You need one of these guys, in some form, in your party. It's honestly almost impossible to get through the game without someone who can disarm all of the traps and open all of the locks in the many dungeons you will enter. Also, the Thief has a great backstab ability -- just hide in shadows, attack, and boom, nice big damage multiplier (if you hit, of course). I find it's a fairly good idea to multi-class your Thief with something else to make them a bit more useful in combat -- Fighter or Mage springs to mind.
  
  Bard -- They sing, they're bad. Bards are like Thieves, except they lose a bunch of their most useful abilities (open lock, etc.). The only bonus they really get is that they can play a song, which will increase all your party's rolls a bit. The one thing that does redeem them somewhat is the fact that they can cast some Mage spells, although they advance through spell levels more slowly than a Mage. This can still come in rather handy, though I'd personally prefer a Thief/Mage. The game tried to throw in a few Bard-only items to make them worth using, but unless you can get utterly insane stats, they're really not worth the trouble.
  
  Mage -- The only class that's really good at casting Mage-sphere spells. You need at least one, preferably two, even more preferably three, of these guys in your group to have much of a chance at winning this game. Now, all those Mages may seem like it would make your party rather weak -- but that's where multiclassing comes in. Read the next section for some multiclassing tips. A nice little possibility for a Mage is to become a specialist. This will allow the Mage a bonus learned spell of their chosen school to start and will add one to their max spells memorizable for each level. The downside is that they can't cast spells from their opposition school. I suggest being a conjurer, since divination spells really aren't terribly useful, and you can always have your other Mage(s) use them after all.
  
  
  MULTICLASSING TIPS
  
  Multiclassing is one of the more important, and more risky, things to do during character creation. You have to remember that these characters will gain XP only one half, or one third, as quickly as your single class characters, and so they will take much longer to level up. However, having a character with the abilities of a Mage and the melee power of a Fighter cannot be tossed aside. All in all, there are only a few multiclasses that are really worth taking. Others will just slow down advancement to little effect (or so I've found, at least).
  
  The most useful, and important, multiclass to have in your party is a Fighter/Mage. It may seem like it would take forever to level up, but it's worth the extra time. As mentioned in the combat tips section, these characters are great if you set them up with some spells to disable the enemy (such as Chromatic Orb, Web, Hold Person, Slow) and some quick-to-fire offensive spells (Agannazar's Scorcher, Magic Missile, Melf's Acid Arrow, etc.) and then have them able to competently attack the newly hindered foe. You probably won't want to give many high-powered offensive spells to them (except Fireball and Death Spell), since they can just run in and whack the enemy, with no chance of getting disrupted.
  
  Another useful multiclass is a Mage/Thief, or an Illusionist/Thief if you're a gnome (fun!). They may look useless at first glance, but they make excellent scouts -- they can hide in shadows and then Dimension Door back to the party after learning the locations of your enemies. Also, since Thieves level up very quickly, being multiclassed won't hinder your skill advancement very much, and a Mage/Thief character can generally be good enough to find any traps and open most locks you'll find at any given time.
  

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