What's your party?

[smallfry]

My first (and so far only) party is:

Human Knight - specializing in longsword and generally being a tough guy.
Half-elf Knight - high dexterity with dual-wield and weapon finesse. I thought she would be better but her damage is too low.
Human Cleric - specializing in healing and fighting. He's actually pretty good at fighting and I'm happy with him.
Half-elf Wizard - completely useless so far, although she just reached level 5 (ie fireball, lightning bolt, haste, etc). I guess wizards are just dead weight until they're level 5 or higher.

Anyway, since I've essentially lost (stuck in the orc fortress with no health or spells left) I'm just going to reroll a new party, so I'm interested in seeing what others have been using!

[VentilatorOfDoom]

This party is absolutely OK. Only thing you should have done is taking craft wand as a feat for Cleric & Wizard, you'll never run out of healing or arcane firepower. Also wands are cast at caster level - so there is no difference between a fireball cast by the Wizard or a wand.

[Darkion]

My first party was almost the same as yours, except the first Knight was a Mul. My HalF-Elf Knight had Dual-Wield, Weapon Finesse, Cleave, Greater Cleave and did pretty well, the damage was lower than the other Knight because of the -2 Strength racial penalty, but the multiple attacks made up for it. I also got stuck in the Orc Stockade due to my failing at giving the party the correct skills, which severely hampered them. The Cleric needed Scribe Scrolls or Craft Wands and for some insane reason I focused in giving him Weapon Skills that I was not really using or needed. I also disregarded Craft Weapons and Armor and Craft Wondrous Items, so I decided to start a new game and come back to these guys later.

New Party:

Mul Knight (Longsword, Longbow, Weapon Crafter)
Human Cleric (Conjuration & Scroll, Wand and Wondrous Item Crafter)
Half-Elf Wizard (Enchantment/Necromancy)
Human Wizard (Conjuration/Evocation)

The gameplay is totally different with only one tank, the Knight usually goes on the offensive with the Cleric summoning Elementals while staying back to protect the mages from any fast enemies. Strangely enough, even when this group is more fragile than the first one it just plows through any resistance, but It does require more thinking and strategic positioning.

[xalles]

My first party which carried me through the game was basically the same as the OP's, with the first knight being mul. One thing that helped my half-elf knight out quite a bit was to get precise shot and improved precise later on; she could shoot almost any target within range with very high accuracy (helped with slaying arrows).

Now I'm playing this party:

Mul cleric: tank/healer
Human wizard: necromancy/conjuration/melee touch/transformation (started with 17 STR, maybe should have made mul heh)
Half-elf wizard: evocation/enchantment
Half-elf wizard: evocation/transmutation/ranged touch (started with 19 DEX)

This party was pretty rough in the beginning, as I had very few spells per rest at all, but scribing low-level spells is extremely cheap. Eventually I got to craft wand and magic missile wands are also surprisingly cheap and effective. The party is currently level 13 and fights tend to end very quickly. One nice thing about this party compared to my last one is it seems like my guys are less important individually. Even if one or two guys go unconscious I still usually have a lot of firepower to finish the fight.

[Khoram]

I have almost the same as the OP, except I have my mul knight with max strength specialized with a greatsword, and my high dex dual wielding human knight using shortswords or long & shortsword combination (depending on which items are best). I have to say, even though my dual wielder has good attack bonuses and gets like 6 attacks per round at level 10, the damage is not good enough to make it worthwhile compared to the mul greatsword wielding knight. With the abundance of damage resistant enemies, 6 hits at 5-10 damage (most of which gets negated) just doesn't hack it, I'm finding. Maybe it's just me.

[mediocrepoet]

I have to say, even though my dual wielder has good attack bonuses and gets like 6 attacks per round at level 10, the damage is not good enough to make it worthwhile compared to the mul greatsword wielding knight. With the abundance of damage resistant enemies, 6 hits at 5-10 damage (most of which gets negated) just doesn't hack it, I'm finding. Maybe it's just me.

Set your DWer up with special materials weapons like cold iron, silver and adamantite to help get around damage resistances. Also, once you start enchanting your DWers weapons with elemental damage and special properties, those will go a lot further for that character than they would for your single wielder due to number of attacks. Dual wielders don't get the extra strength damage, so it's better to focus on things like your crit range and extra damage enchantments to complement their high number of attacks - for defense they can take advantage of things like lighter armour or mithril full plate depending on what you have available and what you prefer considering movement rate vs. losing your dex bonus when caught flatfooted.

I have my DWer's main hand rapier enchanted with destruction and her off hand kukri enchanted as a vorpal weapon. Between that and both weapons being special materials, she tends to hack through most things with ease. She's also a weapon finesser which gives her good bonuses for archery if she needs to switch for ranged combat. She's easily the hardest hitting character in my group.

[Ashery]

2x mul knight, human cleric, and a half-elf mage.

Oh, and this is an ironman run (Just finished the caves after I did some light grinding after clearing Corinth).

I tried a half-elf knight duel wielder earlier, but I just wasn't sold on their effectiveness. They're more mobile (If you use light armor), have better reflex saves, and are better able to avoid touch attacks, but they have less ac (a full seven less than a mul knight with a +5 shield), five less defensive enchantment points (Well ten technically, but five of those points went towards the ac bonus) and four less points of damage per swing (two from the racial differences and two from points invested in str at level up). I'm sure there are some other differences, but it's 5am (I started the current ironman attempt earlier tonight), so I'm a wee bit tired, heh...

And mages most certainly *aren't* useless before level five. Thanks to the game's design, despite the fact that you're limited to only a couple memorized spells early on, you can mass produce level one scrolls very easily (12g, 1xp per, might be 14g). Also, while spells like magic arrow do limited damage at this point in time, the other spells you have available to you can make a huge difference. Entangle and sleep are probably the two spells I used most at low levels, but the others definitely have a use as well (Even truestrike).

For general purpose weapons I'd recommend an adamantium weapon with destruction and speed (Either +3 or +1 and holy) with a couple other weapons used for specific situations (Anarchic/Axiomatic for instance). Once I got those adamantium weapons on my knights during my non-ironman playthrough, most combat became near trivial.

[getter77]

My 2 classic parties were themed...and mainly to serve as proof.

Human No Armor/Shield Dual Wielder Knight using only Short Swords
Human No Armor/Shield Longsword Knight Bow Archer
Nuker Elf Wiz
Human Summoner No Armor/Shield Cleric

Human Great Sword Knight
Mul No Armor/NoShield Pure Grappler
Human Widen/Empower Wiz
Human No Armor/Shield Evocation Cleric with no Summons

[Ikarius]

On building an effective dual-wielder-
First off, ignore finesse. You want high strength anyhow in order to hit hard. Dex 16 is a good idea for the purposes of being effective with a bow, but finesse is nearly useless; strength will continue to be your primary attribute. When you get the option, pick up improved critical (rapier). This saves on a *lot* of crafting costs, and doubles the crit range of all rapiers you wield- and rapiers have the largest crit range to begin with. My suggestion on weapons would be two rapiers, each out of a different special material (perhaps adamantine and cold iron), each with +1, an element, and an element burst- extra damage on every hit, and more extra damage on every crit. This should pretty well mow through things. You might want to consider brilliant energy for the offhand- to ignore their AC from armor with the lower BAB attacks.

For undead, you'll want a pair of weapons with disruption on them- since undead are immune to crits. 6 attacks where each time they have to save vs death is pretty nasty.

Cheers
Ikarius

[MonkeyLancer]

Ooo!

Half-Elf Wiz,Human Wiz,Human Cleric,Mul Knight.. not in that order.

I really like the share spells feature it really adds to the utility of bat-manlike wizzys.