"Ideal" Three Character Party

With the new content, you can teleport away from danger once you can warp wood on the Hero's chest (at 3rd level). The Book of Heroes teleportation is even better than the spell because you don't have to spend an action casting it (you can full attack and then teleport away).

 

Which other two feats would you rather take?

 

If the druid is a melee combatant (which he should be for optimization purposes), then power attack, cleave, great cleave, and combat reflexes are all a higher priority than augment summoning. Also improved initiative and improved critical (which, by the way DOES stack with BOTH the keen weapon feat AND the keen weapon spell - even though it's not supposed to) whether melee or not. Finally, many metamagic feats are probably better than augment summoning (considering that AS takes two feats). Spike Growth and Spike Stones are insanely useful spells. Empowering, maximizing, or quickening those (or quickening a summoning) will probably give more of an advantage than adding +2 attack, dmg, and hp/hd to summoned beasties. So when my druid reaches 15th level after having taken all of those essential melee feats, I'm probably going to favor metamagic over a dead feat at 15th followed by AS at 18th.

Crafting might also take precedence over AS, but there are a lot of factors that will determine whether or not that's the case.

 

Sorcerers are pretty cool if built correctly. If you choose, maximize, empower, and heighten spell feats, you can have fireball at every spell level except for 1 and 2. You can then spam the crap out of fireballs, lightning bolts, or what ever you choose to maximize, empower, and heighten. :thumbsup:

 

But wizards can do that too. And when sorcerers use metamagic, the spell becomes a full-round action - unlike wizards. And because of that, sorcerers can't quicken spells at all, whereas wizards can. And wizards get bonus crafting feats so they can make scrolls, wands, or staves without using up feats which means they can more easily cast more spells/day than sorcerers. Sorcerers are proficient with spears and have bluff as a class skill. Those are the only advantages they have over wizards.

 

True, you can memorize a fireball in every single spell slot as a wizard, but it leaves you able to cast nothing but fireball, sorcerers do not have this issue. This is one area that sorcerers are superior at, they can spam fireball, without sacrificing spell slots. This allows them to still be able to cast alot of useful higher level spells, like wail of banshee, meteor storm, horrid wilting, ect.. However as you stated, wizards do receive more feats, can send spells to their spell book via scrolls, ect.. I had a party with a high level sorcerer and wizard in it, and found the sorcerer more useful at the hickory branch for crowd control, especially after the wizard has used up all their quickened spells. Try a party with one of each and towards the end of the game, let me know which you find more useful.

 

A rogue with a high UMD and a belt full of wands can be an excellent second or third caster.

 

Bard works just as well.

 

The first time you play the game sorcerers have an advantage over wizards in that they don't have to commit to their spells beforehand. But after one run through, you know what's coming up so the wizard's having to memorize instead of cast-on-the-fly isn't a real limitation. Also, does the ring you get from the witch work for sorcerers? If not that ring would make a wizard FAR superior to a sorcerer.

 

I am not trying to debate you on which is better, I know wizards are superior. In your post, you make is sound as if sorcerers are useless. I am just saying that sorcerers have some unique qualities which are pretty cool that some may find advantageous in some situations.

 

I had a very simple and fun game a while back with 3 Wizards. It was a bit rough to start, especially when I ran out of non-battle quests in town, but once I hit level 5 and got AoE spells, it was smooth sailing.

Human Wizard - Conjuration Specialist (BARRED - Evocation / Abjuration)

She was my main tank. Nothing but Summon Monster spells with the occasional utility spell. At the start, when the minions only last a single round or two, she had to rely on her staff and crossbow often. She was also the party face with a higher Charisma and Investigator feat.

2 x Human Wizard - Evocation Specialist (BARRED - Conjuration / Abjuration)

These two were the artillery. AoE spells (even killing summoned monsters) at the start and then mop up with Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, etc. Again, at the beginning, they had to swing their staves a bit more, but once they got Fireball, it was all over. One of them was my Bluffer and the other was Intimidator.

It was a Chaotic Neutral party (with one good, evil, and neutral in it) and I did bring along Elmo to help kill the giant in Emridy Meadows, but other than that, they could do everything on their own. I did have to take naps in the dungeons every now and then, but when they get to level 10+ (which you do very quickly with only 3 party members), I could clear out a whole level and a half of the Temple before needing to rest.

On a side note, I had very satisfying run with a 2 PC party as well. This was one of my first, trying to recreate a Role Playing experience, too. They were a Lawful Neutral, Bounty Hunter, Odd Couple, buddy adventuring party.

Dwarven Cleric 16 / Fighter 4 - He was my tank, and I'm pretty sure he had well over 300+ HP toward the end. I can't remember his deity, but I'm pretty sure he was Law / and either Death or Earth. He became happily married to Fruella, his muscle / enforcer, who took a few side levels of Barbarian and became a monster as she swung double meat cleavers. Their children were squat and ugly.

Elven Fighter 14 / Rogue 6 - My archer and lockpick. He always took the high ground and never got hit once. I want to say that he took the farmer's daughter as a bride, but I don't remember having her for very long.

 

Lol, sounds like a very memorable game indeed.

My favorite party was running a Bard as my PC and leveling up Pischella as a Wiz1/SorcX. Of course I hired Furnok just long enough to get us to the Temple, where he had an "accident" and left us his magic ring. After that, it was bee-line to the Fire Node using the ring and have Darley join up. Between her heightened MM and heightened Charm spells, she proved to be very useful. To round off the party, I filled our backpacks full of Ray of Enfeeblement scrolls, charmed a couple of Bugbears, then went and convinced Skorpp he would be better off forgetting about his dead pet wolf and throwing in his lot with us, which he reluctantly agreed was a good idea. He learned Combat Reflexes as well as Cleave and Greater Cleave as skills on level-up, which meant he was smacking down enemies left and right in battle with his giant-reach club.... Good times! It turns out R&G in Homlett did't mind doing business with demons and giants, so they became my base of operations. When I finally decided to let Skorpp go, he was rather pissed off... and it's better not to piss off a level 12 Barbarian giant who knows Cleave and Great Cleave :thumbsup:

Well, I guess that makes 4, so I'm now OT.