I can vouch for fighter/thief. With the backstab multiplier you'll eventually be doing 60 - 90/backstab. With crits that number is even higher. My highest critical backstab in IWD was 140 damage.

Actually, it depends on the kit. In particular, here are some that are not that great:

Inquisitor: Dispel isn't that important here because enemy mages don't use the same heavy layers of defensive spells. Also, you lose the ability to cast spells (which can go up to 6th level spells if your level is high enough) and the ability to turn undead. (Undead Hunter is a better choice, even though level drain immunity isn't exactly useful in this game, since original IWD didn't even have that mechanic in the first place.)

Bard kits: You lose all the nice songs that were added by the Heart of Winter expansion. No more Tymora's Melody (boosts luck) or War Chant of Sith (boosts defense and even provides healing).

Wild Mage: One of the biggest advantages of Wild Mages in BG2 is the ability to use Nahal's Reckless Dweomer to cast spells that would ordinarily be beyond your means. In IWD, however, you are more likely to gain spell slots for a new spell level before you actually get scrolls of spells to fill those slots. (This is especially true if playing with a small party, or if you are playing on a difficulty that increases XP gains (like Story or Insane).)

Sorcerer: Very good through level 20 (being able to pick spells at level up is a *huge* advantage when scrolls are so scarce), but then they stop gaining new spells per day, while mages eventually outpace them. (Personally, I would use the tweak pack to give sorcerers extra spells per day at high levels.)

The main reason we find the Wild Mage compelling is the chance of random effects for a funny dollop of chaos on the battlefield. Does it deliver on this promise?

I played a wild mage in BG TuTu a while back. I had just completed the Candlekeep tutorial and Imoen had just joined me after Gorion's death. We were exploring the map and ran into a bear. I loosed off my one spell (Magic Missile) and -- remember, my character is still level 1 -- a wild surge resulted in a gated demon! A wolf inconveniently decided to join the fun right at that point. We had no Protection from Evil, and could not outrun them both. Needless to say, the game ended rather sooner than I had anticipated. It delivers!

In BGEE I had Neera (the wild mage NPC) in the party and a hard battle to come. Near the end of the long buffing procedure she got a wild surge, fireball centered on caster so my party had to rest and do the whole procedure again.

Wild surges are rare, I didn't have to reload in BGEE because of one, but if you prepare an armor spell for the next day there's a 4 percent chance that your mage will be unprotected because the casting fails.

It will take quite a long time until a mage in IWD will get robes with AC so good that the shield spell isn't needed any more.

A problem with pure class mages is that they start weak with only very few spellcastings per day. In a party of 6 it's fine if they do some powerful spells in 1-2 hard battles and contribute only little for the rest of the day, in a party of 2 this will require a lot of resting, even for wild mages which get an extra spell per day.
Sorcerers are the most powerful arcane casters because they can choose spells spontaneously and don't have to find scrolls which is especially advantageous when you level faster than the game is balanced for.
Sorcerers weren't available in the original IWD so expect imbalances later in the game if you play one.
Don't focus too much on the power at the end of the game, the early parts are most difficult and most important in a 2 player co-op, if your characters suck there you won't play the later ones.

Shapeshifter looks like a fun class to play, with the shapeshift available from the beginning. Werewolf form is about as good defensively as a 18 dex character wearing splint mail and can keep up with fighters offensively during the first 6 levels. When fighters start to outclass them in terms of physical power they'll have access to summoning and other powerful druid spells.

A pure cleric should be playable quite well. Clerics can equip the heaviest armor and very good melee weapons (flail/morningstar is the best proficilency). The fast levelling in a party of 2 should win many later battles instantly with turn undead. A problem is the restriction to only one attack per round, therefore Lathander is the best kit on the long run with the special ability granting an extra attack per round. Max the physical stats, they're even more important than wisdom.

For fighter/thief multiclass gnome is the best race, the best helm in the game can only be worn by gnomes or halfings. Halflings can't have more than 17 str which is much worse than 18/.. , it will take a very long time until an item (other than potions) which sets strength high can be found.

If you don't have someone to cast identify in the party it will be more comfortable if the fighter/thief gets some lore. With 10 int and wis (s)he'll avoid a penalty and get 3 for every thief level, with a roll of 86 you could even dump cha to 3 and start with 18 str, dex, con, 19 int and 10 wis for better identifying early on.

This faq/walkthrough criticizes most kits as inferior to their base classes and especially to multi-classes, with the exception of dual classing from a kit into a base class. The author argues that the higher XP cap of the EE lets multi-/dual-class characters grow much stronger than single classes, including kits. That said, he admits being focused on HoF mode, calling normal play "casual", and I suspect a single playthrough wouldn't give enough XP to make this an issue. (I only read part I + II of the faq to avoid spoilers.)

Nonetheless, the faq rates the Shapeshifter's Werewolf and Greater Werewolf forms as too weak at their respective levels. Has anyone here experience with this class?

Another race/class combination I'm toying with is a Half-Orc Fighter/Cleric. Any thoughts about that?

And don't worry, despite my urge for information I'm still putting the character of my character above the numbers. :) There are also no-nos for me, namely triple-classing (power gaming) and dual classing (unrealistic and illogical).

The FAQ you linked is about the most powerful party when cheating up the XP to 22,500,000 and add the best items from 5 runthroughs at the start of HoF game.
A normal difficulty game starting from scratch is totally different.
At the end your party will have about 15,000,000 XP total (7,500,000 for each character), but for most of the game far less. There's no benefit in being powerful when the game is over.

Triple-classing is not powergaming in IWD, a party consisting of specialists which are really good in what they do is more powerful than six jacks of all trades.
Powergaming would be soloing a sorcerer and setting the difficulty to insane for double XP so you get high level spells much faster than you're supposed to.

Triple classes would be perfectly balanced for your 2-player run, each class levelling as fast as a pure class would in a party of 6.
Double classes are still ok. Fighter/cleric and fighter/druid will both work well, the cleric having better stats as half-orc, better buffs and turn undead, the druid will be more complex having better summoning and damage dealing spells and powerful shapeshifts at higher levels.
A shapeshifter will have powerful shapeshift at level 1 but later the fighter/druid will be more powerful when shapeshifted.

Thanks for the detailed explanations. My aversion against AD&D triple-classing goes way back to the times before 3E. Apart from the aforementioned elf inflation that it caused among many P&P groups, a triple-classed character lacks a certain distinctiveness to me, as do some of the dual-classes like Mage/Cleric. You have a point about two triple-classed characters being on par with six single classed ones (apart from gear and combat actions). Still, I don't like triple-classes. O:)

Your arguments didn't make my decision any easier, and tonight is the night. :) At least, my choice boils down to "only" four classes now: Shapeshifter, Fighter/Druid, Fighter/Cleric, or Wild Mage. The other player tied herself down to Fighter/Thief many days ago.

This discussion at the Beamdog forums casts a better light on the Shapeshifter – aside from the nerfed CON of the werewolf forms.

I have approx. one hour left to decide. :D

I think I sort of see what you mean. I don't really like multi-classed fighter/mages because to me it looks like you are just stacking numbers; like you would in a Magic: the Gathering game.

Magic and martial training are opposing disciplines. They both require intensive training.

The boring beetle form available to normal druids at level 7 is better than werewolf and a fighter/druid in polar bear form does more damage per round than a greater werewolf (other forms aren't bad either), but the shapeshifter will be the easiest to play in the beginning and after you get greater werewolf form because of very low AC in combination with iron skins.

The Fighter/Druid won by a whisker against the Shapeshifter, mostly because its level progression is closer to that of the second player's Fighter/Thief.

The other candidates are not forgotten, though. I will remember them at another playthrough of IWD, BG1, or BG2. :)

Again, thank you all for sharing your thoughts and knowledge.

We're nearly through. It was sometimes a little tricky without a mage or a cleric but our higher levels and (I think) good tactics compensated quite well. And man, has the druid some nasty spells. :) *ick*

But Belhifet may be a show-stopper. *** SPOILERS AHEAD *** On our first try, he just panicked us and we died before we got control over our characters back. The second time our fighter/thief wore the Death Mask helm and thus got immunity to fear, only to be hacked to pieces by Belhifet in two combat rounds. My druid just got into earth elemental form before being panicked again and was stomped into the ground by the two golems.

We called it a day then and will try it the next time.

The combination of stripping us of nearly any pre-cast buffs (only one of approx. 6 buff layers survived) and Belhifet's aura of fear that lets us running around a room full of traps until we are cornered and smashed to pieces seems a bit overwhelming. The long interlude right before the fight makes re-tries very tedious.

Do you have any tactical advice for a Fighter/Thief and a Fighter/Druid? One tactic that came to my mind is giving the Death Mask to the druid who can cast "Remove Fear" on the thief, then transform into the highly resistant Earth Elemental to play meat shield (or mud shield :) ) while the thief shoots arrows at Belhifet.

All in all, we're not very optimistic. :*P

edit: P.S.: Belhifet seems to have True Seeing, because he kept hacking at the thief even after he drank a potion of invisibility.

I don't have EE, but assuming the AI works the same as in the original version, all the opponents in the final boss battle can see invisible, but they seem to prioritize visible targets (ie. they will move to attack a visible target until the invisible one attacks).

I'm pretty sure in the IWD games, being invisible in combat only gives you a +4 AC bonus.

It might contain some spoilers for you, but <span class="bold">this thread</span> might help figure out a strategy.