Low Micromanagement Party Setup on Hard

[Utile Dulci]

Hey, I'm slowly nearing the end of my first playthrough (I think so at least) on easy, and am willing to play one more time at least. Before I go further into detail let me explain that I've only played Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 (don't remember which)  a few years ago for a little bit, therefore I'm pretty unexperienced in this genre.

 

So, my issue so far was that I have to micromanage each of my 6 characters (at the moment I have Wizard PC, priest, chanter, cipher, figher and ranger- all are met in game, not custom) like hell or put them on a weird A.I. script. My question is, if playing on hard, with which classes would I be able to finish the game with that will do well just by being on autopilot? I don't mind babysitting one character (preferably my main), but switching between 6 characters and selecting which spell to use is just tireing if you have to do this every encounter.

 

To explain my idea a bit further, would a Wizard on autopilot set to CC mode be good? Or any other spell class? Or should I just go for classes like ranger that only have 2 active abilities (which I don't mind).

[Raven Darkholme]

Best AI only classes are chanters.

[Utile Dulci]

Best AI only classes are chanters.

 

Thought so, do you recommend Aggressive, Summoner or Support behaviour?

[Heijoushin]

All the non-spell casting classes are pretty low maintenance. Especially fighter, paladin and tank monk (your meat shields)

 

I'm not wild about auto-pilot, but why not have one wizard that you personally control, and make the rest fighter types to guard him?

 

Edited February 4, 2016 by Heijoushin

[Kaylon]

Paladin tank, fighter tank and barbarian 2H in the front, chanter with bow using summons and 2 rangers in the back. The barbarian with increased survability from fighter/paladin/chanter will be your first AoE damage. Chanter and paladin can add later even more AoE damage. Pets and summons will ensure that nothing will bother rangers/chanter.

[Boeroer]

I once played a spellsword wizard (aka melee wizard). There's a special AI script for that and it worked pretty well. It doesn't lead to no micro but is way less micro than a conventional wizard.

 

Chanter tanks with damaging chants (Come Sweet Winds and Dragon Slashed) and (s)low weapon damage (aka DEX=3) also require nearly no micro. Doesn't really matter which AI script you choose.

 

Moonlike monk tanks with fists, thick armour and max CON also require low micro if you let the AI do it's stuff. He can collect tons of wounds and spend them for Torment's Reach at once.

 

Give one melee character (preferably barb or monk because they have lots of endurance and health) the thickest armor you have + blunting belt and stuff and try to get as much DR as possible (barb = Thick Skinned, Monk = Iron Wheel). At the same time dump RES and pump MIG and INT. Put on Shod-in-Faith. You will receive crits which trigger Consecrated Ground. Often twice. You will heal big time in a big AoE. If you keep your frontline together and place this guy in the middle they need no other healing than that. 

 

From my experience rangers need some micro because of the pets. If you want to use those efficiently you have to micro them. You can just let them guard your ranger of course but in my opinion that's a waste of dps potential. But it's true that this approach drastically reduces micro because you don't have to babysit your squishies so much.

 

Another approach is to have no squishies at all but only sturdy characters that can all withstand serious hits. This will reduce micromanagement a lot. This could be done with heavy armored guys, three skilled for melee with weapon & shield, three with guns (armour doesn't influence reload time). You can still have casters. I once tried out the followind frontline and it worked great: druid tank (weapon & shield) + chanter tank (weapon & shield) + barb tank (Tidefall + Sanguine Plate + Shod-in-Faith guy), magran priest gunner, rogue gunner, cipher gunner. Of course this was not superlow micro because of all the spells I had to cast - but I had no problem with swarming and babysitting and "watch out they broke the line! *micro*". So it was more "rewarding" micro and less annoying.

Edited February 4, 2016 by Boeroer

[Utile Dulci]

Interesting input so far, thanks lads.