There are some good Halberds and spears in the game. It's just that most of them are random drops, so you can't count on your 18/00 strength pikeman of doom to get a good weapon in the game. There are some awesome crossbows too, but they are also random drops. In the early parts of the game you get a lot of magical maces and morning stars and a few long swords, so you may want to have a character proficient in those so you can bring down the baddies that need magical weapons (there are a few in the first dungeon).
Blunt weapons are not totally necessary to have since you don't face undead that much nor many characters in plate armors, but they can be useful (specially in the first dungeon since your fighters will be weak as kittens). The most useful weapons to use are single handed weapons like axes and long swords so you can use a shield (lots of good shields in the game). A warrior with a two handed weapon will get chewed up rather quickly; as opposed to BG, the monsters here do hit... often and hard. Also, missile weapons are a God sent. In BG2 bows and crossbows were nerfed to the point of becoming useless, but in IWD they still have the same characteristics as in the first BG. Slings and darts are cool too, since they have the strength bonus.
Druids are awesome all trough the game. They lend themselves to cheese tactics easily as well; just spam entangle and spike growth spells and you can bring down pretty much anything. The druid has been my most effective character.
For mods I'm using the Tweak Pack, Unfinished Business, and Item Upgrade (all can be fount on Gibberling Three) as well as the widescreen mod.
Oh, and both backstab and sneak attack are useless. In this game you will be facing swarms of monsters at a time, so you're better off using your thief as an archer.
Maia said:
Human Paladin, with pips in longswords, axes and longbow and one pip in a blunt weapon.
Large swords and axes. No need for a bow since you can use throwing axes with this guy. I would equip him with a long sword, a morning star (uses mace proficiency) and a throwing axe. This way you can use plate armors and shields. Make sure he has good strength (18/80+) and you have a very good primary tank.
Half-Elven Ranger/Cleric (they still get the Druid spells, right?), pips in maces, hammers, sling. Or should I take flails instead of maces? In the BGs, mace specialization certainly was a loss.
There is a morning star that gives you extra priest spell slots, so I would use my proficiencies in maces and slings.
Human Fighter 3/Druid maybe - no idea what weapon specializations to take. IWD doesn't have scimitar.
There are scimitars in the game, and rather good ones. They just don't have the cool sprite as in BG2 (they look like regular longswords). I would use a quarterstaff instead for a druid.
Halfling Fighter/Thief, pips in short swords, dual-wielding, blunt weapon
No dualwielding in IWD except for Rangers. Short swords and bows/crossbows do nicely. There are plenty of bows in the game so you may want to pick that, but the more powerful missile weapons are crossbows (but the good ones are random drops
).
Half-Elven Bard - I heard that bards are pretty good in IWD. Shortbow, I guess, and?
Bards are great in IWD, but you may get bored with him after a while. Aside from the special items they get to use, they aren't that useful as a whole aside from their exceptional lore values.
Human Fighter 3/ Mage, ? Or would Thief 3/ Mage be better?
You don't need more than one thief in the game, so I would go F/M.
Oh, and you may drive yourself crazy with more than 5 characters just because of the game's pathfinding. It sucks, and you will most likely end up dying more times because of party members wandering off to weird places in the map than in the thick of battle.
