Leveling Partners

[Anakin]

I think we had a similar topic on the old boards about this. What is your two favorite race-combination when leveling up?

I just thought about this when Ferro asked me what to enhance as an elf (or a magic user). I saw he was an illithid. Has any of you guys tried leveling an illithid with another magic user? I remember seeing in the old boards, "Go with an illithid and a dwarf or an avian" but with the flaming equipment now, I think illithid with an elf or a druid wouldn't be so bad of a combination.

[disaster]

depends on level. i like fighters when low level, because i can still dish out a lot of damage without waiting for mana. at higher levels, magic users are able to tackle things much higher than they are, so the higher exp per kill goes a long way to offsetting the mana recharge time. i imagine ill-dru could be good, even if only because the druid could act as a portable mana battery to recharge the ills death field. never tried it though, i usually put a fighter with my magic users, unless i'm in a mood to go solo with a magic user.

[Everybody]

I'm on the fence. ill-dru/elf could be worthwhile, if you buff enhance the ill as a super-tank (lots of bonus hp, eq designed to lower ac as far as possible, etc.), because it'll allow your second mage to focus on mana exclusively, giving you a longer average run time. On the other hand, that's not playing into a lot of ills strengths, especially once they get high enough to use death field. (On the down side, death field has a very limited level range to fight in, while tanking with a mage behind you gives you a much larger range you can take down.) I think I'd still prefer a fighter behind an ill, if only because of the specific build you'd have to aim towards to get an ill to be particularly effective with another mage.

[Brodgar]

A dwarf and a kender obviously.

Who needs magic?

Backstab, rescue, circle, dead.

/This post is absolutely not biased in any way.

[Everybody]

The interesting thing to me is actually that you revived this entire post which was based on a combat core that I basically did a rip and replace on since the thread was started, so the ability to fight above their level is something fighters do decently well (particularly when built for +hit).