Are there enough enhancement items and a wide enough level range to fix the hilariously bad stats on some of the companions? If not, is there a point where I can create other PC's? I know there's some lady at Oleg's that I can give a ton of gold to in order to "get" mercenaries of some sort and I assume that's PC generation.
Basically, can I fix the fighter with shitty fighter stats or am I gonna be rolling with a duplicate of my Icewind Dale party at some point?
You reach Oleg's, you can level up the other guys in your party to level 2 but keep your main char at lvl1. Then after the fight you can buy mercenaries, the game says 500 gold but a single one actually costs something like ~90 gold, if your main char is still level 1. If you thoroughly looted you should probably have like 1400 gold at that point, so you can easily make a lot of mercs to help in the early game.
1 or 2 Sacred Huntsmasters with rune domain to provide animal companion distraction AND spam runes can defeat some early encounters easily which are problematic otherwise. Like spiderswarms, just spam fire runes.
A good buffbot/healing cleric. Might not be important for lower difficulties but Octavia - even if you make a beeline for her - doesn't cut it as an arcane caster early game, so having a wizard who can actually make mobs fail their saves is kind of a big deal.
I've made a custom wizard for my unfair run and have been using her instead of Octavia ever since.
Elf (bonus to overcoming spell resistance)
Dex 18, INT 20, CON 14 greater spell focus conjuration (if you want to see mobs fail saves vs stinking cloud or grease)
Leving up I gave her GSF transmutation, afterwards point blank and precise shot. This I would make differently. Ignore transmutation spell focus because 1) when you really need web it won't work, mobs just make their saves and 2) it's annoying because you can't dismiss it after combat.
So I ended up hardly using any transmutation spells anyway which means that focus is kinda wasted. In hindsight I'd take point blank and precise shot immediately after GSF Conjuration at lvl1 and then opt for GSF Evocation & Illusion in preparation for endgame spells like sirocco, stormbolts, weird etc.
Opposing schools: Divination (lose true strike which you will get from vivi spell slots later) and Abjuration (can be done by inquisitors/clerics/druids).
After level 8 I took a vivi level and from then on went AT. I'm reasonably happy with that wizard even with only 20 point buy.
It's buff with one cast of Strombolts from Trickster = 200+ damage and AOE stun with huge DC. Took 4 casts to destroy lastboss with all his adds.
