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Priests are the fabric that holds a party together in battle. They generally handle all healing, blessing, and morale needs of the party, letting the rest of the group concentrate on vanquishing enemies. Cleric People tend to think of a cleric as the weak healer of a party. While priests are the best healers in the Forgotten Realms, a cleric is far from weak. At higher levels, the offensive spell repertoire of the cleric is almost as formidable as that of the mage. While clerics cannot use bladed or piercing weapons, this inadequacy is more than made up for in the form of the turn undead skill. Turn undead lets a cleric (or paladin) channel power from his chosen deity and terrify or destroy the undead. Evil clerics can sometimes gain control of these creatures, causing them to fight with the party rather than against it. Clerics need a high wisdom rating. Druid Through a tight connection to the world of nature, Druids can shape-change into various animals (beginning at level 7), including the polar bear, winter wolf, and boring beetle, once each day. They also can cast priest spells like their cleric brethren. Note that only humans and half-elves can be druids, and they can only use leather armor and bucklers, clubs, darts, spears, daggers, slings, and staffs. Druids need high wisdom and charisma ratings. Rogues Another requisite part of any party is a rogue. You'll quickly find that the skills of a thief or bard (or both!) will come in quite handy in your travels. Thief Thieves are the cunning little backstabbers (literally) of Icewind Dale. They have special abilities: stealth, backstab, pick pockets, pick locks, and rind/remove traps. (See Table 2 on page 135 of your game manual for a helpful table on thief skills.) Thieves may obviously not be of lawful good alignment, nor can they wear nonleather armor or use regular shields. Their weapons include clubs, daggers, darts, crossbows, short bows, slings, short and long swords, and quarterstaffs. Thieves must have a high dexterity rating. Bard You'll never find my party traveling without a bard in the lead (unless of course he's been killed and is on the back of one of my warriors, waiting to be resuscitated). The bard is the jack-of-all-trades of the land. With a high charisma rating, bards are the ideal conversationalist. They have a very high lore and can thus identify 80 to 90 percent of the items you'll encounter without the use of expensive third parties, scrolls, or spells; they can cast mage spells (at level 2 and higher), and they have the pick pockets and bard song skills. Bard song increases party luck and morale. Bards need high dexterity, intelligence, and charisma ratings.
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