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of JUPP is to have a party that does not need to worry about getting hit that often, either by insanely high AC or staying out of combat and tossing spells from a safe distance, there simply is no place for such a build. Besides, with the amount of various possible damage enhancing buffs, such a character would actually do LESS damage than someone else that utilizes various combat buffs to their fullest potential. Having other party members cast the buffs isn't an option either, since some of the better buffs are caster only.

Multiclassing penalties: Even if some of the builds can't really avoid EXP penalties, those need not be suffered until very late into the game. The sorcerer/bard does not need to be a Bard until very late into the HOF mode, and Rogue/Monk/Cleric doesn't need the level of Rogue until the Crow's Nest has been bought, which is chapter 4 in HOF. Also, a level of Monk could be avoided all the way until the beginning of HOF mode. So it's not nearly that bad. Besides, with only 4 team members, there will be plenty of XP to obtain anyway, and the EXP penalties will keep the party average level down a while longer as well.

Complex multiclassing schemes: Original UPP tried to keep multiclassing to minimum just because it's "so hard" to have to resort to some scheme when adding level-ups. I'd call this saving in the wrong place, as the amount of time it takes to take a quick peek into pre-laid level-up scheme is somewhere between non-existent and very minimal in comparison to other things that take time when playing.

Usage of non-humans: While humans get one extra skill point per level and an extra feat at start, it was noted that those aren't really needed either.
In most cases the characters ran out of useful feats to take and skills are really unnecessary for the most part. For example, if a party has a high-STR character, lock picking is useless as those locks can be bashed open just as easily. The other features of the races, most notably the extra AC from being
a Deep Gnome or spell resistances are worth much more.

Drow instead of Wild Elf as Sorcerer(x)/Bard(x): As pointed in the "Spell
Resistance: Useless or not?" chapter, the convenience of having spell resistance on all of the characters is far greater than having it only on three of the four characters. Blasting surrounding monsters with two simultaneous DBFBs (chars #2 and #4) would all of a sudden become much more dangerous if one of your own characters would suffer the full damage.
However, choosing Wild Elf would remove the multiclassing EXP penalty and the
ECL penalty, allowing this character to reach higher levels faster, so they're in fact quite even. JUPP has opted for the Drow mainly because the Drow has better overall bonuses, especially stat bonuses on both CHA and
INT that are very important for this character.

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2.13 - Statistics and formulae
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This section contains various statistics and formulae plus other such miscellaneous tidbits of information. Most of the stuff is really not needed to play the game, but it's still nice to know. Some of the stuff might get a bit involved in mathematics, but I wanted to cater for the geek community as well. =)

Power Attack feat:
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One of the many feats in IWD2 which increases attack damage at the cost of accuracy. However, choosing the optimal level of Power Attack (PA) is not as simple as it sounds. Set it too high and the overall damage will take a hit when a large fraction of your attacks miss. Set it too low and miss out on the opportunity to cause more damage, not to mention having used a valuable feat point on something that doesn't even get used.

Let's start with some definitions.

D  = Damage, as stated on the character info screen. Includes all effective damage bonuses from STR, spells, enchanted weapons etc. In case of damage range, just use the average value.
DR = Damage Reduction. Some monsters have DR against some types of weapons or some level of enchantment. For the sake of simplicity, this refers to the specific weapon/enemy combination.
CM = Critical damage multiplier of the weapon in use. Either 2 or 3 in IWD2.
CA = Critical hit area width. For example, greataxes = 1 and greatswords = 2.
Modified by Improved critical feat, keen weaponry and the Executioner's
Eyes spell. Luck has also an indirect effect, check chapter 2.8 for further details.
BAB= Base Attack Bonus. Check tables in the manual for exact values.
AB = Total Attack Bonus. Note that this value is usually different for each of the multiple attacks that happen during one combat round due to the way BAB bonuses function. This term also includes all effective attack bonuses.
AC = Enemy's Armor Class.
PA = Power Attack level, between 0 and 5.
P  = Chance to hit. Calculated as (AB - AC - PA + 21) x 0.05. Note that in most of the calculations, this value is capped at 5% min and 95% max.
One exception is when a luck bonus is present - critical misses can't no longer occur and chance to hit may reach 100%. diff = Attack chance difference, corresponds to the first two terms in chance to hit calculation, i.e. AB-AC.
PC = Chance for a critical hit. Calculated as CA x P x 0.05 (normal case) or
P x P (in case the chance to hit area is narrower than CA).
DT = Expected damage value with power attack and critical strikes.

DT is calculated by the following formula:

DT = P x (D-DR+PA) x (1+[CM-1]xPC)

Due to the multiplicative nature of this equation, adding to any one of these terms separately doesn't affect the total very much, but one needs to boost all three terms for maximal effect. Conveniently, having a luck bonus adds to all three, upping the damage output very fast. More luck is always a good thing.

Calculating the optimal level for Power Attack requires optimizing a sum of 1-5 damage terms, for each one of the attacks during a combat round.
However, as enemy AC isn't known exactly in most cases, there's no simplified formula to calculate it directly. Here are some tabled results. Diff means the combined term AB-AC, and AC value of 20 has been used throughout the tables. When fighting enemies with higher/lower AC, remember to use lower/higher diff value, respectively.

CASE 1 : No Luck bonuses

Optimal levels, One attack/round, BAB=1
D (After damage reduction) diff 5 10 15 20 30 40 50
-20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
-15 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
-10 3 1 0 0 0 0 0
-5 5 3 0 0 0 0 0
0 5 5 3 3 3 3 3
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
15 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Optimal levels, Three attacks/round, BAB=11 or 10 w/haste
D (After damage reduction) diff 5 10 15 20 30 40 50
-20 2 0 0 0 0 0 0
-15 3 1 0 0 0 0 0
-10 5 3 3 2 0 0 0
-5 5 5 5 4 3 3 1
0 5 5 5 5 5 5 3
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
15 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Optimal levels, Five attacks/round, BAB=16 w/haste
D (After damage reduction) diff 5 10 15 20 30 40 50
-20 4 0 0 0 0 0 0
-15 4 2 0 0 0 0 0
-10 5 5 3 2 0 0 0
-5 5 5 5 5 3 1 0
0 5 5 5 5 5 3 3
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
15 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Optimal levels, Five attacks/round, BAB=30 w/haste
D (After damage reduction) diff 5 10 15 20 30 40 50
-20 5 5 5 5 3 2 2
-15 5 5 5 5 5 2 2
-10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
-5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
0 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
15 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

CASE 2 : Maximal luck bonuses (Luck = +7)

Optimal levels, One attack/round, BAB=1
D (After damage reduction) diff 5 10 15 20 30 40 50
-20 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
-15 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
-10 5 2 0 0 0 0 0
-5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4
0 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
15 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Optimal levels, Three attacks/round, BAB=11 or 10 w/haste
D (After damage reduction) diff 5 10 15 20 30 40 50
-20 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
-15 5 4 4 0 0 0 0
-10 5 5 5 4 4 3 0
-5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4
0 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
15 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Optimal levels, Five attacks/round, BAB=16 w/haste
D (After damage reduction) diff 5 10 15 20 30 40 50
-20 4 3 0 0 0 0 0
-15 5 4 4 2 0 0 0
-10 5 5 5 4 4 0 0
-5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4
0 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
15 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Optimal levels, Five attacks/round, BAB=30 w/haste
D (After damage reduction) diff 5 10 15 20 30 40 50
-20 5 5 5 5 5 3 3
-15 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
-10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
-5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
0 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
15 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

As seen from the tables, Power Attack gives best benefits to characters with low damage. Note that even high-damage character's damage may be brought down due to enemy damage resistance. Later on, the relatively minimal increase to overall damage from Power Attack may cause entire attacks to miss, which brings the damage output down drastically.

The other important breakpoint is reached when attack bonuses from other sources than BAB reach the enemy's AC value (diff=0). This corresponds to hitting enemies even with an attack roll of 2. Increasing PA level has no effect on hitting enemies so it becomes free extra damage. Note also the effect of luck - with maxed luck (+7), even a roll of 1 becomes 8, increasing chances to hit drastically.

As a summary, Power Attack should only be activated when the character's damage is very low OR when the non-BAB based attack bonus (STR bonus, weapon enchantment bonus, bonuses from spells & feats) reaches enemy's AC value.
Luck bonus shifts this requirement down, as seen in CASE 2 tables.
Here's a table on non-BAB based attack bonuses for your convenience.

STR bonus = variable, up to +15 in extreme cases, +7 easy to reach
Weapon bonus = variable, up to +5 in melee weapons, Holy Avenger (HOF) = +10.
Weapon specialization feat (2 stars) = +1
Gauntlets of weapon Expertise/Specialization = +1
Bless = +1
Aid = +1
Chant = +1 (but renders caster unable to cast spells for duration)
Prayer = +1
Recitation = +2
Slow = +2 (actually -2 enemy AC)