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take a very patient person to play the game through. It just takes too long time IRL, with all the micromanagement aimed to keep the char #1 buffed up while at the same time keeping chars #3 and #4 alive and kicking. Also, while the char #1 technically reaches the critical AC of 72, there's no breathing room for errors and keeping up with the ever-increasing monster BABs is a task in itself. Thus the Arcane party was born.

The arcane party is also built around a similar character to the melee party's char #1. However, now the emphasis is not on the Clerical side, but on the arcane, making this character a very good bombardier when his melee side isn't needed anymore. The rest of the party is mainly bombardiers, with just the bare minimum of levels devoted to stuff that's needed to make them shine in their roles.

Finally it's time to take a look at the characters that make up the JUPP.
In these sections we'll cover the various aspects of these characters, including but by no means limited to the following:

- Race
- Alignment
- Class or classes
- Level-up strategy
- Ability scores with explanations
- Skills and feats with explanations
- Weapon preferences
- Spell selections
- Play strategies concerning this particular character
- Analysis on alternate character choices

For a short summary, the JUPP consists two parties of four characters each, with the option for adding one or two extra characters later on. The Melee
Party can be played as a duo as well by only taking the first two characters.
However, before adding any optional characters, I would read the chapter "the power of four" once more. Here's the layout.

Melee party: (This chapter)

Deep Gnome Rogue(1)/Monk(1)/Dreadmaster of Bane(28)
Deep Gnome Rogue(1)/Druid(12)/Illusionist(17)
Drow Stormlord of Talos(18)/Barbarian(3)/Fighter(4)/Sorceress(5)
Drow Bard(11)/Sorcerer(19)
Optional : Drow Paladin(1)/Sorcerer(29)
Second Optional : Drow Paladin(1)/Sorcerer(29)

Arcane Party: (Chapter 4)

Deep Gnome Rogue(2)/Monk(1)/Paladin(1)/Fighter(2)/
Sorcerer(1)/cleric(1)/Ranger(2)/Illusionist(20)
Drow Morninglord of Lathander(13)/Druid(17)
Aasimar Paladin(1)/Sorcerer(29)
Drow Rogue(1)/Diviner(29)

Here we go...

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3.1 - Tank & healer & debuffer

Deep Gnome Rogue(1)/
Monk of the Old Order(1)/
Dreadmaster of Bane(28)
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NOTE: This character must be Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil in alignment. I'll leave the choice up to you - picking LN gives the very useful Spontaneous casting ability that transforms spells into healing spells, while LE makes the character immune to Blasphemy spell. This fact alone makes the final battle a whole lot easier.

This character is the party's main tank. With the extremely high armor classes available to this character it is unlikely that most monsters would even be able to hurt him. Even if the STR of 16 seems a bit low for a tank build, I can assure you that with the proper boosts (especially the
Champion's Strength spell) this character becomes a killing machine. Please note, however, that the main emphasis of this character is and should be kept in the defense - if we neglect to use the very high AC available to this character, we'd be much better served by taking a character with higher damage output rate, such as an Half-orc with maxed STR. The point with this character is NOT to deal damage as fast as possible, but to NOT receive damage in return. Keep that in mind before getting tempted to boost his STR stat, for example. Every bit of AC counts. Remember that even if you DO get hit at times, the almost instant-cast spell called Heal is your best friend, and by all means don't forget to use the Blur and Mirror Image abilities that the Deep Gnome has!

That being said, this character is also a VERY potent spell caster, with such insane spell DCs that one wouldn't be able to get more even by cheating!
So, in practice, spells that allow for a saving throw are more or less transformed into spells without a saving throw! The spell selections should reflect this, i.e. don't waste your spells in various buffs more than absolutely necessary, as the other cleric is there to do that. Spells like
Hold Person, Greater Command and Symbol of Hopelessness, not to mention the various control spells from being a Dreadmaster, reduce enemy's ability to fight back so much that it just has to be seen to be believed.

For level-ups, I would start this character as Dreadmaster, and keep on adding Dreadmaster levels at least until level 9, giving access to Champion's strength spell. However, if you find that no matter what you do in terms of equipment or buffing enemies keep on hitting you, take the single level in Monk to gain an instant +5 (at least) to your AC. Alas, this will cost us somewhat - as neither Monk or Dreadmaster is the favored class, we'll most likely suffer a 20% multiclassing penalty and we really have no way of getting rid of it during the whole game. However, unless we dropped both CON and STR to raise the INT to 13 (minimum required to access the Expertise feat), having the monk level is the only possible way of reaching high enough armor class at the end of HOF mode, since we don't have Tenser's
Transformation either. Besides, we really need to use Power Attack instead of
Expertise (they can't be used simultaneously) to make the most out of the damage rate. The single level in Rogue should be taken no sooner than Chapter four in HOF mode, where you finally buy the Crow's Nest headband that this character uses.

Starting statistics:
  --------------------
STR 16
DEX 20
CON 14
INT 3
WIS 20
CHA 1

I think having maxed STR for a tank is self-explanatory, and maxed DEX and
WIS because this is a high AC character, aimed to take a level as Monk to make best use of the insanely high WIS AC bonus later on. This doesn't leave many points to play with, so INT and CHA had to be minimized in order to raise CON to at least acceptable levels. Low INT does cost us the use of the valuable Expertise feat, but this has been taken into account in the character's planning, and it also allows the use of the Power Attack feat to boost damage instead.

If you don't want to min-max, use 10/20/10/8/20/6 instead.

As you level up, keep adding points to the Wisdom, as this will make the monk's AC bonus better and also boost the spell DC's. During the course of your journey you should find two Potions of Holy Transference (one in normal and one in HOF) from the Battle Squares, be sure to use them on this character. Also, at the first parts of Chapter 5, you'll get to fight with
a Cleric and his minions - this quest gives you +2 WIS, and was the only reason why this character is a Dreadmaster. And when you reach Kuldahar, make sure you buy that Every God's Ring - it gives +5 WIS!

Here are the skills and Feats you should take for this character:

Skills : Concentration. Save up your level-up point when adding the Monk and Rogue levels and add them on the next level-up as Cleric to be able to avoid loss in this crucial skill.

Feats  : 1 - Weapon Proficiency : Axe (number denotes char level)
3 - Combat Casting
6 - Power Attack
9 - Cleave
12 - Improved Critical
15 - Dodge
18 - Spell Focus : Enchantment
21 - Greater Spell Focus : Enchantment
24 - Dirty Fighting
27 - Discipline
30 - Subvocal casting or Lightning Reflexes

Taking Combat Casting at 3rd level means that we shouldn't probably concern ourselves with trying to cast in combat at 1st and 2nd levels. After that follows the basic stuff for any melee character, and Dodge is just icing on the cake against Slayer Knights of Xvim. Level 18 is around the time for HOF mode where monsters have much better saving throws, so just to be on the safe side, let's add GSF: Enchantment into the mix to make it even more impossible for monsters to resist spells thrown by this character. Dirty fighting is nice since we're going to concentrate on getting as many critical hits as possible, and Discipline gives a bit extra insurance against spell disruption. The last feat is a toss-up - I personally prefer to eliminate even the slightest possibility of being silenced, but a Reflex save bonus with the monk's evasion ability is sweet as well. I wouldn't count on it helping overly much against friendly fire, as our other bombardiers have rather high spell DCs as well, but this is a feat that we can take for almost no sacrifices in other, more crucial areas. One feat that might ease up the playing experience could be Dash, as then we'd be sure that this character is always the first one to reach the thick of the battle.

Comments, strategies & notes:
  -----------------------------

I chose Axes as the weapon of choice for this character as that way we get the best of many worlds - best maximal damage, best critical hit multiplier, widest selection of weapons to use and the use of two-handed STR bonuses with
Greataxes. Don't concern yourself with bows - by the time you would get an extra attack with them as compared to x-bows, your melee capability far surpasses the lousy damage of a bow. Besides, you have the AC to avoid being hit - just charge into the combat. Activate the DUHM and follow with Prayer if the enemies are extremely tough. Forget the Prayer against monsters that are immune to it, though. =) One especially great weapon for this character in Normal mode is the Widow-Through - a weapon with improved critical ability. A 5% increase in critical chance yields 10% extra damage on average, which can easily mean 3-4 extra damage on average.

Any chance to increase criticals is, well, critical for damage, and might even surpass the higher base damages sported by other greataxes in average damage throughput. Use other greataxes with higher enchantments (such as
Greataxe +4) only when the enemy you're fighting has damage resistances that can't be penetrated with a +1 enchantment. Also, be sure to carry a mace or a club at all times, as some monsters can only be hurt by bludgeoning damage.

The role of this character is to beat on the enemies using greataxes, so don't be overly distracted by the fact that he has also a ton of spells. Use spells that incapacitate enemies such as Hold Person when needed, but don't get carried away - this character needs to help to kill those stunned or sleeping enemies. Use lots of buff & healing spells outside of combat instead and only devote slots for offensive spells that are good enough, such as
Greater Command and Symbol of Hopelessness.

This character needs four items for the ultimate AC boost - Brazen Bands (normal mode, from the Averine Decanter sold by Nym in the Wandering Village and setting the genie free at once), Crow's Nest (HOF, bought from the
Underdark merchants), Every God's Ring (normal mode, bought from Kuldahar) and Sunfire Talisman (HOF, bought from Kuldahar). Other boosts include Cat's
Grace (Sorc) or the use of Chimandrae's Slippers (normal mode, found in
Severed Hand), Barkskin (Druid), Haste (Sorc), Spirit Armor (Sorc) or Mage
Armor at lower levels, Divine Shell (self) or Ghost Armor (sorc), War Chant of Sith (bard song) and finally Draw Upon Holy Might (self) at very high levels. The character has been created so that it should be able to reach an AC of 73 by the end of the HOF mode, giving us one extra AC to play with.
For example, the Ghost Armor with its longer duration could be used instead of the Divine shell, or accepting AC71 and not having to have the Bard tied up in singing. Note also that both Prayer and Recitation make it harder for enemies to hit, so they bring an AC bonus in an indirect way.

Spell selection:
  ----------------

Number in parentheses denotes take only up to this many, otherwise you can mix'n'match as much as you like.

1: Sanctuary(1), Remove Fear(1), Bane
2: Draw Upon Holy Might, Delay Poison(0-1), Hold Person (0-3),
Bull's Strength(0-2), Aid(0-4)
3: Magic Circle Against Evil(0-2), Prayer, Remove Disease (1)
4: Holy Power, Recitation(0-2), Neutralize Poison(1)
5: Champion's Strength(1-2), Greater Command, Raise Dead(0-1)
6: Divine Shell, Heal
7: Resurrection, Greater Shield of Lathander(1-2)
8: Mass Heal(1), Holy Aura(0-2), Symbol of Hopelessness
9: Gate, Summon Monster IX

At lower levels use Delay Poison and Raise Dead, but once Neutralize Poison and Resurrection become available, they become obsolete. The same applies for
Bull's Strength, use it only until we get Champ's Strength. Sanctuary and
Remove Fear are good backup spells. Remember to use Remove fear when fighting
Sherincal or the Guardian. Aid is an OK damage booster. The amount of Hold
Person spells depends on if you're fighting humanoids or not. Magic Circle
Against Evil is needed if you use Gate, but it's rather OK to use as general buff as well as it boosts saving throws. Recitation might be useful spell to cast in the middle of a large group of enemies as it reduces enemy saves amongst other things. Follow with mass-destruction spells as needed. Holy