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An optional but useful role.  A diplomat is a character who can do your party's "face" work, including talking to strangers and buying and selling items.  Bards make good diplomats, but other classes that need Charisma (paladins and sorcerers) can also serve well (however, keep in mind that paladins can turn down opportunities to receive gold for quest rewards).  Also, rogues have all three diplomat skills (Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidation) as class skills, so although rogues usually don't need Charisma you might find an opportunity to use a rogue-based build for the diplomat role.

I) Loremaster

The loremaster is a character who has sufficient ranks in Alchemy and Knowledge
(Arcane) to be able to identify objects and potions and to handle the various alchemical subquests that appear in IWD2.  Wizards and bards make the best loremasters, and note also that rock gnomes of whatever class gain a bonus to the Alchemy skill, making them well-suited for the loremaster role.

********* Spoiler *********
There are a couple places in the game where having a character with high Alchemy can be helpful, and there is one plot element for which having an Alchemy skill in excess of 15 is one of only few ways to satisfy that quest.
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J) Summoner

The summoner is a spellcaster who has an ample supply of summoning spells.  At best, summoned creatures are a battle winning strategy (elementals, demons, and high-level undead are quite mighty) and, at worst, they at least provide meat shields for your main characters.  Almost all of the spellcasting classes can serve as summoners, so this role is mostly a matter of spell selection and tactics.

K) Spell Sword

"Spell sword" is a catch-all term for a warrior-type character who also uses magic both offensively and defensively.  Clerics generally act as spell swords by default, as do rangers and paladins at higher levels.  (Bards could be also but usually they are playing songs so they are less likely to melee.)  However, the most interesting possibilities for spell swords come from judicious multiclassing, as discussed in later sections.


VI) Race Basics

This section describes the various races and provides some advice about what races to use for what builds.  But first, a few general comments.

A) When Not To Play a Human

In terms of taking best advantage of the game system, plain, boring humans (not tieflings or aasimar) should be your default race unless you have some good reason to pick another race.  For one thing, a human with only two classes never has to worry about experience penalties for multiclassing, as a human's favored class is always considered to be their highest level class (more on this below).
Humans also receive an extra feat and extra skill points, and for many builds these are worth more, over time, than the built-in capabilities of the exotic races.  Moreover, the extra two skill points that a human receives at level one and the additional extra skill point for each subsequent level are not affected by any penalties because of low Intelligence.  Thus, at levels two and above a human with an Int of three will still receive two skill points per level instead of just one.  This can be a very significant optimization for certain builds.

Pragmatically speaking, there are only a small number of reasons why you should choose to play a race other than human:

o Ability Bonuses.  Most non-human races have bonuses to one or more abilities (and usually penalties to other abilities).  For example, a moon elf receives +2 to Dexterity but -2 to Constitution.  Not only can these bonuses make the race a better choice for certain classes and roles, but a +2 bonus in an ability means that you can raise that stat to 20 when creating the character.  You should strongly consider taking advantage of that fact when building your initial party; specific opportunities to make the most of these bonuses are mentioned below in the discussions of the individual races.

o Spell Resistance.  Two of the races--drow and deep gnome (Svirfneblin)--have built in Spell Resistance.  This is a very powerful defensive capability (and those races are penalized accordingly in terms of their effective character level for gaining experience).  However, if you want a character to excel in the mage killer role, it might be well worth coping with those penalties and building your mage killer from one of these races.

o Weapon Proficiencies.  All three types of elves gain automatic proficiency in
Martial Weapon, Bow and Martial Weapon, Large Sword.  This is effectively two free feats, and for the right build that--plus the other advantages of elves-- can make an elf a better choice than a human.  More will be said of this in the sections on elves.

o Role-Related Bonuses.  Some races receive bonuses to skills that make them better suited for certain roles (e.g., halflings receive a Move Silently bonus and thus make superior scouts).  However, keep in mind that the extra feat and skill points of a human may equal or even exceed these benefits; planning ahead as to how you are going to allocate your skill points and feats can help you decide whether going with a non-human or human character is a better choice.


B) Discussion of the Non-human Races

This section provides more detailed information about the races other than plain human and the reasons why you might or might not want to use them for certain builds.

1) Aasimar

Aasimar get +2 to both Wisdom and Charisma, with no offsetting penalties to other abilities.  This provides a large pool of extra ability points that can applied in a variety of ways to make a strong, single-class build.  Paladins, druids, clerics, sorcerers, and bards can all benefit significantly from those bonuses by starting with their primary casting characteristic (Wisdom or
Charisma) at 20.

Unfortunately, because the favored class of aasimars is the paladin, and because paladins are severely limited in their multiclassing potential, those four extra ability points can't be used arbitrarily to create the wide array of multiclass builds that might otherwise be possible.  However, for paladin multiclassing or for builds like cleric/sorcerer where you intend to keep the two classes at about the same level, the aasimar race is well worth considering despite the one level experience acquisition penalty.

2) Tiefling

The tiefling subrace receives a +2 bonus to both Int and Dex (and -2 to Cha).
In fact, tiefling is one of only two races in IWD2 that gets a bonus to
Intelligence (the other is drow), thus making them a clear contender for dedicated wizard builds.  These ability bonuses also make a tiefling a good choice for a multiclass build based on the rogue class (rogue is the favored class for a tiefling).  In fact, it is always worth considering a mix in of at least two levels of rogue for a tiefling, as this gives them the Evasion special ability, which, when combined with their elemental resistances, makes them very sturdy in the face of elemental assaults.

3) Shield Dwarf

In general, dwarves are best considered for fighters or multiclass fighter/rogues, fighter/clerics, or even fighter/monks, with an emphasis on the tank role.  Raise Constitution to 20 right away to have a truly formidable tank.
However, apart from their excellent tanking potential (and as fond as the author is of dwarves as a staple of swords and sorcery), for non-tank purposes the dwarves' racial bonuses aren't really useful enough to make them worth choosing over humans or certain other races.

4) Gold Dwarf

See above.  Shield dwarves and gold dwarves are almost identical except for the stat for which they receive a penalty.

5) Gray Dwarf

A solid choice for a tank-oriented fighter/rogue build.  Their built-in special ability to cast Invisibility and their immunity to paralysis are both very useful for situations when you fail your stealth roll or break cover on purpose in order to make a sneak attack.  A gray dwarf also makes a surprisingly good paladin or paladin/fighter (using the Helm order for the latter).  In this build, the racial and class-based saving throw bonuses and immunities combine very nicely and result in a mage killer who is impervious to fear or paralysis (e.g., Hold Person) and highly resistant to everything else.  However, apart from these specialized builds, the steep experience penalty (effective level is two levels higher) means there is not a lot of point in using a gray dwarf.

6) Lightfoot Halfling

A lightfoot halfling is a great choice if you want to have a build with a rogue mix in.  Take advantage of the +2 Dex bonus to bring Dexterity to 20 right away; this is extremely beneficial for a variety of applications and is a clear reason to prefer a halfling over a human.  A lightfoot halfling also gets a +1 to all saving throws (i.e., the equivalent of a built-in Luck of Heroes feat, which is normally available to humans only).

7) Strongheart Halfling

This sub-race is almost identical to the lightfoot halfling in terms of build strategy, although instead of the saving throw bonus, they receive a free feat of your choice at level one.

8) Ghostwise Halfling

With barbarian as their favored class, ghostwise halflings lend themselves to a variety of unique builds.  Just one level of barbarian will provide the halfling character with a full range of martial weapon proficiencies, medium armor and shield proficiencies, and the Rage special ability.  This can be a valuable mix in.  Ghostwise halflings also have the unique racial ability Set Natural Snares, which allows them to set Entangle-like traps.  These traps aren't all that powerful, having a very small radius and what seems to be a low DC for saving to avoid them, but they can still be of modest usefulness when planning an ambush.

9) Moon Elf

There are only two practical reason to choose a moon elf over a human, and those are either that you want to raise Dexterity to 20 right away, or you want the
Martial Weapon, Large Sword and Martial Weapon, Bow proficiencies.  Elves have a few racial benefits apart from these, but the author is of the opinion that over time a human's free feat and extra skill points will usually outweigh those benefits.  Still, if you want a wizard-based build and want that character to use a large sword and/or bow, then be a moon elf. Pure wizards as well as wizard/clerics or (to a lesser extent) wizard/druids or wizard/rogues will all benefit from these free proficiencies for the very useful large sword and bow type weapons.

On the other hand, if you are building a spell sword, and will be getting either or both of these weapon proficiencies from another class, it's not clear that moon elf is preferable to human (although it is still worth considering if you are going to take advantage of the +2 Dexterity to start the character with 20
Dex).

10) Wild Elf

Mostly as per moon elf, swapping sorcerer for wizard as the favored class.
However, having sorcerer as the favored class also raises the interesting possibility of playing a wild elf monk/sorcerer (if you are willing to concoct a creative background for why your carefree and reclusive wild elf has turned out to be a tautly disciplined, Lawful Evil monk).  This build gives you a monk with even more than the usual resistance to Enchantment magics and the ability to use large swords and bows.

11) Drow

Substantial stat bonuses and Spell Resistance make this race an interesting choice for a variety of builds, and the fact that drow have two options for favored class adds additional flexibility (drow males have wizard as their favored class, and drow females have cleric).  However, the drows' penalty in terms of leveling (plus two effective levels) is fairly severe.  This makes heavy multiclassing of a drow an iffy proposition at best, as with the penalty you might not gain enough levels to be effective in multiple classes, particularly if you want to obtain the higher level spells.  This suggests the use of mix in classes only. Interesting drow multiclass options include a female drow cleric/bard (with just a few levels in bard; perhaps even just one), or a male drow paladin of Mystra/wizard (about three or four levels of paladin will give you the benefit of the paladin special abilities and a solid foundation of hit points and attack bonuses, while still allowing you enough levels to cast wizard spells of fifth or even sixth level).

12) Rock Gnome

This race makes for a good quasi-tank spell sword (e.g., illusionist/rogue, illusionist/ranger, or illusionist/fighter).  They are also a natural fit for the loremaster role.

13) Deep Gnome

With nice ability bonuses, three innate defensive spells (including
Invisibility), and Spell Resistance, a deep gnome can be a superb scout, spell sword, and/or mage killer.  They also have excellent built-in bonuses to AC and saving throws.  However, they have the steepest ECL penalty in the game (plus three effective levels), so manage any multiclassed builds with care.  One obvious build is a rogue/illusionist with just two or three levels in rogue; such a character makes a peerless scout and "stealth" bombardier.

14) Half Elf

A plain human is almost always preferable to a half elf for almost any build.