You can do this, take a deep breath. There are a lot of friendly users on this forum, and hopefully you'll find good advice that can help you along on your campaign. I've finished 2 playthroughs and am on my 3rd run on tactician. I normally use Durge (abjuration wizard for better defense or land druid), Astarion (rogue/ranger), Shadowheart (cleric), and Gale (evocation wizard). Pretty much 3-magic + 1 rogue xD In the beginning, good spells to put on magic-users: magic missile on Gale, Silence on Shadowheart, firebolt on Astarion (so he can light barrels on fire).
Here are a few simple tips that could help any party out at level 1:
- Always have a ranged weapon on your characters. Check and make sure the character is proficient with either longbow, shortbow or crossbow (I prefer longbow, because this allows you to hamstring characters). Make sure you put a ranged weapon on magic users, because there will be times where you are silenced or need an attack but can't move close enough.
- Put another weapon or a shield in your character's off-hand. Unless you are using two-handed weapons, you can often put an offhand weapon (such as a dagger on a rogue) or put a shield on your character. Shields increase your armor/defense, and often come with abilities such as no critical hits, reel or shield bash. Characters such as wizards often cannot wear heavier armor until you reach higher levels. So you either need to unlock that ability, or toss a shield on them and wear mage armor.
- If you're not winning by running head-on into a battle, look for ways around/stealthier routes.
- Use the terrain to your advantage. Look around and see if there are smokepowder barrels, chandeliers/braziers, levers, poison switchers or even hanging marble rocks. There are classes (e.g. Land Druid) that specifically mess with the terrain. Burn the ground your enemies walk on, set up walls of fire, use sleet storm, so you freeze the ground and enemies spend all their time standing back up and being struck by lightning. Don't underestimate how much time that can buy you.
