Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[octavius]

My backstabber usually does half the kills in IWD in the early parts (before the Ice Wights at least).

Why do you lie?

I don't.
Why are you such a cunt?

 

[Lilura]

How many invisibility potions are itemized, pre-cold wights?

Optional orc dungeon - your backstab chunks a shaman (if it's lucky) and runs off to hide in the shadows. Even with the corners to escape LoS, hit and fades are very precarious at low lvls due to failed hides. Archers rule in that dungeon, closing in to mop up in melee.
Kuldahar pass - riddled with mobs of mooks... so your backstabber chunks a goblin and runs way to hide. Meanwhile, your frontliners and archers have mowed down the mobs, map-wide.
Vale of Shadows - filled with packs of shaggy bigfoots. Again, your backstabber chunks one (if you're lucky) and your frontliners hack the remainder to bits, with ranged support.
Kresselack's Tomb - packed full of backstab-immune undead that will rip rogues new assholes in the blink of an eye. Let the mages web, and the warriors with free action tear through the disabled mobs. Efficiency dictates it. Thieves are better off sticking to disable traps/open lock, and hiding away in a corner during the fights.
Temple of the Forgotten God: have fun backstabbing ettins, unless you're an overleveled Fighter/Thief solo.
Dragon's Eye 1 - you may start getting kills here on lizards, but your fighters, archers and mages are still making you look like shit.
Dragon's Eye 2 - give your fighter a confusion sword. Web.
Dragon's Eye 3 - Cold Wights... undead... immune.

Unless you're favoring the backstabber to the exclusion of more efficient combat units, it's highly unlikely the backstabber will end up with 10% of kills by that point.

 

[octavius]

Who said the backstabber only backstabs?
He's very effective as an archer as well.
My Bard or Druid, Mage and Cleric have very few kills before the Ice Wights, meaning the other three (Paladin, Fighter, F/T) have 95% of the kills.
It's all about play style; with mine the Fighter/Thief gets the most kills in the early game. I also tend to give him the best weapons and light armour.

 

[Lilura]

Who said the backstabber only backstabs?

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

 

[Sceptic]

Who said the backstabber only backstabs?

ION the bard only sings, the cleric only heals, the thief only does thievery and never enters combat, and now I finally understand why Lilura hates almost all games.

 

[Orobis]

I almost never do the backstabber character.

Yea i learned the hard way in a BG2 run that playing pure thief solely for backstabbing just becomes way too tedious after a while. Quaffing, running away to re-stealth...yea fuck that noise.

Infinity engine is just garbage when it comes to backstabbing.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I almost never do the backstabber character.

Yea i learned the hard way in a BG2 run that playing pure thief solely for backstabbing just becomes way too tedious after a while. Quaffing, running away to re-stealth...yea fuck that noise.

Infinity engine is just garbage when it comes to backstabbing.

Thankfully, backstabbing is such a minor aspect of gameplay that it's hardly worth using it as an example of where the games are shit. Most games don't even provide a backstabbing mechanic in the first place, and yet you're not even giving the games the credit for at least having that option there for when it might be useful/interesting. In this regard it's not at all "garbage", it's actually "better than most, but not perfect" - a completely different position.

Instead of moaning that your thief can't function as a perfect and OP Assassin, perhaps keep in mind that the thief is not an Assassin and has a very wide range of skills to which one is supposed to use each individual skill in the right place at the right time - but, no, you want backstab to be a permanently useful skill, well, what can I say, try Dragon Age III or something, that's a game where they don't mind you pressing the same button throughout the entirety of the game...

 

[laclongquan]

No need to get your panties in a twist. I only object to that minor aspect of a rogue, namely melee backstabbing.

IN fact, I use rogue most of its design: skilled jack of all trade, master of locpicker. Every party of six got one such. IWD2 prove that a stealthy rogue can do the scout job just fine, and quite useful in that.

 

[hoverdog]

I almost never do the backstabber character.

Yea i learned the hard way in a BG2 run that playing pure thief solely for backstabbing just becomes way too tedious after a while. Quaffing, running away to re-stealth...yea fuck that noise.

Infinity engine is just garbage when it comes to backstabbing.

Thankfully, backstabbing is such a minor aspect of gameplay that it's hardly worth using it as an example of where the games are shit. Most games don't even provide a backstabbing mechanic in the first place, and yet you're not even giving the games the credit for at least having that option there for when it might be useful/interesting. In this regard it's not at all "garbage", it's actually "better than most, but not perfect" - a completely different position.

Instead of moaning that your thief can't function as a perfect and OP Assassin, perhaps keep in mind that the thief is not an Assassin and has a very wide range of skills to which one is supposed to use each individual skill in the right place at the right time - but, no, you want backstab to be a permanently useful skill, well, what can I say, try Dragon Age III or something, that's a game where they don't mind you pressing the same button throughout the entirety of the game...

Truth be told, a single-class Thief is almost worthless in IWD or BG.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Truth be told, a single-class Thief is almost worthless in IWD or BG.

If you're powergaming and trying maximise your output, possibly, but the convenience factor is of far greater interest to me when I play (I'm not competing for a high score...) and the thief, as was just mentioned, has some of the most interesting skills to play around with, which breaks up the play nicely. Going single-class at least until all its skills are 100% is far from 'worthless', unless you're so bad at the game that you actually 'need' a 6th fighter class in order to progress...

 

[laclongquan]

The items you can pickpocket, and the trap disarm, and the stealthy scout, justify a place in your party for pure thief in those games.

Sure you can dispense with a pure thief, but you would have to use several other classes to compensate for his services. Probabbly a ranger for scout, and a bard for pickpocket, and pray that your paladin got enough HP+res to survive the traps.

 

[Lilura]

Truth be told, a single-class Thief is almost worthless in IWD or BG.

Pretty worthless in IWD2, too. Sneak attack doesn't work with ranged weapons, and feats like Hamstring have limited utility.

PS:T thieves are pretty worthless, unless you're taking advantage of that awful exploit that I won't mention.

NWN and NWN2 on the other hand, wow. It's so much fun playing a rogue in Aurora and Electron.

 

[vivec]

No need to get your panties in a twist. I only object to that minor aspect of a rogue, namely melee backstabbing.

IN fact, I use rogue most of its design: skilled jack of all trade, master of locpicker. Every party of six got one such. IWD2 prove that a stealthy rogue can do the scout job just fine, and quite useful in that.

Except that scouting is pure waste of time.

Pretty worthless in IWD2, too. Sneak attack doesn't work with ranged weapons, and feats like Hamstring have limited utility.

PS:T thieves are pretty worthless, unless you're taking advantage of that awful exploit that I won't mention.

NWN and NWN2 on the other hand, wow. It's so much fun playing a rogue in Aurora and Electron.

I really wish these games weren't so undead heavy. Then rogues could really shine.

 

[Lilura]

I really wish these games weren't so undead heavy. Then rogues could really shine.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I wasn't talking about the OCs, which are indeed sneak attack-immune heavy... just the engines and the user-made modules made for them, especially the rogue-based ones like Honor Among Thieves and ADwR.

The things you can do with rogues in NWN is very cool. I like how it's not all about dex-based: you can make a str-based thug who gets knockdown sneak attacks with a scythe. You have UMD for versatility, wear heavy armor etc. You're not gonna be stealthy, but heavy armor (and shield, if you wield one-handed) don't penalize your other skills like open lock, disable trap, set trap etc.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

No need to get your panties in a twist. I only object to that minor aspect of a rogue, namely melee backstabbing.

IN fact, I use rogue most of its design: skilled jack of all trade, master of locpicker. Every party of six got one such. IWD2 prove that a stealthy rogue can do the scout job just fine, and quite useful in that.

Except that scouting is pure waste of time.

Define "waste of time"...

 

[laclongquan]

IWD2 got the idea of teleporting scripted enemies on your asses. If you have a stealth scout, you can trigger those events before your main party get through, thus no surprise.Anyone use scouts successfully in IWD2 know it.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I hardly scout in the ID games, while I did that a lot in the BG ones. Then again, this ID2 map is a "must scout" :

Those fucking drums...

 

[vivec]

IWD2 got the idea of teleporting scripted enemies on your asses. If you have a stealth scout, you can trigger those events before your main party get through, thus no surprise.Anyone use scouts successfully in IWD2 know it.

That is a bug and not a feature. And IWD2 combat is not hard with the right party. It's just repetitive and boring.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Ohhhh, you're that kind of poster. Nevermind. Move along people, nothing to see here...

That is a bug and not a feature. And IWD2 combat is not hard with the right party. It's just repetitive and boring.

You being born was a bug and not a feature. You're mom's repetitive and boring.

 

[laclongquan]

IWD2 got the idea of teleporting scripted enemies on your asses. If you have a stealth scout, you can trigger those events before your main party get through, thus no surprise.Anyone use scouts successfully in IWD2 know it.

That is a bug and not a feature. And IWD2 combat is not hard with the right party. It's just repetitive and boring.

Young one, let me teach you: with a squint, there's no difference between proper ambush and scripted enemy spawn.

 

[Lilura]

Young one, let me teach you: with a squint, there's no difference between proper ambush and scripted enemy spawn.

Whenever you try to be it just comes off

 

[laclongquan]

What? If they stand milling about in the open how the hell can that be called an ambush?

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

My only complaint about the base game of Icewind Dale (not including expansions) is that it seemed too short.

I mean, it was an excellent overall game, and the expansion content I did see was good, but the base game just seemed a bit short.

I felt the same with Risen 2, even though I technically clocked 60 hours with it. When it was over I was wanting more.

 

[Lilura]

My main problem is the unrestricted resting that sucks the resource management out of the campaign (I'm not a fan of self-imposing restrictions as that's the responsibility of the DM/designer).

Wouldn't even be hard for a modder to implement. Just go through every combat-AR and flag it as no-rest. This would remove XP point farming from on-rest ambushes, too (f.e, Cold Wights). Itemization may have to be overhauled in light of that change, though.