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Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

pippin

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iirc you could at least disable healing after rest in the IWD games, so there's that. I think you were more restricted in 2, actually. It's time to play those games again apparently.
 
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Lilura

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Doesn't change the fact you can rest to get all your spells back. IWD2 only had a handful of ARs in which you couldn't rest. The on-rest ambushes were not punishing enough, so again, farmable. At least until CR got in the road. But by that time, you have broken things. Still, you can always bring in a mule, lvlsquat etc. And keep breaking.

It's time to play those games again apparently.

I wouldn't bother. Facerolls.
 
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IncendiaryDevice

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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.

Doesn't change the fact you can rest to get all your spells back. IWD2 only had a handful of ARs in which you couldn't rest. The on-rest ambushes were not punishing enough, so again, farmable. At least until CR got in the road. But by that time, you have broken things. Still, you can always bring in a mule, lvlsquat etc. And keep breaking.

Resting is restricted in that most areas where it seems logical to rest will produce on-rest ambushes, usually leading to an awful lot of very tedious gameplay that only a true and dedicated obsessive compulsive disorder type would bother going through. When I refuse to rest in the dungeons it has nothing to do with self-imposed restrictions and everything to do with reacting to how the game was designed - to complete as much content as possible with the least amount of needless damage and then walk back to the Inn in Kuldahar and rest/sell/save game/tinker then go back to the dungeons. The better you are at the game, the less trips you have to make and the more natural the game feels.

Again, XP farming from resting is just another sign that you're probably an obsessive compulsive disorder type. IWD has a very low level cap as well anyway and one extra level in low level AD&D is not exactly god-inducing for all the tedious grind going through such a process is worth.

Itemisation in the game is already very restricted, in fact it's one of my few pedantry complaints about the game. By the end of the campaign it's most likely that up to 25% of a character's equipment slots don't even have one example of itemisation and 75% of the slots will have items that are not exactly OMG AMAZEBALLS good/interesting. One of the most notable examples of resource management is where, by the time you meet the trolls, you need lots of fire/acid potions/spells/arrows, to which if you are familiar with the game you know where they all are and what spells to learn and when to use your arrows, but for new players you can find no-end of forum posters screaming "how do you kill these trolls", so it's just you being a tit here, again.

The ability to break a game is not the flaw you make it out to be. The vast majority of people like to play games as blind as possible the first time they play and then find out all the 'secrets' when they go on-line to see what they've missed - where they then pick-up all the exploits from the twats that tell everyone what all the exploits are. Since a lot of people don't tend to replay their single-player RPGs incessantly, having a game which provides a completely different experience via exploits can motivate people who otherwise wouldn't have to go for another run-through. Similarly, they open up the challenge of doing such things as solo-runs in the most insane difficulty setting, allowing for new avenues for the kind of people who know what all the exploits are.

Finally, going back to your point about "I'm not caring about player-imposed restriction" bollocks, IWD is a game which is entirely about player imposed restrictions, that's the entire point of the game and what makes it unique among the IE games. You make your first 'player imposed restriction' when you select your characters - when you decide how you want to roll their stats, when you decide what traits/&etc they will have. When you select an OP party and reload stats and make the most optimum traited party "because you can" you are doing the exact same thing as someone who self imposes restrictions, you're self imposing your own bias into the gameplay.

IWD is not a predefined challenge. It's a module, that's all. It provides a set journey for you to do whatever you want with. There is no official 'correct' way to engage with the game. While the current buzzword in RPGs is 'open world', there's very few games which offer IWD's concept of 'open choice' as to how you want to experience a game. People are so busy complaining that the narrative is linear that they forget that the gameplay is 100% superior in the field of 'personal choice'.

To even point out that "I'm not a fan of self-imposing restrictions as that's the responsibility of the DM/designer" when talking about IWD is like saying "I don't understand this game in the slightest" and makes you looks really rather retarded. IMO
 

thesheeep

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Because it's deadly is one point I like, yes. But in many RPGs I generally like low-level gameplay. I greatly enjoy the very slow start being weak, before everything gets incredibly epic, and the gradual rise to power.

Low-level D&D did a great job of that and I'd also throw Gothic into the mix as a game with excellently designed low-level gameplay.
Uh-huh, yeah.
Cast 1 or 2 (almost useless) spells, then rest for 8 hours. Die if a cat lands a crit on you.
What could be more fun?

I agree with your general sentiment that often, early low-level gameplay is fun (and Gothic works as an example), but D&D (especially mage) characters are the worst examples of this as they are so absurdly weak. Except fighters, maybe.

That's the only thing I liked about D&D 4. Low-level mages were not dead weight to be taken special care of until they become godlike.

When it comes to PnP systems, DSA/RoA, Shadowrun or Mutants&Masterminds work much, much, much better at conveying that low-level feel. Though the latter two only if you create "beginner" characters, of course.
"Standard" starting characters in Shadowrun are already full-fledged mercenaries and in M&M already superheroes.
 
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Deleted Member 16721

Guest
Uh-huh, yeah.
Cast 1 or 2 (almost useless) spells, then rest for 8 hours. Die if a cat lands a crit on you.
What could be more fun?

Sleep and Magic Missile are almost useless? Not in my experience.

Mage gameplay at the beginning is very basic, yes, but you can also take proficiency in ranged weapons as well to help out. I usually give my magic characters at least Darts proficiency.

It's true you do have to take care of the Mages more and keep them out of harm's way. I wouldn't recommend Quarterstaff proficiency unless you want to try something different and don't mind re-loading your game a lot. :P

Gothic is probably the best example of low-level fun for me, though. I love RPGs where you just start out very weak or as a complete nobody (Gothic, Morrowind, etc.)
 

Deleted Member 16721

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You should play the Gold Box Games.... :M

Why's that?

I mean, I realize they are classic RPGs and stuff, so I'm likely to play them eventually, but what do they do specifically that you are referring to?
 

Dorateen

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You should play the Gold Box Games.... :M

Why's that?

I mean, I realize they are classic RPGs and stuff, so I'm likely to play them eventually, but what do they do specifically that you are referring to?

They do exactly that which you stated you love in RPGs. A full third of the AD&D series: Pool of Radiance, Champions of Krynn, and Gateway to the Savage Frontier, start the party out as complete nobodies, very weak and thrown into a dangerous gameworld.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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They do exactly that which you stated you love in RPGs. A full third of the AD&D series: Pool of Radiance, Champions of Krynn, and Gateway to the Savage Frontier, start the party out as complete nobodies, very weak and thrown into a dangerous gameworld.

Nice. :) Thanks for the info!
 

SniperHF

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So I've got an level 11 and a level 10 mage and I just finished the hand place. Is it normal to have a bitch of a time finding level 5 spells? I've only found 2 and one of them is contact other plane.
 
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Lilura

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There is a mod that lets you facestab but I'm not sure if it's been adapted to IWD.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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There were quite a few items that allowed for 19 str through +1 modifier. Apart from the girdle I remember at least two rings and a shield.

Adding the BG2 kits to BG1 and IWD without rhyme or reason perfectly shows how little fucks does Beamdog give. Kits are cool, but you need to be careful about them. If they cared (and had the talent) to add special IWD-flavored kits just for this game it could be really great, but nah.
 
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TigerKnee

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Adding the BG2 kits to BG1 and IWD without rhyme or reason perfectly shows how little fucks does Beamdog give.
To be fair, most people play BG1 nowadays with mods like BGTutu in the BG2 engine which also allows kits in the BG1 segment. All they did was just repackage and sell it.

IWD is all on them though.
 
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IncendiaryDevice

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You're commenter stated this error:

To be fair, even in the original you could expect combat to be yawn-inducing if you have a Bard singing the War Chant of Sith, as that song has always been game-breakingly overpowered, a rare exception to the generally good design. The first time I played IWD using a bard with access to that, I determined that in future playthroughs my parties would either not include Bards, or, if they did, I would just pretend War Chant of Sith did not exist and never use it. I recommend that anyone who wants the proper IWD experience do the same.

Which is untrue, the original IWD did not have this Bard Chant, it was one of the additions of the Heart of Winter expansion. I tried to reply in the comments but when I pressed publish nothing happened.
 

octavius

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You're commenter stated this error:

To be fair, even in the original you could expect combat to be yawn-inducing if you have a Bard singing the War Chant of Sith, as that song has always been game-breakingly overpowered, a rare exception to the generally good design. The first time I played IWD using a bard with access to that, I determined that in future playthroughs my parties would either not include Bards, or, if they did, I would just pretend War Chant of Sith did not exist and never use it. I recommend that anyone who wants the proper IWD experience do the same.

Which is untrue, the original IWD did not have this Bard Chant, it was one of the additions of the Heart of Winter expansion. I tried to reply in the comments but when I pressed publish nothing happened.

Disregarding the semantics, that comment is as if I should have written it myself.
 
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Sacred82

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Fighter: Dwarven Defender: It's like the best of Barb & Berserker. But the inability to Grandmaster means it "only" achieves 9 ApR. Boo-hoo!

Wait what

I thought IE only supported 5 or 6 attacks per round max. Was this modded in some way?
 

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