Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Average Manatee]

Yeah, reading the changelog for various modules of the EE, it seems it mostly buffs the player characters and items, sometimes by a lot. Only concrete things I see for more challenge are a different point buy system and better AI and spells for enemies, but I think Creature Revisions buff enemies in general?

Enemies are definitely buffed to compensate and some other changes are made. It's hard to tell exactly how much easier or difficult the balance is without playing vanilla and the EE mod together which I haven't done. Notably though you get dispelled before the final battle like in IWD1, which makes it far, far more difficult and basically requires some form of cheese.

The argument for the buffs is that the game was barebones as fuck on release. In 3rd ed and every other 3rd ed based game your party ends with a tons of powerful magical items. In AD&D based infinity games you end up with a ton of awesome items. In vanilla IWD2 you end the game with literally half of your item slots empty and most of the rest are full of shit like +1 strength (and remember that odd numbers do literally nothing). Even BG1 has more powerful and impactful equipment than vanilla IWD2, by an order of magnitude. And the spell list of IWD2 was an absolute wasteland with there often only being one useful spell per level (or for a whole class, in the case of the partial casters).

The one option that looks to be very badly balanced to me is the XP-changing option. It does warn that installing it will result in extremely fast leveling though, so... definitely don't do that if you care about balance.

My other big criticisms are

- Full BAB characters are somewhat overbuffed and the 2/3rds BAB characters meant to compete with them can't really do so.
- While the new spells are cool, a lot of them just feel and look badly out of place.
- AoOs still feel really bad in an IE engine game.

- Of the new spells, I used Duel the most - it allows the caster to fight the target one-on-one until one of them dies. Fun spell and situationally useful, although it probably works better with a paladin rather than the cleric of Helm I was playing. There is also a high-level spell for making soul power gems to increase your stats permanently, but it was very conditional (need to have the right gems on you, deliver the final blow, and kill an enemy above a certain HD level which I couldn’t be bothered to check). Probably something better suited for HoF mode

Did you try the metamagic stuff? They are pretty fun, making low level buffs last forever or casting self only buffs as an AoE.

 

[Fatberg Slim]

Did you try the metamagic stuff? They are pretty fun, making low level buffs last forever or casting self only buffs as an AoE.

No, I've never been big on metamagic feats. This would have been worth playing around with on a sorceror though.

- AoOs still feel really bad in an IE engine game.

Agreed, I didn't pick any of those feats or options so I can't say how they worked out. I did pick the Grapple feat though - it was useful for casters in the early game (and amusing to drag enemies around the map or back to the frontline fighters), but ultimately it seemed like if you are able to grapple someone, you could just as easily kill them directly in most cases.

 

[0sacred]

Restarted IWD, this time I'm gonna finish it. I'm in Dragon's Eye atm.

Party:

Dwarf Fighter
Half Elf Ranger/Cleric
Human Paladin
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Half Elf Druid
Half Elf Bard

One thing I love is how the game showers you with XP early on so you breeze through those low levels. The game could have been a boring slog otherwise.

 

[Snufkin]

Restarted IWD, this time I'm gonna finish it. I'm in Dragon's Eye atm.

Party:

Dwarf Fighter
Half Elf Ranger/Cleric
Human Paladin
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Half Elf Druid
Half Elf Bard

One thing I love is how the game showers you with XP early on so you breeze through those low levels. The game could have been a boring slog otherwise.

Are you playing Original version or EE?
My party from year 2023 used ranger/cleric and fighter/thief. These two were underleveled. Ranger/cleric never saw 7 level spells. I played normal difficulty and did all content and expansions.

 

[0sacred]

Restarted IWD, this time I'm gonna finish it. I'm in Dragon's Eye atm.

Party:

Dwarf Fighter
Half Elf Ranger/Cleric
Human Paladin
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Half Elf Druid
Half Elf Bard

One thing I love is how the game showers you with XP early on so you breeze through those low levels. The game could have been a boring slog otherwise.

Are you playing Original version or EE?
My party from year 2023 used ranger/cleric and fighter/thief. These two were underleveled. Ranger/cleric never saw 7 level spells. I played normal difficulty and did all content and expansions.

Original. My Ranger/Cleric off-tank has some survivability problems compared to the Fighter. Enemies hit hard and lack of a shield and best gear hurts.

Did you play Heart of Fury? My expectation was I wouldn't unlock all spell levels in vanilla Icewind Dale.

Btw, what's a good level to tackle Heart of Winter? Manual says no less than 9.

 

[Butter]

IIRC the game won't even let you start HoW before 8. Level 9 sounds about right. You can start it right before going back to Easthaven at the end of the game, but you'll end up cruising through it without any challenge.

 

[Snufkin]

Restarted IWD, this time I'm gonna finish it. I'm in Dragon's Eye atm.

Party:

Dwarf Fighter
Half Elf Ranger/Cleric
Human Paladin
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Half Elf Druid
Half Elf Bard

One thing I love is how the game showers you with XP early on so you breeze through those low levels. The game could have been a boring slog otherwise.

Are you playing Original version or EE?
My party from year 2023 used ranger/cleric and fighter/thief. These two were underleveled. Ranger/cleric never saw 7 level spells. I played normal difficulty and did all content and expansions.

Original. My Ranger/Cleric off-tank has some survivability problems compared to the Fighter. Enemies hit hard and lack of a shield and best gear hurts.

Did you play Heart of Fury? My expectation was I wouldn't unlock all spell levels in vanilla Icewind Dale.

Btw, what's a good level to tackle Heart of Winter? Manual says no less than 9.

I do Heart of Winter after finishing main game and importing save (game automatically makes saved game there). This is correct way - in IWD2, in the docks there is old lady that tells you story about party from IWD (to unlock this convo you first need to clear docks). Basicly its original campaign->HoW->ToTLM(somewhere before Sea of moving ice)->finish HoW.

 

[iguana_trader]

Always did the same, just a tip for anyone playing the original game.
If you do the above your game might "freeze" at the end in Return to Easthaven, during one of the in-engine cinematics. It won't freeze per se, characters will be moving but scripts won't fire off. What you need to do is to go to the game's install directory and clear the cache folder. Then, upon loading the game, the scripts will fire off properly and you can finish the main Icewind Dale campaign in order to start a fresh HoW playthrough.

 

[octavius]

Restarted IWD, this time I'm gonna finish it. I'm in Dragon's Eye atm.

Party:

Dwarf Fighter
Half Elf Ranger/Cleric
Human Paladin
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Half Elf Druid
Half Elf Bard

One thing I love is how the game showers you with XP early on so you breeze through those low levels. The game could have been a boring slog otherwise.

Are you playing Original version or EE?
My party from year 2023 used ranger/cleric and fighter/thief. These two were underleveled. Ranger/cleric never saw 7 level spells. I played normal difficulty and did all content and expansions.

Backstabbing is very useful.
My Fighter/Thief usually has almost half the kills in the first half of the game. Scouting and then be in position to backstab an enemy mage or archer is a good start to a difficult fight.

 

[Snufkin]

Restarted IWD, this time I'm gonna finish it. I'm in Dragon's Eye atm.

Party:

Dwarf Fighter
Half Elf Ranger/Cleric
Human Paladin
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Half Elf Druid
Half Elf Bard

One thing I love is how the game showers you with XP early on so you breeze through those low levels. The game could have been a boring slog otherwise.

Are you playing Original version or EE?
My party from year 2023 used ranger/cleric and fighter/thief. These two were underleveled. Ranger/cleric never saw 7 level spells. I played normal difficulty and did all content and expansions.

Backstabbing is very useful.
My Fighter/Thief usually has almost half the kills in the first half of the game. Scouting and then be in position to backstab an enemy mage or archer is a good start to a difficult fight.

I dont think I've ever used backstab in IWD heh..
The way I use thief those days - I start them as human Swashbuckler and level them to level 3, then I dualclass into Fighter. Grandmastery in bows. Only level 3 thief to get 90 points into find traps skill. I cast invisibility with my mage and scout entire level disarming traps.

 

[ga♥]

Just finished a SCS run of IWD1EE not HoF. Some fights became harder because of all the precast spells (Yxumoenei) but the endgame boss and HoW boss felt meh.

Also one map towards the end bugged out, not sure if it was SCS or the other mods (especially unfinished business).

So, I had some expectations but still very easy because of all the BG2 additions.

 

[0sacred]

Btw, what does the Druid spell Static Charge do? Contrary to what the description says it's not a targeted spell. I just cast it around enemies and then basically nothing happens.

 

[0sacred]

Also I'm on the third level of Dragon's Eye and there's a trap north of Presio's lair that when you trigger it, CTD's the game. I don't know if it's my borked GOG Galaxy installation or some other issue. Anyone else have this with the original version on Windows 11?

 

[iguana_trader]

If you have some Weidu fixes applied, uninstall them. Never ran into that bug, but I play only vanilla IWD.

 

[0sacred]

I don't have anything else installed (not even fixpacks). I've heard that it's a mistake to install using GOG Galaxy though, it seems to fuck up a lot of games.

 

[iguana_trader]

Probably this then, I install IWD from CD disks and have no such issue. Windows 10 here.

 

[bussinrounds]

Btw, what does the Druid spell Static Charge do? Contrary to what the description says it's not a targeted spell. I just cast it around enemies and then basically nothing happens.

It goes off once every turn (10 rounds) I believe, randomly hitting an enemy on the screen. (hits hard though) and you can still cast other spells while it's active.

The cast time is long and it lasts for a while though, so use it before the battle like you would do with a buff. At least that's how it works in the BG 1/2 SCS install I've been playing.

 

[0sacred]

Started over with a fresh installation and new party. What's the max amount of points in character creation again? Can you get enough to roll the perfect Fighter/Cleric/Mage (93) or Cleric/Mage (91)?

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I dont think I've ever used backstab in IWD heh. I cast invisibility with my mage and scout entire level disarming traps.

Same here.

 

[Melcar]

Started over with a fresh installation and new party. What's the max amount of points in character creation again? Can you get enough to roll the perfect Fighter/Cleric/Mage (93) or Cleric/Mage (91)?

108 is the max (all 18s). Anything above 90 is really exceptional and will take you hours to roll (unless you are really lucky). You can just cheat with DaleKeeper. EE also lets you roll all 18s with a cheatkey. To be honest, such characters are boring.

 

[KainenMorden]

Just finished a SCS run of IWD1EE not HoF. Some fights became harder because of all the precast spells (Yxumoenei) but the endgame boss and HoW boss felt meh.

Also one map towards the end bugged out, not sure if it was SCS or the other mods (especially unfinished business).

So, I had some expectations but still very easy because of all the BG2 additions.

Did you try on Insane/Double damage? That's the best way to experience SCS if you're an experienced player though I never played IWDEE with SCS, I'm sure I will eventually.

 

[ga♥]

Just finished a SCS run of IWD1EE not HoF. Some fights became harder because of all the precast spells (Yxumoenei) but the endgame boss and HoW boss felt meh.

Also one map towards the end bugged out, not sure if it was SCS or the other mods (especially unfinished business).

So, I had some expectations but still very easy because of all the BG2 additions.

Did you try on Insane/Double damage? That's the best way to experience SCS if you're an experienced player though I never played IWDEE with SCS, I'm sure I will eventually.

Yeah, it was insane and with double damage, even though is suggested to not use double damage when using SCS. Also let me point out I did not disable double XP from insane, so maybe I was overleveled.

One of the problem I think is that Dispel Magic in IWD/IWDEE is 100% success (that was the case even in the original if I am not mistaken). Eveything gets dispelled. So, for example all the SCS strategies in BG2 to deal with magic protections, breach, piece magic, spell strike, ruby ray of reversal, etc, are pointless. Just dispel magic.

On top of that, icasaracht doesn't even have that many strong protections, just stoneskin which btw she didn't even renew once down.

Meh, I dunno, maybe in newer versions of the mod it will become better (give icasaracht and behilfet time stop? Innate true sight to yxunomei? make dispel magic work like in bg2?), atm not very satisfying.

 

[rojay]

One of the problem I think is that Dispel Magic in IWD/IWDEE is 100% success (that was the case even in the original if I am not mistaken). Eveything gets dispelled. So, for example all the SCS strategies in BG2 to deal with magic protections, breach, piece magic, spell strike, ruby ray of reversal, etc, are pointless. Just dispel magic.

I don't think I ever noticed that in the half-dozen or so times I've played the game. I thought it was calculated the way it is in BG. I guess I wasted some spell slots...
Can the target still save or did I imagine that, too?

 

[Average Manatee]

Dispel magic is (supposed to be) just a caster level vs target level check. It may be that IWD enemies are simply underleveled, I know HoW gives a crap ton of XP that will put you way ahead of the curve. Being a bard also makes your dispels stronger since they level quicker.

 

[ga♥]

One of the problem I think is that Dispel Magic in IWD/IWDEE is 100% success (that was the case even in the original if I am not mistaken). Eveything gets dispelled. So, for example all the SCS strategies in BG2 to deal with magic protections, breach, piece magic, spell strike, ruby ray of reversal, etc, are pointless. Just dispel magic.

I don't think I ever noticed that in the half-dozen or so times I've played the game. I thought it was calculated the way it is in BG. I guess I wasted some spell slots...
Can the target still save or did I imagine that, too?

There is no save and no level check. So probably imagined.