Baldur's Gate Any balance changes in Icewind Dale EE?

[v1rus]

We all know how big Sawyer is on balance, and I've finally decided to take a taste of it by playing his fucking game.

Remember reading that he said EE brings EE BG2 Kits which completely screw the balance, but that aside, is anything else at work?
I mean, I could just ignore the kits and have a vanilla IWD play-through without fucking with compatibility and resolution?

 

[Nevill]

I believe you might be looking for this:

https://lilura1.blogspot.ru/2016/12/Icewind-Dale-Enhanced-Edition-Review.html

Spoiler

I played both the original and EE on Insane difficulty, the latter with No Difficulty-Based Experience Bonus set to On and No Difficulty-Based Damage Increase set to Off. Well, I can tell you that the original is much harder than the EE. There are several reasons for that, which I'll endeavor to enumerate here. Pls note this is a high-lvl read for experienced players so I'm not gonna explain the "why" of what's listed here, which is self-evident to my readership.

• BG2 Races & Prestige Classes. So now you have access to passive resistances and activated blanket immunities, buffs, and debuffs, that just trivialize the encounter design and make itemization and spell selection less of a concern. Here is what was added from BG2:

additions/changes

—One new Race: Half-orc. For those lost souls who think starting with 19 Str & 19 Con is awesome. One playthrough of the original would only allow you to have one char with perma 19 Str (the Girdle of Stromnos, found late-game) and maybe one other char if you found the Potion of Life Transference (+1 Str, -1 Con). But that potion only bumps your Str up to 19 if you had 18/00 already and you only had a 1% chance to roll 18/00 in chargen. Ergo, most ppl are gonna just settle with 18/91-99. I mean, it can take a fair bit of rerolling just to hit that (10% chance). The difference between 18/91-99 and 19 is +1 to-hit & +3 dmg, which is notable in the early stages. Anyway, the common way to get >18/00 Str was through Cleric self-buffs like DUHM & Righteous Magic, which take time to receive from your god, and further time to scale with your lvl.
—Three new Classes: Sorcerer, Barbarian & Monk. Barbs get Rage that gives that Half-orc 23 Str & 23 Con at first lvl (+5 to-hit & +11 dmg at first lvl is INSANE!) — and that with blanket immunities! Plus dmg reduction, later, to stack with the many powerful +DR items found already in the campaign. Sorcs gain access to certain I WIN spells long before traditional IWD mages, who instead are forced to rely on the stingily-itemized spell scrolls. Who cares about Monks? But yeah, they are OP at higher lvls.
—One new Specialist Mage: Wild Mage.
—21 Kits (aka Prestige Classes):
Fighter: Berserker, Wizard Slayer & Kensai. Enrage grants Berserkers blanket immunities and Kai grants Kensai maximized weapon rolls which makes for optimal backstabbing.
Ranger: Archer, Stalker & Beastmaster. Archers are sort of like ranged Kensai. Enough said.
Paladin: Cavalier, Inquisitor & Undead Hunter. Great newbie classes. You'll find Pale Justice, too.
Cleric: Priest of Talos, of Helm & of Lathander. I've never liked pure Clerics, but these are more powerful than stock.
Druid: Totemic Druid, Shapeshifter & Avenger. More classes I've never liked, but again, they are more powerful than stock.
Thief: Assassin, Bounty Hunter & Swashbuckler. Powerful PrCs that you can do all sorts of cheesy stuff with.
Bard: Blade, Jester & Skald. These are epic classes for IWD. The highlights are Skald for its combat song and Blade for Defensive Spin (wearing a Free Action ring, ofc).
—Not to mention Beamdog's EE additions:
Fighter: Dwarven Defender: It's like the best of Barb & Berserker. But the inability to Grandmaster means it "only" achieves 9 ApR. Boo-hoo!
Paladin: Blackguard: Dorn, anyone? Pretty straightforward anti-pally PrC.
Thief: Shadowdancer: Stealth time-stop. Is effective in both backstab or Sneak Attack modes.
Sorcerer: Dragon Disciple: Fire-based breath weapon that scales with lvl. Lots of fire resistance. I don't like this PrC outside of Neverwinter Nights.
Monk: Dark Moon & Sun Soul. Isn't the base Monk class unique enough?
Cleric: Priest of Tyr & Priest of Tempus. Again, do we really need access to a fourth and fifth Cleric PrC in IWD?

• Increased spell scroll range from BG2. How about access to +90 arcane spells and +30 divine spells? In addition, Sequencers, triggers & contingencies made it in, as did Find Familiar for all your arcane spellcasters, including Bards. How about Shapechange and Regeneration? Yep, they are also in!

• Dual-wielding. The original IWD had fake dual-wielding and it was just for the Ranger class. All that did was give you an extra attack if your ranger had no shield equipped in their off-hand, but you could see how powerful it was already. Well, IWD:EE employs the BG2 weapon proficiency table, meaning you have access to Two Weapon Style, not just for Rangers, but for many other classes, too. In fact, I ended up with four dual-classed, dual-wielding warriors with 10 ApR each (Kensai/Mage, Kensai/Thief, Berserker/Cleric and Berserker/Druid) [1]. By the time the party reached the Heart of Winter expansion, they waded through the hordes with ease using Beamdog's incredibly efficient auto-pilot scripts (on Insane difficulty), with two Bards singing the War Chant of Sith & Skald Song behind them. It was a lil' yawn-inducing, tbqh, since I only rarely needed to cast AoEs or anything like that. Just set and forget, with a lil' adjustment here and there. I topped up my wine occasionally as the one-sided fights raged on.
[1] Dual downtime of four chars is tackled by dualing them at different lvls (7, 9 & 13), knowing where the experience point "bombs" are, and knowing how the second class levels (f.e, Druids & Thieves lvl quicker than Mages & Clerics). While it's harder to achieve in the original, 10 ApR is possible to get in both versions thanks to IWD True Grandmastery, the availability of +1 ApR weapons, and the Haste spells that double your attack rate. In the original IWD, Haste doubles the attack rate of all units in the AoE (i.e, the whole party) and inflicts fatigue when the spell wears off, whereas in IWD:EE only Improved Haste (from BG2) doubles attack rate - and only of a single unit per casting - but inflicts no fatigue when the spell wears off.

• Double capacity quivers. 80 arrows in a quiver instead of 40. I guess this one is a bit of nitpicking but IWD had already doubled quiver capacity from BG1, which had just 20.

• Detect Illusions. (Non-Bounty Hunter) Set Snares are a joke but Detect Illusions is a powerful round by round utility ability that thieves now have access to.

So yeah, the IWD campaign simply was not balanced with this added content in mind. And it would take an SCS-like overhaul to thug out the encounter design to match what the player can unleash on the hordes.

Credit goes to Lilura for his review.

 

[Infinitron]

I think the pertinent question here is, are there any balance changes that you can't avoid by opting out of using the additional races, classes, kits, spells, etc? Are there any system assets from the original Icewind Dale that have been modified?

I guess the replacement of the Ranger "dual wield" hack with real dual-wielding is one.

 

[v1rus]

I guess the replacement of the Ranger "dual wield" hack with real dual-wielding is one.

Couldn't I avoid that one by not playing a ranger? Or it affects hostile rangers too?

 

[Nevill]

I think the pertinent question here is, are there any balance changes that you can't avoid by opting out of using the additional races, classes, kits, spells, etc? Are there any asset from the original Icewind Dale that have been modified?

You can not opt out of proficiencies, for one.

And if you try racking up your memory each time to remember if an item you just looted is from the original or the remake to determine whether you use it or not (do note that vanilla IWD has pseudorandomization on some treasures so you may never see an item in a given playthrough), then you are torturing yourself instead of playing the game.

At this point I would recommend to accept the game is easier and just play it anyway with a classic party.

 

[Infinitron]

I guess the replacement of the Ranger "dual wield" hack with real dual-wielding is one.

Couldn't I avoid that one by not playing a ranger? Or it affects hostile rangers too?

If Black Isle put enemy Rangers with one-handed weapons and no shields in the game with the intention that they get an extra attack, this would make them easier. I'm not sure how many such encounters exist, though.

 

[v1rus]

I think the pertinent question here is, are there any balance changes that you can't avoid by opting out of using the additional races, classes, kits, spells, etc? Are there any asset from the original Icewind Dale that have been modified?

You can not opt out of proficiencies, for one.

And if you try racking up your memory to remember if an item you just looted is from original or the expansion to determine whether you use it or not (do note that vanilla IWD has pseudorandomization on some treasures so you may never see an item in a given playthrough), then you are torturing yourself instead of playing the game.

At this point I would recommend to accept the game is easier and just play it anyway with a classic party.

Well, wouldn't it be easier to get the list of new items (which should be rather easy) and categorize them? I mean, most of them belong to a whole new weapon type, dont they? So no katanas, and w/es.

Still, its not so much about "I WANT A BIG CHALLENGE CUZ IM SO PRO", as I want to see the crown jewel of single-player balance, if for nothing else, then to find out is it really that important or just another codex meme. To elaborate - I've never cared about single player balance, and it seems most people dont either. If you ask me, I have no idea which single player game is balanced, and which is not, for number of factors, most prominent being that I always do all side-quests and content, and as such, always end up over leveled and stronger than everything else.

tl;dr

I wanna find out is all that "balance almighty" philosophy worth a dime when it comes to single player games.

 

[Nevill]

I mean, most of them belong to a whole new weapon type, dont they? So no katanas, and w/es.

Mostly. Besides that, there are a couple of new staves, and some inconsequental magical jewelry.

Still, its not so much about "I WANT A BIG CHALLENGE CUZ IM SO PRO", as I want to see the crown jewel of single-player balance, if for nothing else, then to find out is it really that important or just another codex meme.

Why wouldn't you play the original, then? It stood the test of time rather well. More stable than the new version, too, if the review is of any indication.

As for the balance... the game is somewhat challenging for the party of six if one does not know how to cheese and exploit it. I remember having troubles with it on my first run. I even dropped it for a while out of pure frustration in Dragon's Eye (there's a pretty big difficulty spike). When one knows the enemy tricks and possible dangers beforehand, the game loses a lot of its edge. Somewhat counter-intuitively, it gets easier if you reduce the number of party members since good equipment is rare and does not come cheap. If you are down to 1, your 20+ lvl triple-multiclass ubermensch decked in top gear and swimming in gold and magic items juat laughs at the enemies as they try to put a dent in his armor.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Why wouldn't you play the original, then?

There are at least 3 different 'original versions', and this is without taking into account any mods.

 

[Nevill]

GOG version comes with both Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster patched up to v1.42. Most people playing the 'vanilla game' nowadays would play this one, simply because it's the one that is most easily obtained and installed.

They have disabled/removed/changed a few items between the original v1.00 and the latest expansion, but that's not reason enough to put up with all the bugs. God knows the game has enough of them left even with all the patches.

As for mods...
https://af.gog.com/forum/icewind_dale_series/iwd_mod_guide_install_order?as=1649904300

I used these ones:

• One Pixel Productions Animation Fixes for IWD:TotLM: Contains some animation fixes for Icewind Dale. The Restore combat stance animations component misbehaves a little in that it not only overwrites some scripts, but the scripts include some minor syntax errors. This is the reason why this is listed before...
• The IWD Fixpack: Fixes are good, and lots of fixes are better. The only reason it's not first is because the mods before it are currently a little overwrite-y. If you use this you do not need Grog's IWD Fixes from AB or...
• One Pixel Productions High-Quality Music: Replaces the default music with the same, but higher quality, soundtrack ripped from the music CDs. This can probably be installed anywhere in the order, but since it's unlikely to change it should go earlier in the order.
• Item Upgrade for IWD: A small content mod that allows players to upgrade a handful of items with no known incompatibilities. Putting it here allows for later mods to alter the new items.
• The Widescreen Mod: Allows players to play the game on modern, high-resolution monitors. Despite its name, it can be used on any aspect ratio monitor to increase resolution.

And a few others as well, but I would not recommend new players touch anything else. Some tweaks maybe, but only when they get a feel for the game.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

GOG version comes with both Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster patched up to v1.42. Most people playing the 'vanilla game' nowadays would play this one, simply because it's the one that is most easily obtained and installed.

Well the HoW patch already completely fucked over the balance. From my perspective this whole thread is an example of complaining about something new and desiring a return to something that was already complain-worthy anyway. Like choosing between two different Star Wars updated special editions instead of trying to find either the original theatrical release or the post-Empire VHS release.

 

[Nevill]

IWD was released in June 2000. TotL was released in Feb 2001, became the definitive version for many, and remained so for 15 years. That's what most people got to know unless they bought it in a tiny window of 8 months, and that's what they compare the new edition to.

And though I understand where you are coming from, I don't think that your comparison is fair. Patches redefine game balance all the time.

The new edition isn't a patch or an expansion, it is a game moved to a wholly different engine and sold separately, so people hold it to a different standart, scrutinizing every little thing for comparison. The game becoming objectively easier with new additions is a fact. Whether it is something to complain about is up to an individual, but since OP wanted to see what RPGCodex was raving about for all these years, they deserve to know what they are getting with the new title.

 

[Jazz_]

IWD was released in June 2000. TotL was released in Feb 2001, became the definitive version for many, and remained so for 15 years. That's what most people got to know unless they bought it in a tiny window of 8 months, and that's what they compare the new edition to.

And though I understand where you are coming from, I don't think that your comparison is fair. Patches redefine game balance all the time.

The new edition isn't a patch or an expansion, it is a game moved to a wholly different engine and sold separately, so people hold it to a different standart, scrutinizing every little thing for comparison. The game becoming objectively easier with new additions is a fact. Whether it is something to complain about is up to an individual, but since OP wanted to see what RPGCodex was raving about for all these years, they deserve to know what they are getting with the new title.

It is true that Beamdog with the EE wasn't concerned about balance at all and just added a bunch of new stuff without too much care but it isn't necessarily true that it makes the game easier if you choose the wrong kits, there are some truly gimmicky garbage new kits that if anything will make the game harder. There are however also very op new kits.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

IWD was released in June 2000. TotL was released in Feb 2001, became the definitive version for many, and remained so for 15 years. That's what most people got to know unless they bought it in a tiny window of 8 months, and that's what they compare the new edition to.

That's not entirely correct.

The expansion was never automatically attached to the original game throughout the pre-download years 2000-2010ish. In order to have the game manipulated by the HoW shenanigans you had to, first of all, install the vanilla game, and then install the HoW expansion. So it was like owning 2 versions of the game that could be installed however you wanted.

Just like now, the GoG version gives you 2 versions, the new and old version, from which you can choose which to play.

The fact that you now equate the EE version as something 'different' to the 'original' is no different to how I perceived the HoW expansion as something 'different' to the 'original'. That you now site the HoW as the original and use the term 'most people's original' is likely no different to how in 10 years people will refer to the EE version as the 'original' should someone at a later date rework the EE version, because the EE version was the GoG version "most people played".

 

[YES!]

The game is laughably easy before and after EE. Does it matter what slightly different degrees of easy it is? Play IWD2 as it is a superior game in every conceivable way and actually poses a challenge.

 

[ga♥]

Well, the game hard part is the beginning, after the dragon's eye becomes a cakewalk. Original or EE it is the same.
EE becomes more cakewalkish once you get stuff like time stop (wtf) or lower resistance... even without using kits or stuff like that.

I wish there was a Mod for the EE version that would remove all the spells scrolls addition, then you could just ignore kits and you would be fine.

Anyway the game isn't very "balanced" to begin with, and this is fun.

 

[Jazz_]

What the hell is time stop?

 

[ga♥]

What the hell is time stop?

The Baldur's gate 2 level 9 spell. Yes, it is in the EE game.

 

[sser]

What the hell is time stop?

Gives you free rounds. BG2's lich that springs from the coffin uses it to squash unprepared parties, IIRC.

 

[ga♥]

What the hell is time stop?

Gives you free rounds. BG2's lich that springs from the coffin uses it to squash unprepared parties, IIRC.

It wouldn't be a total joke if the enemies could use it too, or be immune, like in BG2.
But since they can't (on a sidenote they can't even detect invisibility) it all becomes a big joke.

Last time I played the original was 10years ago so I didn't remember much... I thought lower resistance and spell triggers were already in the game, but when I saw time stop I realized it was for sure an addition of Beamdog.

Oh, also thieves can set traps in the EE version and this makes some fights, like Yxsodsfdsfjdsf or how the hell is called, boringly easy.

 

[ga♥]

I guess the replacement of the Ranger "dual wield" hack with real dual-wielding is one.

Couldn't I avoid that one by not playing a ranger? Or it affects hostile rangers too?

Only way to avoid it is to avoid dual wield totally, because real dual wielding applies to every class able to do so (fighters, paladins, etc.)

 

[DemonKing]

I've got the EE on my Ipad and I don't find it terribly unbalanced even with the BG2 additions. The high water mark of the game for difficulty is probably the final encounter in Dragon's Eye, but there are a number of tough fights in the expansion content which required a bit of save-scrubbing to get through unscathed during my playthroughs.

 

[YES!]

Well, the game hard part is the beginning, after the dragon's eye becomes a cakewalk. Original or EE it is the same.
EE becomes more cakewalkish once you get stuff like time stop (wtf) or lower resistance... even without using kits or stuff like that.

I wish there was a Mod for the EE version that would remove all the spells scrolls addition, then you could just ignore kits and you would be fine.

Anyway the game isn't very "balanced" to begin with, and this is fun.

It is hard in the beginning for who? Not normal people. The game has no challenge at all other than making sure you have some way to kill trolls, or can switch to range to kill the exploding things at range. That isn't challenge, it is annoyances that pose no challenge.

I should have realized IWD2 was a good game and bought it when it come out. The fact that everyone hated on it should have been a clear indication it had decent chardev and reasonable challenge throughout. Fake rpg fans hate nothing more than having to think and try. But, like a dummy I assumed IWD2 was more monkey shot for idiots devoid of all challenge and thinking like the rest of the IE games, but it is actually good. Good to people who like thinking and combat that starts off challenging and stays so throughout the game, unlike any of the other IE games. Even with the tactics and challenge mods BG1 and 2 have a handful of tough battles but the rest of the game's content (99% of it) is a cakewalk for people of normal intelligence or higher.

 

[ga♥]

It is hard in the beginning for who? Not normal people. The game has no challenge at all other than making sure you have some way to kill trolls, or can switch to range to kill the exploding things at range. That isn't challenge, it is annoyances that pose no challenge.

I agree on IE games being easy games as a whole. What I was was refering by "hard" was compared to the rest of the game.
The beginning is the hardest part, especially with small parties and on insane difficulty.
This doesn't mean I judge the game particularly difficult.
It's still fun though.

 

[DemonKing]

I should have realized IWD2 was a good game and bought it when it come out.

I would probably rate IWD2 at the bottom of the pile as regards to the original IWD/BG games. It had some interesting encounter design but there were some extended puzzles that were more annoying than fun and got in the way of the core gameplay. Also the storyline never grabbed me (rejected half-demons decide to take out their angst on everyone - precursor SJWs?) and the level design wasn't coherent and jumped all over the place (why am I in a jungle again?).

Great implementation of the 3rd Edition rules though.