Grrrr.... Icewind Dale 2 crashing during character creation.

[Redeye]

Where did you get these portraits from?

Google.

Sorceror's place:

IWD2_portraits_1 and IWD_portraits_5, plus other files.

 

[Redeye]

The glacier fort and the woods are the most boring part of IWD 2.
I just ground the fort, using mirror image and endless whacking to kill the ice golems. Yes I know that's what the huge amount of magic sling ammo was for, but that just wasn't my style.

I thought about leaving Talisman in the mirror to see if they escape later when the glacier melts. I wanted murder-right-now rather than wanting to wait for a possible easter egg.
So:

More of the same crap with barbarians and a giant. *yawn*

This is 18 of 30 magic missiles launched in a single round. MLRS FTW !

Yes, it's invisibility for the scout, stoneskin for everybody, invisibility sphere for bypassing (temporarily), improved invisibility for everybody right before attack, and mirror image for everybody as many times as needed to not really ever get hurt..

Plus the usual web, grease, stinking cloud, cloudkill, horror, emotion: fear, confusion/chaos plus fireball rigamarole.

(Definition number 2.)

 

[Redeye]

Ok, so back to the telegraph-style pseudo "Let's Play" of Icewind Dale 2 featuring the Spawn Of Halaster- 6 sorceresses.

Watch them cheese their way through all opposition, in between yawns.


The Fell Wood:


Will o wisps/etc. seem immune to magic, so I had to sploit and have the wisps endlessly chase my sorcs around while the boneguards whittled away.

Clearing the woods:

Wave after wave of doomed spiders:

I like the fact that they made a custom loot screen for the chalice quest:
(See the guy clutching the horn) Sordirsen would have been an amusing walk-in for the final fight. Especially if you could drink *him* from the chalice like in that Steve Martin movie with the soul transfer.

Final battle with the Dark treants was a total cakewalk:

The Frostrose quest. Yes I found that in the barbarian area. The reward is crap.

More antidote/cure disease crap clogging up my potion boxes.

Cold Marshes:

We killed spiders and trolls with summons and ambushes/etc. as usual. Then did same to a couple of waves of barbarians. Here's a sample:

Then there was that lame rock puzzle and wyverns and all that. yawn. More of the same. The Frostrose was hidden in the lower right area. Press ALT to highlight it in the game. Worthless.

Then we killed a dragon. There were actually a lot more magic missiles in the air than you see here, but the time lag in hitting pause messed up the shot:

More of the same inside the dragon cave.

*yawn*


Next: The Underdark.


ps: all are still level 10. We've been level-squatting since halfway through Ice Temple.

 

[Redeye]

Moving towards Underdark:

Ambush on arrival:

Hookbeast wave attack!

Hookbeast wave attack No Kill I :

So much for Hook Beast Matriarch:

Snilloc's Snowball still useful:

Should I talk to these people in their little fort?

Or should I just slaughter them!

We got just a scratch:

The rest of the Duergar encampment was the same story.

Onward to Black Raven Monastery.

We killed the yetis and took their skins, but left the white wyrms and their egg alone. I assumed that the monks kept them as pets or something, due to their tameness. aaawww, cute.

Here we are at the monastery:

yay!

We did some minor quests and sold most of our winter stuff except for one +1 charisma winter wolf item each (usually scarves):

We also unmasked the spy/provacateur.


After two tests completed it became obvious that my sorceresses would not be able to get Underdark access honestly.

Timbuk4 the thievery specialist took matters into her own hands:

I got the key, I got the key, I got the key, I got the key, I got the key, I... got... the ... key :

Down in the Tomb of the black Raven we looted all but the skull then evaded the Iron Golems.

Althought the xp was tempting , leaving the guardians in place was more role-play-ey. Keep the

nasties from getting to surface.

Oh, and a few surviving Duergar tried to ambush us and got flamed:

Next: Finally the Underdark.

ps: still level squatting at level 10.

 

[Murk]

one of the weirder LPs I've seen...

 

[Redeye]

Ok, underdark.

Made deal with Malavon the drow cameo from IWD 1.

Then slaughtered the merchants and cleared the area including those pesky drow assassins.

Then went for the drider caves.

Here is the story of the Drider Caves:

That's pretty much how it went.

Summons/web/grease/stinking cloud/fireball/etc. along with recon using invisibility.
Oh, and magic missile barrages.

Same old same old.

Oh, I convinced Ginafae to go home.

Then we whacked the alchemist and her pets:

The game bugged and I couldn't use the alchemy table even though I had a super-skilled alchemist.

So I had to use summons to slooooowly kill the Viciscamera. To make sure I didn't run out of summons, I had to have them wait for the gas clouds to clear, and time their retreat so they wouldn't get hurt by the spewing.

Then we abushed the outer guardians of the Mind flayer outpost:

Then we whacked the inner door guards and went invisible. Invisibly we infiltrated to the brainy heart of the enclave- the spot where the greatest gladiatorial glory-gore could be got:

They actually managed to hurt us a little:

We mopped up the flayer-base, taking care to get the diamonds from the destroyed lightning traps. Too bad there isn't anything to do with the gems and lots of other items in the game.
I had a pretty good dead cat collection going by this time.

We went up to the surface and were ambushed again. Sorry no screenshot. The trick is (and I do this a lot) to have everybody mirror image, then bunch together and have Brigadoon cast Invisibility Sphere. Then we retreat to a defensible corner and do our glacis bit.

Don't forget to use Invulnerability Sphere to put selected enemies on layaway.

Next: Return To Kuldahar


ps: still level-squatting at level 10

 

[Redeye]

Alrighty then: Kuldahar

So we arrive and use stinky cheese invisibility sphere to scope out the situation.

Oh, this gets me wightingmad!

After killing the initial mob, I sent a scout with invisibility to find enemy pockets. Then I gave a summoned creature to the scout. When enemies come into sight of non-invisible friendlies, the AI is triggered. Then I lead the hostiles back to the killing field: If You Lure Them, They Will Come.

The Field Of Screams:

Too bad about that building in the way, but you can still see the oh-so-satisfying holocaust-esque body pileup.

Then we clear out some church fulla whackos:

First Rule: Glue Them Down

Second Rule: Cut Them Down

Eat Kosher Salami!


Then we finish clearing the graveyard. woooo-oooo-oooo!

Next: through the Portal.

For Great Justice!

 

[Redeye]

Through the Portal:

I didn't bother with screenshots for the most part. The outdoor area is just a couple of paths with some doomed mooks.

I imagine some of them might have been set up for ambushing, but my invisi-scout/summoned monster combo triggered and killed them all before they could be even a nuisance.

Yeah, grab the religi-stone pillar thingies and head inside the temple.

Oh, I got in a perfect set of fireballs without alerting the doomed apprentices and their teacher:

I should have taken some inside screenshots. Maybe I did, but I can't find them. Not too impressive looking anyway.

I slaughtered the inhabitants one small pocket at a time on the lower map, then went to the temple for the final showdown. Sorry no pictures, but it was the usual: summoned monsters, fireballs, magic missile fusillade for any who draw near plus casters, web/grease/stinking cloud/cloudkill/confusion/chaos plus a couple of domination spells for color.

For roleplay reasons (and lack of melee combat ability) I left the guardian behind a came home to Kuldahar.

Back in Kuldahar:

Wave after wave of snake thingies.

Hiss hiss, kill kill

I ran out of crossbow bolts and spells and summons and had to fall back on scrolls for more summons. Running around and around the village.

I completely forgot that the druid guy (Iselore) that can heal you endlessly. He also is apparently immortal, so I shouldn't have wasted resources on "saving" him repeatedly.

Out of all of those enemy corpses I hardly got any good loot.

Next:

Off to the Dragon's Eye.

First level is easy to clear. Just the usual crap, free prisoners, etc. Put fire agates in the braziers to open gate to next level.
I looted the prisoners stuff before setting them free. It was in chests on left side of map.

Second level of Dragon's Eye:

Walk through the enemies in-vis-i-bleeee!

There was some Rakshasha guy posing as a friend. If he runs out of healing spells, he turns on you and summons shadow monsters and waves of Jaguars.

I love chokepoints:

I tought I Tau a putty-tat!


Too bad I have no trap disarm ability. There is a really nasty trap on the entrance to the Third Level of Dragon's Eye.

Here's how to get around it to a large extent:

(Boots of Speed on the character that charges through, the rest are above the entrance but close enough so that they will be in the "exit zone")


Level 3:

Clear by section, guarding all directions:

This is pretty much how I handled all the levels, but level 3 in particular.

Yes there are puzzles, but the handholding makes it a joke. Use walkthrough if you need help. I'm so bored of either guess-the-designer or having it handed to you.

Beginning of the end:

The end:

BTW: I had to use invisibility plus luring to get the damn Iron Golems off to a far corner of the map. Also I picked up all of the ground items that Thorasskus had laying around and put them in a container. He turns them into snakes.
Good thing I was out of ammo again, he turns that into snakes, too. Straight from your inventory.


Next: Magma chamber.

 

[Starwars]

I've never actually played the Icewind Dales... I'm not the biggest fan of the combat-heavy realtime w pause, but I think I could still get some enjoyment out of the games.

Which one's better?

 

[Redeye]

I've never actually played the Icewind Dales... I'm not the biggest fan of the combat-heavy realtime w pause, but I think I could still get some enjoyment out of the games.

Which one's better?

IWD 2 has more options, but the first one has more olde-timey flavor.