Infinity Engine Ironman Extravaganza

[thesheeep]

Hmm.. this sounds fun.

 

[1eyedking]

No Noober references as of yet?

Boy, does Bioware know how to make interesting NPCs!

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Hateguy hates on.

Hateguy hates people who try to cut down trees. Because then he has less things to hate.

Hateguy doesn't like albinos either.

Children hate Hateguy a lot.

These gnolls decide that lounging around after their compatriot became a pincushion is a good idea.

Hateguy feels that genocide against some demented smurfs is a good idea.

A really good idea.

This traveling salesman offers to sell Hateguy and crew some magical stuff (cursed of course). Hateguy responds in the only way he knows for this situation; hateful violence. Unfortunately, Hateguy's part takes a beating from the salesman's magic missiles.

Action shot!

Hateguy's homicidal rage is seen as funny bravado.

Even ogre berserkers are no match for Hateguy.

That's what you get when you don't give Hateguy a reward.....

Looks like Hateguy and crew are going to have to spank a lot of monkeys.

Dynaheir is easily dispatched.

As is Minsc.

Hateguy chugs an oil of speed and a potion of fire giant strength to clobber some flesh golems for some sweet experience.

Jaheira gets slimed.

The party is almost torn to pieces by a Revenant over a +2 dagger. And sadly, t only sells for a measly 1000 gold.

Hateguy feels like he had so many choices available to him in this encounter.

Hateguy releases some pent up hate for feminazi amazons.

Hateguy decides to dual-class. Except now he is a piece of worthless shit.

Now Hateguy stands ready for a gambit that could propel him almost immediately to level 5 in his new class, because grinding is fucking boring. However, it is completely batshit insane and will be shown off in the next update.

 

[Lyric Suite]

No shot of you taking out Drizzt? Fo' shame. Now that would be some mad iron man skillz.

 

[Makagor]

The adventure continues. The last time I was in Kuldahar before finishing Dragon's Eye, I decided to risk the game by having Sneezy pickpocket Arundel. He was successful and acquired the amulet of metaspell influence for Snow White. I forgot to take a screenshot at the time though.

Off to work we go! Snow White and the Dwarven Wrecking Crew headed on down to the Severed Hand.

I've never used the spells Emotion: Hope and Emotion: Courage before, but as you can see they are very effective in a fighter heavy party in IWD. Combined with Haste and the clerics casting Bless and Protection from Evil 10' the Dwarven wrecking crew were unstoppable as they just mowed right through everything the Severed Hand threw at them.

Kaylessa was easily beaten.

Kaylessa's dex boosting gloves helped Sneezy make up for his low dwarven dexterity.

Hi-ho, off to Dorn's we go!

Snow White blew up some orcs.

Bashful chunkifies a Drow Sorcerer. Snottiness does not pay.

After clearing out the rest of Dorn's our intreped band headed over to the aquarium, where Sneezy stole Vera's +1 AC amulet.

The Dwarven Crew exterminated some dogs in the giant cave...

...executed some more Assholes of Auril...

...and finished off all the other obstacles to free the slaves. The Crew did not fight all the giants but just stole all their stuff and then bluffed Joril into giving up his badge.

Next up: Lower Dorn's Deep. Snow White and Crew will continue there tomorrow.

 

[Lurkar]

The big problem with these threads is that they make me want to play the BG series straight through with tutu.

This is bad because I KNOW I will hate it and myself less then halfway through.

 

[1eyedking]

Hmmm...all this Icewind Gate bonanza is making me want to start a Let's Play Final Fantasy 7! thread...

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

What's harder IWD or IWD2?

Anyone got the ironman iron balls to take on IWD2?

Has anyone ever tried the Heart of Fury modes for the IWD's?

 

[Shannow]

IWD2:
I decided to make it serious AND inspired by Salvatore just to spite you *g*
So this is a balanced party with only one fun build. A monk dual-classed to druid after first level. I read that the druid retains the ac bonus from wis when in wildshape. I still expect the build to suck donkeyballs but what the heck
I've finished IWD2 before in HoF mode although the fight for the holy defender was nigh impossible.
After my experience with BG I don't expect to finish IWD2 *shrug*
It will be played on easy. I only have some mods that fix bugs and increase the stacks for ammo etc.
Now say hello to king Bruenor Battlehammer and his companions. They call themselves The Icewind Dale Liberation front...eh...I wanted to stay serious,...so...
Their true name is: The Band of the Mailed Fist.


I actually wrote an even longer backstory but Mithril Hall hadn't fallen before the game wouldn't let me write more *g*

Forgot a "sure" in the description but I'm too lazy to correct it.

 

[Jasede]

I forgot how much I loved the presentation of IWD 2 (and 1): the music, the art, the drawn backgrounds...

Still, I never completed 1 (haven't seen it sold yet!), and though I owned 2, I couldn't play past the first town. The game was beautiful, but it all felt... empty.

 

[Shannow]

Grml, I have serious graphical issues. Re-installing now. I'll leave out most of the mods. Cobble will become a priest of Moradin, not Clangeddin. Found a mod for that...

Empty? I liked it very much but then I like good dungeon crawls as much as normal rpgs.

A feature like in W8 with limited party banter according to "attitude" would have been great though.


EDIT: Seems like the gods don't want me to play this game. While I had no problems with BG(2) IWD2 wont run smoothly on my system. And i have black squares covering parts of my screen. I only found this on the internet:
http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?s=26 ... ntry367452

And it didn't help. I'll try to find new drivers...

2. EDIT:
Appears that the issues were caused by my up to date drivers
Had to disable graphic acceleration for direct draw:
http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44972
That is what I get for having a 8800 GTS 640 and playing IE games instead of Halo 3

 

[Makagor]

Last time I tried to play IWD2 on my current system I had some pretty severe issues too. The game would crash to desktop whenever I opened a character inventory. I gave up in frustration. Not helpful, I know. Just meant to empathize.

I've never finished IWD2. I thought the game to be very pretty and to have good atmosphere but something about it left me cold. I also don't like the 3.5 rules quite as much. All the feats and level planning bogged me down and distracted me from the goal of the game.

And here I confess a dirty secret: I've never finished BG1 either! I bought the five-disc set when it first came out and played through the first 2/3 or so. This challenge thread has inspired me though. I've reinstalled it and after I finish with Snow White and the Dwarven Wrecking Crew I'm going to give BG another go. I will attempt to do it ironman, but I suspect I'll have to reload to finish it.

Belated thanks to Edward_R_Murrow for the idea and for starting this thread. I'd forgotten how much fun these games are.

 

[Shannow]

The technical issues I had are now all solved. The party went through the starting area like a hot knife through butter. One thing seems to be strange though, I get a new feat on every level up with every character. I don't remember this being the case in vanilla IWD2 though. So it is probably part of one of the mods, although I made sure only to install ease of use mods + collectors edition content but no unbalancing mods.

I really don't want to re-install everything AGAIN so I'll live with it...

 

[dragonfk]

The technical issues I had are now all solved. The party went through the starting area like a hot knife through butter. One thing seems to be strange though, I get a new feat on every level up with every character. I don't remember this being the case in vanilla IWD2 though. So it is probably part of one of the mods, although I made sure only to install ease of use mods + collectors edition content but no unbalancing mods.

I really don't want to re-install everything AGAIN so I'll live with it...

Havent you used Weidu-packed mods? If yes then whats the problem with uninstalling them? Feat on every level up? Bleah. It takes all the fun from the game( maybe not all but pretty much imbalances the game ).

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Hateguy hates what happens to him.

As you can see here, Hateguy is packing some serious protection scrolls and potions against petrification. Yeah....he's going there.

This mission is a solo one. Because Hateguy hates people stealing his experience.

PREPARE FOR.................

....OH SHIIIIIII.....

This is taken seconds before a basilisk cheats at the game to pierce through Hateguy's protection from petrification spell. Hateguy ends up stoned for all eternity.

What have we learned? Dual-classing your main character and best fighter to the shittiest class in the game is a bad idea.

 

[Makagor]

Lower Dorn's Deep:

A near disaster! Sneezy got held and Dopey was driven berserk by the myconids. Dopey chopped Sneezy to death and then started trying to kill Snow White.

Doc narrowly averted what could have turned into a cascading failure by quickly dispelling Dopey's ailment.

Thief chunks! Marketh is gonna have trouble getting that goo out of the carpet.

Was Malavon able to thwart our dwarven ambitions?

Nope.

The Crew stumbled into a fire giant ambush!

It was a close call, but our merry band prevailed.

After trekking back to the Severed Hand to restore the Arboretum the dwaves decided to try to kill Ilmadia.

Hur?

Well, well, it looks like Ilmadia was hiding in one of those giants' pockets. I never even saw her, I guess the raging dwarves chopped her down during the ambush above.

The dwarves were prepared for the last badge fight.

The cowardly Brother Poquelin talked a lot of trash...

...and teleported our Crew back to Easthaven.

Pomab got his reward for his big mouth.

And the final battle!

This was the final screenshot before the ending cutsceen.

Snow White and the Dwarven Wrecking Crew were victorious! All suvived the final battle.

 

[Makagor]

Flush with the victory of Snow White and the Dwarven Wrecking Crew I set about on a new task: Baldur's Gate ironman.

So after some quality time rolling stats in the character generator, a new hero is born!

The pigeon of fate drops his load of fortune upon Cheeky's head.

Look at the size of Cheeky's er...cheeks!

Cheeky does rodent control.

Cheeky and her Da' head out on an adventure.

Cheeky and Imoen, BFF!

Cheeky and Imoen take out their teen angst on the local wildlife.

Cheeky achieves her first chunkified enemy!

Alas! Cheeky died at the hand of an assassin at the Friendly Arms Inn. The evil mage cast horror on Cheeky and proceeded to magic missile her. To death. Did I just have bad luck on dice rolls? Or is there something I should have done other than to try to beat that mage with a stick?

R.I.P. Cheeky Munchkin

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

All right. Congratulations are in order for Makagor and his Dwarven Wrecking Crew for kicking ass way more efficiently than the ninjas squad on his ironman run-through of Icewind Dale. Nicely done, and now two teams have made it through Icewind Dale 1 and actually making the survival/killed ratio positive for now in that game.

Baldur's Gate, however, is swallowing up characters like a black hole with six dead so far, and the one closest to completion being killed at chapter six with what might be the best suited class for the campaign. It might be pretty difficult for someone to pull this one off, especially with the backbreaker that is the fight against the incredibly souped-up greater doppelgangers in the palace in chapter seven. It isn't so much as hard to survive as it is to save the Grand Dukes on your first shot, seeing as if you don't save them, game over.

Also, unsurprisingly, Imoen is the most killed companion, seeing as she is readily available and has some of the best stats in the game, making her a pretty easy choice to keep around in the rather dangerous world of Baldur's Gate ironman style.

We have a few Shadows of Amn games out there and no recorded deaths yet, so I can't really guess how well our challengers will do all that well. But I suppose it might be pretty difficult with the high number of nasties in the Underdark with lethal powers like the Beholders and the Illithids.

Throne of Bhaal has no challengers yet, but I assume that a well constructed mage, or one imported from Shadows of Amn will be able to devastate it with relative ease. Another class however might have a bit of a challenge. If somebody does go the mage route, you could always up the challenge by installing Ascension to prove that you are an ironman with brass balls...

We have one intrepid soul on an Icewind Dale 2 quest. Best of luck, that game starts out nice, but then turns to shit quite quickly. Especially seeing as some of the battles were beyond broken, like the guardian dragon, the Cera Sumat fight, the fight against the avatar of Invader Zim or whatever, and Isair and Madae themselves were pretty ridiculous. At least they've got a monk for that stupid chapter 4 monastery so that won't stop the party dead in their tracks.

What's harder IWD or IWD2?

The second by far. It is brutal in certain areas.

Has anyone ever tried the Heart of Fury modes for the IWD's?

Yeah. They pretty much take the monsters, multiply their HP by 3 and then add 50 more just to make things fun. Then they crank up the damage and hit percentage as well, in addition to giving them more abilities and spells. Basically, it makes melee fighters rather useless and makes it a caster and archer only game, which kind of takes the fun out of that strategy. I kind of wish they had done something like Ascension and just made really difficult battles that didn't feel so "cheap".

I've finished IWD2 before in HoF mode

That's pretty amazing, if only for how oddly designed some of the later encounters seemed to a "normal" party. No amount of conventional Infinity Engine cheese could get me past certain encounters on normal mode like everything I mentioned above, save the Cera Sumat fight.

Alas! Cheeky died at the hand of an assassin at the Friendly Arms Inn. The evil mage cast horror on Cheeky and proceeded to magic missile her. To death. Did I just have bad luck on dice rolls? Or is there something I should have done other than to try to beat that mage with a stick?

Eh, that combat can be a lot of luck if you aren't an archer or packing some magical heat. That is of course, if you don't use some cheese tactics. I like to sacrifice Montaron or Garrick if I have him to the assassin mage, and either pick him off or let the guards kill him.

 

[abstract]

I found Heart of Fury either impossibly hard or mind-numbingly boring. Hard when you try to do it the "proper" way, boring if you cheese your way through by using summons, since they get beefed up HP, saving throws and abilities as well. Just cast mass invisibility, summon 5 apocalyptic boneguards, go make yourself a sandwich, then come back and pick up all the stuff from the bodies, repeat ad nauseam.

 

[JrK]

Or is there something I should have done other than to try to beat that mage with a stick?

Next time when playing a cleric, prepare a command spell and cast it on him in the first round. IIRC no save, unconscious for one round. This achieves two things:
-he can't cast that mirror image spell (if you time it correctly you can even disrupt it)
-He's a mage, so when he's unconscious, two to three hits should suffice to make him snuff it.

 

[Shannow]

Well, if you had had Xvar (spelling?) and Montaron in your party the first assassin would have been less lethal.

Well, I've uninstalled some more mods for IWD2. I'm still not sure which one of them was the culprit. Took me around an hour to recreate the party with dalekeeper. As mentioned they are now out of Targos. Not much interesting hapening. The most dangerous enemy was Vrek the troll, who hit Bruenor down to about half his hp. Nothing two healing potions couldn't correct.
The fight I'm most afraid of now is the one with the teleporting worg riders.

The thing with protection from petrification is that it only lasts for a pitiful amount of time. The duration probably ran out long before you had a chance to kill the basilisks.

And the monk is now multiclassed to druid. So no big help for the monastary
I'll think of something if I get that far. The first challenges are easily do-able with normal fighters. The last one is a pain in the arse.

EDIT:

I couldn't bluff the ogres watching the door in the south. So I had to go for my feared fight. As you can see it went rather well. Obviously dwarves are unstoppable even when lugging around a weakling assimar. Well, actually the low-level druid spells are quite nice and Katharina Brie has the best ac of the party (cat's grace+mage armor+monk ac).
Having a vision of traps on the south bridge the Band of the Mailed Fist decided to aproach from the west. Unfortunately worg riders teleported in front of them anyway, without any posibility to get to the shaman summoning them. After cutting a breach into the monster's shield wall the enemy cast entangle which slowed down the dwarves even more. In the end supperior savagery won the day.

 

[abstract]

Okay bitches, the Codex Crew is taking on Icewind Dale 2. The mighty warrior Kingcomrade, the dual-wielding ranger Lyric Suite, the sneaky rogue Sheek, the wise cleric The Walkin' Dude, the furry druid Jasede and the wily old wizard Vault Dweller are ready to kick some goblin ass.

The Codexeres are so completely badass that they laugh in the face of death and will attempt to beat the game on Insane difficulty! Let's see how long they last...

The goblins prove to be the ESF-ers of Icewind Dale and are no match for the Codexers', ahem, arguments.

The do-gooders that they are, our heroes save the old cat lady, bring the healing potion to the wounded guard and proceed to clear out the goblins in the warehouse.

The leader of the goblin pack falls under the blades of the party, but not before one-shotting Kingcomrade with a lucky hit. Ah well, maybe some liberal hippy priest will raise our beloved Sentinel from the dead.

KC is resurrected for a paltry 100 gold, and the Codexers can proceed to the mind-numbing Targos fedex quests. The boredom is allayed only by the fights against the doppelganger...

...and Phaen. Notice Jasede unleashing the fucking fur(r)y and KC getting killed yet again.

Everyone gains a couple of levels and the party finds a few useful trinkets. It's time for the goblin attack! Things get real hairy real soon, but Vghotan finally eats a bolt from Sheek's crossbow.

Confident of their strength, the Codexers rush headlong against Ghotrag's goblins only to find that they've bitten more than they can chew, and KC, TWD and VD all buy it. Thankfully, Olap Tamewater is able to delay Ghotrag long enough for Jas, LS and Sheek to make a pincushion out of the uppity beast.

Last stop Caballus... but can three desperate men take out a powerful goblin shaman and his sidekicks? Yes they can, with a little help.

How epic can it get? Four brave codexers died so that their brothers could dispatch the monster and save Targos

Our heroes receive a hefty reward for their exploits in the battle, alas, the grievious losses they suffered in the battle meant that all of it and then some is spent on healing. Meanwhile, Ulbrec sends them on another mission, to Shangearne Bridge. Will the Codexers prevail? Only time will tell.

 

[Makagor]

Hey, thanks for the tips. I had forgotten how to fight that mage.

Ok, so here goes with my latest attempt at BG Ironman style.

Introducing Goddam Do-Gooder, paladin supreme! For brevity sake, hereafter referred to as GDG.

Chunks on his very first fight!

The good natured Imoen joins him on his quest.

Evil ones! Surely they are in league with the monster who killed his father.

GDG: "Gorion, thou hast been avenged!"

GDG rejects Jahiera, for her karma is too mercenary. Although he would have been a welcome addition, Khalid chooses to remain with his lady.

GDG does a good deed.

Ogre chunks! And some belts.

Imoen cannot resist her girlish impulse to try on clothes.

Imoen: "You're a queer fellow."
GDG: "Uh...look whose talking. Dude. Hahahaha-ha!"
Who says a paladin cannot have a sense of humor? Maybe Imoen will become more effective in combat now that she has a new set of...baldurs, if you will.

GDG finds an evil person.

GDG avoids a brawl.

Another good deed.

GDG gains power by killing spiders.

GDG: "Begone, foul temptress!"

GDG dispenses some justice to the evil person he found earlier.

Alas, Garrick's morals are too capricious for the party to entrust their lives to his fickle whims. GDG sends him packing.

GDG takes a job with a dwarf.

GDG discovers that his employer is EVIL!

Justice is served.

GDG visits a temple to cleanse his soul of the taint of evil dwarf.

And another good deed. *sigh*

Ah, the dour ranger, Kivan. He is a welcome addition to the party.

And then...disaster. Goddam Do-Gooder was slain by the evil fleshy-headed golems inside the Archmage's fortress in the High Hedge. R.I.P. GDG.

That was a fun run. I don't think I'm going to be able to finish an ironman run of BG right now. It's been too many years since last time I played it. I've forgotten where and what all the significant dangers are, aside from the fact that I only finished the game up to the point where I could first enter Baldur's Gate city.

I think I might reload that guy and try to finish the game. Is a paladin a good choice to finish? Or would a pure fighter be better? I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Shannow]

After gutting Guthma the Band returned to Targos to report their success.

There Lord Ulbrec contrived some excuse to send King Bruenor on some suicide mission in that death trap that Oswald calls an air ship. He probably wanted to steal the Battlehammer mines...
Although Thibbledorf begged and begged Bruenor stayed hard. They'd return their Clanhold. their pay as mercenaries had been a joke. The humans gave them 2 gold pieces just to charge 3 for equipment. One last rest in that sty of an inn and they'd be off. Morinda was kind enough buy Bruenor some ale and he quickly tired and went to bed...
...Only to awake on that damned air ship in the middle of a storm. That idiot Oswald kept low taking the full brunt of the storm instead of rising above it. Thibbledorf, that stinking sandcrafter, was having the time of his life and laughing all the while.
A coffin should be made of stone and not wood. Bruenor promised himself to kill all of those mangy curs that called themselves his followers if he died in this crash...
Before Bruenor realised that it is hard to kill people if you are dead yourself they crashed.
Bruenor was up and running within seconds. He'd kill that damned Oswald befor the others came about and claim that he'd died in the crash. Nobody would be able to tell the difference.
There he was that little bug. Shortly after Bruenor had squashed that bug the others woke up and Oswald thanked him profusely for protecting him from that boring beetle.
Damn, Bruenor had still been groggy from the crash and now it was too late.
He force-marched his troop through traps into some giants. They would suffer!

After a while the Band met some druids of Auril. Bruenors mood had bettered considerably and he agreed to meet the leader of the druids. Somehow Sherincal didn't like this and first killed the druid's mate (a panther...) and then blew Bruenor off a cliff.

And his mood had just bettered itself... Now some unforthcoming druids would have to die.
After exterminating the whole community that had done nothing to it except stand in its way the Band of the Mailed Fist moved on to the glacier. There they had a really warm welcome.

Bruenors mood was getting better again. What would make it perfect would be to squish another bug.

You just made my day!

 

[JrK]

You can't reach 5 proficiency in weapons in BGI so it doesn't matter much. I'd say the paladin would be the better choice if you decide against dual classing.