Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[laclongquan]

What's wrong with sending a rogue ahead to scout for trouble and disarm traps on the way? It's a sound tactic: determined the number of enemies, their locations, disable what traps you can, find chokepoint and stash your invisible rogue there to block it. people always complain that rogue has no place in a party due to their under-utilized.

I never use rogue for backstabing unless and until that's the first move of a battle plan: kill a key-combatant and draw the rest into an ambush, or fixed positioning line of battle. After that, her role is to safely sit behind a wall of meatshield to shoot her shortbow, occasionally popping a detection if there's something suspicious. Rogue's detection can ruin quite a few illusion magic, IIRC. More often, my battle plan is to have her shoot at the farthest enemy and run like hell back to safety. Backstabbing is too risky.

 

[octavius]

What's wrong with sending a rogue ahead to scout for trouble and disarm traps on the way? It's a sound tactic: determined the number of enemies, their locations, disable what traps you can, find chokepoint and stash your invisible rogue there to block it. people always complain that rogue has no place in a party due to their under-utilized.

Excactly.

I never use rogue for backstabing unless and until that's the first move of a battle plan: kill a key-combatant and draw the rest into an ambush, or fixed positioning line of battle. After that, her role is to safely sit behind a wall of meatshield to shoot her shortbow, occasionally popping a detection if there's something suspicious. Rogue's detection can ruin quite a few illusion magic, IIRC. More often, my battle plan is to have her shoot at the farthest enemy and run like hell back to safety. Backstabbing is too risky.

One of my favourite tactics is to have the stealthed/invisible rogue taking position behind the most dangerous of the enemies, usually a spell caster.
Then move my main tank into view and "activate" the enemy group and then have the rogue complete his backstab and then immedialtely run away. Most of the enemies will usually continue to move towards their first sighted enemy.
Usually it depends on the situation wether the rogue can continue to backstab. If his AC is good enough he can stay in melee, and if the enemies are dangerous enough it may be worth quaffing an invisibility potion (or spell if mage/thief) to get as many backstabs in as little time as possible.

 

[laclongquan]

Too dangerous. A sound strategy/tactic is one with fewest risk. Let your scout get in the habit of backstabing is a good way to let her tangled with enemies main force in THEIR ground. More often than not she will get swarmed and killed, I estimate to be 6 out of 10. I used to have them backstabing until I realize it's a too risky thing in general, and invite unneccessary reloading. Much better to lure them back to prepared batlefield, with meatshield prepared, summons await, and and drawn bows to the ears. Backstabbing is for when one target is too busy with a meatshield to pay attention to a sneaking rogue behind its back. Plus, if it fail she can always move to behind her meatshield, to safety.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Much better to lure them back to prepared batlefield, with meatshield prepared, summons await, and and drawn bows to the ears. Backstabbing is for when one target is too busy with a meatshield to pay attention to a sneaking rogue behind its back. Plus, if it fail she can always move to behind her meatshield, to safety.

Yar, that's close to what I do. Send the sneaking rogue out to scout while I've arranged my party in the most bottlenecked or enclosed location near. Two tanks up front blocking entrance, mage and cleric on the ready behind them, with a crossbow bro standing by. Rogue finds the enemy, fires an arrow, then books back to hang in the rear.

 

[Infinitron]

What's wrong with sending a rogue ahead to scout for trouble and disarm traps on the way? It's a sound tactic: determined the number of enemies, their locations, disable what traps you can, find chokepoint and stash your invisible rogue there to block it. people always complain that rogue has no place in a party due to their under-utilized.

I never use rogue for backstabing unless and until that's the first move of a battle plan: kill a key-combatant and draw the rest into an ambush, or fixed positioning line of battle. After that, her role is to safely sit behind a wall of meatshield to shoot her shortbow, occasionally popping a detection if there's something suspicious. Rogue's detection can ruin quite a few illusion magic, IIRC. More often, my battle plan is to have her shoot at the farthest enemy and run like hell back to safety. Backstabbing is too risky.

Nobody's saying it's wrong. The discussion here is about whether or not trap detection should be automatically activated whenever the rogue is not in combat, or whether it's something the player should think of activating on his own.

 

[laclongquan]

Pressing a quick button to activate them all is hard work?

Select them all
Press quick button (specifically only for detect) Any who can detect, do.

It's not like only pure-rogue can detect. Some rogue variants can do so too. Every little bit help.

EDIT: If it's important, you should remember to do it. If you dont remember to do it, it clearly is not an important activity to your playing, so why bother? What's the big deal?

 

[Lilura]

Too dangerous. A sound strategy/tactic is one with fewest risk. Let your scout get in the habit of backstabing is a good way to let her tangled with enemies main force in THEIR ground. More often than not she will get swarmed and killed, I estimate to be 6 out of 10. I used to have them backstabing until I realize it's a too risky thing in general, and invite unneccessary reloading. Much better to lure them back to prepared batlefield, with meatshield prepared, summons await, and and drawn bows to the ears. Backstabbing is for when one target is too busy with a meatshield to pay attention to a sneaking rogue behind its back. Plus, if it fail she can always move to behind her meatshield, to safety.

Actually, I agree with Octavius. It seems you don't know how to use a thief for backstab if you're getting killed 60% of the time.

 

[laclongquan]

Mmmmm~ Strategy comprehesion: fail! It seem you dont understand the joy of a well excuted battle plan with multilayer attacks and defenses.

 

[octavius]

Mmmmm~ Strategy comprehesion: fail! It seem you dont understand the joy of a well excuted battle plan with multilayer attacks and defenses.

We're talking tactics here, not strategy.
And the tactics I described has worked well enough for me. You need to carefully choose your targets, of course, and make sure your thief has room to run away, and is not encumbered. If the thief dies 6 out of 10 times you are definitely doing something wrong.

 

[Lilura]

Mmmmm~ Strategy comprehesion: fail! It seem you dont understand the joy of a well excuted battle plan with multilayer attacks and defenses.

Facepalm, I know this game intimately, what works and what doesn't. Backstab might not be as effective in turning the tide as in BG series due to IWD encounter design (not many squishy mages, hordes of copypasta enemies), but it does work. And it isn't a 6 in 10 failure, your tactics are.

 

[Dorateen]

This being the Icewind Dale thread, I suppose it would be out of place for me to mention how our party's thief backstabbed the Dreadlord twice in Secret of the Silver Blades.

Backstabbing is a joy in turn-based combat. But the Infinity Engine made it manageable enough that I was able to keep a running tally. Especially with auto-pause.

Best backstab I recall from the IWD series, taking out Varglaan of the Luskan Mages in the Heart of Winter Expansion. That was a great fight.

 

[octavius]

One of the great things about the IE games is that enemy thieves can and will (if allowed) backstab your party. In the Gold Box games it was pure chance if an enemy rogue happened to get in a backstab.
It's always scary when you see enemy rogues quaffing invisibility potions.

 

[Dorateen]

Thanks for reminding me. That evil halfling, Seth, backstabbed me out of nowhere in Marketh's area.

 

[Lilura]

IWD backstabs I want Grandmastery and percentile STR from fighter levels, that's key to getting consistent instas. Same for BG1, though you could only get High Mastery...
IWD2 was more about Sneak Attacks of course, and rogue feats like Hamstring (underrated).
I love my Sneak Attacks in ToEE, especially with holy axiomatic twin-blades, so satisfying to hear the enemy squeal in pain as you go to work and they can do nothing but die.
BG2 was all about the kensai/thief, kai to make the 1d10 always a ten and damage bonuses multiplied by five. Or maybe a Thief/Mage shifting into a golem for 2d20 ironfist backstabs. BG2 had many, many options to augment backstabbing.

Nothing approximates in coolness the Fallout powerfist assassin, though.

 

[Lilura]

It's always scary when you see enemy rogues quaffing invisibility potions.

unFond memories of Rune Assassins: backstab, quaff, backstab
Yoshimo and the murderers were a handful in Spellhold if you weren't prepped.
Cyric's chosen in ToB, deadly
the ashirukuru of Durlag's Tower, they don't quaff, but you're already getting low on resources and you're so deep down in there, and there's invisible enemies inflicting multiplier DMG on you.

 

[Roguey]

But what does Josh Sawyer think about this

He would want it automated. Much like Dragon Age.

 

[laclongquan]

I suppose you would backstab the farthest and weakest member of the outer defense then work your way in. Because if you attack important combatants like clerics or mages, even if you succeed, there's 60% you will be surrounded by angry fighters. Given the lightly armored state of a thief, you will die in short order.

Not that I expect to change your mind. You LIKE micromanage a character, not command a group of 4-6 plus summoners.

 

[Lilura]

I suppose you would backstab the farthest and weakest member of the outer defense then work your way in. Because if you attack important combatants like clerics or mages, even if you succeed, there's 60% you will be surrounded by angry fighters. Given the lightly armored state of a thief, you will die in short order.

Not really, you can get low enough AC, haste status, and then make the stab and fade without too much blowback, you can quaff potions to fade instantly from view. Plus most people who know AD&D2 and intend to take the party thru the expansions and HoF mode should never run with single classes (progression tables show the ignorance in doing that), so they dual or multi with fighter or mage for less squishiness and protective illusions, respectively.

Not that I expect to change your mind. You LIKE micromanage a character, not command a group of 4-6 plus summoners.

So because I'm saying micromanaging a thief to do backstabs isn't all that dangerous if you know what you're doing, suddenly I don't use summons (EZmode) and don't use overall party tactics, jumping to conclusions much?

 

[laclongquan]

Why so defensive? Did I say anything of that sort? Did I utter some insulting adjectives that cast apersion upon your choice or your personal preference?? Did I, huh?

 

[octavius]

I suppose you would backstab the farthest and weakest member of the outer defense then work your way in. Because if you attack important combatants like clerics or mages, even if you succeed, there's 60% you will be surrounded by angry fighters. Given the lightly armored state of a thief, you will die in short order.

You "activate" the fighters with your main tank first. By the time the the rogue comes out of the shadows the enemy fighters are already atacking your own fighters. Or if you rely on summons, send them in first.
The thief, even lif lightly armoured, will not die if the fighters can't reach him. And being lightly armoured a thief will be able to outrun heavily armoured fighters. Just avoid backstabbing someone who is surrounded by fighters. For a good battle plan you also need to plan your thief's actions after the initial backstab.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I don't care about backstab, so I almost never use "hide in shadows". I never understood why a rogue can't detect traps while hiding in shadows. It would be the only real use of the hide skill for a non-backstab fag like me.

 

[laclongquan]

It's been a long time for me but isnt there a tactic of casting invisibility on a detecting-capable character? what game is that, i wonder?

 

[Lilura]

For a good battle plan you also need to plan your thief's actions after the initial backstab.

Yeah, you sort of have to appraise the area to see if you can chain backstab the whole mob, are there enough corners to duck behind, one after the other, so you can hide again from the aggro and set up the next backstab? Unless you're quaffing you also have to keep in mind the one round (?) refresh of the stealth modal action, just because you lost LoS doesn't mean you can hide (I'm sure you know all this, I'm just bored.)

 

[Roguey]

Wow it only took me a month to complete. Here we go. Over one thousand words about Icewind Dale.

This was made without a lead designer, and it shows through its inconsistent quality and writing styles. The writing highlights are definitely Avellone's (e.g. the Seer and Wylfdene/Icasaracht) but especially Sawyer's. Josh wrote nearly all the unique item descriptions and Lonesome Road and Pale Justice in particular have That Josh Feel. He has his funny side as well:

Simply brilliant, brilliantly simple.

As for content itself, the prologue and chapter one are rather uninteresting. Josh tried so hard with those imbued wights and post-expansion call-for-help scripts but those hordes and hordes of undead just aren't interesting, brief snips of writing aside. It's particularly annoying how the end of Kresselack's Tomb involves backtracking outside to a cave then backtracking back through the tomb again only to get told nothing (but at least you get some items out the deal, right?), followed by backtracking back to the exit.

The second floor of the tomb also starts with an undetectable, unavoidable trap which is just bullshit. I'm sure Josh has learned not to undermine my character's skills for railroading.

I've gone into chapter 2 here. To summarize: loads of trash but every level has something interesting. I like how Josh cut down on degenerate looting by having most enemies drop gold if they drop anything at all, as well as foreshadowing the trolls on the second floor by having the shamans on the first drop flaming oils.

Chapter 3's another bore (albeit a beautiful one) where you're fighting more undead, including shadows of orcs and elves. A good number of them spawn right on top of you. The final fight is a bust despite its haste and aoe-damage casting mages, partly because of the layout of the map, and partly because two hasted fighters are nothing to get worried about. Lesi's definitely a background-art-whore for thinking the towers are so amazing (and/or maybe she just really likes killing elf ghosts).

Nothing noteworthy about chapter 4 except a nice fight where you have to deal with two stoneskinned spellswords, two mirror imaged mages, archers protected by a chokepoint, and two phase spiders who pop in behind you. A shame you can make the fight easier by exploiting the fog of war since Josh Sawyer was the only developer who went the extra mile to intelligently place call-for-help scripts into his non-HoW IWD areas. After that you have to face even more undead and one of the easiest Liches on record (whose weakness is explained by a botched ritual). I'm guessing playtester experiences were involved in its nerfing.

Chapter 5 manages to be less interesting than the previous by offering nothing of value. The ice temple definitely could have benefited from call-for-help scripts, but this would be tricky because the mobs are grouped close together enough that you could very well end up having to fight the entire floor at once (like certain Storm of Zehir dungeons). A particularly strange thing about this chapter is how most of this boring combat is completely optional: you can avoid everything in the temple's main floor just by not visiting it again after you free the slaves (if you choose to free them at all), and you can coerce the frost giant leader into handing over his badge without a fight. Of course since this is a combat game I had to kill them all for their loot and xp (plus they're evil and deserve death).

Josh Sawyer delivers again in chapter 6. More interesting fights (particularly the tower archers, fake-out teleporting Malavon with his golems and umber hulks, and the idol in Undead Hell) and an actual ~moral dilemma~ with Marketh; you can choose to kill the abusive creep to avenge his victims and/or to get his stuff or spare his life so you can free a Drow with a bad case of battered person syndrome. I imagine most people choose to get the stuff and care little about the emotional problems of virtual people but it should be obvious which way I went.

Josh didn't design frozen Easthaven (though he did help tune Belhifet) but I liked how it's a short victory lap instead of a meat grinder like most endgames tend to be. I'm not fond of the Pomab fight though; without using an aoe instant death spell like cloudkill or the appropriately-named death spell it would be an irritating slog. Belhifet himself is pretty easy (even when he has two additional demons post-HoW; I'm sure he's challenging to bad players though), but he's just gatekeeping a cinematic so it doesn't matter. It's nice how the start of that fight trolls pre-buffers.

Heart of Winter content starts off with a surprising amount of talking and receiving ridiculous amounts of xp for choosing non-critical path dialogue options. The latter's Chris Avellone for ya. Sawyer comes to the rescue yet again with an immediate punch to the face at Burial Isle with aggresively fast wights and shamans. The addition of drowned dead and wailing virgins make the isle the best area when it comes to non-boss fights (and Josh agrees that it's the most difficult area in IWD while acknowledging he could still do better: "while it is much more difficult than the rest of HoW (barring icasaracht), that's not saying much.").

Unfortunately, Gloomfrost is a return to trivial mobs. To make matters worse, it's one big linear narrow corridor. The ice sentry golems in the second part of the cave are appropriately tough, but it just keeps spamming nothing but over and over again. There's only one interesting gimmick in the entire thing: teleporting into and out of a pit to loot an item. Fortunately, after you deal with the nonsense here and at the barbarian camp you get a nice rival adventuring party to fight outside the inn.

Icasaracht's island is more of the same, but with the novelty of cold-spell casting undead and The Great LaRouche Toad-Frog Massacre near the end. Icky Thump herself isn't particularly special; control the crowd, then tank and spank.

With Trials of the Luremaster, Steve Bokkes and John Deiley finally deliver content on par with Josh Sawyer's. It's unfortunate how it took an add-on to an expansion for them to finally catch-up. Much like Dragon's Eye, there's still a lot of trash (and some pc-teleporting nuisances), but unlike their previous areas they have interesting scenarios such as another adventuring party (this time with a genie), a flanking beholder, a room full of flanking harpies (some who love casting scorcher), flanking minotaurs, and a room full of jackals, greater jackals, two shamans, and two magic missile-casting stone nuisances. Though it wasn't difficult, I also enjoyed a room full of mummies where the undead in an adjacent room rush in; since my cleric's level was skyhigh, turn undead made them all explode into chunks. A satisfying button-awesome moment. I can see why 1eyedking hates this hodge podge of different ideas and creatures with no rhyme or reason; fortunately I don't care about ~verisimilar~ creature ecologies as long as the content's enjoyable enough.

The luremaster fight is also the most difficult boss in the game since you're dealing with a rival undead adventuring party plus a teleporting bastard. I ended up losing two to his chain lightning (my first and only casualties during this run); I had two resurrections lined up right after of course.

As for final thoughts, I wish the Sawyer-Finegan Balance Pack had actually come to be because damn, haste is definitely overpowered. I didn't use it much because I didn't want to have too much resting degeneracy but when I did it was super-effective. I also wish short bows weren't so neglected; aside from generic +1s there's only one unique short bow and it's buried all the way in TotL and comes with a -2 constitution penalty. It's a strange oversight since all the other weapons were covered decently enough after the expansion.

It's also so funny how HoW gave the bard some absurdly great abilities to compensate for how awful it is as a class. So it may be awful, but it can also permafreeze most living creatures at level 9 and give your entire party AC and damage resistance bonuses plus regenerating health (goodbye degenerate resting!) at level 11.

It was mediocre overall; definitely undeserving of a place in the top ten. Not counting the expansion, when it comes to content it's slightly better than Dragon Age 2, and counting the expansion, Dragon Age: Origins actually has a much better filler:fun ratio (now that was surprising). Buncha background-art-whores and AD&D/Black Isle fanboys here.

Going to end this with my MVPs. Social Justice Warrior was in the lead up until chapter 5 when Patriarchy Smasher's axe grand mastery finally pushed her ahead (apparently the game thinks a magical throwing axe is a bow with arrows). So many dead men.

 

[RK47]