Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Lonely Vazdru]

That "Most Powerful Vanquished" line is rather degrading.

 

[Shadenuat]

Got the support beams slaughter perk too

Damn, I don't remember game having so many scripted encounters. Did I ever tell how much I hate "suddenly monsters behind party!" design?
THIS MUCH
And some locations feature multiple backspawns, like the way to the Monastery is a single backspawn fuckyou-up: you get attacked by spiders who then spawn from behind and other directions; then when you solve boulder puzzle you get attacked from the south (river and forest wall - no place for anyone to hide) by barbarians... TWICE, then white dragons scripted event, then it's THE HOOK BABY, hookmonsters spawn three times from out of nowhere... and the finale is that guy with bears. Love it, pure next-gen - I scout the place with thief, I find them, trigger the script, my whole party teleports right into the ambush...

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Yeah, I don't like the scripted fights either and ID2 abuses them. It's probably meant to prevent cheesing like in the previous IE games where you could kill pretty much everything easily when using scouting, positioning and AI stupidity. But since I hardly ever played that way, I felt royally fucked with those "forced fairness" surrounding encounters that made a mess of my "really random positioning" usual playstyle. The more so with enemies targeting the closest party member "no matter what". Which leads to eternities of "merry-go-round" with my chased sorceress, since it takes about an hour for the AI to change target when outrunned.

 

[Shadenuat]

They don't let us scout around with rogues, and then they say rogues are useless and have to be DPS.
Merry-go-round can be solved by invisibility potion or Tortoise Shell/Resilent Sphere. Funny thing though, it does not even lend results designers thought it would (if it is intentional and not just some AI glitch) - I got all my guys with +3 ranged weapons, crossbows of doom and such, so whenever somebody decides to go around, I just let them and shoot him meanwhile. Stupid AI.

 

[Roguey]

Did I ever tell how much I hate "suddenly monsters behind party!" design?

I love it when used in moderation. You can ambush them, they can ambush you. Fair.

 

[Shadenuat]

If only we used same mechanics to ambush each other - that would be fair.

 

[Average Manatee]

If only we used same mechanics to ambush each other - that would be fair.

Think of enemies as being in 100% cutscene paralysis 24/7 until they see your party.

 

[Erebus]

Having missed the "Six Followers" fight the first time I played IWD2, I was eager to try it this time. I went to the cemetery, lowered the difficulty to "Normal" (instead of "Hard")... and accidentally triggered the fight before I could cast the slightest buff on my PCs or summon any monster to act as a meatshield.

I still won (largely because Earthquake is one overpowered freaking spell and I had two clerics able to cast it), but I lost four of my PCs. Only my sorcerer and (appropriately) my paladin survived.

Rather a fun fight, all in all. I'll retry it (with appropriate pre-combat casting) and see if I manage to win it on Hard without losing anyone.

 

[Shadenuat]

I never had that fight since I never got a paladin that far. Have to try it out, as I already have new party in mind. Party building is the fun aspect of this game, unlike some of the dungeons (Dragon's Eye > Timefuck > Re-used Ice Temple with demons being the laziest design I've seen in IE games).
I guess I need to finish my first run before that though. I Insane'd till Severed Hand and freed the priest, now need to screw up the twins.

Ah, IE and it's broken spells. A wizard with 6 Mirror Images memorized is a better tank than Barb with 250+ hit points. I had to tank black dragon (100-200 damage per hit) with wizard while bard sang his Fear protection song.
Lathanderite is probably the best designed single class all around in this game. In one pack you get best healer, buffer, reasonable fighter, tank and fire sorcerer with Holy Smite. And better undead turner on top of it. Rogue/Demarch of Mask is a ton cooler concept however, even if Rogue/Wizard is the best rogue you can actually have.

 

[Erebus]

With proper preparations, the fight wasn't too difficult, even on Hard. I'll have to try it without summoning meatshields first, one of these days.

Of course, knowing what to expect was also a big help (especially since the Six Followers all have special immunities). I slaughtered the spellcasters before they could do much, then the archer, then the three hand-to-hand fighters.

 

[Dorateen]

The Battle with the Lost Six, and the accompanying backstory about Duke Kholsa Ehld was one of the highpoints of the Infinity Engine. Many of the item descriptions in the Icewind Dale series (such as Pale Justice) surpassed in quality of writing the level of narrative from other titles. That was also probably the penultimate "Party vs. Party" fight.

 

[Shadenuat]

Pale Justice was a great item. Icewind Dale 2 is watered down by a lot of randomized items who surpass named ones in power frequently though.

 

[Erebus]

The Battle with the Lost Six, and the accompanying backstory about Duke Kholsa Ehld was one of the highpoints of the Infinity Engine. Many of the item descriptions in the Icewind Dale series (such as Pale Justice) surpassed in quality of writing the level of narrative from other titles.

The way the story told on the Medallion suggests how to deal with each of the Lost Six is a nice touch.

The mini-stories told in many item descriptions can be pretty entertaining and imaginative, but I feel that the time devoted to writing them could often have been put to better use. It's fine for a special weapon such as a Holy Avenger to have a developed story, but most magical items could do with less than a dozen lines. Few people are going to bother reading the description of an item inferior to what they already have (and it's common to find such items in IWD2) if it's longer than that.

 

[Roguey]

The majority of item descriptions were written by ~Josh Sawyer~ and he writes what he wants.

 

[Dorateen]

The mini-stories told in many item descriptions can be pretty entertaining and imaginative, but I feel that the time devoted to writing them could often have been put to better use. It's fine for a special weapon such as a Holy Avenger to have a developed story, but most magical items could do with less than a dozen lines.

I just had a thought. If the IWD2 Holy Avenger quest had been designed by a bioware writer today, the exposition would have been delivered not from an item description, but from Duke Kholsa Ehld himself who would have appeared as a joinable NPC (romanceable, of course, by a male) and the battle would have been resolved through a cut-scene.

 

[Surf Solar]

The Battle with the Lost Six, and the accompanying backstory about Duke Kholsa Ehld was one of the highpoints of the Infinity Engine. Many of the item descriptions in the Icewind Dale series (such as Pale Justice) surpassed in quality of writing the level of narrative from other titles.

The way the story told on the Medallion suggests how to deal with each of the Lost Six is a nice touch.

The mini-stories told in many item descriptions can be pretty entertaining and imaginative, but I feel that the time devoted to writing them could often have been put to better use. It's fine for a special weapon such as a Holy Avenger to have a developed story, but most magical items could do with less than a dozen lines. Few people are going to bother reading the description of an item inferior to what they already have (and it's common to find such items in IWD2) if it's longer than that.

It's not that writing down such a story takes weeks to do...

 

[Erebus]

It's not that writing down such a story takes weeks to do...

What I meant is that writing a more developed dialogue for a minor character (for instance) would be a better use of time than writing 25 lines of description for a Hammer +1 that has a 15% chance of deafening your opponent for 3 rounds if he fails a Fortitude check.

 

[roshan]

Here's how 3ed works:

Fighter class and similar get +1 BAB (base attack bonus) per level.
Monk, Cleric, etc kind-of-fighters get +.75 BAB per level.
Full casters get +.5 BAB per level.

BAB (obviously) is a big part of your attack bonus, but you also get an additional attack per round for every 5 BAB, at -5 to hit from the previous attack.

A lvl 10 fighter with 20 strength will have 10 BAB, +5 AB. That translates to 3 attacks at +15/+10/+5 AB. Keep in mind warriors are also using big, beefy weapons that will have a base damage twice that of a dagger along with their inherent +5 damage.

A lvl 10 monk with 20 dex and weapon finesse will have 7 BAB, +5 AB. That translates to 2 attacks at +12/+7 AB. And a monk/sorc dualclass will be even worse than that. Your hakf-decent starting AB bonus at level 1 becomes paltry because you are losing AB and eventually attacks with every level you gain.

Basically the only way to make non-fighters worthwhile in melee is to: A. Buff them a ton (This is where clerics become imba) or B. Have some kind of class-specific ability (Rogue backstab, Monk unarmed bonus damage, and even 2d10 fists fall short when you realize they hit less and don't buff). But catching up to them in their own game they were designed to play is futile. Full BAB progression is the primary draw of fighter classes, like full spell progression is the draw of caster classes. And Clerics are imba.

You're pretty much wrong about everything.

Extra attacks are based on your base BAB, not your total attack bonus. Also, your first attack comes at +6 BAB, second at +11 BAB and third at +16 BAB. It's every 5 BAB more than 1. So (BAB-1)/5.

Also, note that a monk has separate progressions for it's unarmed attacks and it's attacks with weapons (which are the same as clerics). Monks get extra unarmed attacks at +4, +7, +10 and +13. Basically the normal formula is (BAB-1)/5 but for Monks it's (BAB-1)/3.

Also, in 3E pretty much every class can hold it's own in melee except the Wizards and Sorcs, since as opposed to 2E, their bonuses from CON are not capped, furthermore, there's no "exceptional strength" that only fighter classes can have, and they get extra attacks per round too, albeit at a slower rate.

 

[Roguey]

What I meant is that writing a more developed dialogue for a minor character (for instance) would be a better use of time than writing 25 lines of description for a Hammer +1 that has a 15% chance of deafening your opponent for 3 rounds if he fails a Fortitude check.

"Writing compelling dialogue requires a different skill set than writing compelling exposition."--Josh Sawyer

By his own admission, he's slow and not very good at dialogue.

 

[Shadenuat]

Well, dialogues in IWD2 are exactly that, exposition. You either stand there and listen to cutscenes, or pick lines which constantly loop with each other.

Made a new party yesterday: aasimar Fighter 4/Paladin, human Fighter 4/Barbarian, human Druid, wild elf Stormbringer of Talos (only because I wanted female drow soundset so much), drow ROGUEY 1/Wizard, human Sorcerer.
My previous party just lacked physical and electrical damage to finish Isair and Madae on Insane, and I did't get that holy avenger fight.
Also I chosen some wrong perks. For example, druid really needs those 2 dots in Transmutation - it oomps all his crowd control (Entangle with +4 at level 1? yeaaaah) and electrical spells (which are devastating). Roguey/Wizard will start with 2 dots in Enchantment (ENCHANTMENT!11... very useful in the beginning), then 2 for Necromancy (Skull trap, Burning blood, FoD, Banshee...) and Transmutation (Desu-negrate). Stormlady obviously is Evocation specialist.
That leaves me with sorc, and I'm wondering if maybe I should specialize in something else than fire&lightning.

 

[Roguey]

Well, dialogues in IWD2 are exactly that, exposition. You either stand there and listen to cutscenes, or pick lines which constantly loop with each other.

He wrote that in response to someone asking why the books in the ES games are more interesting than the plots.

 

[Shadenuat]

You know, I never found books in TES that fascinating either.

 

[Erebus]

For example, druid really needs those 2 dots in Transmutation - it oomps all his crowd control (Entangle with +4 at level 1? yeaaaah) and electrical spells (which are devastating).

Are you sure you wouldn't be better off with a second cleric ? I found high-level druidic spells to be less than impressive. They have only three 8th-level spells ; Heal is a 7th-level spell for druids while it's a 6th-level spell for clerics ; Tremor is a 9th-level spell for druids and an 8th-level spell for clerics ; etc.

 

[Shadenuat]

Nah, treehuggers fan here. Also, his lightning spells make some of the Insane encounters not that Insane (like The Guardian), as well as crowd control ones. He is also the dude when you need to finish all 6 challenges in the Monastery. Spell selection? Is't that different from regular cleric. It's not like you need anything but Heal/Mass Heal, Tremor, Finger of Death anyway.
Elementals attacking party and other summons is stupid though.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

He is also the dude when you need to finish all 6 challenges in the Monastery..

I did just that in my current playthrough. I don't have a monk so I used my druid, he breezed through all chambers except the last which was tough as usual. I was so happy to finally put those shapeshifting abilities to some use.