Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[boot]

I don't bleat about anything. When I make suboptimal parties I just end up restarting 10 hours in. Knowing they could have turned out even a little better gets to me.

I can't take a single class mage or Druid. Need more physical damage. Single class Druid helps at the start but toward the end is underwhelming. I will probably just make a human fighter mage. Fighter3->mage sounds good.

 

[Tigranes]

Nearly at Yxunomei.

Three Dwarves And A Gnome are now at level 8-9. I couldn't remember what the Insane / 4-party XP bonus is for IWD original, so I've been console-removing chunks of XP whenever it looked like it was too fast (e.g. getting level 4 spell slots when no scrolls are to be found). This does mean that the party often just can't stay toe to toe with Insane damage output, so hell, I have to get good old Web out even for a few Yuan-ti Elites. Yxunomei may well end up being brutal.

The Fighter's currently got some weapon choices (trying Item Upgrades mod), stun chance morning star and confusion chance longsword. Cleric following up with a stun chance flail, though none of this ends up firing very often due to the party dying like flies in sustained melee. The Fighter/Thief's been pinging about with the Shortbow +1, but obviously Messenger of Sseth awaits. The mage has been key with Chromatic Orb (stun at levels 6/7), Web and Haste - I imagine this would have been quite a slog if I went with the four dwarves. In any case, it's a rather silly party, but that's the fun.

 

[Barnabas]

Nearly at Yxunomei.

Three Dwarves And A Gnome are now at level 8-9. I couldn't remember what the Insane / 4-party XP bonus is for IWD original, so I've been console-removing chunks of XP whenever it looked like it was too fast (e.g. getting level 4 spell slots when no scrolls are to be found). This does mean that the party often just can't stay toe to toe with Insane damage output, so hell, I have to get good old Web out even for a few Yuan-ti Elites. Yxunomei may well end up being brutal.

The Fighter's currently got some weapon choices (trying Item Upgrades mod), stun chance morning star and confusion chance longsword. Cleric following up with a stun chance flail, though none of this ends up firing very often due to the party dying like flies in sustained melee. The Fighter/Thief's been pinging about with the Shortbow +1, but obviously Messenger of Sseth awaits. The mage has been key with Chromatic Orb (stun at levels 6/7), Web and Haste - I imagine this would have been quite a slog if I went with the four dwarves. In any case, it's a rather silly party, but that's the fun.

Good luck, that was my hardest fight in the game, don't forget to equip the +2 arrows.

 

[Tigranes]

Welp. Turns out with Messenger of Sseth and +2 arrows, Yxunomei gets eaten alive in about fifteen seconds.

Also reloaded and tried without - and with this kind of silly party that becomes a real grind; no 4th level spells (messed up the one scroll found so far), no speedy way to damage. Probably could pull it off by webbing the normal Yuan-ti to get in Yxu's way, but between the ones that break free and Yxu's own abilities it'd be a slog.

 

[the_shadow]

Welp. Turns out with Messenger of Sseth and +2 arrows, Yxunomei gets eaten alive in about fifteen seconds.

Yeah, 'attacks extra fast' actually means that you get an extra attack per round, which essentially turns the bow into a machine gun.

I've been fiddling with IWD again, and noticed a couple of things:

- Pale of Justice is a bit over-rated. The +7 to damage and THACO against evil seems nice, but almost nothing in this game has evil alignment. Most of your enemies are of neutral alignment, even enemies you'd think would veer towards being evil (eg. Fire Giants, salamanders, umber hulks, human thieves, orogs). Normal undead aren't considered evil either, which sort of makes sense since they are mindless abominations. This also greatly reduces the practical use of Holy Smite, which is way more useful in IWD 2.

- Holy Word is... strange. I just one-shot killed Maiden Illmadia with it. That shouldn't be happening according to the spell description.

- Darts are more useful than you'd think. Hammer darts have a 15% chance to stun on hit, and blinding darts have a 25% chance to blind, and you have a base attack rate of 3 per round. Hammer darts and blinding darts have an unlimited supply with a shopkeeper in the Tower of the Hand.

- The Druid shapeshifts are more useful than I had ever thought. The polar bear hits hard, and for 3 attacks per round. The boring beetle has high physical resistances that no other class can reach.

- I'm still not sold on the War Chant of the Sith. Yeah, it offers some decent buffs, but it doesn't feel overly powerful.

- Cone of Cold ignores magic resistance, making it a top tier spell. A mage and bard can wipe out magic resistant enemies in one punch if they focus fire with a cone of cold.

 

[octavius]

- I'm still not sold on the War Chant of the Sith. Yeah, it offers some decent buffs, but it doesn't feel overly powerful.

Its power is in healing, not buffing.
It means you don't need to memorize basic healing spells or rest to to heal. Just sit around a few minutes and your party will be back to max HP.
Which again means you can cast fewer spells in combat to minimize damage inflicted on your own party, which again means less need to rest. As long as you survive with all men alive the War Chant will fix you good in a few minutes.

 

[Tigranes]

If the cone of cold thing is true, that explains why it's always been surprisingly useful. Always seemed to pack more punch and get through to everybody.

Darts are super powerful, but I find them finnicky and end up never using them. Possibly that's why they took care to make it superpowered.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Fighter3 -> Mage is a really good choice imo. He gets some beef and thac0 from the 3 fighter levels and then goes into full spellcasting and max the character.

I did fighter 9 > mage. So I got the extra hits per round and additional proficiency slots (I think you get grandmaster or something for things like 2h sword)

 

[ga♥]

Agreed on druid shapeshifting abilities being ultra usefull. Especialy the beetle one in Dragon's eye, or frost wolf and fire elemental when you need the resistance. It also heals when you shift.

The Chant that stuns is way more usefull than the one that heals (which is way too slow anyway).

 

[the_shadow]

Just beat Icasaracht on Insane. I could beat her without any real tactics by just rushing her down, but almost all my party members were killed in the process. She's the only dragon in the Infinity Engine games who actually has a sizable bodyguard. I managed to win without any real losses by:

- Casting Mass Invisibility and navigating myself into a better position.

- Having each fighter drink a strength potion

- Cast one acid fog to slow down her flunkies, and a Symbol of Hopelessness to disable a significant portion of them.

- Shapeshift my Druid into a Water Elemental (almost immune to piercing/slashing weapons) and use him as a decoy while my fighters pelted the dragon with slings

GG game over. I almost came close to losing my druid near the end from Icasaracht's frost breath (I had 127% cold immunity on my druid, but you lose it when you shapeshift. Using a prot. from cold scroll can prevent this), but otherwise the whole process was actually pretty simple and a guaranteed victory. Ironically enough, while she is immune to most (all?) status effects, her magic resistance isn't that great, meaning a magic missile or flame arrow will usually connect. A simple unenchanted slingstone will also injure her. It's rather unexpected that a powerful dragon would be susceptible to unenchanted weapons and Magic Missile, but I'm not complaining.

I still have to beat Belhefit. Given my current level and equipment after completing HoW, I have a feeling I'm going to rip through him like tinfoil.

 

[Uncle Skull]

As a first time player and Infinity engine noob, should I play the original IWD or Beamdog's "EE"?

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'd say the original, but I haven't played the EE.

 

[Wayward Son]

original IWD

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

As a first time player and Infinity engine noob, should I play the original IWD or Beamdog's "EE"?

Kind of a loaded question really. Here on the codex, the majority vocal opinion will probably recommend the original version, just because everyone here is extremely critical of change of this nature, mostly for good reasons, but also some good ol' irrational venom. On other sites they may recommend the EE version, because that version allows for more variety of builds.

I'd probably recommend playing the first part of the game in EE, up until you've done a couple of caves in the Vale of Shadows, and then start again with the original version and play it up to the same point. Then take ur pick.

 

[Wayward Son]

The game's encounters are more balanced around the original's selection of classes, and the way proficiencies worked. It is far better imo.

 

[Grunker]

Uncle Skull I played both, and I have switched to backing the EE of BG1 and BG2 as the best versions (because of EET and newest versions of the most critical mods), and I recommend original IWD. Encounters are balanced around original rules; the EE gives you way too many powerful tools.

 

[hell bovine]

Unmodded IWD is more difficult than IWD EE. Counting mods, the toughest run I had was IWDEE with some xp tweak that slowed the level progression (can't recall the mod name anymore). But even then, the enemies were still dumb. Disappointing, because Big B could be a really nasty fight otherwise.

 

[Lacrymas]

There isn't an SCS-like mod for IWD unfortunately. If there was, even the BG2 additions wouldn't feel overly op.

 

[Grunker]

^ not necessarily. SCS makes BG difficult mainly by focusing on casters and calls to help. While the latter would certainly make IWD much harder, the former isn't as relevant.

IWD still has a lot of really good encounters because it makes up for the lack of competent enemies by just having A LOT of them sometimes, and it knows how to place them pretty annoyingly too at least for the first half.

 

[octavius]

Krasselack's Tomb would be impossible with Calls for Help, I think.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

As a first time player and Infinity engine noob, should I play the original IWD or Beamdog's "EE"?

IWD EE is the best EE (I didn't play PST EE yet). It doesn't fuck with the original content apart form a few really small things and you do get insta qs/sl as well as auto loot. So as shocking as it might sound I'd say go with EE. Just don't pay the absolutely ridiculous asking price.

Regarding kits/spells - you're not forced to use them, you can even gimp yourself going with hurr-durr party like monk, wizard slayer, beast master, which would be extra-hard mode through most of the game. And the kits at least spice the party progression a little bit, the vanilla character development options are horrible. And adding sorcerers is actually good, they're op as always, but the spell selection through huge periods of vanilla was and still is horrible so fuck that.

 

[Wayward Son]

And adding sorcerers is actually good, they're op as always, but the spell selection through huge periods of vanilla was and still is horrible so fuck that.

I will give you that one. Always liked sorcerers.

 

[Melcar]

With the extra difficulty options they added at the end the game wasn't that bad.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

The EE isn't at all a bad way to go, but as others have said, the original is more balanced.

There are a few features that the EE has that are nice imo, such as zooming in/out, quick loot, etc.

 

[hell bovine]

^ not necessarily. SCS makes BG difficult mainly by focusing on casters and calls to help. While the latter would certainly make IWD much harder, the former isn't as relevant.

IWD still has a lot of really good encounters because it makes up for the lack of competent enemies by just having A LOT of them sometimes, and it knows how to place them pretty annoyingly too at least for the first half.

SCS also has fighters switch attacks based on ac an resistances, which would do wonders for all the melee grunts in IWD.
You can't make up for that with masses of enemies.