Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[0sacred]

Well there are two things I distinctly remember after all this time: taking minutes to prebuff before every fight, and waiting for the damn summons to come out right.

 

[0sacred]

IIRC the whole encounter thingamabob worked like this: the encounter level was tested against average character level to determine XP. If it was equal to your own level you got more XP, less if character level was higher (and possibly more if it was less). So with an Aasimar and a Deep Gnome in the party your average character level would be (2+4+1+1+1+1)/6 = 1,6. Now the devious thing about IWD2 was that I've heard this number is always rounded up, resulting in an average character level of 2 instead of 1. OTOH if you use any race with a higher character level the average character level is always going to go up, so it doesn't matter unless you use so many races with a higher character level that average character level goes up another level.

Can anyone confirm this?

 

[Jigby]

The average party level is just all char_levels added together/party size. Also it's not rounded up, it's just an integer. So something like average party level 15.9 will be taken as 15.

Edit: the integer part I'm 100% certain, since I abuse that in solo + mule. The effect of ECL, well, you can always test it and see... maybe 95% certain?

 

[0sacred]

So I think I've decided on the new party.

Aasimar paladin/fighter(4)
Shield Dwarf druid/fighter(1)
Drow cleric of Selune
Strongheart Halfling rogue/ranger

I'm gonna try my luck with a Drow decoy. I feel like the Deep Gnome thing is overdone, just reading about it everywhere makes it seem boring.

I'm not sure what I want to do with the last two slots in my party, I'm thinking either wizard and sorceror or bard and wizard. The bard's skills would come in handy (my rogue/ranger doesn't have pickpocket covered) but since this party doesn't have great physical damage dealers I'm not sure how useful the bard songs are vs. another nuker.

 

[Jigby]

Strongheart Halfling rogue/ranger

both rangers and rogues are horrible in IWD2. Locks can be just bashed and sneak attacks are awkward. Other than that, yeah, you probably need an arcane caster.

 

[0sacred]

no traps, just like in IWD1?

 

[Jigby]

Almost no traps and the few there are, you can just absorb.

I'd take an arcane caster for the Lock Knock spell, there are a couple of locks starting with the Dragon's Eye in chapter 5 that are difficult to bash.

 

[Melcar]

Rogues are largely irrelevant in IWD2 as you can use thieving abilities with anyone (and the main point of using a Rogue is for thieving skills). Just allocate skill points accordingly. Spread them out among your characters, or assign a high intelligence character as the "thief" in the party.

 

[Average Manatee]

A wizard with decent dex can cover trap stuff just fine. You've got invisibility and the find traps spell as well. Just make sure you don't dump dex (not that there's much reason to).

The EE does fix sneak attack and buff rogues to be at least decent at what they are supposed to do in battle. Without it they are an absolute joke. Sneak Attack in 3rd Ed is supposed to be something you can do multiple times in a row to a target but IWD2 has like a 10s cooldown for no good reason.

both rangers and rogues are horrible in IWD2. Locks can be just bashed and sneak attacks are awkward. Other than that, yeah, you probably need an arcane caster.

Rangers are honestly alright in IWD2? At least compared to other full BAB classes.

The only real drawback vs. fighters is a -4 damage from not getting weapon specialization (and you can just multiclass /4 fighter for that). In exchange you get favored enemy (if you've played before you can make decent picks that will give you good bonuses for half the difficult enemies in the game), along with eventually spell casting. The spells aren't as good as Paladin, and their inherent abilities aren't as good as barbarian, but it's at least serviceable and not comparable to the awfulness of rogue. With sneak attack being broken rogue gets jack shit in exchange for being a medium BAB class.

 

[0sacred]

I just couldn't find a good way to incorporate a paladin into either a melee heavy or magic heavy party. So I guess I will indeed abuse summons (again).

Aasimar paladin/fighter(4)
Gold Dwarf cleric of Helm
Moon Elf druid
Aasimar cleric of Lathander
Human bard
Gnome illusionist/fighter

is it still true that only gnomes can multiclass to a specialist wizard without XP penalty? If not, what's the point of the gnome's favored class (I recall gnomes' favored class to be bard).

Is abjuration as a school worth having? I don't remember facing many magic wielding enemies.

 

[Cael]

IIRC the whole encounter thingamabob worked like this: the encounter level was tested against average character level to determine XP. If it was equal to your own level you got more XP, less if character level was higher (and possibly more if it was less). So with an Aasimar and a Deep Gnome in the party your average character level would be (2+4+1+1+1+1)/6 = 1,6. Now the devious thing about IWD2 was that I've heard this number is always rounded up, resulting in an average character level of 2 instead of 1. OTOH if you use any race with a higher character level the average character level is always going to go up, so it doesn't matter unless you use so many races with a higher character level that average character level goes up another level.

Can anyone confirm this?

It is the other way around. The decimal is truncated. A part of 5x Deep Gnome + 1 Drow will have a party LA of +2.

Also, for party composition, I find Pal 1/Cleric x is a pretty good frontliner with a few buff spells. Best of both worlds.

Abjuration has dispel magic as well as shield, globe and a few others. It is useful.

 

[rojay]

I just couldn't find a good way to incorporate a paladin into either a melee heavy or magic heavy party. So I guess I will indeed abuse summons (again).

Aasimar paladin/fighter(4)
Gold Dwarf cleric of Helm
Moon Elf druid
Aasimar cleric of Lathander
Human bard
Gnome illusionist/fighter

is it still true that only gnomes can multiclass to a specialist wizard without XP penalty? If not, what's the point of the gnome's favored class (I recall gnomes' favored class to be bard).

Is abjuration as a school worth having? I don't remember facing many magic wielding enemies.

Pretty sure favored class for gnome was illusionist but I don't remember whether that makes a difference in IWD2. Ranger on the other hand isn't bad if you focus on ranged, but I sometimes take one just to make the tree-maze level less awful.

Your party looks good as it is, though. Should be fun.

 

[Cael]

I just couldn't find a good way to incorporate a paladin into either a melee heavy or magic heavy party. So I guess I will indeed abuse summons (again).

Aasimar paladin/fighter(4)
Gold Dwarf cleric of Helm
Moon Elf druid
Aasimar cleric of Lathander
Human bard
Gnome illusionist/fighter

is it still true that only gnomes can multiclass to a specialist wizard without XP penalty? If not, what's the point of the gnome's favored class (I recall gnomes' favored class to be bard).

Is abjuration as a school worth having? I don't remember facing many magic wielding enemies.

Pretty sure favored class for gnome was illusionist but I don't remember whether that makes a difference in IWD2. Ranger on the other hand isn't bad if you focus on ranged, but I sometimes take one just to make the tree-maze level less awful.

Your party looks good as it is, though. Should be fun.

Just bring a druid.

 

[Average Manatee]

RE: ECL

XP is scaled to party level so hardcore that ECL basically doesn't matter for the overall party level past the early game. If you take a full +3 ECL party you'll end the game at essentially the same level, just reaching each level a few fights later than the non-ECL party. So for that purpose you can ignore ECL. What ECL *does* meaningfully impact is in mixed parties to make the non-ECL characters level faster. So if you take 3 of +3 ECL frontliners and 3 of +0 ECL casters, your casters will be on average 1.5 levels ahead of a full +0 ECL party while the frontliners will be 1.5 levels behind them. Which is generally a good thing since those classes scale better than a fighter getting +1 AB.

Trying to game the system by limiting leveling to certain breakpoints is possible but ultimately pretty self-defeating as you'll just level up not at all for long stretches of the game after getting "ahead" of the curve. The only way to really profitably game the system is to run something like a 4 man party with 2 level 1s that exist purely to sink average party level into the floor.

 

[Jigby]

In a normal playthrough I'd have arcane casters / clerics take non-ECL races. I don't really optimize parties around ECL other than that. In solo playthroughs / HoF, ECL races are obviously superior, since you reach level 30 anyway (and very quickly at that). The only place where I semi-consciously optimize is in chapter 2 - I try to have average party level of 7 or less.

 

[Jigby]

Is abjuration as a school worth having? I don't remember facing many magic wielding enemies.

The strong schools are necromancy/evocation/enchantment. Mostly because specialists have a +2 bonus to their spell school's DC (maybe an unaccounted leftover from IWD1).

edit:..ehm, necromancy for the Wail of the Banshee... but you won't be getting that on normal. So on normal just evocation/enchantment.

 

[Cael]

Is abjuration as a school worth having? I don't remember facing many magic wielding enemies.

The strong schools are necromancy/evocation/enchantment. Mostly because specialists have a +2 bonus to their spell school's DC (maybe an unaccounted leftover from IWD1).

3.0 was +2DC. They nerfed it in 3.5.

 

[Jigby]

Is abjuration as a school worth having? I don't remember facing many magic wielding enemies.

The strong schools are necromancy/evocation/enchantment. Mostly because specialists have a +2 bonus to their spell school's DC (maybe an unaccounted leftover from IWD1).

3.0 was +2DC. They nerfed it in 3.5.

well, they could have at least acknowledged the bonus in the description box

 

[Cael]

Is abjuration as a school worth having? I don't remember facing many magic wielding enemies.

The strong schools are necromancy/evocation/enchantment. Mostly because specialists have a +2 bonus to their spell school's DC (maybe an unaccounted leftover from IWD1).

3.0 was +2DC. They nerfed it in 3.5.

well, they could have at least acknowledged the bonus in the description box

Dude, in 3.0, Spell Focus was +2 as well. They nerfed that to +2 in 3.5. People keep saying that 3.5 suffered from power creep, when DnD 3rd Ed started off much worse and 3.5 was the nerf.

 

[Jigby]

Is abjuration as a school worth having? I don't remember facing many magic wielding enemies.

The strong schools are necromancy/evocation/enchantment. Mostly because specialists have a +2 bonus to their spell school's DC (maybe an unaccounted leftover from IWD1).

3.0 was +2DC. They nerfed it in 3.5.

well, they could have at least acknowledged the bonus in the description box

Dude, in 3.0, Spell Focus was +2 as well. They nerfed that to +2 in 3.5. People keep saying that 3.5 suffered from power creep, when DnD 3rd Ed started off much worse and 3.5 was the nerf.

Yes, and I'm saying that BIS could have documented the bonus in manual/description box. Also, just to not mix things up, I'm talking about specialist wizards. Not spell focus feats.

It the +2 bonus that you had in mind was in relation to the feats, then I'm going back to my original conjecture, i.e. a leftover from IWD1.

 

[Fictive Cunt]

no traps, just like in IWD1?

For Infinity Engine, only Siege of Dragonspear, but they don't join your party