Icewind Dale
After finishing the Baldur's Gate series, I now want to begin the Icewind Dale series. I've heard that the games are much more combat oriented(I'm totally fine with that) and much more challenging. I also need to create my own party. It is based on a modded version of the 2nd dnd ruleset am I right? I'm pretty sure I have a full capability of getting used to the mechanics of the Infinity Engine games. Any advice before I start?
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Icewind Dale II is entirely in 3E. Subraces, different rules and spells.
And yes they're worth it.
There are no NPCs so you have to create your full party from the beginning, but that's the fun of them. Freedom to create a party of six as you want, with lots of portraits.
It's a fun game, but be ready to reload outside of a room to get the item you need. Also, never go for a single class thief; always dual or multi with something else. Have one gnome of halfling in every party: best helmet in the game is limited to them.
Plus with all the fighting you do a thief will level up very quickly, and you will never need that many points skill points. Do yourself a favor and give yourself a back up mage or cleric for those sticky situations.
http://www.pocketplane.net/iwdnpc
Anyways, more tips:
There are some weapons you should rarely consider, and staves are one of them. BG2 has great staff choices... this game barely has any.
On the other hand, Great Swords, Long Swords and maces (via morningstars) are great at all points and you'll get decent mileage out of axes and hammers to a lesser degree.
Friendly Random Drops is supposed to read from the current state of the table so it should pick up changes from any source, though there are currently some other bugs with it that need fixing (the merchant leaves prematurely).
It's like you controlling an entire multiplayer party, created entirely by you. And it is wonderful. Because this way you can get ideal stats from rerolling, and classes/combinations that you know they will get you easily and far.
It has some differences from BG though, like druids being more powerful as a class here, elves being able to roll a druid (i couldn't resist making one), many spells are different, a neutral cleric won't get all spells (instead, you need a chaotic good one for getting good alignment exclusive divine spells and a chaotic evil one for getting evil alignment exclusive divine spells, because certain spells are available only to chaotic alignment...), game is much more combat oriented, multiclass characters here have the upper hand (they can hit max level in both or all classes, which is 30), bard is crazy kinky imba cheese stuff (especially if you happen to get the summon 4 berserkers item), druids kick ass, and certain spells are different, like the elemental summons (here there is water one instead of air).
Also, with the expansions in, you have access to bags of holding, potions, scrolls and whatever else it was. Very good game. Also, it has 2 handed axes (and 2 handed hammers, if i remember well?). But no class kits, or the very crazy broken overpowered spells BG 2 had. A little gem. I never liked 2. It had the 3 rules set and you couldn't import over characters from 1, like in BG 2 from BG 1 you could...
My advice is:
Make one Chaotic Good, Cleric/Ranger MULTICLASS.
Make one Chaotic Evil, Cleric/Mage, or a Fighter/Mage/Cleric MULTICLASS.
You have to make one elven druid.
You have to make one bard.
You have to make a MULTICLASS Fighter/Thief, probably elf, or a Fighter/Mage/Thief; remember to avoid single thief class.
And a paladin would also be good.
This way, you have ALL classes covered exactly at six slots. Avoid dual classing. Stick to multi. Both for racial bonuses, and because you can hit max level anyway to all classes involved...
Also this isn't a game where mages are gods. There are 2 Level 9 spells, both rather meh and both conjuration. Again, dual or multi mages serve far better.