Heart of Fury difficulty

Jarrakul

Hello, all. While I have tried many different playthroughs in all of the IE games, I have not tried a Heart of Fury playthrough of IWD from level 1. I'm debating whether or not I should do so now that IWDEE is coming out, so I'm wondering what it's comparable to, difficulty-wise? SCS, maybe? Thanks.

Alexisisinneed

I believe Heart of Fury was the hardest difficulty in the Icewind Dale series. I believe it was similar to the Insane difficulty of the Bg series. But I could totally be wrong here.

CrevsDaak

It gives enemies lots of HP, more THAC0, higher APR, better AC and they also hit harder.
Which means it makes the game really difficult at low levels.

Jarrakul

Thanks. I know more-or-less what it does, though. I've played Heart of Fury, just not with a new party. I'm wondering how feasible that is to do without insane levels of cheese, basically.

Mathsorcerer

It is *possible* to start a HoF game with a 1st-level party but I strongly advise against it. This advice will save you the frustration I irrationally caused myself. Nevertheless, if you really like a challenge then by all means proceed. You will definitely want to deal with the other small quests in Easthaven before trying to head south out of town and you will want a bard and a ranger in your party to make life easier on yourself.

If I recall correctly, HoF multiplies a creatures hit points by 4 then adds 80, I am uncertain what it does to their HD and Thac0, and their xp value for defeating them is also multiplied by 4 then add 2000 on top of that (goblins have a base 35 for their defeat which then becomes 2140 in HoF). The Monster Summoning spells mages may learn become highly useful since the creatures you summon also have the HoF multipliers applied to them; the same goes for summoning elementals or animating dead. If your clerics encounter undead don't bother trying to turn them--you will only waste your time.

Dazzu

You will need summons. In EE, kits that start with summonable creatures. like the Totemic Druid, could do some HoFing.

Twilight_Fox

In heart of fury, every goblin and their grandmother have 100-120hp (I let you imagine the other creatures).

You may want to be extremely careful with your spells selection for example. The best course of action in my opinion is to beat the game at normal difficulty 1 time while keeping in mind that in your next session every mod will have 100hp and more and will rarely miss. Heart of fury will then be very enjoyable and you will gain some godly stuff by playing it.

Ygramul

Heart of Fury is irrelevant.

AD&D was balanced. Progression of levels and challenges were amazing. HoF is just an artificial dumb invention to match "Nightmare" mode of Diablo back then. You are casting lvl 9 spells at goblins?! Your Fireball just tickles them?!

Skip it.

Just play the game with another (gimped, imperfect) party, if you want a challenge.

Twilight_Fox

I have to disagree with ygramul.

Heart of fury allow you to use a different approach than the classic d&d dmg based spells strategy (magic missile, fireball, melf arrow, etc) and its a lot of fun once your spells books are well sorted.

You have in fact to use a different set of spells (and carefully read their descriptions). Your summoning spells, enchantments spells and necromancy spells will get you out of every situations and some high circles dmg based spells will still be goldy. But to make sure that every party member will do their part, they must be at least lvl17-19 and nicely equipped.

The core rules of the game are perfect (normal) and enjoyable but if you want to try something really different, try heart of fury. You will even gain more powerful items in the process if after (for example) you wish to beat the game with less characters in your party.

*My bests souvenirs of heart of fury are from Iwd2, I clearly remember that each of my party members were able to do their part in the fight. A well equipped warrior can still easily kill a target in 6-8 strikes, a thief can still backstab is prey and finish it will a second quick strike, a cleric can still keep alive everyone and the mage can still kill or charm many enemies in one spell. Iwd1 is very similar since the lvl cap is the same, minor the feats.

DreadKhan

I think HoF was meant to be played with at least a mid-level party... against such a party, its not that unbalanced, but AC becomes practicly speaking irrelevant, and damage resistance becomes required for your tanks. In IWD2 HoF you could still utilize some brute force, but IWD has less optimization potential, so you will want to use lots of summons for your melee combatants. In IWD2 barbarian fighter was effective, but in IWD your damage and HP hit a soft cap sooner.

Starting at lvl 1 would be very hard... no summons, and limited crowd control options; I'd try it with a 3rd to 5th level party first. Once you figure out some tactics that work, you could try a lvl 1 party.

Mathsorcerer

At the very least you need a 5th-level cleric who can cast Animate Dead so that your summoned undead also get to take advantage of the HoF effects. The Monster Summoning spells for mages and Animal Summoning spells for druids (especially Giant Insect) become *extremely* useful in HoF even though they are only marginally useful even when playing on Insane.

Jarrakul

I've actually played it with a party that had already beaten the game. Found it to be pretty laughably easy. I like the suggestion of trying it with a 3rd-to-5th level party, though. That sounds like it might be good fun.

Also, this totally sounds like a job for totem druids.

DreadKhan

In IWDEE, I suspect will not boost totems specifically to avoid this workaround, but we'll see.

Animate Dead will be extremely useful. Also, consider strongly the benefits of buffing your summons for tougher fights. You can haste skellies, right? If their str isnt very high, use Strength of One, and dont forget Righteous Wrath of the Faithful!

KingGhidorah

Ive done it with a 4 person level 1 party and loved it.
The first group of goblins and the first few orcs are a pain, then it quickly gets better.
Few things to keep in mind:

- Animate dead is your friend early on (summons will also get the same boosts in HoF)
- A rangers charm animal is your friend (you can charm ogres iirc)
- In fact, all of your casters should focus on summoning

My party looked like this:

Human Ranger 13/Cleric X dual
Dwarf Fighter/Cleric multi
Human Thief 10/Mage X dual
Human Cleric 15 (i think)/Mage X dual

Im thinking of actually doing a Beastmaster/Cleric dual in IWD:EE to take advantage of the mad animal summoning they gain when dualled at lvl 12

Fardragon

AD&D was never remotely balanced. A good DM would adjust the challenges to suit the abilities and preferences of his players and their characters.

As something of a purist, I prefer to play using core rules. The best way to adjust the difficulty in IWD is unpowergaming. Create a sub-optimal party. Role play to the hilt.

Jarrakul

I've been doing that for years, Fardragon. It is an awesome way to play the game, and I'd even argue it's the way the games were meant to be played. But I kind of like changing things up every so often, so I'm exploring my options.

Dazzu

I'll say that a Dwarven Defender will spank this mode so bad! Mixing the abundance of resistance items with his Defensive stance and natural resistances means that if exceeding 100 resistances works like it does in IWD originally did, you'll heal for whatever % exceeds 100! I think it worked for magics, not sure about physical, but even still, Dwarven Defenders should run into rooms of enemies and gather them all on him as you launch AoE magic for CC and damage.

Manveru123

Level 1 HoF looks like it would be a lot of fun with the "new" kits. I'm planning a run like that, using a Paladin (Undead Hunter), F/M/T, Bard and a Totemic Druid.

However, to keep your sanity I still suggest clearing the game on normal mode and then importing your group to do HoF. Otherwise... there will be a lot of pain

Altair

I actually think the best way to get the most out of the Heart of Fury mode is to start it at level 1. Of course it is very hard at the beginning, but where is the fun without challenge? It feels so great to invent new heroic strategies and to be rewarded by several experience levels at a time after killing just a couple of goblins! And you become powerful so much quicker, that things tend to even out at the end. Give it a try and don't give up!