I created a party, as per the three rules, with subsets, outlined above. Started at the beginning. I have only just completed the first mission and am about to go on the expedition with Hrothgar.
Here is my group:
The Northwind Adventuring Company:
Alvaric Evenstone, Human male Priest of Tyr, Lawful Good. S:17 D:14 C:8 I:18 W:16 Ch:17
Grimfirth, Human Male Fighter, Chaotic Good S:18/37 D:18 C:18 I:8 W:12 Ch:12 Two Handed Sword**, Long bow**
Mara Swiftblade, Human Female Swashbuckler, True Neutral S:16 D:18 C:12 I:10 W:11 Ch:9 Short sword, dagger OL: 35, FT: 40, PP: 25, MS: 20, HS: 15, DI: 0, ST: 5
Moresca Silverleaf, Female Elf Archer, Chaotic Good S: 15, D:17 C: 16, I: 9 W: 14, Ch: 10 Long Sword+, Dagger+, Longbow++, Two Weapon Style ++ Racial Enemy: Trolls
Back when I played D&D with these rules, we were supposed to roll for our stats -then- choose a race and class based on what we got. Those were the official rules. Using the +/- buttons is a huge temptation and leads to serious min/maxing though.
I hit the reroll button numerous times to get Grimfirth the Fighter's stats, I wanted a strength score of at least 16, I would have been happy with that. What happens with high stat characters in hardcore games though is they get overconfident.
As for Alvaric Evenstone: Priest of Tyr, had I rolled those stats first before doing anything else, I would have considered him for fighter/mage.
Everyone else's characters seem so fast-and-loose with their stats and I suspect that i am not getting the spirit in which this challenge was posted. That Cavelier with the 12 Str for sxample, that takes some seeious cojones to play that character. Hats off to you!
Now that I think about it, I could have offset my good statted characters by choosing less than optimum skills and accessories. Perhaps an uncommon weapon for the fighter, say the bastard sword or even specialize him in the quarterstaff? I think maybe I will redo my group.
I'm realizing increasingly how bad the original AI is, after getting used to SCS AI. (I wanna send a Thank You again to @DavidW here for his excellent work on SCS.)
Even with all the restrictions above, the game is still a cakewalk. (Currently at Severed Hand.) (Remember I am using the Rules above: no min-max; no-reload; no munchkin. And it's been many years since I played IWD, so it's not like I memorized encounters. I'm even refraining from Summons. My frontliner Paladin has the least HP of the whole team. etc. etc.)
Here are some issues: - You can scout indefinitely unchallenged. One single Invisibility-ed thief can remove all traps of a level and help you plan all encounters before hand. In SCS, mages and priests know to cast anti-invisibility spells and would eat your thief for breakfast.
(One nice exception was the Shadow ambushes at Severed Hand out of nowhere. Nicely done thematically, which was also in the original game, I think. I had to break a sweat there.)
- Monsters not avoiding AoE spells: They happily walk into your Web and Spike Growth to get slaughtered. SCS AI avoids AoE.
- Terrible aggro. One room has nearly 20 skeletons in it; they "activate" 4-5 at a time as I step in; the rest wait until you are within their vision radius.
It's like the Austin Powers spoof of henchmen waiting to attack one at a time.
In SCS, nearby monsters call each other to help.
Basically, I am playing just to recall the story and enjoy the nicely hand drawn environments.
There is no game here, not compared to SCS-enhanced BG2. "Enhanced Edition" for IWD is a failure in my opinion: they should have worked on the AI instead of a stupid "story mode".
I never played the old game, so it's all new to me. I like it. It does not stack up to the Baldur's Gate games as far as plot goes. This game is hack-and-slash dungeon delving. There are also no henchmen to recruit. So you have total control over who is in the party. No side-quests to help out party members. It's just you, co trolling ip to six characters.
I found it challenging to use less than six in the party. I made a group of four: Fighter, Mage, cleric, thief, and found that having less people in the group meant that my position was often overrun bu enemies. When the fighter got low on hit points, it was time to retreat. If my fighter was surrounded, it was time to retreat a d sneak back later with a raise dead scroll. Using a party of less than six might just give you the challenge that you are looking for.
Edit: Tried to format it better by bolding my answers, but it didn't work. Guess the [b][/b] serves the same purpose though ;D Edit2: Nevermind, I figured it out.
In the following, I explain some of my ground rules, which, in my opinion, make IWDEE an enjoyable and challenging experience. Without them the game is either too easy or just artificially burdened. You are welcome to chime in with your variations:
* Axiom 1: CORE DIFFICULTY only -- this is what D&D is 'balanced' for (more or less, anyway). Anything else is too easy or a drudge (artificially high HPs etc.; e.g., Heart Fury just renders irrelevant a lot of interesting spells & strategies).
Good rule but only coupled with Axiom 2 obviously - with the possibility to reload 'Core' is much too easy imho.
* Axiom 2: NO-RELOAD only -- without this, why bother? Nothing is a challenge. If something goes south, you learn to deal with it. If your party cannot make it back to town and you are wiped out in ambush, back to the drawing board you go.
Tough one imho. The idea itself is good but it shouldn't go to the point of frustration. If you fell in love with a party, by all means keep playing it, even if you got wiped out once. What I've learned over years of gaming is that no rule, self-imposed or otherwise, should diminish the fun you're having with a game. Otherwise that rule is crap.
Your behaviour in the thread you linked is quite condescending imho ;O Other than that, this axiom leaves much room for interpretation which is why I will move on to the conclusions you draw from your axioms including this one.
---
As corollaries to these axioms, I play with the following rules:
* Rule 1: No adjusting ability scores! Reroll if you must, but no touching the +/- buttons! D&D was not designed for minimaxers; no sane DM would let you do it. If you have a team of agile, strong, tough, genius Supermen, what is the challenge. This rule ensures that every character has flaws.
Again: If someone has more *fun* playing a character with +/- stats, then so be it. There are lots of ways to make the game challenging and still getting the ability scores you want for your characters.
* Rule 2: No-reloads. In addition to making the gameplay actually meaningful, this also specifically implies: - spell learning failures! (there aren't many potions of genius; you WILL fail to learn some key spells, unless you are a specialist in that school (with the +15% bonus to memorization)! - finicky HP pools. At end game your paladin with 15/17/13/12/10/17 (a very good roll actually; see Rule 1) will probably have about ~50-60 HP. Deal with it.
As I said earlier, good rule in principle, as long as you can live with the consequences. HP pools don't have to be low - I don't see anything wrong with using the "max HP on level up" option. Imho random hit points were beyond stupid in the first place, which is why they changed it in later versions of D&D. If you can make an aspect of the game less random it's almost always good imho.
* Rule 3: Non-munchking party design. ... by this I mean, basically, being merciful in picking classes: - dual-classed humans are game breakers; there is almost no point to having a single class mage, instead of something like: Berserker 7 -> Mage X. Resist the munchkin temptation! - No sorcerers (unless thematically gimped, such as an Enchantment-heavy build). A well designed sorcerer can solo the game, even with 5 slackers doing hardly any work. Limited mage presence, in general, unless you wish no challenge. - No abuse of contingencies, sequencers etc.: AI cannot deal with it (see link above). Basically, don't do anything that the AI cannot do.
Where do I start... dual-classes are powerful, yes. But if you stick to your own rules you would have to get an insanely good role to even have the necessary ability scores to dual-class a character. Furthermore you are already taking a risk by going human without knowing exactly that you're gonna dual-class. If you don't dual-class, human is the worst race in the game by far, not only in terms of racial boni but also in terms of minimum ability scores for example.
Sorceres are strong, yes. But I think you're overestimating them a bit, especially in comparison to regular mages. An archer for example is much more broken imho, especially in the early and mid levels.
Contingencies and sequencers aren't the real problem imho. If you know the game by heart and prepare adequately for every encounter you're not going to run into trouble. Since you can't wipe your memory your knowledge of the game is always going to influence you one way or another.
Last but not least, none of your rules covers resting. The way I see it every fight is (very) easy on 'Core' difficulty if your party is fully rested and thus possibly even buffed up. Technically you can rest after each and every fight - there is nothing in the game that prevents you from doing so.
No matter how many rules you impose, you can always find ways to abuse. If something doesn't *feel* right to you, just don't do it. It's that simple imho.
With these rules, the game is a well balanced challenge. In another message, I'll post my current party. Feel free to chime in with yours.
It's very nice that you found a way to make the game fun and enjoyable for you. However I do believe that everyone has to find their *own* way, just like you did. All roads lead to Rome, as they say.
Where do I start... dual-classes are powerful, yes. But if you stick to your own rules you would have to get an insanely good role to even have the necessary ability scores to dual-class a character. Furthermore you are already taking a risk by going human without knowing exactly that you're gonna dual-class. If you don't dual-class, human is the worst race in the game by far, not only in terms of racial boni but also in terms of minimum ability scores for example.
Sorceres are strong, yes. But I think you're overestimating them a bit, especially in comparison to regular mages. An archer for example is much more broken imho, especially in the early and mid levels.
Contingencies and sequencers aren't the real problem imho. If you know the game by heart and prepare adequately for every encounter you're not going to run into trouble. Since you can't wipe your memory your knowledge of the game is always going to influence you one way or another.
Last but not least, none of your rules covers resting. The way I see it every fight is (very) easy on 'Core' difficulty if your party is fully rested and thus possibly even buffed up. Technically you can rest after each and every fight - there is nothing in the game that prevents you from doing so.
No matter how many rules you impose, you can always find ways to abuse. If something doesn't *feel* right to you, just don't do it. It's that simple imho.
With these rules, the game is a well balanced challenge. In another message, I'll post my current party. Feel free to chime in with yours.
It's very nice that you found a way to make the game fun and enjoyable for you. However I do believe that everyone has to find their *own* way, just like you did. All roads lead to Rome, as they say.
Nicely put. I find most of your criticisms quite on the money actually.
After all, we are all trying to get a challenge & a story out of a venerable game...
It seems one of the ways to increase the difficulty is to activate sneak attacks.
According to the engine limitations that can't be fixed, enemy thieves will perform sneak attacks, provided they have a suitable weapon equipped, regardless of whether they are flanking a target or not.
So, the enemy thieves will get an automatic damage bonus and crippling strike effect every round as long as they hit.
Well my no reload game became a reload game and then a deleted save at dragon's eye level 3 , it always been a pain so many aggro on the left side, can't get rid of so many trolls unless using cheese. my sad fighter/mage was so weak and useless, i wanted to divide thief skill by making a swashbuckler and stalker, big fail here, my next run would have a thief/mage, berse, archer at least and a single cleric to get resurrection asap, those elves are costly at the temple. Also need a way to prevent hold spell, those priests are a pain.
According to the engine limitations that can't be fixed, enemy thieves will perform sneak attacks, provided they have a suitable weapon equipped, regardless of whether they are flanking a target or not.
Isn't the whole point of enhancing instead of modding that there are no engine limitations, because you can actually change the engine? It might be way to much effort, but that just seems like a lazy excuse.
Well my no reload game became a reload game and then a deleted save at dragon's eye level 3 , it always been a pain so many aggro on the left side, can't get rid of so many trolls unless using cheese. my sad fighter/mage was so weak and useless, i wanted to divide thief skill by making a swashbuckler and stalker, big fail here, my next run would have a thief/mage, berse, archer at least and a single cleric to get resurrection asap, those elves are costly at the temple. Also need a way to prevent hold spell, those priests are a pain.
I got through this without reloading by retreating with my two surviving party members (my paladin and my cleric) after my two squishies got held and killed (my thief and my bard). The pally is an undead hunter and therefore immune to the spammed hold person spells, and my cleric is a dwarf with high saving throws. That hold immunity for the undead hunter is invaluable.
The two of them killed as many priests as they could by sniping at them while running, and managed to exit the level with both their hit points in the red, and quite a few trolls and at least three priests left alive down below. We returned to Kuldahar and got the thief and the bard raised. Luckily there had been just enough inventory space and strength for the survivors to carry our equipment with the bodies.
When we returned, the remaining trolls and priests were spread out in the western passage, and the priests were out of spells, so it was an easy mop-up at that point. Ironically, my cleric leveled and got access to two level four Freedom spells. Where were those when we needed them, Dwarf?
My advice: Have at least one undead hunter or inquisitor. Buy and use the potions of freedom from Oswald. Have your cleric memorize remove paralysis. Be ready to retreat from this battle and come back after resting. Those spammed hold person spells are indeed party killers. Nobody can make that many saves - somebody or everybody is going to get held.
My no-reload game became a reload game at this same fight. I didn't know what was coming since I haven't played IWD for ages and I tried to pull a Troll only to find the whole room comes chasing you down. Thus, I devised a cunning strategy to beat it:
Put traps in the narrow corridor with my Illusionist/Thief then set my party out like follows: -Ranger and Fighter blocking the bridge to fight the trolls -Monk & Barbarian with Improved Invis on them next top the narrow corridor, they would wait for all Trolls to pass, then hammer the Priests in meelee from behind while the Fighter and Ranger (Free Action Potioned) fought the Trolls on the bridge. -The druid and Illusionit/Mage stood behind the bridge casting AOE at the trolls/priests.
That's why I love these old D&D games, fun coming up with different ideas using all the different characters skills.
This time I went more secure, very happy of those rolls, 95 for the shapeshifter, i can't live without a druid. the archer is a killing machine thief/mage because a single class thief is more likely to die easily. kensai is just for fun of playing those new magical katanas priest of tempus to play that new class and get resurrection spell asap. undead hunter, it's the first time i play a paladin in my life.
@Ygramul actually I agree with some of the points you made but in my opinion the flaw with no ajusting ability scores is they come after you choose your class! It should be the other way arround! You choose your class considering your ability scores!
I'm playing a lvl1 HoF play through. My only rule is that the party can't rest unless it is logically aware time to rest. The game is plenty hard for me. Hard enough that without summon dead I'd be over with.
I'm in the vale of shadows. If I ever walk into a tomb, I'm dead before the fight starts. So the bounty hunter sets traps, the cleric raises some dead, and the party gets ready to ambush. The undead hunter walks in, and runs away. The skeletons pursue into an ambush.
I also had a run for my money in the orc caves and fighting the goblins in the pass. Without summons and the use of 'horror' it would have been a party wipe.
Like I said. I'm not the best player. This is plenty difficult for me.
I'm intending to play with the IWD NPCs party (http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=174&Itemid=122 ) with "CHARNAME" (I know there's not really such a thing in IWD) as a Half-Elf Blade (yes, two Bards! One can never have too many Bards...), and like the idea of these house rules (though will likely be minimal reloads, rather than none, as I've never played IWD before, only BG). Will *not* be playing max. HP on level ups, but may reload if I get a one. I will be tweaking some of the NPC's Weapon Proficiencies at start (but not once the game is underway).
BTW are there enough INT-boosting potions in the game to get away with a relatively low INT bard (INT 13) when scribing scrolls - in BG there was.
This party does not look too OP to me, I was thinking of dual-classing Nella, but I could make her a fighter/cleric or fighter/druid multiples instead. If playing her as a F/D, the Paladin will likely be an Undead Hunter (the Mod lets you choose).
Does this party and play style sound in the spirit of the original poster's recommendations?
I'm intending to play with the IWD NPCs party (http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=174&Itemid=122 ) with "CHARNAME" (I know there's not really such a thing in IWD) as a Half-Elf Blade (yes, two Bards! One can never have too many Bards...), and like the idea of these house rules (though will likely be minimal reloads, rather than none, as I've never played IWD before, only BG). Will *not* be playing max. HP on level ups, but may reload if I get a one. I will be tweaking some of the NPC's Weapon Proficiencies at start (but not once the game is underway).
BTW are there enough INT-boosting potions in the game to get away with a relatively low INT bard (INT 13) when scribing scrolls - in BG there was.
This party does not look too OP to me, I was thinking of dual-classing Nella, but I could make her a fighter/cleric or fighter/druid multiples instead. If playing her as a F/D, the Paladin will likely be an Undead Hunter (the Mod lets you choose).
Does this party and play style sound in the spirit of the original poster's recommendations?
BTW I set myself a limit of 20 rolls for my Blade, and got 86 on the 4th roll - so chose 18/18/15/13/7/15 - is that excessive?
BTW are there enough INT-boosting potions in the game to get away with a relatively low INT bard (INT 13) when scribing scrolls - in BG there was.
Should be plenty, with a bit of care. I played with natural rolls (first roll, no adjusting) and both the Enchanter and the Fighter/Mage in the party rolled 12 INTs. With two average INT casters I felt like I had to be strategic about potions/scribing for about 2/3 of the campaign - didn't do expansion until afterwards. After that and in the expansion I had excess of potions. It was in vanilla, but I doubt they've reduced INT potions.
Also, since EE operates like BG2 engine in relation to scribing, you don't get the odd failure with 100% success chance (which meant 95% in vanilla IWD). Poor F/M failed stoneskin and only got it at the very end of the game
BTW I set myself a limit of 20 rolls for my Blade, and got 86 on the 4th roll - so chose 18/18/15/13/7/15 - is that excessive?
I just re-read the first post , specifically:
* Rule 1: No adjusting ability scores! Reroll if you must, but no touching the +/- buttons!
Obviously I did adjust stats for my 18/18/15/13/7/15 (86 pointd) Blade build (but limited myself to 20 re-rolls)
So I tried rolling again with no stat adjustments, got this on my 19th roll: 17/17/15/14/10/15 (87 points), which doesn't have quite a good a distribution for this class, but is definitely not bad! So will go with this...
I've started a similar game. My additional rule to the above is this; If a character dies, they stay dead. You may then replace them with a level 1 character when you get back to town (using multiplayer to add a new character).
Damn that hurt when I lost my level 7 cleric... The new guy has 17 wisdom though proving that every cloud has a silver lining.
I've started a similar game. My additional rule to the above is this; If a character dies, they stay dead. You may then replace them with a level 1 character when you get back to town (using multiplayer to add a new character).
Damn that hurt when I lost my level 7 cleric... The new guy has 17 wisdom though proving that every cloud has a silver lining.
I made a party following all Ygramul rules. I added some rules :
- I made a themed party : Deep Dwarves
- I added DJKajuru Mod to get maximum spawns but without the +100% damage
- At each chapter I use EEkeeper to remove large amounts of XP
- Hit points are rolled
- I never use Haste spell. Oil of speed only.
- No pickpocketing
- I don't use a few overpowered items ( ex: Kontik's ring of wizardry or Bone Marrow Belt )
After the battle with Malavon each charcater reached around 400.000 XP
The party: All lawful Neutral
-Grendohr --- dwarf male - Barbarian --- 16-14-14-8-11-14 -- mace, katana 2Weap -Vraednar --- dwarf male - Dwarven defender --- 15-11-15-9-13-11 -- axe, hammer -Odnir --- dwarf male - Fighter/Cleric --- 14-9-16-12-15-9 -- quaterstaff ,sling then flail -Undrihl --- dwarf male - Fighter/Thief --- 14-17-15-11-10-10 -- Xbow 2Hsword then Lsword -Jergo --- gnome male- Fighter/Thief --- 13-16-14-10-10-13 -- Xbow Spear then Club -Elvira --- elf female - Dragon disciple --- 15-17-13-12-12-17 -- Sling Dagger
I have only one arcane spell caster, and not the best one. I used more than 10 raise dead scrolls in Dragon eye ! Most of the gold was used to revive dead charcaters. I use almost all the potions I found, both f/t always have a potion of explosion or similar items with them.Just in case of. I got some bad surprises, like when my wounded party ,with very few spells remaining, got surprised by some monsters respawn after an hard battle. Half of them got killed!
Vale of shadows and Dragon eye were challenging. After that the game is going more easy.
Severed hand is really too easy, and we get so many good items there. Same for Dorn levels and the Ice castle.
The two F/T were very usefull for slaying drow sorcerers in lower Dorn Deep before they cast spells. Very funny to have 2 backstabbers I give them a potion of invisibility if they need to escape.
Next time I will play with lower stats and the only arcane caster will be a F/M/T.
Comments
yeah the original 3 rules are pretty boss. well formulated and universal.
Here is my group:
The Northwind Adventuring Company:
Alvaric Evenstone, Human male Priest of Tyr, Lawful Good.
S:17 D:14 C:8 I:18 W:16 Ch:17
Grimfirth, Human Male Fighter, Chaotic Good
S:18/37 D:18 C:18 I:8 W:12 Ch:12
Two Handed Sword**, Long bow**
Mara Swiftblade, Human Female Swashbuckler, True Neutral
S:16 D:18 C:12 I:10 W:11 Ch:9
Short sword, dagger
OL: 35, FT: 40, PP: 25, MS: 20, HS: 15, DI: 0, ST: 5
Svetlana Earnbuner, Dwarf Female Dwarven Defender, Neutral Good
S:17
Axe++, Sword and shield style ++
Illenora D'Silvestri, Female Half-Elf Diviner
S:14
Slling+
Spells: Identify, Infravision, Magic Missle [the computer picked them for me]
Moresca Silverleaf, Female Elf Archer, Chaotic Good
S: 15, D:17 C: 16, I: 9 W: 14, Ch: 10
Long Sword+, Dagger+, Longbow++, Two Weapon Style ++
Racial Enemy: Trolls
Back when I played D&D with these rules, we were supposed to roll for our stats -then- choose a race and class based on what we got. Those were the official rules. Using the +/- buttons is a huge temptation and leads to serious min/maxing though.
I hit the reroll button numerous times to get Grimfirth the Fighter's stats, I wanted a strength score of at least 16, I would have been happy with that. What happens with high stat characters in hardcore games though is they get overconfident.
As for Alvaric Evenstone: Priest of Tyr, had I rolled those stats first before doing anything else, I would have considered him for fighter/mage.
Everyone else's characters seem so fast-and-loose with their stats and I suspect that i am not getting the spirit in which this challenge was posted. That Cavelier with the 12 Str for sxample, that takes some seeious cojones to play that character. Hats off to you!
(I wanna send a Thank You again to @DavidW here for his excellent work on SCS.)
Even with all the restrictions above, the game is still a cakewalk. (Currently at Severed Hand.)
(Remember I am using the Rules above: no min-max; no-reload; no munchkin. And it's been many years since I played IWD, so it's not like I memorized encounters. I'm even refraining from Summons. My frontliner Paladin has the least HP of the whole team. etc. etc.)
Here are some issues:
- You can scout indefinitely unchallenged. One single Invisibility-ed thief can remove all traps of a level and help you plan all encounters before hand. In SCS, mages and priests know to cast anti-invisibility spells and would eat your thief for breakfast.
(One nice exception was the Shadow ambushes at Severed Hand out of nowhere. Nicely done thematically, which was also in the original game, I think. I had to break a sweat there.)
- Monsters not avoiding AoE spells:
They happily walk into your Web and Spike Growth to get slaughtered. SCS AI avoids AoE.
- Terrible aggro.
One room has nearly 20 skeletons in it; they "activate" 4-5 at a time as I step in; the rest wait until you are within their vision radius.
It's like the Austin Powers spoof of henchmen waiting to attack one at a time.
In SCS, nearby monsters call each other to help.
Basically, I am playing just to recall the story and enjoy the nicely hand drawn environments.
There is no game here, not compared to SCS-enhanced BG2.
"Enhanced Edition" for IWD is a failure in my opinion: they should have worked on the AI instead of a stupid "story mode".
I found it challenging to use less than six in the party. I made a group of four: Fighter, Mage, cleric, thief, and found that having less people in the group meant that my position was often overrun bu enemies. When the fighter got low on hit points, it was time to retreat. If my fighter was surrounded, it was time to retreat a d sneak back later with a raise dead scroll. Using a party of less than six might just give you the challenge that you are looking for.
Edit2: Nevermind, I figured it out.
Here are my 2 cents on it:
Nicely put.
I find most of your criticisms quite on the money actually.
After all, we are all trying to get a challenge & a story out of a venerable game...
According to the engine limitations that can't be fixed, enemy thieves will perform sneak attacks, provided they have a suitable weapon equipped, regardless of whether they are flanking a target or not.
So, the enemy thieves will get an automatic damage bonus and crippling strike effect every round as long as they hit.
The two of them killed as many priests as they could by sniping at them while running, and managed to exit the level with both their hit points in the red, and quite a few trolls and at least three priests left alive down below. We returned to Kuldahar and got the thief and the bard raised. Luckily there had been just enough inventory space and strength for the survivors to carry our equipment with the bodies.
When we returned, the remaining trolls and priests were spread out in the western passage, and the priests were out of spells, so it was an easy mop-up at that point. Ironically, my cleric leveled and got access to two level four Freedom spells. Where were those when we needed them, Dwarf?
My advice: Have at least one undead hunter or inquisitor. Buy and use the potions of freedom from Oswald. Have your cleric memorize remove paralysis. Be ready to retreat from this battle and come back after resting. Those spammed hold person spells are indeed party killers. Nobody can make that many saves - somebody or everybody is going to get held.
Put traps in the narrow corridor with my Illusionist/Thief then set my party out like follows:
-Ranger and Fighter blocking the bridge to fight the trolls
-Monk & Barbarian with Improved Invis on them next top the narrow corridor, they would wait for all Trolls to pass, then hammer the Priests in meelee from behind while the Fighter and Ranger (Free Action Potioned) fought the Trolls on the bridge.
-The druid and Illusionit/Mage stood behind the bridge casting AOE at the trolls/priests.
That's why I love these old D&D games, fun coming up with different ideas using all the different characters skills.
This time I went more secure, very happy of those rolls,
95 for the shapeshifter, i can't live without a druid.
the archer is a killing machine
thief/mage because a single class thief is more likely to die easily.
kensai is just for fun of playing those new magical katanas
priest of tempus to play that new class and get resurrection spell asap.
undead hunter, it's the first time i play a paladin in my life.
My party:
Undead hunter
Monk
Cleric of Lathander
Dwarven bounty hunter
Elven sorceress
Skald
I'm in the vale of shadows. If I ever walk into a tomb, I'm dead before the fight starts. So the bounty hunter sets traps, the cleric raises some dead, and the party gets ready to ambush. The undead hunter walks in, and runs away. The skeletons pursue into an ambush.
I also had a run for my money in the orc caves and fighting the goblins in the pass. Without summons and the use of 'horror' it would have been a party wipe.
Like I said. I'm not the best player. This is plenty difficult for me.
BTW are there enough INT-boosting potions in the game to get away with a relatively low INT bard (INT 13) when scribing scrolls - in BG there was.
This party does not look too OP to me, I was thinking of dual-classing Nella, but I could make her a fighter/cleric or fighter/druid multiples instead. If playing her as a F/D, the Paladin will likely be an Undead Hunter (the Mod lets you choose).
Does this party and play style sound in the spirit of the original poster's recommendations?
Also, since EE operates like BG2 engine in relation to scribing, you don't get the odd failure with 100% success chance (which meant 95% in vanilla IWD). Poor F/M failed stoneskin and only got it at the very end of the game
If a character dies, they stay dead. You may then replace them with a level 1 character when you get back to town (using multiplayer to add a new character).
Damn that hurt when I lost my level 7 cleric... The new guy has 17 wisdom though proving that every cloud has a silver lining.
I made a party following all Ygramul rules. I added some rules :
- I made a themed party : Deep Dwarves
- I added DJKajuru Mod to get maximum spawns but without the +100% damage
- At each chapter I use EEkeeper to remove large amounts of XP
- Hit points are rolled
- I never use Haste spell. Oil of speed only.
- No pickpocketing
- I don't use a few overpowered items ( ex: Kontik's ring of wizardry or Bone Marrow Belt )
After the battle with Malavon each charcater reached around 400.000 XP
The party: All lawful Neutral
-Grendohr --- dwarf male - Barbarian --- 16-14-14-8-11-14 -- mace, katana 2Weap
-Vraednar --- dwarf male - Dwarven defender --- 15-11-15-9-13-11 -- axe, hammer
-Odnir --- dwarf male - Fighter/Cleric --- 14-9-16-12-15-9 -- quaterstaff ,sling then flail
-Undrihl --- dwarf male - Fighter/Thief --- 14-17-15-11-10-10 -- Xbow 2Hsword then Lsword
-Jergo --- gnome male- Fighter/Thief --- 13-16-14-10-10-13 -- Xbow Spear then Club
-Elvira --- elf female - Dragon disciple --- 15-17-13-12-12-17 -- Sling Dagger
I have only one arcane spell caster, and not the best one.
I used more than 10 raise dead scrolls in Dragon eye ! Most of the gold was used to revive dead charcaters.
I use almost all the potions I found, both f/t always have a potion of explosion or similar items with them.Just in case of.
I got some bad surprises, like when my wounded party ,with very few spells remaining, got surprised by some monsters respawn after an hard battle. Half of them got killed!
Vale of shadows and Dragon eye were challenging. After that the game is going more easy.
Severed hand is really too easy, and we get so many good items there. Same for Dorn levels and the Ice castle.
The two F/T were very usefull for slaying drow sorcerers in lower Dorn Deep before they cast spells.
Very funny to have 2 backstabbers
Next time I will play with lower stats and the only arcane caster will be a F/M/T.