When to do HOW and luremaster

skaterfezz

I'm not sure if this has been asked yet but when should I do heart of winter and trials of the lure master and which one to do first?

elminster

One option would be.

Play Original Campaign -> Reach level 9 (or greater) -> play through most of Heart of Winter -> (before Heart of Winter is finished) play through Trials of the Lure Master -> finish Heart of Winter -> finish Original Campaign.

atcDave

I often head off for HoW right after the Severed Hand.

MrGoodkat

Really good question, I'm also debating this right now. In BG1 for example it was pretty obvious that ToSC basically adds dungeons and quests loosely whereas ToB was divided into two parts which both had a clear purpose.

I don't really know what to make of HoW since it appears to transport you to a whole new area which is cut off from the rest of the game.

Spoiler-free help would be much appreciated.

atcDave

Do it after Severed Hand. You'll be at a reasonable level (10 or so). And you can get back to Kuldahar easily .

Then do the Luremaster adventure either after Burial Island the Spine of the World.

Jarrakul

I like importing into HoW after beating the main game rather than travelling from Kuldahar, because a) that seems to make more sense, plot-wise, and b) it produces a more even difficulty curve.

I don't yet have a strategy for ToL, as I've only played it once. Maybe play HoW, then re-import into HoW and start ToL without doing any other quests.

DreadKhan

I would agree with @Jarrakul‌ that HoW is mostly harder than the main campaign, to the point you might want to do the import idea. Certain HoW areas are pretty hard, and it has very tough mooks.

Bawookles

I've read on some other forums that people recommend getting all 6 badges in Dorn's Deep and by that point you are ready for HoW and ToL.

JuliusBorisov

elminster said:

Reach level 9 (or greater)

atcDave said:

I often head off for HoW right after the Severed Hand.

I too wanted to do HoW after the Severed Hand (and by chance, when many of my characters had the 9th level or so) - this has seemed to me like an ideal timing in the main story for going on an additional adventure.

Alas!

You can't start HoW in IWDEE till you have 250 000 XP

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/568149/#Comment_568149

So, in my case (with the party of six) I got 250k XP after dealing with Joril and reaching the Lower Dorn's Deep. This is the time to start HoW in IWDEE, it seems.

TvrtkoSvrdlar

@bengoshi
But doesn't that mean you won't be able to return to the original areas?

Or are you using 'magical' transportation (aka, The Console of Rapid Transit :P)?

JuliusBorisov

I'm positively sure that if I go to Lonelywood now, I'll be able to come back and continue explore the original areas.

Shikao

bengoshi said:

I'm positively sure that if I go to Lonelywood now, I'll be able to come back and continue explore the original areas.

That used to be the case in vanilla game. Once you finished HoW quest, you were magically transported back to Kuldahar

MrGoodkat

Ok... what I gather from this thread so far is "do it whenever you feel like it" ;D

Without spoilers, can you tell me if the HoW story has *anything* to do with the main story? Or is it a more like a "big quest" type of thing? How many hours do you estimate it takes and how long is it in comparison to the main campaign?

According to some people I'm at the ideal point in the game to do HoW and ToL right now but I'm not sure if I want to spend 30 hours of playing time away from the main story.

atcDave

It is a completely separate story. Again, I advocate as early as you can. But obviously some disagree.

elminster

For someone new to it HoW is probably like 5-6 hours long on core difficulty. Not counting TotL. Perhaps even shorter than that. Compared to the main campaign it is very short anyways. It does have a plot but its separate from the main campaigns plot

(they take place in different parts of the North)

.

MrGoodkat

Ok nice, that helps a lot. I thought it might be a huge ToB type of addon.

Azzara

The story is about

the dragon at the bottom of the lake in Eastheaven. After releasing the sword from her chest.

However, by the time I reached it I had forgotten about it. I waited until reaching the point of no return in the main quest. I'm thinking of doing it earlier this time.
When I started Heart of Winter I immediately did the Luremaster quest. Huge mistake. It was really hard.

TheCoffeeGod

Azzara said:

I waited until reaching the point of no return in the main quest.

I've been avoiding asking this for fear of spoilers, since it's my first time through IWD, but when exactly is "the point of no return" in the main quest?

elminster

Azzara said:

The story is about

the dragon at the bottom of the lake in Eastheaven. After releasing the sword from her chest.

Icasaracht is found in the Sea of Moving Ice. Quite a ways from Easthaven. Maybe you are thinking Lonelywood? (the town you start out in in Heart of Winter). Either way she isn't at the bottom of a lake.

Edit:Apparently I was misreading what you wrote

Azzara

The point of no return is

When you defeat brother Poquelin. He has 6 servants and each one has a key to his chamber. I unlocked it and did the expansion next.

Ligg

Do HoW when you've accumulated a lot of money. Lonelywood and The burial isle sell some good things that can be a bit expensive. There is some money to be had in HoW. From memory there is plenty of loot in TotL. But, possibly, you might regret not being able to buy things in HoW when it's time to say goodbye.

Azzara

elminster said:

Azzara said:

The story is about

the dragon at the bottom of the lake in Easthaven. After releasing the sword from her chest.

Icasaracht is found in the Sea of Moving Ice. Quite a ways from Easthaven. Maybe you are thinking Lonelywood? (the town you start out in in Heart of Winter). Either way she isn't at the bottom of a lake.

They killed her in that lake in Easthaven. I forgot about that by the time I met her.
This time I am carrying the sword that killed her with me. I stole it because you cannot normally get it reforged until after the battle with her.

Alketir

There's also just importing your characters after beating the main campaign. It's a tiny thing but

you can upgrade a weapon you can only get after the point of no return, and it's tied to the story somewhat.

DreadKhan

6 hours?! Are you kidding? Maybe I am an uber completionist, but I spent lots more than 6 hours my first time on HoW, without TotL. Not as long as ToB, but its longer than Watcher's Keep.

The story of HoW is very much worth the trouble. Don't skip dialogues, get immersed!

Wowo

So when you go into HoW do you have to stay there until you finish it or can you return to the main storyline and come back later to finish the quest or maybe purchase something that you couldn't afford the first time around?

JLee

I have never played IWD before. Fwiw, I took a look at HoW, but decided to save it until after the main story. It felt like an unnatural progression to me, ymmv.

But I always save Watcher's Keep until ToB, so maybe that is a predictable behavior.

skaterfezz

Im afraid to open the spoiler tags, do they make it clear in the game when the point of no return is?

Jarrakul

The point of no return is at the end of Lower Dorn's Deep, when you use all six badges and go up the staircase.

bob_veng

It's true that the difficulty curve is a bit strange if you do HoW early.

But after the main IWD quest, when you're ~lvl16 HoW becomes easy (and from the nature of it's design you can tell that it was meant to be pretty scary) and since it's just mindless grinding i think it becomes boring.

after HoW, the remaining part of the main IWD quest will also be easy (probably a bit less so for a new player because the enemies are more varied) but there's some adventuring and quest-solving too which makes it more worthwhile.

jimmysdabestcop

Once you start TotL you are stuck there till you finish. Plain HOW there is a way to go back and forth without actually finishing the rest of HOW.

Once you get access to the Burial Island you can get the Barbarian to teleport you back and forth. You just end up back in the Burial Island spot. As long as you don't continue the quest any further. You can keep asking to go back.

Redrake

I always do HoW after finishing the main game. 2 reasons for this.
1. The restored Aihonen sword. It has a story that sword and the main antagonist in the expansion recognizes it and comments on it. You can also improve it in Gloomfrost.
2. The balance of the main game did not take into account HoW and TotL. Basically, finishing the expansions before the last battle, makes that very easy.