Overpowered kits
BigBottom
Member Posts: 3
Hello friends,
I'm planning a playthrough of IWD:EE but I would like to preserve the challenge levels so I was hoping maybe some of you guys could tell me which of the kits are generally considered to be overpowered. A lot of what made IWD fun was the difficulty of getting through those dungeons so I don't want a party that will make playing a complete cakewalk.
Cheers!
BB
I'm planning a playthrough of IWD:EE but I would like to preserve the challenge levels so I was hoping maybe some of you guys could tell me which of the kits are generally considered to be overpowered. A lot of what made IWD fun was the difficulty of getting through those dungeons so I don't want a party that will make playing a complete cakewalk.
Cheers!
BB
0
Comments
Don't dual class.
I'd suggest looking for a way of playing with insane spawns but core xp and damage. I'd avoid reloading. I'd refrain from touching the +/- buttons when rolling stats. I'd turn off "max hp on level up".
Ymmv
Edit: in my strict no-reload run with the above rules I purposefully made my only arcane a Wild Mage to really create some risk when using arcane spells. Arcane spells are severely OP when you get down to it.
Sure, it's not fun if it's a cakewalk but *the* one thing that makes the game easy is if you know it inside out imho. You can play with a party full of pure class thieves but if you know the game well enough it's not going to be very difficult unless you implement more and more self-imposed rules to the point where it becomes ridiculous.
To make a long story short, the only thing I would avoid are the usual suspects of OP multi/dual class characters like Fighter/Mage, Berserker/Cleric, Kensai/Mage, etc. etc. *Maybe* don't pick an Archer either because it's arguably the strongest single class character in the game.
Apart from that if this is your first run and you play with a single-class only party you should be absolutely fine and enjoy the game. You can always turn up the difficulty or even turn on HoF mode if you feel that it's much too easy.
Dwarven Defender and Avenger can both get 100% damage immunity or greater which is my concern with them.
If you're just playing the game a Sorcerer or Avenger is not going to be OP to the point that it suddenly gets easy without putting any effort into it.
As a power-gamer with countless playthroughs of every D&D title and his mother one can easily lose track of such things, myself included.
There are actually people who play Icewind Dale for the first time on 'Core' and - pardon my French - find it hard as fuck. For those people the game doesn't become trivial all of a sudden just because they have an Avenger on their team.
You seem to be saying that yes, the kits may be overpowered but that's okay?
Sure you could follow this guide and that'd be just fine
@BigBottom, I really wouldn't worry. If you don't look too hard into character-building guides or anything of the sort, you probably won't have that problem. However, if this really is a concern, doing what most of the others have said would suffice.
I myself would personally recommend playing as whatever class you want, then just up the difficulty if it is too easy. I find it quite annoying trying to play a character I don't care for, all because it's not OP.
Anyone who rolls with an avenger or Dwarven defender can quickly recognise the possibility to get 100% or better damage resistance if you find certain items.
Anyone who casts a confusion spell will quickly realise that chaos will be an excellent investment (which Avengers and Sorcerers can get way before other characters).
Anyone who has web can see the synergy with spider form (or fom).
I think your underestimating the intelligence of new players if you don't think that they will recognise the various synergies that the new kits introduced that can easily trivialise big portions of the game.
Again, the OP wanted to know which kits to avoid for a challenging play through and the fact that he asked the question is enough to indicate that there's enough of a reason to tell him which kits to avoid, don't you think?
Now, if you're really worried about breaking your party in the too powerful direction I'd avoid Bard Kits, Sorcerers, and Wild Mages.
Btw. and this is important: I intentionally do not list certain spells, abilities, etc. here because that's exactly what makes people realize how OP some stuff can be. Maybe I underestimate new players, but maybe you are also forgetting why you know the things you know and where you got them from. When you've read something somewhere 10 years ago and have been using it ever since it becomes second nature and you don't even think about whether it was actually your own idea/conclusion or not. It usually takes multiple runs until you know all the OP stuff because people tend to acquire a certain playing style that works for them and then stick to it.
Last but not least I want to clarify that this isn't the place for an in-depth discussion of 'Insane' vs 'Core' difficulty, but feel free to PM me if you want one. I was merely pointing out that the matter is highly disputed and their is little factual evidence for one side or the other. It's all a matter of playing style, party setup, add-on order, knowledge, etc. etc. Up until this point I wholeheartedly agree.
The xp increase on insane results in higher character levels which means more powers and new abilities. It's only mages who miss out on the full benefit until you have access to HoW. The additional damage is only relevant if you are getting hit which is simple to avoid through numerous strategies (even a new player can figure out how to kite). With max HP rolls and the first few easy quests out of the way it becomes increasingly easy once you gain a few levels.
Anyway, I still prefer my original answer that specifies a few kits that have specific abilities that can trivialise the game compared to your answer that assumes that the OP isn't clever enough to figure out that physical resistance can be stacked or that some spell choices are better than others.
Please don't twist my words around. I never said or indicated that OP wasn't clever enough to figure certain things out. Just try to remember your first run of a D&D 2nd edition game is all I'm saying. Correct me if I'm wrong but I doubt the game being too easy was an issue for you back then. Even if you do find things that are very strong it's actually fun when you do it the first time.
What trivializes the game is not one or two overpowered kits, it's your knowledge of the game and the engine *combined* with things that are too strong.
So yeah... I also prefer my original answer that OP shouldn't worry about what is overpowered and just enjoy the game.
Believe me, I tried it all. I never spent much time on insane, though, because I didn't feel like dealing with the spawn armies. Most of the people who have tried it say that it makes the first part of the game harder, then the rest easier as soon as your party reaches high levels while still fighting low-level monsters.
The closest thing to "challenging" I got was when I played a "no + or - on character creation" un-min-maxed party where no one had triple 18's in physical stats. I find the most critical stat in the infinity engine games to be dexterity. Just give everyone in your party a 10 dexterity and voila, you'll have a challenging game, because your ranged attackers won't hit on every roll, and the melee characters will get hit on almost every enemy roll.
Then again, I have years of experience with infinity engine games, and I know all the ins and outs of the D&D system now. So, I think both @Wowo and @MrGoodkat have valid points. There can be truth and insight to both sides of any argument, you know.
I finally just threw up my hands, said "Difficulty be damned" and made the party I wanted to play, with an inquisitor, a cleric of Lathander, a fighter-thief, and a sorcerer. It's the only one of more than a dozen party creations that I had enough fun with to stick with it into the end game.
So, I think my advice would be not to worry too much about balance and difficulty, and just pick what sounds fun and interesting to you. If you're really that worried about how the new kits affect game balance, just do what @Wowo said and don't use any kits, especially staying away from the ones he listed.
I found the game to be super difficult on core. Might be partially my party set up, part my stats, and part my own ineptitude.
I had a Cleric, Illusionist/Thief, Monk, Thief (Shadowdancer), Paladin (Undead Hunter), and Ranger (Archer).
I made my stats to be more in line with my characters RP-wise. Aria, my paladin, was strong and tough but wasn't very quick. I believe her stats were 18 str, 10 dex, 18 con, 12 int, 14 wis, 18 cha. She was a natural born leader.
I did this with each of my characters so they would intentionally have a weakness. Near the end of the original campaign I actually turned the difficulty down as I was fed up with wiping over and over XD
I like the difficulty but originally played to RP out my own party and write a story for them using the events in game as context.
My Cleric of Helm was influenced by the Vale of Shadows and actually became a Necromancer himself! This led to conflict with my Paladin and I wrote out dialogue between them about whether Necromancy is inherently evil or if it can be used for good. Great times.
Anyway, I'm super scrubby and suck at this game XD
To be actually on topic: I think any class/kits you use you'll be fine as long as you don't intentionally make your team super powerful.
The OP is worried, worried enough to make a thread, there are kits that meet the criteria specified, ergo the reasonable response seems to be to provide the facts.
The OP also specified that he has played IWD before and I'd inference BG series too, so not a stranger to IE games and probably already has a reasonable skill set in regards to trivialising the game.
The single best ways to up the difficulty I've found is to keep your stats realistic and randomize HP at level up.
I went from:
Dwarven Defender
Berserker 7 => Cleric
Fighter 7 => Mage
Avenger
Fighter/Thief
Bard
... all with min-maxed stats, and three of the characters exceeding weapon specialization... to:
Barbarian
Priest of Lathander
Assassin
Totemic Druid
Bard
Dragon Disciple
... and only a couple of the characters have maxed stats. Only the Barbarian has 18 dexterity. And with random HP rolls, the half-orc assassin with a superfluous 19 constitution has the highest HP in the party. (and the best melee THACO, as the only one with 19 strength and the assassin's +1 bonus...) If it keeps up like this, I'm going to have an assassin for a tank...
So yeah, if you want to make it hard, drop your stats and randomize your health. I find I actually have to cast spells and use potions this way. (Unlike with the first party, which was far too easy...) I'd say it matters less which kits you're taking if you're doing both of those things. (Though obviously some kits are too powerful. I avoid archers like the plague if I want a challenge. Probably a good idea to avoid dual classes, DDs, etc. too as the above posters mentioned.)
You could also use less popular weapons. I have my assassin using clubs.
Just for the record, every party member ended with 6.200.000 xp, so I gained more than 37.000.000 xp.
And simply don't use any kits (specialist mages are ok, since they aren't actually kits, that's just how the game implemented them). Excluding the Wild Mage (which is correctly implemented), they're pretty much all terribly adapted in general. Most are overpowered, or under-penalized, or both compared to what they should have, or gimped more then they should be.
Though I would avoid sorcerers. You could maybe get by letting the game randomly choose spells for you at each level, but it was designed with mages/bards in mind for your arcane needs.
If I read the OP's question properly, yes there are classes that, in the right hands and with the right stuff, can break the game. BUT, picking any class on the very basis of the class itself, isn't going to ruin the game. You have to KNOW what you are doing and why that class/race/ability score MAKES the game easier.
Someone like @Belgarath might find the game a cake walk with gimped characters. You could optimize an entire party of OP classes and let me play and I'd still have problems. So the classes by themselves, sans knowledge of very specific reasons why they are OP, will not make the game ridiculously easy, at least not in my view.
Basically what I'm saying is the problem is min/maxing not the actual kits.