Rock is dead. He was held by an ettercap/spider combo Before Pai'na and that spelled his doom. He was unbuffed and Jaheira and Jan couldn't get the monsters to attack them instead, nor could they distract them nor kill them, and Jan was all out of chaos spells. Tried to cast invis on Rock, but apparently the monsters sees through that or something about the hold/web made him visible anyway because the monsters kept on hitting anyway, died in about 2 rounds or so, was maybe 7-9 monsters all in all. Was a level 9/9 F/C with 19 con and 3 bonus saves through gear so really good saves. Tried the fight again and cleared the monsters, Pai'na and the vampire nest in one go stopping just Before Bodhi.
Dead is dead, better luck next time.
Lessons learned this time: 1. Don't play when too tired to even try to care. 2. Invis wont Always save you.
Well, this ended earlier than I thought. Right the very start of the third level of the Dragon's Eye was full of so many hard-hitting Cold Wights that the party was simply overwhelmed by them. After both fighters were killed and four survivors tried to retreat to the previous level, Hypnos, the leader of the group was killed. At least, the new mod works ....
@Ygramul I went further than those rules of yours, for an additional challenge. As you could see, it showed.
Insane, without additional XP. I installed the following mod components from the new Tweaks:
Game ends when the main character die Alter Weapon Proficiency System -IWD-Style Proficiencies without Weapon Styles: Friendly Random Drops -Exchange With Merchants The Maximum HPs for All Creatures -all enemies get maximum HPs
These are massive changes to the game, as I see them. Altering the weapon proficiency system brings it much closer to the vanilla game and doesn't let you dual-wield. The death of the main character as a game-over is a great component.
Also, I decided not to use kits (which come from BG), only classes available in vanilla IWD. With the IWD-Style Proficiencies it makes the game more challenging and more different from the BG experience.
I've started a new minimal reload IWD run. I've heard it suggested that IWD is better played with vanilla kits since the EE and BG2 kits are overpowered, but I've already done a no-reload run of normal mode and HoF in vanilla IWD and I want to do something new.
I start in Heart of Fury mode at level 1. No one in my party is allowed to have fighter levels, and we are required to be single-classed, despite Heart of Fury favoring multi- and dual-classes.
And we're not using any summons, ever. I always found summoning spells to be the key to HoF mode, since they make extremely tough walls against enemy hordes, and I want to see how to get by without them.
First, we have Snowy Tae, our chipper Cleric of Lathander. This is her screen in Easthaven, fully buffed.
The main reason I picked the Lathander kit is not actually because of Boon of Lathander, which is normally my favorite part of the kit. The main reason is because of Hold Undead, which will be extremely important in the Vale of Shadows, where almost every enemy is immune to other disablers.
Normally I like halflings, but I felt like changing things up. For the first time in for as long as I can remember, no one in the group will be wearing the Helm of the Trusted Defender.
Next is our solemn Avenger, Valos.
Avengers are rather conventionally powerful, but it was the reasonable choice. I don't like unkitted druids, Totemic Druids would be out of the question because we can't summon anything, and IWD already gives us a lot of excellent shapeshifting options, making Greater Werewolf form from the Shapeshifter less necessary. Plus, I love Chromatic Orb in IWD.
Then we have two sorcerers, Poppy and Espellier.
I want lots of mage spells, and IWD doesn't have nearly enough scrolls to properly supply a non-imported party in HoF.
Despite the dire need for spellpower, we have one full-time Bounty Hunter, Fobie.
The blind thief trick in IWD:EE only works for stealth, not traps, so he won't be mass-Mazing enemies in the thick of combat. But I've always felt the Bounty Hunter was the most interesting of the thief kits.
Finally, we have our backup mage, an unkitted bard, Marilyn Blueapple.
Skalds are the standard powergaming option for IWD:EE, but I like the versatility of IWD's standard bards.
I won't be posting many pictures for the first few parts of their adventure, since I'm too lazy to convert them to jpegs, but I'll explain how we got through things with the limitations we had.
I originally intended on charming the squirrel at the beginning of the game to use as a tank against the goblins, but realized my rules forbade ever bringing a ranger into the group. After killing the beetles and doing the sword of Aihonen quest, I cheat in a bunch of bullets, darts, and arrows (it saves time on buying and organizing them) and head out to deal with the goblins. The party is currently at levels 2 and 3.
Snowy Tae, our Cleric of Lathander, is our early-game tank, as she can hit 0 AC with Splint Mail. She runs up to draw the goblins' attention and flees before they can slay her with arrows. While the goblins are on the way, Valos, our Avenger, lays down a couple of Entangle spells, snaring the first goblins. Then our sorcerer, Espellier, charms a goblin with Charm Person. That goblin serves as our tank against the second goblin, which we pelt with missile weapons while it's ensnared by Entangle and distracted by our charmed goblin.
That's the basic formula we have for Easthaven. Without summoning spells, our only truly reliable tanks are charmed enemies, and our only means of crowd control is Entangle. Our sorcerers charm a goblin or orc, which turns on its allies and slightly reduces the pressure on our flimsy tank, Snowy Tae. This allows us to very slowly pick off the enemies one by one. Sunscorch and Chromatic Orb add on a teensy bit of damage.
For the wolves by the cave, Charm Person won't work, but Charm Person or Mammal from our druid, Valos, will. As Valos hits level 3 and 4, we can cast Web as well, which grants us automatic hits on select enemies. That's very important with a party without fighter levels. The level boost also gets us level 5 Chromatic Orbs, allowing to briefly stun enemies on a failed save... but only our bard, Marilyn Blueapple, and our druid, Valos, have reached level 5. Our sorcerers' Chromatic Orbs don't do much of anything yet.
When our sorcerers hit level 4, one of them, Espellier, takes Mirror Image. The other, Poppy, chooses Invisibility. Why?
We need Mirror Image to get a reliable tank. It's no Stoneskin, and there's still a chance of getting nailed by a critical hit from an arrow or axe, but it's all we've got right now. Invisibility, likewise, is an absolute necessity to survive Kuldahar Pass. But that's for later.
Over the course of several rests, we cut our way through the cave. Using level 5 Chromatic Orbs from our druid and bard, Hold Person from our cleric, and Web from our druid, we can get a few automatic hits on the enemies. With Charm Person from our sorcerers and Mirror Image from Espellier, we can get some decent tanks as well. And with Entangle and Web from our druid, we can reduce the pressure on our party.
But when I try that same formula on the ogres, it doesn't work. The ogres aren't just immune to Hold Person and Charm Person--they're also immune to Web and Entangle.
The only way we can slow down the ogres is to hit them with Chromatic Orbs. But we only have so many of those, the stun effect only lasts so long, we can only fire two Chromatic Orbs per round, and there are four separate ogres that needs to be stunned. Worse yet, we have orc archers to deal with as well, and our druid can't hold them back with Entangle or Web if he's busy trying to stun the ogres with Chromatic Orb.
We end up retreating, but Snowy Tae gets caught in a Web, and while her Sanctuary runs out, the enemies gather around her, even though she's invisible to them. When she escapes the Web, she's cornered, and she gets slain.
Here we encounter our first big problem. Higher-level characters cost more to raise at a temple, which means HoF mode deaths cost a lot more money before we can cast Raise Dead on our own (this is why my sorcerers are half-elves instead of elves). We have 500 gold; we'd need 1,100 to raise Snowy Tae. We have to continue without her for now.
We return to the cave and slowly wear down the enemy, stunning the ogres and entangling and webbing the orcs. Missile weapons and some limited kiting bring them down.
With the gold we gather from the quest, we raise Snowy Tae. On to Kuldahar Pass.
The big problem with Kuldahar Pass is that there are no safe places to rest until you reach Ghereg's tower. And in between you and the tower are a lot of goblins. The only reliable way for us to escape this is to sneak across the map and come back from Easthaven later, under Invisibility, to grind away at the enemy population over multiple rests. Other tactics would expose us to excessive risk.
However, at level 5, Poppy can only cast 4 Invisibility spells per day. After we clear up the first group of enemies (we have enough resources to do that), she turns everyone invisible but Snowy Tae and Fobie. Snowy Tae can cast Sanctuary and Fobie can hide. But I'm not sure they'll be able to get across the map without being spotted. Not the whole way. So I try to rest.
But we keep being interrupted, and though we can run away from the Goblin Marshalls that spawn in, each one persists when we try to rest again. Soon, there are no safe places to rest, and we have to run across the map.
Sure enough, both Fobie and Snowy Tae die on the way to Kuldahar. There's simply no way for those characters to avoid goblin arrows. AC is not enough. We pick up their gear and rest at Kuldahar.
We come back later, with the whole party invisible this time (with only 4 members, we now have enough Invisibility spells to cover everyone). I use the same tactics we used on the goblins and orcs before, but I let Espellier linger too close to the edges of Valos' Spike Growth spell, and it cuts through her Mirror Images. A Goblin Marshall, still under the effects of our bard's Horror spell, strikes her, and the Spike Growth spell finishes her off.
Horror in IWD is extremely unreliable. Very often, it will have no real impact on enemy behavior. They will keep on fighting, as this Goblin Marshall did.
We only have three characters left, but with Chromatic Orb, Charm Person, Entangle, and Web, we still have the basic building blocks of our strategy. And when Valos hits level 7, he can shapeshift into a spider, which apparently poisons the target without a saving throw. It makes killing stuff much faster, though spiders have large circles in IWD and are very clunky, unlike BG2.
But due to a lost spell and some lucky saves on the part of the enemy, we nearly lose both Valos and Poppy to goblin arrows on the way to the beetle cave. Only Poppy's Invisibility spell allowed the group to escape. We came back later and cleared out the rest of the enemies, except for Ghereg, whom Valos pacified with some friendly advice (druids can recommend an herbal remedy for Ghereg's headache).
We only have enough money to bring back one character. We choose Snowy Tae. The sooner she hits level 9--which is very, very far away--the sooner we can start raising our own characters. Temples charge huge rates for resurrection for high-level characters in IWD, and the cost will only get larger as the game goes on.
We must enter the Vale of Shadows with only four characters, and gather enough gold to bring back the other two.
Basically everything in the Vale of Shadows is immune to Chromatic Orb, Hold Person, and Charm Person. The only disablers that will work on the enemies here are Hold Undead from Snowy Tae and Web from Valos. Hold Undead, interestingly enough, has a much wider area of effect than Hold Person, but unfortunately Snowy Tae can only cast it twice per day, and any enemy that makes its save is going to be attacking us for the rest of the fight.
I overestimate Valos' tanking ability in the first tomb. Beetle form gives him better AC and 50% resistance against slashing and piercing damage, but that doesn't help much when two of the five skeletons he's tanking are using maces. Poppy rescues him with Invisibility, but when she tries to rescue herself with another spell, it gets interrupted. Due to the configuration of the battleground, there is no place for her to run. We lose our second sorcerer.
We flee the tomb and slay one of the skeletons chasing us with a Chromatic Orb, bumping Valos up to 9th level and granting us access to Pixie Dust. Poppy was supplying us with party-wide invisibility before every fight, but now Valos can do that for us. He also gets Ironskins, which, unlike Stoneskin in IWD, lasts 12 hours instead of 8. Valos is now a decent tank, although, as an Avenger with access to only leather armor, he needs Barkskin to maintain low AC, and Barkskin doesn't last long.
We return to the first tomb and clear it out. There aren't as many skeletons there as there used to be, so our decreased numbers don't stop us from succeeding.
Next, we have to deal with a Carrion Crawler, which proves immune to Web. Also, a Chromatic Orb mysteriously fails to impact it: it neither damages the Carrion Crawler nor displays a save vs. spell, indicating that the spell just flat-out did nothing. Sometimes spells in IWD just don't do anything, and I'm not entirely sure why. We do, however, send it running with Horror, and Valos chews it up in spider form.
Eventually, we go back to the temple. And then I realize something very special.
Raising a character at a temple gets more and more expensive the higher the character's level. But a Raise Dead scroll costs the same amount as always, and the temple in Kuldahar sells an unlimited amount of them. Marilyn Blueapple, our bard, buys a scroll of Friends and with the resulting 20 Charisma purchases three scrolls of Raise Dead to bring back our two sorcerers and our Bounty Hunter, Fobie.
Poppy had hit level 8 shortly beforehand and therefore had Stoneskin. This makes her a fantastic tank. She buffs herself with Shield, Mirror Image, and Stoneskin, and Snowy Tae, who has recently hit level 7, can now cover Poppy with Free Action, allowing Valos to throw Webs right at her without worry. She gathers the enemies and Valos disables them. Then she runs off and lets Valos chain-cast Spike Growth, slowing chewing away at the skeletons and other undead as we pelt them with missile weapons.
Also, Espellier hits level 7. She chooses Hold Undead for her second level 3 spell pick, and she proves capable of disabling large groups of enemies throughout Kresselack's Tomb.
She becomes even more valuable when Poppy accidentally kills herself with her own Fireball spell. Turns out the radius is larger than I realized. Espellier takes her place as the party's tank.
We make strong progress by relying on Web and Hold Undead to disable the enemies and Mirror Image and Stoneskin to protect Espellier, once she hits level 8. Then we encounter trouble with the Skeletal Mage in the second level of Kresselack's Tomb, the one with the Black Wolf Talisman and Katana +1 in it. The mage and a handful of other skeletons survive our Web and Spike Growth spells, and we prove unable to interrupt the mage's spells. It deal awful damage with Melf's Acid Arrow and Lightning Bolt, severely injuring both Valos and Snowy Tae. Worse yet, it evades our missile weapons and saves against Espellier's Hold Undead.
Snowy Tae brings it down with her hammer, but it isn't long after that an Imbued Wight wanders over and blasts Valos with Magic Missile. Spell damage is uncommon in IWD but it tends to have a major impact when it does show up. Valos survives the spell, only to succumb to the lingering damage from Melf's Acid Arrow. He was our most valuable asset since the beginning of the game.
We buy another two scrolls of Raise Dead and bring him back along with Poppy, only to see Poppy kill herself again when we misjudge the radius of her Fireball spell. Another 500 gold lost. I think we also lost somebody to a mummy's disease at some point. I thought because I hadn't memorized Cure Disease that we couldn't fix it, even though I had several Mummy's Tea potions stashed in our Potion Bag.
The rest of the tomb went down to Web, Spike Growth, Hold Undead, and Fireball. Lysan failed a save against Chromatic Orb and her Yetis got webbed and paralyzed with more Chromatic Orbs. The Vale of Shadows is complete.
No reloads so far, but we have suffered over half a dozen deaths. Heart of Fury mode is pretty cruel without summons.
So, I guess I'll enter the run here, such as it is. I'm on core rules, with maximum hit points at level up, 100% spell learning, and BG1 weapon proficiencies with weapon styles from Tweaks. So, it's not a challenge run or anything.
The only party death I've had so far was because Aerie failed a save against Feeblemind against Yxunomei, which sealed her doom.
My strategy was to hold the party back at the entrance to the previous chamber to Yxy's. Imoen opened the door and did the dialogue, since I judged her to be the least critical party member for this fight, although she wound up helping quite a bit after Aerie fell to Feeblemind.
One reason Aerie went down was that I was trying to get her to use the High Summoner's Staff to bring out Invisible Stalkers. She succeeded one time, but the controls for this staff are very wonky, for some reason. It has to bring up a second menu, *after* you expend a charge, and if you do anything else before the beginning of the next round during combat, with an unclear aura, including clicking to give orders to other party members, it wastes the charge and nothing happens. I don't recommend using the High Summoner's Staff in a no-reload, and I won't again in the future, unless I can get some Stalkers out *before* combat begins. At least it's a +3 weapon.
Minsc drank potions of Storm Giant Strength, Heroism, and used the Blur Deck. I cast Strength and Cat's Grace on Jaheira, and then Haste on the whole party after the fight started (my Haste spell was likely the key to the victory, that and Minsc's potions, plus berserking.) I spent the rest of the fight singing skald song for +2 AC and thac0.
Jaheira used Spike Growth to create a killing ground in the second-to-last chamber, and at least one Insect Swarm to disable one of the yuan-ti mages. BTW, Jaheira's neutrality was a huge positive here, since it allowed her to use both the armor of charm and confusion protection and the +3 shield that you can find just before this boss fight, that nobody with either "lawful" or "good" in their alignment can use.
Jaheira and Minsc were able to tank Yxy while Khalid fired +2 arrows with the Shortbow of Sseth and Called Shot. Jaheira still almost went down and had to retreat, but in the end, we prevailed.
Here are screenshots of this famous, exciting encounter, arguably one of the best boss fights ever in an rpg:
At the Temple of the Forgotten God, we began using one of my absolute favorite tactics in IWD: Fireball.
The thing about Fireball is that IWD enemies come in large groups. It's not uncommon to deal with 5-10 enemies at a time. That means area-effect spells in general are far more effective than in BG2, where the toughest fights tend to involve one single big enemy, and enemies tend to have sturdy defenses against spells. Heart of Fury mode dramatically decreases the effectiveness of damage spells, but even in HoF, Fireball can take down large groups of enemies with a few castings.
IWD's Protection from Fire priest spell, unlike the BG2 version, only grants 80% fire resistance, but lasts 1 turn per level, making it reliable even in lengthy battles like those you encounter in HoF mode. Also, our bard can cast the mage version of Protection from Fire a couple times per day, leaving room for one Haste spell, and the mage version gives 100% resistance. And our Avenger can shapeshift into Fire Salamander or Fire Elemental form for immunity to fire damage. And the Mantle of the Coming Storm, which you can get from the Kuldahar bartender after you kill Lysan, grants 30% resistance to fire and cold, enough to bump up 80% resistance to total immunity.
We can make the whole party almost completely immune to fire damage, which makes Fireball a much safer option. But bombing the whole party generally isn't ideal, since it disrupts spell even if we take no damage. Plus, in HoF mode, even damage you deal to yourself is doubled, so a couple Fireballs could still kill a party member in one round.
What this means is that we can send out one of our sorcerers, buffed with Shield, Mirror Image, and Stoneskin, and have her distract the enemies while our party can act from a distance. Our two sorcerers can throw out two Fireballs per round six times per day, which is more than enough to take down any group of enemies at this point in the game. Unfortunately, it cuts down on our tank's Mirror Images, so sometimes we have to take a round off in order to re-cast Mirror Image.
The Verbeegs in the Temple of the Forgotten God are immune to Charm Person, Hold Person, Entangle, and Web. But they're perfectly vulnerable to Chromatic Orbs, and when those don't work, we can just burn the Verbeegs to death. Such is the power of Fireball in IWD that it proves useful even in HoF mode.
At Dragon's Eye, I discover that Lizard Men are immune to Web in EE. It seems that everything with a large circle is immune to Web now. Luckily, the level 9 bard song Siren's Yearning, which paralyzes enemies for one round on a failed save vs. spell, still works fine (note that taking damage breaks the song's effect). After we torch the first gang of Lizard Men in Dragon's Eye, Snowy Tae hits level 9. We can now, finally, cast Raise Dead on our own. But if Snowy Tae herself dies, we have to pay thousands of gold to bring her back.
Unfortunately, Raise Dead won't help us with permanent. Valos gets chunked by a 170-damage Static Charge from a Lizard Man Shaman.
But I already decided this was cause for a reload. The last time I did a no-reload run, I found that single-player mode in IWD:EE forbade creating new characters after the game begins. If somebody gets chunked somewhere along the way, you're down to five characters and there's nothing you can do about it, ever.
Since this isn't how the original game operated--you could easily create new characters in single-player mode as well as multi-player mode--and since this has no real justification, since IWD is meant to be played by player-created characters, I deemed this an EE bug. In a normal game, you'd be able to cure chunking (or even normal deaths, actually) by exporting and importing characters.
My only real solution to this is a reload, though I might be able to prevent further chunking by setting our party members' minimum HP to -9 via EEKeeper.
We do well the second round, but we still suffer a death. Unfortunately, it's Snowy Tae that dies. We lose more than half our gold raising her.
@semiticgod Reading your story really makes me want to buy Icewind Dale...I owned the first game years ago but never got very far. Never tried IWD 2. Which are you playing? Are they both available in EE?
I want to proudly report a death: I had started a Cavalier run in a (mostly) canonical party and made great strides toward Nashkel, saving Dynaheir. ... then clubbed on the head by the... *gasp* ... by the Amazing Oopah.
Yes, rather embarrassing, but true.
(I have a run waiting for months in the early TOB by my Dragon Disciple, but don't wanna touch it for the moment. Maybe, I'll do another melee class...)
Just want to say that I really enjoyed reading about your IWD adventures. They inspired me to give it a go as well so in week or two I'll try one. Just have to balance these annoying RL obligations
I have problems as well. I restarted an iwd party 4 times after being wiped in hof insane mode while trying to roleplay... maybe I should reconsider that in a run because that does not mix well. The attempts were barely worth discussing.
#1 Basically, for each character I take the FIRST ability roll only -- do or die. And I never re-roll for HP gains.
Example: my front line Cavalier cannot lift a tower shield and has no bonus CON or bonus DEX! That's a paperthin frontliner there. My arcane caster has a 15 INT only (which was lucky, I guess).
This simple constraint is roughly equal to taking a 2-4 penalty on everything like AC, THAC0, HP gain etc...
#2 With this constraint, I play non-Heart of Fury; with INSANE difficulty but without extra damage or extra XP.
#3 I gimp my casters. Let's face it: a well-played solo sorcerer can beat this game, even with crap stats. I have not even a single full-class arcane caster (one bard and one C/M in the current party).
#4 Role play: there must be a story! (I will post mine, if I find time later.)
I have yet to finish IWDEE, but all my previous runs were abandoned rather than lost. Perhaps, this one will stick.
Thanks again to all IWDers who posted recently here for inspiration!
We finished the Severed Hand, no reloads. I'm almost getting embarrassed to call this a no-reload and post it here, since I'm playing on a "mere" core rules, with BG1 weapons proficiencies, maximum hit points, and 100% spell learning. But I just don't think I'd have very much fun with an "insane", "meant to be played" challenge run. Still, maybe I'll try it sometime. This run is *somewhat* challenging, if you define that as "a character once died to a Feeblemind spell, and some characters occasionally get to "badly wounded" before they get healed.
But despite playing on the no-reloaders' version of "easy" setting, I must say I am having a lot of fun with this.
Here is my "victory" screenshot for the Severed Hand. There was honestly no challenge at all here. Nothing in the whole dungeon struck me as a "boss level" fight.
Interesting side note: I had to consult a walkthrough to find the fourth and final astrolabe piece, which required using a lift to go up and then a staircase to go down again, into a fogged out area on the very first level of the dungeon that would have been very hard to find without already knowing it was there. That reminds me of IWD2, which heavily increased the "buy our paperback guide or you'll get stuck" pre-internet rpg gaming industry standard. I suppose you might eventually find the way to continue the game if you spent hours of real time combing over every inch of that dungeon, and I know I did that back in the day of the original release of IWD, but, yuck. I remember I did finally give up on IWD2 when I got to the "time travel back and do this dungeon over and over" part, after I got fed up on all the puzzles. I've never finished IWD2.
I don't miss that part of "the good old days" of rpg's in the pre-internet age at all. It was so frustrating to have to stop having fun and start searching for the solution of a puzzle. I *hate* puzzles in rpg games. They *destroy* my immersion and fun.
Next play session, into Dorn's Deep. We all know there are marked difficulty spikes in each chapter of IWD, so this whole thing could still go south as a no-reload game, despite my "easy" mode settings.
@BelgarathMTH: I actually have 100% spell learning in my own game (I use quick save as a shortcut). I hate losing spells--it detracts from the complexity of the gameplay, to see your spell options reduced by chance. I didn't want to have to screw around with Potions of Genius just to make sure my bard could cast Mirror Image. The important thing is that your game is fun for you.
And for what it's worth, no-reload anything is far tougher than anything in the original game. That you've made it this far without reloading is itself pretty badass.
@Ygramul I think the combination of insane hof and roleplay is the downfall for me because when I roleplay I pick abnormal proficiencies and subpar spells. In insane hof that is a huge mistake. So I am abandoning my games when I get wiped 4/6 just because it is not fun. Perhaps I will go with non roleplay or non insane.
@Ygramul I think the combination of insane hof and roleplay is the downfall for me because when I roleplay I pick abnormal proficiencies and subpar spells. In insane hof that is a huge mistake. So I am abandoning my games when I get wiped 4/6 just because it is not fun. Perhaps I will go with non roleplay or non insane.
... which is why I never play HoF.
My current IWD run (still in the Vale) has proved an exciting nail biter so far, by simply having the - "...take the FIRST ability roll only..." which is an enormous handicap!
Also, I don't have automatic spell learning. Think about it: - e.g., INT 15 (a very good roll!) means 65% chance to learn - most scrolls are only single copy - there are limited potions for increasing INT As a result, my current lvl 4 Bard still has ZERO spells memorized, because I don't wanna risk losing spells.
My front liners can only take one hit from a Yeti before running back to heal.
And I can't afford deaths (had a few already) because I am out of money.
Yes if you pick the right spells. I took find familiar (and actually use it) as well as burning hands (which is okay in iwdee because of minor aoe). The problem is staying involved with my party until she reaches the really useful spells I want to use .
Based on my experience, I think taking the results of scribing in IWD (because of not optimal stats, a low amount of potions and other factors) is a great addition to a no-reload experience. It makes specialist mages feel indeed special and it makes you think when, which spell and for which character to try to learn. Also, it makes potions of mind focusing and of genius much more valuable.
Based on my experience, I think taking the results of scribing in IWD (because of not optimal stats, a low amount of potions and other factors) is a great addition to a no-reload experience. It makes specialist mages feel indeed special and it makes you think when, which spell and for which character to try to learn. Also, it makes potions of mind focusing and of genius much more valuable.
Couldn't agree more This is one of main reasons why I refuse to acknowledge the existence of sorcerers as a playable class in IWD.
Mostly for me it's the sheer lack of scrolls in IWD. There just aren't enough to properly equip more than one or two mages. Other classes experience no such disadvantage. It's unbalanced, especially since IWD is a low-level game where wizard level scaling isn't as severe. It's also fairly unrealistic considering Kuldahar has tens of thousands of gold worth of weapons and armor, enough to equip a small army, while it lacks enough scrolls to fill even three mages' spellbooks.
In IWD, a party of fighters will always have enough weapons and armor. A party of thieves will always have enough skill points. And a party of clerics or druids will have always have enough spells. But a party of mages will never have enough scrolls.
@semiticgod You make some good points here (especially related to kuldasr shops) but I guess the scarity of scrolls is/was integral part of IWD charm. I always liked the whole might over magic thing. I actually never tried going with a full party of mages. Usually single class + multi or bard. One my favorite playthroughs was in vanilla game with my bard being the only arcane magic user. Then I actually had an abundance of scrolls
Mostly for me it's the sheer lack of scrolls in IWD. There just aren't enough to properly equip more than one or two mages.
True -- and I think that is a good thing. Full blown arcane casters will beat the IWD senseless consistently. (Now, I concede that HoF is a different story, possibly justifying any advantage. I deliberately avoid HoF.)
Reporting my own current IWDEE run:
The party cleared the Vale and is about to enter the Temple of the weird priests.
On the issue of spells memorized:
Bard - lvl 5 - ZERO spells (he's basically like a Singer/Archer at the moment) C/M - lvl 4/4 - Identify, Sleep and ZERO other spells. (No other arcane casters.)
But why? Well, I have 2 each of Potions of Genius and Mind Focusing. My low-int Bard and C/M need to gulp down both potions each to scribe a scroll consistently. (Oswald does not have replacements in stock, even if I had the money, which I don't. Potions of Mind Focusing were found as drops.)
Also, I can't even buy all the scrolls in one go to. Resurrections are very costly and even after the Vale I am still mostly broke. So, any death is traumatic to the party.
(Another House Rule for later: Don't sell enchanted ammo. Haven't gotten that far yet, but I remember getting like 40k gold for a stack of arrows. Ridiculous.)
We continue in Dragon's Eye. We Fireball the hell out of everything we can, with Chromatic Orb and Hold Person to reduce enemy pressure. We get very lucky in the fight with the Lizard King: Hold Person paralyzes two Lizard Men at the front, forming a wall against the rest of the enemies. IWD AI is too primitive to deal with this, so we just hang behind the paralyzed Lizard Men and Fireball the rest from afar, eventually poisoning the Lizard King himself to death with spider form after we paralyzed him.
I anticipated a lot of trouble with the Bombardier Beetles, as we're not allowed to use summons in this run and we have no defense against acid damage unless we use up the single Protection from Acid scroll we have. Thankfully, beetles, unlike everything else in this area, are vulnerable to Web.
Poppy and Espellier hit level 10 and choose Minor Spell Turning as their first level 5 spell picks. I never really got a chance to use the scorcher loop much, and IWD in HoF mode is the ideal environment. Unfortunately, since we have no sequencers yet and MST only bounces 4 spell levels to Spell Turning's 12, our current scorcher loop is fairly weak, dealing only about 100 damage per shot. In fact, Espellier and Poppy both get killed when they try to use it against some Phase Spiders and Sword Spiders, as the spiders' poison appears to bypass their Stoneskin and Mirror Image spells. With HoF damage levels, that's 6 damage per second for 17 seconds, a guaranteed kill. Not even Antidote was enough to save them.
Complicating the matter was the fact that, in IWD:EE, Agannazar's Scorcher pauses the caster for 6 seconds instead of 2. This means we're much less mobile when using the scorcher loop than in BG2. Also, Phase Spiders tend to teleport a lot, making them hard to hit.
I tried it again on the second level, on the huge pack of Trolls, Sword Spiders, Phase Spiders, Bombardier Beetles, and Lizard Men that attack you shortly inside the area. Since I forgot at the time that our scorcher loop was still terribly weak, it got Espellier killed. Poppy had to turn invisible to avoid being poisoned to death, while Valos hid the rest of the party with Pixie Dust. Since the monsters formed a wall preventing Poppy from getting close enough to escape the area with the rest of the group, Valos had to break invisibility and lure the monsters closer so Poppy could approach the door.
Conveniently enough, our other three party members could form an invisible wall protecting Valos from everyone but the Phase Spiders. After Valos dispatched the spiders using his own spider form (IWD spiders appear quite vulnerable to poison), he vanished with Improved Invisibility and we escaped to raise Espellier and return.
To deal with the poison problem, I used Valos as my tank the second time around. As a high-level druid (he just reached level 12), he is immune to poison. He doesn't have Mirror Image and his Ironskins are limited, and his AC as an Avenger is just terrible, but by combining Barkskin with Entropy Shield and a Defensive Harmony from Snowy Tae, Valos can reach -16 AC for a few rounds.
While Valos keeps the enemy occupied, Espellier and Poppy pelt the enemies with Fireballs. After exhausting all 12 of our Fireball spells, we're left with three Trolls still clinging to life--in a big group of enemies, some of them are bound to get better saves and lower damage rolls. We finish them off with a scorcher loop.
Valos still had his Entropy Shield active at the end, even though it only lasts 12 rounds at his level. I think I'll leave the scorcher loop alone for a while and focus on Fireball for the time being.
While you can talk about game balancing, I personally feel that the scarcity of scrolls in IWD is indicative of the location. While in BG 1 and 2 you're dealing with well populated and civilized areas that would have a relative abundance of mages and cultured people, in IWD you're in the frozen barbarian ruled wastes; an area devoid of much magical influence apart from faith based magic and otherworldly magics. (demons, tribal magics, etc. etc.) It makes perfect sense that magic is a rarity and that the only shopkeepers who carry magical scrolls carry very few of them. After all, when you have a supply route to a remote region, one would think that the most important supplies would be tools, food, materials for making necessities such as clothing and shelter, and the like. Scrolls would be impractical to bring over in bulk, especially considering the lack of talented people capable of using them.
In short, while annoying for the player, it makes perfect sense that scrolls are a luxury.
Comments
Dead is dead, better luck next time.
Lessons learned this time:
1. Don't play when too tired to even try to care.
2. Invis wont Always save you.
Back to something with arcane Powers I guess.
Been reading your IWD run with great interest - especially since the absence of SCS for IWD was rather frustrating for finding a decent challenge.
Could you tell a bit about your mod/setting combination?
Is it something like: Insane, but without extra XP/HP? What about decent challenge mods? House rules?
P.S. This was my old IWD House Rules, but the game remained insufficiently challenging still:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/36352/the-way-it-is-meant-to-be-played-tm-an-ocders-guide-to-making-iwdee-a-challenge
Insane, without additional XP. I installed the following mod components from the new Tweaks:
Game ends when the main character die
Alter Weapon Proficiency System -IWD-Style Proficiencies without Weapon Styles: Friendly Random Drops -Exchange With Merchants
The Maximum HPs for All Creatures -all enemies get maximum HPs
These are massive changes to the game, as I see them. Altering the weapon proficiency system brings it much closer to the vanilla game and doesn't let you dual-wield. The death of the main character as a game-over is a great component.
Also, I decided not to use kits (which come from BG), only classes available in vanilla IWD. With the IWD-Style Proficiencies it makes the game more challenging and more different from the BG experience.
I think I was secretly hoping for an AI update mod, but that is too much to hope for it seems.
I wish Beamdog instead spend time and money on better AI.
I'd pay full price of a new game for earnestly done good AI.
I start in Heart of Fury mode at level 1. No one in my party is allowed to have fighter levels, and we are required to be single-classed, despite Heart of Fury favoring multi- and dual-classes.
And we're not using any summons, ever. I always found summoning spells to be the key to HoF mode, since they make extremely tough walls against enemy hordes, and I want to see how to get by without them.
First, we have Snowy Tae, our chipper Cleric of Lathander. This is her screen in Easthaven, fully buffed.
The main reason I picked the Lathander kit is not actually because of Boon of Lathander, which is normally my favorite part of the kit. The main reason is because of Hold Undead, which will be extremely important in the Vale of Shadows, where almost every enemy is immune to other disablers.
Normally I like halflings, but I felt like changing things up. For the first time in for as long as I can remember, no one in the group will be wearing the Helm of the Trusted Defender.
Next is our solemn Avenger, Valos.
Avengers are rather conventionally powerful, but it was the reasonable choice. I don't like unkitted druids, Totemic Druids would be out of the question because we can't summon anything, and IWD already gives us a lot of excellent shapeshifting options, making Greater Werewolf form from the Shapeshifter less necessary. Plus, I love Chromatic Orb in IWD.
Then we have two sorcerers, Poppy and Espellier.
I want lots of mage spells, and IWD doesn't have nearly enough scrolls to properly supply a non-imported party in HoF.
Despite the dire need for spellpower, we have one full-time Bounty Hunter, Fobie.
The blind thief trick in IWD:EE only works for stealth, not traps, so he won't be mass-Mazing enemies in the thick of combat. But I've always felt the Bounty Hunter was the most interesting of the thief kits.
Finally, we have our backup mage, an unkitted bard, Marilyn Blueapple.
Skalds are the standard powergaming option for IWD:EE, but I like the versatility of IWD's standard bards.
I won't be posting many pictures for the first few parts of their adventure, since I'm too lazy to convert them to jpegs, but I'll explain how we got through things with the limitations we had.
Snowy Tae, our Cleric of Lathander, is our early-game tank, as she can hit 0 AC with Splint Mail. She runs up to draw the goblins' attention and flees before they can slay her with arrows. While the goblins are on the way, Valos, our Avenger, lays down a couple of Entangle spells, snaring the first goblins. Then our sorcerer, Espellier, charms a goblin with Charm Person. That goblin serves as our tank against the second goblin, which we pelt with missile weapons while it's ensnared by Entangle and distracted by our charmed goblin.
That's the basic formula we have for Easthaven. Without summoning spells, our only truly reliable tanks are charmed enemies, and our only means of crowd control is Entangle. Our sorcerers charm a goblin or orc, which turns on its allies and slightly reduces the pressure on our flimsy tank, Snowy Tae. This allows us to very slowly pick off the enemies one by one. Sunscorch and Chromatic Orb add on a teensy bit of damage.
For the wolves by the cave, Charm Person won't work, but Charm Person or Mammal from our druid, Valos, will. As Valos hits level 3 and 4, we can cast Web as well, which grants us automatic hits on select enemies. That's very important with a party without fighter levels. The level boost also gets us level 5 Chromatic Orbs, allowing to briefly stun enemies on a failed save... but only our bard, Marilyn Blueapple, and our druid, Valos, have reached level 5. Our sorcerers' Chromatic Orbs don't do much of anything yet.
When our sorcerers hit level 4, one of them, Espellier, takes Mirror Image. The other, Poppy, chooses Invisibility. Why?
We need Mirror Image to get a reliable tank. It's no Stoneskin, and there's still a chance of getting nailed by a critical hit from an arrow or axe, but it's all we've got right now. Invisibility, likewise, is an absolute necessity to survive Kuldahar Pass. But that's for later.
Over the course of several rests, we cut our way through the cave. Using level 5 Chromatic Orbs from our druid and bard, Hold Person from our cleric, and Web from our druid, we can get a few automatic hits on the enemies. With Charm Person from our sorcerers and Mirror Image from Espellier, we can get some decent tanks as well. And with Entangle and Web from our druid, we can reduce the pressure on our party.
But when I try that same formula on the ogres, it doesn't work. The ogres aren't just immune to Hold Person and Charm Person--they're also immune to Web and Entangle.
The only way we can slow down the ogres is to hit them with Chromatic Orbs. But we only have so many of those, the stun effect only lasts so long, we can only fire two Chromatic Orbs per round, and there are four separate ogres that needs to be stunned. Worse yet, we have orc archers to deal with as well, and our druid can't hold them back with Entangle or Web if he's busy trying to stun the ogres with Chromatic Orb.
We end up retreating, but Snowy Tae gets caught in a Web, and while her Sanctuary runs out, the enemies gather around her, even though she's invisible to them. When she escapes the Web, she's cornered, and she gets slain.
Here we encounter our first big problem. Higher-level characters cost more to raise at a temple, which means HoF mode deaths cost a lot more money before we can cast Raise Dead on our own (this is why my sorcerers are half-elves instead of elves). We have 500 gold; we'd need 1,100 to raise Snowy Tae. We have to continue without her for now.
We return to the cave and slowly wear down the enemy, stunning the ogres and entangling and webbing the orcs. Missile weapons and some limited kiting bring them down.
With the gold we gather from the quest, we raise Snowy Tae. On to Kuldahar Pass.
However, at level 5, Poppy can only cast 4 Invisibility spells per day. After we clear up the first group of enemies (we have enough resources to do that), she turns everyone invisible but Snowy Tae and Fobie. Snowy Tae can cast Sanctuary and Fobie can hide. But I'm not sure they'll be able to get across the map without being spotted. Not the whole way. So I try to rest.
But we keep being interrupted, and though we can run away from the Goblin Marshalls that spawn in, each one persists when we try to rest again. Soon, there are no safe places to rest, and we have to run across the map.
Sure enough, both Fobie and Snowy Tae die on the way to Kuldahar. There's simply no way for those characters to avoid goblin arrows. AC is not enough. We pick up their gear and rest at Kuldahar.
We come back later, with the whole party invisible this time (with only 4 members, we now have enough Invisibility spells to cover everyone). I use the same tactics we used on the goblins and orcs before, but I let Espellier linger too close to the edges of Valos' Spike Growth spell, and it cuts through her Mirror Images. A Goblin Marshall, still under the effects of our bard's Horror spell, strikes her, and the Spike Growth spell finishes her off.
Horror in IWD is extremely unreliable. Very often, it will have no real impact on enemy behavior. They will keep on fighting, as this Goblin Marshall did.
We only have three characters left, but with Chromatic Orb, Charm Person, Entangle, and Web, we still have the basic building blocks of our strategy. And when Valos hits level 7, he can shapeshift into a spider, which apparently poisons the target without a saving throw. It makes killing stuff much faster, though spiders have large circles in IWD and are very clunky, unlike BG2.
But due to a lost spell and some lucky saves on the part of the enemy, we nearly lose both Valos and Poppy to goblin arrows on the way to the beetle cave. Only Poppy's Invisibility spell allowed the group to escape. We came back later and cleared out the rest of the enemies, except for Ghereg, whom Valos pacified with some friendly advice (druids can recommend an herbal remedy for Ghereg's headache).
We only have enough money to bring back one character. We choose Snowy Tae. The sooner she hits level 9--which is very, very far away--the sooner we can start raising our own characters. Temples charge huge rates for resurrection for high-level characters in IWD, and the cost will only get larger as the game goes on.
We must enter the Vale of Shadows with only four characters, and gather enough gold to bring back the other two.
I overestimate Valos' tanking ability in the first tomb. Beetle form gives him better AC and 50% resistance against slashing and piercing damage, but that doesn't help much when two of the five skeletons he's tanking are using maces. Poppy rescues him with Invisibility, but when she tries to rescue herself with another spell, it gets interrupted. Due to the configuration of the battleground, there is no place for her to run. We lose our second sorcerer.
We flee the tomb and slay one of the skeletons chasing us with a Chromatic Orb, bumping Valos up to 9th level and granting us access to Pixie Dust. Poppy was supplying us with party-wide invisibility before every fight, but now Valos can do that for us. He also gets Ironskins, which, unlike Stoneskin in IWD, lasts 12 hours instead of 8. Valos is now a decent tank, although, as an Avenger with access to only leather armor, he needs Barkskin to maintain low AC, and Barkskin doesn't last long.
We return to the first tomb and clear it out. There aren't as many skeletons there as there used to be, so our decreased numbers don't stop us from succeeding.
Next, we have to deal with a Carrion Crawler, which proves immune to Web. Also, a Chromatic Orb mysteriously fails to impact it: it neither damages the Carrion Crawler nor displays a save vs. spell, indicating that the spell just flat-out did nothing. Sometimes spells in IWD just don't do anything, and I'm not entirely sure why. We do, however, send it running with Horror, and Valos chews it up in spider form.
Eventually, we go back to the temple. And then I realize something very special.
Raising a character at a temple gets more and more expensive the higher the character's level. But a Raise Dead scroll costs the same amount as always, and the temple in Kuldahar sells an unlimited amount of them. Marilyn Blueapple, our bard, buys a scroll of Friends and with the resulting 20 Charisma purchases three scrolls of Raise Dead to bring back our two sorcerers and our Bounty Hunter, Fobie.
Poppy had hit level 8 shortly beforehand and therefore had Stoneskin. This makes her a fantastic tank. She buffs herself with Shield, Mirror Image, and Stoneskin, and Snowy Tae, who has recently hit level 7, can now cover Poppy with Free Action, allowing Valos to throw Webs right at her without worry. She gathers the enemies and Valos disables them. Then she runs off and lets Valos chain-cast Spike Growth, slowing chewing away at the skeletons and other undead as we pelt them with missile weapons.
Also, Espellier hits level 7. She chooses Hold Undead for her second level 3 spell pick, and she proves capable of disabling large groups of enemies throughout Kresselack's Tomb.
She becomes even more valuable when Poppy accidentally kills herself with her own Fireball spell. Turns out the radius is larger than I realized. Espellier takes her place as the party's tank.
We make strong progress by relying on Web and Hold Undead to disable the enemies and Mirror Image and Stoneskin to protect Espellier, once she hits level 8. Then we encounter trouble with the Skeletal Mage in the second level of Kresselack's Tomb, the one with the Black Wolf Talisman and Katana +1 in it. The mage and a handful of other skeletons survive our Web and Spike Growth spells, and we prove unable to interrupt the mage's spells. It deal awful damage with Melf's Acid Arrow and Lightning Bolt, severely injuring both Valos and Snowy Tae. Worse yet, it evades our missile weapons and saves against Espellier's Hold Undead.
Snowy Tae brings it down with her hammer, but it isn't long after that an Imbued Wight wanders over and blasts Valos with Magic Missile. Spell damage is uncommon in IWD but it tends to have a major impact when it does show up. Valos survives the spell, only to succumb to the lingering damage from Melf's Acid Arrow. He was our most valuable asset since the beginning of the game.
We buy another two scrolls of Raise Dead and bring him back along with Poppy, only to see Poppy kill herself again when we misjudge the radius of her Fireball spell. Another 500 gold lost. I think we also lost somebody to a mummy's disease at some point. I thought because I hadn't memorized Cure Disease that we couldn't fix it, even though I had several Mummy's Tea potions stashed in our Potion Bag.
The rest of the tomb went down to Web, Spike Growth, Hold Undead, and Fireball. Lysan failed a save against Chromatic Orb and her Yetis got webbed and paralyzed with more Chromatic Orbs. The Vale of Shadows is complete.
No reloads so far, but we have suffered over half a dozen deaths. Heart of Fury mode is pretty cruel without summons.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/48602/share-your-bg-inspired-iwd-parties#latest
So, I guess I'll enter the run here, such as it is. I'm on core rules, with maximum hit points at level up, 100% spell learning, and BG1 weapon proficiencies with weapon styles from Tweaks. So, it's not a challenge run or anything.
The only party death I've had so far was because Aerie failed a save against Feeblemind against Yxunomei, which sealed her doom.
My strategy was to hold the party back at the entrance to the previous chamber to Yxy's. Imoen opened the door and did the dialogue, since I judged her to be the least critical party member for this fight, although she wound up helping quite a bit after Aerie fell to Feeblemind.
One reason Aerie went down was that I was trying to get her to use the High Summoner's Staff to bring out Invisible Stalkers. She succeeded one time, but the controls for this staff are very wonky, for some reason. It has to bring up a second menu, *after* you expend a charge, and if you do anything else before the beginning of the next round during combat, with an unclear aura, including clicking to give orders to other party members, it wastes the charge and nothing happens. I don't recommend using the High Summoner's Staff in a no-reload, and I won't again in the future, unless I can get some Stalkers out *before* combat begins. At least it's a +3 weapon.
Minsc drank potions of Storm Giant Strength, Heroism, and used the Blur Deck. I cast Strength and Cat's Grace on Jaheira, and then Haste on the whole party after the fight started (my Haste spell was likely the key to the victory, that and Minsc's potions, plus berserking.) I spent the rest of the fight singing skald song for +2 AC and thac0.
Jaheira used Spike Growth to create a killing ground in the second-to-last chamber, and at least one Insect Swarm to disable one of the yuan-ti mages. BTW, Jaheira's neutrality was a huge positive here, since it allowed her to use both the armor of charm and confusion protection and the +3 shield that you can find just before this boss fight, that nobody with either "lawful" or "good" in their alignment can use.
Jaheira and Minsc were able to tank Yxy while Khalid fired +2 arrows with the Shortbow of Sseth and Called Shot. Jaheira still almost went down and had to retreat, but in the end, we prevailed.
Here are screenshots of this famous, exciting encounter, arguably one of the best boss fights ever in an rpg:
The thing about Fireball is that IWD enemies come in large groups. It's not uncommon to deal with 5-10 enemies at a time. That means area-effect spells in general are far more effective than in BG2, where the toughest fights tend to involve one single big enemy, and enemies tend to have sturdy defenses against spells. Heart of Fury mode dramatically decreases the effectiveness of damage spells, but even in HoF, Fireball can take down large groups of enemies with a few castings.
IWD's Protection from Fire priest spell, unlike the BG2 version, only grants 80% fire resistance, but lasts 1 turn per level, making it reliable even in lengthy battles like those you encounter in HoF mode. Also, our bard can cast the mage version of Protection from Fire a couple times per day, leaving room for one Haste spell, and the mage version gives 100% resistance. And our Avenger can shapeshift into Fire Salamander or Fire Elemental form for immunity to fire damage. And the Mantle of the Coming Storm, which you can get from the Kuldahar bartender after you kill Lysan, grants 30% resistance to fire and cold, enough to bump up 80% resistance to total immunity.
We can make the whole party almost completely immune to fire damage, which makes Fireball a much safer option. But bombing the whole party generally isn't ideal, since it disrupts spell even if we take no damage. Plus, in HoF mode, even damage you deal to yourself is doubled, so a couple Fireballs could still kill a party member in one round.
What this means is that we can send out one of our sorcerers, buffed with Shield, Mirror Image, and Stoneskin, and have her distract the enemies while our party can act from a distance. Our two sorcerers can throw out two Fireballs per round six times per day, which is more than enough to take down any group of enemies at this point in the game. Unfortunately, it cuts down on our tank's Mirror Images, so sometimes we have to take a round off in order to re-cast Mirror Image.
The Verbeegs in the Temple of the Forgotten God are immune to Charm Person, Hold Person, Entangle, and Web. But they're perfectly vulnerable to Chromatic Orbs, and when those don't work, we can just burn the Verbeegs to death. Such is the power of Fireball in IWD that it proves useful even in HoF mode.
At Dragon's Eye, I discover that Lizard Men are immune to Web in EE. It seems that everything with a large circle is immune to Web now. Luckily, the level 9 bard song Siren's Yearning, which paralyzes enemies for one round on a failed save vs. spell, still works fine (note that taking damage breaks the song's effect). After we torch the first gang of Lizard Men in Dragon's Eye, Snowy Tae hits level 9. We can now, finally, cast Raise Dead on our own. But if Snowy Tae herself dies, we have to pay thousands of gold to bring her back.
Unfortunately, Raise Dead won't help us with permanent. Valos gets chunked by a 170-damage Static Charge from a Lizard Man Shaman.
But I already decided this was cause for a reload. The last time I did a no-reload run, I found that single-player mode in IWD:EE forbade creating new characters after the game begins. If somebody gets chunked somewhere along the way, you're down to five characters and there's nothing you can do about it, ever.
Since this isn't how the original game operated--you could easily create new characters in single-player mode as well as multi-player mode--and since this has no real justification, since IWD is meant to be played by player-created characters, I deemed this an EE bug. In a normal game, you'd be able to cure chunking (or even normal deaths, actually) by exporting and importing characters.
My only real solution to this is a reload, though I might be able to prevent further chunking by setting our party members' minimum HP to -9 via EEKeeper.
We do well the second round, but we still suffer a death. Unfortunately, it's Snowy Tae that dies. We lose more than half our gold raising her.
I had started a Cavalier run in a (mostly) canonical party and made great strides toward Nashkel, saving Dynaheir.
... then clubbed on the head by the... *gasp* ... by the Amazing Oopah.
Yes, rather embarrassing, but true.
(I have a run waiting for months in the early TOB by my Dragon Disciple, but don't wanna touch it for the moment. Maybe, I'll do another melee class...)
Just want to say that I really enjoyed reading about your IWD adventures.
They inspired me to give it a go as well so in week or two I'll try one. Just have to balance these annoying RL obligations
I have also started a new IWD run.
As @lroumen also just raised the same issue, I want to discuss my setup for an IWDEE noreload run:
It is similar to my earlier attempt for houserules: ("The Way It Is Meant To Be Played (TM) -- an OCDers guide to making IWDEE a challenge")
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/36352/the-way-it-is-meant-to-be-played-tm-an-ocders-guide-to-making-iwdee-a-challenge/p1
... but tempered by advice from @bengoshi and others.
#1 Basically, for each character I take the FIRST ability roll only -- do or die. And I never re-roll for HP gains.
Example: my front line Cavalier cannot lift a tower shield and has no bonus CON or bonus DEX! That's a paperthin frontliner there. My arcane caster has a 15 INT only (which was lucky, I guess).
This simple constraint is roughly equal to taking a 2-4 penalty on everything like AC, THAC0, HP gain etc...
#2 With this constraint, I play non-Heart of Fury; with INSANE difficulty but without extra damage or extra XP.
#3 I gimp my casters. Let's face it: a well-played solo sorcerer can beat this game, even with crap stats.
I have not even a single full-class arcane caster (one bard and one C/M in the current party).
#4 Role play: there must be a story! (I will post mine, if I find time later.)
I have yet to finish IWDEE, but all my previous runs were abandoned rather than lost. Perhaps, this one will stick.
Thanks again to all IWDers who posted recently here for inspiration!
We finished the Severed Hand, no reloads. I'm almost getting embarrassed to call this a no-reload and post it here, since I'm playing on a "mere" core rules, with BG1 weapons proficiencies, maximum hit points, and 100% spell learning. But I just don't think I'd have very much fun with an "insane", "meant to be played" challenge run. Still, maybe I'll try it sometime. This run is *somewhat* challenging, if you define that as "a character once died to a Feeblemind spell, and some characters occasionally get to "badly wounded" before they get healed.
But despite playing on the no-reloaders' version of "easy" setting, I must say I am having a lot of fun with this.
Here is my "victory" screenshot for the Severed Hand. There was honestly no challenge at all here. Nothing in the whole dungeon struck me as a "boss level" fight.
Interesting side note: I had to consult a walkthrough to find the fourth and final astrolabe piece, which required using a lift to go up and then a staircase to go down again, into a fogged out area on the very first level of the dungeon that would have been very hard to find without already knowing it was there. That reminds me of IWD2, which heavily increased the "buy our paperback guide or you'll get stuck" pre-internet rpg gaming industry standard. I suppose you might eventually find the way to continue the game if you spent hours of real time combing over every inch of that dungeon, and I know I did that back in the day of the original release of IWD, but, yuck. I remember I did finally give up on IWD2 when I got to the "time travel back and do this dungeon over and over" part, after I got fed up on all the puzzles. I've never finished IWD2.
I don't miss that part of "the good old days" of rpg's in the pre-internet age at all. It was so frustrating to have to stop having fun and start searching for the solution of a puzzle. I *hate* puzzles in rpg games. They *destroy* my immersion and fun.
Next play session, into Dorn's Deep. We all know there are marked difficulty spikes in each chapter of IWD, so this whole thing could still go south as a no-reload game, despite my "easy" mode settings.
And for what it's worth, no-reload anything is far tougher than anything in the original game. That you've made it this far without reloading is itself pretty badass.
Perhaps I will go with non roleplay or non insane.
My current IWD run (still in the Vale) has proved an exciting nail biter so far, by simply having the
- "...take the FIRST ability roll only..."
which is an enormous handicap!
Also, I don't have automatic spell learning. Think about it:
- e.g., INT 15 (a very good roll!) means 65% chance to learn
- most scrolls are only single copy
- there are limited potions for increasing INT
As a result, my current lvl 4 Bard still has ZERO spells memorized, because I don't wanna risk losing spells.
My front liners can only take one hit from a Yeti before running back to heal.
And I can't afford deaths (had a few already) because I am out of money.
This is actually pretty challenging so far.
Full arcane casters are beyond the ken of the AI to deal with.
Couldn't agree more
This is one of main reasons why I refuse to acknowledge the existence of sorcerers as a playable class in IWD.
In IWD, a party of fighters will always have enough weapons and armor. A party of thieves will always have enough skill points. And a party of clerics or druids will have always have enough spells. But a party of mages will never have enough scrolls.
You make some good points here (especially related to kuldasr shops) but I guess the scarity of scrolls is/was integral part of IWD charm.
I always liked the whole might over magic thing.
I actually never tried going with a full party of mages. Usually single class + multi or bard.
One my favorite playthroughs was in vanilla game with my bard being the only arcane magic user. Then I actually had an abundance of scrolls
(Now, I concede that HoF is a different story, possibly justifying any advantage. I deliberately avoid HoF.)
Reporting my own current IWDEE run:
The party cleared the Vale and is about to enter the Temple of the weird priests.
On the issue of spells memorized:
Bard - lvl 5 - ZERO spells (he's basically like a Singer/Archer at the moment)
C/M - lvl 4/4 - Identify, Sleep and ZERO other spells.
(No other arcane casters.)
But why?
Well, I have 2 each of Potions of Genius and Mind Focusing. My low-int Bard and C/M need to gulp down both potions each to scribe a scroll consistently. (Oswald does not have replacements in stock, even if I had the money, which I don't. Potions of Mind Focusing were found as drops.)
Also, I can't even buy all the scrolls in one go to.
Resurrections are very costly and even after the Vale I am still mostly broke. So, any death is traumatic to the party.
(Another House Rule for later: Don't sell enchanted ammo. Haven't gotten that far yet, but I remember getting like 40k gold for a stack of arrows. Ridiculous.)
I anticipated a lot of trouble with the Bombardier Beetles, as we're not allowed to use summons in this run and we have no defense against acid damage unless we use up the single Protection from Acid scroll we have. Thankfully, beetles, unlike everything else in this area, are vulnerable to Web.
Poppy and Espellier hit level 10 and choose Minor Spell Turning as their first level 5 spell picks. I never really got a chance to use the scorcher loop much, and IWD in HoF mode is the ideal environment. Unfortunately, since we have no sequencers yet and MST only bounces 4 spell levels to Spell Turning's 12, our current scorcher loop is fairly weak, dealing only about 100 damage per shot. In fact, Espellier and Poppy both get killed when they try to use it against some Phase Spiders and Sword Spiders, as the spiders' poison appears to bypass their Stoneskin and Mirror Image spells. With HoF damage levels, that's 6 damage per second for 17 seconds, a guaranteed kill. Not even Antidote was enough to save them.
Complicating the matter was the fact that, in IWD:EE, Agannazar's Scorcher pauses the caster for 6 seconds instead of 2. This means we're much less mobile when using the scorcher loop than in BG2. Also, Phase Spiders tend to teleport a lot, making them hard to hit.
I tried it again on the second level, on the huge pack of Trolls, Sword Spiders, Phase Spiders, Bombardier Beetles, and Lizard Men that attack you shortly inside the area. Since I forgot at the time that our scorcher loop was still terribly weak, it got Espellier killed. Poppy had to turn invisible to avoid being poisoned to death, while Valos hid the rest of the party with Pixie Dust. Since the monsters formed a wall preventing Poppy from getting close enough to escape the area with the rest of the group, Valos had to break invisibility and lure the monsters closer so Poppy could approach the door.
Conveniently enough, our other three party members could form an invisible wall protecting Valos from everyone but the Phase Spiders. After Valos dispatched the spiders using his own spider form (IWD spiders appear quite vulnerable to poison), he vanished with Improved Invisibility and we escaped to raise Espellier and return.
To deal with the poison problem, I used Valos as my tank the second time around. As a high-level druid (he just reached level 12), he is immune to poison. He doesn't have Mirror Image and his Ironskins are limited, and his AC as an Avenger is just terrible, but by combining Barkskin with Entropy Shield and a Defensive Harmony from Snowy Tae, Valos can reach -16 AC for a few rounds.
While Valos keeps the enemy occupied, Espellier and Poppy pelt the enemies with Fireballs. After exhausting all 12 of our Fireball spells, we're left with three Trolls still clinging to life--in a big group of enemies, some of them are bound to get better saves and lower damage rolls. We finish them off with a scorcher loop.
Valos still had his Entropy Shield active at the end, even though it only lasts 12 rounds at his level. I think I'll leave the scorcher loop alone for a while and focus on Fireball for the time being.
In short, while annoying for the player, it makes perfect sense that scrolls are a luxury.