76-point Party?
Nitesco
Member Posts: 36
I'm looking to create a party in the original Icewind Dale (including both expansions), with Ability Scores based on a point-buy system. I am going to play through on normal or hard first and am wondering if there's any consensus on what a balanced pool of points for those difficulties might look like.
I was thinking of imposing a 76-point limit per character, but this is looking very tight on certain classes. I will be maximising HP and won't be imposing any personal limits on saving and loading games. This will be my first playthough of Icewind Dale, although I have played through the Baldur's Gate games several times, over a decade ago.
After reading through several FAQ's, I'm still deciding on party composition.
As an example, this is the stat spread I came up with for a Human Paladin:
STR: 18 (91)*
DEX: 7
CON: 18
INT: 3
WIS: 13
CHA: 17
* I modified this through Dale Keeper, allowing myself to set the exceptional value.
Is there any generally agreed upon fair points distrubution system according to difficulty level?
I was thinking of imposing a 76-point limit per character, but this is looking very tight on certain classes. I will be maximising HP and won't be imposing any personal limits on saving and loading games. This will be my first playthough of Icewind Dale, although I have played through the Baldur's Gate games several times, over a decade ago.
After reading through several FAQ's, I'm still deciding on party composition.
As an example, this is the stat spread I came up with for a Human Paladin:
STR: 18 (91)*
DEX: 7
CON: 18
INT: 3
WIS: 13
CHA: 17
* I modified this through Dale Keeper, allowing myself to set the exceptional value.
Is there any generally agreed upon fair points distrubution system according to difficulty level?
Post edited by Nitesco on
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Comments
Going with Half-Elf for the racial bonuses to Lore and Pick Pocketing.
STR: 14
DEX: 12
CON: 7
INT: 18
WIS: 10
CHA: 15
I know CON isn't a dump stat, so I could take points from STR to raise it, except that even with +4 items it would be outside the range of the next HP modifier.
INT 3 = illiterate + you cannot cast from scrolls.
DEX 7 = it hurts. A Paladin in my book is a competent fighter. With only DEX 7, you will get hit a lot even if wearing the best heavy armor you can find. A DEX 7 fighter is clumsy at best.
STR 18/91 = why so high strength? Why not live with STR 14 or 15 instead?
CON 18 = why so much? why not CON 16 as the absolute maximum?
If there are enough other buffs for to-hit and damage, I guess I could drop STR to 14.
I thought max CON would be important, but as I am maximising HP, perhaps not.
Do you think that a 76-point spread is okay?
STR at 18 for Fighter classes.
At Thief 7 I can get 110% Find Traps and 70% Stealth, is that enough for end-game?
I have also seen people talking about adding Weapon Proficiency points beyond Specialised once a character has Dual Classed over from Fighter to another class, but according to my experiments these don't stack.
Is this a feature of EE or am I missing something?
Other than the pips a character gets at level 1, you can save proficiency points by not leveling the character up until they have enough XP to reactivate Fighter.
No point in saving proficiency points in the original IWD (including its expansions) by not levelling up. Like how BG1 treated things once you dual class from a fighter or ranger in it you won't be able to ever advance a weapon choice again past proficiency. If you happened to have given yourself specialization or greater in a weapon before dual classing you'll of course get to benefit from them once your 2nd classes level is one level higher than your first class, but you'll never be able to increase them beyond that.
So to clarify, a character dual classing from Fighter 9 can only expect to see 5 ranks in a single weapon type and 2 ranks in a secondary weapon type?
Also, if you run sub-optimal str, the mage spell for strength buffing is pretty decent. There are SOME str boosting items, but not on par with a BG run.
Another really interesting choice might be a halfer Barbarian... great saves for death and spell, +4 str and cons allow you to leave str at 15 and still be a steamroller vs a tough foe. Take 18 cons and dex, 15 str, and you have a great character. He'll get access to a great helm iirc, as a halfling.
A Half-Orc Berserk only needs str, cons and dex, he's almost ridiculously good early.
If you want a tougher challenge, use a Cleric/Ranger multi, or an Elven ranger. You'll end up awfully thinly spread as an elf ranger iirc, they have many high min stats. Paladins and Bards are obviously hard to manage on a low stat total.
Which would explain the issue of not being able to specialize/GM after dualing out of fighter.
@Grum in the original IWD, Rangers are excellent in melee, they get a bonus apr with slashing weapons.
So far I've come up with the following party:
Neutral Good Half-Elf Bard
Str: 8
Dex: 18
Con: 7
Int: 18
Wis: 7
Cha: 18
x/Good Human Fighter 9>Cleric x 2
Str: 18(00)
Dex: 18
Con: 16
Int: 3
Wis: 18
Cha: 3
x/Good Human Thief 7>Mage
Str: 18
Dex: 18
Con: 16
Int: 18
Wis: 3
Cha: 3
Maybe a multi-class split involving Cleric for the 5th party slot. I might leave the 6th party slot open and play on Hard.
My rules were:
No adjusting stats (reroll as much as you like though)
No reloading
Insane difficulty
No difficulty based xp bonus
No difficulty based damage bonus
No arcane except a wild mage
No multiclasses
No OP classes
My party was:
Halfling barbarian
Cavalier
Totemic Druid
Dwarf Priest of Lathander
Half Orc Bounty Hunter
Human Wild Mage
Without adjusting stats the party had really natural stats with only 1 or 2 good ones and barely any 18s (I rolled for ages to get the thiefs 19 strength).
Some party members ended up with good point totals but they were mostly useless as the values fell within the range without any bonuses.
Strenght of One + Skald song will make any party of average joes into a pretty fierce fighting crew.
Regarding Weapon Proficiencies, is being able to gain ranks beyond Specialised (**), after reactivating Fighter from a DC, a bug or working as intended in the fully patched pre-EE Icewind Dale?
Is storing ranks to spend later a bug or working as intended?