comments from a old guy
madgamer
Member Posts: 32
I am not sure I can fully explain my problems with this great game but I will try and keep playing even though I
am not doing well and getting killed and starting over. I do not have time now because of a a prior comitment.
so just a couple of stupid questions now
1. what iis the fist icon on the action menu do?
2. What is the "Party AI" do if enabled or disabled?
3. I am having trouble casting spells before starting combat. How do I know if they are cast?
4 When casting a cure wounds spell why is it nessasary for the caster to cross and bbbbe next to the character receiving the spell?
Well more dumb questions later so stay tuned for more laughs and snikering -:)
am not doing well and getting killed and starting over. I do not have time now because of a a prior comitment.
so just a couple of stupid questions now
1. what iis the fist icon on the action menu do?
2. What is the "Party AI" do if enabled or disabled?
3. I am having trouble casting spells before starting combat. How do I know if they are cast?
4 When casting a cure wounds spell why is it nessasary for the caster to cross and bbbbe next to the character receiving the spell?
Well more dumb questions later so stay tuned for more laughs and snikering -:)
3
Comments
2. If you disable "Party AI" your party members won't do any action on their own.
3. During casting you can see that your character displays casting animation. When the animation is back to normal than the casting is finished (or it has been interrupted). Additionally most spells that you can cast on yourself or other party members, shows additional icons on your character portrait and on character screen (press "r" button and scroll the window on the right side to view icon descriptions)
4. Because that's how it supposed to work? You can check spell description by clicking right mouse button on your spell - in lower part of your GUI where you choose the spell or in your Mage Book ("w" button) and Priest scroll ("p" button).
Read these documents (especially the last one, as I think it has answers for all above mentioned questions):
http://cdn.icewinddale.com/files/IWDEE-Feature-Guide.pdf
http://cdn.icewinddale.com/files/IWDEE-Manual-1-Survival-Guide-to-the-North.pdf
http://cdn.icewinddale.com/files/IWDEE-Manual-2-Mastering-Melee-Magic.pdf
Party AI will have your people attack monsters automatically
It should say in the combat log in the bottom of the screen when you cast a spell, as well as looking at your characters.
It says in the description of cure light wounds that the caster must touch the recipient. Some spells require that, others can be cast at range.
One note... the various spellcasting scripts are not recommended, as they can lead to wasting spells on mediocre targets. Its better to set casters to a script that will keep them out of danger and use your spells manually.
As to knowing when spells are cast, if you select the "Options" page (click o), then select "Gameplay" and "Auto-pause" you get a list of circumstances which can be toggled on and off. If you activate the "Spell Cast" option, the game will actually pause itself the instant that a spell is cast.... this can allow you to attack with a weapon, move to safety, or select another spell for the next round.
I started out with 4 human characters to check out id the duel class has chanhed from the way it used to be back when the games were turn bassed.
SO I took my 4 characters into the heart of Winter by mistake. The game acted like it was not working right but it could have been me. I did all the little quests and kept the quest where you ge teleported to the castle and could not damage the flying creatures I barely fould handle the goblins in the cave. I then reread the post in comunity Hub on the steam page and discovered I was in the wrong town.
I went back and restarted in Ice Wind Dale but for some reason the characters were like level 9 or 10 and only 3 of them left but added 3 more created characters.. I never did beat the creastures at the castle or when I got to the barbareians I got beat and nowhere to go so I started again and I found 4 characters I created earlier in the file with the created charascters including 4 characters I created bit they were all level 9 or 10.
I then created 2 new characters and started again still not berating the flying creatures. I got to Kaldahar
and tried the quest to get the NPC's hierloom back from the place where the Yeti and the goasts and dead creatures and got my 2 small character killed.
I then went back to a save bvefore thatr quest and went with the shamen to the camp and got beat again.
Yhis is where I am now . I have no idea how the characters I created went up in levels or why I could not beat the flyuing creatures at the castle or or the barbariens or why my combat was so badly done.
I think that this game is just not my style. The combat system strikes me as a turn based system with the real time tacked on as a sort of after thought. I think a HD version would have been beter than a EV.
It is possible that the game just does not make sense to me. I never have been a fan of storty line games.
Im do thank you all for the help and as the Bared said "The falts are not in the stars but in us" or something like that
Icewind Dale assumes a lot of knowledge about how Dungeons and Dragons works.
In Baldur's Gate 1, you only have to create one character, (other characters will join you later, one or two at a time.) There is a fairly decent tutorial introduction to teach you how to play. You can level up and learn the rules gradually.
It looks like the main thing that confused you in Icewind Dale is that you kept going into the expansion pack for high level characters instead of staying in the main game for low level characters. That barbarian is only there for people to change to the expansion pack from within the main game. I know, it's confusing.
Are you reading and writing in English as a second language? That would probably make the games even more confusing if you're using the English versions.
For my first time playing, I took the default party and played through the first few adventures just to get a feel for the game. You keep talking about real time, so I assume your previous experience is in games like Diablo?
If so, you'll find this game to be much more tactics based in its combat system. And unlike a lot of turn based games, placement of your party matters a lot.
The standard mode of D&D combat is to take one or two strong fighters, put them in the best armor you can afford and put them in front of the party. Everyone should have missile weapons. Bows for the fighters and thieves, slings for the mages and clerics. Block the enemy with your fighters using melee weapons, and have the rest of the party rain arrows and bullets upon them.
Several folkes have told me that what happened was not possible but it did happen. WITH iwdee IT IS SOMETHING ELSE THAT IS REALLY STRANGE. None of my restarts of this game lasted more than several hours and not lonf enough for characters to gain level 9-11but they did. the game seemed to be broken and things did not work quite right. You would think with 4 characters with those levels and 2 level 1 characters combat would be sasy but it was not. No one has been able to tell me how 4 characters used in 4 restarts could gain these levels on there own.
I wonder if creating them and putting them right into the party with out even puting them in the created characters file had anything to do with this strange gaining levels without playting thing. I watched a video on the community site that used the character potraits from the original in game party but I just had one male and one female portrait to choose from.
I am in Kaldahar abd doing the Vale of Shadows and getting along and will continue till I get to the camp with the peace offering and see if I can win the battle at the end. If not I won't spend anymore time on this game.
If your characters are attacking with fists instead of weapons, that could be why you're having problems.
Edit: As for the characters suddenly becoming ninth level, I think what you did was create some of the characters in Heart of Winter instead of in Icewind Dale. An HoW character starts with 500,000 XP, which would be ninth or tenth level, depending on class.
then Import them into a new party and start IWDEE?