@SomeSort Oh look at all the multiclasses. Not a single one of those examples is a pureclassed mage. Again, because people seem to love claiming things I never said. I never said it was impossible, but that the game makes its UNREASONABLY difficult, especially compared to other classes. In fact, the only way to do so, is counterintuitive and prevents you from using your caster as a "caster".
@semiticgod The final fight is just the most dramatic example, and the easiest. A bunch of people have been stonewalled by the game just because 4 of their 6 party members were mages. Not enough scrolls to go around, stupid enemy immunities, etc. Nowhere does the game make this apparent until you have sunk 15 to 20 hrs in and then just get stopped cold. Forcing one of your characters to be sidelined because they are useless even for one required fight is ATROCIOUS design, and a huhge game dev sin.
Moreover, why are you and @ThacoBell so focused on a single fight - one of the shorter and less imaginative fights, to boot? It's about 0.1% of the gameplay. I don't think this really addresses the question being asked here.
I'm not using Belhifet as an example to malign IWD gameplay in general. I'm complaining about Belhifet because he's my least favorite fight in all of the IE games. This isn't the first time I've complained about him at length. My complaints about Belhifet are about Belhifet, not IWD as a whole. If we wanted to talk about mages in IWD in general, Belhifet does not represent typical gameplay. Elsewhere in IWD, mages are not nearly so useless, though I still find them needlessly gimped by the lack of mage scrolls.
If I'm giving the impression that my criticism of IWD is based on Belhifet, I'll clarify my argument. I'm saying two things: (1) Mages are weaker than they should be in IWD because of the lack of scrolls. (2) Also, Belhifet is a terrible fight that happens to be especially hard on mages.
I soloed a mage in the original IWD, in normal mode. Belhifet was actually pretty easy in the original game for a solo mage because he erroneously had no weapon equipped, which meant he dealt no poison or disease damage. He only dealt nonlethal damage (which bypassed immunity to crushing damage, as I found in another run!). That meant Stoneskin alone could let me tank him, at which point it just became a matter of whomping him with the Staff of Eron. I did find the Vale of Shadows immensely challenging, though, because I had to rely exclusively on low-level damage spells to kill things.
I also soloed a sorcerer in IWD:EE, in Heart of Fury mode, and it was extremely easy once I kited some goblins to death in Easthaven and got the first monster summoning spell. After that, it was a breeze. I had lots of summons, lots of damage spells, and all the defenses I could want.
With the caveat that I was playing solo, and IWD is not geared towards solo gameplay, I'd say that those two runs demonstrate how important scroll scarcity is in IWD. A solo, single-classed mage struggles immensely to get through the game because it just doesn't have many spells on hand. A solo sorcerer can cruise through the game with very little difficulty (relatively speaking) even in HoF mode, simply because scroll scarcity does not affect it.
In a nutshell: When mages aren't limited by scroll scarcity, they're extremely powerful and scale dramatically with levels, hence their famous power in BG2. When mages are limited by scroll scarcity, they're fairly weak and scale much less with levels, which is why they're so much weaker in IWD by comparison.
@SomeSort Oh look at all the multiclasses. Not a single one of those examples is a pureclassed mage. Again, because people seem to love claiming things I never said. I never said it was impossible, but that the game makes its UNREASONABLY difficult, especially compared to other classes. In fact, the only way to do so, is counterintuitive and prevents you from using your caster as a "caster".
@semiticgod The final fight is just the most dramatic example, and the easiest. A bunch of people have been stonewalled by the game just because 4 of their 6 party members were mages. Not enough scrolls to go around, stupid enemy immunities, etc. Nowhere does the game make this apparent until you have sunk 15 to 20 hrs in and then just get stopped cold. Forcing one of your characters to be sidelined because they are useless even for one required fight is ATROCIOUS design, and a huhge game dev sin.
Not a single one of those examples is a pureclassed mage... because TWO of those examples were. (Well, a pureclass Sorceror and a pureclass mage who may or may not be a specialist but I can't tell for sure because I don't read German.)
Half of the pureclass solos on that list were arcane casters. The other two were a druid and a monk, which was the closest thing to a pureclass fighter on the block. You say that the game design makes it "unreasonably" difficult for mages to beat Belhifet, but the lack of NON-mages soloing Belhifet just shows that (A) Belhifet is unreasonably difficult for *EVERYONE* to solo, (soloing is a challenge!), and (B) mages have it easier than any other class.
And @subtledoctor wasn't saying you had to sideline your mage during the Belhifet fight. He was saying you *could* sideline your mage. He also suggested using your mage as a tank / distraction to buy your fighters time to kill things. I've suggested using your mage as a party buffer. You can use your mage to help against the four enemies who accompany Belhifet while using your beef against Belhifet himself. There are lots of things you can do with your decided non-useless mage during the final fight, (including defeat the entire fight single-handedly, as evidenced by the two videos above where people defeated the entire fight single-handedly with a solo arcane caster).
I also think it's crazy that you're using "able to run a party with 4 mages" as the benchmark for balance here. First off, run a party with four druids through BG2. Roll a thief and bring Imoen, Safana, and Alora with you in BG1. Guess what? It's sub-optimal, and you'll struggle at parts.
Second off, you can totally run a party with four arcane casters. Two fighter mages to get the two Stoneskins scrolls, then two pure casters or one pure caster and a M/T. There's four mirror images and magic missiles, so everyone gets one each, (which is enough to fill level 1-2 spell slots, at a bare minimum), plus three Webs, (though one is random). Give everyone but the M/T a web, since he'll be using Invisibility with his level 2 slots. Three hastes, two MMMs, two Slows, two fireballs, two Skull Traps. Two Emotion: Hopes and two Emotion: Courages, so you can split those up. Only one Improved Invisibility and one Spirit Armor, but you can have a dedicated caster for the whole party with those. Three Cloudkills and three Tensers. By the time you get to the higher-level spells you start to run thin on scrolls, but that's where you diversify your spellbook.
It's impossible to build four IDENTICAL arcane casters, but it's realistically quite easy to build four USEFUL arcane casters, and like @subtledoctor says, that's part of the *charm* of Icewind Dale. Your characters diverge at higher levels instead of converging. They develop their own personalities and roles rather than turning into cookie-cutters. BG2 sometimes feels like a commercial for off-brand generics. "We've replaced @ThacoBell's Imoen with a Nalia. Let's see if he notices..."
(This probably understates the number of spells you can get 3x or 4x copies of, since I'm not sure which Orrick restocks when he updates his inventory. This is all assuming one copy of each spell from Orrick. The general rule should hold, though-- enough for everyone to have all of the key low-level utility spells, with books diverging at higher levels and casters falling into specific roles.)
@SomeSort Sorceror doesn't count, as the scroll scarcity doesn't affect them. 4 Druids is actually quite easy, insect swarm for days. That spell alone wins 99% of the game with no effort. And again, you seem DEAD SET on conflating MORE DIFFICULT THAN SHOULD BE with IMPOSSIBLE. I never said it was impossible, I've flatly stated several times that its POSSIBLE. It is DEMONSTRABLY MORE DIFFICULT TO RUN MAGES THAN ANY OTHER CLASS IN IWD. This is demonstrably true.
With the caveat that I was playing solo, and IWD is not geared towards solo gameplay, I'd say that those two runs demonstrate how important scroll scarcity is in IWD. A solo, single-classed mage struggles immensely to get through the game because it just doesn't have many spells on hand. A solo sorcerer can cruise through the game with very little difficulty (relatively speaking) even in HoF mode, simply because scroll scarcity does not affect it.
In a nutshell: When mages aren't limited by scroll scarcity, they're extremely powerful and scale dramatically with levels, hence their famous power in BG2. When mages are limited by scroll scarcity, they're fairly weak and scale much less with levels, which is why they're so much weaker in IWD by comparison.
Since we're talking about balance, rate how difficult the game would be to solo for each kitless single-class:
My contention: the number you assign for the pureclass mage will be closer to the average for all other pureclasses than the number you assign for the pureclass sorceror, (which I predict will be the lowest / easiest of all pureclasses).
(Alternately, rank the 11 classes from "easiest to solo" to "hardest to solo". I suspect Sorceror will be at the top and mage will definitely not be at the bottom.)
So yes, mages are weaker in IWD than they are in BG2, but this makes the game *more balanced* and not less, because mages are stupid-OP in BG2.
@SomeSort Sorceror doesn't count, as the scroll scarcity doesn't affect them. 4 Druids is actually quite easy, insect swarm for days. That spell alone wins 99% of the game with no effort. And again, you seem DEAD SET on conflating MORE DIFFICULT THAN SHOULD BE with IMPOSSIBLE. I never said it was impossible, I've flatly stated several times that its POSSIBLE. It is DEMONSTRABLY MORE DIFFICULT TO RUN MAGES THAN ANY OTHER CLASS IN IWD. This is demonstrably true.
Scroll scarcity doesn't mean squat when assessing how solo casters fare against Belhifet. Belhifet is the literal end of the game, which means you've gotten one of every scroll by that point, so every spell the Sorceror has the mage also has. In fact, that's one of the few points of the game that will be easier for the mage than the sorceror.
Also, it's weird that you say it's "demonstrably more difficult to run mages than any other class", since thus far the only demonstration of relative difficulty attempted is my survey of completed solo attempts, which found mages have an easier time of it than any other class.
I think I'll back out of this argument, since it's getting really heated and it doesn't need to be really heated. I suggest a brief cooling off period for this discussion--it's not such a big deal if IWD is 30% unbalanced instead of 40% unbalanced, or vice versa. It's worth a discussion, but it's not worth a heated argument.
I think we can agree that, with enough metaknowledge and/or time, any class can beat any of the games, but not all classes are equally easy to beat the game with.
Hot take: Nalia is fantastic game design. She's perfectly calibrated to encourage you to maintain an Imoen-friendly party composition, while being just annoying and limited enough to make you delighted to ditch her for Imoen at Spellhold. (This would work even better if BG2 Imoen wasn't so incredibly annoying herself.)
I think we can agree that, with enough metaknowledge and/or time, any class can beat any of the games, but not all classes are equally easy to beat the game with.
There are probably a couple that just don't have the firepower to beat SCS and/or Ascension ToB, (solo druids come to mind), though of course that's no longer the vanilla game.
(With that said, offer still stands to anyone who finds I've crossed the line from "guy with strong opinions" to "jerk who is annoying to argue with". Let me know I'm being a jerk and you find discussing things with me is becoming annoying and I will heartily apologize and modulate going forward. We all love these games too much to let them be a source of friction between us.)
Hot take: Nalia is fantastic game design. She's perfectly calibrated to encourage you to maintain an Imoen-friendly party composition, while being just annoying and limited enough to make you delighted to ditch her for Imoen at Spellhold. (This would work even better if BG2 Imoen wasn't so incredibly annoying herself.)
I'd buy this more if Yoshimo didn't already exist, (and, as you pointed out, if "trying to force players to use Imoen" was easier to accept as quality game design ). The leveling rules for Imoen, in particular, meant any effort to push her into your party was super-annoying, since she would invariably be 2-3 levels behind by the time you got her. There have been runs where I went intending to replace Nalia with Imoen when I got her but just couldn't pull the trigger.
Whatever EE version fixed Imoen's leveling rules did everyone (who wants to actually use Imoen) a great service.
@SomeSort When it comes to text, I have learned to never assume the worst. I have fully enjoyed our discussion. I'm saddened that I came across as heated to others though. FWIW I use caps to highlight what I feel are key words, and not to yell or anything.
@subtledoctor "But, how does this speak to the question of the thread? The assertion was that IWD, being more linear and much more tightly controlling your XP and spells and weapons at any given moment, is more consistently successful at giving you challenging encounters that reeuire you to make effective use of the (sometimes scarce) resources available to you."
Because IWD does a bad job of balancing all the classes against its own content. Its level curve is more tight and gradual/yes challenging, WHEN YOUR PARTY IS BUILT CORRECTLY.
My assertion is that BG1/2 does a beter job when balancing all the classes against itself. Allowing you to use "unbalanced" and "non-optimal" parties without being punished for it.
@subtledoctor There was a summon I used to rely on for beholders, back before the EEs. But I don't recall what it was. It was immune to their rays, so they were still pretty trivial.
Because IWD does a bad job of balancing all the classes against its own content. Its level curve is more tight and gradual/yes challenging, WHEN YOUR PARTY IS BUILT CORRECTLY.
My assertion is that BG1/2 does a beter job when balancing all the classes against itself. Allowing you to use "unbalanced" and "non-optimal" parties without being punished for it.
Here is the list of some parties that I used to beat IWD (that I can remember ATM):
Barbarian, War Hulk (kit by @semiticgod ), Berserker, Dreadful Witch, Totemic Druid, Imprisoned Soul (I Hate Undead)
6) Ilmater Party
Painbearer of Ilmater - Cleric (Deities of Faerûn), Divinate of Ilmater - Paladin (A Frosty Journey), Broken One - Monk (Monastic Order of Faerûn), Mage/Thief (in RP a local mercenary hired by the Church to guide the others).
7) Dwarven Party
Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Thief, Dwarven Defender (2), Alaghar of Clangeddin (Deities of Faerûn).
8) Triad and Allies (all kits from Deities of Faerûn)
Holy Champion of Torm, Holy Justice of Tyr, Painbearer of Ilmater, Watcher of Helm, Dawnbringer of Lathander, Silverstar of Selûne.
9) Evil B*tches (all kits from Deities of Faerûn)
Waveservant of Umberlee, Icevassal of Auril, Malagent of Talona, Nightcloak of Shar, Pain of Loviatar.
---
The easiest runs were #1, #8 and #5.
As you can, those are very different parties (even #8 and #9 that are all made of clerics were very different due to DoF and FnP's spheres), all doable, all had their advantages and disadvantages.
And that is the beauty of IWD: nothing is a breeze, nothing is impossible. You don't need to worry about the perfect party or the perfect item, because that does not exist. Everyone will bleed and go through hell to win this game.
Hot take: Nalia is fantastic game design. She's perfectly calibrated to encourage you to maintain an Imoen-friendly party composition, while being just annoying and limited enough to make you delighted to ditch her for Imoen at Spellhold. (This would work even better if BG2 Imoen wasn't so incredibly annoying herself.)
I love this argument. The other (perhaps more obvious point) was that Bioware was pretty sure they were going to kill off Imoen in just about every game she's been in. Maybe that plays in, too.
@subtledoctor There was a summon I used to rely on for beholders, back before the EEs. But I don't recall what it was. It was immune to their rays, so they were still pretty trivial.
Which seems to me yet another example of "this fight is borderline impossible unless you use this one specific strategy". I'd say it's like a mage against Belhifet, except a mage using the "proper" strategy against Belhifet still has a challenging (but doable) fight on his hands, while your party using the "proper" strategy against Beholders trivializes the encounter.
@subtledoctor There was a summon I used to rely on for beholders, back before the EEs. But I don't recall what it was. It was immune to their rays, so they were still pretty trivial.
Which seems to me yet another example of "this fight is borderline impossible unless you use this one specific strategy". I'd say it's like a mage against Belhifet, except a mage using the "proper" strategy against Belhifet still has a challenging (but doable) fight on his hands, while your party using the "proper" strategy against Beholders trivializes the encounter.
At least I'm casting spells while my summons distract. Its a mage doing magey things. Not turning into a fighter.
@subtledoctor The big difference is that Kangaxx is optional. Nothing makes you take him on, and nothing in the critical path remotely reaches immunties like his. Far too often I see people confusing "player choice" for "game balance". IWD forces you to follow its "balance", BG2 gives you the tools to help if you don't want to have a single correct playstyle or force a balanced party.
@chimaera It being optional makes a BIG difference. You don't have to use the shield, you are never required to encounter large numbers of epic enemies. Its player choice.
Comments
@semiticgod The final fight is just the most dramatic example, and the easiest. A bunch of people have been stonewalled by the game just because 4 of their 6 party members were mages. Not enough scrolls to go around, stupid enemy immunities, etc. Nowhere does the game make this apparent until you have sunk 15 to 20 hrs in and then just get stopped cold. Forcing one of your characters to be sidelined because they are useless even for one required fight is ATROCIOUS design, and a huhge game dev sin.
If I'm giving the impression that my criticism of IWD is based on Belhifet, I'll clarify my argument. I'm saying two things:
(1) Mages are weaker than they should be in IWD because of the lack of scrolls.
(2) Also, Belhifet is a terrible fight that happens to be especially hard on mages.
I soloed a mage in the original IWD, in normal mode. Belhifet was actually pretty easy in the original game for a solo mage because he erroneously had no weapon equipped, which meant he dealt no poison or disease damage. He only dealt nonlethal damage (which bypassed immunity to crushing damage, as I found in another run!). That meant Stoneskin alone could let me tank him, at which point it just became a matter of whomping him with the Staff of Eron. I did find the Vale of Shadows immensely challenging, though, because I had to rely exclusively on low-level damage spells to kill things.
I also soloed a sorcerer in IWD:EE, in Heart of Fury mode, and it was extremely easy once I kited some goblins to death in Easthaven and got the first monster summoning spell. After that, it was a breeze. I had lots of summons, lots of damage spells, and all the defenses I could want.
With the caveat that I was playing solo, and IWD is not geared towards solo gameplay, I'd say that those two runs demonstrate how important scroll scarcity is in IWD. A solo, single-classed mage struggles immensely to get through the game because it just doesn't have many spells on hand. A solo sorcerer can cruise through the game with very little difficulty (relatively speaking) even in HoF mode, simply because scroll scarcity does not affect it.
In a nutshell: When mages aren't limited by scroll scarcity, they're extremely powerful and scale dramatically with levels, hence their famous power in BG2. When mages are limited by scroll scarcity, they're fairly weak and scale much less with levels, which is why they're so much weaker in IWD by comparison.
Half of the pureclass solos on that list were arcane casters. The other two were a druid and a monk, which was the closest thing to a pureclass fighter on the block. You say that the game design makes it "unreasonably" difficult for mages to beat Belhifet, but the lack of NON-mages soloing Belhifet just shows that (A) Belhifet is unreasonably difficult for *EVERYONE* to solo, (soloing is a challenge!), and (B) mages have it easier than any other class.
And @subtledoctor wasn't saying you had to sideline your mage during the Belhifet fight. He was saying you *could* sideline your mage. He also suggested using your mage as a tank / distraction to buy your fighters time to kill things. I've suggested using your mage as a party buffer. You can use your mage to help against the four enemies who accompany Belhifet while using your beef against Belhifet himself. There are lots of things you can do with your decided non-useless mage during the final fight, (including defeat the entire fight single-handedly, as evidenced by the two videos above where people defeated the entire fight single-handedly with a solo arcane caster).
I also think it's crazy that you're using "able to run a party with 4 mages" as the benchmark for balance here. First off, run a party with four druids through BG2. Roll a thief and bring Imoen, Safana, and Alora with you in BG1. Guess what? It's sub-optimal, and you'll struggle at parts.
Second off, you can totally run a party with four arcane casters. Two fighter mages to get the two Stoneskins scrolls, then two pure casters or one pure caster and a M/T. There's four mirror images and magic missiles, so everyone gets one each, (which is enough to fill level 1-2 spell slots, at a bare minimum), plus three Webs, (though one is random). Give everyone but the M/T a web, since he'll be using Invisibility with his level 2 slots. Three hastes, two MMMs, two Slows, two fireballs, two Skull Traps. Two Emotion: Hopes and two Emotion: Courages, so you can split those up. Only one Improved Invisibility and one Spirit Armor, but you can have a dedicated caster for the whole party with those. Three Cloudkills and three Tensers. By the time you get to the higher-level spells you start to run thin on scrolls, but that's where you diversify your spellbook.
It's impossible to build four IDENTICAL arcane casters, but it's realistically quite easy to build four USEFUL arcane casters, and like @subtledoctor says, that's part of the *charm* of Icewind Dale. Your characters diverge at higher levels instead of converging. They develop their own personalities and roles rather than turning into cookie-cutters. BG2 sometimes feels like a commercial for off-brand generics. "We've replaced @ThacoBell's Imoen with a Nalia. Let's see if he notices..."
(This probably understates the number of spells you can get 3x or 4x copies of, since I'm not sure which Orrick restocks when he updates his inventory. This is all assuming one copy of each spell from Orrick. The general rule should hold, though-- enough for everyone to have all of the key low-level utility spells, with books diverging at higher levels and casters falling into specific roles.)
Fighter
Ranger
Paladin
Barbarian
Monk
Cleric
Druid
Mage
Sorceror
Bard
Thief
My contention: the number you assign for the pureclass mage will be closer to the average for all other pureclasses than the number you assign for the pureclass sorceror, (which I predict will be the lowest / easiest of all pureclasses).
(Alternately, rank the 11 classes from "easiest to solo" to "hardest to solo". I suspect Sorceror will be at the top and mage will definitely not be at the bottom.)
So yes, mages are weaker in IWD than they are in BG2, but this makes the game *more balanced* and not less, because mages are stupid-OP in BG2.
Also, it's weird that you say it's "demonstrably more difficult to run mages than any other class", since thus far the only demonstration of relative difficulty attempted is my survey of completed solo attempts, which found mages have an easier time of it than any other class.
I think we can agree that, with enough metaknowledge and/or time, any class can beat any of the games, but not all classes are equally easy to beat the game with.
Regarding the heated discussion, I do want to apologize to @ThacoBell if I'm coming off as either dismissive or rude; we have a history of strong (but friendly) disagreement, (and also of strong-but-friendly agreement), but we're two opinionated people who share a common passion, and in the past I think we've both done a good job of explaining to the other that we mean nothing by it.
(With that said, offer still stands to anyone who finds I've crossed the line from "guy with strong opinions" to "jerk who is annoying to argue with". Let me know I'm being a jerk and you find discussing things with me is becoming annoying and I will heartily apologize and modulate going forward. We all love these games too much to let them be a source of friction between us.)
Whatever EE version fixed Imoen's leveling rules did everyone (who wants to actually use Imoen) a great service.
@subtledoctor "But, how does this speak to the question of the thread? The assertion was that IWD, being more linear and much more tightly controlling your XP and spells and weapons at any given moment, is more consistently successful at giving you challenging encounters that reeuire you to make effective use of the (sometimes scarce) resources available to you."
Because IWD does a bad job of balancing all the classes against its own content. Its level curve is more tight and gradual/yes challenging, WHEN YOUR PARTY IS BUILT CORRECTLY.
My assertion is that BG1/2 does a beter job when balancing all the classes against itself. Allowing you to use "unbalanced" and "non-optimal" parties without being punished for it.
1) I Hate Undead Party:
Death Tricker/Mage, Undead Hunter, Burial Defender, Undead Predator, Circle Enforcer, Spirit Redeemer.
2) Almost-Common Guys Party:
Fighter/Thief (Thug from M&G), Mercenary, Bodyguard, Wizard Slayer, Shapeshifter, Sorcerer.
3) Arcane Party
Mage/Cleric, Mage/Thief, Fighter/Mage, Bard, Sorcerer.
4) Elven Party
Fighter/Mage (Bladesinger), Diviner, Ranger/Cleric, Elven Archer.
5) Barbarian Party (going on)
Barbarian, War Hulk (kit by @semiticgod ), Berserker, Dreadful Witch, Totemic Druid, Imprisoned Soul (I Hate Undead)
6) Ilmater Party
Painbearer of Ilmater - Cleric (Deities of Faerûn), Divinate of Ilmater - Paladin (A Frosty Journey), Broken One - Monk (Monastic Order of Faerûn), Mage/Thief (in RP a local mercenary hired by the Church to guide the others).
7) Dwarven Party
Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Thief, Dwarven Defender (2), Alaghar of Clangeddin (Deities of Faerûn).
8) Triad and Allies (all kits from Deities of Faerûn)
Holy Champion of Torm, Holy Justice of Tyr, Painbearer of Ilmater, Watcher of Helm, Dawnbringer of Lathander, Silverstar of Selûne.
9) Evil B*tches (all kits from Deities of Faerûn)
Waveservant of Umberlee, Icevassal of Auril, Malagent of Talona, Nightcloak of Shar, Pain of Loviatar.
---
The easiest runs were #1, #8 and #5.
As you can, those are very different parties (even #8 and #9 that are all made of clerics were very different due to DoF and FnP's spheres), all doable, all had their advantages and disadvantages.
And that is the beauty of IWD: nothing is a breeze, nothing is impossible. You don't need to worry about the perfect party or the perfect item, because that does not exist. Everyone will bleed and go through hell to win this game.
I love this argument. The other (perhaps more obvious point) was that Bioware was pretty sure they were going to kill off Imoen in just about every game she's been in. Maybe that plays in, too.