Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Lilura]

IWD2 Solo Sorc 1-27. No level-squatting, muling or farming (WiP).

 

[AwesomeButton]

Is IWD2 as good as Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn? Nope.

???

Spoiler

It's not "as good" - it's better.

 

[Lilura]

Fret not. I will be editing that line once a certain agenda has been fulfilled.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I saw you including cutouts of good dialogue in the walkthrough. I had my own favorite in chapter one, quoted here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...dale-series-thread.54564/page-77#post-5480202

 

[Citizen]

I saw you including cutouts of good dialogue in the walkthrough. I had my own favorite in chapter one, quoted here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...dale-series-thread.54564/page-77#post-5480202

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

With a high enough Charisma and Diplomacy skill you can get the guy that talks to the dead in Targos to talk to the dead cat and learn some dirty secret about the old lady who owned it. You can then blackmail her or agree to keep silent for some extra XP.

 

[Lilura]

I prefer subtlety: BROKEN TUSK CLAN, SLAY THIS DOG!

 

[Lilura]

Part X, just posted, has comparison pics of IWD Kuldahar and IWD2 Kuldahar.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Wow, you dropped 3 5 entries in a day?

 

[Lilura]

Some people are speedrunners. I'm a speed-walkthrough-writer.

Needs polish, just one Chapter/post to go. Probably have it done in a couple hours max.

Index page for walkthrough is here.

 

[AwesomeButton]

In my experience, I will either do something like this quick and complete, or slow and never finish it.

 

[Lilura]

Ok, Solo Sorc guide is done. Will probably still make a few refinements here and there, but all people will probably need to refer to is Part I.

I added in a basic Dreadmaster of Bane build, too.

Plus some maps for the more complex dungeons:

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Ok, Solo Sorc guide is done. Will probably still make a few refinements here and there, but all people will probably need to refer to is Part I.

I added in a basic Dreadmaster of Bane build, too.

Plus some maps for the more complex dungeons:

You're quite welcome to steal and use my Fell Wood map if you want a more thorough and easy to follow guide than the one you likely have:

 

[Lilura]

Hi IncendiaryDevice, and thank you for the offer. With your permission, I will link to it and credit you.

Is that map from a walkthrough you have written?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Not so much.

I started a detailed thread on Gamebanshee about a decade ago where I endeavoured to 'solve' a lot of the unknowns about the game that I had difficulty looking up from existing sources. Someone else chipped in with bits and pieces. It included things like a complete breakdown of the Battle Squares, in what you would encounter at what level and what all the rewards were, and the above map and some etc. Unfortunately Gamebanshee has nuked its old forums AFAICT, and this is the only part of that endeavour I still have a copy of.

 

[Lilura]

Ok, I will link to it on my blog and credit you. Thanks again. I have written details of the Battle Square, but only 70% of HoF mode, so I haven't posted it as yet.

 

[axx]

Ok, Solo Sorc guide is done. Will probably still make a few refinements here and there, but all people will probably need to refer to is Part I.

I added in a basic Dreadmaster of Bane build, too.

Plus some maps for the more complex dungeons:

Great stuff, I suggest using smaller fonts. You should seriously consider placing a a map walkthrough on your blog like the one in gamebanshee or mike's rpg center.

 

[Lilura]

Probably should have used smaller fonts and color coded some of the annotations to make them standout more (like the fresh water pool annotations all in blue, f.e), but it's only a solo Sorc walkthrough and I didn't want to get too bogged down on presentation.

Extracting the TISes, cropping them, resizing them, annotating them, converting them and then uploading/positioning them was mind-numbing.

Oh well, this was all done in one week and I'm glad it's over. Hope people can get something out of it.

 

[the_shadow]

I broke down and am replaying Icewind Dale 2 on Insane difficulty. It's actually a lot more difficult than I remember, although the difficulty is a little inconsistent. I find Chapter 1 (particularly the Horde Fortress) to be ridiculously hard with many heavy hitting and/or fast enemies who appear in large numbers (such as goblin hordlings and wolf riders), however there is a huge drop in difficulty once you reach the Ice Temple in Chapter 2, where you are mainly fighting human clerics who are too busy casting low level cleric spells to actually put up a fight. The Ice Temple used to be my least favourite area in the game, but now I appreciate it for all the easy loot.

Speaking of loot, there is far too little money in this game to buy worthwhile items. If I save gold religiously I can buy perhaps two decent high level items per chapter.

And for the first time ever I have completed the entire Battle Square, and boy I think I lost most of my brain cells doing so. Most of the battles boiled down to running away and using missile attacks with an enchantment high enough to penetrate damage reduction, or hiding behind the arena golem and poking with the Nine Paces spear, or saving and reloading until my Mace/Halberd of undead/planar disruption worked. Perhaps even more annoying is that demon enemies will teleport away to your main party. This sounds good since it allows your party to kill them, but since the arena golem doesn't see the kill, it doesn't count, and you have to reset the battle square. And unfortunately demon enemies teleport away a lot of the time if they cast another spell, meaning you have to reload and try again.

I also forgot that you shouldn't let that thief in the Black Raven Monastery loot the crypt, because not only do you miss out on the loot, you have to contend with 4 angry iron golems. I still need to contend with them, although given that I've got some decent +4 items I should be Ok if I kite them one at a time.

It's also worth noting that it's probably not worth multiclassing if you're playing non-HOF mode, especially for clerics/mages. The biggest power spikes occurs when you level up your spell tiers, so I should have waited until HoF before I dabbled in a second class. Oh well.

Another minor annoyance is that War Chant of the Sith isn't working in my (patched) version of the game, which is one of the reasons I took a bard. Tymora's Melody is still decent though.

 

[Cael]

I broke down and am replaying Icewind Dale 2 on Insane difficulty. It's actually a lot more difficult than I remember, although the difficulty is a little inconsistent. I find Chapter 1 (particularly the Horde Fortress) to be ridiculously hard with many heavy hitting and/or fast enemies who appear in large numbers (such as goblin hordlings and wolf riders), however there is a huge drop in difficulty once you reach the Ice Temple in Chapter 2, where you are mainly fighting human clerics who are too busy casting low level cleric spells to actually put up a fight. The Ice Temple used to be my least favourite area in the game, but now I appreciate it for all the easy loot.

Speaking of loot, there is far too little money in this game to buy worthwhile items. If I save gold religiously I can buy perhaps two decent high level items per chapter.

And for the first time ever I have completed the entire Battle Square, and boy I think I lost most of my brain cells doing so. Most of the battles boiled down to running away and using missile attacks with an enchantment high enough to penetrate damage reduction, or hiding behind the arena golem and poking with the Nine Paces spear, or saving and reloading until my Mace/Halberd of undead/planar disruption worked. Perhaps even more annoying is that demon enemies will teleport away to your main party. This sounds good since it allows your party to kill them, but since the arena golem doesn't see the kill, it doesn't count, and you have to reset the battle square. And unfortunately demon enemies teleport away a lot of the time if they cast another spell, meaning you have to reload and try again.

I also forgot that you shouldn't let that thief in the Black Raven Monastery loot the crypt, because not only do you miss out on the loot, you have to contend with 4 angry iron golems. I still need to contend with them, although given that I've got some decent +4 items I should be Ok if I kite them one at a time.

It's also worth noting that it's probably not worth multiclassing if you're playing non-HOF mode, especially for clerics/mages. The biggest power spikes occurs when you level up your spell tiers, so I should have waited until HoF before I dabbled in a second class. Oh well.

Another minor annoyance is that War Chant of the Sith isn't working in my (patched) version of the game, which is one of the reasons I took a bard. Tymora's Melody is still decent though.

The Horde Fortress is psycho because of the bloody drums. Once the asshole start beating on them, an ENDLESS stream of worg riders would teleport straight into your REMF. Only way to stop it is to kill the asshole. I recommend a lot of Snowballs (the L2 cold AoE spell) and arrows. Just mind that there are about 3 of the bloody things in the map outside and 2 inside in the tunnels.

There is little point in buying items in most cases. You should be able to get enough goodies from drops alone to equip most of your team. Just remember that many of the drops are random as hell. You can get a +2 sword of slay everything from a monster and on reload, get a +1 sword of crotch shanking from the same enemy.

Battle Square should give you a number of high end weapons, including the Club of Disruption, the +5 shortsword, +4 spear, +3 returning throwing axe of lightning and a bunch of other items. An easy way to do things is to open the northern door before you trigger the square. Then, if you see a big monster, run out the north door and the monster will get stuck there. Either poke him with the spear or use the returning axe to beat him to death from outside the room. Teleporting monsters are actually the best. I love them. The trick is to NOT kill the damned thing until the golem catches up. That's right. When the monster teleport to the room containing the rest of your party, the golem would start walking towards the room. Once he is in the corridor outside the room, kill the monster and the golem would think that your champion killed it. Square won. It helps to have a few paralysis spells handy (e.g., Chromatic Orb).

If you are playing cleric of Ilmater, take a level in Paladin. In fact, if you want a Paladin in the party, play a Paladin/Cleric. Bonus stats and Holy Avenger coupled with near full caster progression.

War Chant only works in combat.

 

[the_shadow]

It's not just the drums that make the Horde Fortress hard though, enemies in Chapter 1 are just much tougher than what you face for most of Chapter 2.

Teleporting monsters are actually the best. I love them. The trick is to NOT kill the damned thing until the golem catches up.

That doesn't really work on Insane mode because the teleporting monster would kill at least one of my party members if I don't kill it within a couple of rounds.

 

[Cael]

It's not just the drums that make the Horde Fortress hard though, enemies in Chapter 1 are just much tougher than what you face for most of Chapter 2.

Teleporting monsters are actually the best. I love them. The trick is to NOT kill the damned thing until the golem catches up.

That doesn't really work on Insane mode because the teleporting monster would kill at least one of my party members if I don't kill it within a couple of rounds.

That Remorrhaz Queen can be a real pain if you try to fight her. And that undead knight guy can be a pain if you walk right into his ambush. Other than that, though, only the high end Battle Square is any challenge.

The main thing is that you have a few levels under you, and level 3-6 or so is generally a slow point in DnD 3.x even on tabletop. That is when you start getting area effect stuff and the monsters are still low level enough to be fairly fragile. They start picking up again after level 7 or 8.

I don't know about the teleporting monster killing party members. It would depend on how they were set up, I guess. My biggest worry has always being the Greater Feyr because of that damned terror spell it uses. Not that it will kill my people. It is just freaking annoying to have them running around like headless chooks for ages.

 

[the_shadow]

The Greater Feyr was actually one of the easier Battle Square opponents because it has very low HP, and my paladin's Will save is sky high. I found the Elder Air Elemental to be the hardest Battle Square enemy.

I've cleared the Iron Golems in the Black Raven Monastery via divide and conquer, and stomped the Elder Mind Flayer Brain. All that's left is just a mop up operation to make sure I haven't missed any loot before I go to Kuldahar. Some of the weapons I found from the dreuger are real good, not because of high damage/THACO, but because they can blind or terrify with each hit. Loot is far better in this game than BG2.

 

[Cael]

The Greater Feyr was actually one of the easier Battle Square opponents because it has very low HP, and my paladin's Will save is sky high. I found the Elder Air Elemental to be the hardest Battle Square enemy.

I've cleared the Iron Golems in the Black Raven Monastery via divide and conquer, and stomped the Elder Mind Flayer Brain. All that's left is just a mop up operation to make sure I haven't missed any loot before I go to Kuldahar. Some of the weapons I found from the dreuger are real good, not because of high damage/THACO, but because they can blind or terrify with each hit. Loot is far better in this game than BG2.

Low HP is also a problem It died before the golem got into position or it dropped a terror spell on the party. Ugh! Drove me bats.

In NWN, getting an item with on-hit sleep or paralyse is superb for Rogues. Hit, hit, sleep, backstabbackstabbackstabbackstabbackstabbackstabbackstabbackstabbackstabbackstab!

 

[the_shadow]

I've reached the Severed Hand in IWD2 on Insane, and am surprised by how much I'm enjoying this game. I always liked IWD2, but now I'm starting to think that it's at least equal to BG2.

Most battles have actually been pretty reasonable after the Black Raven Monastery, with only two actually causing me a big headache. Anyone who's played the game will be able to guess which two...

The first was the Guardian. I was able to get him to Near Death before one of my characters was gibbed. I could easily have finished it off and then resurrect my fallen PC, but I didn't like the idea of losing out on all the XP for the deceased character. In the end it just came down to buffing every PC (even the mages) and giving them high enchantment weapons and going to town while kiting.

The second was the Lost Followers. I went for the Holy Avenger as soon as I could get it, which means I was missing some of the better Level 8 spells such as Symbol of Hopelessness. The biggest problem is that the Followers have really high resistance stats, although once you know what they are things get a little bit better. Ironically the Holy Avenger's slashing damage is really good against one of them. But after multiple reloads I stumbled on a godsend of a spell... Otiluke's. Most bosses in this game are immune to stat disabling effects, but Otiluke's will take them out of the battle, which evens the odds.

I regret not taking a level of monk for my druids and clerics, since evasion is awesome. My Monk 1/Wizard 15 always makes their reflex saves, meaning they never take damage from offensive damage spells.