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There's also a UI fix for the widescreen mod, if you use that.
-
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Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread
- Thread starter Heresiarch
- Start date
Tigranes
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 10,350
Back to Level One Jansens.
I moved on from the Golems, and to the rest of Lower Dorn's Deep. Not too much of a challenge; we could avoid some nasty fights (like that one tower full of archers), and even talk some people for their badges (such as Marketh).
The Salamander Mines present a real headache, however. The snakes' fire aura can kill Jansens very quickly, so we have to be extra careful to stay away, and Ludwig up front only has so many potions of fire resistance. The elementals at the forge are also immune to normal weapons; luckily, Nym at the Gnome Village sells a fat stack of +2 arrows, which now become extremely valuable. Rene Jansen is more or less dealing 80% of the party damage at this point.
Maiden Ilmadia, too, is a bitch to kill. She hastes herself at the start of battle, and has enough THAC0 to almost certainly hit Ludwig - and one hit kill him - in a round or two. And what's more, at least four or five fire giants around the area are going to converge in on a tiny messy spot of land with no reliable chokepoint.
The solution came by accident: I retreated to a useful chokepoint with the bridges, where I thought I would lure and shoot every fire golem in the area before taking on Ilmadia. Turns out that that renders hostile Ilmadia as well as all the Golems, and they started filing in...
Meaning the fire golems were getting in the way of Ilmadia, rendering her useless for the time being. I plucked out some very valuable scrolls for this fight: one of the four charges on the Wand of Death Fog / Acid Rain bought in Kuldahar, for gradual acid damage on everybody, and Baruch Jansen off to the side there, bound to the cursed Auril's Dagger, launching its 2x Cone of Cold spells per day. Between that, Rene's +2 arrows, and, uh, the priests' Magic Stones (not that they beat the save)...
We still have 3 charges on that wand, and one scroll each of Cone of COld and Death Fog, and of course the dagger which replenishes daily. Turns out the cursed dagger I throw away every other playthrough might be the Jansens' ticket to the final boss.
----------
And now, we turn to the Temple, the masses of Undead, and the Idol, for the final badge. I wasn't sure how to tackle this, including the half a dozen Greater Mummies, precisely because the Jansens lack the kind of firepower you'd normally use to take out the Idol ASAP.
In the end, it was again simple. Ludwig "-15AC" Jansen would pop out a Potion of Magic Protection (50% res. magic damage & "All saves made automatically", though in practice 'all' doesn't seem to mean 'all'), Potion of Fire Protection and an Oil of Speed, and beeline to the Idol, attracting the attention of the mummies and everything else. Rene Jansen would then quietly approach from the rear, pop an Oil of Speed himself, and fire away with the Sseth Bow & +2 Arrows.
The rest of the Jansens would stay back and play charades.
Halfway through, a Symbol of Pain & something Hopelessness struck Rene Jansen, putting paid to the 'damage from afar' plan. I popped a Potion of Fiery Burning on top of Ludwig's own head to try and speed it up. In the end, though, the Idol did himself in: it keeps throwing flame strikes on top of the nearest target, and it damages itself when the target is standing next to it. You can see in the combat log that, ultimately, the idol committed glorious suicide.
----------
To round off the arc we have Poquelin. In most of my normal games, his lack of adequate protection buffs means he's usually dead in two seconds - much less a challenge than Malavon. Here, things are a bit different. His Heavenly Inferno, a souped up Flame Strike, can kill whichever Jansens it touches... which is all of them. The battlefield is very open, requiring the Jansens to risk death to try and interrupt his casting, and his AC is strong enough at least to frustrate Level One characters.
We decide to go for THAC0, with Ludwig putting on the Repeating HEavy Crossbow & +2 Bolts for 9 effective THAC0. (This, I think, is the first time any Jansen has achieved single digits.) Throwing in a Cloudkill for good measure, we focus on Ludwig as usual luring everybody to him then firing away with the crossbow - which can do 30+ damage per hit, if it hits - and using any other way to disrupt Poquelin's spells. (I even try throwing leftover flame pots from Dragon's Eye). It takes a few tries, particularly as Frost Salamanders and other enemies spawn in and chase the other Jansens, but we pull it off.
And so it's back to Easthaven. I'm not really sure how to tackle the final battle. We have two iron golems return, that it felt like the Jansens' level really put a hard limit on defeating, meaning we're going to spend the entire battle kiting at a microsecond level. But are we going to be able to hit Belhifet with any meaningful accuracy? The irony is tha tmany of our most valuable scrolls left in the hoard - e.g. Incendiary Cloud, Finger of Death - won't do much against him. We shall see.
I moved on from the Golems, and to the rest of Lower Dorn's Deep. Not too much of a challenge; we could avoid some nasty fights (like that one tower full of archers), and even talk some people for their badges (such as Marketh).
The Salamander Mines present a real headache, however. The snakes' fire aura can kill Jansens very quickly, so we have to be extra careful to stay away, and Ludwig up front only has so many potions of fire resistance. The elementals at the forge are also immune to normal weapons; luckily, Nym at the Gnome Village sells a fat stack of +2 arrows, which now become extremely valuable. Rene Jansen is more or less dealing 80% of the party damage at this point.
Maiden Ilmadia, too, is a bitch to kill. She hastes herself at the start of battle, and has enough THAC0 to almost certainly hit Ludwig - and one hit kill him - in a round or two. And what's more, at least four or five fire giants around the area are going to converge in on a tiny messy spot of land with no reliable chokepoint.
The solution came by accident: I retreated to a useful chokepoint with the bridges, where I thought I would lure and shoot every fire golem in the area before taking on Ilmadia. Turns out that that renders hostile Ilmadia as well as all the Golems, and they started filing in...
Meaning the fire golems were getting in the way of Ilmadia, rendering her useless for the time being. I plucked out some very valuable scrolls for this fight: one of the four charges on the Wand of Death Fog / Acid Rain bought in Kuldahar, for gradual acid damage on everybody, and Baruch Jansen off to the side there, bound to the cursed Auril's Dagger, launching its 2x Cone of Cold spells per day. Between that, Rene's +2 arrows, and, uh, the priests' Magic Stones (not that they beat the save)...
We still have 3 charges on that wand, and one scroll each of Cone of COld and Death Fog, and of course the dagger which replenishes daily. Turns out the cursed dagger I throw away every other playthrough might be the Jansens' ticket to the final boss.
----------
And now, we turn to the Temple, the masses of Undead, and the Idol, for the final badge. I wasn't sure how to tackle this, including the half a dozen Greater Mummies, precisely because the Jansens lack the kind of firepower you'd normally use to take out the Idol ASAP.
In the end, it was again simple. Ludwig "-15AC" Jansen would pop out a Potion of Magic Protection (50% res. magic damage & "All saves made automatically", though in practice 'all' doesn't seem to mean 'all'), Potion of Fire Protection and an Oil of Speed, and beeline to the Idol, attracting the attention of the mummies and everything else. Rene Jansen would then quietly approach from the rear, pop an Oil of Speed himself, and fire away with the Sseth Bow & +2 Arrows.
The rest of the Jansens would stay back and play charades.
Halfway through, a Symbol of Pain & something Hopelessness struck Rene Jansen, putting paid to the 'damage from afar' plan. I popped a Potion of Fiery Burning on top of Ludwig's own head to try and speed it up. In the end, though, the Idol did himself in: it keeps throwing flame strikes on top of the nearest target, and it damages itself when the target is standing next to it. You can see in the combat log that, ultimately, the idol committed glorious suicide.
----------
To round off the arc we have Poquelin. In most of my normal games, his lack of adequate protection buffs means he's usually dead in two seconds - much less a challenge than Malavon. Here, things are a bit different. His Heavenly Inferno, a souped up Flame Strike, can kill whichever Jansens it touches... which is all of them. The battlefield is very open, requiring the Jansens to risk death to try and interrupt his casting, and his AC is strong enough at least to frustrate Level One characters.
We decide to go for THAC0, with Ludwig putting on the Repeating HEavy Crossbow & +2 Bolts for 9 effective THAC0. (This, I think, is the first time any Jansen has achieved single digits.) Throwing in a Cloudkill for good measure, we focus on Ludwig as usual luring everybody to him then firing away with the crossbow - which can do 30+ damage per hit, if it hits - and using any other way to disrupt Poquelin's spells. (I even try throwing leftover flame pots from Dragon's Eye). It takes a few tries, particularly as Frost Salamanders and other enemies spawn in and chase the other Jansens, but we pull it off.
And so it's back to Easthaven. I'm not really sure how to tackle the final battle. We have two iron golems return, that it felt like the Jansens' level really put a hard limit on defeating, meaning we're going to spend the entire battle kiting at a microsecond level. But are we going to be able to hit Belhifet with any meaningful accuracy? The irony is tha tmany of our most valuable scrolls left in the hoard - e.g. Incendiary Cloud, Finger of Death - won't do much against him. We shall see.
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2007
- Messages
- 11,085
BTW for anyone installing the GOG version of IWD2, beware that it auto-installs a ddraw fix that can cause the game to hang on startup, or load very lowly in certain machines. If you rename/delete the ddraw.dll in your installation folder (or uninstall the ddrawfix weidu mod) the game will load fine , but you'll probably have ddraw related problems like pixelated fog of war and spell-casting glitches. In that case you can use the DxWnd app that can fix this without any startup problems.
ga♥
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2017
- Messages
- 7,613
Can you use the dxwnd to run it fullscreen? if so, can you share the config?
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2007
- Messages
- 11,085
For borderless windowed fullscreen:
Leave everything else as it was and do the following:
In MAIN tick:
Run in window, hide desktop background, keep aspect ratio
Window initial position and size: 0, 0, 1920, 1080 (if your desktop is in 1920x1080 res)
in VIDEO tick:
Fix Window Frame style, Lock win style, Recover screen mode, Modal style
Window size & position: Locked
Screen resolution: Monitor native modes.
in INPUT tick:
Correct mouse position, keep cursor within the window
In DirectX tick:
Flip Emulation, Compensate flip emulation
Filtering: Bilinear
That should do the trick.
ga♥
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2017
- Messages
- 7,613
Thanks, I'll give it a try.
ga♥
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2017
- Messages
- 7,613
Hmm seems I got a newer version because the options under the "DirectX" tabs are a bit different.
When you said "filtering bilinear" I thought you meant "fast 2x bilinear".
Disabling that fixed the cursor glitches (it's under "filter" in my dxwnd version and I set it to "none") . Only problem is the performance now, it seems sluggish compared to the ddraw that was inside the gog package BUT obviously it was full of graphical artifacts so hmmm...
Thanks for the pics though.
When you said "filtering bilinear" I thought you meant "fast 2x bilinear".
Disabling that fixed the cursor glitches (it's under "filter" in my dxwnd version and I set it to "none") . Only problem is the performance now, it seems sluggish compared to the ddraw that was inside the gog package BUT obviously it was full of graphical artifacts so hmmm...
Thanks for the pics though.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2015
- Messages
- 4,517
My GoG version of IWDII works flawlessly (fullscreen). The ddraw-fix doesn't slow anything down and I get no fog-of-war or casting artifacts. Disabling it brings those problems right back. I only play at 1024x768 though, anything higher and things get too tiny for my liking.
Tigranes
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 10,350
OK, guys. After a few tries, I'm not sure what the Level One Jansens can do against Belhifet.
As with Malavon's Golems, it comes down to the maths. Our best physical defence is Ludwig, who can maintain around -17 AC fairly easily. He gets hit, on average, once a round against Belhifet; these hits either kill him in one hit, or leave him nearly dead and probably poisoned/diseased.
Ludwig, with the Restored Blade of Aihonen, boasts 14 THAC0, at which point, a roll of 23 isn't enough to hit; he can hit with a Crit, but of course Belhifet needs a lot of hits to go down. Some improvement can be made, e.g. potion of heroism, but not a huge amount to upend this calculus.
The other characters are not much better, or markedly worse, in going toe to toe. And of course, this is while the two mages, mostly useless, run around in infuriating micro leading the two golems in an eternal merry-go-round. And then Belhifet can cast Symbol of Pain and Infernal Conveyance.
Given that the Jansens can essentially be party-wiped in a second at any point, and they could stand there swinging at Belhifet uninterrupted for a full minute and probably not do a whole lot, and with our spell scrolls not particularly helpful against him, I'm just not sure. Hats off to the original level one dwarves for apparently doing it in Insane.
As with Malavon's Golems, it comes down to the maths. Our best physical defence is Ludwig, who can maintain around -17 AC fairly easily. He gets hit, on average, once a round against Belhifet; these hits either kill him in one hit, or leave him nearly dead and probably poisoned/diseased.
Ludwig, with the Restored Blade of Aihonen, boasts 14 THAC0, at which point, a roll of 23 isn't enough to hit; he can hit with a Crit, but of course Belhifet needs a lot of hits to go down. Some improvement can be made, e.g. potion of heroism, but not a huge amount to upend this calculus.
The other characters are not much better, or markedly worse, in going toe to toe. And of course, this is while the two mages, mostly useless, run around in infuriating micro leading the two golems in an eternal merry-go-round. And then Belhifet can cast Symbol of Pain and Infernal Conveyance.
Given that the Jansens can essentially be party-wiped in a second at any point, and they could stand there swinging at Belhifet uninterrupted for a full minute and probably not do a whole lot, and with our spell scrolls not particularly helpful against him, I'm just not sure. Hats off to the original level one dwarves for apparently doing it in Insane.
IncendiaryDevice
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2014
- Messages
- 7,407
Too many fists, not enough tips
I will try again tonight or this weekend, I'm eager to move on to IWD2 to but it does look like I may lack the mojo for Belhifet. I suppose it leaves the door open for a future Codexer.
You never responded to my tips about trying Bullets on Iron Golems, so I assumed you had me on ignore.
Tigranes
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 10,350
IncendiaryDevice I don't ignore anyone, so I must have missed it. The +3 weapons to hit should still apply to slings, and I never really bothered with magical bullets (of which there aren't a lot in IWD1, I think?). But I can try it.
agris
Ludwig & Rene are Fighter-Thieves with ~14THAC0 on Restored Blade of Aihonen (+5) and a +4 Axe respectively.
Two cleric/thieves who can get around -8AC with +3 or above blunt weapons (a morning star and hammer).
Two mage/thieves who really aren't useful in this case.
We have some useful consumables like Blur Decks and Snakeoil potions for AC, Potions of Heroism and one Potion of Power, scrolls like Prayer, Champion's Strength and higher level summon spells, and then a bunch of not so useful spells from Finger of Death to Incendiary Cloud.
In general, anytime we couldn't stay back and shoot things from afar while Ludwig soaks it up (or the Jansens run around like crazy), our level one-ness starts to present huge problems.
agris
Ludwig & Rene are Fighter-Thieves with ~14THAC0 on Restored Blade of Aihonen (+5) and a +4 Axe respectively.
Two cleric/thieves who can get around -8AC with +3 or above blunt weapons (a morning star and hammer).
Two mage/thieves who really aren't useful in this case.
We have some useful consumables like Blur Decks and Snakeoil potions for AC, Potions of Heroism and one Potion of Power, scrolls like Prayer, Champion's Strength and higher level summon spells, and then a bunch of not so useful spells from Finger of Death to Incendiary Cloud.
In general, anytime we couldn't stay back and shoot things from afar while Ludwig soaks it up (or the Jansens run around like crazy), our level one-ness starts to present huge problems.
McPlusle
Savant
- Joined
- May 11, 2017
- Messages
- 319
Original or Enhanced for IWD1? I own both but haven't played the game in well over ten years. I know the EE adds the class kits from BG2 which has me leaning toward Enhanced, but does EE do anything particularly worse than the original? Any dumb "creative liberties" like Beamdog did with Baldur's Gate?
GrainWetski
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2012
- Messages
- 5,097
You should under no circumstances give any money to Beamdog.
hell bovine
Arcane
Actually, the original run was finished on easy, because the guy couldn't beat B. otherwise.
Tigranes
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 10,350
Huh. Well, maybe he ran into the same bottlenecks as I did, near the end. On Core Rules, there were no huge problems for the level one Jansens until Dorn's Deep - and I wager it wouldn't be too different with Insane, only a lot more kiting and reloading.
TigerKnee
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2012
- Messages
- 1,920
IWD's encounters were never designed for the class kits from BG2 so the balance is off </Sawyer>, but if you think the fun of having them in outweighs that then feel free.
IncendiaryDevice
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2014
- Messages
- 7,407
And lets not forget there are four versions of IWD now currently available, and that's just the official versions:
1. Original vanilla - pre-patch rare discs which is unbalanced'ly difficult.
2. Original vanilla - the original post-balance-patch that most people consider the original vanilla.
3. The Heart of Winter expansion alterations - vast changes to spells, items and character builds for some classes and call-to-arms AI to name but a few big changes.
4. The EE version - even more changes to spells, items and classes.
I'd recommend trying them all at some point, though I've never tried no.1 due to rarity and general ignorance of anyone that doesn't even realise they have that version.
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